Please sign the petition below to remove the statue of Jefferson Davis currently in Kentucky’s Capitol Rotunda, and replace it with a tribute to Muhammad Ali, “the Louisville Lip” and “the Greatest of All Time.”
I just heard from the Ali family: It is the Champ’s belief that Islam prohibits three-dimensional representations of living Muslims. Accordingly, I have adjusted the petition to call for a two-dimensional representation of Ali (a portrait, picture or mural) in lieu of a statue.
UPDATE (Tuesday, December 2, 2014)
In this interview with WHAS-TV’s Joe Arnold, Governor Steve Beshear endorses the idea of honoring Muhammad Ali in the State Capitol (although he disagrees with removing Davis). Arnold explores the idea further on his weekly show, “The Powers that Be.”
Click here to check out WDRB-TV’s Lawrence Smith’s coverage of the story.
And here’s my op-ed in Ali’s hometown paper, the Louisville Courier-Journal.
UPDATE (Saturday, June 4, 2016)
In the wake of the 2015 Charlestown tragedy, in which a Confederate flag-waving murderer united the nation against racism, all of the most powerful Kentucky policymakers — U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, Governor Matt Bevin, Senate President Robert Stivers and House Speaker Greg Stumbo — called for the removal of the Davis statue from the Rotunda. Today, as we commemorate last night’s passing of Muhammad Ali, there is no better moment to replace the symbol of Kentucky’s worst era with a tribute to The Greatest of All Time.
UPDATE (Wednesday, June 8, 2016):
Great piece by Lawrence Smith of WDRB-TV in Louisville on the petition drive to replace Jefferson Davis’ statue in the Capitol Rotunda with a tribute to Muhammad Ali.
UPDATE (Thursday, June 9, 2016):
Excellent piece on the petition drive by Jack Brammer that was featured on the front page of the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Highlight of the article:
Miller said he has received a few “angry comments” on his call to honor Ali.
“One of them encouraged me to kill myself,” he said. “You can quote me that I have decided not to take their advice.”
UPDATE (Friday, June 10, 2016)
The petition drives continues to show the Big Mo(hammed): check out these stories from WKYU-FM public radio in Bowling Green and WKYT-TV, Channel 27 in Lexington:
UPDATE (Saturday, June 11, 2016):
Still not convinced? Check out this excerpt from today’s New York Times:
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue May 7, 2013 at 10:26 AM ET
James Comer, hemp, and the Fiddler on the Roof
When my alarm clock rang this morning at 4:30, my first thought was to remind myself — never again travel with a farm boy.
Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer and I left on a 6 AM flight for DC this morning to begin our lobbying efforts on behalf of hemp legalization. Comer who’s run a beef cattle farm since he was old enough to…uh, what exactly do you do on a beef cattle farm? Well, it is clear that like most farmers — who Paul Harvey eloquently stated were created by God on the eighth day — beef cattle farmers like Comer like to get up really early — way too early for this city slicker.
But fortunately Comer’s early waking habits have put us in good shape for a full day’s of productive meetings in Washington. While we will meet with an alphabet soup of federal agencies this afternoon — EPA, DOE, USDA, CEQ, WTF — we have started meeting with experts on the issue: Michael Bowman, who has led the successful fight for hemp legalization in Colorado, and Eric Steenstra, who leads Vote Hemp, one of the leading national organizations supporting hemp legalization.
One early lesson: A key focus of our efforts will be to seeking an amendment of the Farm Bill with hemp legalization language.
So, as we head back into our meetings, please help us out. Here are three very simple things that you can do — right now, at your computer — to register your support for legalized industrial hemp and pressure Washington to fulfill the people’s will:
Contact your Senators to urge them to co-sponsor and support S. 359, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013. introduced by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rand Paul (R-KY) that would exclude hemp from the definition of marijuana and allow states to legalize and regulate the product.
By Nancy Slotnick, on Tue May 7, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
If the friend of my enemy is my enemy, then is the friend of my date going to be my date? A lot of guys may want it that way. (and some girls too.) What about the Facebook friend of my date? Facebook doesn’t make it easy to keep your dating life on the down low. If you are Facebook friends with your date, then chances are she has her ways of finding out who else you are dating. And that’s a good thing in my book. If you are really trying to two-time your girlfriend with her best friend you should at least have the decency to be stealthy about it.
The public nature of Facebook also makes it complicated to use Facebook for dating. You want to use your social network to find dates, but you also don’t want everyone in your social network to know everything you’re doing.
So a lot of people try to keep their social life and their dating life separate. I have been a dating coach for over a decade. I teach singles how to expand their network to try to get more dates. And I have to say from my experience, on the prospect of keeping your social life and your dating life separate: “How stupid is that?” Sorry if that doesn’t sound very professional. But it gets me all riled up when I see inefficiency. Dating is an inefficient process anyway. Trying to keep your social network and your dating network separate is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
It’s been scientifically proven that your mate is highly likely to be within 2 degrees of separation from you. [I read this in Scientific American] One of the biggest complaints that I hear from singles is that it’s so hard to meet people. So you have to start with who you know and the easiest way to find them, i.e. Facebook.
