By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Mar 15, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET
From CBS News:
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, a co-sponsor of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), now supports same-sex marriage, he announced last night.
In an op-ed this morning for the Columbus Dispatch, Portman explained that “I have come to believe that if two people are prepared to make a lifetime commitment to love and care for each other in good times and in bad, the government shouldn’t deny them the opportunity to get married.”
Portman told The Cincinnati Enquirer his evolution on the subject began in 2011 when his son, Will, then a freshman at Yale University, told his parents he was gay.
“My son came to Jane, my wife, and I, told us that he was gay, and that it was not a choice, and that it’s just part of who he is, and that’s who he’d been that way for as long as he could remember,” Portman told CNN in an interview.
I’ve long been an admirer of the Senator, and even as early as March 2012, I recommended that Romney choose him as his Vice Presidential running mate. But this seals the deal — a extraordinarily brave move for a rising star in a party where activists overwhelmingly oppose gay marriage. I hate to use the cliche, but this really is a game changer.
By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Mar 13, 2013 at 2:15 PM ET
At a time when our political system seems broken at the national and statehouse level, this newly found picture of the final day of the 1988 Al Gore for President campaign (h/t to my friend Jackie Shrago) brought me back to a time when politics was fun — when political debates were spiced by good-natured exchanges (and often Kentucky-brewed spirits), when campaigns were the stuff of young people with big dreams and unmuddied ambitions.
I don’t mean to mythologize 1988. A few months later, the world would learn who Willie Horton was; Lee Atwater would be revered as the premier practioner of the political black arts; and Democrats would draw a lesson from the unsuccessfully “soft” Dukakis for President campaign that we had to hit back with two fists when we were punched with one.
But despite the fact that I’ve been involved in dozens of campaigns since Gore’s aborted run — some much more successful, a few with my own name on the ballot — I will always remember my first as my favorite, and remember these as the halcyon times of my American politics. Just check out the goofy smile on my face (I’m two rows directly behind the broad-shouldered guy with the purple tie standing to Tipper’s left.)
Indeed since I posted this piece on Friday that commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Super Tuesday Southern 1988 primaries — which were both Gore’s coming out party and his ultimate undoing — I started an email chain that has grown to over 100 fellow alumni of that seminal campaign. We’ve shared a lot of fun stories and fond remembrances — ranging from hilarious to R-rated to quasi-criminal — and have begun making plans to hold a live, in-person reunion this year. Of course, as the youngest Gore 88 staffer (my fellow No Labels co-founder Nancy Jacobson calls me the “campaign mascot”), I’ve had the pleasure of trying to put the band back together again; as Elwood Blues would have said: “I’m on a mission from God.”
Can politics ever be fun again? Maybe not for this burned-out middle ager. But this picture — and our Gore 88 virtual reunion — reminds me that when young people join to try to change the world, good things can happen, great memories can be made, and enduring friendships can be started — that will all last a lifetime.
“I’m not eating this weekend because the girls at school want to be skinny.” Emily, 9.
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In 2004, after years of processing my own body image issues, and with a determination to have things be different for my daughters, I didn’t expect my own child to begin that steep slide into dieting misery so soon, if at all.
I took a few hours to recover from my little girl’s statement of deprivation, and then I came to the conclusion that if I really wanted things to be different, I would need to take action myself, and fast.
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The conversation and research that followed opened my eyes to several truths:
Kids talk. And they are all affected by media messages (billboards, commercials, print ads, Hollywood glamour) about protruding stomachs, fat thighs, and jiggly arms.
Women talk. We do, and it’s a lot of self-criticism about protruding stomachs, fat thighs, and jiggly arms. And, we talk about other women in relationship to all those things, and about how she looked in that outfit. Constantly, constantly, constantly.
Conversations overheard about appearance become messages about what is acceptable, desirable, worthy of love, and they are more potent than any billboard costing 1,000’s of dollars to print, because they are personal—about real people we know—about ourselves. And, our girls are listening closely, all the time.
