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 John Y. Brown III, on Mon Apr 1, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Biblical interpretation. (My all-time favorite)
When my daughter Maggie was about 6 or 7 years old, I tried reading portions of the Children’s Bible to her.
The first story, of course, was Adam and Eve.
… Always multitasking and preoccupied, Maggie was only half-listening until I mentioned both Adam and Eve were “naked.”
“Naked?!” Maggie’s questioned incredulously as her head whipped around and eye brows furrowed.
“I know, right?” I said. And trying to teach her to think for herself added, “So what’s up with that? Why do you think they would be, you know, naked?”
Maggie squinted her eyes as she pondered the question and then shot back an answer I wasn’t expecting.
She shrugged, and explained, “Maybe they hadn’t invented looking down yet.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Apr 1, 2013 at 10:30 AM ET
Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis, and US Senator Mitch McConnell are teaming up for the sequel to the romantic comedy hit “Friends With Benefits” titled “Friends with Benefits and Super PACs”
Here’s a clip of a video from the new movie with a cameos from JayZ and Sen McConnell.
See if you can pick out which back up dancer is a US Senator.
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Apr 1, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
Going from the Middle East to Latin America was a breath of fresh air. While the sites and experiences of the UAE, Oman, Jordan, Israel, Egypt and Turkey were wonderful, the constraints of daily life wore on us. Here’s what it felt like to escape the Middle East.
HE SAID…
The Middle East is different. While China may be different because of people’s actions, or India different due to hygiene, or Brazil different due to liveliness, it’s hard to put a finger on what exactly is different in the Middle East. It’s not so much an attribute, but a feeling. Being in the Middle East feels different.
No matter where I went I couldn’t get over one thing: half of the population is imprisoned in their clothing. While some places were “more liberal”, almost everywhere we went women had to wear a burqa and head covering. Claim all the “cultural differences”, “religious” and “historical” reasons you want, but to me it is wrong. While the burqa’s fashion disaster itself is reprehensible, what it represents is worse: that women are second-class, they cannot make their own choices. Imprisonment in clothing and culture is the only way I can truly explain it.
Argentina is the polar opposite. Women and men alike are free to choose what to cover and what to leave exposed. Women are allowed to act independently, travel freely, choose their education, and responsible for the consequences of their own actions. While the Middle East is about limits, Latin America is about a life without limits. The attitudes, personalities and styles of Argentina were a much needed break from the Middle East.
All day, everyday, I’d rather be in Latin America, full of it’s infidels and fun than the Middle East.
Read the rest of… Erica & Matt Chua: Escaping the Middle East
By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Apr 1, 2013 at 8:45 AM ET
While my following piece from Newsweek/The Daily Beast is not an April Fools’ joke like my earlier post this morning, it is yet another exhibit of our our political system is constantly playing unfunny jokes on the American people:
“We’d like to have you join us this afternoon for a discussion on the Ashley Judd campaign,” the young national talk show producer chirped into my phone. ”We understand that she will be announcing her candidacy within the next 24 hours.”
“I’d love to join you,” I responded. A recovering politiciannever turns down 15 minutes.) “But, uh, I’m pretty sure, uh, she’s not announcing.”
I looked over to the left side of my desk, at the draft exploratory committee papers that Ashley had asked me to prepare, still missing several items that I had requested from her.
“Oh, no,” the producer responded. “Our reporter has it on good authority from Ashley’s people that an announcement is imminent.”
I thought I was one of “Ashley’s people.”
Before I appeared on the show, I asked another of Ashley’s volunteer advisers, whom I knew had spoken to her that morning.
“Not true. Just another fabrication.”
Another fabrication.
The past several weeks had seemed like a dizzying blur of false testimony, as the national media seized any morsel of news or gossip to sate its ravenous appetite for Ashley Judd stories. As the actress contemplated whether to move back to Kentucky and challenge Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, I was alternating with Congressman John Yarmuth as witness for the defense against a steady stream of salacious recriminations.
