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 John Y. Brown III, on Wed May 28, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
A Public Service Request: Ok, everybody. A few simple requests. Lately, traffic has been really irritating me.
I am in a silver Avalon with Jefferson Co plates. If you see me out driving and I am trying to switch lanes, please just let me in. I am in a hurry and am going to assume you aren’t. If I am behind you and seem to be tailgating you, it isn’t a coincidence. I really need you to speed it up or get in the slow lane. OK?
Also, some people who don’t absolutely have to be out driving today, I would really appreciate it if you could stay in and not congest traffic around me—at least between now and 9am and again between 530-630pm and, finally, between 1230-130pm in just the Louisville Metro area. If you live outside of this area, I don’t mind you driving today. But need you to be sure to avoid Metro Louisville.
And please no honking or waving gestures or shaking your head at me if I do something driving that you disapprove of. That hurts my feelings. Especially no honking when a light has turned green and I haven’t accelerated for several seconds. This is just my way of getting back into “driving mode” after stopping.
Oh, and if you are tailgating me, be ready to slam on your brakes at a moment’s notice. I know you want me to speed up, but that’s not going to happen –especially now that you are tailgating me. And please know that even though I may not give you the finger, I am still thinking it.
Feel free to wave hello or smile when passing. Or just give me a nice thumbs up. Then I am going to need you to stop distracting me.
Sound reasonable?
Thanks very much in advance! I think this will really help my frame of mind today.
By Lauren Mayer, on Wed May 28, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET
Music & science may seem to be strange bedfellows – the only songs I could think of were Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science” from the ’80s (and if you’re not old enough to remember that era and its fabulous goofy technopop, check out Devo while you’re at it), and “I Sing The Body Electric” from Fame (from the ’70s, which is making me feel really old . . . but I digress)
Generally they would seem to be polar opposites – science is about concrete data and provable facts, where music is emotional and subjective. Sure, you can give a scientific description of sound waves, but that doesn’t explain why some pieces of music affect us so emotionally. (For example, I get goosebumps when I hear the french horn entrance toward the end of the 4th movement of Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony; I also start giggling every time I hear the intro to Spike Jones’ version of Hawaiian War Chant . . . ) Besides, trying to analyze the beauty of music reminds me of E. B. White’s comment about why analyzing humor was like dissecting a frog – “Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.”
However, there is concrete scientific data on music’s value in aiding retention of information – it connects with the brain on multiple levels, which is why we teach kids the ABC song, or why anyone who ever learned the “50 Nifty” tune has no trouble remembering all 50 states in alphabetical order. (This multi-layer connection also explains “ear worms,” which is a disgustingly appropriate term for a tune that you can’t get out of your head. Often a TV theme or a commercial jingle . . . anyone old enough to remember “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is?”)
Science is getting a bad rap these days from people who deny climate change – an affliction common among right wing politicians and media pundits. Cosmos host Neil DeGrasse Tyson is doing his best to combat this willful ignorance, including his wonderful quote, “The good thing about science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it.” I don’t have Tyson’s scientific expertise (or a TV show), but I can do my part by using music to help make the same point. (And to tie this all together, I’ve borrowed an ear-worm-ish ’80s TV theme . . . )
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue May 27, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
When someone says to us, “That was a bad decision you made” it is important to remind ourseleves that they didn’t say, “That was a ‘very’ bad decision you made.”
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Tue May 27, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET
We have all made the argument before in our lives, pleading “I promise I’ll take care of it, I’ll feed it and walk it and bathe it everyday…it can even sleep with me.” This time the argument didn’t even need to be made, thinkCHUA wanted to take home a tiger too, only they weren’t for sale. On our visit to the Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi, Thailand we were able to pet the tigers, play with the cubs and take the tigers on a walk under the watchful eyes of the monks, but we couldn’t take them home. We were only able to take pictures and memories with us, even though the temptation was great to sneak a cub into our bags and back to our hostel.
thinkCHUA with tiger cubs at the Tiger Temple
The Tiger Temple or Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua is located in western Thailand, an easy day trip from Bangkok. This temple is a sanctuary not only for Buddhist monks but tigers and other wild animals. The temple was founded in 1994 and received their first tiger cub in 1999. Villagers brought tigers to the monks at Tiger Temple in cases where their mothers had been killed by poachers or the tigers were injured therefore unable to survive in the wild. Slowly their tiger population grew until they turned the operation into a conservation project and started breeding tigers. Tigers are expensive “pets,” which is where tourists come in.
