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:
The above graphic, passed along by the Huffington Post‘s Laura Bassett, was put together by the Enliven Project using data from Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey and FBI reports. It drives home extremely well the fact that false rape accusations are exceedingly rare, despite what media reports might suggest. Almost as rare are cases when rapists actually go to jail.
Update: Rape statistics are notoriously hard to collect, and Amanda Marcotte has a compelling critique of the methods used here, which Enliven describes in more detail here. So while the phenomena described here are real (and Marcotte argues that, if anything, the chart exaggerates the number of false accusations), be aware that the exact numbers are subject to dispute.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Jan 8, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
How I exposed myself to art. In a trench coat.
This print was hanging in our house while I was growing up. It was the first time I made a connection with trench coats, nudity and art.
But it wasn’t until my first job out of college working as a runner/clerk at Frank Haddad’s law firm that I get to live it.
George Salem, a wonderfully large and loveable fatherly figure and excellent criminal lawyer, asked me to help with research on a case. It was a case to disprove certain “images” published by a client were “obscene.” George’s idea was to have me, the new intern, take my Polaroid camera and trot down to the Speed Art Museum and tour the museum for examples of nudity in art. And click off a few pictures of what I found. We’d then be able to show the “images” the client was associated with were no more obscene than art on display in our fair city’s prized art museum.
Simple enough…and kinda brilliant, I thought to myself.
So, I threw on the tan trench coat my mother had just gotten me for Christmas now that I was needing “Big Boy” office clothes –and headed to Speed.
Fortunately for me there was a new display –probably something George Salem was aware of—featuring extensive and, well, rather provocative, nudity. It was in a cordoned off area but you could stand outside the ropes and appreciate the art. And even try to photograph it.
I noticed that there was a sign at the entrance saying “No photography.” I instantly realized that if I wanted to please my boss—and keep my job—I would need to be innovative and stealthy.
I waited until no guards or patrons were around and stepped toward the display, opened my trench coat –with my Polaroid hidden at chest level– and clicked off a couple of pictures.
Just my luck, a guard walked by at that time and kindly explained to me that I was not permitted to take photographs. I apologized and walked into the next room. And waited for him to leave.
I returned as soon as he left…and went to the other side of the display where there was even a greater show of nudity, opened my trench coat and continued completing my task. Click. Click. Went the camera.
The guard returned but did not see me take the last couple pictures. I smiled and tried to look fascinated—in a high minded and artistic way—in the grand display in the middle of the room. With all the naked people. I was in my 20s and not very persuasive. The trench coat didn’t help things.
The guard smiled back tolerably and, again, eventually walked away…..This last time I found the primo angle, leaned in over the roped off area and holding out my Polaroid for a final few shots, “Click!” and “Click!” And then….”Sir! Sir! I have asked you already to stop taking photographs of the display. I’m afraid I am going to have to ask you to leave.”
And he did.
And I did. Leave.
With my non-obscene and purely artistic photographs. And I delivered them. To my boss. In full uniform. trench coat, and all.
And as a result, I will never ever be able again to wear a trench coat when visiting Speed Art museum. For fear of being mistaken for, well, a curious and camera-happy investigator, shall we say.
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Jan 8, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
Something big is happening on Monday, and you’re not going to want to miss it.
More than 1,300 citizens are joining No Labels at the Meeting to Make America Work! on January 14 – and although the event is sold out, that doesn’t mean you can’t be a part of it by participating online.
Our honorary co-chairs, Gov. Jon Huntsman and Sen. Joe Manchin, are leading a town hall at the meeting and they want to hear from you. They’ll be taking questions from the audience, they wanted to give you the chance to ask a question too.
Want to know about problem solving, gridlock in Washington, or what it takes to be a leader? Ask your question right now and we’ll have as many questions as possible answered live during the Meeting to Make America Work!
Click here to ask your question via Twitter, using the hashtag #NoLabels.
Click here to ask your question via Facebook, in the comments section.
