By John Y. Brown III, on Wed May 14, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET  Marital advice
When a husband says that his wife isn’t appreciative enough of him it is like the Grand Canyon saying to a person throwing a small stone into the Canyon, “That isnt enough to fill me up.”
So ladies, please throw in slightly larger stones.
And thanks for throwing “in” and not “at.”
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Just for today…
Instead of trying to right a wrong that was done to me, I will forgive the person and never think of the incident again.
Tomorrow I can go back to trying to right wrongs against me.
But only if I have finished today’s assignment.
By Lauren Mayer, on Wed May 14, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET . . . and all the men and women merely players, in the immortal words of William Shakespeare (or of Christopher Marlowe, if you subscribe to that theory; or of Family Guy, if you’re like my sons and get most of your cultural references from that show’s parodies). So much of what we do is for public show, from dressing for a special occasion to posting on Facebook to making a speech on the House floor. (And you were wondering how I’d segue from theatre to politics!)
Actually, politics and theatre have merged before, and not just in plays like The Best Man (the 2012 all-star revival of Gore Vidal’s classic about the 1960 President primaries, which I saw with my boys, who weren’t impressed by Angela Lansbury, Eric McCormack, Candace Bergen, or John LaRoquette, but who loved seeing James Earl Jones, a.k.a. Darth Vader . . . but I digress). There have been a few musicals about politics, like 1776, Fiorello, or The Cradle Will Rock – not to mention the political undercurrents in Urinetown, Les Miz, Miss Saigon, Evita, and so on. Meanwhile, Congress seems to be getting more and more theatrical, with hearings, speeches, and posturing taking the place of actual legislation.
So before someone beats me to the punch, I thought I’d better jump in and stake out my own territory here.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue May 13, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
Pardon this brief political and commercial announcement about the importance of supporting our local industries.
Let’s make sure we don’t ever let another state become the Horse Racing Capital of the World.
Sure the jobs and economy are… important.
But imagine what we could end up with instead the first Saturday each May (see below). There’s not a lot to choose from if we lose this proud and well deserved title. Do we really want to become, say, the “Car Touching Capital of the World?” That could be our only option. Think about it. Florida will never concede Dog Racing Capital of the World.
Could we even take that title from Shanghai?
I’m not sure we could. At a minimum we probably couldn’t get Toyota to be the sponsor after last week’s announcement. It’s just a lousy fallback position to have.
It’s just important we think about the consequences of taking our key Kentucky industries for granted. Taking something for granted is usually the last thing you do before feeling really dumb about whatever you are taking for granted.
Car touching, admittedly, has some superficial appeal. But I don’t think it has the potential to have the long proud history comparable to being The Horse Racing Capital of the World.
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine a few years in the future that post time is about to be announced. For car touching. Billboards featuring car touching images would dot our highways. But it just wouldn’t be the same picking out a special hat or tie for this new annual event.
You get the idea. I’m not sure I’d open my eyes either.
You can open your eyes now, though. And enjoy the grandeur of yet another Kentucky Derby.
Let’s make sure we keep it that way.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon May 12, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET There are four kinds of people in the world.
There are those who say “You can’t do that.”
And there are those who say, “I just did.”
Then there is the group who says, “I told them that they couldn’t do that in here and that they were going to get in trouble if they didn’t stop…but they went ahead and did it anyway. I couldn’t believe it and was about to call and tell on them but couldn’t find find my phone.”
And finally there is the fourth group who says, “Phst. I could do that much better than they did. I just don’t want to right now. You can use my phone if you want to.”
We could probably use a fifth kind.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri May 9, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET I just got asked by a friend (jokingly)
“What will you do with yourself now that you are over the hill?”
My answer: “Find a new hill.” (Seriously)
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What if life really isn’t like a box of chocolates?
Then what?
Do I try to make a paradigm shift in my world view at age 50?
Or am I too old to hassle with a world view paradigm shift and better off just continuing to insist life really is like a box of chocolates?
Frankly, I hope I never have to make this choice but this is the burden of having a deeply philosophical mind.
Even if you are shallow.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu May 8, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET “Oh.”
I’m not sure when it started but recently I have noticed that the above word has become BOTH the most common word in my vocabbulary.
