Who are your heroes or heroines?

Urban Ranger · May 8, 2003, 13:01

Not silly characters from comic books, but real flesh and blood larger-than-life persons.

BeBro · May 8, 2003, 13:04

Willy Brandt (I don´t consider him a hero in the classical sense, but I have greatest respect for him)

Oerdin · May 8, 2003, 13:22

FDR- A great war time President who also proved you could fight the depression without taxing industry to death.

George Washington- This guy was a conservative revolutionary who really didn't want to run for office and who peacefully gave the Presidency because he wanted to go home and be a farmer. He also helped set up the first modern Republic, establish a university, not only did he free all of his slaves upon his death but he advocated everyone else to do so as well.

Gandhi- Should that peaceful persation is often achieves greater results then violence and you don't hurt innocent people in the process. Now, that was a man of moral consciousness.

Isaac Newton- A man who was a true scientist and who didn't do his work for fame or money. He wrote his papers in Latin (not English which the commoners read) because he just wanted to discuss the nature of the universe with other educated people.

Henry Ford- This is a man who had a lot of faults and who failed a lot. What I admire was he kept working at achieving his goals until he reached them. I true lesson in perserverience.

Thomas Jefferson- Another founding President who wrote (or co-wrote) two of the most documents in American history. Sure he had sex outside of marriage but if we didn't have them then the US would have ended up in pieces like Gran Granada or in a series of dictatorships like in Mexico.

There are many more people I admire but six is more then enough for now.

Bereta_Eder · May 8, 2003, 13:23

I dont have heroes or heroines

Sava · May 8, 2003, 13:35

FDR - I agree with Oerdin
MLK - takes a strong man to be non-violent in the face of the sh1t he dealt with
Malcom X - personified renegade attitude towards injustice
Thomas Paine - "common sense" and much more
everyone who protested against unjust wars EDIT

for the right reasons)

DaShi · May 8, 2003, 13:39

Quote:

Originally posted by Sava

everyone who protested against unjust wars

Even those who did it just to get in the sack with the hot hippie chick?

Sava · May 8, 2003, 13:43

if you're going to nitpick! I MUST EDIT!

Japher · May 8, 2003, 13:43

Quote:

everyone who protested against unjust wars

Quote:

Even those who did it just to get in the sack with the hot hippie chick?

only those...

Sava · May 8, 2003, 13:46

I don't blame you Japher. You haven't had the luxury of being exposed to the right information.

http://www.informationclearinghouse....rticle2319.htm

If you can turn off FoXnews for a second, you might learn something about your beloved president.

Ramo · May 8, 2003, 13:56

Albert Einstein
Richard Feynman
Petr Kropotkin
Emma Goldman
Emiliano Zapata
Nestor Makhno
Eric Blair
Henry David Thoreau
Mahatma Gandhi
Martin Luther King Jr.

Jac de Molay · May 8, 2003, 13:59

Henry Rollins - taught me the value of working your as$ off to get where you need to be, and the value of sobriety and perseverance.

Umberto Eco - Favorite writer and thinker. Wish I could write half as well as he does

.

Winston Churchill - Perseverance/ grace under fire

Barry Sanders/Joe Dumars - Class acts in the world of the trash-talkin', coach-strangling, sports.

DaShi · May 8, 2003, 14:11

The hot hippie chick.

Kontiki · May 8, 2003, 14:31

I differentiate between doing something heroic and being a hero. I don't have any heroes, and I never will. There are certain traits in certain people I greatly admire, but everyone is human and has their failings. I can't think of a single person I would put on a pedestal and say "now there's a hero". Some of their actions, yes, the person as a whole, no.

Ari Rahikkala · May 8, 2003, 14:33

My one personal hero is Jan Hubicka. Author or co-author of, among other stuff:

- aalib (ASCII art library), a very cutely geeky way to display graphics. Just have a look at the BB demo!
- XaoS, the best optimized fractal zooming program I know of, and quite possibly also the one that is best suited for creating pretty pictures
- Koules, a very original and addictive arcade-like game

He works at SuSE labs nowadays, apparently porting stuff to x86-64 (

!) and enhancing the optimizer of gcc (

!)

oedo · May 8, 2003, 14:35

my mum

Oerdin · May 8, 2003, 15:21

Quote:

Originally posted by DetroitDave
Umberto Eco - Favorite writer and thinker. Wish I could write half as well as he does

.

