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:
Dear Avis: If you want to win big with the Zipcar acquisition you will have to try harder.
Resist the temptation to impose your core car rental business model on the upstart transformer. Zipcar is your sandbox to scale a car-sharing model with potential to disrupt the automotive and car rental industry. Stop with the number two shtick, Zipcar can help Avis become a market maker instead of a share taker. Your main competitor, Hertz, is a share-taker demonstrated by its recent acquisition of Dollar Thrifty. Your opportunity is tremendous but throw away the classic post-merger integration playbook. Here are five ways to do that:
It isn’t about Avis. It’s about Zipcar
Change your lens. It isn’t about you. Zipsters aren’t your current customers. Your business model, renting cars by the day or week, isn’t designed for Zipsters. Start by understanding their experience and view the world through the lens of Zipcar’s business model, which provides members with access by the hour to a network of shared cars. You aren’t buying a platform to improve the Avis business model. You are buying a new business model that will benefit from access to Avis capabilities. ZipCar was struggling to scale its model and Avis can help. This is about enabling more Zipsters and improving their car sharing experience.
Innovate Through A Connected Adjacency
Scaling Zipcar without suffocating its nascent business model will require both autonomy as well as access to resources and capabilities from the core. Set Zipcar up as a sand box adjacent to the core. Give it plenty of room to operate independently. The more disruptive the new model the more line-executives from the core will try to undermine its success. Autonomy doesn’t mean Zipcar should operate in isolation to the core. It’s imperative to build strong connections so that people, ideas and capabilities can flow in both directions. This tricky balance requires significant CEO involvement to run interference on what will be many inevitable conflicts and tension points.
Read the rest of… Saul Kaplan: Dear Avis, Please Don’t Screw Up Zipcar
By Jonathan Miller, on Sun Jan 27, 2013 at 12:30 PM ET
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I’m very excited to announce The Recovering Politician’s wonderful service to our loyal RP Nation: The RP’s KY Political Brief — a FREE email delivered every weekday morning, straight to your inbox, that provides you with a complete wrap-up of the latest political news and notes from the Bluegrass State.
You don’t have to be a Frankfort statehouse junkie to appreciate this free service — The RP’s KY Political Briefprovides you with a one-stop shop for all of the latest news, commentary and analysis about what could be the hottest 2014 campaign in the country: the re-election attempt by U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — who looks like he will face the challenge of his career from Ky. Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. And The RP’s KY Political Briefis your best place to find all of the latest stories about Tea Party favorite (and potential 2016 presidential candidate) Rand Paul.
Best yet, we offer this service with no political biases; much as in the No Labels style of The Recovering Politician, we provide links to the state’s and nation’s best journalists, as well as opinion pieces by writers from all over the political spectrum.
Your tour director is former editor of The Kentucky Enquirer, Kakie Urch, who took over for founding editor Bradford Queen. She is currently an assistant professor of multimedia at University of Kentucky in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications. Kakie also served as assistant managing editor of The Kentucky Post and as assistant managing editor at The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif. In 2011, Kakie served as a professor-in-residence on “The Caucuses” site of the Des Moines Register for coverage of the Iowa Caucuses.
In these roles, she had the honor of editing some of the best political reporters in Kentucky and had responsibility for Washington, Frankfort and Sacramento bureau coverage for the newspapers and their Web sites. Her favorite political ad of all time is the Kentucky radio spot from an 1980s campaign that said “Just because you sit in the garage for 10 years, that don’t make you a Buick.”
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By Patrick Derocher, on Fri Jan 25, 2013 at 3:02 PM ET
There’s a new CNN poll out that was taken about week before his inauguration. For that poll, researchers at research firm ORC International asked respondents their opinions on a number of President Obama’s 2nd term objectives, including climate change, healthcare, and immigration. Some of the poll’s results are entirely unsurprising: voters are split on whether climate change is anthropogenic, with Republicans more skeptical than Democrats, that sort of thing. But the immigration responses are worth examining. By a 10-point margin (53%-43%), Americans favor policies that focus on providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, rather than deporting them, a major change from a year ago when voters favored deportation 55-42.
This is big.
As Jeb Bush and Clint Bolick (both, I should note, prominent conservatives) point out in a Wall Street Journaleditorial this morning, the notion that illegal immigrants should “wait in line” is not only untenable, but wildly inaccurate. There is, quite simply, no mechanism for such undocumented workers to have come into this country in the first place. At the risk of sounding too much like a cliche, this is a huge problem for Republicans. To the party’s credit, there are some leaders working to fix that problem, most notably Cuban-American Senator Maro Rubio. His proposal, however, focuses on high-skill visas, to some extent at the detriment of lower-skilled workers (it seems more than a tad unrealistic to expect someone who has been laboring in such a position to be able to pay fees, let alone take time off from work to do community service).
