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 Lauren Mayer, on Tue Oct 23, 2012 at 1:30 PM ET
For those readers who are either over 30 or don’t have teenagers who can explain it to us, internet memes are concepts or images that spread quickly online. While memes can include random humor (LOL Cats) or celebrity references (the Ryan Gosling “Hey Girl” series), they’ve also started to pop up in politics. (Google ‘Big Bird’ or ‘You Didn’t Build That’ and you’ll get the general idea.)
The most recent meme to catch on like wildfire was “Binders Full Of Women”, from a comment made by Governor Romney in the 2nd Presidential Debate – even if you didn’t watch the debate, even if you had no interest in it, you’ve probably heard about this one, which inspired dozens of Facebook groups (with thousands of fans) before the debate was even over. Part of what gave this unfortunate turn of phrase such legs was that it had all the aspects of a great meme – vast public exposure, a simple, clear visual image, and a huge variety of humorous interpretations.
Next came the backlash, commentators complaining that people were making a mountain out of a molehill, or accusing Obama voters of focusing on picky word choices rather than the real issues. But I believe part of why the image caught on so quickly was that it wasn’t just a verbal gaffe, it was emblematic of why Romney has such trouble connecting with women:
– His positions are vague (the anecdote about ‘they brought us binders of women’ was what he told instead of answering a direct question about whether he’d support the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act)
– He’s patronizing (trying to impress us with how hard he worked to actually find some qualified women, as if he’d never met one in all his years in business?)
– He likes to bend the truth (turns out he didn’t actually go out and ask women’s groups, the groups came to him with resumes)
At any rate, it’s hard to resist an on-fire meme, so here’s this week’s song!
We’ve all heard about the KLOUT hype-mania with employers asking job applicants about their KLOUT scores and using it to decide who gets hired….but this is going too far.
Depression symptoms include:
Feelings of sadness or unhappiness
Irritability or frustration, even over small matters
Loss of interest or pleasure in normal activities
Reduced sex drive
Insomnia or excessive sleeping
Changes in appetite
Feelings of worthlessness or guilt,
Trouble thinking, concentrating, making decisions and remembering things
A lowered KLOUT score
For some people, depression symptoms are so severe that it’s obvious something isn’t right. Other people feel generally miserable or unhappy without really knowing why.
But a drop in one’s KLOUT score of 3 or more points within a few weeks is usually an unambiguous sign of major depression—or at least should be!
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Tue Oct 23, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
This week the Recovering Politician Bowl became the height of parity 8 (!) teams settling in at 4-3, 3 other teams at 3-4, and finally the lowly Bandits bringing up the rear at 1-6. However, in the interest of fairness and honesty, I would be remiss without highlighting the fact that the Bandits have faced the toughest opposition in the league with 714 points scored against them.
Will anyone be able to pull away from the pack in the coming weeks? Stay tuned!
By Nancy Slotnick, on Tue Oct 23, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
One of my husband’s favorite movies is True Lies. (You must say it with the Ahrnold accent.) Of course the irony of the casting of that film didn’t become so readily apparent until recently. I saw Arnold interviewed about how he lied about his audio malfunctioning when Matt Lauer once asked him a question that he didn’t want to answer. Even though he admitted to this lie in his recent memoir, he still didn’t want to own up to the lie when asked about it on Meet the Press. And they had video footage! A lie wrapped in an enigma wrapped in fudge factor. It’s called acting I guess.
Of course, everyone lies in some form or another. I had this conversation with my 7 year old the other day. (yes, Mom, I flossed my teeth.) But when someone flat out lies about everything, blanketly denying things that they have already admitted to be true, then that is someone you don’t want to date. Or vote for, in my opinion.
How can you tell? If someone like Maria Shriver, an extremely smart and astute woman, can be fooled, then how on earth can the rest of us figure it out?
Well, you can start by avoiding the worst kind of lie- lying to yourself. A first date can tell you about 80% of what you need to know about a person if you pay attention. And a month of dating someone bumps it up to 90%. But how well can you listen when they tell?