I read his book "Travels in Hyperreality" but I found it to be a ho-hum read at best. Some of his critics of American society were good but most of it boiled down to the "I am a Euro-snob and I believe my culture is so clearly better then yours; I don't really know why I say that but it is simply what I am used to" verity.

rah · May 8, 2003, 15:53

Quote:

Originally posted by oedo
my mum

And my father too.
True Heroes.

The Andy-Man · May 8, 2003, 16:09

Count Bezuhov

Traianvs · May 8, 2003, 16:37

.. for my heroine

MattyBoy · May 8, 2003, 22:11

Ari, Xaos is incredible.
Thankyou for that.

St Leo · May 9, 2003, 16:03

Douglas Adams

Cruddy · May 10, 2003, 00:39

These are people that have left a mark on me - there are countless others I am unfamiliar with. Some odd ones in this list but...

Ghandi - Great Soul says it all really.

Ike - yep, Eisenhower was pretty unique. Anyone that could organise Overlord, keep the reins on Patton and put a firecracker up Clark deserves respect.

Jon Pilger - a war journalist of the highest order, and a campaigner without peer against overwhelming odds.

Jochen Peiper - Colonel of Hitler's bodyguard but never a member of the Nazi party! Now that is unique. Scapegoated for the Malmedy massacre.

Nelson Mandela - Always insisted on his right to violence in defence of his civil rights. Great speaker, thinker, and suffered for his beliefs.

Alexandr Solzehnitsyn - hope I spelled it right, documented the atrocities of the Soviet era (and suffered quite a few of them personally).

Primo Levi - Like the above but was a survivor of Nazi conentration camps. Unforgetable reading.

Zhukov - Anyone that wasn't scared of Stalin deserves respect. Had his field HQ on the front line of Stalingrad, truly a brave leader.

Colonel H Jones - I judge him by the loss felt by his remaining subordinates, not for his heroic sacrifice.

Heroine's - a couple come to mind.

Jesus' Mom - Mary or Miriam, she suffered but kept on going.

The Late Queen Mum - WW1 nurse, must have seen some horrible sights, bombed in WW2 - always smiled.

Mother Therasa - now there was a hard working woman, not to mention an inspiration to others.

There are others, but that's enough for this thread.

Agathon · May 10, 2003, 01:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Ramo
Albert Einstein
Richard Feynman
Petr Kropotkin
Emma Goldman
Emiliano Zapata
Nestor Makhno
Eric Blair
Henry David Thoreau
Mahatma Gandhi
Martin Luther King Jr.

No argument with most of these, but isn't it a bit pretentious to refer to Orwell by his given name?

I'd add

Marcus Aurelius
Socrates
Alexander the Great
John Steinbeck

Why doesn't Steinbeck get his due as a writer of the left, like Orwell does. Even he doesn't come close to what Steinbeck achieved in "The Grapes of Wrath" and "In Dubious Battle".

Dis · May 10, 2003, 02:58

Bill O' Reilly

no seriously. Sure he's an arrogant egotistical bastard. But I fail to see how this is a bad thing.

Ego is a good thing. Women dig men who are confident about their abilities. They don't want some dweeb who isn't confident about his intelligence.

And he is extremely smart and good with words. People who hate him fail to see this because they are blinded by their own extreme political views. In fact O'Reilly puts it best. When you are on the extreme right or extreme left you tend to follow what your leaders say whether they are right or wrong. And you tend to see those who disagree with those political views as stupid.

This is why it is important not to be an extremist. It can blind one to the facts. I won't argue that Bill has a right slant, but he is not extreme like Sean Hannity and friends.

As for other Heroes, well I have many from the creation of the country. Don't forget Patrick Henry and Samual Adams. And do not forget those who have faught for the freedom of my great nation from past to present.

Abraham Lincoln. The courage this man has for standing for his beliefs despite massive opposition is truelly amazing.

Cruddy · May 10, 2003, 03:10

Quote:

Originally posted by Agathon

Why doesn't Steinbeck get his due as a writer of the left, like Orwell does. Even he doesn't come close to what Steinbeck achieved in "The Grapes of Wrath" and "In Dubious Battle".

Steinbeck is a great author, and I'd recommend his books to anyone interested in a view of past suffering of the poor.

What makes Orwell so great was he predicted the future suffering of the poor - and the forms of control that would evolve and appear.