By Nancy Slotnick, on Fri Nov 2, 2012 at 12:15 PM ET
I am Katniss Everdeen and I approve this message. Ok, I’m not her. But I read the trilogy and I know she would be with me on this. Trust me.
Hurricane Sandy did this to my house.
And still when I heard that Mayor Bloomberg endorsed Obama because of his stance on global warming, I thought, “That’s great, maybe something good will come of this!” But I didn’t think much about global warming. Then Senator Schumer said it. And still I thought- they’re politicizing the issue. We just need some FEMA assistance right now. I couldn’t wrap my head around global warming. Maybe I was scared. It was Halloween after all. And we just lost our house.
Global warming is such a lukewarm phrase anyway – it has no bite to it. All I can think of is people who want a cause to complain about. Like Chicken Little with old “the sky is falling” thing. I love the smell of Chicken Little on my grill in the morning. Especially the grill I used to have in Fire Island. We called it circle chicken- because it was on the rotisserie- and it was so good. But I digress and I am getting sad now.
Then BAM– and it hit me. When I started pondering whether we should re-build our house at all, since our house is on a barrier island, I realized– We are destroying our planet and I’ll be lucky if NYC is around when my son grows up. This storm brought the most powerful city in the world to its knees. Way worse in devastation and vulnerability than 9-11. It’s true that because of great decisions on the part of the Mayor and others there were minimal lives lost. But when we lose whole communities, this is bigger than we realize. To anyone who’s even still considering voting for Romney after this—I hope that your roads are flooded and you can’t make it to the voting booths. I hope a fallen telephone pole blocks you from getting to the poll site.
Read the rest of… Nancy Slotnick: What Sandy Did To My Home & My Closing Argument for Obama
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
A couple months ago I took my awesomely cool and stupendously hip daughter on a father – daughter weekend.
She had a choice of a modestly priced event in a reasonably nearby city.
Her choice? Lollapalooza in Chicago How could I say no? I mean, Anthony Kiedis and I are practically soul-mates. We are both about 50 years old, both like the RHCP , think Flea is cool and many, many other similarities too.
There were no other father – daughter couples we could ask to take a good picture of us. So this is as good as I could get.
Was it fun?
It was a disastrous blast.
Maggie is always game and willing to find the possibilities amidst the most unusual circumstances—like hanging with pop at an outdoor rock concert trying to replicate Woodstock with thousands of muddy, sloshed 17-24 year olds. And a 14 and 49 year old.
Oh, I got to see Anthony Kiedas, albeit from several hundred feet away.
I don’t think he saw me, but knowing my soul-mate was alive and well and jammin’ with Flea, made me smile. ; )
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Nov 1, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
(Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
OK, RP Nation: Here is your opportunity to win 2 FREE lower-arena tickets to the defending national champion University of Kentucky Wildcat men’s basketball team’s official home opener at Lexington’s Rupp Arena, versus Lafayette University, on Friday, November 16 at 7:00 PM.
(Note to the uninitiated: This prize is a big deal. If you do not understand how big a deal this is, read Why Kentucky Basketball Matters.)
The award will be presented to the winner of our Electoral College contest — the individual who most accurately predicts the final Electoral College vote, with tiebreakers and stipulations listed below.
To win this prize, you must abide by the following instructions — which will be interpreted literally by the contest judge, me:
The 2008 Electoral College Map
1. Go to The Recovering Politician‘s new RP Facebook Page, Facebook.com/RecoveringPol, If you haven’t already, “Like” the page. No likey — no win.
2. Make your predictions in the Comments section of the “Official Contest Post” at the new RP Facebook Page, which is labeled very clearly as such. Entries sent in by email or posted elsewhere will be disqualified.
3. Only one entry per person. If you have more than one entry, only the most recent one will qualify.
4. Comments must be entered by 6:00 AM EST on Tuesday, November 6. Entries made later will be disqualified.
5. Your entry into the comments section of the Official Contest Post shall include:
Your prediction of the 2012 Electoral College tally. I.e., Obama 269, Romney 269
First tiebreaker: Your prediction of the partisan composition of the Senate for the next session of Congress. I.e., 50 Democrats, 48 Republicans, 2 Independents.
Second tiebreaker: Your prediction of the partisan composition of the House for the next session of Congress. I.e. 230 Republicans, 205 Democrats.