The seeds of self-esteem and self-image are planted long before girls approach puberty. Though criticism may be directed at others, and even if we only ever complement our little girls, they grow on the reality that criticism is just around corner if they grow into women of stomachs, thighs, and arms, of any type.
So what’s a mother to do? I wasn’t certain, but I was sure that I wouldn’t allow one more generation of women in my family to struggle with the self-hatred that comes from a legacy of criticism, peer pressure, never ending dieting, and debilitating low self-esteem.
I did have a hunch that in order to help make changes for my daughter and her friends, I needed to help make cognitive and emotional changes for moms, too. Because after all, we were all once girls who grew on those very messages. No one ever told us to stop listening.
And so, with mother-bear determination, I called health and wellness professionals in my Lexington community who seemed to carry some authority: pediatrician; nutritionist; psychotherapist; police-officer. And I asked them to become a part of the community that would influence and help raise healthy girls.
With professionals on board, Girls Rock!: Workshops for Girls and Moms, was born. We would all come together, pre-teen girls, mothers, and professionals, for a big empowering day of programming that would make all of us responsible for healthier language, relationship to self and friends, and habits at home.
But still, the kids in attendance would need real, up-close and personal role models to emulate—people they could think of as big sisters—the ultimate role models of omniscient authority to a girl.
So I recruited a diverse team of teenagers with leadership potential who seemed to defy what Mary Pipher identifies as one of our culture’s greatest tragedies, “Adolescence is when girls experience social pressure to put aside their authentic selves and to display only a small portion of their gifts.”
Something profound happened in our very first workshops when the Girls Rock! Teen Mentors spoke. They stood with confidence in front of girls, mothers, and professionals and said, “We are all different sizes, shapes, and ethnicities—this is what normal looks like—this is what pretty looks like”.
The young audience of girls listened closely, but the mothers and professionals were moved to tears.
And then it was clear. Hearing for the first time from people who represented our own youth, that beauty was never meant to be one-size-fits-all, opened the blinds and let the sun shine on the truth that we always were, and are right now, pretty enough and good enough, and that we are so much more.
Isn’t that what we really want for ourselves?
It is exactly what we want for our daughters.
One workshop led to another, and another, and we became a non-profit and published a book (Click here to order), and I can report that my daughters now teens themselves, are Girls Rock! Mentors, today. Hallelujah.
Looking back now, it’s amazing to me that I could have pulled this off—recruiting and training teen leaders, finding passionate professionals and generous keynote speakers, and reaching out to other mothers and girls who would attend.
Technically, I didn’t know anything about running this kind of thing—I was driven intuitively, and I found that women both young and old could relate, so I kept going. I prayed that my daughters and their friends would benefit, and that I could send my girls to sleepovers knowing they would be influenced in positive ways.
Year after year, Girls Rock! continues to be one big community of volunteers and families showing up just because we have all been affected, are still affected by a ridiculously unfair standard. But most of all, we gather because we care about the development of self-esteem in girls.
Though there is undeniable power in pervasive cultural messages especially saturated by media today, there is something more powerful about women coming together to educate, heal, and find inspiration together. As girls and women we are a part of something that is much bigger—it’s called Sisterhood, The Women’s Lodge, the Feminine Divine.
This is a place anywhere and everywhere on this planet where females of every age, status, and background can gather to nurture one another with acceptance. It’s simple and it’s a magical thing to be a part of. It makes us grateful to have been born as girls.
So, it turns out that my years of healing before motherhood were just the very beginning for me. My young daughter’s fateful entry into self-doubt felt like familiar territory—I couldn’t have imagined it would provide me the drive to heal more deeply, nor to help find a solution for my community.
While the distance travelled to arrive to a place of peace is never easy with these issues, I’m feeling it’s been worth the journey so far.
Most of all, as my daughters grow into adulthood with perspective, confidence, self-esteem, I will say that I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Prayer has helped a lot too.
