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 Thu Jul 19, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Are you feeling shallow today?
Did your boss seem dismissive of you?
Are you not getting the kind of respect at home you feel you deserve?
Next time you feel a personal slight, actual or anticipated, stop yourself. Straighten your back. Look the person in the eyes and repeat this quote–soberly and with conviction.
“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
Pause. And then add,
“Oh yeah. That’s Carl Gustave Jung. Since you appear confused.”
Shuts ’em up every time. And they will not take you for being shallow or inconsequential again.
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu Jul 19, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
The Politics of Tech
Despite $500k Comcast marketing campaigns, a town overturns a Colorado law against cities owning broadband utilities and looks at funding its own gigabit broadband fiber network. [Times Call]
A Congressman in the Philippines with strong MPAA ties is pushing a bill that would send illegal downloaders aka pirates to jail with a minimum of 2 years for first offense. [Daily Dot]
Australians get the shaft when it comes to downloading music and games (legally). For example they pay 50% more for their downloaded music and games as well as hardware and software than their US counterparts according to a consumer watchdog. [The Age]
The judge in the case against Kim Dotcom of Megaupload has quit the case. [NZ Herald]
This robot is going to help clean up the oceans by eating the garbage and pollution. [Earth Techling]
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Jul 19, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
For those in the RP Nation following the narrow defeat of an Israel divestment effort within the Presbyterian Church (USA), here is the front line perspective of one of the principal leaders of the effort to clock divestment, Ethan Felson, the vice president and general counsel for the Jewish Council for Public Affairs:
The Presbyterian Church (USA)’s 220th General Assembly had just cast its first vote on an anti-Israel divestment resolution when the spin began. Major news outlets and activists on each side could hardly wait for the debate to finish the next day before declaring winners and losers.
This was my fourth GA and one thing I’ve learned is that reality lies somewhere between the headlines. Here are some reality checks on the GA.
* The defeat of divestment was narrow — and it wasn’t.
The widely reported 333-331 vote earlier this month was on a motion to substitute a positive investment minority report for the main divestment resolution. This means the very first time the plenary had a chance, it shot down divestment. It was close, but in subsequent votes the positive approach passed by a much wider margin — and additional pro-divestment motions continued to fail by increasingly wider margins. The Positive Investment substitute — passed 369-290 — calls for financial support for projects that include collaboration among Christians, Jews and Muslims and that will help develop viable Palestinian infrastructure, job creation and economic development.
* The PCUSA is different from other churches – and it isn’t.
Think of the most intense anti-Israel delegitimizers you’ve ever seen, heard or read. They run the show at the PCUSA.
Before the GA, the PCUSA’s coordinator of social witness policy defended divestment, attacked positive investment and said an Israel-apartheid comparison is unavoidable. An advisory committee called as its resource person before the GA’s Middle East committee a Jewish representative from an anti-Zionist group that actively favors boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS). Even the church’s executive council backed divestment.
But there were also several major Presbyteries, seminary presidents, former national moderators and other key leaders who opposed divestment. One group, Presbyterians for Middle East Peace, successfully advocated for a balanced approach that was clearly more in keeping with the mind-set of Presbyterians.
By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Jul 18, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
A few months ago, I reviewed Peter Beinart’s trashy, error-filled hit-job on the State of Israel, The Crisis of Zionism.
As more and more Zionists have piled on, it seems as if Beinart is seeking the aid and comfort of some of Israel’s — and Judaism’s — worst enemies. This week, the Atlantic exposed Beinart’s new relationship with the uber-controversial, anti-Zionist Web site, Mondoweiss:
Yesterday, Peter Beinart’s pluralistic blog, Open Zion, published a post by Alex Kane, a staff writer for a website called Mondoweiss.It’s impossible to peer into the hearts and minds of the people who edit the site, but Mondoweiss often gives the appearance of an anti-Semitic enterprise. Site founder and editor Phil Weiss, a former writer for the American Conservative when Pat Buchanan was editor, wrote this past May, “I can justly be accused of being a conspiracy theorist because I believe in the Israel lobby theory … certainly my theory has an explanation of the rise and influence of the neocons. They don’t have a class interest but an ideological-religious one.”
An April 2011 article on the site strongly implied that Mossad agents were involved in the murder of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigonni, an assertion for which there’s no factual evidence. In 2011, contributor Max Ajl argued against “left-wing” condemnation of the Itamar massacre, in which attackers killed five members of a settler family, including a three-month old baby. In 2009, Jack Ross, who has contributed to the white nationalist, Holocaust-denying journal The Barnes Review, argued on Mondoweiss that “it was not the appeasement, but the internationalist hubris and bellicosity of Chamberlain which started World War II.” In other words, lay off the Nazis.
One winner of Mondoweiss’ recent “New Yorker parody contest” was a bizarre entry in which former Israeli Prime Minister has a teary reunion with the ghost of his long-lost father: Adolf Hitler.
Philip Weiss has found evidence of Jewish influence and Jewish perfidy in everything from NPR to the names of the buildings at Harvard University to an innocuous statement by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. Weiss has argued that the “Jewish presence in the Establishment” imposes its own single-minded, communalistic interests upon the whole of American and British society. “Don’t you see,” he wrote in a post also suggesting “Zionists” were to blame for the outbreak of the Iraq war, “the vociferousness and effectiveness of the Israel lobby make this conflict Our Conflict!” Ironically, Weiss also believes that Zionism entails Jewish self-hatred.
Is Alex Kane, the Mondoweiss writer whose post was featured on Newsweek’s Open Zion, responsible for all this? Of course not. But he is a Mondoweiss staff reporter. Publicly, he does not challenge the site’s lunacy. And Open Zion, in carrying a byline from Mondoweiss, incorporates not just Kane but the Mondoweiss reputation and all of its sordid baggage into its larger conversation.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Jul 18, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Good living tips.
Try each evening to review the day and ask yourself, “What is one thing I learned today based on first hand experience?”
Write down the answer–don’t just think about it. In fact, write down the answer in the form of a declaration or “lesson learned.”
This helps you not only remember but also has a greater impact on positively changing future behavior.
Here’s my most recent entry:
July 11th.
Today I learned that you should never select a song by Michael Jackson when playing Karaoke. And if you do, try not to do Micheal’s signature spin move. Especially on thick carpet.”
By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Jul 18, 2012 at 11:00 AM ET
Former President George W. Bush, as quoted in the Atlantic:
On the subject of politics, he said that “eight years was awesome. I was famous and I was powerful, but I have no desire for fame and power anymore. I don’t want to undermine our president, whoever the president is.” In his view, “I think its bad for the presidency to have former presidents bloviating, opining, and telling people how it ought to be done.” Nor does he want to play a major role in determining who gets elected. “I crawled out of the swamp, and I’m not crawling back in,” he said…
Mr. President, if you are auditioning for a position at The Recovering Politician, please send a writing sample to staff@TheRecoveringPolitician.com.
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