JTA, the leading international Jewish news agency featured a piece written by the RP last week in which he lambasted his fellow Jonathan Miller (the British playwright) for signing what The RP termed an anti-Semitic letter.
Let’s start with the first Jonathan Miller in the headline.
He’s a former state state treasurer in Kentucky and failed candidate for governor. He’s the creator of theRecovering Politician blog. And (full disclosure) he’s a JTA board member and basketball commentator.
… Jonathan Miller, the News Corp executive, Jonathan Miller, the Birmingham Rabbi, Johnathan Miller, the Iran-Contra felon, or even Jonathan Miller whom God called to run for Congress in West Virginia.
Instead, Jonathan Miller (Blogger-Ky.) writes, his “deep disappointment is directed toward the most famous Jonathan Miller.”
For those of you who are under the age of 50 and have never tried to Google me, THE Jonathan Miller is “is a British theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, humorist and sculptor,” best known for being a frequent guest in the early 1980s on The Dick Cavett Show.
Turns out Jonathan Miller (Actor-UK) has signed on to a call for a British theater (oh, fine, theatre) to exclude an Israeli troupe over the situation in the West Banlk. And Jonathan Miller (Blogger-Ky.) thinks this crosses into anti-Semitic territory:
But he did not protest the inclusion of a Turkish theater in the production (despite that country’s controversial occupation of parts of Cyprus), or China’s theater (despite their much-documented record on human rights in Tibet and other provinces), or Iran’s theater (despite their horrible treatment of minorities, especially gays and lesbians), or Russia’s theater (despite its violent occupation of Chechnya), or the Palestinian theater (despite its support for indiscriminate bombing of Israelis), or even the United States’ theater (despite our continued presence in Afghanistan and Iraq).
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Apr 6, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
I’d like to issue a formal, written and heatfelt apology to all dogs I’ve ever make beg for treats.
When I was a boy, I found it amusing and felt a sense of power and control when I could hold a tantalizing but small treat just far enough away from reach to make the innocent animal to strain to stand on his hind legs–sometimes even expecting the dog to “dance” –before finally tossing the tiny morsel in the air as a reward for my amusement.
I am truly sorry.
Now that I am an adult, I hate it when other adults I work for do this to me (figuratively speaking).
It’s awful and I hate it.
And unlike most you dogs, I’m not very good at it and don’t look very cute doing it.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Apr 4, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Much ado about nothing.
This entire episode with Jason Russell (founder of Invisible Children) crusading to make international criminal Joseph Kony famous…has been misunderstood and blown way out of proportion.
At first I, too, was stunned to read that Mr Russell was discovered near San Diego running naked in the streets, shouting nonsensically, pacing, slapping the sidewalk and interfering with traffic.
But I kept reading.
Russell is a graduate of USC (University of Southern California).
I attended USC for over a year back in the early 80’s before returning home to Louisville (and Bellarmine College).
The kind of behavior exhibited by Mr Russell was NOT abnormal for many USC students and now seems perfectly sensible to me once it has been place in its proper context.
Sure, trying to make Joseph Kony famous can make anyone a little crazy. But trying to survive the social, cultural, economic and academic pressures at USC will lead even the strong among us to regularly meltdown publicly in the Southern California area.
Jason Russell wasn’t mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted from the success of having millions of supporters cheering him to capture the world’s most infamous criminal.
He was probably merely having a flashback from his freshman hazing at USC.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Apr 3, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Which part of speech best characterizes you?
A video by Grammar Rock got me thinking, each part of speech has a certain personality– verbs, nouns, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
I would like to say I’m most like a verb—a person of action and activity.
I don’t want to be a preposition. They are sneaky trying to go over, under and around things. You can’t trust ’em.
Maybe I’m most like an conjunction today. I try to bring people together to do more than they can do separately.
OK, really I just want to post the video of Conjunction Junction. It was my favorite song by Grammar Rock. And is still pretty cool all these years later.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Apr 2, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
“If you stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss will stare back at you”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“But if you continue to stare at the abyss a little longer, it will wink at you. And you can wink back at the abyss. And you will both giggle simultaneously”
Me.
