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:
Columbus, Ohio’s community newspapers — ThisWeek Community News — ran a feature on tonight’s panel at the Ohio Historical Society, that features The RP’s introduction of No Labels, discussed here earlier today. Here’s an excerpt:
After nearly two decades in public service, about half in elective office, Jonathan Miller had had enough.
Elected twice as a Kentucky state treasurer and later appointed secretary of finance, he watched the partisan nastiness grow out of control.
“I call myself and consider myself a recovering politician,” he said. “The system is a mess. Hyperpartisanship is the cornerstone of the problem. That’s where we’ve really deteriorated.”
Miller, a Democrat, might have gotten out of politics, but he’s still trying to fix the system.
The 45-year-old is co-founder of No Labels, a Washington, D.C.,-based movement seeking bipartisan political reform.
The Ohio Historical Society and No Labels will host a panel discussion on “Bridging the Divide” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, addressing Ohio’s role as a battleground state for the 2012 presidential election. The event, to be held at the historical society, 800 E. 17th Ave., is free and open to the public, although a donation to the historical society is recommended.
Panelists include former Republican Gov. Bob Taft; Democratic state Sen. Charleta Tavares; Tom Suddes, an editorial writer for the Plain Dealer; and political consultant Gene Pierce. Ann Fisher, host of All Sides with Ann Fisher on WOSU Public Media (89.7 FM), will be moderating.
The most important political ad of the presidential campaign, censored for your family viewing enjoyment (unless, of course, you are a Mitt Romney fan):
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Sep 27, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
If you are in an urban area and need to buy an outfit and see a store called Urban Outfitters, you’d think your problem was almost solved, right?
Not necessarily.
I took my son in and strode up and down several rows of men’s clothing. Or it could have been boy clothing. Or man/boy. Or maybe unisex or genderless.
The point is that I liked it but none seemed really to work. A few shirts made me look like a skateboarder. Another like a Native American celebrating his cultural heritage.
Another just made me very uncomfortable because it was tight in all the wrong places.
And so finally, I gave up and decided to leave.
At the door was a young lady greeting customers and I said,
“Excuse me….What age range does Urban Outfitters cater to?”
“We cater to 16-24 year olds,” she said.
“Hmm.” I wasn’t sure whether to pretend I was there to shop just for my son or fess up.
I said, “Do any of the clothes work for people slightly over age 24?”
“Oh, yes.”
“How about all the way up to, say, 49?”
“Absolutely! We sure do.” She cheerfully encouraged.
I laughed and thanked her and said she didn’t have to exaggerate Urban Outfitters target market to make me feel better, but I appreciated it.
But I’m not sure I did.
I thought to myself, I am ready to accept my age being off for some hip clothing stores.
Even by 25 years. But not ready to have young people lie to me about age issues to avoid hurting my feelings.
Tomorrow I may go back and buy something just to make a point that I don’t want anyone’s sympathy.
And if you see me in an multi-colored Native American designed shirt next week…. I’m not wearing it because of my culture. But because I can!
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Sep 27, 2012 at 10:34 AM ET
Apparently, the South Korean sensation, “Gangnam Style,” is going global. Just yesterday, during the United Nations General Assembly meeting, Iranian Prime Minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took to the streets of New York City, and was joined by Hafaz Assad and the late(?) Ayatollah Khomeini for a stirring rendition.
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu Sep 27, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
The Politics of Tech
The country of Brazil has ordered for a Google executive to be arrested after Google refused to remove a video from YouTube that criticizes a candidate running for mayor of a city in Brazil. [Washington Post]
The future is now – driverless cars have been made legal in the state of California. [Bloomberg]
The iPhone 4 faced adversity with it’s antenna being susceptible to the “death grip” and now its newer brother the iPhone 5 has its own controversy over Scuffgate. [Extreme Tech]
Verizon CFO, Fran Shammo – “Unlimited is just a word, it doesn’t really mean anything.” Alright, then. [engadget]
More Apple news as this week they lost a touch-screen patent case against Samsung and Motorola in Germany. [Washington Post]
Iran is preparing to block Google from the country in response to the anti-Islam independent film “Innocence of Muslims.” [Guardian]
One of my favorite hip hop artists and loyal Urban Active member, Young Jeezy said, “I can sleep when I die.” This use to be my motto. I believed that there were more important things in life besides rest, recovery and sleep. To me it was a waste of time. Now that I am much wiser individual, I see the value of allowing our bodies to recover from life and from exercise. The human body is an amazing machine and with every machine, you have to charge the batteries to make it work.