One of the many devoted monks that care for the tigers at the temple.
It costs roughly 100 USD a day to care for a tiger and being that monks don’t earn any money to cover these costs, tourists can visit the temple for 600 baht per person (roughly $20 at 30 baht to the dollar). This is substantially higher than visiting any other temple but gives you the opportunity, as I mentioned above, to touch fully-grown tigers and to play with cubs. The money brought in by entrance fees covers the costs of feeding and caring for the tigers. The temple is also reforesting a large amount of land nearby (‘Buddhist Park’) in order to give tigers a chance to be released into the wild in the future.
Read the rest of… Erica and Matt Chua: Can We Take Him Home Please…
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon May 26, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
As I walked out my front door this morning carrying my laptop bag, I pulled the door behind me with a prolonged tug that caused my index finger to mash between the door and the door pane.
I clasped my throbbing finger as my voice strained to curse loudly enough to offer relief but not so loud that neighbors could hear.
I slowly uncovered and peeked at my swollen finger tip and then went back inside for no other reason than to sigh loudly and curse louder than I had outside in hopes someone would wake up and ask me about my injured finger.
But no one did.
So I left. Again. This time with a sore finger tip and hurt feelings.
It was at this moment I realized how grateful I was for the brave men and women and who fought and died in combat so wimpy and whiny guys like me –who would never have made it in combat– can have a good life today.
And even do frivolous things like writing on Facebook this morning about mashing a finger tip.
And also to do easy but more thoughtful things like thanking the many stronger and braver American service men and women who came before me –and many others like me — and had our backs. And gave their lives for people they would never know but who someday, like today, might want to say “Thank you.”
Thank you. And thank you again. Every day, of course- –but especially on Memorial Day.
==
SALUTE
Those who fought and died so that those who came after could live freely and in peace.
By Michael Steele, on Mon May 26, 2014 at 10:00 AM ET
The untreatable international agita over Russia’s meddling in Eastern Ukraine is taking on otherworldly overtones here in the United States, where the Putin regime’s hegemonic bullying of its next-door neighbor is reaping unforeseen cosmic repercussions in the heavens, in the halls of diplomatic and military power, and in the courts.
Leave aside, for moment, the general concept of punishing sanctions, which haven’t hit hard enough to convince the willful Russians not mess with Ukraine. Forget, too, the internationally accepted and expected notion that sovereign nations should be left to set their own destinies. Insistence by pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine on moving forward with an intentionally provocative “self determination” referendum, and subsequent declarations of “independence” by the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, seem to all but assure that a deeper and perhaps bloodier conflict will soon engulf part or all of Ukraine.
In just days, roughly one third of Ukraine’s territory could effectively become a Soviet-style satellite. The current, minimalistic sanctions regime the Western powers have put in place has done nothing to stop the Russian power grab that is controlling the separatist movement from the Kremlin.
But aside from the immediate geopolitical price to be paid for indecisive Western reaction, there are other consequences to leading from behind. Here in the United States, satellites of quite another variety are becoming a new, central focus of the Ukraine crisis — our spy satellites.
Arguments abound in political, industrial, military and legal circles about the folly of the US defense sector’s reliance on Russian industry and technology to heft the Intelligence Community’s eyes on the world into low Earth orbit. You read that correctly — US surveillance satellites cannot attain their perches in the heavens without the aid and acquiescence of the Russians.
