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:
1) Return to your fiscal conservative roots. Adhere to your rhetoric about not crippling the next generation with debt by supporting policies that would actually balance budgets, as opposed to Ryan-esque chimera and other supply-side delusions.
You may recall how the economy fared in the 1990s after every Republican legislator voted against Clinton’s ’93 tax hike and asserted it would kill the economy. Did a Republican Congress that limited spending help satisfy bond traders, keeping interest rates low and powering growth? Sure. But the public associates that growth with Clinton. Your doomsday rhetoric about Clintonomics cost you credibility, and a decade of feeble growth following the Bush tax cuts didn’t restore it.
2) As true budget hawks, take the lead in two areas where the nation could save billions: military spending and prison reform. Want to win the votes of young people and minorities? Bingo. Young people have overwhelmingly opposed recent overseas conflicts, and in a time of fiscal austerity when college grads are moving back in with their parents, the fact that that we spend more than the next 10 highest spending nations combined should be sobering.
Prison reform could be two-fold. First, train offenders in prison in entrepreneurship. Pilot programs in this area have reduced recidivism by as much as 80% – and 60% recidivism rates drive corrections spending. Second, focus on sentencing reform so that we don’t continue locking up non-violent offenders for decades as part of misguided “three-strikes” and “truth-in-sentencing” laws. Since minorities are disproportionately affected by the prison-industrial complex, they would appreciate a focus on sentencing reform.
3) Stop opposing the DREAM Act. The writing is on the wall. These approximately 15 million folks aren’t going anywhere; they’re not self-deporting and government lacks the will and the money to deport them, other than criminals who are apprehended. These 15 million mostly consider themselves Americans. Almost all work hard and play by the rules. Quit appeasing your eroding base of old white people and get with the program.
4) Stop talking about gay people. As has been obvious from the generational divide in polling on the issue for the past decade that ship is sailing away from you, fast.
Read the rest of… Jeff Smith: 7 Things Republicans Must Do
By Nancy Slotnick, on Tue Nov 13, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
The aftermath of the Hurricane. The aftermath of the election.
What’s the spirit of New York right now? I went on a fact-finding mission in my Timberlands and my construction jumpsuit yesterday. I am an anthropologist of sorts. Anthropologist-matchmaker, if that makes any sense. (usually it doesn’t.) I was hopeful about the state of affairs on human connection. After all, I have gotten buckets of positive energy sent my way on the loss of our house, and meanwhile there are Hurricane victims who are much worse off. So I wake up at the crack of dawn and I’m thinking, like that old Dunkin’ Donuts commercial—“Time to make the dates happen.”
But out in the coffeehouses of the city, not so much. The isolation is deafening. We can’t even blame the Hurricane for the shell-shocked nature of New Yorkers these days. Prior to hurricane season this year I was with my 7-year old son in Starbucks, and we were searching for a seat. He said, “I want to sit over there in the Computer Lab.” He was referring to the communal table. Something has gone wrong with our ability to socialize.
There is so much opportunity for human connection this week. New Yorkers have been outpouring charitable donations, volunteer labor, blankets and peanut butter& banana sandwiches. There is a palpable energy of friendliness, community and good will. But my findings revealed that noble intentions haven’t translated into an easier time for singles to meet. They should, though.
In the blackout of 1965 in NYC, my parents lived at 4thAvenue and 10th Street. My Dad was at NYU Law School and was walking home with a fellow student when the lights went out. He invited the guy over, knowing that my Mom would be there with dinner, and it would be wrong for his friend to have to be alone in the dark. My Mom had been at the gynecologist’s office in the neighborhood and had befriended a random woman in the waiting room who lived uptown and was stuck without safe passage. Needless to say, my Mom (not yet a Jewish mother but obviously in-training) invited the woman over for dinner as well. The two guests met that night and the rest was history. They fell in love and got married.
