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 Erica and Matt Chua, on Tue Jan 21, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET
Japan is what the world could be, if we all worked a lot harder. For example, Tokyo is home to more than 30 million people, yet the streets are cleaner than restaurants in the USA. The food chain is so trusted that meat, included beef and horse, is consumed raw. Rush hour traffic is orderly, composed and quiet. The grass is so green and pristine that it looks fake. The trains run on the second, show up at 12:00:07 and you missed your train. When you have a Japanese person explain why things are the way they are you can’t help but laugh and think, “Yeah, that makes so much sense…why is it done differently at home?” While many things are lost in translation, understanding the order and practicality of Japan is a wonderful experience.
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DON’T MISS:Nara, imagine traditional Japan hundreds of years ago, what you are imagining is Nara. MUST SEE: Raw meat restaurants in Tokyo; Harajuku and Yoyogi Park (Tokyo) on Sundays to see people wearing crazy clothes such as “cosplay” and the Dancing Elvises; Arashiyama hill and forest temples (near Kyoto); Shinjuku (Tokyo) at Night. MUST TASTE: Sushi at Tsukiji Fish Market…really sushi anywhere and everywhere in Japan.
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TRIP PLANNING A week is enough to see the major sights of Tokyo and Kyoto, but 10-14 days would make the trip much more enjoyable. GETTING AROUND: Trains. The train system, especially intra-city, is among the world’s best. Avoid traveling during rush-hour.
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OUR COST PER DAY (2 ppl): $77.58 without accommodations (we Couchsurfed) COST OF A BEER: $3 at 7-11. KEY MONEY-SAVING TIP: Take the bus instead of the train from Tokyo to Kyoto. We paid $36 each for the bus instead of over $160 for the bullet train. This was only possible because we had a Japanese speaker arrange it for us, so find a friend.
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YOU NEED TO KNOW: Japan is expensive, think Switzerland expensive. Public transit often costs $2-4 USD a ride, a short taxi fare is $20, a meal rarely costs less than $20. That said, it’s all worth it, Japan is an amazing country. IF WE KNEW WHAT WE KNOW NOW: We would buy a Japan Rail Pass and travel extensively through the country. It would have cost a lot more than what we did, but allowed us to see a lot more than we did. HELPFUL LINKS TO LEARN MORE:How to travel Japan inexpensively. Is a Japan Rail Pass worth it?Free attractions in Kyoto. Please send us any sites you found useful and we’ll add them!
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Jan 20, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
We’ve all heard some version of the story of a great basketball player who in some big game misses the clutch shot that could have won the game.
After that the player is forever haunted by that “moment” and asked over and over again by fans who recognize him, “Aren’t you the guy who ……?”
Over time the wound dissipates but never quite fully goes away.
My father wasn’t a basketball player (at least after high school). But as a former professional basketball team owner, he has had to live with a similar kind haunting basketball “moment.”
Call it the “Salina Bros Shakedown.” Call it the “Greatest sports negotiation of all time.” Call it the convergence of tenacity and blind, dumb luck. Whatever it was, it now has a final-seeming price tag of $800M.
And it’s $800M that, theoretically, my father—had my father been a different kind of person and a more ruthless kind of negotiator- may have gotten a piece of.
Yesterday I was with my dad when we ran into Joe Arnold who stopped him to do this interview. Joe does a masterful job of explaining succinctly what happened and capturing my father’s unbothered and good-humored attitude about it all.
I believe in negotiating hard and negotiating smart. Always. And my father has taught me that well. But he has also taught me to negotiate honorably with an eye toward your reputation and future business opportunities. At the end of each negotiation you have a “bottom line” business deal and a “bottom line” reflection on your character. And both are of equal importance.
In this particular negotiation there was a fluke in which had my father been focused merely on squeezing every last penny out of this deal at the expense of his reputation, he may have gotten a piece of this improbable windfall. But that would have meant sacrificing who he is and his reputation as a fair dealer with people who had trusted him and were relying on him to close the biggest deal of their lives. The entire ABA/NBA merger was being held up by the Salina brothers final demand for TV rights in perpetuity and they knew they had the NBA and ABA over a barrel and merely had to wait them out until they capitulated. And they did.