One of my favorite quotes is by acclaimed fitness pro Mark Vertegen, “Work plus rest equals success.” The value of prepping our bodies for movement and helping them recover from a workout is vast. Our minds, body and soul are already stressed due to work and life but what happens when we add even more stress to through working out? Make no mistake about, exercise is stress and your body cannot tell the difference between physical stress, mental stress or emotional stress. Once it feels a stressor a hormone called cortisol is released from the adrenal glands and sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) will become overloaded.
Imagine an intense workout from a stressful day at work. Your body would be in influx, unable to recover. Without rest there is no adaptation and there is no attainment of fitness goals. “So what do we do Dr. Bowen?” I never thought you would ask. What I teach my trainers is to warm the body properly and specifically. If you are going to work lower body, we must prepare for the movements through dynamic stretching and increase structural integrity and hydration of the tissues through foam rolling techniques. These applications allow for greater range of motion and a decrease in injury possibility. After workout we must allow the body to recover so post workout we use foam rolling and dynamic stretching to flush the toxins out of the body. High intensity exercise followed by low intensity movement recovery allows for toxins to flush out and be used as a potential energy source. We also encourage that “off days” that our clients are doing movement recovery through yoga, stretching and SMR techniques. This allows us to recover faster from intense exercise and increase the likelihood of results.
Read the rest of… Josh Bowen: Rest is for the Weary? Not So Fast…
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Sep 26, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Idea for bookstores to save the world.
Yesterday in Barnes & Noble book store I browsed three different sections.
Politics section. It seemed like every book title was about blaming somebody or some group or some thing for all of our problems.
Self-help section. All the titles seemed in this section seemed to be about taking responsibility for yourself and not blaming others and making the most of your life.
Humor section. Just fun and frivolous titles that make a mockery of our day-to-day world and help lighten my day and restore my perspective.
So, here’s my big idea to save the world.
Take the Self-help books and place them in the Political section. That way we will help end the blame game and start thinking about what we each can do to make things better.
Take all the books in the Humor section and place them in the Self-Help section. Frankly, having a good laugh or two each day is better than buying and reading an entire new book we won’t act on anyway.
And, finally, place all the books from the Political section in the Humor Section. Those books will then be properly categorized and are frankly a lot funnier than most the books in that section anyway when you take them at face value. And they will stop being confused for books that teach or inform us—and finally serve some useful purpose.
In its four years of re-setting American policy in the Middle East, the Obama Administration has made the following choices: it remained mostly silent when the 2009 Iranian elections seemed to momentarily destabilize the Ahmadinejaid regime; it pointedly called for a reconfiguring of Israeli borders with the tenuous pre-1967 lines as the starting point for negotiation; it has embraced the popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya without expressing major reservations about the radical, even Al Qaeda based elements on the edges of the upheaval; it has not coupled foreign aid to the emergent regimes to a softening of internal policies that suppress religious minorities; and the White House has visibly tamped down momentum for Israeli action against Iran’s nuclear aspirations.
To President Obama’s allies, this is the carefully calibrated record of a government bent on shoring up American popularity in the Arab world. To critics, it is a muddled, ad hoc realignment of American interests. I lean toward the second perspective. But even the defenders of Obama diplomacy are hard-pressed to deny the obvious: the strategy seems to have yielded far from enough dividends within either the Arab street or its ruling classes in the wake of last week’s violence. And any results have ranged from ephemeral gains (a slight diminution of anti-Americanism and a rhetorical affinity for democracy, both of which have come undone under the recognition that American democracy is not empowered or inclined to censor the Internet) to the outright counter-productive (the appearance of an American/Israeli wedge has isolated Israel’s hawks on the global stage, which must embolden Iran’s conceit that it can militarize its nuclear capacity while the West debates).
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: Obama’s Middle East
Last night, The RP was a featured panelist for the semiannual Worldview Forum at Malone University in Canton, Ohio. The Forum is an academic program that brings in expert proponents to argue for different perspectives on topics that are important for the community.
Last night’s topic was Persuasion or Propaganda? The Effects of Public Relations on Elections, featuring The RP and Ben Porritt, a former senior aide to the McCain/Palin campaign and an official in the Bush White House. The RP focused a great deal of his remarks on the solution to our political mess — No Labels, the grassroots movement he co-founded, and now involves more than 500,000 Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who believe that we need to set aside our labels on occasion and do what’s right for the country.
Additionally, it is very clear from his answers that The RP’s ultimate career goal is standup comedy.
Tune in below to the conversation. And if you are ever in Canton, Ohio, be sure to look up the Hambleton House Bed & Breakfast — wonderful accommodations and hospitality, and the best pumpkin pancakes you will ever eat.
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