And don’t forget to tune in on Monday, January 14 to watch the event live online.
Thanks for your help – and for being a part of No Labels!
By Nancy Slotnick, on Tue Jan 8, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
“You never don’t know” is what my mother-in-law says when she means “You never know.”
It must be said in a Polish accent with the conviction that only a Holocaust survivor could pull off while using a double negative. So by the theory of transitivity, “You never don’t know” equals “You always know.” I’m going with that theory.
You always know.
If you can tap into your instincts, and distinguish them from anxiety, you always know. “Is he the One?” You know. “Should I have that opening line?” You know. “Should I write that email to reach out?” You know, but you don’t always listen to your gut. You talk yourself out of it.
Do you expect greatness to come your way or mediocrity? Or disaster? Murphy’s Law is more about Murphy than about a law of nature. I think Murphy attracted bad luck because he’s always expecting bad luck and it feeds on itself. Of course if you want to attract good luck you have to do the work. There’s plenty of good luck out there and it will come your way sooner or later. You just have to be prepared to seize your luck.
Here’s how: Let’s say you’re on a train traveling for the holidays, like I am right now. Let’s say you’re single and you secretly wish that the man of your dreams would sit next to you. You do hold out the hope for good luck. But you also dread the fat lady who talks your ear off or the crying baby that blocks the audio of Gossip Girl Season 2. Even though you’ve already seen it. You are tempted to just put your backpack up on the seat next to you, put on your headphones and go into “Do Not Disturb” mode. If you’re lucky, then the train is not sold out and you will get two seats to yourself. But is that what you really want?
If you know that you want more, you may have to put your “Cablight” on, as I call it, and try to show that the seat is available for the right guy. There is a strategy you can employ. Put the backpack up as you scope the crowd passing by. Choose your target. He may not be your Brad Pitt, but pick the best one of the lot of train travelers with your mind’s eye and start your training to attract what you want in life.
As he gets about 2 seats away from you, move the backpack and look up. Make eye contact. This will be hard. Be vulnerable for a second and make it visible to him in your eyes. Then look away and go back to Gossip Girl so he doesn’t think you’re a stalker and he knows that you aren’t going to be annoyingly forward. Let him come to you. This should work if you do it right, with confidence and humility at the same time. It probably won’t though. Law of averages.
But if it doesn’t, get up and move seats. Why? Because you still have hope that there’s a better guy in another car. Because you’re willing to give up the comfort of a window seat near the Café car for the chance of finding something better. Someone better. Like Deal or No Deal with the universe. You believe that the banker has something good in store for you in that briefcase and you’re willing to take risks.
In the Harry Potter adventures, they say that the wizard doesn’t choose the wand. The wand chooses the wizard. What it means to turn your Cablight on is that you have to be in an open mindset for the wand to find you. And even if it finds you, you’ll have no idea how to use it unless you train. Train yourself to be bold and push past your comfort zone. And take the train. The only person you will meet if you’re driving in your car is the toll-booth operator. Really?!?
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Mon Jan 7, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
The Politics of Pigskin
Check out this week’s divisional matchups to the left. If you’ll notice each team’s logo in the respective matchups has something in common with its opponent. Just a neat observation .
Here is an album of all the newspaper frontpages of the cities that participated in Wild Card weekend. [photo album]
Trent Williams of the Redskins and the Seahawks’ Richard Sherman converged on the field after the the Seahawks’ victory and it appears that Williams wasn’t in a very good mood. [DC Sports]
This is fun: All 256 regular season NFL games ranked by watchability. Check it out. [Deadspin]
Do you agree with the way the Redskins’ staff handled RGIII’s injury? [PFT]
Here are some storylines to watch going into the Divisional round this weekend. [ESPN AFC] [ESPN NFC]
Lest we not forget the BCS National Championship game is tonight pitting the juggernaut from yesteryear versus the perennial powerhouse – Notre Dame vs. Alabama. Who you got? [ESPN]
“I haven’t felt this way since I was getting busted for Vietnam War protests and had a civil defense rap sheet as long as my arm,” Applewhite declared.
