By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Mar 22, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Papal Fashion
With all this new Pope buzz and the chatter about the theological and political implications, someone is finally turning to a more practical and more interesting topic.
A good friend asked me (tongue in cheek) if women become priests, do I think they would make female cardinals wear brown?
That’s a great question. Although this issue will be decided in the Vatican it has far reaching implications that could include trademark infringement accusations right here in Louisville, KY with UPS if the Catholic Church ever tries to use the tag line “Brown Deliver”
That is the only real practical risk I see. I do believe based on what little I know about the topic the Pope and Catholic Church will pull off a “Fashion Win” for the Church. Brown is a staid and dignified color –yet also really makes the Roman Collar pop in a reverent way that says “fashionably infallible”
At least that is my best off-the-cuff answer . That is also tongue-in-cheek. ; )
By Nick Paleologos, on Fri Mar 22, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
The notion that America is sharply divided between free market capitalists and big government socialists is complete baloney. This country is lousy with consensus around an economic value system, which is deeply embedded in the DNA of most Americans and based upon generations of experience with capitalism in this country.
For the first third of the 20th century, America was the Wild West. Low taxes. No regulation. No unions. Anything goes. We called it the Roaring ’20s. The rich got filthy rich. Everybody else just got filthy. The Roaring ’20s officially ended on October 29, 1929 when the entire American economy crashed, ushering in a decade of unrelenting misery and despair featuring 25 percent unemployment, widespread bank failures, bankruptcies, foreclosures and food lines. We called that the Great Depression. The closer we looked at capitalism, the more we found it wanting. So we did what Americans always do when we see a problem. We fixed it.
In this case, the fixer-in-chief was President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The damage done to the country during the Depression convinced him that unregulated capitalism always favors the rich at the expense of everyone else. So to save capitalism from itself, FDR introduced what turned out to be the crucial missing ingredient: compassion.
Roosevelt understood that compassion did not grow naturally in the harsh climate of an unfettered free market. He knew instinctively that fairness — essential to any functioning democracy — was an alien concept to pure capitalism. So FDR gave us a new, improved version. Call it compassionate capitalism. No senior citizen ends up destitute (Social Security). Banks and Wall Street don’t get to gamble with peoples’ savings (FDIC and SEC). Anybody who serves their country goes to college (GI Bill). Everybody who wants to work gets a job that the country needs to have done (CCC and WPA).
Far from hobbling private sector growth, these programs actually fueled it. Tons of people got very rich. However, the immense wealth created in America during the post-Roosevelt years was much more evenly distributed — with the biggest chunk going to a rapidly expanding middle class. Compassionate capitalism worked for everyone without busting the federal budget.
Read the rest of… Nick Paleologos: The Case for Compassionate Capitalism
We all know that RP and MSNBC’s “The Cycle” co-host Krystal Ball loves to talk politics all over MSNBC. She is not afraid to dish out her opinion about what is going on in the political world. But, did you know that her five-year-old daughter enjoys talking politics as well? Like her mom, Krystal’s daughter Ella is not shy to voice her opinion when it comes to President Obama, what is happening in Washington, and even her thoughts on Mitt Romney.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Mar 21, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
I just went through Chik-fil-A drive through in my hometown in Louisville. Mainly because it’s after 9pm and most their clientele are home for the night —praying with one another, talking about heterosexuality, and getting ready for bed.
At least that’s the media stereotype we have in my mind
I figure that between 9-10pm each night the city’s liberal and hypocritical underbelly slithers through the Chik-fil-A drive-thru wearing sunglasses and masking their real voice as they order. And not making eye contact as they ask for extra ketchup for the Waffle Fries before careening out of the parking lot before one of their liberal brethren recognizes them and turns them into the local Whole Food Market.
But the food is so good at Chik-fil-A, otherwise idealistic Ashley Judd Democrats (it is Kentucky) are, at least during a weak moment (between 9-10pm Mon-Sat, but not Sun) willing to risk everything they stand for to munch on a Spicy Chicken Sandwich or toasted Chicken Salad Sandwich.
Is that really so wrong?
Of course it is!
Rand Paul was willing to talk for 13 consecutive hours last week (4 1/2 hours longer than his typical interview and floor speech) because of what he believed. Period. A conviction politician with a consistent and principled ideological diet. No carry-out order of Dan Dan Noodles from the ultra liberal and multicultural PF Changs would have caused him to waiver.
Shame. Shame. I know your name! John Y Brown III! You Daniel in the Lion’s Den! Or Chik-Fil-A’s double drive-thru line.
But at least I had the decency NOT to park and eat in Chik-fil-A parking lot. I clandestinely drove across the street and parked in the Taco Bell parking lot where I noticed two other cars parked with Chik-Fil-A bags on the dashboard with incognito drivers wolfing down a chicken pot pie.
