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 Wed Dec 12, 2012 at 1:30 PM ET
The Daily Iowan published an op-ed from The RP about No Labels. Here’s an excerpt:
You may have more in common with your member of Congress than you think, especially around this time of year. Students and lawmakers alike want to finish up the year and head home for the holidays. But there’s a final exam standing between Congress and the holidays — and America’s citizens are ready to give the body an “F” if it doesn’t pass.
That exam is coming in the form of the “fiscal cliff” — the combination of arbitrary, automatic, across-the-board spending cuts and tax increases coming at the end of the year that could cripple the economy. It all started last year when Congress picked 12 of its members to try to find a deal to secure America’s long-term financial future. Consumer confidence had dropped dramatically, and a credit ratings agency dropped our country’s rating.
It seemed the only thing that could make members of both parties work across the aisle was an alternative so terrible it would be untenable to both parties.
The Congressional Budget Office has predicted that if we do not avoid the fiscal cliff, the $7 trillion combination of spending cuts and tax increases could send the economy hurtling back into recession for years to come. Unemployment, especially among young people, will rise even further. Education will suffer among the harshest spending cuts, losing about $4.8 billion in funding.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Dec 12, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Obviously!
When my son was about 11 years old we were in a heated debate about something utterly trivial and I stopped us and decided this could be a great “teaching moment.”
“In life, Johnny,” I started, “We often have to decide, Do we want to be right about every little thing–even silly things– or do we want to be happy.”
I paused.
“Which would you rather be?” I asked.
Johnny shot back “Both!”
I said, “No. You can’t do that. You have to chose one….Not both. Which would it be?”
Johnny, dug in and was trying to simultaneously make a point and get the correct answer. “Well, Dad, I’d rather be right, obviously.”
“No. No…no, no, no. That’s not the right answer. You’d rather be happy.”
Johnny snapped back, “Maybe you’d rather be happy. I’d rather be right. Being right makes me happy. So I do get both.”
I haven’t checked back to see if he’s modified his position on this issue but think I will this weekend.
By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Dec 12, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
As we fast approach the fiscal cliff, The RP has dedicated his latest column in The Huffington Post to rallying Americans behind No Labels’ demands for leadership by our elected officials.
Here’s an excerpt:
The last couple of weeks have been littered with false starts and steps backward in fiscal cliff negotiations. America needs its leaders to find a solution now more than ever, but real leaders have not yet emerged from the Capitol or the White House.
The American people are tired of short-term solutions that fail to solve any actual problems. We need real leadership in this country that can find a way to get things done.
Right now our leaders are unable to bridge the partisan divide that keeps government from solving problems. That’s why No Labels, a movement of more than 600,000 Democrats, Republicans, and independents who want to end congressional gridlock, calls for five principles of leadership to be present in the fiscal cliff negotiations. These principles are:
1. Tell the people the full truth. In order for Americans to make informed decisions, we need to know the details — all of them. If our lawmakers don’t tell us the enormity of the problems we face, how can we begin to solve them? When telling us the truth, lawmakers have to agree on the facts. There can’t be two different sets of numbers in the search for solutions. It was Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan who said that while every man is entitled to his own opinions, he is not entitled to his own facts.
2. Govern for the future. If we can’t find solutions to our economic issues, we put our potential for growth and opportunity at stake. America’s tradition of upward mobility and ingenuity is threatened by our lingering economic uncertainty. If we want to convince the rest of the world that we are still a leader, we must prove that we can overcome the petty partisan issues and take control of our fate.
No American family embodies mainstream Republicanism more than the Bushes, noted a New York Times article this year.
For three generations, Bush men have occupied towering positions in the party pantheon, and the party’s demographic and ideological shifts can be traced through the branches of the Bush family tree: from Prescott, the blue-blooded Eisenhower Republican, and George H.W. Bush, the transitional figure who tried and failed to emulate the approach of the New Right, to George W. Bush, who embodied the new breed of tax-cutting, evangelical conservatism. Indeed, the Bushes’ metamorphosis from genial centrism to deep-fried conservatism has both anticipated and reflected the party’s trajectory.
But now, Jeb Bush, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, seems to be bucking the trend. He is seeking to return the party to its ideological moorings — toward the centrism of his grandfather. Even before the GOP’s ignominious defeat in November, Jeb was offering tough love to his party, suggesting that Republicans stand up to Grover Norquist and craft a bipartisan compromise to reduce the deficit significantly. But will Republicans listen? There are many reasons to believe they won’t.
Prescott was a Manhattan investment banker who called himself a “moderate progressive.” In the 1952 primary between conservative presidential candidate Sen. Robert Taft and moderate Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Prescott chose Eisenhower — and became the president’s favorite golf partner. Prescott rode Eisenhower’s coattails into the Senate, where he focused on urban renewal, spearheading the 1954 Housing Act. An early proponent of the line-item veto, he received national recognition as an advocate of fiscal responsibility.