I’ve always loved that story. I was barely a gleam in the doctor’s speculum but that night must have been the start of my matchmaking proclivities. The most pertinent part of the story is that my Mom (Jewish mom in-training or otherwise) would not have invited a random stranger to dinner under normal circumstances. Don’t get me wrong, she is extremely hospitable. But she follows social norms, and it is just not a very socially acceptable thing to do.
I believe when you breach social norms and make yourself vulnerable, great things can happen. You can effect change. This is the time. That Billy Joel song is playing in my head. He says,“We lived through a lifetime and the aftermath.” What is the aftermath of a lifetime? I certainly don’t know, but one thing is for sure—the aftermath of a lifetime is even further beyond our control than the aftermath of a hurricane or an election. “This is the time, but time is gonna change.” You can bet that Obama knows this. You can know it too.
Imagine you only have 4 years- to accomplish your next goal. Whether that is finding the One, having a baby, starting a business, how might you get started?
“Is that a weathervane in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” Okay, maybe that’s not the best pick-up line in the world. But any pick-up line is better than no pick-up line. And judging from my anthropological findings around NYC this week, a cheesy pick-up line might be just the ice-breaker we need. Or should I say glacier-breaker? “How’d you do in Sandy” or “How’d you weather the storm?” might be a little more socially acceptable. There may be something to be said for some social norms.
Trying times can go either way, when it comes to human connection. We feel vulnerable, so we want to go back into the safe shell of workaholism and isolation. Or alternatively, we feel vulnerable so we reach out for the hope that love and connection can provide comfort. Two roads diverged in a taxi line. “Are you going to the Upper West Side too? I hear they have power and Internet there.” It’s so easy to reach out, yet so hard.
So when you’re out and about this week, think about the next 4 years, and stretch outside of your comfort zone to talk to a stranger. Get yourself one step closer to your goals. This is the time. Take New York City by storm. 😉
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Mon Nov 12, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
The Politics of Pigskin
The Falcons were handed their first loss of the season Sunday in New Orleans, dropping them to 8-1. [ESPN]
All the NFL statisticians groaned on Sunday when the 49ers-Rams game ended in the infamous tie, at 24-24. [SI]
As the Eagles’ season continues to spiral towards irrelevancy Michael Vick was knocked out of Sunday’s game against the Cowboys with a concussion. While Nick Foles will get the start behind the injury, it doesn’t appear that he is ready to lead this team to anything special. [ESPN]
Apparently Mike Holmgren is ready to get back on the sidelines. This report states he is interested in the Dallas Cowboys Head Coach position. [NFL.com]
Parity in the NFL in 2012. How to read the chart: Going clockwise, the scoreline between the two teams is one beating the other, and so on. [chart]
Could the Browns change up one of the league’s more iconic uniforms? Their players hope so. [PFT]
By Bradford Queen, Managing Editor, on Mon Nov 12, 2012 at 1:30 PM ET
You had to be buried in the sand if you didn’t hear the bombshell news of the weekend: David Petraeus, retired four-star general, resigned as director of the CIA following a lengthy affair with his biographer uncovered by an FBI investigation.
The Politics of Media
Petraeus’ exit came as a shock to many in Congress and it appears some (as high up as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor) did know of this affair and its possible — now real — ramifications. [Roll Call]
It wasn’t his first “affair.” Howard Kurtz said his first affair — “other seduction” — was with the press. [CNN]
Following strong election coverage, MSNBC is gaining ratings ground on Fox News. [NYT]
The Christian Science Monitor asks: “Is the death of newspapers the end of good citizenship?” [CSM]
Post-election infighting has begun on the right. Which sides will win out over the future of the GOP? [POLITICO]
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Nov 12, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
You are going to want more cow bell with that laptop.
Years ago in my MBA class I remember learning that the extra warranties that a certain unnamed tech store was offering customers had an 80% profit margin. They got sued and changed their policy—in part.
But since then I have never been able to bring myself to purchase one of these. You know the ones. You buy a new laptop and for another $150 the store provides an extended warranty on top of the manufactures warranty.
