Floating like a Butterfly, Stinging like a Bee

Posted on June 5, 2016 in Prose Arcana Silicon Valley

Back in 1992, I visited Serbia and had an audience with the local leader of the Serbian Nationalist Party. I brought up the subject of conscientious objectors. The chief smirked and said in a knife twist of ad hominem tu quoque “I am a great admirer of Muhammad Ali.” I think he expected me to go all Sonny Liston on him, but I looked him in the eye with the steel gaze of The Greatest and said “So do I. And wherever my brothers in conscience shall be, I am there in spirit with them. I am with them here in Serbia and everywhere. ” It was a knockout punch. The party apparachnik changed the subject in a hurry. He was Sonny Liston, not me. I know Ali would have stretched his arm to touch me fist to fist, glove to glove.

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