I just finished watching a piece on “60 Minutes” about Muhammad Ali, interviewed by Morley Safer some 20 years ago. It brought tears to my eyes. Funny thing is, everything that I read, or see, about Muhammad Ali, brings tears to my eyes. What is that about? I also said to my wife, a devout Christian woman sitting next to me while I watched the episode, that I now emphatically knew that I would not, and could not, ever in my lifetime simply embrace one religion over another. And that is why I am writing this now.
Muhammad Ali was a Muslim. He believed completely, wholeheartedly, in the Quran. Doesn’t that strike you as ironic that, at a time that Donald Trump wants to ban every Muslim from entering the United States of America, wants to build a wall on the border of Mexico, and wants to deport anyone and everyone he can who isn’t “white,” that the entire world is mourning the death of Muhammad Ali? That he touched people all over the world through his power, his incredible humor and poetry, his charisma and undeniable charm, his devotion to the care and concern of others less fortunate?
Do you wonder what Donald Trump will have to say about the passing of Muhammad Ali? As I ask that question, I realize that I could care less what he has to say, because whatever he has to say will be meaningless, irrelevant, and narcissistic. And that’s because he cares about no one other than himself.
Anyway, I guess my “bottom line” comment regarding the death of Muhammad Ali is this—the entire world (will the exception to this be Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Paul Ryan, the Koch brothers, Dick Cheney….need I go on?), on Friday, June 10, 2016 is going to mourn the death of “The Greatest.” And he was a Muslim. And Americans, and Kentuckians in particular, ought to honor him and praise him to the highest extent possible. He was, without a doubt, “the greatest” in so many ways. And I’m saying right here, right now….there needs to be a national holiday in the United States of America that honors the life and the death of the one, the only, MUHAMMAD ALI!