At particular issue here is the astonishing US reliance on Russian rocket engines for a longstanding heavy space launch program overseen by the US Air Force. Launches conducted by that program, known commonly as EELV, short for Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, have been sole-sourced to industrial behemoths Boeing and Lockheed Martin since the program’s inception in the mid-1990s.
In the years since the program’s founding, however, the relationship between those two rival firms and the US Government has grown quite cozy. Boeing and Lockheed Martin formed the consortium firm United Launch Alliance (ULA) in 2006, and since then, ULA has entrenched itself as the Air Force’s single source for heavy launches, most of which involve depositing “national security payloads,” or spy satellites, over troubled areas.
Other quite capable American firms have tried to enter this arena in recent years but have been rebuffed by any variety of unfair means.
ULA’s workhorse rocket is the Atlas V. The Atlas V is itself a fascinating historical artifact, designed by Lockheed Martin prior to the founding of ULA but after the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union was thought to be vanquished, and Russian-American industrial and economic cooperation hit new, previously unimaginable heights.
At its core, the Atlas V was once looked upon as a symbol of US-Russian goodwill and technical collaboration. Those were different times, indeed.
The first Atlas V lifted off in 2002, soaring into the skies under the power of the Russian-designed-and-built RD-180 rocket engine, which still powers this mainstay even today. No Atlas V leaves a launch pad without at least one RD-180 attached to it. The rocket simply isn’t designed to accommodate anything else.
This means exactly what you have just deduced – the US intelligence agencies that need ULA’s services, not to mention the other government entities that launch their own machinery into space, are at the mercy of the Russian Federation. By its own admission, ULA has only two years’ worth of RD-180s in its stockpiles. That’s it. Either ULA will have to buy a whole bunch of rocket engines from the Russians before sanctions for Russia’s Ukraine misadventure are expanded, (at outrageously inflated prices, one would think), or the EELV program grinds to a halt in short order.
While some US firms like Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) have challenged ULA’s monopolistic hold on the EELV program, others are looking more specifically at the reliance on the RD-180 and don’t like what they see. One of these is Sen. John McCain, who has taken up the laboring oar to assure that competition in the launch market frees the United States from this bizarre and inexplicable dependency.
Current US sanctions against Russia for annexing Crimea and for further agitation throughout Ukraine’s East single out select individuals close to the Kremlin’s power structure. One of these figures is the man that oversees the Russian aeronautics firm that manufactures the RD-180. A federal contracts court based in Washington just this last week found itself grappling with the notion that engine purchases from this company could violate the economic restrictions placed on that individual, Twitter-hound and gadfly, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.
Rogozin bit back on Tuesday, announcing that Russia would ban RD-180 use by the United States for its military launches. The situation thus morphed from the ridiculous to the absurd.
Meanwhile, the United States could, in theory, still be sending millions, perhaps billions of dollars into Russian defense sector coffers to keep its rockets in flight, even with a coming deeper freeze in bilateral relations. For reasons of national and economic security, not to mention the future of US space exploration, this cannot stand.
Innovators leap across learning curves exploring new ways to deliver value the way Tarzan swung from vine to vine across the jungle. Innovators thrive on the steepest part of the learning curve where the changing rate of learning is the greatest. Watch how innovators manage their careers and lives. They always put themselves on a steep learning curve. I know I always have. Staying on a steep learning curve is the most important decision criterion for any career decision an innovator makes. Along the way innovators make many career moves none of which are primarily about titles, offices, number of direct reports, or money. Innovators believe those things are more likely to happen if they keep themselves on steep learning curves. Every choice to take a new tack or direction is about the next learning curve. Innovators are self aware enough to know they do their best work while learning at a rapid rate and are bored to tears when they aren’t. Steep learning curves matter most.
I have known many people who sacrificed learning curves for money and other extrinsic rewards and in the long run most ended up unhappy. In my experience innovators who follow their passions and are in it for the learning always end up happier and making more money anyway.