Read the rest of… Nancy Slotnick: Facebook Frenemies
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon May 6, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Re-thinking old assumptions and Prince Charming.
We go through life locked in to certain beliefs, goals and aspirations. That is fine but many of the beliefs we carry with us at ages 20,30, 40 and beyond are based on subconscious decisions we made when we were children. We adopted a belief about ourselves, the world and what we wanted to do in life and, in many instances, have never pulled out those beliefs and looked at them from an adult perspective. Maybe they were good assumptions we made about life and we decide, as an adult, to keep that belief. But others won’t be as sensible to our grown-up selves as they seemed when we were, say, age 10.
Think about Prince Charming. Ladies this is for you. We men are told that all women want to marry a Prince Charming.
I am now into my 21st year of marriage to my wonderful wife, Rebecca. She once told me when we were dating all women, including her, want to marry Prince Charming. I said, “Really? Think about it. Have you ever seen pictures of the guy? He looks boring and kinda like a dandy (this was before “metrosexual” was term).”
“Sure,” I conceded, “he was handsome but what would you talk about after the first date? Probably him. It would be all about him. You can tell by looking at him. Do you really want that?”
I honestly can’t remember anything else about that conversation. It probably ended then. My real goal was to set the bar much lower for me than Prince Charming so I could step over it. I did successfully set the bar lower. Whether I have stepped over it or not is a question only Rebecca can answer. But at least I’m not a “Dandy”
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon May 6, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
Get up close and personal to whales, icebergs and flying penguins…what’s not to love about an Antarctic zodiac ride? A certain highlight of any Antarctica expedition are the zodiac rides cruising between massive icebergs, having whales swim up to check you out and seeing the unexpected beauties of Antarctica. While the view from the ship is great and the landings incredible, the zodiac rides provide an opportunity to get close to key parts of the Antarctic ecosystem.
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How often do you get to be in a boat that is dwarfed by an animal? Not just an animal, but a curious animal that wants to see what you’re all about? The sealife’s interest in the zodiacs is unforgettable, especially if you get to have a leopard seal try to eat your zodiak (it can’t, but that doesn’t stop them from taking a bite).
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Icebergs are beautiful from a distance, but stunning up close. Often I found myself just staring, mouth agape, at the array of colors, textures and angles of the icebergs. What my mind tells me should look like giant ice cubes are really so much more, acting as kaleidoscopes, coloring everything nearby.
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This Georgia O’Keeffe iceberg beckoned our zodiac closer with the array of colors and…uh…welcoming shape. You know, like her flower paintings…
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As the light of the day changes so do the colors reflected by the icebergs. By the later afternoon the contrasts between blues and whites increase as the shadows progress around the seemingly infinite shapes. During the still morning and evening hours the reflections become supreme, revealing the true vastness of Antarctica where the views are truly endless.
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As you can see, the zodiac rides are an unforgettable part of a journey to Antarctica. When booking your Antarctic cruise make sure that your ship has enough zodiacs for all passengers to disembark at the same time and that these rides are part of your trip.
Choose a guide. The crews of many ships are multi-national. To get the best experience choose a guide that natively speaks your language, ideally with cultural similarities because they’ll understand what you want to see.
Dress warm. Of course, it’s Antarctica…but the zodiac rides are even colder because of the wind, make sure you have and wear wind/waterproof jackets, pants, hats and gloves. Actually just wear everything you brought…
Consider a waterproof camera. While they take terrible photos most of the time, the underwater photos and videos of sea lions and whales people took were incredible. Of course this requires sticking your hand underwater…so have waterproof gloves or a dry back-up pair to slip on after submerging your hand!
Institutional America has knocked the start out of us. We need to get back to being great at starting things in our country. Calling all entrepreneurs. This means you. Yes, you. In talking with some of the most entrepreneurial people on the planet I am surprised by how many don’t think of themselves as entrepreneurs. When did that happen? Our economic history is all about starting stuff but we have gotten away from our entrepreneurial heritage. We need a national entrepreneurship movement, one that transforms our current entrepreneurship conversation.
Many visitors to the Entrepreneur StoryBooth, an on-line platform the Business Innovation Factory (BIF) launched with Babson College to capture the voice and experience of entrepreneurs, have shared that despite significant experience in starting stuff they don’t think of themselves as entrepreneurs. The prevailing definition of an entrepreneur just doesn’t seem to apply. I consistently reply asserting the opposite, their experience is exactly what we need in the mix. These diverse stories are critical to changing our national entrepreneurship conversation and launching a new economic era. It’s a big ‘aha’ for me so many entrepreneurs don’t think of themselves that way. I have to admit, upon personal reflection, as much as I love to start new projects, ventures, and movements, I too don’t think of myself as an entrepreneur. Go figure. Clearly, we have serious work to do if our economic future is about entrepreneurship.