This sort of mindset, one that focuses on punishment (albeit, with a more positive outcome than, say, Jim Sensenbrenner’s proposals) is the real problem for the Republican Part. That is not to say that a wholesale embrace of the Democratic strategy is the best route for the GOP (as Ruben Navarrette points out, the DREAM Act and its proponents have their own issues). Rather, balance and a Buckley-esque acquiescence to reality is the key here, and that is what this WWG set out to formulate and communicate.
Do you avoid opening your closet door because you’re afraid a tennis racquet is going to fall out on your head? Sporting goods aside, it’s always nice to have a workable closet. Much of my client work is helping people to streamline and edit their wardrobes; trust me, I’ve seen it all in there…everything from bike pumps and paint cans to women’s unmentionables. And that’s all I’ll say about that! So don’t worry; no one is beyond help when it comes to getting a closet in shape.
Here I am on a recent closet session checking out my client’s go-to navy suit.
When your wardrobe contains only items you actually wear, it allows you to get your day started faster so that you can focus on what you do best – instead of worrying about where the pants to your gray pinstripe suit are. The first step to creating a closet that works for you is to set aside a couple of hours for a closet clearing. Below are 7 questions to ask yourself when considering each item:
1. Is it in good condition?
2. Is it out of style or do you not like the style?
3. Is it relevant to your lifestyle?
4. Does the color look good on you? (to find out what colors look best on you, contact me).
5. Does it fit?
6. Have you worn it in the past year and a half?
7. Do you actually like it?
If the answer to 2 or more of these is “no,” then you can do better, and I’d recommend donating it. And if you’re too busy or don’t have the patience to do this yourself, call in a professional who can get the job done for you quickly and efficiently.
Here’s to starting 2013 with a functional closet that suits your needs.
National Public Radio’s On Point with Tom Ashbook presents: Hard Times And Polarized Politics:
From Tom Ashbrook:
Why are American politics and American policy so stuck? So stuck that what should be a dynamic economy is now seen as maybe the biggest threat to the world economy… because of Washington.
Economist Benjamin Friedman says we’re in a trap. A bad economy is prompting bad policy from Washington, he says. Good times, good policy. Bad times, bad policy. And we’re in a world of bad right now.
Jonathan Miller, co-founder of No Labels, a political non-profit made up of Democrats, Republicans and Independents, dedicated to problem solving. Former state treasurer of Kentucky. (@recoveringpol)
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Jan 24, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
The McRib Code
The McRib sandwich is back at McDonalds . But there is far more to it than the simple reintroduction of failed fast food sandwich for about the 19th time in approximately 31 years.
I have combined the DaVinci Code formulas and validated them through Nostradamus’ projections that reference a similar irregular phenomenon.
And it is not pretty.
How bad?
Almost enough to make you want to go Mayan.
After you’ve eaten a 2 for 1 McRib. Just know there more at stake. ; )
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu Jan 24, 2013 at 10:30 AM ET
The Politics of Tech
Cable Industry Finally Admits That Data Caps Have Nothing To Do With Congestion: ‘The reality is that data caps are all about increasing revenue for broadband providers — in a market that is already quite profitable.’ [TechDirt]
The Federal Communications Commission’s chairman is setting a goal for all states to have a gigabit broadband connection by 2015 – similar to the Google Fiber network that is currently in Kansas City. [CNET]
Do the major cable companies need to be broken up like the steel and railroad industries in the 19th century? This article argues that they are essentially monopolies that are stifling innovation. [BGR]
Google is currently looking at some interesting methods of freeing us from the passwords we are bound to when online. [Wired]
It is being argued that Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer is not the right leader for the world’s largest software company but holds his grip on it by systematically forcing out any rising manager who challenges his authority. [Reuters]
Google is moving in to London – they recently purchased a $1 billion plot of land in the King’s Cross Central development. [Verve]
Are you regularly running out of materials to use in your 3D printer? Well this machine will solve that problem! [Wired]
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Jan 24, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET
If you are near a radio or computer at 11:00 AM EST today, you can catch me as the special guest on National Public Radio’s “On Point” with host Tom Ashbrook.
The live online stream can be accessed by clicking here.
Alternatively, you can click here to find the show on your satellite or FM radio dial.
I will be discussing the extraordinary January we’ve been having at No Labels. In the wake of a spectacular Meeting to Make America Work last week in New York, the U.S. House of Representatives just today passed our signature legislation, “No Budget, No Pay,” and we expect imminent Senate passage. Read all about the progress of “No Budget, No Pay” by clicking here.
