By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Aug 21, 2013 at 2:30 PM ET  From Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of the Union for Reform Judaism:
Ethan Kadish is a 13-year-old boy in great need of the Reform Jewish community’s help.
On June 29, 2013, the afternoon peace of Shabbat at URJ Goldman Union Camp Institute(GUCI) in Zionsville, IN, was shattered by a lightning strike that left three campers unresponsive on the athletic field. Thanks to the skill, courage, and quick thinking of the GUCI staff, all three campers made it to the hospital and survived this unimaginable tragedy.
This heartrending incident tested the GUCI family, the URJ camp community, and the entire Reform Movement, but none more than the families of the injured campers. Their strength has been nothing short of inspirational. Two of those families’ children, thankfully, recovered and returned home; one even returned to camp. The third camper, Ethan Kadish, remains hospitalized in Cincinnati, OH.
To date, Ethan’s recovery has included a series of successes that began with his survival and includes milestones like opening his eyes, breathing independently, and responding to stimuli. Ethan is in the care of a fantastic medical team and undergoes several hours of intense physical therapy every day. His family looks forward to the day he will return home, but they recognize, too, that even once he’s home, his challenges will continue. Ethan will require regular therapy and constant medical care, which, once he leaves the hospital, likely will not be covered by insurance. Ethan and his family face a long, hard, and, yes, expensive road ahead.
The Kadish family’s remarkable strength comes largely from their faith – faith in the healing power of God, faith in the skill and wisdom of Ethan’s physicians, and faith in the support of the URJ and GUCI communities. We are pledged to maintain that support, ensuring that throughout the challenges ahead, their faith in our communities will not waver.
This week – the week before Ethan was to have celebrated his bar mitzvah – a fundraising campaign in his honor has been launched with HelpHOPELive, a nonprofit organization that assists the transplant community and those who have sustained catastrophic injury. The funds will help Ethan’s family meet immense financial challenges associated with uninsured therapies, home modifications, and other injury-related expenses. All contributions made in Ethan’s honor will be administered by HelpHOPELive, specifically and solely for his injury-related expenses.
Our tradition teaches that Kol Yisrael arevim zeh b’zeh (all Jews are responsible one for the other). Indeed, together with HelpHOPELive, the Reform Jewish family can honor Ethan and his family, sending a strong message that we stand together with all of them during this time of need.
To make a charitable contribution by credit card, please call 800.642.8399 or visit Ethan’s page at helphopelive.org.
To make a donation by check, make checks payable to: HelpHOPELive and include this notation in the memo section: In honor of Ethan Kadish. Mail to:
HelpHOPELive
2 Radnor Corporate Center
100 Matsonford Road, Suite 100
Radnor, PA 19087
Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by the law. This campaign is being administered by HelpHOPELive – a 501(c)(3) nonprofit providing fundraising assistance to transplant and catastrophic injury patients – which will hold all funds raised in honor of Ethan in its Great Lakes Catastrophic Injury Fund.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Aug 21, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET  Click here to order Since I was recently part of a book on dealing effectively with crisis, this piece caught my attention.
AOL CEO brashly and brazenly fired an employee on a conference call last week. An audio of the firing was released to the internet embarrassing the CEO. He today apologized to everyone on the call (1000 employees) via email.
That is a start. But struck me as more of a CYA response than a genuine and heartfelt apology.
He may have had good reason for firing this individual. I don’t know. But if he truly wanted to apologize he should do so on the same (or more personal) medium where the behavior occurred. In this case, a conference call.
 An email is just slightly more personal than a text message.
Or classified ad making a declaration.
If Mr. Armstrong truly wanted to make a real apology that his employees could trust and use to reconsider their thoughts about last weeks’ inflammatory firing incident he could have dug a little deeper, been a little less public, and a little more personal than a blast email with a stock mea culpa.
Just my two cents.
By Rod Jetton, on Wed Aug 21, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET From The Daily Journal:
 Rod Jetton used to be one of the most powerful politicians in the state of Missouri.
In 2000, the Marble Hill Republican was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives. In his second term he was chosen Speaker Pro Tempore, and on Jan. 5, 2005, he was sworn in as the 70th speaker of the House — the second youngest representative to do so.
Then, in 2009, everything began falling to pieces.
That year his nearly 20-year marriage ended in divorce and then, on Dec. 7, Jetton was charged with felony assault related to an incident that occurred on Nov. 15 of that year in which Jetton was alleged to have “recklessly caused serious physical injury” to an unnamed woman.
