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 Jonathan Miller, on Mon Jul 9, 2012 at 12:15 PM ET
It’s instructive that my impossible run through the World Series of Poker tournament was a study in black and white:
An exhilarating roller coaster ride encompassing 40 hours of mind-thumping boredom.
A liberal former politician succeeding by playing with an über-conservative game plan.
A victory of steadfast patience, the absence of which has been my defining character flaw.
The long distance coaching of one of my better friends, whom I’ve only met twice in person.
A game legendary for its macho bravado that’s dominated by pasty-faced math geeks.
And the most striking contrast of all: I’ve lived a life of painstaking diligence — some might say monomaniacal zeal — toward building a career centered around moral values; and one of my life’s highlights — indeed one of its most truly spiritual moments — came playing a card game that I’d hardly practiced and that’s banned in my home state because of its purportedly immoral implications.
===
On Independence Day 2012, the 73rd anniversary of baseball legend Lou Gehrig’s famous statement that he was “the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” I began a journey that certainly contested the Iron Horse’s declaration. Indeed, it was pure serendipity that I was even playing in the tournament in the first place.
Months earlier, when we learned the schedule of my youngest daughter‘s summer in Israel program, my wife, who had a trip planned already to Mexico, suggested that after I dropped Abby off at JFK airport, I should make it a long weekend playing poker in Vegas. She knew how much I loved no limit Texas hold ’em — a game that both rewarded my high school math skills and stoked my innate competitive fires — and that I so rarely got chance to play since online poker was made illegal.
Read the rest of… The RP: My Impossible Run Through the World Series of Poker
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Jul 9, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
“I –seriously–believe that an appeal of the Republican party is to appeal to people with a father-deficiency (or “father hunger” as Robert Blye calls it). It’s the father-party. Hierarchical, protective, tough, male-dominated, etc.”
This is a verbatim line form an email sent to a friend [Editor’s Note: Me] who asked me if this meant that Democrats had “mommy issues.”‘
I said, yes. And I really do think you can divide the two major political parties into a patriarchal and matriarchal divide in how they approach problems and appeal to voters.
Republicans are, as described above, the party more inclined to have a convention speaker accuse the competition of being “Girly men.” It’s crude, dated, and ham handed but also fills a need we all have for a strong sure father-figure. Ronald Reagan mastered this role in a way that Schwarzenegger only caricatured.
By contrast, we Democrats are viewed as the more nurturing, compassionate, and patient party who “feels your pain” as Bill Clinton famously said. A banal statement that became famous because it so well symbolized a key difference between Clinton and his opponent; Democrats from Republicans.
A conservative will tell you to quit whining and fix a personal problem yourself. A liberal will go on a long walk with you to help you talk through it. Both approaches have their excesses and extremes. But both parties, in my opinion, do have this primitive distinction between them at their core.
Of course, the gender characterizations I make are outmoded and crude. But then again, that’s a very liberal thing to say.
Even assuming that at least some of the conservative sentiment is the desire to find comfort in defeat, and that some liberals are engaging in the intellectual version of being graceful winners, there is some core of truth here: upholding the mandate on commerce clause grounds would have linked the power to regulate a market with the power to compel participation in it. Justice Ginsburg’s concession that the power’s only limitation is practicality and political modesty is much less dangerous in a concurrence than a majority opinion.
But the fact that five votes coalesced around a weakening of the commerce clause is cold comfort when the fifth vote hinged on blowing the lid off of the tax and spend power. That taxing power, which looked until the day of the ruling like a straightforward ability to add an official levy to commercial activity, now looks ominously broader. As of now, it as limitless as the government’s imagination, as long as it not so high that it turns into a de facto penalty or a fine. Or, in Chief Justice Roberts phrasing, as long as it is “just a tax hike”, all is fair.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: The Silver Lining is Dark
By Jonathan Miller, on Sat Jul 7, 2012 at 12:56 PM ET
It was a half hour past midnight, Vegas time. Of course, my body felt like it was 3:30 AM. This wasn’t way past my bedtime, it was approaching my time to get up.
Out of the field of 4260 in the World Series of Poker’s $1000 no limit hold’em tournament, there were 95 of us left. And I was the shortest stack of all. Only 16,000 chips. And the big blind was coming to me the next hand — that meant I’d have to post 6000 chips from my dwindling stack.
I was toast.
Despite my imminent elimination, despite the extraordinary fatigue of the late/early hour and having spent over 20 mind-numbing hours watching grown men (and a few women) play cards, I was beaming. Not only was I checking off my longtime bucket list moment of playing in the World Series of Poker; not only had I fulfilled the goal I set of playing to Day 2; not only had I passed my revised goal of making a little money; not only had I cracked the top 100 players left; I felt the unique zen of playing a perfect game — for me, of course — I had not make a single stupid decision; I hadn’t lost my cool and gone on “tilt”; I hadn’t lost my attention and failed to assess the circumstances correctly; I had done my best.
And now, as the Poker Gods had demanded, it was time to go home.
I looked down at my two cards and smiled. A Jack and a five. Known among in poker parlance as “Jackson Five,” it’s a pretty lousy starting hand. 99% of the time, I would have folded.
But I had no choice — if I folded now, I’d have such a small stack that I’d be leaving soon anyway. I went all-in. The player on the button called. He turned over an eight and a four.
Read the rest of… The RP at the World Series of Poker: How I Was Saved by the Jackson 5
By Patrick Derocher, on Fri Jul 6, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
Former Missouri State Representative Jason Grill appeared on WDAF-4 in Kansas City to discuss the political implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling on President Obama’s healthcare law.
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Jul 6, 2012 at 12:15 PM ET
Today, at 1 PM PDT (4 PM EDT), Day 2 of the World Series of Poker $1000 non-limit Texas hold-em tourney begins, with the RP holding onto to 27,925 chips, placing him in 151st place among the 726 players still remaining from an original field of 4,620.
With a total prize pool of $1,566,000, the winner would receive more than $654,000. The RP’s immediate goal — being among the 468 survivors who win a cash prize. We should know that by Midnight PDT tonight. The final table will take place on Sunday afternoon.
Stay tuned to these pages, and if you are really a poker geek, you can head to this link to follow all of the action, including chip counts and commentary.
Good luck RP!
I hadn’t received my No Labels hat yet, so I was representing my two favorite basketball teams: Tel Aviv Maccabeans (shirt), and some semi-professional unit in the upper South (hat)
I’ve always dreamed of standing out in a crowd. Little known fact: The Lady Gaga song, “Poker Face” is NOT about me. The Carly Simon song, “You’re so Vain” is, however. At least I probably think so.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Jul 6, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Maybe we should have “Thank an English Teacher Day.”
English teachers have had a greater impact on my daily interactions and thought processes than teachers from any other subject matter.
Even quips and famous quotes have stayed with me longer than, say, the quadratic formula or parts of the periodic table.
“Poetry is an overflowing of emotion….reflected in tranquility”
William Wordsworth
Taught to me by my Bellarmine College English professor, Wade Hall, in 1985. Among much, much more that also is still with me after all these years.
Thank you, professor Hall. And I mean that sincerely. Not just because “I know which side of my bread the butter is on.” A phrase you used to describe me during our first classroom interaction.
Blog this!