Is a person’s reputation worth $100M, $200M or even $400M dollars?
I guess the takeaway for me is that I believe that question is the wrong question. Because one’s reputation should never be for sale. Period.
And as so-called “missed opportunities” go–they should never be the cause for time-consuming and soul-draining bitterness but rather something you laugh off magnanimously and then keep moving ahead, from, lest you miss the next opportunity.
And that’s a pretty good lesson for a son to learn from his pop.
Is any of this just some sort of happy rationalization trying to pretend a missed opportunity wasn’t really wanted anyway? Probably a little. But only a little.
Because, at the end of the day, sometimes a missed shot in a basketball game, literal or figurative, is just that. And nothing more. And leaves behind an interesting story but not something to haunt or define you. After all, it’s just a game.
But other than New York’s Jonathan Chait, who recognized the cumulative weight of multiple investigations at multiple levels of government, most commentators are focusing on the wrong thing: the politics of recent revelations. The few who are focused on the potential criminal violations by Christie aides (and perhaps Christie himself) are focused on Bridgegate and, to a lesser extent, the tourism ad kerfluffle. Was wire fraud committed by anyone who used email to further an illicit act? Do state crimes of willful negligence or public corruption might apply here? Was a federal crime of interfering with interstate transportation committed?
What these pundits forget—and, as Christie, a former U.S. attorney, knows as well as anyone—is the old saw that federal prosecutors can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. They don’t need a bulletproof case. And once they have a target, they aren’t limited to investigating the matter that caught their attention; public corruption probes often widen as new information emerges. Federal prosecutors rarely have just one attack route. Remember, they brought down Al Capone for income tax evasion, not bribery, bootlegging, or murder. The Fort Lee incident may be merely a bridge, if you will, to other Christie administration misconduct. As a former target of a federal investigation that started in one place and ended in a very different one, I’m all too familiar with the unpredictable directions in which these things can go. What piques a prosecutor’s interest during plea negotiations may be totally unrelated to the original crime.
Read the rest of… Jeff Smith: Yes, Chris Christie, the Feds Are Out to Get You
Beware of random collisions with unusual suspects. Unless, of course, if you want to learn something new. In that case seek out innovators from across every imaginable silo and listen, really listen, to their stories. New ideas, perspectives, and the big value creating opportunities are in the gray areas between the unusual suspects. It seems so obvious and yet we spend most of our time with the usual suspects in our respective silos. We need to get out of our silos more.
It is human nature to surround ourselves with people who are exactly like us. We connect and spend time with people who share a common world-view, look the same, enjoy the same activities, and speak the same language. We join clubs to be with others like us. I want to belong to the non-club club. The only tribe I want to be in is a tribe of unusual suspects who can challenge my world-view, expose me to new ideas, and teach me something new. Our tribe of unusual suspects can change the world if we connect in purposeful ways.
As an “accidental bureaucrat” over the last six years I had a front row seat to observe the silos in action. Every week went something like this; On Monday I met with the health care crowd, on Tuesday it was the education crowd, on Wednesday the energy crowd and so on, you get the idea. This cycle repeated over and over again. Each crowd was comprised of the usual suspects, well-intentioned people rehashing the same discussion incessantly. The scene is right out of Groundhog Day. Most of the participants were there to represent institutional perspectives and to protect their respective interests. In each crowd there are always a few innovators that want to change the conversation but they make little progress. At the end of each week I always came away with the same conclusion. If only we could take the innovators from across each of the silos and bring them together to enable more random collisions.
Maybe we could change the conversation if we connect the unusual suspects in purposeful ways. Maybe then we can make progress on the real issues of our time, little things like health care, education, and energy. It will take cross silo collaboration and breaking down the boundaries between industries, sectors, and disciplines.