The object of his enthusiasm? No Labels, a national movement aimed at getting politicians of different stripes to work together in order to grease the wheels of the nation’s gridlocked governmental machinery.
Applewhite, a former elected official who once served on the Santa Fe School Board, said he’s become tired of turning on the television and seeing partisan leaders who disregard “rules of conduct that kindergartners learn.”
“Who would think that compromise could become a dirty word? It’s an indictment of the way we conduct ourselves as a country,” he said.
Applewhite isn’t alone in his embrace of the No Labels movement.
More than 30 people showed up at the Heart of Mary Retreat and Carmelite Center Saturday for the inaugural meeting of No Labels’ Santa Fe group.
The movement is quickly garnering supporters all over the Land of Enchantment. More than 1,000 New Mexicans have signed on to the No Labels cause and “we haven’t even really started yet,” organizer Dudley Hafner said.
Hafner and other Santa Fe organizers said Saturday they expect the movement to gain even more steam when No Labels holds a conference in New York City later this month. The event is expected to feature statements of support from politicians, including former President Bill Clinton and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
No Labels has already signed up about 94 members of Congress, according to organizers. Former Utah Republican Gov. John Huntsman and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., have agreed to be the group’s national leaders.
On Saturday, meeting attendees learned more about No Labels and participated in a short planning session. They also listened in on a conference call with No Labels co-founder Jonathan Miller, the current Secretary of Finance and Administration for the state of Kentucky.
Miller criticized national leaders as “hyper-partisan, paralyzed actors” who continue “to act against the interests of the nation.”
He said No Labels is focused on parallel outreaches: a grassroots, “living room” effort already comprised of some 600,000 ordinary people, and a growing group of Democratic and Republican Party politicians committed to working together to find solutions.
Miller and other No Labels organizers emphasize that the movement is about making the political system work better – not advocating for particular parties or ideologies.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Jan 7, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Being sick with the flu is a double curse.
You feel awful physically, of course.
But you also view everything in your life through the same miserable, feeble, nauseous lens…making everything around you less beautiful, special, worthwhile or even tolerable.
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I have cursed at my cold/flu (whatever it is) to no avail.
I’ve tried using rare curse words I haven’t used in months –or even years. I’ve tried new combinations and several hyphenated curse words
I’m not sure even exist. And, of course, I’ve used the standard fare curse words we are all familiar with and often turn up in
ordinary distressing situations –that aren’t cold/flu related.
But not a single curse word, hyphenated or otherwise, or any combination thereof has helped one whit!
D*****t!
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Does anyone know what keys to press to Restore the Brain to Factory Settings?
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You know your case of this cold/flu thing going around is bad when you see the old Bon Jovi “Dead or Alive” video and your first response to it is, “Dead? Alive? Why such a big deal about the difference?”
Having offered my perspective about the shape of a conservative rebound, I will end the year with a bout of wishful thinking about what 2013 might bring, if the stars align in just the right way. Here are twelve hopes for the next twelve months:
(1) That George HW Bush and Nelson Mandela have more good health in front of them. They are not a commonly linked pair, but their lives epitomize the values of political tolerance and forgiveness. The elder Bush had his brass-knuckled side, as Michael Dukakis can attest, but he is arguably the last president who regarded election to federal office as a compact for Republicans and Democrats to achieve some rough consensus around the country’s challenges. Some of the deals cut, on federal employment laws and acid rain, looked then and now like sensible compromises; the 1990 tax package only preceded a recession and more rounds of rampant spending. But Bush’s four years were notable for their absence of intense division; it is no accident that he is the only president in my adulthood given the moral credit of never being despised by his partisan foes. And Mandela: what more needs to be said other than that he forged a political peace with a regime that jailed him and snatched the prime of his life away?
