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:
To paraphrase from the video above, “greatness is not one big thing, it is lots of little things.” That is astoundingly true. It is the little things that add up to make the big things. Our greatness in life is not one thing we have done, it is a collection of small things amplified together to create who we are.
I challenge everyone, including myself, to watch the video above and apply the message to everyday. The narrator states there are 84,000 seconds in day and we all decide how we will spend each one of those.
My mission for this week is to make a hit list of things that must be worked on or accomplished by weeks end and to rid myself of the mental clutter that clogs my brain from time to time. I want to be phenomenal and as it says in the video, “no one cares what you did last year, it is what are doing now that matters.” Move towards greatness. Enjoy the video.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed May 21, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
You Only Live Once So Pace Yourself
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I don’t like admitting this but sometimes I worry that I haven’t downloaded the right apps to make it in this life.
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My attempted contribution to emotional intelligence (paraphrasing Aristotle).
Anybody can pout – that is easy, but to pout with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not so easy.
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If you are moving so fast and taking on so much that when you “relax” you don’t really relax but merely reflect briefly on moments in your life a long time ago when you were able to relax, your life hasn’t gotten too busy.
It’s gotten insane.
And the answer isn’t to move faster but stopping to discover what it is you are running from.
By Lauren Mayer, on Wed May 21, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET
I’m probably dating myself by referencing that antique, fairly offensive Virginia Slims tagline, encouraging women to embrace feminist progress by flaunting their own florally decorated brand of cigarettes. Now it comes across as hideously dated, but in the 1960s, the idea that women could do anything that men could – including poisoning themselves with nicotine – was both novel and incredibly exciting. When I was around eight years old, I remember struggling with whether I would prefer to be a world famous concert pianist or the first female president. (Yeah, I was thinking small . . . . )
I got a taste of politics as a college intern in Washington (although no one made a pass at me except for a bartender with bad breath. . . but I digress), and learned fairly quickly that I didn’t have a thick enough skin to survive in that arena. But I always wondered whether I’d get to see someone else achieve that ‘first female president’ goal.
Like all good starving artists, I was working as a waitress in New York when Mondale selected Geraldine Ferraro as the first female member of a major party presidential ticket, and all of us called our mothers in a collective burst of feminist solidarity. So by 2008, I was ready for some more groundbreaking – excited for Hillary Clinton to be even a viable candidate, and thrilled that I resembled Sarah Palin enough to come in 2nd in a lookalike contest.
But now it’s looking like Mrs. Clinton isn’t just a possibility, she’s already assumed to be the de facto nominee for 2016 (if she chooses to run; the suspense over that choice has been as gripping as any of the soap operas that have gone off the air). It’s fascinating to see how people react. If nothing else, she has proven that she definitely has the resilience, thick skin, and quick reflexes to rebound from whatever gets thrown at her, from insults to conspiracy theories to random shoes (to insulting conspiracy theories about how she was somehow behind that shoe throwing . . . )
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue May 20, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
Sometimes when I leave home for work early in the morning, my wife only groggily says something to me like, “Good bye” or “Have a good day.”
That’s nice and all but I need a little more than that.
I tried to tell Rebecca that this morning. (In fact, I had to tell her twice because she was asleep and apparently didn’t hear me the first time.)
Rebecca then mumbled sleep…ily into her pillow, “What do you want me to do? Get up and do a cheer?”
Well…she read my mind! That’s what married couples do after they have been together as long as we have. Rebecca just “gets” me.
I didn’t say it, but yes, of course. That would have been really nice and is exactly what I had in mind.
Now that Rebecca has the idea, I wonder if she’s planning on surprising me tomorrow morning?
Of course she will!
I love that girl!
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Rebecca forgot to do a “goodbye cheer” for me this morning
Yesterday I explained how I wanted a more inspired and dramatic send off when I leave for work in the mornings and fully expected today would be the day Rebecca would start.
But things didn’t go quite as planned.
Our conversation this morning started with a hopeful –but mostly informational overture from Rebecca: “The alarm just went… off, John.”
A few minutes later while dressing in our bathroom, I offered a cryptic hook, “Oh my gosh!” I just let it hang in the air while waiting for Rebecca’s curiousity to build.
After a minute passed and no response, I repeated an even more emphatic, “OH…MY…GOSH!!”
A panicked, “What’s wrong?” came from the bedroom.
I smugly grinned and responded to Rebecca, “Well, you are not going to believe this but remember the navy pants you had taken in an inch in the waist for me last month because of my diet? Well, they are too big for me–again!”
“Oh no.” Rebecca feigned concern.
“No, it’s a good thing,” I confidently chirped. Before adding, “In fact, How do you keep your hands off of me now?”
There was another pause followed by a long and mostly muffled response. I strained to make out what Rebecca was saying and was disappointed to discover Rebecca was trying to explain, literally, how she resists keeping her hands off of me.
“C’mon, Rebecca,” I interjected. “It was a rhetorical question. I didn’t mean for you to answer. I was complimenting myself.”
“Oh. Ok.” Came back the answer.
That’s it. That was our entire exchange this morning.
Before leaving I audibly sighed to see if Rebecca had remembered to do a “goodbye cheer” for me, as if on cue.
Nothing.
I sighed again. This time louder.
Rebecca lifted herself up from her slumber and offered a sleepy hug goodbye.
It was a sweet gesture and I complied.
I reminded myself that cheers –even “goodbye cheers” –sometimes take a couple days to develop. And that Rebecca is probably waiting until she has a complete goodbye cheer routine mastered before surprising me.
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Tue May 20, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET
Let’s be honest, sometimes you just do what’s easiest. Even on a quest to do everything, on-the-fly adjustments are based on convenience. For example, we took a night bus from Vientiane to Pakse to visit Vat Phou, pre-Angkor ruins. Coming off a 12-hour bus ride we realized that our enthusiasm would fade quickly, as it would take five hours of additional travel to Vat Phou, then a 3 hour bus ride to 4000 Islands; traveling with all our bags. As we considered our next move, a bus to 4000 Islands pulled up; hitting the easy button, we boarded.
The entry point to Don Dhet, the beach.
With plans as fluid as the Mekong which we stood on the banks of, we waited for additional travelers to share a boat to the islands. Though we intended to stay on Don Khone, the next travelers to arrive were going to Don Det. For the second time in one morning, our “plans” were pushed aside by the realities on the ground. We joined them on the boat to Don Det, knowing little about where we were headed.
Read the rest of… Erica and Matt Chua: Laos Unexpected II: 4000 Islands
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon May 19, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
Uh-oh…
I tried to set my iPod in my car on a “Loop” to play the same 5 songs repeatedly.
It worked but I just noticed my mind seems to be stuck on a loop with the exact same 5 thoughts. (And they are not songs….I mean thoughts that I would have picked to put on a thought loop.)
I have disabled the looping feature on my iPod but am still having the same 5 thought loop playing over and over in my head.
Does anyone out there have experience with iPods and thought loops getting stuck?
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Here I go again…
Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up I noticed I was late
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
And somebody spoke and I went into a dream
Nooks and crannies are important to both English muffins and innovation.
I haven’t been able to get a picture of a lightly toasted Thomas’ English muffin with butter and strawberry preserves oozing into those marvelous nooks and crannies out of my head. Maybe it’s because I’m resisting the temptation while on one of my frequent short-lived diet and exercise delusions. More likely it’s because of a story that caught my eye last week about an executive who left the company (Bimbo Bakeries, I’m not kidding) that makes Thomas’ English Muffins to join the arch enemy, Hostess Brands. It seems that Bimbo is suing to prevent the executive from joining Hostess because they suspect he has absconded with and will divulge the secret of how to make English muffins with perfect nooks and crannies.
You heard right. The row is about protecting the trade secret for creating nooks and crannies in an English muffin. Bimbo claims there are only seven people who possess the trade secret and of course the executive leaving to make Twinkies is one of them. I find it hard to believe that only seven people have the know-how necessary to create great nooks and crannies. It sounds more like a marketing ploy. But what do I know. I thought it was just using a fork to split the muffin! Think about it. Samuel Bath Thomas left England headed for America in 1874 with a recipe for his muffin baked on hot griddles. Surely in over 135 years more than seven people have accumulated the know-how for nooks and crannies. And how are we to know if Samuel Thomas didn’t borrow the formula before heading for fame and fortune in America. Not to accuse Samuel Thomas of pilfering the recipe and starting an English muffin revolution but it does sound eerily similar to Samuel Slater escaping England with the trade secrets for the textile mill, which of course started the U.S. Industrial Revolution!
No surprise that nooks and crannies are the secret to a great English muffin. Those air pockets allow for both perfect toasting and a natural repository for the aforementioned butter and jam. So Bimbo Bakery goes to incredible lengths to protect its know-how. Instead of recipes they use codebooks. Employees are on a need to know basis and only have access to the pages of the codebook necessary to complete their specific task. They are shielded from the information and people in departments working on other tasks. It doesn’t sound like a formula for innovation but then maybe Bimbo isn’t interested in innovation. Perhaps they are just obsessed with protecting the status quo for the nooks and crannies of English muffin making.
Nooks and crannies are also the secret to great innovation. Innovators thrive in nooks and crannies and refuse to stay in any silo barred from communicating across them. They know freely exploring nooks and crannies is the only way to get better faster. Nooks and crannies increase the surface area an innovator can expose to the best knowledge flows and new ideas. With more surface area comes greater exposure to and absorption of a broader range of ideas, experiences, and capabilities. A thoughtfully comprised network of unusual suspects increases an innovator’s surface area. Social media platforms are just nooks and crannies on steroids to an innovator.