Click here to read my full piece from Newsweek/The Daily Beast: “How Kentucky Democrats Duped the MSM and Helped Elbow Out Ashley Judd”
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UPDATED NOON
Get me some antibiotics — the piece has gone viral. Check out the following pieces (h/t Jason Delambre):
An adviser to Ashley Judd said that the decision by the actress to pass on a challenge to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) next year was the result of a calculated effort by a small group of Democrats to stifle her electoral prospects.
In a story published Monday in The Daily Beast, Jonathan Miller wrote that the “most egregious disinformation” about Judd and her would-be candidacy “came from entirely anonymous sources” and helped create an unfavorable narrative. Before she announced last week that she will not run in 2014, reports suggested that Judd told a group of supporters at a private dinner, “I have been raped twice, so I think I can handle Mitch McConnell.” Miller, who attended that dinner, said he “never heard her say anything remotely like that.”
He also highlighted the recent suggestions that former President Bill Clinton had lobbied against a Judd candidacy in the hopes of getting Kentucky’s Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes to run instead. Follow up reports later confirmed that Clinton had no problem with a Judd bid, but Miller said the damage had already been done — and now McConnell may be the ultimate beneficiary of the conniving efforts by Democrats.
What happened to the Senatorial aspirations of Hollywood celebrity Ashley Judd? Some believed that she got chased out of the race after Republicans in Kentucky and the NRSC began launching attacks on her past statements, making her reluctant to spend the time and money. Others think that Kentucky Democrats changed their minds on a celebrity campaign after determining that Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes became interested. Both may be true, but according to Judd adviser Jonathan Miller in today’s Daily Beast, the real proximate cause of Judd’s withdrawal was a dirty tricks campaign not from Republicans, but from Kentucky Democrats — aided by a national media that got easily “duped”:
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UPDATED 1:20 PM
More than 8 hours after its original publication, and the article is still the most popular posting at Newsweek/The Daily Beast. Check out this screen shot:
By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Apr 1, 2013 at 8:00 AM ET
LEXINGTON, KY: The Recovering Politician is EXCLUSIVELY reporting this morning that actress/humanitarian Ashley Judd — who just last week announced that she would not be challenging U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in his 2014 re-election bid –has reversed course, and will file her official Senate campaign papers on Tuesday with the office of Kentucky’s Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes.
“Watching Mitch in that ridiculous University of Louisville sweater vest, cheering on those loser Cardinals in the Big Dance, made me want to barf,” Judd, the University of Kentucky Wildcats’ #1 fan, told The Recovering Politician in an exclusive interview. “The next thing you’ll tell me is that we’ll have a Dukie as Kentucky Senator. Oh, wait we do — that curly-headed wing-nut. To quote another Duke alum, Richard Nixon: “[Expletive deleted] that [expletive deleted] sheep-[expletive deleted] [expletive deleted].”
Reaction among Kentucky Democrats was fast and furious, just like the name of the only late 90s’s movie in which Ashley Judd did not appear:
“That’s horse-hockey. No way can we let that out-of-touch Hollywood celebrity run,” shouted political consultant Dale Emmons, the most outspoken advocate of an Alison Lundergan Grimes candidacy. “Those DC elites are not going to get in the way of me running yet another campaign against Mitch!”
“Barack and Steve ain’t gonna be happy,” former Obama and Beshear campaign operative Jimmy Cauley charged, “And I’m headed to Vatican City for a pow-wow with Francis. He’s gonna be pissed.”
“We are opposed to Ashley Judd because we think that Alison Lundergan Grimes will be an outstanding U.S. Senator,” said every person who is thinking of running for Kentucky Governor in 2015. “Of course, if Alison runs against us for Governor, we reserve the right to change our minds about her qualifications.”
The Frankfort political press could not be reached: They were tripping over themselves to be the first to quote Danny Briscoe, Larry Forgy, and a handful of other old white men who haven’t been involved in high-level Kentucky politics for decades.
Read the rest of… EXCLUSIVE: Ashley Judd Reverses Course, Announcing Senate Bid on Tuesday
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Mar 29, 2013 at 1:30 PM ET
One of my favorite and funniest college memories involved a pick-up basketball game that took place in a small public park near my college dorm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The game was usually a mix of Harvard geeks and city kids, the latter usually three or four levels of talent above us.
One day, I was encouraged by my teammates to guard a particularly large and muscular player on the other team. After he completely ran over me twice, my teammates laughed and informed me that the huge guy I was guarding was indeed the esteemed small shooting guard for the Michigan Wolverines, Rumeal Robinson, home from a school break.
Later that year, Robinson would hit two of the clutchest free throws in the history of roundball to win the NCAA championship against Seton Hall:
Watch them here:
Today, Robinson is serving a six-and-a-half year sentence for a 2010 conviction on bank bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and making a false statement to a financial institution. Dan Wetzel interviewed him for Yahoo Sports (h/t Tony Cruise):
He strongly maintains his innocence, partly on the grounds that his request for new representation just before his trial should have been granted. He says while he did a poor job of handling sophisticated loans and debts, he is not a criminal.
Robinson points much of the blame on prosecutors and Helen Ford. In an effort to help fund the casino/resort project, his adoptive mother signed her home over to Robinson’s business group – she says unwittingly. The house was eventually lost to foreclosure.
Nearing 70, the now widowed Helen lives in a smaller apartment in the Boston area. Robinson claims she “conspired with the feds” in his case. She also took part in numerous media stories that, he said, made it seem like the lost house was the center of the case. All while, he said, discounting the Mercedes, the mink coat and the other gifts he provided her through the years.
She eventually testified on behalf of the prosecution, a devastating blow Robinson said.
“People are going to believe your mother when she says you were doing things,” Robinson said. “… The damage was done before [I] stepped into court. There’s a lot of misunderstanding about my case.”
There is little regret, plenty of defiance.
Ronald E. Longstaff, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Iowa saw it differently. He criticized Robinson’s stance as a demonstration of “absolutely no remorse, absolutely no acknowledgement of fault. The record is replete with significant fraud.”
As the founder of a site dedicated to second chances, I am hoping that my former court adversary is able to turn things around for his second act upon his prison release in a few years. He inspired a lot of us two decades ago. I pray that he can do the same again.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Mar 29, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
I don’t like to brag and it really is against my nature to do so…but I just couldn’t resist.
After several days of promoting my new eBook, not only have I broken through the almost impenetrable sales threshold of selling into the doubledigits (10 or more), I have actually skyrocketed all the way up to the highest teen number (19!) as of an hour ago.
Now, yeah, sure…that counts my own purchase and my mom’s.
But that doesn’t take away from these staggering runaway sales numbers that now seemed to have leveled off —but fortunately for now anyway– seem to be holding steady and not dropping.
Which means…maybe, just maybe, I should hold on to my day job.
On the other hand, the report below tells the tale.
What kind of tale? I’m not so sure. Just a tale where the number 19 is becoming increasingly my favorite new number and a number I haven’t ever given enough of a chance.
Hey, and look at the irony. Even my favorite band, Steely Dan, sang an entire song about the number 19. You and I both know it wasn’t about my eBook sales. But the fact that it could have been, means a lot to me. And makes me really proud in that mysterious, magical, low sales, Karma kind of way…. Very cool. And, again, forgive my hubris! ; )
“Latest report: # Net Units Sold Musings from the Middle 19”
I feel silly writing about Spring as I sit at my desk with the heat on blast, but I’m the positive type, and I know that in a few short weeks Spring will be here. In fact, I’ve already been shopping for warm weather clothes for my clients. Now is the perfect time for that, just as stores are loading up with their best selections. With that in mind, below are 6 garments to get you through the coming months in stellar style.
Lightweight jacket (bonus if it’s suede or leather)
Don’t underestimate the power of a perfectly-fitting leather jacket. Click for my guide on how to accomplish this. It’s the perfect reminder that Spring is just around the corner.
Blog this!