This morning (putting my philosophy minor to good use)
By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Apr 2, 2012 at 9:46 AM ET
Greetings from my third favorite city in the world (behind Lexington & Jerusalem — sorry Vegas!): Florence, Italy.
The weather is perfect, the food extraordinary, the art sublime. Only trouble is that the RPettes and I are going to try to watch THE GAME at 3 AM while Mrs. RP sleeps.
At least everyone over here is part of the Big Blue Nation. I spotted the T-shirt to the left at Florence’s famous leather marketplace. Didn’t know Audrey Hepburn was a Cats fan, but apparently she anticipated Marquis Teague’s three-point form decades before he was born.
We are sincerely hoping that tonight Sylvester finally catches Tweety bird — What’s a Jayhawk anyway? — as Thomas Robinson discovers that Anthony Davis owns the paint on both sides of the court. He’s not in Kansas anymore!!
(I assume that joke’s being overused back home, but it’s getting big laughs here in Italy! Or maybe they are laughing because they have no idea what I’m saying.)
Anyhoo, our trip got diverted a bit thanks to Delta and a little rain, and we got to spend the afternoon yesterday in Amsterdam. Being a huge proponent of municipal infrastructure improvement, I decided to take a tour of the so-called “Red Light District.”
Well, it seems there was a little misunderstanding. Let me put it this way — I didn’t take any pictures. The T-shirt at right is the best PG-rated presentation of the scenery in the Red Light District.
To recover from the shock and awe, I decided to take a detour into a “coffee shop.” Turns out they didn’t serve coffee, and the place was hazy and smelled like a Jimmy Buffett concert. The good news is that after spending a few minutes in the place, all of my cares disappeared, and I became relaxed and happy; although for some strange reason I was (Terrence) Jones-ing for a bag of Cheetos.
Apparently, I’m very popular in Amsterdam as well. Whenever I introduced myself, people asked if I was the same Jonathan Miller who wrote an article in The Huffington Post advocating for the legalization of marijuana.
OK, back to my vacation…I promise to send another post(card) soon.
For centuries, Jews have looked at world events and/or world leaders and have wondered: Is it good for the Jews? So much so, it’s become a running joke within the tribe.
JTA, the leading international Jewish news agency, decided to test this question on the issue of the week: The NCAA’s Final Four,and specifically, the semifinal meeting of two longtime intrastate archrivals, the University of Kentucky Wildcats and the University of Louisville Cardinals.
Taking the side of all that is good and right and holy (the Wildcats) is the RP himself. On the dark, red side (the Cardinals) is the RP’s great friend, Marie Abrams, who serves on the board of the University of Louisville, and has been a local and national leader of Jewish organizations for decades, including serving as former national chair of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.
Listen to the podcast here for the fireworks and fun:
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Mar 30, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Here’s a NY Times story about how the UL-UK Dream Game became the great annual collegiate rivalry it is today.
In the article the state legislature and my father (former Governor John Y. Brown, Jr.) seem to take the credit for making this once unlikely occurrence a now historic rivalry.
My recollection, however, is very different. I remember one night at the dinner table suggesting to my dad, “Why don’t you work with the legislature to create an annual UK-UL game?”
I seem to recall my dad laughing it off and saying it would never happen.
I stood up, pounded my fist on the table and demanded, “It has to happen! And it has to happen now!!” I was relentless in crafting the legislative strategy and hounding my father to make this is last important act as governor.
I threatened to legally change my name to John Chandler Beshear Nunn if he wasn’t successful. And I succeeded.
Well, he and the legislature succeeded.
OK, OK maybe it didn’t really happen that way.
Maybe…. I was in college out of state at the time and didn’t even know about the effort until several years after it happened.
And, yeah, maybe I never had such conversations about legislation of any kind with my father because I was more interested in more hormonally appropriate topics.
But you gotta admit, it does make a darn good story. Even if it’s entirely an imaginary one.