The tricky part for innovators is to know when to leap from one learning curve to the next the way Tarzan traversed vines to move through the jungle. Innovators get restless when any curve starts to flatten out. Instead of enjoying the flat part of the curve where it takes less effort to produce more output, innovators get bored and want to find new learning curves where they can benefit from a rapidly changing rate of learning. If the goal for innovators is to get better faster the only way to accomplish it is to live on the edge where the knowledge flows are the richest. It isn’t the most comfortable place to be. It’s understandable most suffer the pain of the steep part of the learning curve, not for the kick of learning, but to finally reach the flat part of the curve. No urgency to move to another curve once the plateau is reached. It is comfortable on the flat part of the curve where the workload lessens and rewards are only available to those that have paid their dues and put in the time to climb up the curve. Yet innovators seem to extract what they need from the steep part of the curve and leap off to do it again moving on to the steep part of the next curve just when the effort required to further climb the current curve gets easier.
Read the rest of… Saul Kaplan: Innovation Lessons From Tarzan
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri May 23, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
Going through the whole Bible in Sunday school.
I would never say this to God, but I sometimes think He made the Old Testament a little too long –and was trying too hard to impress us by using really complicated names.
The Old Testament is great and all but I feel like God really didn’t hit his stride as a writer until the New Testament. It just flows better and gets to the point faster.
And, best of all, starts using more regular sounding names like Mark, Luke, John and Mary.
As one door closes, another one opens. Sometimes it takes a few shakes of a lamb’s tail. Sometimes it feels like you’ve tredged up the hill both ways in the snow, barefoot, exposed, vulnerable, in shark-infested water with no life preserver, on an island by yourself with a volleyball for a best friend….
Wait. Too much. Dial it back. Sometimes I get so excited to tell the similar tales of endearment and struggle I was raised on by my (founding) father(s) that I get too ahead of myself. I also remember that although we share the foundation of struggle, our stories and generation gaps, so to speak, fill the holes. They pave a way of evolution for the tykes that come next. That in spite of our differences, we share the same principles. We raise and are raised to fight. We fight to make this world a better place.
That said, I can only speak to unemployment in this day in age, and that is what I’ve been. Unemployed. You feel like a bright, eager, talented, little twerp. You feel so passionately about pouring yourself into your career and being the best and the most. You feel so much feeling that when the checks stop, the spirit leaves you. You hate the phrase, “The glass is half full” because you are drained by being a drain of resources, knowing you can be a source that recharges the economic battery. Wanting to do that. Feeling that. Lots and lots of feeling in our generation…
And sharing. Pouring it out in public, looking for dignification.
I have been one of the lucky ones. I posted an article here on The Recovering Politician about my laments of being unemployed, and within ten minutes, I had multiple responses. People reaching out to help. People reaching out to learn how they could help. People as conduits. People offering to learn more about me in an effort to hire me directly. People that had known of my struggle, but when pen came to paper and a Word document met a blog, felt too, the existence of empathy – generational gaps and all.
That article was my own personal white flag. I thought that before I had done so, I had reached my bottom. It wasn’t until I wrote those words and exposed my feelings that I truly felt like it was time to make the climb. It was then I realized I didn’t have to climb alone – up the hill, both ways, in the snow, shark-infested waters…yadda, yadda, yadda. It was time that I changed “feeling” into acting.
As soon as I acknowledged I needed help in the most public and Gen-Y way possible, my digital smoke signals got picked up by the captain of a major vessle.
I am so pleased to announce that I am no longer unemployed – and haven’t been for some time. Two weeks after I posted the first article, I sat down to have simple, genuine dialogue that would pave the way for a brand new journey. Walking hand-in-hand with the most surprising of mentors in the most serendipitous of circumstances.
My Old Definition: Mad Woman Among the Mad Men. Advertising Agency World left me cold, bitter, ill-adjusted, unrefined, crass.
My New Definition as a Work In Progress: Polished Professional Woman, deemed so by her peers, her predecessors, succeedors, family, friends, and mentor: Shelia Bayes.