6. Because recounts are very likely, particularly in Congressional races, to calculate the winners, I will use the vote tallies that are listed in the print edition of Thursday morning, November 8 New York Times. While these tallies will undoubtedly be incomplete for many races, and winners will not be declared in several campaigns, whoever is leading as of the Thursday morning tally will be the winner for the purposes of determine our champion.
7. The winner will be awarded my two awesome lower arena tickets (Section 23, Row RR) for the University of Kentucky’s home opener against Lafayette University on Friday, November 16 at 7:00 PM. The winner will make arrangements with me to pick up the tickets or have them placed in will call. Transportation or any incidental costs associated with attending the UK game must be assumed by the winner of the contest. And I ain’t paying for your dinner.
8. I retain the right to make all eligibility decisions and winner calculations, as well as the right to withhold the prize from any obnoxious Duke Blue Devil fan.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Oct 31, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
I was once a millionaire.
Not for long. But for about a year. And I only recently found out about it. Even though it happened some 40 years ago, I find myself reflecting a lot recently on that year—“My Big Year.” And asking myself, what went wrong and what can I learn from it?
In 1971 my father sold his controlling interest in Kentucky Fried Chicken. He made a good deal of money and, as the story goes,
created a $1M trust for each of his three children, my two sisters (Sissy and Sandy) and me.
Which was a surprise hearing about all these years later since my father reminded us regularly growing up that he didn’t believe in giving his children money because it would take away their motivation. But this one time, he apparently did. (In my teens I once suggested he test his theory by doing a pilot project with me as the one child who gets money–and my two sisters as the control groups— and see how I do. “If I fail,” I reasoned, “you can continue with your current policy and be reassured by recent supporting data that you are doing the right thing.” But all I got was a laugh.)
Anyway, I was 8 years old at the time and totally oblivious to the fact that I was a millionaire. At least I was “on paper,” as a lot of millionaires seem to be fond of saying. I’m not sure what that means but I like the sound of it and so I’m repeating it here.
Read the rest of… John Y’s Musings from the Middle: I Once Was a Millionaire
“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.”
–Eleanor Roosevelt
“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
— Mark Twain
“The best part about being my age is in knowing how my life worked out.”
— Scott Adams
I’m particularly drawn to this last quote. It has me thinking about life as a story, experiences filling the pages of each chapter, and chapters are all made complete by both insignificant and significant details.
As I think about this, I see that we can’t possibly know the relevance of an experience until many experiences later when they’ve all been assembled and integrated into the story line.
But even having been the one to have lived my own experiences doesn’t automatically make me well versed in the symbolism and meaning therein.
Could I lead a high school or college English seminar on the symbolism of love, addiction, family, grief, bliss, and all the living that has been the great work of my life so far? Hmmm.
Hell, yes. I force my teen daughters to take this class almost every day. (I’m sure they’d say “hell” was a good way to begin this paragraph.) But they are allowed to audit because I am a kind and righteous mother.
But perspective isn’t immediate—it tends to be quite a little journey down that road of whatever experience and accompanying emotional stuff it features—it has to be that way, the panoramic view requires distance and space. And similarly, the plot doesn’t make sense when you read only chapter 18.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Oct 30, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
“When I was a child….I spake as a child….but when I became an adult, I still wanted to sound younger than I really am.”
Really.
There probably should be a rule that people over, say, age 34 shouldn’t be allowed to use hip lingo. Because it never sounds as good as hoped when a midster (or beyond) tries using new jargon. And often goes far worse than was foreseen as possible.
For example, the other night while in California, a hypothetical person (we’ll say “a friend”) was overheard trying to use the terminology “Hooked up” while talking to several younger colleagues.
“So, a couple years later they hooked up again in New York. Not, like, the modern “hooking up” but, you know, the more….the older…I mean more traditional meaning of hooking up. I mean. They didn’t …I’m not saying they, like, you….ha…um….you know. I don’t mean intimately. It’s possible, isn’t it, to hook up and not be about sex, right?”
Colleague: “It can.”
Hypothetical person (friend): “OK. That’s the kind of hooking up I was trying to infer..I mean imply. So, anyway….the more traditional meaning of hooking up. I tell you what….Let me start over. Do you know what “meet up” means?”