(2) That the missing cause of 2012, education reform, is discovered alive and intact. For that to happen, liberals will need to extricate themselves from the embrace of the teachers’ unions that have wilted the Democratic reform agenda down to charter schools and not much more; conservatives will need to remind themselves that no other initiative satisfies the right’s goal of upward mobility through self determination more effectively.
(3) That some influential observer will write the seminal book or article documenting the degree to which modern Democrats have abandoned the political center. For all the hand-wringing over Grover Norquist and the Tea Party, it is today’s House Democratic Caucus that refused to supply a single vote for continuing the Bush tax cuts for all but millionaires, until recently the favored position of Democratic moderates; this year’s Democratic platform that discarded the notion that public policy should strive to make abortions rare; and the current Democratic mainstream that has declared opposition to the Affordable Care Act or same sex marriage—views that thirty- five to forty Democratic congressmen held just a few years ago—as, respectively, stone-hearted or hateful.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: Wishful Thinking in the New Year
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Jan 7, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET
Writes contributing RP John Y. Brown, III:
One of the greatest sins we can commit is to have a chance to get to know extraordinary people. And then not take advantage of it. And you never know when the opportunity will present itself. So always be ready to talk. Even when you’re not sure.
A picture of a cat siting on a column led to some chuckles from my wife and daughter but then a nice lady with a very professional looking camera decided to take the same shot. I nudged my wife and daughter and said, “Told ya it was a good photo to take.”
The woman with the professional camera overheard us and, along with her husband, laughed. And that’s all I needed. Over the next 20 minutes I learned that Matt Chua worked as a VC for 6 years before he and his wife, Erica, dropped out and became professional world travelers 2 years earlier. They’ve visited and written about 30 countries, mostly about economic development but also offering a sort of young person’s Trip Adviser take on each destination. (Think of Albert Brooks’ Lost in America —but working out. And going international)
Next year Matt hopes to find himself in Stanford’s MBA program. And deserves to be there. And if that still isn’t enough to pique your curiosity, their website is titled “LivingIF.com” with the tag line, “Living to never wonder, What if.”
Now, we are pleased to have Matt and Erica Chua join us as weekly travel columnists at The Recovering Politician, with their first column, cross-posted from LivingIF.com, below. Please help me welcome them to the RP Nation, and come back every Monday at this time to read about their next extraordinary adventure!
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Incomparable. Stunning. Choose your superlative…none will do the Everest Region justice. Nowhere else on earth is like it. Walking amongst the world’s largest mountains, admiring deep valleys and snowcapped peaks, will be one of your life’s highlights.
Here even view from the outhouses are spectacular…
Read the rest of… Erica and Matt Chua: Hiking Mount Everest and Three Passes Unguided
Blog this!
I noticed that there was a sign at the entrance saying “No photography.” I instantly realized that if I wanted to please my boss—and keep my job—I would need to be innovative and stealthy.
Something big is happening on Monday, and you’re not going to want to miss it.
As he gets about 2 seats away from you, move the backpack and look up. Make eye contact. This will be hard. Be vulnerable for a second and make it visible to him in your eyes. Then look away and go back to Gossip Girl so he doesn’t think you’re a stalker and he knows that you aren’t going to be annoyingly forward. Let him come to you. This should work if you do it right, with confidence and humility at the same time. It probably won’t though. Law of averages.
(3) That some influential observer will write the seminal book or article documenting the degree to which modern Democrats have abandoned the political center. For all the hand-wringing over Grover Norquist and the Tea Party, it is today’s House Democratic Caucus that refused to supply a single vote for continuing the Bush tax cuts for all but millionaires, until recently the favored position of Democratic moderates; this year’s Democratic platform that discarded the notion that public policy should strive to make abortions rare; and the current Democratic mainstream that has declared opposition to the Affordable Care Act or same sex marriage—views that thirty- five to forty Democratic congressmen held just a few years ago—as, respectively, stone-hearted or hateful. 