And my most commonly used sentence.
Note: Finishing a close second in both categories is the word and sentence: “Sorry.”
And sometimes I even find myself combining the two, I.e. “Oh. Sorry.” Or the less common but equally effective, “Sorry. Oh.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed May 7, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET One more reason it is good to be a gal.
My theory is that when we meet St Pete guarding the Pearly Gates the conversation with us is going to sound a lot like the conversation we have with a police officer when we are trying to talk our way out of a traffic ticket.
We concede we made mistakes but that that it wasn’t deliberate –and we try to focus on the good things about our driving and driving history and how much respect we have for the law, etc, etc and then try to make an emotional appeal to their sympathy.
But women, I suspect, have a much higher success rate than men do at talking their way our of traffic tickets. And I also suspect that is a transferable skill that can be used on St Pete, too.
By Lauren Mayer, on Wed May 7, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET Who’d have thought that the latest celebrity would be a mild-mannered economics professor? Whether you agree or disagree with it, no one can dispute that Thomas Piketty’s Capital In The 21st Century has become a major sensation. It is the number one best-selling book on Amazon.com, and demand was so high that it’s sold out and Harvard University Press is scrambling to print more. (Which is not a common occurrence for the home of works like Homeric Performance in a Diachronic Perspective, Molecular and Cellular Physiology of Neurons, and Proceedings Of The Harvard Celtic Colloquium.) (And I mean no disrespect to academic publishing, so don’t react like art history majors did to President Obama’s semi-insult. It’s just that academic books don’t tend to outsell murder mysteries, diet books, or bodice-rippers!)
Since the book is on back-order, we all have an excuse for not reading it (although several reviewers, who one assume got copies, managed to trash the book without reading it as well . . . ). But in a nutshell, he uses 200 years of data to show that when the rate of return on investment (which helps the wealthiest) outstrips the rate of economic growth (which boosts the rest of us), wealth inequality gets even more entrenched, in ways that are not good for society or the country, which is why we’ve entered a ‘second Gilded Age.’ Oh, and he disproves the Kuznets Curve (which was a 1950s graphic illustration of the way market forces supposedly straightened out income inequality all by themselves).
So now you can participate in the incredibly heated discussion – liberals swoon over Piketty, while conservatives accuse him of being a socialist wealth-hater who is the second coming of Karl Marx. Naturally, as a liberal, I’m a fan – but I also love the fact that his writing is surprisingly accessible and he even manages to include references to Jane Austen. Plus he’s boyishly handsome and French! (Although he had me at the Jane Austen . . . .)
Since – to the best of my knowledge – no one has ever written a love song to an economist, I thought it was about time.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon May 5, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET Not being ready to hear something doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
Yesterday I was talking to a counselor friend and we got on the subject of “next phases” in life.
I mentioned my kids had just turned 16 and 20 and I missed the feeling in our family of being “captain of our team” –and lately felt more like I had been relegated to the position of third base coach whose only role was making odd scratching and touching signs that looked like early onset of dementia to observers.
I was laughing because I was exaggerating. Until my
friend pointed out that I was exactly right —and then reassured me by describing the occasional important role that a third base or first base coach can play.
But that wasn’t what I was expecting or ready to hear.
There was a long silent pause.
As I waited for my friend to tell me he was just kidding, he was simultaneously waiting for me to let this painful truth to sink in.
Then I interjected my conclusion. “No. Uh-uh. No…That’s not what is happening in my situation. That’s not really what I am talking about.”
Before adding, “I am talking about players that go through a bad season or two before they make a big comeback.”
Then there was another long pause.
This time I didn’t say anything. I just pretended to slide my fingers across the bill of my cap, touched my chest, tapped my nose and winked.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri May 2, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET 
Late night conversations with my wife.
I am restless and up and my wife Rebecca is half asleep and trying to go completely to sleep.
Me: “Hey honey. Want me to make some tea and we can talk?”
Rebecca: “No. I don’t want any tea.”
Me: “But you want to talk?”
Rebecca: “You can talk. I am not going to respond, though.”
Me: (after a pause) “Ok. What would you like to talk about?”
Rebecca: (no answer)
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