People always ask me how I could have worked in the public sector after being in the private sector all of my career. Doesn’t it move too slowly? I don’t know about that. I worked with many large companies, during my road warrior consulting days, and I don’t remember them changing so quickly. You are right, I would say, government agencies move pretty slowly too. I can’t resist adding, I am certain that academic institutions move the slowest of all! The point is few organizations across both the public and private sector have the capacity to innovate and change because they are working hard pedaling the bicycle of their current business model and trying to stay alive and competitive.
I attended Washington Community Fellowship when I lived in Washington D.C. But once I moved to New York, I stopped attending any kind of religious fellowship.
I have often wondered why it happened that way: Why had I wandered off the path taken by the rest of my family? What I understand now is that I was one of those people who did not appreciate the weapons of the spirit. I have always been someone attracted to the quantifiable and the physical. I hate to admit it. But I don’t think I would have been able to do what the Huguenots did in Le Chambon. I would have counted up the number of soldiers and guns on each side and concluded it was too dangerous.
I have always believed in God. I have grasped the logic of Christian faith. What I have had a hard time seeing is God’s power. I put that sentence in the past tense because something happened to me when I sat in Wilma Derksen’s garden. It is one thing to read in a history book about people empowered by their faith. But it is quite another to meet an otherwise very ordinary person, in the backyard of a very ordinary house, who has managed to do something utterly extraordinary.
Their daughter was murdered. And the first thing the Derksens did was to stand up at the press conference and talk about the path to forgiveness. “We would like to know who the person or persons are so we could share, hopefully, a love that seems to be missing in these people’s lives.” Maybe we have difficulty seeing the weapons of the spirit because we don’t know where to look, or because we are distracted by the louder claims of material advantage. But I’ve seen them now, and I will never be the same.
True, I have been posting a lot lately about men’s boots, but in the winter, sometimes all you see on a person is his outerwear and footwear, and that’s why I’m a little obsessed. My general feeling about mens footwear is that it should be streamlined and not chunky or clunky. However (and maybe it’s the Maine in me), but when it comes to boots and outdoor gear, I love the look of something rugged and tough. It just screams out masculinity. Like this is a guy who would scoop me up, carry me across a puddle and deposit me on dry curb.
Here are my picks for rugged, lady-scooping goodness:
Red Wings
Red Wings have enjoyed a monster resurgence as of late, largely due to smart partnerships with some major clothing companies.
These babies above are a J. Crew exclusive. If you get them, make sure you go with the “dark wood” color. “Dark straw” is a color no one should ever put on his or her body, I don’t care how close to the ground it is.
Read the rest of… Julie Rath: Puddlejumping and Lady Carrying
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Jan 16, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
Secret confession
Sometimes when I am at a point in my life when it is time to reinvent myself again, I ask myself if I think I can get away with using one of my older reinvented selves and hope no one notices because I cant think of anything new to do with myself.
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I want to become a better person.
Not so much because of ambition or a sense of calling.
But because I am I feel that I am capable of better–more dignified– targeted online ads.
I am better than the current ads targeting me! And I know deep down that I have better targeted ads inside me. Ads my mom would be proud of.
The new year opens up the flood gates of new gym goers, all with the mission to get in “shape.” Many of these gym goers have never worked out before and have never been to the “gym.” This is a new playground, a new adventure and a new experience. Many will be intimidated and may do things they don’t know are wrong. So with a little fun, I have compiled a list of “rules” for your gym experience. Here we go (print these off and take them with you!):
1. No one is staring at you…they are staring at themselves.
Not really a “rule” but a statement! Believe it or not, people are not staring at you working out, in fact they are staring at themselves. Why do you think they put mirrors up? To check our form? No! To check if we are showing definition in the triceps. Duh!
2. Re-rack Your Weights
One of the first rules we learn as a child; if you bring your toys out, you have to put them back where they came from. You take the 5lbs dumbbells across the gym to do hammer curls, take ‘em back Jack!
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Jan 15, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
Is it possible to prove God exists through higher mathematics?
I recently saw a discussion on this matter and it got me to thinking. Suffice it to say, that I do believe it’s possible to use higher mathematics to prove God’s existence.
