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 Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu Mar 22, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
The Politics of Pigskin
This week Sean Payton became the first coach to be suspended by the NFL. Payton received a 1 year suspension and is gone for the entirety of the 2012 season as punishment for the Saints bounty/pay-for-play program. Defensive coordinator Gregg Williams has been suspended indefinitely and his case will be reviewed after the season. Payton will not be paid during his suspension meaning that he will lose approximately $7 million in salary. [ESPN]
Here are the top candidate to replace Payton as head coach of the Saints in 2012. [Sports Illustrated]
Here is your video of the Denver Broncos introducing Peyton Manning as their new QB. The biggest free agent is now off the market. [Yahoo! Sports]
After acquiring Manning the Broncos decided to get out from under the shadow of Tim Tebow by trading him to the New York Jets. [CBS Sports]
The Jets most famous alum Joe Namath made it clear that he is not a fan of the Tebow deal. [Yardbarker]
After having courted Manning for a time the 49ers made up with their free agent Alex Smith and resigned him to a 3 year deal. [Sports Illustrated]
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu Mar 22, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
The Politics of Tech
A Miami judge has ruled that BitTorrent downloads are protected as anonymous speech. Landmark indeed. [Torrent Freak]
Seagate is forging ahead in the production of hard drives. They have managed to squeeze 1 TB onto a square inch of space. This means that in the near future we could see hard drives as large as 60 TB. [Geek]
Google Chrome briefly became the most used web browser in the world. [Telegraph]
This amazing piece of new tech blows the traditional wheel chair out of the water. [Wimp]
Bad news in military tech – work on a new trillion dollar fighter jet is not going as planned. The jet could need billions in dollars worth of fixes. [Wired]
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Mar 22, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Modern parents are often criticized for being too soft on their kids–with both advice and expectations.
Today I wrote and sent a letter to my son for his senior retreat. It was supposed to be full of wisdom and fond memories we have had together. And, I suppose, I took an admirable stab at both.
However, I keep chuckling about how telling my letter was.
The first paragraph was a long apology for sending him out into a rainy campground without electricity or running water for several days.
Followed by a second paragraph which apologized repeatedly for not having any new wisdom that I’d saved up just for this occasion– and that I was basically just recycling old wisdom and advice he’d already heard from me dozens of times.
Which makes me wonder if he’ll even bother getting to the third paragraph.
Which I forgot to apologize for and may catch him completely off guard.
Jamelle Bouie’s piece in the American Prospect on the glass ceiling for African American candidates is worth reading: it’s an interesting, and generally incisive, reminder that not a single African American has come within hailing distance of being elected to the Senate or governor (except the narrowly reelected incumbent, Deval Patrick) since Barack Obama’s election.
Bouie avoids the usual rhetorical trope about racism and white backlash and pays appropriate attention to the constraints posed by representing liberal, partisan districts that provide a limited donor base. It’s also to his credit that he focuses on institutional factors over vague claims that the system has simply failed to produce enough compelling black candidates.
Bouie’s one major omission, though, is a failure to dig more deeply into the failure of credible black Democratic contenders to command significant support within their own party in recent races: it’s a vexing truth for liberals and Democrats and is at odds with one of the central narratives in politics today, that it is liberals who are advancing the ambitions of ethnic minorities and conservative Republicans who are thwarting them through schemes like voter ID.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: Do White Democrats Have a Race Problem?
By Michael Steele, on Wed Mar 21, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
Reports The Huffington Post:
Former GOP Chairman Michael Steele told an MSNBC panel on Friday that he does not think Mitt Romney will be able to get the 1,144 delegates necessary to clinch the GOP presidential nomination before the Republican National Convention.
“If you take the most generous number of delegates that Romney would have at this point, whether it’s 419 or more, the RNC I think has fewer numbers, give him all of the remaining eight winner-take-all states, that’s about 382 delegates,” Steele said. “He still doesn’t get to 1,144 when the remaining states are proportional.”
Steele explained that Romney would have to win 50-60 percent of the vote in the remaining states where delegates are awarded proportionally in order to get to the magic number of 1,144 delegates. “Do you see Mitt taking 50-60 percent of those proportional delegates?” Steele asked. “No. So it’s going to be tough for him, at this point, to get there.”
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Mar 20, 2012 at 4:00 PM ET
In his column this week for The Huffington Post, the RP tackles an issue that’s familiar to the RP Nation: the legalization of hemp.
But he pairs his advocacy with a challenge to you, the reader: Please get involved in this policy debate.
Especially if you live in Kentucky.
Tomorrow afternoon and evening, please come to the Red Mile in Lexington to join the RP and a bi-partisan group of state officials and local business leaders who understand that legalizing hemp will be a no-risk boon to our state’s and our nation’s economy.
You can also get more involved by becoming a political science major and getting an elected official position to push these efforts forward!
Click on the graphic to the left for details.
And check out the RP’s article below:
Last week, I received a very warm reception from my hometown’s Tea Party organization.
And yet, I repeat (for my friends that may have fainted upon reading the first sentence of this essay), I was warmly welcomed and even embraced by our local lovers of liberty.
I wish I could credit my soaring oratory or my youthful charisma, but I simply can’t deny that I’m a better recovering politician than an active one.
The truth is that I spoke on a topic that knows no ideology, an issue that has broad bi-partisan support, and yet one that has met stiff political resistence from the powers that be:
The legalization of industrial hemp.
The subject of hemp, while discussed and debated for decades, unfortunately has been mostly seen as a cause célèbre of the political margins, either the “hippie” Far Left or the libertarian Far Right. But my recent experience with the issue reveals that public support for industrial hemp legalization—particularly within the agricultural community — is reaching a tipping point.
And it’s time for the business community to shoulder-pad-up and push legalized industrial hemp across the goal line.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Mar 20, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
”You know it’s time to change your Facebook profile information when (fill in the blank).”
I just had a ski trip cancelled…which forced me to also reconsider my FB profile information.
I list skiing as my favorite sport. When I filled out my FB profile a couple of years ago, it seemed like a good idea. Skiing as my “favorite sport” made me sound sporty and interesting–and I even believed it at the time.
But today’s cancelled ski trip got me thinking. I’ve actually only been skiing twice in the past 28 years. I really don’t think that should qualify as a “favorite sport” —even for a person who has been deceased for 3 decades.
I’ve spent more time playing skeet ball the past 28 years!
So, in a flush of full disclosure, I’m getting brutally honest and changing my favorite sport from the cosmopolitan sounding “skiing” to the more mundane but factually correct “taking the stairs” –which I’ve done more than 3 times the past 28 years.
Blog this!
