People That You Admire

[c.d.]

I thought it might be interesting to find out who people admire and why. I am no longer so naive as to think that there is any human being who doesn't have his or her faults and so all of my choices come with feet of clay. But I can accept that because I think all of these people not only talked the talk but walked the walk when it counted. So here they are -- just a few for starters and in no particular order:

Abraham Lincoln - I have recently read a lot about Lincoln and the more I read the more I admire him. I don't think anybody could have done a better job under the circumstances.

Ulysses S. Grant - Grant had a sh*tty job to do and he did it to the best of his ability. He made mistakes but admitted them.

Robert E. Lee - Some reservations here because I think he was on the wrong side and because (as I recently found out) although he did set his slaves free he was not the best master. Still I think that he was a man of honor.

Sir Edmund Hillary - The first to climb Mount Everest along with Tenzing Norgay. Afterwards he went back to the area and built schools and hospitals. I saw him speak once. A real class act.

Ernest Shackelton (explorer) - Kept his men alive in one of the most amazing feats of survival known.

Jackie Robinson (baseball player) - First African American to play major league baseball. Endured death threats and countless acts of harrassment.

So those are just a few. There are countless heroes in war and I admire those who simply did their duty. And then there are those who struggle to do their best for their kids. So lots of heroes. Some are just better known.

c.d.

[Tom_Wescott]

Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of KISS.

George Washington

Frederick Douglas: Endured hardships that would have made Jackie Robinson cry like a baby, a succeeded in life in a way that seems almost impossible in retrospect. If he were alive today, I don't think he would feel very proud.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Fleetwood Mac]

I thought it might be interesting to find out who people admire and why. I am no longer so naive as to think that there is any human being who doesn't have his or her faults and so all of my choices come with feet of clay. But I can accept that because I think all of these people not only talked the talk but walked the walk when it counted. So here they are -- just a few for starters and in no particular order:

Abraham Lincoln - I have recently read a lot about Lincoln and the more I read the more I admire him. I don't think anybody could have done a better job under the circumstances.

Ulysses S. Grant - Grant had a sh*tty job to do and he did it to the best of his ability. He made mistakes but admitted them.

Robert E. Lee - Some reservations here because I think he was on the wrong side and because (as I recently found out) although he did set his slaves free he was not the best master. Still I think that he was a man of honor.

Sir Edmund Hillary - The first to climb Mount Everest along with Tenzing Norgay. Afterwards he went back to the area and built schools and hospitals. I saw him speak once. A real class act.

Ernest Shackelton (explorer) - Kept his men alive in one of the most amazing feats of survival known.

Jackie Robinson (baseball player) - First African American to play major league baseball. Endured death threats and countless acts of harrassment.

So those are just a few. There are countless heroes in war and I admire those who simply did their duty. And then there are those who struggle to do their best for their kids. So lots of heroes. Some are just better known.

c.d.

Admire is probably stretching it as it suggests deference. But I do appreciate political philosophers: Hume, Locke, Bentham, Hobbes, Burke and Berlin to name but a few. They all had something original to say and their views have stood the test of time 300 years later. Now that takes some doing.

In my view, just me of course, many people can climb a mountain and look after the injured, but not many can come up with a different way of looking at the world and influence the lives of millions, possibly billions, through their ideas.

[mariab]

Hi C.D., cool thread!
Trying to keep my list short, and it's a total mix and mash (and I realize there are too many athletes in there), but there's definitely deference:
Marie Curie
Alexander Fleming (who conducted long term research which led to the existence of antibiotics)
who invented the internet?
William Shakespeare
Ludwig van Beethoven
opera composer Giacomo Meyerbeer (Jewish composer who invented politicized genre grand opéra, THE master of instrumentation)
Martin Luther King
Frederik Douglas
if I say Roman Polanski as a director, people are gonna jump on me about his charges on teen assault
Josh Whedon (creator of BtVS)
Pearl Jam as guitarists
Kelly Slater (best surfer of all times)
Taj Burrow (revolutionized aerials in surfing)
Rochelle Ballard (best female tube rider ever, in big conditions)
Keala Kennely (most aggressive female surfer ever, riding Pipe and Teahupoo as if it were nothing, eating the reef and coming back again for another one, stiches or concussion)
Bethany Hamilton (successfully competing in professional surfing after having lost her left arm from a tiger shark attack at age 13)
Jake Burton for establishing snowboarding
Tara Dakides (first female freestyle snowboarder to ride as hard as the guys)
Anne Flore Marxer (incredibly radical and daring freestyle snowboarder, and friend)
Rodney Muller, skater (he's GOD)
Andy Macdonald (best tricks ever vert skater)
Vanessa Torress and Amy Caron (truly accomplished street skaters)
Wanda Rutkiewitz, superbly accomplished Himalaya climber
figure skating trainer Tamara Moskvina (responsible for all the pretzel spinning, incredibly elegant and musical Russian pairs in figure skating)
my boss, Philip Gossett (his untapped knowledge and capacity of labor)
SPE
Rob Clack
the team who put up casebook

[mariab]

C.D., if I might inquire, where did you meet Sir Edmund Hillary? Do you climb?