Colleague: “Yes.”
Hypothetical person (friend): “OK, They met up in New York….Just forget my whole experiment with trying to fit “hooked up” into my story. It was a bad idea.”
Our Gen Y closing argument debate cannot be complete without hearing from the generation’s unofficial spokeswoman, actor/writer/director Lena Dunham. Here’s her controversial Obama endorsement, “First Time.”
By Nancy Slotnick, on Tue Oct 30, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
So ever since Romney used that phrase, I have gotten boatloads full of nostalgic comments about Drip, the dating-café that I started in the late ‘90s. That’s because we actually did have binders full of women. Women seeking Men. Women seeking women. And we set them up on dates. With Matchmaker Café, we now do the same thing—i.e. set up men and women on real dates at a real café, and we introduce them when they get there. Even though we now have all the technology we can imagine for meeting online, we still need that human interaction. We still need personalized service and hand holding, even though we have Facebook. Even though we have these things called aircraft carriers.
What made that comment about binders full of women so funny? I think it was the irony. If women were really equal in the world of politics, then Romney wouldn’t need to round up women in binders. He wouldn’t have to go any farther then his own backyard. They would already be on his short list. So the binders represent a problem endemic to the system. As did the binders at Drip. They represented the same kind of problem.
When the world was simpler and people usually grew old in the same town where they had grown up, they would meet their mates through family and friends. There were local community hang-outs and places like Cheers where everybody knows your name. (Drip got compared to Cheers a lot.) Today there’s a level of anonymity and isolation in big cities that engenders a problem when it comes to dating. You need those binders full of women. And you don’t have a staff like Romney did to round them up. Luckily you’re only looking for one.
So why is it, in this age of Facebook, that no one uses Facebook for dating? Facebook is our backyard, and it is the technological equivalent of binders full of women, yet there is embarrassment around your Facebook friends knowing that you are single. When I coach women about dating, I talk about turning your Cablight on, which means showing that you’re available. When you turn it on then you get more and better dates. But when Matchmaker Café wants to show your friends that you are using the App, a lot of you have told me that you want to turn off that feature.
What damage will be done if you’re friends know that you are single or that you are using Matchmaker Café? Why is there a stigma? Who has time for this ambivalence and mixed messages? (Besides Romney’s staff.) You have to show that you’re available by being open to rejection, and even embracing rejection. You have to post publicly for what you are looking for, even if it’s embarrassing. I’m going to do that right now. I’m looking for a café owner or small hospitality group in NYC who would like to partner with me to do a re-make of Drip. We will have binders full of women. But this time the binders will be digitized on iPads and the profiles will utilize Facebook to tap into the existing social graph. Why? Because Facebook is online dating’s equivalent of nuclear submarines. And because it will be so much fun.
By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Oct 24, 2012 at 4:00 PM ET
I feel compelled to interrupt this site’s bi-partisan coverage of the impending 2012 election to address a rumor that has much greater implications that any silly political race:
I am NOT having an affair with soccer star David Beckham.
Let me say it another way to make myself clear, so that there is no room for misinterpreting my statement, and to fully protect the privacy of my family and of David, his Spice Girl wife and his beautiful children:
I have NEVER had sexual relations with that man, Mr. Beckham.
And I beg you to please share this post with all of your friends (Facebook and real), Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram– hell even MySpace, Friendster, fax, and mimeograph (sniff first) the story to everyone you know.
Of course, please be sure to spell my name correctly — there are two ‘A’s and only one ‘O’ and one ‘H’ in Jonathan — and please, please, please be sure to remember the ‘the’ in my Web site TheRecoveringPolitician.com.
Oh, and here’s another poor soul who knows exactly how I am suffering from the false rumors, innuendo, and lack of full public inspection of the issues at hand:
By Jason Atkinson, on Wed Oct 24, 2012 at 1:30 PM ET
We did it. You did it.
Last night our indiegogo site closed and we raised $35,000.
Thank you- Thank you everyone- This project has 89 supporters from across the globe who want to see this happen. – From my close friends the Browns being first to two generations of river guides – the Borg family – being last. Thank you.
Every nickel you helped us raise in the last month gave the project credibility.
Now what? Spread the good word and help us find investor partners in philanthropy, institutional investors, business partners and our friends in the tribal community.