And I even have first hand experience on this very matter.
No, I’m not going to get all highfalutin talking to you all fancy-like about mathematical ideas you won’t understand. Not at all.
But here’s how it happened for me. I escaped high school only having taken Algebra and Geometry. I always loved math. But once they started introducing letters into it, I figured they had just run out of practical uses for math and were trying to make it deliberately harder—or they were just showing off. After the letters started up, I just lost interest.
My only exposure to calculus was four week of pre-calculus my freshman year in college. That’s all it took for me to realize the stuff had to be Divinely inspired –because it made no logical sense to me.
But that’s not the part about calculus that convinced me to believe in God. Into my fourth week of this class –and convinced I was going to fail– I started praying nightly for God to please help me–some how, some way. And the next week it happened. My friend and mentor, junior Allen Ragle, explained to me about the college phenomenon of “dropping” a class. If you are taking a class and it turns out you hate it or it is too hard for you, no problem. You just “drop” the dang thing and all you get is a little ole “W” on your transcript. High schools don’t allow this but colleges do.
It was a religious experience for me just hearing this good news! I dropped the class the very next day and had never felt such a rush of Grace in all my young life.
15Ever since learning I could drop my pre-calculus class, I’ve never doubted that God existed. And, in fact, when I graduated college, I had a whole host of “W’s” on my college transcript to prove God’s mercy was very much alive and real in my life!
Hallelujah!
For Jerry Eifler, Lee Whitlock, Gene Thompson, Ivan Schoen, Jim Sichko and my other friends who are also well-connected with the Big Guy…. I would have included a list of friends who had likewise established themselves in the field of mathematics, but don’t seem to have any at the moment…. Which, I guess, is what happens when you leave math at pre-cal.
By Lauren Mayer, on Wed Jan 15, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET
Just in case you haven’t seen Avenue Q or studied German, Schadenfreude means “enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others,” which makes it sound like sadism or bullying. But combine it with hubris – in case you haven’t studied Greek or read op-ed pieces about Anthony Weiner, hubris is “extreme pride, arrogance and overconfidence.” So when someone displaying great hubris has a spectacular public failure, one could make a pretty good case for ‘justifiable schadenfreude.’
For example, have you ever enjoyed the delicious satisfaction of seeing a driver pulled over for speeding who a few miles earlier cut you off? Or isn’t it fun to hear someone telling a clearly fabricated story get tripped up by a question he or she can’t answer? It’s not that we are relishing the pain of other people, but occasionally it is sure nice to see someone get caught (often referred to as ‘hoisted by one’s own petard,’ which is a Shakespearean phrase meaning lifted by one’s own explosive device, and that makes me seem kind of mean, but ‘getting one’s just deserts’ makes it look like I’ve misspelled a bakery title . . . but I digress).
Anyway, Chris Christie may have had nothing directly to do with ‘Bridge-gate,’ as the flap over the GW Bridge closure has come to be known. And maybe it doesn’t strain credulity that several senior members of his staff planned an enormous revenge plan without consulting or informing him. However, despite his press conference performance as a mild-mannered clueless mayor sad about being lied to and betrayed, he does have a bit of a track record for being vindictive and combative. Plus in the past few months he’d made any number of disparaging, sarcastic remarks about the reporters and state legislators looking into the whole thing. So is it any wonder that plenty of people are taking just a little, teeny tiny bit of joy in his discomfort?
Incidentally, it looked for awhile like Christie had achieved the impossible – creating bipartisan agreement, since both Republicans and Democrats were criticizing him. But apparently most Republicans got the GOP memo on the subject, so they’re now all talking about the left-wing media witch hunt, and why aren’t we as critical of Obama not knowing about the IRS conspiracy to cover-up the security situation in Benghazi to distract from the health care website rollout, or something along those lines.
So now that we’re back to ‘business as usual,’ I’m indulging in comedians’ favorite form of ‘justifiable schadenfreude,’ which is finding comic relief in a politician’s self-imposed difficulties:
Blog this!