When did we reserve the entrepreneur moniker solely for technology ventures started by iconic college dropouts like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg? I know we all love a good company origin story but by elevating these stories to mythical proportions aren’t we placing entrepreneurship out of reach for the rest of us mere mortals.
When did we so completely buy into a national invention narrative suggesting that if we invest enough in university based research it will produce a steady supply of new technologies, companies, and high-wage jobs. We have structured our entire national entrepreneur support system around an invention narrative in the hopes that tech transfer, venture capital, and technology company incubators will give rise to the promised new economy. It’s hard to see it happening any time soon with such a narrow definition of entrepreneurship. Maybe it’s time for a new expanded entrepreneurship narrative and support system.
Read the rest of… Saul Kaplan: Calling All Entrepreneurs
By Jonathan Miller, on Sun May 5, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
This week, I have the honor and pleasure of joining Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer as we meet in Washington, D.C. with an impressive swath of Obama Administration officials — from the White House to the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy to the Environmental Protection Agency — to seek their help in securing the federal legalization of industrial hemp.
Think the pairing of this proud progressive and the conservative Comer to be somewhat unusual? Let me further blow your political assumptions: We will be joined in our advocacy by the unlikely alliance of GOP Establishment favorite Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Tea Party poster child Senator Rand Paul, and liberal Democratic stalwart Congressman John Yarmuth.
This rare burst of No Labels-style Washington bi-partisanship is merely a reflection of the broad, deep and diverse support for hemp’s legalization among Kentuckians of all political persuasions. This March, the Kentucky General Assembly overwhelmingly passed Senate Bill 50 — sponsored by GOP Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Paul Hornback, and strongly championed by Democratic House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins — that establishes an administrative and law enforcement structure for hemp growers should the crop be legalized at the federal level, and would empower Kentucky to jump to the front of the line and establish itself as the national leader on the crop once federal approval was granted.
How have liberals, conservatives and everyone in between found such common ground? It’s because the case for hemp legalization is so compelling:
While support for legalizing hemp’s distant cousin, marijuana, remains controversial (I support legal pot; Comer does not), hemp is not marijuana. The two plants are quite distinct in the way that they appear physically and are cultivated agriculturally. Moreover, smoking hemp can’t get you high; it just might make you feel a little stupid that you tried. Industrial hemp has less than one percent THC, while marijuana ranges from 5 to 20 percent THC content.
Legalized industrial hemp production could emerge as a prolific cash crop that could bring hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue to Kentucky, and many billions of dollars to the United States. There are more than 25,000 uses for the crop, including rope, clothing, automotive paneling and door installation — even makeup.
Most exciting to me — as a clean energy advocate — is hemp’s application as a clean-burning alternative fuel. Hemp burns with no carbon emissions and produces twice as much ethanol per acre as corn. While bio-fuels critics have raised alarms at the diversion of food products into fuel production — causing spikes in food prices — hemp has no such negative economic side effects. As the U.S. struggles with the dual enormous challenges of climate change and dependence on foreign oil, industrial hemp could become a powerful weapon in America’s energy independence arsenal.
Only one thing stands in the way of this exciting economic and environmental progress: The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) continues to classify hemp as an illegal, controlled substance, regardless of its THC potency.
Accordingly, Comer and I — and our bipartisan federal delegation — will be lobbying Obama Administration officials this week to provide Kentucky a waiver from the federal regulations; or better yet, to encourage the DEA to reclassify industrial hemp as legal, regulated agricultural crop.
But while our lobbying efforts will hopefully produce some progress, the key power is in your hands. While a majority of Americans now support legalized marijuana — and presumably a much larger majority supports legal hemp — only when you share your support with your elected officials will they feel the political pressure to take action.
Here are three very simple things that you can do — right now, at your computer — to register your support for legalized industrial hemp and pressure Washington to fulfill the people’s will:
Contact your Senators to urge them to co-sponsor and support S. 359, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013. introduced by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rand Paul (R-KY) that would exclude hemp from the definition of marijuana and allow states to legalize and regulate the product.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri May 3, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
The next “Big Idea”
The most brilliant solutions are usually the most obvious. Mine is no exception. After you hear it, you will want to kick yourself for not thinking of it yourself.
I believe that given the extent of our national debt coupled with individual’s lack of retirement savings and the disappointing failure of multitasking to allow us to complete all of our errands and “action items” each day in our frantic wireless world that never turns off, we need a solution that is bold and “out of the box” — a “game changer,” if you will.