It’s always an awkward moment for me when I get to that point with the sales clerk. I know it’s coming. “Sir, have you heard about our extended safety coverage opportunity? It’s a great deal…”
I usually stop them and act like I don’t have the authority to make such an executive decision (either in my home; or my business, which I own). I say something like “I need to run it by my firm and let them decide. But not right now.”
But last night I had an unusually pushy sales clerk. After my standard response he said, “No. You can’t wait. It’s pretty much a point of purchase opportunity and that’s it.”
I shook my head and said, “I understand. I’ll just pass for now.”
And then after a pregnant pause I heard, “May I ask why you are not taking advantage of this offer? It’s really smart to do.”
“Huh?” I thought to myself. “Is he calling me stupid? Do I have to justify everything in the store I’m not buying today? Gee. Seems a little heavy handed. What could I say that would be clever but also make this point? Hmmmm. How about, “Look. I’m gonna come clean with you. I’m an idiot and need you to explain the warranty to me really slowly so I can understand this time.”
Or, “Look, I’m an adrenaline junkie and love to try to beat the odds in every area of my life—but especially with Bungie Jumping and with laptop warranties.”
And then I settled on it. “I think —if I hear you correctly—what you are trying to say….is to tell me, ‘Dude, you are going to want more cow bell. Am I right?” Hinting that the “good deal” warranty was about as helpful as a clanging cow bell in the background of a 70’s rock song.
But by this point the sales clerk had already walked away. And the only place I can share my somewhat clever– but way too late–quip is to post it today on Facebook.
Just hope he sees it. And get’s my cow bell reference.
We are proud to introduce our latest “reinvention” expert: Saul Kaplan. Saul is a nationally-recognized recognized expert on entrepreneurship and is the author of The Business Model Innovation Factory and founder and Chief Catalyst of the Business Innovation Factory. Saul’s column will be dedicated to advising members of the RP Nation who are in the midst of, or are considering, a second (or third, or fourth) act as an entrepreneur. Enjoy and learn:
Learn by doing. Constantly test new ideas. Learn, share and repeat. The world is ever changing — stay ahead of the curve. Embrace the art of discovery.
We need to try more stuff. Innovation is never about silver bullets. It’s about experimentation and doing whatever it takes, even if it means trying 1,000 things, to deliver value. Business model innovation requires a lot more experimentation than we are comfortable with today. Tweaking existing business models won’t work. Technology as a sustaining innovation may improve the efficiency of current business models but will not result in the transformation that we all want and need. We need to learn how to leverage technology for disruptive innovation and to experiment with new business models.
Geoffrey Canada, the inspiring founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone in NYC, reminds us of the importance of constant experimentation. Everyone wants to know the one thing that makes a program like Harlem Children’s Zone successful. What is the silver bullet that will allow the program to be replicated with ease across the country? We are always looking for an easy answer. There is no silver bullet and it is not easy to transform any business model or social system. According to Canada, at Harlem Children’s Zone it is doing 1,000 things with passion to help those children succeed. It is about focusing on the customer, in this case, the children within 100 city blocks in Harlem and doing what ever it takes to help them secure a bright future. There is no one thing.
Saul’s new book. Click on image to review and/or purchase
Business model innovation is all about experimentation. It is about combining and recombining capabilities from across silos until something clicks and value is delivered in a new way. It is never just one thing. It starts with a big idea that gets the juices flowing and attracts others with similar passion to the new approach. The big idea has to be translated from the white board on to a real world test bed to demonstrate that the idea is feasible. Starting small and demonstrating progress is key to building credibility and expanding a network of interested stakeholders. An ongoing portfolio of small-scale experiments to fail fast on those without merit and to prioritize those with the potential to scale is critical.