Following the arrest he closed Rod Jetton & Associate, a political consulting firm which catered to many high-profile clients, including Mitt Romney.
It was a stunning end to a political career that left Jetton’s life shattered. He was out of a job, divorced, separated from his three children and had few friends.
Click here to order Jetton has shared the humiliation and pain he experienced during his “dark night of the soul,” as well as the story of his redemption and rebuilding of his life in a recently published anthology titled “The Recovering Politician’s Twelve Step Program To Survive Crisis.”
The book, edited by former Kentucky State Treasurer Jonathan Miller, offers a forum to 12 politicians who suffered defeat, disgrace and degradation, yet went on to create a new and more contented life for themselves.
Jetton has written the eighth step in surviving a crisis: “Own Your Mistakes, Take Responsibility and Sincerely Say ‘I’m Sorry.’”
“My predicament was largely my own doing,” says Jetton. “But it was taking responsibility for my mistakes that set me free.”
Jetton admits it was his strong work ethic that helped him to build a successful real estate agency, win a seat in the state House and ultimately become Speaker. It was putting everything into his work to the exclusion of everything else that he believes ultimately led to his downfall.
“The biggest mistake I made was not having balance in my life,” admits Jetton. “I worked too hard at politics and forgot about my family, friends, community … and sometimes, the whole reason I went to Jefferson City in the first place. I remember telling my ex-wife that when the first campaign was over I would be home more. Then the legislative session started and I said that after session I would be home more. Then I was gone working on redistricting, and when that was done, the next session started … and after that I was working night and day to win the majority. I told her once we won the majority I would be home more.”
Jetton says that nobody was happier than him when term limits ended his official position in 2008. He was tired of feeling responsible for fixing all the problems in the state and tired of getting beaten up in the press and fearing his political enemies. Jetton believed that as a private citizen he would be able to be work behind the scenes on his friends’ campaigns without being in the crosshairs himself.
“Unfortunately, my marriage was in bad shape by that time; and even though I was out of office, things continued to get worse,” he recalls. “In early 2009 we separated, and by October we were divorced.”
Jetton was a 42-year-old successful divorced man whose personal life wasn’t turning out as he’d planned.
“My dad was a Baptist preacher, and the best parents in the world had given me a perfect childhood,” he says. “I was a family values conservative Republican who was not supposed to have these types of problems. I won’t go into details, but my life was not reflecting the teaching my parents had taught me, nor was I being the example I wanted my kids to see.”
Then things went from bad to worse for Jetton.
“After spending the night with a lady I had reconnected with on Facebook, I was charged with felony assault,” he says. “The press, along with my enemies, had a heyday. I immediately shut down my consulting business. Soon after that I was notified that I was a target of a federal grand jury investigation surrounding my handling of a bill in the 2005 legislative session.”
And what was the most difficult moment he had to face?
“It was having to tell my dad what happened,” says Jetton. “He has always been a tough man who lived what he believed, but he loved me and stuck with me through all this.”
At the lowest point of his life, Jetton says things began to turn around. He was never convicted in the assault case and the grand jury suspended their investigation into the ethics allegation and never charged him with a crime. He slowly began to gain back the respect he lost from his bad choices.
“I’m thankful for all the successes I was a part of,” says Jetton. “I’m also grateful for all the kind people I met along the way who helped and encouraged me. But I wish I would have worked less and stayed home more; been more forgiving and not gotten bitter at my opponents; been less prideful, less judgmental and more understanding. Plus, I wish I had lived the personal life I believed, instead of being such a hypocrite. Of course, I can’t change the past. I can only look to the future and focus on learning from my mistakes.”
This time Jetton says his life has a new foundation and purpose … and it’s not politics. He credits his personal faith in Jesus Christ for turning his life around.
“Each morning I wake up and thank God for the day,” he says. “I spend more time with my family and stay connected with my friends. I have a lovely new wife, a great job and a contentment I never knew in my first 42 years of life.”
He says that sooner or later everyone is going to make a mistake and do something stupid that they’ll regret.
“It happens to celebrities, business leaders and athletes, but it also happens to parents, kids and everyday people,” says Jetton. “Anyone who has made a mistake that becomes public has a problem. How you deal with it will either make it a bigger problem or put it in the rearview mirror.”