Prescott’s son George H.W. left for West Texas in 1948 when Texas was still a one-party state. But change was afoot in the South, and by the time H.W. ran for U.S. Senate in 1964, he encountered a flourishing Texas Republican Party that had recently elected its first U.S. senator by attracting hordes of conservative Democrats. But the new rank-and-file Republicans were nothing like the Connecticut Republicans he knew — or even like those in the Houston suburbs. Biographer Richard Ben Cramer imagined H.W.’s vexation at this new breed of Texas Republican:
“These … these nuts! They were coming out of the woodwork! They talked about blowing up the U.N., about armed revolt against the income tax. …The nuts hated him. They could smell Yale on him.”
Recognizing that his 1964 primary campaign would need to be more Goldwater than Rockefeller, he ignored the social problems Prescott had addressed. “Only unbridled free enterprise can cure unemployment,” H.W. asserted, contending that government bore no responsibility for alleviating poverty. Though he lost, he began the transition to Sunbelt conservatism that would make him (barely) acceptable to Ronald Reagan as a running mate. But he never fully evolved: He famously reneged on his “no new taxes” pledge. His son George W. would complete the transition.
George W.’s first major legislative accomplishment as president was the enactment of a massive $1.6 trillion tax cut. He rode roughshod over the green-eyeshade types to pass a massive tax cut. When it produced runaway deficits, he accepted Dick Cheney’s argument: “Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter.”
In adopting Sun Belt conservatism — sometimes clumsily — George H.W. and George W. anticipated the Republican Party’s ideological shift. Hence, in evaluating Jeb’s prescriptions for fiscal responsibility, today’s Republicans should recall the Bushes’ past political palm reading.
Read the rest of… Jeff Smith: Can Jeb Bush sway the GOP on taxes, debt?
I hosted a women’s mini-retreat at my house on Saturday, and it was everything I’d hoped it would be — with terrific women ranging in age from 34 to 61. Many of them were strangers to one another when they arrived, a couple having travelled 80 miles to be here; but in just 3 hours, the group had become what many women’s groups become after any heartfelt period of shared time: a sisterhood.
Yes, whether its 30 minutes or 3 hours, when it comes to heart, women of diverse backgrounds inevitably relate to one other, empathize, laugh with, support, and encourage each other, because we share an emotional language of understanding what it means to be this gender. Our stories and contexts of experience might be different, but what’s the same is perceiving life through female eyes and spirit, and extending forward from a long line of female ancestors.
Women like and need time to gather for the purpose of healing. I remember the light-bulb moment of this realization 15 years ago when I read Anita Diamnont’s historically accurate, Red Tent, in which the women of the village lived together according to the moon cycle, about 7 days of each month.
A get-away every 4 weeks? Yes, please.
I’m still moved by the image of women washing the feet of their “sisters” and massaging the abdominal pain away as they convalesce. That’s what I’m talkin ‘bout.
I’m going into my 9th year of coordinating and facilitating women’s gatherings, and what never fails to happen in the first hour, is a collective settling into togetherness. It’s very much like coming home; and if the facilitator’s agenda is to focus on emotional strength instead of failure, these homefolks become the functional, happy family we always wanted but didn’t know could exist, at least for the duration of the gathering. Even if participants never see one another again, what was shared becomes a sacred experience of connectedness that fostered self-reflection.
I find this incredibly interesting, and though it’s not new (women’s circles go back 1000’s of years), it might be news to some that we do have an unconscious understanding of our feminine-divine need to have sisters. On her way out the door on Saturday, one participant commented, “I really needed to be with other women like these; I’ve been so tired of being with people who complain, but I didn’t realize there was another option. “
After all the gatherings goings-on I’ve observed, what I continue to find special is articulated beautifully by another participant who e-mailed me later saying, “We uplift each other simply by being there. Yet, as each person enters the group with an honest intention of her own forward motion, the whole group moves forward.”
Read the rest of… Lisa Miller: The Healing of Sisterhood
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Dec 11, 2012 at 5:00 PM ET
The RP just sent out this email to the No Labels troops. We encourage you to join them:
It’s urgent: On Sunday, President Obama and Speaker Boehner met face-to-face for the first time in 23 days. With our leaders not even sitting down with each other regularly, how can they find a solution to the fiscal cliff?
Last week, we told Washington to park the planes, stop the trains — get the job done. The fiscal cliff is too big of a problem to let political point scoring get in the way of problem solving.
Add your name to the thousands calling for our leaders to park the planes, stop the trains and get the job done — Click here to SIGN ON NOW.
Together, we’ll make sure our leaders stop the political games and get to work in Washington.
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Dec 11, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
Latkes? Schmatkes!
