05 June 2016

Why Muhammad Ali Matters to Everyone...

Muhammad Ali after first round knockout of Sonny Liston during 
World Heavyweight Title fight at St. Dominic’s Arena in Lewiston, Maine on 5/25/1965.

Muhammad Ali died Friday at a Phoenix-area hospital where he had spent the past few days being treated for respiratory complications, a family spokesman confirmed. He was 74, reported NBC News.

“Ali had suffered for three decades from Parkinson's Disease, a progressive neurological condition that slowly robbed him of both his legendary verbal grace and his physical dexterity. A funeral service is planned in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.

“Even as his health declined, Ali did not shy from politics or controversy, releasing a statement in December criticising Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States. "We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda," he said.

The Greatest is gone. We might never see one like him again.

Muhammad Ali, the lyrical heavyweight showman who thrilled the globe with his sublime boxing style, unpredictable wit, and gentle generosity – especially later in life – died on Friday. He was 74. Ali, the former Cassius Clay, was not just an athlete who embodied the times in which he lived. 

He shaped them. His conscientious objection to the Vietnam war, and reasoned rants against a country fighting for freedom on the other side of the globe, while its own black citizens were denied basic rights of their own, energized a generation. 



Ali refused to serve in Vietnam, was convicted of draft evasion, and stripped of the heavyweight crown he won from Sonny Liston in 1964.

Imagine, for a moment, a 21st-century athlete who could command an audience with presidents and the pope, the Dalai Lama, Castro, Idi Amin and Saddam Hussein. Ali might have been the most famous man on earth. Disease robbed Ali of his speech late in life. 


Muhammad Ali stands over George Foreman
Rumble in the jungle...
But his peacekeeping trips, fundraising efforts for Parkinson’s research, and support for UNICEF and the Special Olympics and many more charitable organizations were more powerful than his poetry. (And in truth, his jabbering wasn’t as pretty as Ali claimed to be. His characterization of Joe Frazier, for example, as a “gorilla” was sophomoric, even if it did rhyme with “Thrilla” and “Manila.”)

“Muhammad Ali was not just Muhammad Ali the greatest, the African-American pugilist; he belonged to everyone,” poet Maya Angelou wrote in the 2001 book Muhammad Ali: Through the Eyes of the World. “That means that his impact recognizes no continent, no language, no color, no ocean.”



Ali was also a reminder of what boxing has lost. Ali’s classic fights, like “The Rumble in the Jungle” and the “The Thrilla in Manila” were masterpieces of the form. Though Ali fought George Foreman in Zaire, the electricity spilled into your living room. “Bap! Bap! Bap!” Ali told TIME, describing his fight strategy before his first bout with Frazier in 1971, the so-called “Fight of the Century,” which he lost. “I jab him once, twice, three times. Dance away. I move in again. Bam. Bam. Bam. I hit him five times. He hits me one time. I back away. I’m moving around him. Bim. Bim. Bim. I get him again. He’s movin’ in, ain’t reaching me because he’s too small to reach me. He’s reachin’ and strainin’ with those hooks, and they’re getting longer and longer. And now he’s lunging and jumping, and that’s when I started popping and smoking.”



Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., in Louisville, at 6:35 p.m. on Jan. 17, 1942. His father, Cassius Sr., was a sign painter “with minor artistic talents and a major taste for gin,” according to Sports Illustrated. His mother, Odesssa, worked as a household domestic. Clay’s ancestors were slaves on the plantation of his namesake, a Kentucky politician who was Lincoln’s minister to Russia. 

 

He had an Irish great-grandfather, named Abe Grady. But no trace of white blood could shield young Cassius from the slights of segregated Louisville. For example, Clay said that when he was 8 or 9, an old white man harassed him while he played with friends near the railroad tracks, dragging him by his collar and shouting “shut your mouth, little n—-r” as Clay resisted (another man, the story goes, interceded and saved Clay from further harm). 


The fighter, who was known as Cassius Clay at the time, is pictured above in 1964 when he beat Sonny Liston. He said: 'I am the greatest, I'm the greatest that ever lived. I don't have a mark on my face'
'I am the greatest, I'm the greatest that ever lived'.

“Why can’t I be rich?” Clay once asked his father. Cassius Sr. touched his son’s hand. “Look here,” he said. “That’s why you can’t be rich.” - time.com






Al-Fatihah

Legenda tinju dunia Muhammad Ali meninggal di usia 74 tahun...


prk kuala kangsar ahmed termizi
Kuala Kangsar mesti mengundi tolak GST, protes 1MDB...