To join the conversation on the air, call the NPR studio at 1-800-423-8255. Just no questions about UK basketball. It’s been a bit depressing lately.
I believe most of us are educated enough to realize that most of the foods at the grocery store are contaminated in some way. Whether it be hormones and nitrates added to our meats, pesticides and insecticides sprayed on our vegetables or genetically modified crap thats all over the grocery store. It almost seems like the only way to eat decent food is to grow it and hunt it yourself. On top of all of that, we now have another problem child, gluten, that wrecks our digestive systems and puts our bodies in a state where we cannot lose weight or bodyfat. In fact gluten (which seems to be in everything) will not allow our bodies to absorb fat soluable vitamins (A,D,E,K) which leads to malnutrition. Malnutrition, you thought, only occured in third world countries right? Nope, it happens here in the US because of the food industry and the crap they put in our foods.
On to the important stuff, I wrote this blog as educational and from a disertation point of view. It is somewhat “technical” but I find this topic interesting. This is a comprehensive list of gluten free foods, foods with gluten AND ingredients to look out for when considering gluten-free options (there are alot of options now). So here you go…
What is Celiac Disease? Also referred to as gluten sensitive enteropathy (GSE), or celiacsprue, is a chronic, inherited digestive disease that can lead to malnutrition if untreated.CD is the result of an immune system response to the ingestion of gluten (a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley) that damages the small intestine. When the small intestine is damaged, nutrients pass through the small intestine, rather than get absorbed. To develop celiac disease (CD), you must inherit a gene, be consuming gluten, and have the disease activated. Common triggers include stress, trauma (surgeries, etc.) and possibly viral infections. Approximately 10% of first-degree relatives could have CD triggered in their lifetime. The disease is permanent and damage to the small intestine will occur every time you consume gluten, regardless if symptoms are present.
Celiac disease is a genetic disorder affecting 1:133 persons in the United States,potentially 2 million people. For every person diagnosed with CD, approximately 80 people are undiagnosed.
What is Gluten?
Gluten is a composite formed from several different proteins. It is found most commonly in wheat and other related grains, such as barley and rye. Adding texture and a characteristic chewiness to baked goods, gluten is used in a wide variety of other foods as a thickener and binder, flavor enhancer, and protein supplement. Some people can develop intolerance to these proteins, however; a gluten-free diet often helps to alleviate symptoms caused by this intolerance and prevents further damage to the body.
Diseases Associated with Gluten Intolerance-
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
Lupus can affect many organs: the skin, joints and muscles, kidneys, heart, brain, lungs, blood and blood vessels, intestines, hearing and balance. Ninety percent of patients are female. Symptoms vary depending on the organs involved, but may include fatigue, fever, anemia, rashes in sunexposed areas, aching muscles, painful and stiff joints,confusion, seizures, inflammation around the heart or lungs, sores in the mouth, vasculitis, blood clots, and changes in the urine.
Thyroid Disease
There are two common forms of autoimmune thyroid disease commonly associated with CD and DH – Grave’s disease and Hashimoto’s disease.
Grave’s Disease: An overaactive thyroid. Symptoms may include weight loss, rapid pulse, protruding eyes, feeling too warm, restlessness, insomnia, diarrhea, irritability, palpatations.
Hashimoto’s Disease: An underactive thyroid. Symptoms may include weight gain, slow pulse, red puffy eyes, feeling too cold, mental slowness, drowsiness, confusion, constipation, enlarged thyroid gland in the neck, thick and coarse hair.
Addison’s Disease
A rare disease involving the adrenal gland. The prevalence of CD in persons with Addison’s Disease is significant. Symptoms of Addison’s may include weight loss, increasing fatigue, lack of appetite, anemia, darkening of the skin, increased sun sensitivity, low blood sugar, low blood pressure, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or constipation, and dehydration.
Autoimmune Chronic Active Hepatitis
A disease of the liver that may be mistaken for alcoholic liver disease. Seventy percent of patients are female. Symptoms can include fatigue, abdominal discomfort, itching, nausea, vomiting, bloating, yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes (jaundice), enlarged liver, tumors on the skin, aching, fever, mental confusion, and cirrhosis.
Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (Type 1)
A disease of the pancreas. The incidence of Type 1 diabetes and CD is between 6-12%. Often the second disease is silent (having few symptoms). Symptoms can include excessive thirst, hunger, weakness, frequent urination, blurred vision, trembling, confusion, weight loss, and coma (if left untreated).
Where is Gluten commonly found?
Read the rest of… Josh Bowen: The Limited Factor — The Gluten Story
Blog this!
Who can say? It’s who I am.
Gluten is a composite formed from several different proteins. It is found most commonly in 
