By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Jan 15, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET The magic of moms.
Recently my wife and two kids and I were flying together. As always we somehow lucked out again and got the next to last row in the airplane. We usually get the very last row, but this time we did almost as well.
The important thing, though, is that midway through the flight I looked over at my son (in aisle seat), daughter (window seat) and wife (middle seat) to my left as I worked away on my laptop on the aisle seat across from them.
They were all laughing and the kids were commenting as my wife told stories about them when they were little. Funny stories they love to hear and be reminded of as each child gets older and sees a different wrinkle of insight about themselves in the story while also being reminded of the family bonds and good feelings of an early time in our lives.
 The engaged laughter and commentary made it to a low roar that seemed to last the entire flight and at one point, even though I was listening and smiling to myself, I had to gently “shush” them to keep from distracting those around us.
That didn’t go over well with them –and they got even louder.
And I was reminded that without the magical mom in the middle, the two children would have been quiet, well-behaved kids enduring a long flight reading to themselves while father worked. And no one laughed or commented on anything– except what to have for lunch when asked by the flight attendant.
Which was neither funny nor worthy of engaged commentary.
And what a different flight (life?) it would be. For all of us.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Jan 14, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Things I keep in my trunk so I am not unprepared:
1) clean shirt
2) razor and toothbrush
3) spare tire
4) blunt instrument
5) two double A and triple A batteries
6) Umbrella
7) Windshield scraper
8) Flare gun
9) Passport
10) Superman cape
You just never know when you’ll need these.
Especially Triple A batteries
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Jan 11, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Facebook needs to decide what they really want to know about us.
Ya know?
I mean, when I joined Facebook a few years ago, the empty status box always stared at me with the question, “What’s on your mind?” It was a respectful question that showed interest in my intellect and lured me in initially. Someone (rather “something”) wanted to know what little ole me was thinking. At that moment. And so I’d try to answer best I could. About what I was thinking at that moment. Even if I hadn’t been thinking of anything at all, I’d still come up with something because my intelligence was being respected and inquired about. And I didn’t want to let Facebook down. It was a wholesome and respectful relationship.
That lasted for awhile.
And then Facebook took an intimate, touchy-feely turn. The status box suddenly started asking, “What are you feeling?”
That’s a little too personal for me, to tell you the truth. It felt like being asked, “What color underwear are you wearing?” What happened to all that respect for my mind? It sounds contrived too…. like the kind of line you’d hear if the characters played by Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson in Wedding Crashers took over Facebook. The red head in that movie should never have trusted Vince Vaughn’s character. And we shouldn’t trust the new “warm and fuzzy” Facebook solicitousness. I just don’t believe Facebook really genuinely wants to know about my feelings. And that there must be some self-serving motive behind it. And they may even make a funny movie about this question one day starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson….and the laughs could be at our expense. No, thanks, Facebook. My feelings are strictly between me and my mood ring.
But now I see we have a Facebook inquiry 3.0. I guess we weren’t the only ones who were “on to them” about the faux feelings “status” line. So Facebook is now trying to put all that behind them and go “Hip.” That’s right, “hip!” As in the new status box inquiry, “What’s happening, John?” Like they know me and are my new bro. It comes off over the top and feels like something akin to “Yo! Whassup John?!!” It’s just too informal and inartfully hip. We all know what Mark Zuckerberg is like. He’s brilliant and tireless and one of the great tech visionaries and innovators of our time. But hip? Nah. As Seth Meyer and Amy Poehler would say without having to even think about this one, “Really, Facebook?”
And I just checked to see if they had changed the question in the status box since I started writing this post 10 minutes ago. And they have. The newest iteration is the annoyingly invasive school marmish question, “What are you doing, John?” Geez! “What are you doing, John?” I immediately felt like looking down and trying to find my Number 2 pencil. I can’t decide if the sentence is coming to me through the visage of SNL’s Church Lady or the machine, HAL, from 2001 A Space Odyssey. Either way, I don’t like the accusatory way the question is posed. It’s as if by staring into the Facebook status box I am presumed to not be taking life serious enough. Why else would I need to be stared down with the paternalistic question, “What are you doing, John?” That feels bleak…and disrespectful. A far cry from “What are you thinking?” I even feels a little like “Gotcha journalism.” There’s just no winning. How can you answer that query in a way that you feel good about yourself?
“What am I doing now? Oh, staring at the Facebook status bar and trying to respond to…..trying to respond to an important social issue or event…I mean, trying to say something that is really, really important about something important that is happening now or just happened recently.
