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 Mon Dec 31, 2012 at 9:15 AM ET
#TeamRP:
LESSON #24 from my fitness training Josh Bowen as part of my fierce and ferocious fitness challenge with #TeamJYB3:
Wearing a garbage bag while exercising does NOT necessarily help you lose weight. But it certainly makes you look stupid.
Or alternatively: Don’t follow the fitness advice of a mentally unstable movie character, even if he is being portrayed by the Sexiest Man Alive. (But go see Silver Linings Playbook — it’s terrific!)
Or perhaps, Jonathan, I knew Bradley Cooper. I’ve seen a lot of movies with Bradley Cooper. Jonathan, you’re no Bradley Cooper.
Collaborators are everywhere. You will find them in the gray areas between silos. Just look up from your current business model. Seek out difference and gather often across boundaries, disciplines, and sectors. Be open and be curious. Beware of random collisions with unusual suspects. Unless, of course, if you want to learn something new. In that case seek out innovators from across every imaginable silo and listen, really listen, to their stories. New ideas, perspectives, and the value creating opportunities are in the gray areas between the unusual suspects. And yet we spend most of our time with the usual suspects in our respective silos. We need to get out of our silos more.
It is human nature to surround ourselves with people who are exactly like us. We connect and spend time with people who share a common world-view, look the same, enjoy the same activities, and speak the same language. We join clubs to be with others like us. The club most worth belonging to is the non-club club. The most valuable tribe is a tribe of unusual suspects who can challenge your world-view, expose you to new ideas, and teach you something new. A tribe of unusual suspects can change the world if it is connected in purposeful ways.
It is easy to see the potential from enabling random collisions of unusual suspects. Just check out any social media platform.
Read the rest of… Saul Kaplan: Random Collision Theory of Innovation
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Dec 28, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
#TEAMJYB3:
#TeamRP calls me a rascal for sending him a gift basket of Kentucky candy for the holidays.
In the middle of our weight loss competition.
I apologize I’m just getting to the accusation now….I have been AWOL today and just now getting in. Loads of work to catch up on.
But my chief priority is victory over you in our weight loss competition.
To paraphrase Malcolm X, I will assure victory “By any means necessary.” I believe he may have used that phrase originally in a weight loss competition with MLK Jr but I may have my historical events confused.
Point is, in war, there are no rules. Just more candy baskets.
I’m glad you enjoyed the gift basket. But don’t think of it as mere gift “basket” (singular)
Think of it as more of an Advent Calendar. But an Advent Calendar that ends on the day you concede I win and you lose. I mean, that you concede that I lost more. I mean that you concede that in a competition to lose, I lost more. Or, whatever, you know what I’m trying to say.
Watch your mail. Daily!
===
#TeamRP:
J’ACCUSE AGAIN!
I did NOT call you a rascal.
Here’s what I said (try this link for the full post):
John Y. Brown, III is a dirty, cheating snake-in-the-grass. As well as a kind and generous friend.
A “rascal” is a cute little freckled boy with funny hair.
And by the way, you got the whole civil rights controversy wrong.
Malcolm X did most definitely not challenge MLK, Jr. to a fitness competition.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Dec 28, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
iSoap
We so live in an iWorld. iPads with iTunes and iPhones with iNews (the news as I want to read it).
The 70s were called by se the Me Decade. But the 2010 will likely be known as the iDecade.
Why do I say this?
I just left Walgreens because I was out of “Body Wash.”
I know. Look….I had used soap for 48 years and it worked fine . But soap wasn’t personal enough for me in our new iWorld. So when I was offered a chance to switch to something hipper and cooler sounding , like “Body Wash, ” I went for it. In retrospect, I was simply at a weak and susceptible point in my bodily hygiene regimen. But mostly looking for something more tailored to me and my generation than an old fashioned bar of soap could provide.
But I find myself standing in Walgreens tonight and taking over 5 minutes to pick out the “right” body wash for me–because now there are too many choices. There is Relax, Energy, High Energy, Sensitive, Vibrant, Extreme Comfort, Secret Wonderland, and many, many others.
And I think I picked the wrong one now to fit my mood tomorrow morning. I thought I would feel “vibrant” but now worry I may feel like “secret wonderland” –and I don’t have the right body wash for that mood.
Which made me wonder if maybe I never should have given up that simple yellow bar of Dial soap I used for 48 years.