Innovators also know that most important innovations emerge from the nooks and crannies between silos, disciplines, and industry sectors. It is by combining and recombining ideas and capabilities from across silos that innovators create new ways to deliver value. System solutions for the big social challenges of our time including education, health care, and energy, will only be found if we get more comfortable in the nooks and crannies between us. Pass the strawberry preserves.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri May 16, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
When you are talking about gaining weight and you have gained a pound, you simply say you gained a pound. If you’ve gained five pounds, you say you gained five pounds. Simple, right?
But talking about weight loss is different.
If you are trying to lose weight and are talking to someone about your success so far, the weight you mention is always the most total p…ounds lost to date. Even if your weight has fluctuated by a few pounds that week.
For example, I mentioned the other day I had lost 19 pounds in 4 months. And have. I mean had. But I gained two pounds this week. But when asked this morning how my diet was going, I announced confidently that I had lost 19 pounds (not 17 pounds).
I figured it was just pointless to mention and didn’t make me feel as successful.
The rationale, I guess, is that when losing weight we are “in process” and a little backsliding is to be expected but isn’t representative. And we “will” continue to lose weight.
It’s a little like when economists distinguish “constant” dollars and “actual” dollars. Constant dollars are adjusted for inflation. And weight loss is adjusted for aspiration.
As of today, I may have only lost 17 actual pounds, but I have lost 19 pounds when adjusted for aspiration.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Oh, excuse me, someone was talking to me about navy blazers, and I fell asleep.
The idea of navy blazers typically conjures memories of a first trip to Brooks Brothers for a rite of passage Sunday jacket, gold buttons and all. But not all navy blazers have to be a snoozefest. In fact, there are ways to take this conservative stalwart and give it a good shake-up. Read on for 5 tips on how to make a navy blazer your own:
1) Get it tailored so that it FITS you. I’ve you’re a current Rath & Co. client, or if you’ve been following me for some time, you know I’m a stickler for clothes that fit perfectly. So if you have a navy blazer that’s been hanging around your closet for a while, and the fit is within striking distance (the first thing to check is if it’s right across the shoulders), take it to a tailor you trust, and have him or her check the rest, including waist, arms and length, and make adjustments as needed. You’d be amazed at the 180 a jacket can take with a few nips and tucks.
2) Swap out those trad gold buttons for ones made of horn or gunmetal, like in the image above of a blazer I designed for a client. You’ll go from preppy to polished in no time.
3) Rather than standard navy, consider a blue with some kick to it, like midnight, cobalt or royal. Check out the same shot above of my client in his spanking new bright blue blazer. (His fiancée wasn’t complaining.)
4) Instead of a solid, try a subtly patterned fabric, like this tone-on-tone windowpane (above left — you have to expand the image to see the pattern) I just picked out for a different client. A blue hounds-tooth or pin-dot (above center and right) would also work, as would blue tweed in cold weather. From 4 + feet away, these fabrics read as solid, but up close you can see the extra oomph.
5) Wear it casually. This is an entire blog post on its own – much bigger than one bullet point, but I’ll give you the broad strokes. If you’re bored by the navy blazer-khaki pants routine (or if it just isn’t you), mix it up by pairing your blue blazer with casual pieces: with jeans, layered over a t-shirt and hoodie or cardigan, with a casual (perhaps short-sleeved – no one will know) shirt in a quirky pattern as seen in the above image and/or with casual laceups.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu May 15, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
I secretly miss, deep down, that feeling of being an amazing person….in my home, at least, when my children were 6 and 10.
I may have been just another schmo at work. But at home I was a master and maestro to my children at every new activity. Or seemed to be.
I remember blowing giant bubbles for the first time in our backyard that amazed both my children and made them feel like their dad wa…s truly special. I seemed to just “know” how to blow giant bubbles effortlessly–something new to them. They felt proud and believed, deep down, that their dad was probably a better bubble blower than any of the other dads on our street. And maybe in our entire neighborhood. Heck, that day I felt that they believed I was probably a better bubble blower than any dad anywhere.
It was a good feeling. Even though I knew I was probably just a little above average at bubble blowing.
Now our kids are 16 and 20. And they know how to blow bubbles and fly kites and draw in the sand and go sledding and they even know all the grown-up tricks to win at hide-and-go-seek.
And I’m just not as amazing a person as I used to be. I just feel like I’m out of tricks. And pulling a quarter out of one of my children’s ear would just irritate them and make me feel cheap for only pulling out a quarter for them instead of a dollar bill.
Maybe it’s time for a David Copperfield-esque mega magic trick where I make something amazing disappear.
And then I realize that something amazing has already disappeared.
Blog this!