But then I saw something truly shocking. It was, if true, reminiscent of the moment when Sen Joe McCarthy was castigated by the Army Colonel and General Counsel, “At long last, sir, have you no sense of decency?” Only worse because it was more brazen and nakedly hypocritical.
It was a high profile and celebrated local republican operative, whose name I’ll leave anonymous for now (or someone who looks just like him) wearing dark sunglasses in a corner booth eating a Bacon Club Chalupa inside Taco Bell. As he chewed blissfully he simultaneously belied his party’s rigid policy position on immigration, symbolically anyway. “What a sanctimonious hypocrite!” I thought to myself.
Sure,I was outraged and wanted to lash out at this blatant policy hypocrisy. But I thought to myself, maybe –just maybe—all this hyper partisanship had gone a step too far. Instead I asked myself what would Democratic Patron Saint US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan do if he were alive and found himself in this identical situation? Easy. He was discreetly walk inside Taco Bell and quietly offer his political nemesis his now empty Chick-Fil-A bag to disguise the rest of his Taco Bell order.
But Daniel Patrick Moynihan was a better man than I am. I left the scene and am posting the entire episode on the Recovering Politician blog! For sake of our children and our children’s children’s future. Or something like that.
As Grover Norquist taught us, “Bipartisanship is another name for date rape.” Or, I would add, an unreported partisan breach involving a Taco Bell Bacon Club Chalupa or Chik-fil-A Charbroiled Chicken Wrap.
The catfight between former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele and his replacement, Reince Priebus, has reached screech level, with Steele belittling the party’s new focus on minorities as old news.
Appearing on the “Andrea Tantaros Show,” a nationally syndicated radio show, Steele called the GOP establishment that on Monday unveiled a $10 million minority outreach effort a bunch of “numb nuts” for ignoring the plan he instituted four years ago.
Steele also sounded ready to beat up Priebus. Asked by Tantaros who would win in a cage fight, Steele said, “Oh, no question, I would clean his clock.” How? “Just one knock on the head. It’s done.”
The Steele-Priebus battle is, in a way, a repeat of their 2011 duel for the RNC chairmanship. Steele didn’t have the votes and pulled out, clearing the way for Priebus, a former Wisconsin Republican Party chairman.
What’s more, he said that the current Republican Party is bloated. “The bottom line is you’ve to to be focused on what the purpose and the role of the party is. The national party is too big for its own britches right now. It’s centered around itself.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Mar 20, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Technology is supposed to make us more organized, efficient and punctual.
But I often wonder if each of those things aren’t more of an “inside job” that has more to do with internal factors than the screen size and processor speed of the latest smartphone.
Think of it this way, with a little mathematical license thrown in to make my point: Before cell phones and the internet and GPS and laptops and tablets, I had a tendency to over commit myself and always running a few minutes late.
But that’s all changed now with technology to thank, right?
Well…..well…..well…..ummm.
With two cell phones, one laptop, an iPad, and GPS system in my car and on my cell phone, I have increased the likelihood of being somewhere on time, by 3.75%. That means, at that rate of increase (and factoring Moore’s Law of advancing technology), I will be on time to appointments 100% of the time starting in mid August in the year 2114.
So, is the conclusion that technology is just not advancing fast enough to fix this deficit? Or perhaps I need to spend more money on more technology?
Or maybe, just throwin’ this out there, not saying it’s true or anything, but just maybe it’s on me –and regardless of all the wonderful promises of technology making our lives simpler, better, more efficient, maybe there are limits.
Q: In House of Cards, Congressman Russo is having sex with his aide, while House Majority Whip Underwood is having sex with a journalist. Which happens more often?
—A.S., New York City
Great question—it actually inspired me to write a separate column on the fact and the fiction behind House of Cards.
The answer is, definitely the former. During my time in the Missouri Senate, I never knew of a legislator sleeping with a journalist, but there was a lot of sex with legislative aides—though it generally happened with other people’s aides, not one’s own. Something about working with someone 16 hours a day makes them decidedly less sexy. I even knew of one legislator who slept with a constituent who visited his office to lobby for special needs children (though it happened after several meetings). They are now quite happily married.
Q: Our campaign is preparing to hire a bunch of summer interns to canvass this summer. I saw in the documentary about your race that you had this awesome group of interns who worked their hearts out for you. How did you find them? Did you have to weed a lot out?
—J.L., New York City
Well, I was lucky. As a college prof I was blessed to be in contact with a lot of young people who were into politics. And as I used to joke, it’s amazing how much you can motivate students to engage with passionate teaching…and a little extra credit.
