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 Thu May 24, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
A lesser-known part of my biography is that my first elected office was serving as Co-President of The Lexington School’s Bee Gees Fan Club. I was 10.
During my college years, I arrogantly scoffed at my youthful indisrections. But by the time my own kids were at The Lexington School, I resumed my fanaticism for the Brothers Gibb.
Like all Bee Gees fans, I was very saddened by the recent death of Robin Gibb, and I was moved by this beautiful tribute by the only remaining Gibb brother, Barry, that also features his other deceased brothers, Maurice and Andy.
A decade ago, the Hispanic political community and the gay rights lobby were in a substantially similar position: both with agendas that were largely under radar, far enough off the grid that their cause was neither a rallying point for friends nor a wedge issue for their adversaries. The demands of both groups were mostly inconsequential in a national election.
Adjust the dial to 2012 and both gay rights and immigration have turned into cultural flashpoints. But the fortunes of the respective constituencies have taken sharply divergent paths. By any measure, gay rights advocates are on the rise. A once far-fetched goal of theirs, repealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”, survived congressional gridlock to become one of the Obama administration’s signature achievements; an even more implausible seeming cause, full-fledged marital status for same-sex couples, has just won the endorsement of the President of the United States and has become a major policy commitment of that president’s party.
In contrast, Hispanic interest groups are in the midst of a bad run. They are winless at the congressional level in the preceding decade—losing badly in their campaign to open up citizenship opportunities for much of the illegal immigrant population, and failing in a more incremental bid to legalize young undocumented adults who join the military or complete college. During Barack Obama’s term, they have actually lost ground. Alabama and Arizona have passed sharply restrictive laws aimed at making their states all but unlivable for illegal immigrants. The Democratic Party that generally wins Latino votes has been an ambivalent ally, with two major elements of their base, labor unions and African Americans, skeptical of any broad liberalization of immigration laws.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: Hispanic Losses, Gay Victories
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed May 23, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Generational changes, concert-wise.
My first rock concert I was 14 and went to see the band Chicago with my mother and two younger sisters.
It was held at Freedom Hall. We didn’t pose for pictures beforehand. And I wasn’t sure why we even went.
I think my mom wanted to go because she Chicago was her favorite band at the time.
Fast forward 30+ years and my daughter, age 14, is attending her, like, third or fourth concert. At the new Yum Center.
Back when I went to my first concert mention of an “antebellum lady” conjured images of a Southern belle in a hoop dress.
Today talk of Lady Antebellum conjures a very different image. Still a Southern gal but without hoop dresses ….and who is more likely to give the vapors to others than get them herself.
And pictures are taken before the concert. And the 14 year olds don’t go because their parents make them go see the parents favorite group. I think all in all, that’s probably progress. Mostly.
I saw Bobby Jindal speak in New Orleans a few years ago and I was very impressed. He was personable and loose – the opposite of how he came off during his big national television debut. He demonstrated obvious policy chops but was also quite smooth during the grip and grin. Given his resume and evident intellect, he eliminates any potential for Palin-esque surprises.
And he brings a ton of Indian money, although that’s probably the last of Romney’s worries.
I don’t, however, think he’s the best choice, for a few reasons.
First, he does nothing to reduce the gender gap.
Second, he doesn’t help in the Appalachian hollows in swing states like Ohio and Virginia where both Romney and Obama have struggled to connect; in the eyes of those voters he’s just as “exotic” as Obama.
Third, the exorcism. Do the Republicans really want to put up 1) a guy who sadistically pins down boys he suspects are gay to shear them and 2) a guy who pins down women he thinks are possessed by Satan to exorcise them?
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue May 22, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
“Bring it to the Table” is a web and documentary project that seeks to bridge political divides in an increasingly partisan era. At a time when it’s so easy to filter out ideas that don’t sit well with us, they aim to get liberals speaking to conservatives–and conservatives speaking to liberals.
Take a look at the video below, and if you like what you see, I encourage you to click here to learn more about the Kickstarter campaign.
Last week, The Chronicle of Higher Education waded headfirst into the culture wars by terminating one of its bloggers for a column excoriating the black studies discipline and calling for its end. The saga around Naomi Schaeffer Riley has ignited a predictable back-and-forth, from the partly organic, partly organized attack by the left on the original piece, to conservative bloggers who have defended her against political correctness run amuck.
I’m of two minds about the controversy. Most of the assault against Riley does seem like shop-worn viewpoint censorship. As even a liberal critic like Eric Alterman has pointed out, labeling the essay as “hate speech” is a frivolous, overwrought charge, and Alterman is right to recognize that a formal response by the black studies faculty at Northwestern which alludes to past discrimination against black college applicants seemed simultaneously pointless and defensive about the capacities of some of the department’s students—who, of course, are not even all black.
But the Riley essay does not strike me as the best line of defense for admirers of intellectual candor. It is not exactly an exercise in rhetorical grace: there is a talk-radio style bluntness to its 500 odd words that is dependent on name-calling: “left wing victimization claptrap”, “liberal hackery”, a parting shot that practitioners of black studies should defer to “legitimate scholars”. Substantively, the essay’s thesis, that a Chronicle article exposed an intellectual sloppiness in the black studies field, is overly reliant on examples from three dissertations to make a vastly more far-reaching point. Even if two of the papers seem hopelessly polemical and one of them sounds hopelessly opaque, it’s a stretch to indict an entire discipline on such a thin foundation. The whole thing feels like an impressionistic hit dashed off to meet a deadline.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: The Blogger and Black Studies
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue May 22, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Life “Superscores.”
With the SAT and ACT, no matter how often you take the tests, colleges only get your “Superscore” (the highest score obtained in each of the individual sections).
I’ve thought about this a lot lately.
Who am I to disagree with professional test writers at the College Board? They are much smarter than I am.
And so….I have decided to apply this Superscore philosophy to every area of my life–both going forward and recalculating old scores.
Suddenly, my life is looking a whole lot better in most every category. Ha!
And to think, the problem was I was simply scoring it wrong.
I can’t wait to explain to my beloved wife, Rebecca, later today that if we take my “high score” in every category over the past 20 years, I’m in, like, the 97th percentile among husbands (not just “satisfactory”).
She is going to be so excited!!! Can’t wait to see the expression on her face!
Blog this!