You get this feeling, in the pit of your stomach and you can’t make sense of it. So you ignore it and do what feels good. We all do this and I’m not trying to say that you can’t be human and act on impulse. But before you do, try to make sense of that sinking feeling- it has 2 distinct heads to it that you can try to decipher. And then when you act, act deliberately with the cognizance of whether you are making a decision for 4 hours or 4 years.
As Barack Obama and Mitt Romney duke it out, several of our contributing RPs — including Krystal Ball, Michael Steele, Jeff Smith, Rod Jetton, Jason Grill, John Y. Bornw, III, and The RP himself — will be providing their live commentary of the debate. Read below.
And you too can join the fun. Simply go to your normal Twitter account and use the hashtag #RecoveringPol. Your tweets will appear below LIVE!
Feel free to interact with the RPs by using their handle (i.e. @JeffSmithMO) in your tweets. They are likely to respond and engage.
<Tweets from @RecoveringPol/rps
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Oct 22, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Great debate moments.
It is the season of debates, it seems.
Which got me wondering: What is the greatest closing argument I’ve ever seen in a debate? How about you?
The answer that kept coming up for me was a debate I watched in college several years after it took place. William F Buckley, Jr. debated a California governor who later became our president.
And won.
The issue was one I cared little about: The Panama Canal Treaty.
But there was a modern eloquence–and elegance, passion, wit, and substantive command of the issue at hand that impressed me more than any other debater in any other debate I had seen before or since.
Here is the clip. Agree or disagree, you have to admit, you are watching a master debater at the top of his game:
By Jason Atkinson, on Mon Oct 22, 2012 at 11:00 AM ET
We only have 24 Hours to go. If you want to donate, now is the time. Click here
I want to thank everyone, all 82 of your so far, who’ve believed in me, this idea, and this film.
I told Jeff Martin, the Producer, imagine 82 people from across the globe, standing together in one room, cheering us on.
For me, this is unfulfilled. Making this film, changing hearts and minds through the human side of this river’s recovery, is something I just have to do.
By Bradford Queen, Managing Editor, on Mon Oct 22, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
After 80 years in print, Newsweek will cease production on paper and move to an online-only product. [Bloomberg]
Fox News matched some of the network’s ratings records with the first three Presidential debates. [THR]
With New York Times staff still at odds with management on contracts, they may begin withhold bylines and photo credits until an agreement can come together. [Romenesko]
With a little more than two weeks until Election Day, GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin’s Saturday fundraiser was highlighted by a questionable analogy.
Two months after his “legitimate rape” comments sparked a firestorm of criticism, PoliticMo captured audio of Akin in Springfield, Mo., comparing Democratic incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill’s work in office to that of a dog.
“She goes to Washington, D.C., it’s a little bit like one of those dogs, you know ‘fetch,’” Akin said. “She goes to Washington, D.C., and get all of these taxes and red tape and bureaucracy and executive orders and agencies and she brings all of this stuff and dumps it on us in Missouri.”
“It seems to me that she’s got it just backwards,” Akin added. “What we should be doing is taking the common sense that we see in Missouri and taking that to Washington, D.C., blessing them with some solutions instead of more problems.”
After a successful debut of our new virtual debate feature last week during the second presidential debate, we’ve decided to try it again — bigger and better.
Tonight, at 9 PM EDT, when President Obama and Governor Romney square off for the third and final time, more than a half dozen of our contributing RPs — ranging from Michael Steele to Krystal Ball to Jeff Smith to Rod Jetton to Jason Grill to John Y. Brown, III to The RP himself — will be offering their contemporaneous comments via Twitter, and The Recovering Politician’s home page will provide a live feed of their tweets.
Even better, you are asked to join in. Simply go to your own Twitter account, make your statement and be sure to type the hashtag #RecoveringPol somewhere in your tweet. Your tweets will also be broadcast live here at The Recovering Politician. If you agree or disagree with a point a certain RP is making, you are encourage to call them out — type in their handle (i.e. @JeffSmithMO) to your tweet. In all likelihood, they will respond to you.
So, please join us tonight for some fun civil dialogue as the presidential candidates make their final case to the American people.
Blog this!