But the key was the weeding out process. During my 2004 campaign for Congress, I implored anyone who expressed a scintilla of interest to become an intern. Most did, and about a quarter of them ended up not working out.
In my 2006 campaign, based on the twin notions that the desperate guy at the bar goes home alone and the girl who plays hard to get usually attracts many suitors, I decided to do things differently. When a student inquired about volunteering, I’d give her my email address and tell her to contact me in the next 48 hours to learn more about the application process. If she did that, I’d ask her to send her résumé to my campaign manager in the next 48 hours. If she did that and her résumé wasn’t terrible, my manager would tell her we still had one to two internships available and ask for a time she could come in to interview in the next 72 hours. If that went smoothly, my manager would ask for three references he could call within the next 48 hours. But by that point, we barely even needed to call them (though we did), because we could tell that the student was responsible, aggressive and committed to the cause. We didn’t lose a single intern that campaign.
Read the rest of… Jeff Smith: Do As I Say — A Political Advice Column
Let’s be clear, Michael Steele could only have been as competent as the GOP policies allowed him to be. Under his stewardship of the RNC he successfully navigated contempt for the President, idiocy, and the many GOP fallacies perpetrated by the Tea Party into a winning formula. After-all he picked up 63 seats in the House and took control of the House.
Under his tenure Republicans won 51% of the vote vs 44% for the Democrats. While some may say that was done in spite of Steele, if they had lost or not win as big, he would have taken the brunt of the jokes and he would have been fired.
In the end, Steele, who has hinted he may want to run for the job again, sees his past tenure at the RNC as a success.
“You can criticize my tenure and say Steele is ‘buck wild,’ or ‘we don’t like his style and he’s gaffe prone,’” he says. “But the mission that they gave me when they hired me was two things: raise money — over $190 million in two years — and win elections. And in the process, we grew the party.”
Well there is definitely bad blood between the past chairman and the current chairman. At the Press Club when unveiling the party’s autopsy, Priebus states he walked into the RNC in 2011 with suspended RNC credit cards. When a reporter asked Priebus if Chairman Steele ruined the party financially he replied “I am not going to there. Listen, I think the numbers speak for themselves.”
Well maybe the numbers should speak for themselves as to his performance. `Steele replied accordingly on Andrea Mitchell Reports saying, “That’s the problem. I won and he didn’t.” He then went on stating all the victories he had in Blue and Purple states. He said the Republican Party made the decision to go into debt to win and they did. He said Priebus had surpluses and lost.
He caricatured the report being referred to as an autopsy as poor branding. He said the Party had no message and no focus.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Mar 19, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
The column below is an irresistible one—even for me (at age 49) and not looking for either a college major or a job.
They are interesting reading and worth glancing at for information. Bu…t not, in my opinion, for life guidance.
The only thing worse you can do than pursue a degree you are interested in that pays a low starting salary is get a degree you aren’t interested in because it pays a high salary. If you do the former, at a minimum you will almost surely do much better while in college or graduate school (higher GPA), which translates into more professional options, better educated, and more self-confidence. Not a bad outcome.
If you do the latter, you will likely do poorly, have a negative experience with school, have a lackluster record, get a second or third tier job in the field of study and not enjoy or excel at it. Pretty lousy outcome.
I’m not saying don’t balance the practical aspects of the connection between college degree and future jobs. You should and must. But make it only a part of your analysis. And at the end of your analysis, go with your gut and your passion.
No one has yet been able to quantify either. But being engaged something you are interested in and passionate about seems the common denominator of almost every person I know who excels in their field.
Even if they majored in English. (And many did!)
From Forbes:
The Best And Worst Master’s Degrees For Jobs
Thousands of new college grads will enter the workforce this year, but with unemployment at 8.2% and underemployment near 18%, many will put off the taxing job search process and opt out of the weak job market to pursue graduate degrees.
With this in mind, Forbes set out to determine which master’s degrees would provide the best long-term opportunities, based on salary and employment outlook. To find the mid-career median pay for 35 popular degrees, we turned to Payscale.com, which lets users compare their salaries with those of other people in similar jobs by culling real-time salary data from its 35 million profiles. We then looked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ employment projection data to see how fast employment was expected to increase between 2010 and 2020 in popular jobs held by people with each degree. Finally we averaged each degree’s pay rank and estimated growth rank to find the best and worst master’s degrees for jobs.
As it turns out, although there are too few doctors in the U.S. and too few seats in medical schools, those shortages are good for one segment of the population: people who get degrees as physician assistants.
That is the only real practical risk I see. I do believe based on what little I know about the topic the Pope and Catholic Church will pull off a “Fashion Win” for the Church. Brown is a staid and dignified color –yet also really makes the Roman Collar pop in a reverent way that says “fashionably infallible”