He says a cautionary tale can be found in the scandal that enveloped New York Congressman Anthony Weiner when illicit pictures of him appeared on the Internet after he had been sending them to his followers on Twitter.
“Weiner’s immediate response was to deny culpability,” says Jetton. “Once he was caught in the lie, he was soon forced out of office.”
Now looking to return to public service, Weiner has admitted he sent additional tweets to other women even after he admitted his transgressions, apologized to his wife and resigned from Congress.
“He obviously didn’t learn his lesson the first time,” says Jetton. “I’m glad I did.”
By Artur Davis, on Tue Aug 20, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET The counter-attack on NBC’s Hillary Clinton miniseries will end up, like most of the pseudo fights in the culture wars, paying dividends for every faction in the dispute. Republicans will stoke their base with this newest evidence that powerful media elites harbor a liberal bias; NBC will end up reaping as many as 40-50 million viewers for two nights of television, the kind of ratings bonanza that is supposedly a thing of the past for non football events; and Hillary’s status as a political heavyweight is enhanced. Everybody not aligned with Joe Biden’s or Cory Booker’s presidential ambitions ends up winning.
But rather than dwell on the lines that a network crosses in promoting a potential candidate’s image when its news division will regularly be making coverage judgments about that candidate, and vetting tips and storylines that could weaken the bet its entertainment division is placing, Republicans would do better to remember why those lines are being crossed. Putting partisan blinders aside, it has infinitely more to do with the television industry’s single mindedness about money than any cheerleading agenda. And the nature of the popularity that makes NBC confident that a Clinton miniseries will pay off ought to stress Republicans considerably more than what questions an NBC moderator would pose during a Republican debate.
This is the Hillary threat in its broadest context: she is for a generation of professional women, the most conspicuous example of an exquisitely successful balance between motherhood, marriage, and career; for consumers of the last twenty years worth of political/celebrity culture, the Clintons are on a very short list of figures in this era whose reputation has survived so long and actually prospered (maybe Oprah, Buffett and Gates) ; and the resilience inside that survival is the kind of narrative that props up the self help-fixated space in our psychology that knows no class, gender, racial or ideological boundaries. Note that not one line of that portfolio has anything to do with her emerging childcare platform, her just rolled out proposal to undo voting restrictions, or her stewardship of the massive infrastructure that is the State Department, or any of the other standard policy components of a candidacy that her putative 2016 rivals are laboring to assemble right now.
 Put another way, NBC is not so much creating a phenomenon around Hillary Clinton: it is preparing to make money from the phenomenon that already exists. And since the mythology that makes Hillary worthy of a commercial gamble is completely separated from her politics, conventional campaign attacks—politics as usual—will struggle to diminish that foundation. That’s not to say that 2016 is destined to be a coronation, but that certain casual assumptions about a Hillary race shouldn’t be as glibly tossed off as they are some in GOP consultant circles—namely that Obama fatigue will damage her, that she has already blown one presidential opportunity, or that the appetite for something novel will undercut her as it did in 2008.
Every one of those intuitions about Clinton’s vulnerability seems sound enough until they roll up against one undeniable fact: five years ago, her brand wasn’t strong enough that a network (and let us not forget a big screen movie in development) would have even considered betting its capital on her. The Hillary of 2008 was too wrapped in the psychodrama of her husband’s adventures, too polarizing, too retrograde to justify that kind of high stakes wager. For whatever combination of reasons, from one more bout of redemption by serving the president who defeated her, to the possibility that after the last four years, experience and bipartisan appeal seem valuable again, the Hillary of the present is decidedly more formidable: ultimately, she has reversed the disintegration over time concept that erodes most brands, a sizable achievement given our chronically weak attention span.
Read the rest of…
Artur Davis: Fear Hillary!
By RP Staff, on Mon Aug 19, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Aug 16, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
An excerpt from The RP’s latest column in The Daily Beast:
The right is right: President Obama is waging a War on Coal. But his fierce, regulatory-based offensive was an inevitable consequence of the GOP’s unrelenting war on the President and his climate policy. Unless the two sides sign a truce — and put meaningful energy into breakthrough cleaner coal technologies — not only will rural Appalachia be devastated in the crossfire, but our planet’s long term health will suffer.