We also must get far more comfortable with hacking capabilities. Capabilities are the amino acids of innovation. They are the building blocks that enable value delivery. Innovation is a better way to deliver value and is often the result of repurposing existing capabilities. Locking capabilities into rigid organization structures and proprietary closed systems gets in the way of unleashing new sources of value and solving many of the important challenges of our time. Innovation is about hacking capabilities. Business model innovation happens when we enable random capability collisions resulting in new and unexpected ways to deliver value.
A good example of the power and potential of hacking capabilities is Microsoft’s (MSFT) Kinect. Microsoft introduced Kinect in November 2010 as a product extension to its Xbox franchise. Kinect adds a very cool capability for Xbox game players by getting rid of the hand held game controller and turning players into their own controllers. Microsoft and cool haven’t been used in the same sentence for a long time. Kinect is cool.
Microsoft predictably launched Kinect with it’s deeply ingrained proprietary product mind set. You could buy Kinect as a bundle with an Xbox or as a separate component to attach to an existing Xbox for $150. While Microsoft views Kinect as a product the global geek community views it as a capability. To geeks, Kinect is a powerful capability screaming to be hacked and repurposed for exciting new uses beyond its use as an Xbox extension. What a bargain for only $150. It’s a hackers dream.
And hack they will. A crowd of makers, programmers, roboticists, and other assorted and sundry geeks are having at it to explore what Kinect can enable beyond Microsoft’s initial intention. It’s only a matter of time before we see new gesture based applications and platforms. How about gesture based health care and education applications to start?
Read the rest of… Saul Kaplan: Experiment All the Time
By Michael Steele, on Mon Nov 12, 2012 at 8:20 AM ET
I am certain at some point during the past 18 months you found yourself feeling like that kid riding in the backseat of the family car on what is supposed to be the “great adventure” to “someplace special.” But the only thing you can muster after about 15 minutes is, “Are we there yet?” Well, kiddies, Tuesday night we arrived, and the trip that was Election 2012 was finally over.
When this journey started many of us had high hopes for an engaging battle of ideas, but what we got instead was more a battle of super PACs and their negative campaign ads. By the time of the first debate in early October, many voters were fed up and tuned out.
But a funny thing happened that night: President Obama finally got to meet Mitt Romney — not the caricature of the “rich white guy” or the plutocrat from, well, Pluto, but the husband and father, and the former governor of Massachusetts. It was this night, on the biggest stage of his political career, that Romney found his voice. He didn’t talk process or sound indifferent to the concerns of 47 percent of Americans, nor did he concern himself with the misdirection and bright shiny objects offered up by Democrats (e.g. campaign ads) but instead, looked every voter in the eye and talked to us with specifics and reminded us that we are not better off just because “it could be worse.”
Read the rest of… Michael Steele: Are We There Yet, GOP?
We welcome our newest contributing recovering politician to the RP: Steve Levy, who served as a Suffolk County Executive from 2004-2011, a New York State Assemblyman and was a Republican candidate for Governor of New York in 2010. Steve currently is President of Common Sense Strategies, a political, governmental and business consulting firm.
1. Occupy Wall Street
This movement, which started as a grassroots, diverse consortium of the disaffected and ultimately morphed into a cabal of old time anarchists and communists, is what gave Obama his sense of direction. Obama handlers knew there were few accomplishments to harp on, given the stagnant economy, but by focusing public anger on the 1%, they could help galvanize their base while also pointing the finger at the greedy rich folks they could claim were the cause of the mess they inherited.
2. The Greatest Convention Ever?
History will show the 2012 Democratic Convention as being the best of this century and possibly any convention over the last fifty years. It played to every constituency in the base, motivating them in difficult times and used President Clinton to lay the blame for today’s woes on the Bush administration. Romney could easily have accentuate the hypocrisy of Democrats blaming the current problems on the Bush administration. Economists agree that Bush policies had little to do with the crash of 2008. The culprit was the deregulation of Wall Street by repealing the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, ironically signed by Democratic President Clinton. The Romney campaign allowed the Democrats to establish traction on the term “Don’t Go Back.”