With business casual all the rage in many offices, the pairing of dress shirts and pants is a hot topic. In some ways, this is actually easier than putting together an outfit where you’re considering suit (or blazer and pants), shirt, tie, and sometimes pocket square patterns. But still, based on empirical data (a.k.a. what I see when hanging out in clients’ closets), a lot of people get it wrong. Below are 7 quick and easy points to keep in mind when selecting a business-casual dress shirt and pants combo.
1) Avoid wearing striped pants with just your dress shirt. This tends to look a little “off,” like you broke your striped suit apart and wore just the pants themselves.
2) If you broke rule #1 and are wearing striped pants with just a dress shirt, don’t worry I won’t hunt you down. Just promise me that your dress shirt isn’t striped too.
3) If your pants have a pattern (plaid, windowpane, check, etc.), go with a solid shirt, and vice versa. Otherwise you border on looking clownish. Some fabrics are “tone-on-tone,” which means they have a subtle pattern to their weave, like a herringbone, but are still all one color. Fabrics like that read as solids and are perfectly fine to wear with patterns. See above how, viewed closely, there appears to be a pattern in the shirt, but overall it reads as a solid.
Read the rest of… Julie Rath: No Brainer Shirt and Pants Combinations
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Dec 27, 2012 at 2:00 PM ET
As the Washington Post explains, our newest U.S. Senator, Brian Schatz — recently appointed by Hawaii Governor Neal Ambercrombie to fill the unexpired term of the recently deceased Danial Inouye — is a Member of the Tribe:
Schatz is married to architect Linda Kwok Scahtz, and according to his official biography, the two have a son and a daughter together. He lists his religious view as Jewish on his Facebook page.
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Dec 27, 2012 at 1:00 PM ET
#TEAMRP:
Just a few minutes ago, I returned to my office from my slightly extended Christmas holiday to find a huge brown UPS box on my desk.
After I dug through the styrofoam baubles, I pulled out the beautiful “Taste of Kentucky” gift basket pictured at left. It’s filled with delicious Kentucky Proud treats: Red Hot Roasters organic coffee, a box of Simply Kentucky Fudge, a gift bag of Bauer’s Modjeskas, a Blue Monday candy bar from Ruth Hunt, and my favorite — a Derby Pie: basically, a pecan pie with chocolate chips and a hint of bourbon.
Probably my monthly allowance of calories in one basket.
While I am in the midst of a fitness challenge against #TeamJYB3, it is always important to take a break from a diet every now and then, especially during the holiday season. Calculating the calories of just a few bites of the Derby Pie, I remembered that I hadn’t found a note identifying the kind, generous soul who would send me such a thoughtful gift.
I rooted through the box and found the card that had been displaced. Check it out after the jump:
Read the rest of… #TeamRP vs. #TeamJYB3 Fitness Challenge: J’ACCUSE!!!!
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Dec 27, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Thought for the day.
A friend admonished me for not planning well. She’s right. Up to a point.
The keys to any plan are to 1) plan ahead; 2) plan strategically and 3) execute that plan flawlessly.
If you can only do two of those three things, pick planning strategically and executing flawlessly. You don’t have time for the most thoughtful plan, but a strategic plan developed on the fly is better than no plan at all.
If you can only do one, there’s not much of a point. You could choose executing flawlessly a non-plan but that’s not really possible. You could choose creating a strategic plan but if you can’t execute it, what’s the point? And you could plan to plan, but why bother?
However, if you are a “planner” and can only choose one, you’ll probably choose one anyway because planners like the illusion of being organized and often-times like to simply plan for planning’s sake. And that’s fine. If you are one of these types and not very flexible, pick whichever one of the three makes you most feel like you are actually doing something constructive and “planning” —since they are all equally useless. At least you’ll feel better about yourself and be less frantic about your non-plan.
On the other hand, if you can’t do any of them at all (and are cool with that), find me and we’ll hang out and find a way to have a better time than those crazy planners,
Just to spite them.
Of course, we don’t really want to spite them because we’ll eventually need their help in getting a ride back to wherever we started since we didn’t plan on having a car or write down the address of where we were staying or where we are going. So if you aren’t a planner, at least keep a planner nearby.
With the recent release of the blockbuster, critically-acclaimed Lincoln, The Recovering Politician has asked Lincoln scholar, Matthew Pinsker — a professor at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania — to share some historical insights about our 16th President. Click here and here and here for his prior 3 pieces.
Here is the latest of his columns:
Here is a quick breakdown of the initial reaction from historians to Spielberg’s movie:
The leading academic critics so far have been Eric Foner from Columbia and Kate Masur from Northwestern. Foner, a Pulitzer Prize-winner and one of the most respected historians in the field, claims the movie “grossly exaggerates” its main point about the stark choices confronting the president at the end of the war over abolition or peace (Letter to the Editor, New York Times, November 26, 2012). Masur also accuses the film of oversimplifying the role of blacks in abolition and dismisses the effort as “an opportunity squandered” (Op-Ed, New York Times,November 12, 2012).
Harold Holzer, co-chair of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation and author of more than 40 books, served as a consultant to the film and praises it but also observes that there is “no shortage of small historical bloopers in the movie” in a lively piece for The Daily Beast (November 22, 2012).
Professor Matthew Pinsker
Other historian / fact-checkers have been more kind. Allen Guelzo, Gettysburg College, also writing for The Daily Beast has some plot criticism, but argues that, “The pains that have been taken in the name of historical authenticity in this movie are worth hailing just on their own terms” (November 27, 2012). David Stewart, independent historical author, writing for History News Network, describes Spielberg’s work as “reasonably solid history” and tells readers of HNN, “go see it with a clear conscience” (November 20, 2012). Lincoln Biographer Ronald White also admired the film, though he noted a few mistakes and pointed out in an interview with NPR, “Is every word true? No.” (November 23, 2012).
Historical author / blogger Kevin Levin finds the whole process of historical nitpicking and response to be more than a little aggravating. Writing for The Atlantic, he complains, “Historians Need To Give Steven Spielberg A Break” (November 26, 2012). I agreed with Levin in some ways, but for the opposite reason. I argued for Quora (and Huffington Post) that people should simply stop worrying about whether any movie which necessarily invents dialogue, characters and scenes should ever be considered as “historically accurate.” It’s a work of art –historical fiction—which we need to judge by other standards (November 27, 2012). That’s also the point, Spielberg himself made at the Dedication Day ceremonies at Gettysburg (November 19, 2012) when he called his effort a “dream” and made a careful distinction between his historically inspired movie and actual works of history.
I have written several blogs and articles on the importance of strength training, particularly as it relates to women. I have documented the reasons why women should pick up the weights. However, for some reason, some people don’t get it. Some think they are a genetic marvel that if they look at a 40 lbs. dumbbell that their quads will expand and it will prevent them from wearing pants. Remember this; any man that works out would love for that to be their problem. I wanted to take the time to profess that Strong is the New Skinny
To back up my claim for those non-believers let’s look one strong hormonal difference between men and women:
Testosterone– this hormone has a huge impact on muscle tissue growth (as well as other interactions in the human body). Men, on average, will produce 20 times more testosterone than women. This of course will determine the amount of muscle tissue a person can grow. That also is not to say women cannot build muscle, it just means you cannot build as much or as fast as a normal man.
So I bring this up because I firmly believe that strength training is as important, if not more important, for women than it is for women. Let’s look at those reasons:
Decrease in Body fat- women who strength train will naturally have less body fat than those that don’t. That looks good! Its ok to have a little muscle J
Increase in Bone Mineral Density- Women are more susceptible to osteoporosis than men and strength training helps combat that. The loading of the bones causes the bones to become stronger and increases the density, warding off brittle and weak bones
It is great for your health- Research has shown that women that strength train are in better overall health than those that don’t. So pick up a weight and start going at it!
Blog this!
Or perhaps, Jonathan, I knew Bradley Cooper. I’ve seen a lot of movies with Bradley Cooper. Jonathan, you’re no Bradley Cooper.
It is human nature to surround ourselves with people who are exactly like us. We connect and spend time with people who share a common world-view, look the same, enjoy the same activities, and speak the same language. We join clubs to be with others like us. The club most worth belonging to is the non-club club. The most valuable tribe is a tribe of unusual suspects who can challenge your world-view, expose you to new ideas, and teach you something new. A tribe of unusual suspects can change the world if it is connected in purposeful ways.
A “rascal” is a cute little freckled boy with funny hair.
But I find myself standing in Walgreens tonight and taking over 5 minutes to pick out the “right” body wash for me–because now there are too many choices. There is Relax, Energy, High Energy, Sensitive, Vibrant, Extreme Comfort, Secret Wonderland, and many, many others.
With 