I mean….I know not everything I post on Facebook has a socially redeeming value and I’m glad you are asking this tough question in a pointed way to force people like me to be less shallow on Facebook. And maybe a little ashamed if they aren’t doing something socially useful in their status updates.
Which is what I’m trying to do right now. And can’t. So, you know what? I just won’t write anything at all then! You want to know what I’m doing? Not writing in my status box on Facebook.
That’s what. At least for now.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Jan 11, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET Sign up for the fitness challenge right here:
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 It’s a numbers game, right? Of course, it is.
When I started I knew 15 pounds was a lot of pounds to drop from the same body. That’s why I had “or at least 10” as a back up. A sort of high goal and low goal.
What I didn’t anticipate is how hard it would be to lose 10 pounds.
This whole weight loss and improving your health thing actually takes work. And change.
And change isn’t easy. Especially if it means doing something different, which is kind of what change means, I think. Or not doing something the way you’ve always done it –and frankly enjoy doing it (like eating what you want because it tastes good and not exercising because it hurts). That’s just plain hard! And gives one pause. And makes change seems like a really bad idea. You know? Which means you won’t change.
And, of course, change is especially tough if on this journey to change all alone.
You’ve heard the saying “There’s power in numbers”
I have to. But am not sure why I mention it here.
Oh! No, that wasn’t it. It will come to me….
 Oh, I remember now. Yes, if you are …fat or overweight and lazy, like me, you may decide you want to change.
Well, good luck with that. If you are trying to do it alone.
There’s no accountability. No sense of commitment. No plan. No mentor. No process. No reliable resource offering guidance.
Just a fat, lazy guy who wishes he weren’t as fat and lazy as he feels at this moment. And no matter how intensely you feel that, it’s not enough in itself to lead to any sort of measurable change.
So what can help?
You have two choices.
1) You can be a miserable overweight and unhealthy person who hates yourself and will fail again trying to diet and get in shape.
If you are satisfied with this option, stop here. There’s no need to even go to the other option. I’m going to sleep on it myself (I joke) But if you aren’t satisfied with #1, try #2.
2) Sign on with The Recovering Politician and Jonathan Miller and me to try to make some real, incremental and lasting changes. Not for fun. It won’t be fun. Not for torture, even though it will feel like torture at first. Unless you are in to torture, which is none of my business. But rather because the pain of staying the way you are is greater than the pain of changing. That’s when I get motivated. And you can too. And not have to do it alone.
Seriously.
Jonathan and I joke a lot and try to have fun with our little weight loss undertaking, but if we had to identify a single silent health problem in America today, few would argue it’s obesity and lack of exercise. And as guilty of both as I am. I’m trying to make some small changes…that could create some pretty big results for me in the long run.
I hope you join me in trying too.
And, yes, there is power in numbers to go back to that topic…but there’s much more the RP can offer to help you get serious….and then get fit. Or at least fitter. Hey, I will not be part of any health improvement process that allows striving for perfection to undermine small measurable progress. Real change is the most probably with realistic assessments and objectives combined with a liveable plan that has worked for others.
Click for details. We have all that here. Read about it.
And then sign up: either at the top of this post, or right below here:
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By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Jan 10, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET The beautiful emptiness of brevity.
In texting.
I am still guilty of “over-texting” or texting like one would write formally.
I think secretly I imagined at my funeral someone referencing my last text message and wanted it to at least be grammatically correct.
But verbosity and adherence to grammatical rules (and even the rules of spelling) misses the point of the texting medium.
It is to convey information rapidly –without all the constraints of formal written or spoken dialogue.
The “K” response in texting used to really irritate me. It seems so dismissive and meaningless.
And yet I know found myself using it.
K.
And it’s empowering.
Notice this next time you are texting with someone. The person who texts less is almost always the more powerful one in the relationship.
Which means I am now going to try to find a way to reduce all my text responses to a single letter.
I just have to figure out the right letter.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Jan 9, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET What coffee feeling do you have this morning?
Some mornings I feel like a shot of espresso.
Some I feel like regular coffee with cream and sugar
Some mornings I feel like black coffee
Some I feel like a cup of decaffeinated coffee
 And then some mornings–like this one–I feel like a cup of warm brown water run through yesterday’s coffee grinds.
And just hope I can find an old Heine Bros cup to hide it in so no one will notice what I really feel like.
By Artur Davis, on Wed Jan 9, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET  I’ve written before that Republicans looking to recast themselves as middle class-friendly and more reform oriented should look for guidance at Bill Clinton’s renovation project for Democrats in the early nineties. So, I am admiring of Bill Kristol’s project to model the Democratic Leadership Council’s role as a vehicle to modernize the post Bush/Romney Republican Party.