3. Define Your Opponent Early
Politics 101 is to seek to define your opponent in a negative way as early as possible. Politics 101A is for the affected candidate to respond quickly and forcefully. The Democrats wisely adhered to the former strategy, while the Republicans ignored the latter to their detriment. In the lull after the Republican primary, the Democrats spent a good share of their money pummeling Romney, defining him through his association with Bain Capital. He became the out-sourcing, job cutting, detached Daddy Warbucks who could not identify with the average worker, It took away Romney’s narrative that he was the sharp businessman who knew how to fix the economy. Romney could easily have defended himself as being the saver of jobs. Staples, Sports Authority and other companies survived because of his intervention. The initial jobs that were lost after Bain’s acquisitions would have been lost anyway. By the time Romney finally sought to aggressively erase this caricature at the debate, it was too late.
Read the rest of… Steve Levy: Top Ten Game Changes of the 2012 Election
Well before Bill Clinton mastered the skill of political survival, and became the most consequential ex-president since Theodore Roosevelt, he pulled off a more pivotal achievement. Clinton essentially restored the Democratic Party as an electoral force by shoring up its credibility on fiscal policy, social policy, and race, and in so doing, he drew two crucial blocs firmly back into his party: blue collar whites and suburban professionals. The modern electoral map, which allots most of the industrial north and Midwest to Democrats and in which suburb-heavy states like California and New Jersey have not been contested in a generation, is the legacy of Clinton’s restoration project.
Republicans face a comparable predicament to the one pre-Clinton Democrats faced in the late eighties, and to compound the analogy, it is a challenge along roughly the same fronts with a very similar alignment of voter blocs. If Walter Mondale’s Democrats seemed wedded at the hip to their union benefactors, today’s Republicans seem just as tied to corporate lobbies or billionaires. If the party that nominated George McGovern seemed mired in the grip of left-leaning activists bent on a radical redesign of social policy, Republicans appear to be under the sway of one network and a bevy of factions who are just as bent on a counter-cultural revolution from the right. The combination of money and noise exerted veto power on late eighties Democrats, much as contemporary Republicans are constrained by their own base.
And the blue collars and suburbanites whom Clinton strategized over are the very same slices of the electorate that allowed Barack Obama to run the battleground table with the exception of North Carolina (whose unpopular Democratic governor and nine percent plus unemployment should have made a 2.5 point margin much more comfortable).
The particulars of the Clinton project are worth recalling. The adoption of welfare reform served as an antidote to voters who associated Democrats with the transfer of tax dollars to the irresponsible. The denunciation of a rapper for loose lyrics about police violence seemed to erase the pandering, excuse making side of the party’s DNA. The now forgotten middle class tax cut proposal may not have survived Clinton’s first budget cycle, but it did its job by linking his party to the economic fortunes of a group that hadn’t seemed needy enough to be a liberal priority.
My strong hope is that Republicans, my new party, are about to discover their Clinton instincts. Had those sensibilities surfaced in the last ninety days, Mitt Romney would likely be planning a transition now. It is not hard to imagine the impact of a well-timed denunciation of the Todd Akin/Richard Murdock mythologies on rape not as gaffes, but as wrong-headed efforts to have government substitute for the conscience and moral judgment of a victimized woman. A fleshed out plan to rescue homeowners underwater on ill-conceived mortgages would have reflected some of the smarter instincts in the conservative intelligentsia in the last several years, while paying dividends with voters who associated the GOP with the blocking of initiatives and little else. Grabbing and running with Senator Marco Rubio’s version of the Dream Act before Obama absconded with it would have made a difference in Florida and Colorado.
But the tactical missed chances by Romney’s operation are history. The current challenge is finding a GOP pathway to do on the right what Clinton did in the salvation of the left 20 years ago: first, restoring the party’s bona fides as an institution capable of thinking and governing and not just pawing under the commands of its base. Second, overcoming a resistance to smart, fiscally disciplined innovation and reform.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: The New Republicans
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