I have been taken under a wing of a strong, female mentor. As much as I have been taken under a wing, I am also being taken very seriously. I have a full glass if I choose to partake. I also have the responsibility of filling the cup. I plan that, the time I spent wallowing and feeling pitiful about how eager and passionate I am, that I am overdue to have this cup runneth over. For myself – for the company I am proud to be an ambassador of – and – for the people willing to take a chance on me when I was sailing uncharted, scary waters.
I think big. I dream big. I fill my heart and my hopes with nothing but…big. I am the quintessential millenial with big hopes and big dreams. I would be kidding if I tried to state anything less.
So, as one chapter closes, another one opens. Thus is the beauty of life. I said in closing of my last article: “Career, life and love are like great bourbon. They’re fun when they’re young, but there’s something sweet and powerful when they get a little age on ‘em.”
“Oh, and they’re more of a commodity too. Because they’ve grown to become something very special. The days of boxed wine and cheap seats are over for this gal. At least that’s the metaphor. I will be drinking boxed wine and looking on from the nosebleeds until I find a job that soothes the pockets…and then lines them….”
Well, folks? Career seems to be shaping up to be beautiful medley of foundation, confidence and passion, coupled with the good old fashioned molding from those who take a special interest in raw, unpolished, mouthy pieces of (art)work. Boy, she’s got her hands full. Pat her on the back when you see her, will you?
****
I close with the same phrase as before, with subtle differences: “Love? I assume that may be next. Life? Well that’s what I’ve had all along. I won’t be waiting for wrinkles to become special. This is one thing I’m confident of; a sweet gift I do have in my half-empty pocket that is sure to surprise.”
UPDATE: Here’s to lining pockets, wrinkles in time – not on faces; faces that smile, smiles that ignite. Here’s to a remix to ignition, a new definition, and yes, if anyone asks? We DID start the fire.
Here’s to fires that burn so brightly you can see them from space. Here’s to opportunity, whether it be from failure, honesty, success, or flat-out digital SOS smoke signals. Here’s to sweet, simple, serendipitous moments and the spirit for life that can manifest again and burn so brightly – for a little twerp like me – ready to take things on with vigor. We have a new captain, a charted course…and we are full steam ahead. That’s so stinking cool. Oh, life…aren’t you full of stories. You wanker, you.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu May 22, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
At lunch today we discussed the study of criminology with my niece, Meg Talley.
The discussion –which eventually led to the topic of the criminal mind –reminded me of one of the great sleeper movies I have ever seen: Straight Time starring Dustin Hoffman.
The movie was released in the late 1970s and, in my view, is a classic study of the criminal mind.
Too often film and television celebrate and glorify the cleverness or boldness of criminal characters. But that depiction rarely seems to ring true to me.
The reason I believe Straight Time is such a powerful and insightful film is that it captures the mind of a criminal in a more credible and convincing manner–in its pettiness and mundaneness. Hoffman plays a common criminal who is endearing but uncomfortable outside of his criminal survival inclinations which, for him, have become instinctive. There is little to nothing about him to glamorize — or demonize, for that matter.
He is a common hustler and con man. Like most hustlers and con men, he is on the surface likable and even endearing. But underneath there is only a calculated instinct to take from others who seem only to exist as props in a never-ending slow motion heist. He tries to connect with others but can’t. Every interaction is just a step toward the next “job.” It’s business, not personal. And criminal not legit.
Hoffman’s character is pitiable at times and despicable at times. But mostly he is just an ordinary little man who approaches life day-by-day in a small and unimaginative manner to get by in a world that isn’t as complicated as he thinks it is yet is convinced he is destined to outsmart it.
But the criminal character in this film seems more real than usual and isn’t defined by bold or clever gestures that somehow seem heroic— but rather is defined by gestures that are crude and futile and essentially remorseless. He lives a criminal life that is noteworthy not for its tortured depth or unpredictable drama but rather is noteworthy merely for it’s shallowness, vapidness and painful predictability.
Blog this!