Here’s my idea to solve all these problems. It’s this generation’s Star Wars Missile Defense System. Only better.
We must use our best and brightest scientific minds to get an extension, as it were—via Mother Nature.
We need to slow the rate at which the Earth rotates. Not a lot. Just a little—so that it is barely noticeable after the first month or two (like in the 1970s when the speed limit was dropped to 55 mph to reduce our national usage of and reliance on foreign oil. Car pooling helped to.)
By slowing the Earth’s rotation to lengthen our days from, say, 24 hours to 27 1/2 hours, and our calendars from 365 days a year to 432 days a year, we will buy ourselves the much needed extra time we need to pay down the debt, put away adequate retirement savings, and finally get to check-off our entire “to do” lists including everything from that overdue oil changes to getting our dog’s nails clipped. And we’ll still have extra time left over for flossing, which we seem never to have time for in our current outdated 24/365 system.
Will it work?
I think the Japanese are already doing this and having quantifiable success. Retirement savings are up and cavities are down, per capita
We need to “catch up” and we aren’t able to “speed up” any more. Slowing the Earth to lengthen our calendars is the only thing that makes sense.
Who doesn’t love that feeling of getting an extra week to finish an major assignment you are behind on or moving a conference call you aren’t prepared for to the following week? This solution would do that for everything!
If this doesn’t work, the federal government will be left with no choice but to require the only beverage served in the US to be Red Bull–to speed us up artificially. And not only would that not work since most of us are already hopped up on caffeine, but drinking that much Red Bull daily is really bad for our teeth and causes gingivitis.
This “game changer” solution just makes good common sense! Not to mention political, economic , and dental sense.
Its brilliant but not a panacea. We should still encourage car pooling too. It can’t hurt.
My always sharply-dressed and well-coiffed friend was visiting town last weekend, and both his Mint Tingle Facial Masque and his hair product were commandeered by airline security. So he asked me for a recommendation as to what he should buy to tide his hair over while here. After busting on him for being such a product junkie, I told him – and now I’ll tell you – about my go-to hair product: Kusco-Murphy Lavender Hair Cream. While in all cases one size doesn’t fit all, I’ve seen it work nicely on a variety of hair types, and that’s why I recommend it.
Its texture and weight are perfect, as it’s neither too greasy like some of the heavy waxes out there for guys, nor too sticky like the silicone-based anti-frizz products.
Also, it’s not a gel, so your hair actually looks like hair, not a gravity-defying “blowout” like DJ Pauly D’s signature ‘do from Jersey Shore (check out this amusing video tutorial of him demoing his hair styling technique: “I’m just rubbing the gel around the perimeter”…wha? If your hair has a perimeter, we need to talk. See my Services page.).
Anyway, back to Kusco-Murphy’s lavender goodness.
The smell is amazing, but very subtle, not like you bathed in Axe Body Spray. Although this product is on the expensive side, a little bit goes a long way. The best price I’ve found for an 8 oz jar is $30 plus shipping here or $35 from Arte Salon and Bigelow Chemists in Manhattan. Take a dab and rub it between your palms, then work it in back to front.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu May 2, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
For my entire adult life whenever I would walk past a noisy bar with young intoxicated people and catch their eyes, I have always felt very intimidated—and dismissed —by the rowdy unrestrained “cool” types hanging out at places like that.
Until a few years ago, that is. I’m wearing a blue blazer and slacks and maybe even a tie. It’s not like I fit in. But I was thinking maybe I’m getting cooler with age I’m not as intimidated either. And my our eyes lock with these younger types, it doesn’t feel like they are being dismissive of me anymore.
I really liked the possibility that of the “I’m getting cooler with age” theory, until it happened again last night. And I looked a little deeper into the glazed over eyes of the 25 year old unshaven young man with tattered jeans and a hipster air.
His look of “respect” toward me wasn’t because he thought I was “cool.” It was because I reminded him of someone who could be his boss —and could fire him.
So, I’m not getting cooler with age. I’m just looking more like someone who could fire you.
And after letting that sink in a little bit, I decided, it was even cooler than being cool.
Anthony Weiner and Mark Sanford are both trying to re-assert their power on the political stage, but is there a difference between forgiving and trusting? What are the limits to political redemption and where do we draw the line?
Huff PostLIve: Originally aired on May 1, 2013
Hosted by: Abby Huntsman
Guests:
Jeff Smith @JeffSmithMO (New York, NY) Assistant Professor in the Urban Policy Graduate Program at the New School; Former State Senator for Inner City St. Louis
Caryl Rivers (Boston, MA) Professor of Journalism at Boston University
Jeff Kreisler @jeffkreisler (New York, NY) Comedian and Author
Jordan Barowitz @jordanbarowitz (New York, NY) Former First Deputy Press Secretary for Mayor Bloomberg, Director of External Affairs for The Durst Organization
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