To invite Lisa to speak at your gathering, contact her directly:
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Mar 8, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
Today marks the 25th anniversary of this Jewish pischer’s baptism into politics.
I’d been working for then Tennessee Senator Al Gore’s underdog bid for President for months, but March 8, 1988, “Super Tuesday,” was considered the potential game changer, two decades before “game changer” became a political cliché.
Since Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 landslide, Democrats had been wandering in the Electoral College desert, only winning one Presidential election in 1976, in the aftermath of the GOP Watergate meltdown. Our problems had been identified by LBJ himself when he prophesized that Democrats “have lost the South for a generation,” upon his courageous signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Many blamed a leftward lurch by the party during the final years of Vietnam and the emergence of its George McGovernite wing, unfairly stereotyped as a bunch of hippies favoring “acid, amnesty and abortion.”
I had signed up for the 39-year-old Gore’s campaign because of his thoughtful and progressive views on arms control and the environment. But I also believed that as a more moderate Southerner, he could help the Democratic Party end its losing streak and take back control of the White House.
Behind the scenes, party moderates and pragmatists had been working on a plan to facilitate the election of a more electable nominee. At the core was the creation of “Super Tuesday” — a day with 21 primaries taking place, including all of the Southern states. The theory was that a Democratic nominee who could win the Southern primaries could win the nation in the fall.
As the returns came in 25 years ago today, I excitedly sat in the campaign war room — a 20 year old surrounded by a veteran group of 20- and 30- somethings. (My great friend from that campaign — and No Labels co-founder, Nancy Jacobson — calls me to this day the “campaign mascot.”)
I was in charge of keeping track of the vote tallies on the war room chalkboard. (Yes, this is before whiteboards and erasable markers, kids.) Things looked very promising when Al Gore steamrolled through the Upper South: his home state of Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and best of all, my old Kentucky home. (Side note: The Kentucky state director for the campaign is to this day, my best frenemy, George Phillips (read about him here). This is the only time in history George has ever celebrated a Kentucky victory — he is, natch, a Dukie.)
But, we were losing everywhere else: Jesse Jackson took the Deep South, while Mike Dukakis took the big prizes, Texas and Florida, where liberal voters dominated the primary electorate. While Gore stayed in the race a few more weeks, he was after “Super Tuesday” dead man walking. Dukakis ultimately won the nomination, but as many of us feared, was branded too liberal, and lost in the fall to the first George Bush. But not for a lack of me trying:
Well, we heard from Gore later, when he joined a fellow Southerner on the 1992 Democratic presidential ticket that finally turned the party’s fortunes around.
So while March 8, 1988 ended up on a sour note, it was a day that changed our country for the better.
And it began my love affair with politics, which continues to this day, albeit from outside any war rooms.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Mar 7, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
At the coffee shop this morning and I notice the subtle difference in how women and men communicate with the same sex when meeting for business purposes. Each table seems to have two people talking away with files and laptops and tablets and legal pads covering up the table leaving a few inches open for their coffee and pastries.
At tables where women are ta…lking to women, they each listen while the other is talking. They are “connecting” and fully engaged with each other.
At tables where men are talking to men, they each are pretending to listen but primarily preparing what they will say next. They aren’t really in connecting mode but rather “transacting mode.”
What is most interesting is that at tables where a man and a women are are having a business conversation the man listens and is trying to “connect” and the women is thinking about what she is going to say next —and trying to pretend like she is connecting.
And here’s the irony: The same man who when talking business with another man knows his colleague isn’t really listening (even though his colleague is pretending to listen), when talking to a women believes they are really connecting (even though his female colleague is only pretending to connect.)
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Mar 6, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
When I was 21 I saw an attractive and vivacious young lady who I had briefly dated at the end of high school. (Actually, I sat behind her taking the SAT and got her phone number. The most impressive work I displayed that entire morning–as memory serves)
Anyway, I got her number again 3 years later and asked her on a date. And we went on a date. I asked her on a second date. This time on a Friday night. She called to say she was running behind and so I watched LA Law for the first time. And liked it.