[Limehouse]

Great idea for a thread CD.

My choices are:

Woody Guthrie - musician and civil rights campaigner.

Pete Seeger - a musician and long-time civil rights campaigner who is 91 years young and still out there fighting for world peace and rights for the oppressed.

Eric Arthur Blair - otherwise known as George Orwell. I love the clarity of his writing and his political ideology. I would have loved to meet and chat with him.

Chad Varah - the founder of The Samaritans.

Paulo Freire - author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He was a literacy educator in Brazil who taught many adults to read and write and set them on a path of independence and liberation.

Billy Bragg - a musician and left-wing campaigner.

Germain Greer - who made me realise that being equal to a man does not mean being like a man - and anyway - why settle for equality?

Camila Batmanghelidjh - a most wonderful woman who spends all of her time rescuing and caring for some of the most marginalised young people in our society. She never turns a child away who needs her help - even those all others have dispaired of. She started the charity Kidscape and she is the most saintly woman alive today.

[Chris]

who invented the internet?

According to this survey of British school children, a surprising number thought the answer was Sir Isaac Newton. (While 10% thought the Queen had invented the telephone.)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8565258.stm

Of course the correct answer is Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

[mariab]

Of course the correct answer is Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

And he's British! Studied at CERN (no big surprise here). Need to thank him on my knees for inventing my favorite toy, to which I attend more often than my snowboard. :-) And obviously, the internet is not but a toy.

[Phil Carter]

Hello all,

People I most admire? Hmmm..

Nelson Mandela (South African citizen and politician)
Simon Wiesenthal (Isreali citizen)
Gilbert Jessop (British cricketer)
Sir Winston Churchill (British citizen and politician)
Joe Davis (British citizen and snooker player)
Sir John Berry Hobbs (British citizen and cricketer)
Gianfranco Zola (Italian citizen and Chelsea footballer)
Eric Morecambe (British citizen and comedian)
Claude Oscar Monet (French citizen and painter)
Agnetha Faltskog (Swedish citizen and singer)
Robert Pershing Wadlow (American citizen)
Robert Geldof (Irish citizen and musician)
Stanley Jefferson (British citizen and film comic actor)

best wishes

Phil

[Robert]

I thought Sir Tim Berners-Lee devised the theory of gravity and invented the differential calculus. Newton nearly invented these things, but just at the crucial moment an apple hit him on the head and he forgot all about it. So he invented the internet instead.

[Robert]

The Queen did NOT invent the telephone, though it is her saying "at the third stroke..."

[Chris]

I thought Sir Tim Berners-Lee devised the theory of gravity and invented the differential calculus. Newton nearly invented these things, but just at the crucial moment an apple hit him on the head and he forgot all about it. So he invented the internet instead.

Well, going back to that survey, 60% of 9 and 10 year-olds thought he discovered fire. That really is frightening.

[Sister Hyde]

Simone de Beauvoir, Olympe de Gouge, Angela Davis, Marie Curie, ahah Aileen Wuornos, Lautréamont, Eigon Schiele, Diamanda Galas, Lovecraft (not as a person of course), Mike Patton, Chopin and Wagner ehm i'm going to stop here i think

[Fleetwood Mac]

Simone de Beauvoir

Certainly think she was on the right track when drawing on Hegelian dialectic, would agree that we choose to be what we are, like the optimism of her Extentialism; but how ironic that the woman who pleaded for other women to not be defined as 'man's other' was best known for being Sartre's lover. And serving up women on a plate for Sartre seems to be a case of actions speak louder than words.

[mariab]

To Phil Carter:
I love Agnetha Faltskong too (the blond singer of ABBA), but admire? Nah. Nice voice, great performer, hot lady, she has suffered from depression bordering on agoraphobia. She used to be truly beautiful, in the hottest and most innocent way. (And I'm probably sounding like a perv now.)
And ouch, I forgot to mention Nelson Mandela. How silly of me. (And I was inside of his cell on Robben Island in July.)

Am I dreaming or did someone just mention Marie Curie in the same breath with Aileen Wuornos? Why not put Alexander Fleming (who was essentially the inventor of antibiotics) together with Zodiac (the serial killer, not the casebook member)? Notice that I've been attentive to nuances, and did not compare Wuornos to someone like, say, Bundy.

Also, it's Egon Schiele, not Eigon.