===
Nestled into the Appalachian hills, hollers, and hamlets of my old Kentucky home, you’ll find a largely poor but proud people, mostly united by a passion for God, Wildcat basketball and a simple black mineral that serves as the bedrock of the region’s sense of self. Thanks to more than a century’s worth of deep family connections to the mining vocation, as well as a brilliant decade-long public relations campaign waged by the industry, most Eastern Kentuckians share a profound emotional tie to the black rock, and a jaundiced resentment toward those outsider elites who want to deprive them of their geological birthright.
So, as the coal business suffers markedly — just last week, a study revealed that Kentucky coal jobs are at their lowest level since the state started counting in 1927 — most locals follow the lead of their political leadership and level their fury against President Obama’s “War on Coal.” And while the resurgence of cheap natural gas is the primary factor in Appalachian coal’s declining competitiveness, there’s no question that a significant threat to the economic viability of the region has been posed by the Obama EPA’s increased regulation of coal powered plants and mining projects (only one permit has been issued in the past three years for new or expanded surface mining in Eastern Kentucky).
The good news is that a middle ground can be reached that helps boost the region’s economy, while promoting energy independence and a healthier global environment: development of affordable, cutting-edge technologies that enable coal combustion with dramatically reduced greenhouse gas emissions. The challenge is that any broadbased employment of cleaner coal solutions will require both sides of the debate to reach for common ground. And that’s a daunting prospect given our hyper-partisan, polarized system.
Click here to read “How to End the War on Coal”
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Aug 14, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET The flip side of addiction is an unraveling of many things: hurt, loss, fear, shame, loneliness, emptiness and aridness. Coupled with an intensity of feelings, passions, dreams, and idealism —all surrounded by an overwhelming craving for love and affirmation to fill in the gaping pieces missing from an un-whole life.
And then there is the undisciplined promise and lingering sense of pending defeat made endurable only from the well of undeveloped latent –and misguided– talent.
The addict is in many ways the ultimate tightrope walker. If his demons prevail and he falls to one side, he dies. But if he taps into some sort of divinity in the universe or in himself, he falls to the other side. And soars.
No public person I can think of embodies this beautifully treacherous balancing act more harrowingly (and inspiringly) than Robert Downey Jr.
He has ridden the roller coaster of addiction–and its flip side– publicly and dramatically into our hearts and minds–and souls.
Robert Downey Jr wrote and performed this piano ballad, Snakes (first video)
And more recently in a duet with Sting performed the aptly named Driven to Tears (second video).
In each video he shows us a glimpse of the depth of the brilliant and painful artistry tamped down so deeply inside this man-boy who can and has fallen far and hard. And soared so high and fantastically that only he can describe it. And he has touched us as we enjoy the honor and pleasure of witnessing his talent escape the bonds of his addictions and soar before us as we smile and applaud.
Here’s hoping he keeps falling to the beautiful side of his dichotomous daily walk— and soaring for yet another day.
And here’s hoping the very same glorious reprieve for all other addicts.
By Mark Nickolas, on Wed Aug 14, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET From Pure Politics, CN2:
The revelations about the National Security Agency’s phone tracking programs are only the latest iteration of the lengths the government has gone to stretch the law in the name of national security, said a former Kentucky political consultant.
Mark Nickolas, now a film school graduate, was selected to film a documentary on Abdullah al-Kidd, who along with the ACLU, has sued the government after authorities detained Kidd in the wake of 9-11 under what’s called the federal material witness law. The film is called A Cloud of Suspicion.
Kidd, a Kansas-born college football player in Idaho who had only recently converted to Islam, was arrested in March 2003 at Dulles Airport and held under the material witness law under the guise of being called as a witness against a fellow Muslim and University of Idaho student. Kidd was held for 15 months and never called to testify.
The New York Times first reported on Kidd’s saga and has followed it as Kidd and the ACLU have taken it to court. Now the ACLU granted Nickolas access to some of its information and key players as Nickolas puts together the film, which he said will show how the Bush administration overreached, the Obama administration failed to correct it and the U.S. Supreme Court has failed to properly check the powers, including when it comes to “abuse” of the federal material witness law.
“You don’t have the same constitutional rights as a witness. You don’t have Miranda rights because you’re not being charged as a criminal,” Nickolas told Pure Politics (2:30 of the video). You’re being held as a witness. So it’s more insidious than what we had ever done before.
(2:30)
Click here for the full story.
Here’s the video:
And here’s Nickolas’ trailer:
A Cloud of Suspicion (Extended Project Trailer) from Mark Nickolas on Vimeo.