She called again saying again she was running even later and I watched another show I can’t remember but didn’t like as much as LA Law. And then I watched the early news before getting the call that tonight wasn’t going to work out but asking about Sunday evening for a rain check. I said OK.
But got stood up again Sunday.
We made another date for Wednesday for which I got stood up a third time.
Saturday was The Police concert in Lexington and I got two tickets and invited my SAT friend but ended up only needing one ticket that night. For me.
We tried for a rain check again Sunday but something came up and she had to cancel because she was simply “over-extended.” I was irritated but hadn’t heard the word “over-extended” used in that way by someone my own age and was impressed.
And started using the word often in the same context and still do 30 years later. So, I am appreciative for learning that from her.
We tried for a lunch date Wednesday but it got cut short due to something “beyond her control.” I had heard that excuse before but wasn’t as impressed as I was with the excuse of being “over-extended” and rarely use it myself unless I really am truly desperate and can’t come up with a legitimate reason. Which I remember thinking is what she must have been thinking that day.
Friday we had a date but she explained she couldn’t make it. Without any excuse or apology. Standing me up had gone from being a rude and unexpected surprise to the equivalent of a yawn.
I had heard “boundaries” recently and even heard there was a book out I should read about them. I didn’t know a lot about boundaries but knew they had something to so with being more assertive and were a theory for not letting people take advantage of you.
And so since I had been learning new vocabulary words from my friend, I decided it was my turn and I invoked my own new vocabulary word “boundary.” And the fact that I had them. At least one boundary anyway. Or so I said. Or was at least trying to start having a new boundary. With her anyway.
I calmly explained that she had essentially stood me up for dates 6 times in two weeks and that was “not acceptable” to me. strong words that only emboldened me. I continued that because “I had boundaries” that (and I was very delicate but still deliberate in explaining this part) that there would not be a 7th opportunity to stand me up.
Boundary-wise, I had to be this way because “I respected my self.”
And we hung up and never spoke again.
That’s the end of the story.
I never actually saw with my own eyes the boundaries I created and announced that night. But they must still be there. Since that time I have never let anyone stand me up in business or other (non-dating) areas of my life.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Mar 5, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
I first learned about the 80-20 rule while in business school and it is an ingenious formula that apples not just in the workplace but in every area of life —including marriage
With most couples I know each spouse –almost like a rule of nature –believes he or she is to blame for about 20% of the recurring marital disagreements –while their spouse is respon…sible for the other 80%. And vice versa.
Psychologists and marriage experts tell us the key is sharing that burden equally between the spouses. But such advice flies in the face of science and the 80-20 rule .
My bold innovative idea to solve this age old imbalance is to include a third partner in every marriage. Not a third party that is actively involved at any level of the day-to-day marriage (from finance to romance) but rather an extra person to lay blame on when the primary couple needs to displace blame.
Just do the math. If each primary spouse is willing to accept 20% of the blame , then having a third person available in the marriage for the remaining 60% is the perfect solution! And during periods of above-average disagreements, the third party has another 40% to be absorbed if necessary.
This allows us to use mathematical and scientific principles to our advantage to manage around the 80-20 rule in both work and play –and even within the sanctity of marriage.
By Nancy Slotnick, on Tue Mar 5, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
Today I ordered my new drink at my new favorite coffee bar- Irving Farm. I keep wanting to call it Irving Farms, but that’s not the name. I discovered a few weeks ago that my drink is called a cortado. Thank G-d. I could never decide if I should order a wet macchiato or a dry cappuccino and I felt really stupid either way. Remember the old comic strip Family Circus? (I am dating myself now, and not in a good way.) There was one where the family was at a restaurant and the little girl asked her parents: “I want to get a burger and fries, but do I have to order the Little Miss Muffet?” That’s how I feel about contrived names.