Admiring, but still mindful of two limitations that are often glossed over regarding the DLC’s trajectory: both the rough patch the centrist organization endured in its formative years before Clinton’s 1992 campaign, and the decidedly uneven record the group compiled during the Clinton presidency and beyond.
To a degree that is not widely remembered, the DLC’s first phase, which ran from 1985 to Clinton’s ascension to its leadership in 1990, was mired in internecine combat with more conventional Democratic forces, from Jesse Jackson to Mario Cuomo. The DLC was dubbed variously as a stalking horse for KStreet lobbyists (“the Democratic Leisure Class” in Jackson’s parlance), or Southerners trying to reassert their primacy over blacks and feminists, or unprincipled panderers trying to win over Reagan Democrats by channeling their resentment toward the liberal base. During that stretch, the DLC label was damaging enough that aspiring presidential possibilities like a young Al Gore avoided an overt association, and in the case of Missouri’s Richard Gephardt, worked overtime to purge his record of any links to the DLC as he emerged as a serious contender in the 1988 primary derby.
In other words, the DLC’s initial contribution to the Democratic debate was to polarize the party’s internal political landscape and to provide something of a convenient foil for the Democratic liberal wing. Rather than weakening under a centrist assault, that left wing dominated the 1988 primaries to the point that Jackson ran a competitive second, while a putative moderate like Gore never developed momentum outside his home base of southern whites. Nor was the issue environment that year one friendly to centrists: the spectrum ran, unhelpfully for moderates, from Gephardt’s protectionist pledge to slap tariffs on Korean and Japanese car manufacturers to a near universal consensus among the candidates that Ronald Reagan’s policy of aiding South American counter-revolutionaries be permanently scrapped.
 It is also not likely that Kristol and his cohorts mean to emulate the DLC’s footprints in the administration it unmistakably helped elect. It is worth recalling that the only major DLC initiatives that were written into law were welfare reform, a tangible, signature achievement to be sure, and a valuable but relatively modest agenda of grants for community policy. A much larger portion of the group’s portfolio never made it beyond the policy binders: not middle class targeted tax relief; not vouchers for purchasing health insurance; not national service for college scholarships; not the substitution of class for race as the criteria for affirmative action. The Democratic Party’s embrace of a global free trade campaign did not really broaden beyond NAFTA, which George HW Bush primarily negotiated. S-Chip, a genuine advance for low income children, was less a Clinton or DLC priority than a fallback from the wreckage of the abandoned 1994 effort on national health care.
To be sure, the DLC deserves reams of credit for crafting a brand of political argument that was attractive to suburbanites and blue collars, including a robust emphasis on personal responsibility over entitlement and a newfound Democratic tough-mindedness on crime. But to the extent that conservative reformers are ambitious to construct a specific policy apparatus , the DLC seems like a low baseline of achievement that actually did not succeed in reorienting the ideological instincts of its party in a sustained way. To cite just a few examples, the Democratic Party’s Clinton era hawkishness on deficits and fondness for Social Security reform did not survive Clinton’s own vice president’s messaging in 2000, much less subsequent Democratic campaigns.
Finally, the DLC’s ascension was tied in an indispensable way to the gifts of one preternatural campaigner in Bill Clinton. Democratic centrism notably failed to produce a cohort of like-minded prospects at the federal or gubernatorial level. The DLC never fostered the machinery to wage primary battles on behalf of moderate candidates who were engaged in street fights with more traditional liberals. To the contrary, the model was less to nurture centrist candidacies than to sit on the sidelines and nurture relationships with the ever diminishing class of moderates who managed to win on their own (often by sliding to the left to paper over their centrist ways).
Read the rest of…
Artur Davis: A DLC for Republicans?
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Jan 8, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET How I exposed myself to art. In a trench coat.
This print was hanging in our house while I was growing up. It was the first time I made a connection with trench coats, nudity and art.
But it wasn’t until my first job out of college working as a runner/clerk at Frank Haddad’s law firm that I get to live it.
George Salem, a wonderfully large and loveable fatherly figure and excellent criminal lawyer, asked me to help with research on a case. It was a case to disprove certain “images” published by a client were “obscene.” George’s idea was to have me, the new intern, take my Polaroid camera and trot down to the Speed Art Museum and tour the museum for examples of nudity in art. And click off a few pictures of what I found. We’d then be able to show the “images” the client was associated with were no more obscene than art on display in our fair city’s prized art museum.
Simple enough…and kinda brilliant, I thought to myself.
So, I threw on the tan trench coat my mother had just gotten me for Christmas now that I was needing “Big Boy” office clothes –and headed to Speed.
Fortunately for me there was a new display –probably something George Salem was aware of—featuring extensive and, well, rather provocative, nudity. It was in a cordoned off area but you could stand outside the ropes and appreciate the art. And even try to photograph it.
I noticed that there was a sign at the entrance saying “No photography.” I instantly realized that if I wanted to please my boss—and keep my job—I would need to be innovative and stealthy.
I waited until no guards or patrons were around and stepped toward the display, opened my trench coat –with my Polaroid hidden at chest level– and clicked off a couple of pictures.
Just my luck, a guard walked by at that time and kindly explained to me that I was not permitted to take photographs. I apologized and walked into the next room. And waited for him to leave.
I returned as soon as he left…and went to the other side of the display where there was even a greater show of nudity, opened my trench coat and continued completing my task. Click. Click. Went the camera.
The guard returned but did not see me take the last couple pictures. I smiled and tried to look fascinated—in a high minded and artistic way—in the grand display in the middle of the room. With all the naked people. I was in my 20s and not very persuasive. The trench coat didn’t help things.
The guard smiled back tolerably and, again, eventually walked away…..This last time I found the primo angle, leaned in over the roped off area and holding out my Polaroid for a final few shots, “Click!” and “Click!” And then….”Sir! Sir! I have asked you already to stop taking photographs of the display. I’m afraid I am going to have to ask you to leave.”
And he did.
And I did. Leave.
With my non-obscene and purely artistic photographs. And I delivered them. To my boss. In full uniform. trench coat, and all.
And as a result, I will never ever be able again to wear a trench coat when visiting Speed Art museum. For fear of being mistaken for, well, a curious and camera-happy investigator, shall we say.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Jan 7, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Being sick with the flu is a double curse.
You feel awful physically, of course.
But you also view everything in your life through the same miserable, feeble, nauseous lens…making everything around you less beautiful, special, worthwhile or even tolerable.
====
I have cursed at my cold/flu (whatever it is) to no avail.
I’ve tried using rare curse words I haven’t used in months –or even years. I’ve tried new combinations and several hyphenated curse words
I’m not sure even exist. And, of course, I’ve used the standard fare curse words we are all familiar with and often turn up in
ordinary distressing situations –that aren’t cold/flu related.
But not a single curse word, hyphenated or otherwise, or any combination thereof has helped one whit!
D*****t!
====
Does anyone know what keys to press to Restore the Brain to Factory Settings?
====
You know your case of this cold/flu thing going around is bad when you see the old Bon Jovi “Dead or Alive” video and your first response to it is, “Dead? Alive? Why such a big deal about the difference?”
By Artur Davis, on Mon Jan 7, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET Having offered my perspective about the shape of a conservative rebound, I will end the year with a bout of wishful thinking about what 2013 might bring, if the stars align in just the right way. Here are twelve hopes for the next twelve months:
(1) That George HW Bush and Nelson Mandela have more good health in front of them. They are not a commonly linked pair, but their lives epitomize the values of political tolerance and forgiveness. The elder Bush had his brass-knuckled side, as Michael Dukakis can attest, but he is arguably the last president who regarded election to federal office as a compact for Republicans and Democrats to achieve some rough consensus around the country’s challenges. Some of the deals cut, on federal employment laws and acid rain, looked then and now like sensible compromises; the 1990 tax package only preceded a recession and more rounds of rampant spending. But Bush’s four years were notable for their absence of intense division; it is no accident that he is the only president in my adulthood given the moral credit of never being despised by his partisan foes. And Mandela: what more needs to be said other than that he forged a political peace with a regime that jailed him and snatched the prime of his life away?
(2) That the missing cause of 2012, education reform, is discovered alive and intact. For that to happen, liberals will need to extricate themselves from the embrace of the teachers’ unions that have wilted the Democratic reform agenda down to charter schools and not much more; conservatives will need to remind themselves that no other initiative satisfies the right’s goal of upward mobility through self determination more effectively.
(3) That some influential observer will write the seminal book or article documenting the degree to which modern Democrats have abandoned the political center. For all the hand-wringing over Grover Norquist and the Tea Party, it is today’s House Democratic Caucus that refused to supply a single vote for continuing the Bush tax cuts for all but millionaires, until recently the favored position of Democratic moderates; this year’s Democratic platform that discarded the notion that public policy should strive to make abortions rare; and the current Democratic mainstream that has declared opposition to the Affordable Care Act or same sex marriage—views that thirty- five to forty Democratic congressmen held just a few years ago—as, respectively, stone-hearted or hateful.
Read the rest of…
Artur Davis: Wishful Thinking in the New Year
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