Lexidiem: Word of the Day

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee...

Muhammad Ali celebrated his 65th birthday today. Born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., the legendary boxer is rated as among the best sportspersons ever. It's been over two decades since his last fight and the fans still agree that he was the best.

Ali was also one of the few sportspersons who thought so about himself and openly said so. He became the first man to win the world heavyweight title three times. He also won the north American championship besides the gold in the 1960 Rome Olympics, retiring with a 56-5 career win-loss record.

Ali's activities outside the ring, however, attracted as much attention. He refused to serve in Vietnam, and was stripped of his title by the professional boxing commission. He would not be allowed to fight professionally for more than three years. He was also convicted for refusing induction into the Army and sentenced to five years in prison. Over the course of those years in exile, Ali fought to appeal his conviction, supporting himself by giving speeches primarily at rallies on college campuses that opposed the Vietnam War. 

In 1970, Ali was allowed to fight again, and in late 1971 the Supreme Court reversed his conviction. 

"I don't remember anybody, except maybe (Revolutionary War hero) Nathan Hale who stood up one man against an entire government. Hale was hanged, Ali was acquitted by the Supreme Court," said boxing writer Bert Sugar.

Muhammad Ali went on to defeat almost every top Heavyweight in his era, an era which has been called the Golden Age of Heavyweight boxing. Life though was less forgiving. In the early 1980s he was was diagnosed with Pugilist's Parkinson's Syndrome and now struggles to speak properly. 

Official Muhammad Ali Website

Muhammad Ali on Wikipedia

Muhammad Ali ’s famous quotes

• Superman don't need no seat belt.
   
• Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.
  
• I am an astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I'm in a world of my own.
  
• At home I am a nice guy - but I don't want the world to know. Humble people, I've found, don't get very far.
  
• It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
  
• Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them - a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.
  
• Sonny Liston is too ugly to be world heavyweight champion!
  
• I never thought of losing, but now that it's happened, the only thing is to do it right. That's my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life. (after losing his first of his fights with Ken Norton)
  
• I'm gonna float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, George can't hit what his eyes can't see, now you see me, now you don't, he thinks he will but I know he won't.
  
• A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.
  
• A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he'll never crow. I have seen the light and I'm crowing.
  
• Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are.
  
• Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up.
  
• Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them-a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.
  
• Frazier is so ugly that he should donate his face to the US Bureau of Wildlife.
  
• Friendship... is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.
  
• Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the hating. It's just plain wrong.
  
• He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.
  
• I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.
  
• I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.
  
• I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.
  
• I hated every minute of training, but I said, ''Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.''
  
• I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin' hell, but as long as they ain't free, I ain't free.
  
• I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want.
  
• I run on the road, long before I dance under the lights.
  
• I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.
  
• I'm the most recognized and loved man that ever lived cuz there weren't no satellites when Jesus and Moses were around, so people far away in the villages didn't know about them.
  
• If they can make penicillin out of mouldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.
  
• If you even dream of beating me you'd better wake up and apologize.
  
• It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe.
  
• It's not bragging if you can back it up.
  
• It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.
  
• Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don't let yourself believe it will happen to you.
  
• Love is a net that catches hearts like a fish.
  
• My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world.
  
• No one knows what to say in the loser's locker room.
  
• Old age is just a record of one's whole life.
  
• Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.
  
• People don't realize what they had till it's gone. Like President Kennedy - nobody like him. Like The Beatles, there will never be anything like them. Like my man, Elvis Presley - I was the Elvis of boxing.
  
• Prejudice comes from being in the dark; sunlight disinfects it.
  
• Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams - they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do - they all contain truths.
  
• Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.
  
• Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer.
  
• The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.
  
• The man who has no imagination has no wings.
  
• The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.
  
• There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.
  
• There are no pleasures in a fight but some of my fights have been a pleasure to win.
  
• To be able to give away riches is mandatory if you wish to possess them. This is the only way that you will be truly rich.
  
• Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.
  
• We have one life; it soon will be past; what we do for God is all that will last.
  
• What keeps me going is goals.
  
• When you are as great as I am it is hard to be humble.
  
• When you can whip any man in the world, you never know peace. 
  
• I'll be floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.

Happy Birthday to the greatest boxer of all time.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Throughout the world, groups demand that Guantanamo must be shut down, cry out five years of imprisonment and torture must end...

On, January 11, 2007, thousands of people will act together to demand an end to torture and indefinite, illegal and immoral detention of men and boys at Guantanamo. In concerted actions from Australia and Amsterdam to Amherst and Boise and Wichita, and in more than 40 other cities around the world, citizens heed the call for an International Day of Action to Shut Down Guantanamo.

Five years after the first hooded, shackled men were brought to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo, not a single prisoner has been charged, tried or convicted of any crime. Many have been released because no evidence has been found against them. Five years later more than 400 men remain in indefinite detention without hope of release. Five years later, thousands will stand up on behalf of the victims of the war on terrorism and on behalf of law and justice.

In Washington, DC, there will be a press conference at the Supreme Court, followed by a procession of 400 hooded people wearing orange jumpsuits to represent all of those imprisoned. Once the march arrives at the U.S. Federal Court, some participants will bring the names, stories of the prisoners at Guantanamo, as well as Habeas petitions on their behalf into the criminal justice system.

With these actions throughout the world, people of conscience and justice call on the United States government to:

• Repeal the Military Commissions Act and restore Habeas Corpus.
• Charge and try or release all detainees.
• Withhold funds for the proposed $125 million construction of new military courts at Guantanamo.
• Clearly and unequivocally forbid torture and all other forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, by the military, the CIA, prison guards, civilian contractors, or anyone else.
• Pay reparations to current and former detainees and their families for violations of their human rights.
• Shut down Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and all other U.S. prisons overseas, including secret CIA detention facilities.

For more information on the International Day of Action, visit www.witnesstorture.org, e-mail jan11@witnesstorture.org or call 347-683-4928.

 Enough is enough!