By RP Staff, on Mon Aug 12, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET Excellent piece by Kevin McDermott for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
 ST. LOUIS • Former political adversaries Jeff Smith and Rod Jetton sat at a long table at Pi Pizzeria on Delmar next to a stack of crisp softcover books, scrawling their signatures and chatting with a couple dozen patrons lined up around them.
On the menu was complimentary deep-dish pizza, soft drinks and humility.
“Hopefully, people can learn from the mistakes I made,” said Smith, whose preprison political talents were once compared to those of Barack Obama. “Really smart people learn from other people’s mistakes.”
Next to him, Jetton — in that retro-political fashion statement, the seersucker suit — explained how his own politics have changed as a result of his downfall. “I’m not near as judgmental,” said the one-time most powerful conservative in the Missouri House. “You make as many mistakes as I have, it’s hard to be judgmental, right?”
In this age of felonious governors, groping mayors and “sexting” congressmen, Smith and Jetton may not particularly stand out. But their crimes (respectively: lying to the feds about campaign shenanigans, and letting a consensual sexual encounter turn violent) are enough to qualify them as part of a growing modern phenomenon: fallen pols on redemption tours.
Smith, a Democrat and former Missouri state senator, and Jetton, a Republican and former Missouri House speaker, each wrote a chapter in the new book, “The Recovering Politician’s Twelve Step Program to Survive Crisis.”
Click here to order Smith served almost a year in prison after lying to federal investigators about an anonymous smear campaign in his unsuccessful 2004 run for Congress against Russ Carnahan. Smith, now an assistant professor at the New School for Public Engagement in New York, penned a chapter in the book aptly titled, “Tell the Truth: Don’t Even Go Near the Line.”
Smith’s lie collapsed when his “former best friend” wore a wire at the behest of investigators. In the book, Smith recounts telling his parents he might go to prison.
“My mom’s lips quivered. ‘I knew it from the start. Knew you’d get mixed up in something like this. I tried to tell you what politics was like.’
“My dad … asked, ‘How do they even know you lied? What proof could they have?’
“‘Steve’s been wearing a wire for the last couple months.’
“‘That (expletive),’ said my dad.”
Read the rest of…
For Missouri politicians gone bad, redemption over pizza
By RP Nation, on Thu Aug 8, 2013 at 1:30 PM ET  Click here to purchase Book Review “Musings from the Middle” John Y Brown III ISBN 9781483907345 Published by The Recovering Politician 2013 Lexington, KY 365 pages
****
Four fortnights before his 50th birthday, John Y Brown III, with tongue in cheek and pen in hand, wryly and dryly ruminates about how many more “youthful” indiscretions he might fit in before it’s too late. Alas, it’s too late. He can’t think of any.
Brown’s new book “Musings from the Middle” (Lexington, KY July 2013) is a collection of insights and incites about the monumental and mundane events of every-day life.
Through scores of well-crafted essays, meditations, reflections and quips about family, technology, celebrities, food, travel, music, movies, and politics, Y 3 takes the reader on a life journey that includes details of his inept courtship plan upon meeting Rebecca, his future wife (he would give her his card and tell her to call him); the emotional ups and downs caused by his fluctuating KLOUT score; assaults upon his self-esteem based on a paucity of ‘likes’ on his business Facebook page; his ill-conceived strategy for backing up an iPhone with an iPhone (which he compares to “backing up a spare tire with a spare tire”); the liberating day of self-discovery when he removes “skiing” as his favorite sport from his Facebook profile when he suddenly realizes he has been skiing twice in the last 28 years; his personal victory over Demon Rum and his brash and brilliant revision to Friedrich Nietzche’s warning about the abyss (“if you stare long enough into the abyss it will wink at you and you will both giggle simultaneously”.)
While the author appears in every anecdote, the book is not about him– it is about us. Skillfully written with gentle humor and compassionate commiseration, the anecdotes catalogue the follies, foibles, delusions and illusions of the human condition as well as the victories and joys of being human.
John Y Brown III does not take himself too seriously. But his readers should. He is a thoughtful and thought-provoking essayist, a practical philosopher and wise man, armed with a disarming wit and, like Michel de Montaigne, graced with a humble personal motto: “ I’m not sure.”
Donald Vish is a Louisville lawyer, writer and photographer. He is president of Interfaith Paths to Peace and teaches Law and Literature at the University of Brandeis School of Law. He is a frequent contributing writer and reviewer for the Courier-Journal.
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From Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of the Union for Reform Judaism:
