Greatest Americans

     Who are or were the greatest Americans?  To receive such a title, a person should have accomplished something tangible or had a significant influence over other people.  I cannot call a person great simply because that person has some talent or is considered interesting or entertaining.

     Here’s my top-10 list:

1.  Benjamin Franklin

This renaissance man invented, discovered, wrote, printed, and did so many things it could give us normal people an inferiority complex.  He was instrumental in the founding of our country.

2 and 3.  Orville and Wilbur Wright

They got aviation off the ground, and thus got us all off the ground.  Had it not been for them, we would lack huge amounts of the technology that we use and enjoy so much.

4.  Rosa Parks

Her simple act of defiance helped propel the Civil Rights movement.  Not intending to do anything great, she helped transform a nation morally.

5.  Thomas Edison

We still use his ingenious inventions as well as other handy devices on which his inventions are based.

6.  Lucy Stone

She campaigned for equal rights for women and for black Americans.  Influenced others to join or support those causes with her passionate speeches.

7.  Daniel Boone

Tales of his adventures inspired Americans to be rugged and brave.  He became the archtype of American individualism and enterprise.

8.  Roger Williams

Founded a colony based on freedom of religion and inspired, among other people, the First Amendment to the Constitution.  His dealings with Native Americans were far more humane and just than many of his contemporaries’.

9.  Clara Barton

From nursing patients during the Civil War to organizing the American Red Cross, this woman was the quintessential humanitarian.

10.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Who knows how things would have turned out had such a man not risen at the time that he did?  I believe that he helped America avoid violence at a time when we were ripe for it.  His use of nonviolent resistance helped the cause of Civil Rights immensely.

Nobel Peace Prize Winners

     Among all the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, the five that I admire most are. . .

1.  The International League of the Red Cross

Who can dismiss or belittle the great work that they do in the wake of disasters.  Of all the people or groups who have won the prize, they deserve it the most, because they are politically neutral and truly helpful to the people of the world.

2.  John Raleigh Mott, founder of the YMCA

Mott combined a desire to spread the Christian faith with a desire to encourage and inspire the youth of the United States and of the world.  At a time when the Social Gospel was replacing the Gospel, Mott was true to both. 

3.  Ralph Bunche

Accomplishing things that few black people in his day could, Bunche deserves the award for his mediation in several conflicts, including the Arab-Israeli conflict. 

4.  Anwar Al-Sadat

It took a lot of courage for Sadat to stand for peace, and it cost him his life.  I will never forget his signing of the agreement with Menachem Begin.

5.  Mother Teresa

Like the International Red Cross, Mother Teresa deserves the award for her tireless efforts to help the poor people of Calcutta. 

———-

Who are your favorites?

How do you think President Obama stacks up against them?

Cross Memorials

There is a World War I memorial in the shape of a cross in Bladensburg, Maryland. Don’t tell anyone. It could end up in a case before the Supreme Court.

If you go to this gallery, you will see several cross-shaped memorials in the United Kingdom.  Of course, they will not become cases in the United States Supreme Court.  Some disgruntled person in the U. K. will have to complain and get them removed.

There are cross-shaped memorials in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, which are also pictured in the gallery.  My, oh, my!  So many memorials to get rid of!  And they are not all in the evil United States.

Kennedy’s Guilt

     A memoir by Edward Kennedy will be published soon.  In it, he reportedly wrote that the guilt of the incident with Mary Jo Kopechne stayed with him throughout the rest of his life.  I am glad to hear that he felt that way.  I wish I had known that he felt that way while he was still alive.  It would have given me much warmer feelings for him than I generally felt for him.

     I am surprised and sad that Senator Kennedy never ackowledged his feelings of guilt publicly.  I believe that it would have done him a world of good and that it would have done others a world of good, too.  I wonder if the Kopechne family knew.  I hope so.

     Had the Senator come clean in public and acknowledged his guilt in the matter, perhaps he could have relieved himself of the heavy burden that he carried.  I’m sure he knew what people said and thought about him, and it seems strange that he would not have wanted to set the record striaight for the public.  I do not say this to slight him or judge him.  I take it, rather, as a cautionary tale for myself, and perhpas others can do so, as well.

     I have done some bad things in my life that very few people know about and that I never talk about.  If the knowledge of those things were to become more widespread, I hope that I could be open about my regret of those actions and the guilt and shame that I felt and still somewhat feel.

     I hope that Kennedy died with a clear conscience despite his saying that he felt guilt for over four decades about what happened on Chappaquiddick.  If not, then I hope he has found peace now.  I really do.

     Note that I have not expressed any opinion about what exactly happened that terrible night.  I have no way of knowing more than what the official reports said.  I assume that Kennedy was referring in his memoir to leaving the scene of the accident and not reporting it sooner.  He had already admitted to those things, and as far as I know that is all that he was guilty of.

Top 10 in the World

Who do you think has had the biggest influence on the world?

I am choosing the 10 people that I think have influenced us the most.  I am purposely leaving out religious figures, because it goes without saying that their influence has been huge.

Here are my top 10.  Feel free to suggest substitutions, transpositions, etc.

———————————————————————-

1.  Aristotle – He taught us how to think.  He influenced every philosopher that followed.

2.  Leonardo da Vinci – He showed us what the human mind can accomplish.  He laid the groundwork for thousands of later advances in all kinds of fields.

3.  Johannes Gutenberg – His invention of movable type impacted publishing, communication, and education.  Without his invention much of the progress of the modern age would have been much, much slower.

4.  Francis Bacon – He taught us how to discover scientific facts.

5.  Sir Isaac Newton – He explained how the universe worked.  He came close to giving the final explanation.

6.  James Watt – He got us moving and manufacturing things with more power.

7.  Orville and Wilbur Wright – They got us off the ground.

8.  Thomas Edison – He gave us electric light, moving pictures, and recorded sound.

9.  Joseph Lister – He made surgery and other medical treatments safe.

10.  Charles Darwin – Like him or not, you cannot deny his influence.  He moved people from believing that God designed and created each living thing to believing that living things evolved on their own to create new species.

———-

I am sad to have left out Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Elizabeth I, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Isabella I, Albert Einstein, Rene Descartes, Plato, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Nicholas Copernicus, Euclid, and Blaise Pascal–all of whom had incredible influence on the world.

Desiderius Erasmus: Christian Humanist

    

     Erasmus was born in the 1460’s in Rotterdam.  He is famous for his beautiful style in writing Latin, his criticism of the Roman Catholic Church of his day, and his promotion of humanism within a Christian context. 

     Among his many accomplishments was editing a version of the Bible with the Greek text and Latin text in parallel columns.  This Bible was a magnificent attempt to present the best possible Greek text from the manuscripts available and to update and correct the Latin text.  Martin Luther used it when he translated the Bible into German.

     Unlike Martin Luther, Erasmus remained firmly committed to the Catholic Church, although he opposed some of its practices at the time of the Reformation. 

     In one of his books, Handbook of the Christian Soldier, Erasmus attacks mere formalism in the practice of Christianity–that is the performing of outward rituals while ignoring the actual teachings of Christ.  In Education of a Christian Prince, he suggests that to rule wisely a monarch should get a well-rounded education and should strive to be loved by his people as a benevolent leader.

     Among his more pithy sayings is “In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

FOR FURTHER READING:

Erasmus Center for Early Modern Studies

Wikipedia article on Erasmus

Catholic Encyclopedia article on Erasmus

History on a Coin

     The new pennies will depict events in the life of Abraham Lincoln.  I have to admit that I wish my coins were just standardized.  I’ve known one penny design for 40 years.  Why change it now? 

     If it helps some people learn a bit of history, I suppose it’s worth it.  To me the redesigning of coins looks like another way to spend taxpayers’ money.

People of the Year

Patrol Magazine is asking people to contribute to a list of the key people of 2008.  You can also vote on how the people in the list should be ranked.

I have put my two cents in.  Perhaps you would like to also.

“Under God” Pastor Dies

     The man who urged the Congress to put the words “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance died on Thanksgiving Day.  The Reverend George M. Docherty died in Pennsylvania at the age of 97 with his wife at his side.

     Was it a good idea to insert those words?

     Can you name the source (at least I think it is the source) of this phrase?

      Do you think that we should keep them in the Pledge?

A Different View of the Standard Oil Company

     In a comment on an earlier post, “Why I Am Afraid,” Scott Erb mentioned the Standard Oil Company and anti-trust laws.  Unlike Scott, I still believe in free markets, even if it means that a clever and diligent person can do so well that it makes life hard for competitors.  When a company makes such a good product for such an affordable price that few can compete, that benefits everyone.  If somebody can make the product better and cheaper, that also benefits everyone.  Either way, consumers win.

     Here’s a good, well-sourced and very logical article on the subject:  “Witch-Hunting for Robber Barons:  The Standard Oil Company” by Lawrence W. Reed.  I won’t assert that the standard “Standard Oil Was Greedy and Evil” line is completly wrong and that Mr. Reed is completely right, although his article seems fair and reasonable.  I would simply like people to read what it says and consider that the standard view of Standard Oil, which you probably got fed in school, is a bit biased.

     Call me an extreme cynic, but it seems to me that the people who don’t like efficiency-based monopolies are just envious of other people’s success.  Call me an even more extreme cynic, but some of the people who say that they don’t want monopolies want the government to run certain industries.  What more powerful kind of monopoly could there be than one with an army to back it up?