This time of year makes many of us nostalgic for those traditions of our childhood, those Norman Rockwell-esque memories of stringing popcorn, gathering fresh pine boughs, and sharing our plum pudding with the Himmels. (Oh, whoops, that wasn’t my childhood, that was Jo March’s . . . )
Well, anyway, most of the time I’m not exactly the domestic type (I cook adequately, but Martha Stewart’s job is safe), but occasionally I get this uncontrollable urge to create a memorable Hanukkah for my family. Which is pretty silly, when you think of it, since it’s a minor holiday that only gets any attention because it’s close to Christmas, and the traditions associated with it are more appropriate to Las Vegas (gambling and eating fried food). But I still want my boys to have fond memories, so I hang up the dreidl garlands and put out the menorah tea towels and star-of-David potholders, and when I’m really ambitious, I make a batch of latkes. (Which I imagine is akin to my Christian friends deciding to make a Buche de Noel or homemade egg nog, something like that?)
Latkes, for you goyim, are potato pancakes – so just imagine your entire kitchen covered with oil splatters, flour, and bits of burnt hash browns, and you’ll get the general idea. You can find countless articles about how adequate draining or squeezing prevents splatters, tips on utilizing the potato starch left from the draining liquid, and recipes that require using a lab-quality timer, but it still always makes a mess, and I end up resolving never to do it again. But amidst the mess and debris, occasionally one or two come out halfway decently, and there is something almost religious about biting into a crispy patty of fried potato – plus you’ve got to love a holiday where you’re supposed to eat fried food!
Unfortunately, that bliss is short-lived, and the mess takes forever to clean up. (And the worst part is, my kids don’t even like latkes!) But at least this year I captured it on film, which may help remind me next year that the latkes are always crispier in someone else’s kitchen . . . .
PS “Latkes, Shmatkes” is the title track of my album of comedy songs for Hanukkah – available at www.laurenmayer.com, on amazon.com, iTunes, CDBaby, and Picklehead Music.
Earlier this year I wrote one of my first pieces for the Huffington Post entitled “Flyover Country? Not this Kansas City.” The column focused on many of the incredible things happening on Silicon Prairie. Since then Kansas City has continued to impress with its unbelievable momentum in the entrepreneur, startup and innovation space. Kansas City is on a roll. It’s a city on move.
Now as many people might already know Kansas City has the best barbecue in the world. Not only is it the best, but recently one of KC’s outstanding BBQ restaurants, Oklahoma Joe’s, was named The Manliest Restaurant in America by Men’s Health. Try the Z-Man and fries, you won’t be disappointed. KC is the barbecue capital of the world, but now through The Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce’s Big 5 Initiative, KC is building to become “America’s Most Entrepreneurial City.” A lofty goal with serious competition on both coasts, but with Kansas City’s rich history of entrepreneurship and innovation anything is possible.
Recently, many impressive developments are helping to move the ball past the goal line with entrepreneurs in Kansas City. Much of this is due to a renaissance in the spirit of collaboration. Groups such asKCSourceLink, UMKC SBTDC and the Kauffman Foundation are providing unprecedented access, opportunities and resources for entrepreneurs. This can be no more apparent than at Kauffman Labsthrough the 1 Million Cups (1MC) program. Every Wednesday morning local startups present their companies to a diverse room of hundreds of mentors, advisers, investors and entrepreneurs over coffee. In addition, the Kauffman Foundation recently powered Global Entrepreneurship Week in 129 countries, which included a full week of over 40 activities for entrepreneurs of all ages and stages of business in Kansas City.
In Kansas City, local government is also developing innovative public-private sector partnerships and real collaboration with the entrepreneurial community. The Mayor of Kansas City, Mo., Sly James recently announced Launch KC. Launch KC is an initiative designed to attract and develop entrepreneurs and IT professionals in the thriving information technology community around the downtown area of Kansas City, MO. A few key parts of the Launch KC initiative are reducing the costs of launching tech companies in KC, building a downtown wireless district, providing incentives on business equipment to tech startups, connecting entrepreneurs to corporate resources and establishing a major technology lab in Kansas City’s Union Station.
Read the rest of… Jason Grill: Kansas City is Building America’s Most Entrepreneurial City
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Dec 11, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Bitter Sweet Symphony
I am a sucker for bitter sweet as a prefix for anything.
I admit that.
I think that much of life, even the most beautiful , brilliant, gratifyjng and elegant parts are still —at best — imbued with a bitter sweet quality. And that isn’t a “sad” quality.
Just a human one.
So being the cutting edge music aficionado that I am, I couldn’t resist the title of this song I stumbled across this morning: And absolutely love this song and sound and video.
Note; I use “cutting edge ” loosely.
Meaning plus or minus 15 years. Apparently this song was released in 1997 and received notable acclaim.
But, hey, that’s more cutting edge than, like, 16 years later.
Blog this!