Now when I order my coffee, I sound like a coffee snob. But that is appropriate, since I used to own a coffee bar. I usually get a wink from the barista and some beautiful latte art on my drink, as a nod to the coffee culture that we share. Or I just get a blank stare and an improvised macchiato (when I go to Indie in Lincoln Center.) Either way, there’s some comfort in finally discovering what I have been seeking.
On the opening day of my coffee bar, (that incidentally had a dating service for our customers,) May 29, 1996, it got a mention in Florence Fabricant’s column in the New York Times. She said that it takes a gutsy person to name a place Drip. That gutsy person was me!
The other day when I showed my business plan to a potential investor, who is also a creative type, he said: “The name is not very original, but I like the concept.” Actually, he wrote that in an email that was meant for his business partner and not for me to see. But in the flurry of the magic of Forwarding email trails, I got to find out what he really thinks. And I was totally proud. One of the problems with the name Drip was that people couldn’t figure out what the hell it was or what it meant. Doctors thought it was some twisted intravenous reference. It didn’t meet the Katie Couric 30-second test, but we were on the Today Show multiple times nonetheless.
So this time around I am trying to give my brand a name that explains what it is. There is so much marketing hype in today’s media world and so many ridiculously huge brands to compete with, that I try to keep it simple.
There’s just one thing. Matchmaker Café is an online dating site that sets up real dates in the real world through a real human. But we don’t have our own real café. Call me Miss Nomer. At least for now. But I have come to realize that the “Café” part of “Matchmaker Café” is actually my value added. In ’96 there was no online dating. There was no social media. There was just old-fashioned Café. And that worked.
So I am taking my show on the road. Looking for whatever homes will have my little café kiosk of love. Cafés, bars, retail stores, wineries, public plazas, Whole Foods? Just like Lucy from the Peanuts, I will be setting up shop to give out advice and to foster human connection in a new world where technology can be isolating.
I’m putting the Café back in Matchmaker Café. What’s the main reason? I’m lonely! I have a wonderful husband and son, and I spread love one client at a time right now. But I miss the serendipity of being “out there” where anything can happen. And I want to spread that magic to you.
So watch for me. Follow @MatchmakerCafe on Twitter and Like me on Facebook, and you will find out where I will be next. I could be coming to a neighborhood near you. If I do it right then a Café by any other name will smell as sweet. I hope as sweet as the Rice Krispy treats that we used to sell at Drip!
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Mar 4, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
So, is it better to grow up or stay a boy (or girl) forever?
Watching my daughter this weekend in the play Peter Pan made me a proud dad (so score one–a very big one–for growing up).
But focusing on the merits of the characters, Wendy vs Peter Pan, had me leaning ever-so-slightly in favor of Peter at the end of the play.
I mean, let’s look at their legacies. Wendy had a nice run for several decades when the play was first published and performed. She’s viewed today as a “good girl” and “model daughter.” More Jan than Marcia in Brady Bunch terms. But has she ever had a book written about her neurosis titled “The Wendy Syndrome”?
Nope.
Do we know who played Wendy opposite who played Peter Pan?
Nah. We just know Sandy Duncan played Peter.
And what about having your own line of peanut butter?
Ever heard of Wendy’s peanut butter?
No. Never happened.
And don’t try slipping in Hamburgers. Different Wendy. Different family. I saw her father in the play this weekend and he looks nothing like Dave Thomas.
So, on balance, would the world be better off if Wendy caved and never grew up?
Who’s to say? We would at least probably have another pop-psychology book and additional brand of peanut butter. But as the Wendys of the world would quickly –and correctly–point out, we have plenty of pop-psych books and peanut butter as it is and don’t need more. And note that Wendy grew up to have a nice family in a middle upper class neighborhood.
That’s all true of course. But the Peter Pans of the world would quickly note, Peter has an entourage of lost boys –just like the awesome HBO series! And, of course, Peter is always the last one to bow and gets the most applause –after flying in for his final bow as he drops fairy dust on the audience who is cheering him on.
And you got to admit –even if you are a Wendy—that may not be very mature, but it is pretty cool.
