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 Kristen Hamilton, RP Staff, on Tue May 29, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
Politics of Fashion
Facebook inspires fashion: would you rock a ‘relationship’ bracelet? [The Cut]
Check out the trailer for The Great Gatsby that has the fashion world buzzing: [Racked]
In other Facebook news, did you know that some major fashion brands are now selling stocks on the social networking website? Is your favorite one of them? [Fashionista]
Meet the newest addition to the America’s Next Top Model cast: [Racked]
There has never been much of a reservoir of respect in Barack Obama’s White House for the Republican Party. The disdain is partly the reflex of Chicago-bred operatives who found John McCain’s campaign soft and clumsy; partly the mindset of intellectual liberals who view John Boehner and Mitch McConnell as pedestrian local Civitans made good; but mostly it is the product of a worldview that sees conservatism as neither trendy nor clever, and as the fading gasp of a whiter, duller society. By all lights, Team Obama expected to dismantle Mitt Romney, who seems to them to crystallize all the inadequacies of their opposition.
So, imagine their perplexity that Romney is either slightly ahead, or tied with Obama as spring heads to summer. For all of the Obama campaign’s tendencies to discredit any polling they don’t like, the numbers tell a more or less consistent story: Gallup puts Romney’s chronically low favorable ratings at their highest point yet, about even with Obama’s; CBS/New York Times reveals that the president’s much touted embrace of same sex marriage hurts him more than it helps, and that strikingly, nearly seventy percent of the country attributes the president’s history-making on the subject to political motives. ABC/Washington Post shows that a country preoccupied with the economy believes that a Romney presidency will make it better, and that an Obama reelection will have little effect.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri May 25, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Human motivation and how to understand it.
We all do things or say things that perturb and puzzle others. That don’t make logical sense or seem appropriate for the situation.
Why do we do it? I have a 6- pronged approach to make sense of such situations and would like to share it with you.
1) Ask “What is the pay off for the behavior?” You will often discover there is a history or story behind seemingly silly behavior that helps explain otherwise unusual behavior. Under the right circumstances, many unusual behaviors can still have a “pay off” for people.
2) Dopamine spurt. It’s remarkable how many of our behaviors are unknowingly locked into dopamine “reward system.” Running, sports, anger fits, romance, good grades, and so on–including a number of less savory behaviors are reinforced daily by our desire to get a quick hit of the brain chemical dopamine.
3) Parents. This explanation is a time-honored standby for unpleasant behavior. Tracing it back to some parental deficiency that is still having an awkward impact today. This must be used sparingly to remain credible.
4) Birth order. Sibling birth order can explain some traits and temperaments and has a good deal of solid science to back it up.
5) Philosophical-spiritual. When someone behaves badly simply understand it as the person acting the way he or she needs to at the moment as part of a larger positive process. Statements like “He’s doing the best he can with the tools he has” are often heard to describe this assessment tool.
6) Not caring. This is fast becoming my favorite strategy when trying to understand another person’s inappropriate behavior. It’s more declarative than diagnostic but works very efficiently. When someone behaves badly instead of starting down a long mental path to understand the behavior, stop. Instead, simply say to yourself “That was a really inappropriate behavior and i don’t need to understand why he did that.”
Over time many who use this last technique are able to use the shorthand, “I can’t believe he did that. What an asshole.”
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri May 25, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
A little over a year ago, I came out of the closet in support of marriage equality, and urged the President to do the same. While my own announcement was personally gratifying, I believed that Obama’s support could provide trmendous momentum for the gay marriage movement:Indeed, there’s one politician whom I’m confident supports marriage equality, but has been afraid to admit it. I suspect he’s waiting for the right opportunity to announce it, when the electoral benefits outweigh the political downside.
Mr. President, the time is now. Yes, you can… trigger the tipping point. Exercising bold leadership — instead of waiting to follow the generational tide — might be your most enduring legacy.
Early evidence seems to prove that I was right. Esteemed New York Times pollster Nate Silver detects a pronounced shift among the electorate, particularly among African-Americans:
President Obama’s self-described “evolution” on same-sex marriage — from opponent to proponent — appears to be catalyzing a similar shift among some of his most loyal supporters, African-Americans. Although evidence for such a shift is preliminary — there are just a few data points and a number of caveats — Mr. Obama’s announcement may have accelerated the acceptance of gay marriage among blacks.
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Fri May 25, 2012 at 9:30 AM ET
On Thursday Giant’s WR Hakeem Nicks broke a bone in his right foot. This is certainly a setback after Nicks’ breakout season contributed to a Super Bowl win last year. The normal recovery time for this injury is 12 weeks, which bumps right up against the beginning of the season. [ESPN]
There is cruel irony in the notion that Kerrey’s decade here at The New School will hurt him in Nebraska. The irony is that, well, most people here didn’t like him very much. Indeed, the last time he stood for election was not 1994; it was a no-confidence vote brought by the faculty of the New School.
The overall vote was reportedly 271 to 3 against Kerrey, with the vote among tenured faculty 74-2 against, and Kerrey announced his resignation soon thereafter. (I was not on faculty then.)
This occurred after Kerrey went through five provosts in seven years before naming himself provost in addition to president, which helped trigger student occupations of the administration building (back before the word “occupy” was capitalized).
Admittedly, The New School is a politically charged environment and certainly not an easy place to govern. And a decade is a long time to run anything, let alone a university with a long and vibrant tradition of dissent. But to say that his New School tenure was rocky is like saying that Nixon had a bumpy presidency.
So in my view, he ought to try to make lemons from lemonade: find some footage of himself clashing with unkempt student protesters (he called police during the occupation and students were forcibly removed) and have someone put it up on YouTube. Say that he got pushed out because people rejected his “common-sense Midwestern approach.”
Read the rest of… Jeff Smith: Is Bob Kerrey Too New York for Nebraska?
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu May 24, 2012 at 1:30 PM ET
The Politics of Pigskin
Roger Goodell recently held a press conference and touched on some of the major issues and storylines the NFL is facing in the near future. [Star Tribune]
Read more about the knee and thigh pad mandate with this link. [ESPN]
The Seattle Seahawks recently turned down HBO who came with an offer to be featured on this season of Hard Knocks. They are just the most recent team to decline following several others who were also not interested. Who will end up the show? Will there be a Jets encore? [NFL.com]
American football earns the second most of any sport in the world. It comes in a distant second to the other football, known in the US as soccer. [graph]
Check out Calvin Johnson participating in BP at a recent Tigers game (Detroit really likes their big cats). Spoiler alert: He goes yard. [Fox Sports]
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