Pilihanraya kecil Parlimen Kuala Kangsar merupakan platform terbaik bagi rakyat Perak menunjukkan bantahan terhadap segala dasar membebankan serta penyelewengan yang berlaku dalam pemerintahan kerajaan Barisan Nasional, kata Ahli Parlimen Batu Gajah, V. Sivakumar.

Jelasnya, PRK Kuala Kangsar perlu dianggap sebagai satu referendum untuk membuktikan rasa tidak puas hati rakyat terhadap skandal 1MDB dan pelaksanaan cukai barangan dan perkhidmatan (GST) yang amat menghimpit kehidupan rakyat.

“Jika BN menang dalam pilihanraya kecil ini, kerajaan akan menganggap rakyat bersetuju dan tidak peduli tentang pelepasan wang berbilion ringgit dalam skandal 1MDB.

“Malah, kerajaan juga akan menganggap ini sebagai satu pengiktirafan rakyat terhadap cukai GST yang dikenakan selama ini, dan kemudian mendorong kerajaan menaikkan lagi kadar GST pada masa depan,” jelasnya dalam satu kenyataan.

Sivakumar yang juga Timbalan Pengerusi DAP Perak meminta pengundi Kuala Kangsar memilih calon Pakatan Harapan dari Parti AMANAH, Dr. Ahmed Termizi Ramli yang merupakan seorang profesor dalam bidang fizik nuklear untuk mewakili mereka di Parlimen.

Katanya, Dr. Ahmed Termizi merupakan seorang anak tempatan yang menonjolkan potensi cemerlang dan telah banyak berkhidmat untuk negara melalui pelbagai pencapaian serta penemuan dalam bidang akademik.

“Walaupun ramai mengatakan pilihanraya kecil ini bakal melihat pertembungan tiga penjuru, namun kita harus ingat bahawa perlawanan sebenar ialah antara Pakatan Harapan dan BN.

“Ia merupakan satu perjuangan menentang kezaliman dan ketidakadilan yang semakin teruk berlaku di negara kita. Rakyat Perak perlu mengambil peluang ini untuk membetulkan segala yang tidak betul dalam negara kita dengan mengundi calon Pakatan Harapan,” ujarnya.

Dr. Ahmed Termizi, 61, merupakan seorang profesor lulusan Sarjana Muda Fizik dari Universiti Leeds (1975) dan Sarjana Muda Kesihatan dan Keselamatan Radiologi dari University of Salford (1980).

Beliau kemudiannya menyambung pengajian dalam bidang Diploma Fizik Pengionan dan PhD dalam bidang Fizik Perubatan dari Universiti Swansea, Wales (1984).

Menghabiskan persekolahannya di Sekolah Tuanku Abdul Rahman (STAR), Ipoh, Dr. Ahmed Termizi bersara sebagai Profesor Gred B di Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) dan kini bergiat aktif dalam politik.

Bapa kepada sembilan cahaya mata itu merupakan Ahli Jawatankuasa Biro Antarabangsa dan Biro Pilihanraya AMANAH Nasional, Ahli Jawatankuasa Biro Politik AMANAH Perak serta Naib Ketua AMANAH Kuala Kangsar selain aktif dalam Pertubuhan IKRAM Malaysia.

Sejak 1987, beliau telah mengendalikan 19 projek penyelidikan, menghasilkan 11 buku ilmiah, 97 kertas jurnal antarabangsa dan 79 kertas pelbagai persidangan berkaitan dengan bidang fizik.

Dr. Ahmed Termizi yang merupakan Ahli Senat UTM itu juga lantang membantah pembinaan loji nadir bumi Lynas yang membahayakan penduduk di Gebeng, Kuantan.

Atas sumbangan besarnya kepada negara, beliau dianugerahkan Pingat Darjah Paduka Cura Si Manja Kini (PCM) oleh Almarhum Sultan Azlan Muhibuddin Shahdan serta pernah dipilih melaksanakan tugasan di bawah Agensi Tenaga Atom Antarabangsa.

Pada pilihanraya kecil Parlimen Kuala Kangsar pada 18 Jun ini, Dr. Ahmed Termizi bakal berentap dengan Datin Mastura Abdul Yazid daripada BN dan Dr. Najihatussalehah Ahmad daripada PAS.

Kerusi itu kosong setelah penyandangnya Datuk Wan Mohammad Khair-il Anuar Wan Ahmad terkorban dalam tragedi helikopter di Sebuyau, Sarawak pada 5 Mei lalu. – Roketkini.com


Koh orang nampak tak apa yang aku nampak...


cheers.

No comments: