By Bob Gaydos

There is a statue in the Capitol Visitors Center in Washington, D.C., part of its Statuary Hall collection, that contains this simple inscription: “Philo Taylor Farnsworth: Inventor of Television.”

Need I say more?

For better and worse, Philo Farnsworth’s vision, and subsequent inventions, changed the world we live in. There’s no way he is not one of The 20 Most Influential Thinkers of the 20th century. At the delicate age of 13, he came up with his idea for television and at 21 made the first electronic transmission of television, which became the basis of all we take for granted today, from “Jersey Shore” to “Meet the Press.” His wife Emma’s face was the first human image transmitted via television.

As with many inventors, what he envisioned is not necessarily what developed. After fighting and beating RCA over patents, he hoped television would become a tool to bring education, news, and the arts into the living rooms of ordinary Americans. By the 1950s he had banned the use of TV in his own house, although he did make a guest appearance in 1957, as “Dr. X,“ on the popular quiz show, “I’ve Got a Secret.” The panel couldn’t guess his secret, but there‘s no mystery as to why he‘s on The List.

Similarly, Rachel Carson, marine biologist and nature writer, called by many “the mother of environmentalism,” surely had no idea of the profound impact her book, “Silent Spring,” would have on the planet she so wanted to preserve for the rest of us. Her research and elegant writing on the negative effects that the widespread use of synthetic pesticides to kill insects had on all life on the planet not only resulted in a ban on the use of DDT (which she never advocated, by the way), but it gave rise to a different way of looking at the interconnectedness of all organisms and the need to protect and conserve nature’s resources.

She died of cancer at 57, only two years after publication of her most famous book, but her legacy lives on in thr Environmental Protection Agency and in every environmental debate, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Marcellus Shale. She’s on The List.

So here’s where we stand with the list of 20 (in no specific order):

1. Albert Einstein
2. Gandhi
3. Henry Ford
4. The Wright Brothers (count as one)
5. Thomas Edison
6. Picasso
7. Nikola Tesla
8. Mark Twain
9. James D. Watson, Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin (DNA trio count as one)
10. Winston Churchill
11. Philo Farnsworth
12. Rachel Carson

The two guys who started me on this quest both added suggestions last week. I think I’m not taking any more after this, but here’s what they offered:

• Tim Shannon: After visiting the Roosevelt Memorial in D.C. last week, I really think that Franklin and Eleanor should be on the list as a team. The ideas that they put into practice certainly revolutionized social consciousness of not only the USA but the world. Two people from the Upper Class trying to help the struggling average Joes. Reading the quotes from these two remarkable people brought tears to my eyes. I’m thinking that they really should be there.
• Bob Ladanyi (who is still computer-challenged: Daniel Ellsberg was very influential, not just for releasing the Pentagon Papers, which revealed the truth about much our military was hiding in Vietnam, but because he changed the way military intelligence analysts did their job. (Hope this is an accurate paraphrase.) Ellsberg, by the way, is still doing his thing.

Here are the remainders from my original list of 29: Bertrand Russell, Noam Chomsky, Carl Jung, Jean Paul Sartre, Sigmund Freud, T.S. Eliot, George Carlin, Albert Camus, Ludwig Wittgenstein, John Dewey, Bill Wilson, Dorothy Day, Bill Gates, Thomas Watson, Sam Walton, George Orwell, Margaret Sanger, Khalil Gibran, Betty Friedan and Isaac Asimov.

And here are other names suggested: Billie Holiday, The Beatles, Ken Wilbur, Vivekananda, Bob Dylan, Thomas Merton, Groucho Marx, Clarence Darrow, John Ford, Ted Williams, Al Gore, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Jon Stewart, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Benjamin Spock, Oprah Winfrey and Diaane Ravitch.

Only room for eight more.

bob@zestoforange.com

By Bob Gaydos

Before I put my thinking cap back on, it seems like a good time to take inventory on The List of Most Influential Thinkers of the 20th Century (and beyond). When last we met, I offered my suggested list of the first 10 candidates, sort of like the undeniable introductory class of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Here it is:

• Albert Einstein
• Gandhi
• Henry Ford
• The Wright Brothers (count as one)
• Thomas Edison
• Picasso
• Nikola Tesla
• Mark Twain
• James D. Watson and Francis Crick (again, count as one)
• Winston Churchill

Typically, that abbreviated list brought some interesting comments. On Winston Churchill, Edward B. Godwin offered this personal remembrance of the British PM’s far-reaching influence:

“Glad for the inclusion of Winnie! In January 1966 I came for a Saturday morning interview for a position in the English department at Orange County Community College. It was a good year for getting a job in my field as candidates with Master’s degrees in English were few compared to those in education. Enrollments were up.

“I had interviewed at other community colleges. Some were over the telephone – truly a surprise. I had not anticipated that experience. I had visited Adirondack Community College. I turned down both offers. Then I came to Orange’s interview.

“Now the relevance: Unexpectedly during the interview I was asked if I were given the opportunity to structure a course, what figure in the 20th Century would I chose and why. No other interview or experience prepared me for that question because I was a new teacher and did not expect that I would be creating a new course. As my mind almost went blank, Winston Churchill came to mind because of his use of language. However, I was weak in the knees and grateful I was sitting as I explained and defended my choice.

“At the end of the interview that involved many questions including a defense of textbooks I had used in teaching, I was offered a job. In later years I came to understand that it was the process of my thinking and use of language and materials that was being examined that day. Some of the contemporary authors mentioned in the interview I had to acknowledge I hadn’t read. However, I had read much of Churchill and history then and throughout my life.

“Language of our time reflects our time. The painting pallet of denotation and connotation has gone back to just the primary colors. No need to learn how to mix colors to create shades. F*** you and other grunts and farts have replaced real discussions about war and peace.”

Amen to that.

Linda Mangelsdorf had a strong argument on another of the top 10 list:

“Hey, Bob, as long as you are counting 2 for one, why not make it 3 and give Rosalind Franklin the credit she deserves for the discovery of DNA? Today most sources do acknowledge her somewhere in their articles (the quote below is from waaaaaaay down in a Wikipedia story), but at the time of the Nobel, she was already dead from cancer – work-related, no doubt, and therefore ineligible for recognition. Just a thought …

“From Wikipedia: ‘… Their mistake was partly based on Watson having misrembered a talk by Rosalind Franklin where she reported that she had established the water content of DNA by using X-ray crystallographic methods. But Watson did not take notes, and remembered the numbers incorrectly. Instead, it was Franklin’s famous ‘photograph 51’ that finally revealed the helical structure of DNA to Watson and Crick in 1953.’ ”

And finally, Kathy Garvey, who obviously had not seen my initial list, offered this: “Where, for heavens sake, are FDR, Benjamin Spock, Dorothy Day, Bill & Melinda Gates (counts as one), or for that matter Oprah Winfrey, who is as fine an example of stewardship of great wealth as I can think of. Oops! I ended with a preposition; Winston would not be happy.”

Actually, Kathy, Winston would be thrilled since it was that rule up with which he would not put. And actually, Bill (but not Melinda) Gates is on my list of possibles, as is Dorothy Day. I hesitated on Spock and FDR and eventually left them off. Oprah is a force to be reckoned with, but I’m not sure how much she has influenced others in dealing with wealth. No one else is giving away cars.

One other suggestion was offered, by Roseanne Sullivan: “I finally thought of a “thinker” for you and whether you agree or not, you should really read what she’s got to say.  Name — Diane Ravitch: Discovery – NCLB and Charter Schools ain’t all that!!  Diane Ravitch was a strong supporter of No Child Left Behind when it was first introduced into the political educational realm. Recently, she’s had a reawakening.  You can read about her experience and her thoughts on the subject in an article she wrote titled “Stop the Madness” in the Aug/Sept. issue of NEA Today. She’s an expert on education and thought of as a key historian on NCLB issues. I agree with everything she says in this article  and its about time somebody said it in layman’s terms.”

I second the applause for her reawakening on NCLB and her insights on education, but I fear the influence barometer doesn’t measure up.

So here’s the upshot — Rosalind Franklin is in the top 10 with Watson and Crick with an asterisk for now, awaiting final judgment. That would make her the only woman in the first 10. Here ae the remainders from my original list of 29: Bertrand Russell, Noam Chomsky, Carl Jung, Jean Paul Sartre, Sigmund Freud, T.S. Eliot, George Carlin, Albert Camus, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rachel Carson, John Dewey, Bill Wilson, Dorothy Day, Bill Gates, Thomas Watson, Sam Walton, George Orwell, Margaret Sanger, Khalil Gibran, Philo Farnsworth, Betty Friedan and Isaac Asimov.

And here are other names suggested: Billie Holiday, The Beatles, Ken Wilbur, Vivekananda, Bob Dylan, Thomas Merton, Groucho Marx, Clarence Darrow, John Ford, Ted Williams, Al Gore, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Jon Stewart.

I’m thinking Rachel Carson and Philo Farnsworth have to be in there, but this is already way too long. Until next time then.

bob@zestoforange.com

By Bob Gaydos

“October is a fine and dangerous season in America. a wonderful time to begin anything at all. You go to college, and every course in the catalogue looks wonderful.”

— Thomas Merton

Yes, I’m back to The List. The 20/20 if you will. Choosing the 20 most influential thinkers of the 20th Century, as laid down in a challenge by a friend who has since failed to participate in the actual choosing and who shall, hence, go nameless until he deigns to join in the process.

Tim and Ernie, though, they’re a different story. Both have taken a sincere interest in the project and both said I should take a look at Thomas Merton. And since I respect both of their opinions, I did.

Quite the man, Merton. I confess that with Merton, as with quite a number of names mentioned in previous columns, my personal data bank did not go much beyond the superficial labels. Catholic. Monk. Pacifist. Author. Poet. Social activist.

But he was so much more than the sum of his parts. As a priest and author he preached a gospel of peaceful co-existence, including among religions. His too-brief life was a spiritual journey seeking to discover and praise the common threads of people’s different beliefs and to put those beliefs into action, protesting against war and racism. His writings and teachings influenced thousands and figured prominently in the 1960s anti-war and civil rights protests and the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh to this day carries on his crusade for peace and social justice.

Coincidentally, the Center in November will present the annual Thomas Merton Award to Noam Chomsky, another renowned thinker, scholar, writer and long-time activist and potential member of The List.

The Merton quotation at the top of this column is not necessarily representative of his life’s work, but I like the simple truth it conveys as well as the timely convenience. It makes October a perfect time to start whittling The List to 20. This is not going to be easy, so I will start with those I think have to be on it and then consider the rest, the way baseball teams do in spring training.

So, not in any order, here’s the proposed foundation of the 20-person roster (If you object, speak now or start your own list):

• Albert Einstein
• Gandhi
• Henry Ford
• The Wright Brothers (count as one)
• Thomas Edison
• Picasso
• Nikola Tesla
• Mark Twain
• James D. Watson and Francis Crick (again, count as one)
• Winston Churchill

Churchill is the only statesman on The List, suggesting to me that most of them, while having influence because of their positions, are not necessarily great thinkers. I think Churchill was the exception in the 20th Century. His oratory, courage and vision, not to mention leadership, were profoundly important in saving the world from the Axis powers in World War II and in shaping the modern world. He was also an artist and prolific writer, who enjoyed cigars and brandy. A sampling of his quotations provides a good snapshot of the multi-dimensional man:

• “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”
• “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”
• “Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.”
• “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
• “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
• “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
• “I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”

What can I say? I like the way he thinks.

Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com.

By Bob Gaydos

At one point in my four-plus decades in newspapers, I was a sports editor. It was for a paper in Binghamton, but it was still a great job. I got to go to sports editor seminars where everybody talked sports, hung out, ate and drank. I got to cover some Yankee games. Jerry Izenberg, former columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger once lent me his typewriter (see Wikipedia) so I could file my story after a game because I had left my machine in Binghamton. I also once interviewed Baltimore Orioles ace pitcher Jim Palmer as he soothed his aching body in the whirlpool. Yes, au natural. And yes, the sonofagun was as handsome in person as he was on TV.

But the best part of being a sports editor was that I also got to write a column on whatever I pleased. The bosses preferred local topics, of course, but it was Binghamton so they let me wander off to professional sports. And when their travels brought them to the Southern Tier, I talked with the likes of Roger Staubach (polite, if dull), Rocky Graziano (the textbook image of a pug) and, too briefly, Jackie Robinson. All in all, it seemed like the best job in the world and I often wondered wistfully, as my career veered back to the hard news side, what life might have been like if I had pursued a career as a sports columnist.

Now I know and now I have no regrets. I found the answer in a discarded copy of Jim Murray’s autobiography, which I picked up for a buck at the Thrall Library used book store (still the best deal in town if you read without the aid of a Kindle). Murray, one of the founding fathers of Sports Illustrated, was also a nationally syndicated sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He covered everything from NASCAR to golf and his style was unique. Murray was not a numbers guy. He didn’t cover events so much as the people participating in them.

On Muhammad Ali: “He didn’t have fights, he gave recitals. The opponent was just the piano, the backdrop. All eyes were on Ali. He loved it. It was his stage, his life. He was like Bob Hope with a troop audience. Olivier at the Old Vic.”

And what of the column that won him a Pulitzer and made him famous? Murray: “(It) came into my life in 1961. And took it over. A column is more than a demanding mistress. It is a raging master. It consumes you. It is insatiable. It becomes more you than you. You are not a person, you are a publicly owned facility. Available on demand.

“It has a calamitous effect on family relations. It confuses the kids’ identities. It rearranges your priorities — and not for the better.

“Jimmy Cannon had the right idea. He apparently accepted the fact early that he was wedded to the column. And he lived alone in a midtown Manhattan hotel and devoted his whole life to it.”

Maybe it‘s just me, but it sounds like Jimmy Cannon (one of my other favorites) shortchanged himself on the whole “we only have one life to live” deal. I was thinking about the two Jimmys because I had just spent the weekend watching some of the most godawful professional football games that people were ever asked to fork over a couple of grand for. The kind of games that rekindle the romance of high school football Friday nights.

Take the Jets. “Please,” as Henny Youngman (whom I once met in an art gallery in Woodstock) famously said.

Maybe it’s just me, but if Mark Sanchez is ready for prime time, so is Jimmy Fallon. The Ravens’ best play was pass interference on third and long. But hey, don’t beat up on Sanchez too much. Tony Romo and Philip Rivers and Drew Brees and Bret Favre — established stars all — all stunk up the joint in their first games.

Maybe it’s just me, but when most opening games were comedies of errors and penalties (Washington vs. Dallas was almost unwatchable) and ex-con Michael Vick is your standout quarterback, if you’re the NFL you should think twice about cutting the preseason by two weeks and adding two games to the regular schedule.

And don’t get me started on Joe Girardi. He makes Keanu Reeves seem animated. Girardi doesn’t manage games so much as he scans actuarial reports. He has all the instincts of a computer. If he has the best job in baseball, how come he never smiles? Just asking.

One more thought before I get too carried away with this whole sports column thing: If, as some observers claim, Tiger Woods being unable to play golf at a high level is good for the game because it has opened the field to so many other unknown golfers to make their names, how come the golf writers keep writing only about Tiger’s struggles and we still don’t know the names of those other golfers?

Maybe it’s just me, but I think the two Jims — Murray and Cannon — would have loved writing about Tiger. After all, he doesn’t just win in grand style, leaving the rest of the field in shambles, he loses in epic fashion, his life burning down around him like some tragic Greek hero out of Aeschylus. Win or lose, all eyes are on the Tiger. The score is secondary.

And I apologize for all the name-dropping.

Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com.

By Bob Gaydos

And the beat goes on.

Apparently, thinking about thinkers is contagious, or at least a welcome diversion from thinking about how Bristol Palin is so much her mother’s daughter.

In case you somehow managed to avoid the news, the unmarried 19-year-old daughter of the former governor of Alaska and former vice presidential candidate, recently, in rapid succession, reunited with the father of her 18-month-old son, getting a hefty fee to announce it on the cover of People magazine, broke up with the scoundrel when he apparently told her he had gotten another woman pregnant, also rejecting his offer to be on a family reality show (“He’s just obsessed with the limelight and I got played.”) and announced she would appear on TV‘s “Dancing with the Stars,’ wearing “modest” lace and fringe outfits. Charming.

She’s also been ordered by Mom to move back home, apparently to obtain the continued benefits of her responsible adult supervision. Which is all a kind of cheesy, roundabout way to sheepishly admit I had somehow left off The List the names of the guys whose thinking broke the code on DNA.

The omission was brought to my attention in a humbling e-mail:

“How can you not include those whose thoughts led to the genomic era?  At the very least, Watson & Crick (Nobel laureates for their work on DNA) should be on your list. Genomics has revolutionized medicine and deepened our understanding of evolution, genetic susceptibility to disease, etc.”

Toby G. Rossman, Ph.D.

Professor of Environmental Medicine

NYU Langone School of Medicine

Before I get to Watson and Crick, let me say I am thrilled that a seriously heavy thinker is reading and commenting on this blog. This is not to suggest that the rest of you are not legit thinkers, but I Googled Dr. Rossman and she’s the real thing. Plus she’s local and is actively involved in the Science Café, which is, oddly enough, exactly what it sounds like — a bunch of scientists sitting around drinking coffee or wine and talking about the kind of topics that switched my major from engineering to writing.

So welcome, Dr. Rossman, and thanks for the double helix duo, unarguably two of the most influential thinkers of the past 110 years. Not that I’m too thrilled with some of the other stuff that came out of Watson’s mind … and mouth. You know, how genetic screening and engineering could be useful I curing the “really stupid” 10 percent of the people and turning out lots of pretty girls. Or letting a woman abort a child if she didn’t want is to be homosexual or heterosexual. Or his infamous “[I am] inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa [because] all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really.”

The profoundly positive significance of DNA science would seem to overwhelm Watson’s other thinking and Crick, his fellow Nobel scientist, had no such socially dubious baggage.

Moving on, Valerie Lucznikowska had some thoughts on Nikola Tesla, the focus of my previous column: “Tesla should be there at or near the top. He also invented sonar during WWI, and when he died, at the beginning of WWII, the U.S. government whisked his papers away, and to the best of my knowledge, still have them under lock and key. In his studio in NYC he had lamps with no electric cords, and he played with others, tossing a ball of light back and forth; that has never been reproduced. Yes, he was very sensitive, strange and a compulsive, counting the spoonfuls of soup he ate. But his unusual love of a white pigeon whom he fed at his window reminds me that years later, pigeons were found to have internal magnetic sensors that locate them and point their way home. Did he know or sense something there?”

Gotta love the guy.

The other suggestions continued to attest to the wide range of interests of our readers:

• Jeffrey Page (fellow Zester): Groucho? (Love him.) Clarence Darrow? John Ford?
• Carrie Jacobson: Ted Williams? (Huh?) Al Gore? (Hmm.).
• Michael Kaufman: “Glad you included Dorothy Day. I saw her speak a couple of times in Union Square on May Day. I don’t know why you didn’t go with Charlie Parker, considering his influence on jazz musicians to this day, but how about Louis Armstrong? As Miles Davis said, “You can’t play nothing on modern trumpet that doesn’t come from him…” And/or Duke Ellington, of whom Miles said, “At least one day out of the year all musicians should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.” (OK, but how influential was jazz in the big scheme of things?)
• Christine Young: Jon Stewart. Ah. A woman after my own heart.

Here’s my original List of 29: Albert Einstein, Gandhi, Henry Ford, the Wright Brothers (they count for one), Thomas Edison, Picasso, Bertrand Russell, Noam Chomsky, Carl Jung, Jean Paul Sartre, Sigmund Freud, T.S. Eliot, George Carlin, Albert Camus, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rachel Carson, John Dewey, Bill Wilson, Dorothy Day, Bill Gates, Thomas Watson, Sam Walton, George Orwell, Margaret Sanger, Winston Churchill, Khalil Gibran, Philo Farnsworth, Betty Friedan and Isaac Asimov.

I can keep going as long as you can.

Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com

By Bob Gaydos

“Nikola Tesla,” my friend Ernie said. “He should be on the list. He invented electricity and radio; he just did not get credit because he was a terrible businessman and would not promote himself.”

All true, and to which I might add, he had the good sense to be friends with Mark Twain, whom Beth Quinn says definitely belongs on the list.

The List, as I will henceforth call it, giving it capitalization for added prestige, is a collection of the 20 most influential thinkers of the 20th century and beyond. As I wrote previously, a couple of friends of mine had been talking about such a list and asked me who would be on mine. Given the choice of writing about fracking or why we are such a nation of hypocritical, self-important, narrow-minded bigots, I preferred to think about thinkers. I stopped my list at 29 and asked for other suggestions. Hence, Tesla and Twain, both of whom I would agree have merit.

To be accurate, Tesla gave us the alternating current system, which makes all of this possible today. Edison, (also on the list) preferred direct current. He was also a master of self-promotion, which is not necessarily bad thing. For example, Tesla sold his AC design on the cheap to Westinghouse, who got rich on it, while Tesla eventually wound up impoverished and, some said, a little nutty. His critics pointed to the Tesla “death ray” as evidence of his instability. But Tesla, a militant pacifist, called it a “peace ray.” Unveiled in July of 1934, The New York Times reported that the new invention “will send concentrated beams of particles through the free air, of such tremendous energy that they will bring down a fleet of 10,000 enemy airplanes at a distance of 250 miles…” Tesla stated that the death beam would make war impossible by offering every country an “invisible Chinese wall.”

The idea was that no nation would think of attacking another one defended by a ring of particle beams. Sound familiar? He could not find any financial backers or interested countries and it seems no prototype or plans for the death ray were found after his death. But science fiction has prospered on the concept and the idea of preserving peace through overpowering defensive weaponry continue to challenge scientists.

As for Twain, no less than Hemingway and Faulkner called him the “father,” as it were, of modern American literature, the man who gave voice to a nation and challenged it to deal with its prejudices. All with great humor. So yes, Beth, English teacher that you are, even though he died in 1910, his thinking had a profound influence after his death (earlier reports of which were “greatly exaggerated”) and continues to do so.

Some other suggestions from readers:

That is all for now in Social Studies 2010. I have not begun to whittle The List to 20 and I welcome new suggestions or comments on what we have (original list below). I have noticed that I have no presidents or military leaders on my list, perhaps because, while they may have been influential, it was not necessarily their own thinking that made them so. This effort has proven to be somewhat interesting and educational for me and, since I cannot figure out the stock market, I will not give it up yet. However, to maintain touch with reality I will also continue reading the autobiography of Jim Murray, one of the great (and influential sports writers) of the 20th century.

Here is my original List of 29: Albert Einstein, Gandhi, Henry Ford, the Wright Brothers (they count for one), Thomas Edison, Picasso, Bertrand Russell, Noam Chomsky, Carl Jung, Jean Paul Sartre, Sigmund Freud, T.S. Eliot, George Carlin, Albert Camus, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rachel Carson, John Dewey, Bill Wilson, Dorothy Day, Bill Gates, Thomas Watson, Sam Walton, George Orwell, Margaret Sanger, Winston Churchill, Khalil Gibran, Philo Farnsworth, Betty Friedan and Isaac Asimov.

I already see some candidates for Triple A ball.

Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com.

 By Bob Gaydos

A couple of friends of mine, who clearly have too much time on their hands, recently asked me a question that was guaranteed to provoke feelings of anxiety, inadequacy and insecurity: Who are the 20 most influential thinkers of the 20th century and beyond?
 
 My inner voice immediately screamed out (in?), “How the hell should I know? I know baseball and politics, a few writers, some movie directors, and enough philosophy to be decent at Jeopardy. That’s it.”
 
 The truth is, something inside me recoils at the challenge to come up with my list of the “best” or “most influential” or “most important” or “my favorite” of anything. I haven’t figured out why. Then I thought, “Well, that’s just an excuse to avoid thinking a bit beyond the normal exertion and, being retired, I have no legitimate excuse for that, so why not give it a try. Besides, it will give me something to post on my Facebook page.
 
 The trick, for me, in compiling such lists is getting past the obvious names, the ones that go on the list automatically and, if anyone challenges them, their name goes on another list. So I have to have Albert Einstein, Gandhi, Henry Ford, the Wright Brothers (they count for one), Thomas Edison and Picasso. Already, it’s getting tough.
 
 Off the top of my head and with just the briefest scanning of the web to remove the cobwebs, I also came up with Bertrand Russell, Noam Chomsky, Carl Jung, Jean Paul Sartre, Sigmund Freud, T.S. Eliot, George Carlin, Albert Camus, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rachel Carson, John Dewey, Bill Wilson, Dorothy Day, Bill Gates, Thomas Watson, Sam Walton, George Orwell, Margaret Sanger, Winston Churchill, Khalil Gibran, Philo Farnsworth, Betty Friedan and Isaac Asimov.
 
 That’s 29 names in all and I don’t think I’m done. Even my cursory Internet refresher suggests to me that Martin Heidegger was a great 20th century philosopher, if just because all the other philosophers seem to think he was. (Personal confession: Reading philosophical writings often demands the kind of attention to minute detail for which I have seldom had the patience, even in college when I wanted to get a decent grade. This is one of my character defects with which I have learned to live. It’s also probably why I got into journalism. Truthfully, when Bill Clinton said he wasn’t sure what the meaning of the word “is’’ is, I got a headache even though I knew what he was trying to do.)
 
 But this list, say my friends, is for influential thinkers, not just philosophers, and Heidegger happened to be a genuine Nazi, to which I can only ask, “What was he thinking?” And since this is a personal list, even though he had wide influence I will leave him — and Adolf Hitler — off my list since their core idea was soundly rejected.
 
 I’m going to stop here before I start including Knute Rockne because he popularized the forward pass or Miller Huggins for making Babe Ruth a fulltime outfielder. Those thoughts were pure genius.
   

*  *  *
 

No, I’m not going to leave it there. I’m sure someone thinks I’m an idiot for names I included or excluded. Or maybe you’re just nice and want to share your own names. Send them along and we’ll compare notes. It’s bound to be more satisfying than following the ramblings of the tea partiers.

Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com.

• March 23: In Nanping City, Fujian Province, a man waited outside a school gate with a knife and killed eight students and injured five.
•  April 12: Not far from the Xizhen Elementary School of Hepu County, Guangxi Province, an eight-year-old student and an elderly woman were found dead, and another five were injured, including two students, a toddler, and a middle-aged couple.
• April 28: A man ran into an elementary school in Leizhou City of Guangdong Province with a knife and injured 18 students and a teacher. The resulting investigation showed that the 33-year-old suspect was a teacher at another public school in Leizhou City, on “sick leave” since February 2006.
• April 29: A man broke into a kindergarten affiliated with Taixing Township of Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province, stabbing and killing 32 people.
• April 30: A 45-year-old man of Shangzhuang Village of Weifang City, Shandong Province, forcibly entered Shanzhuang Elementary School on a motorcycle, carrying a hammer and gasoline. He wounded five preschoolers with the hammer and then killed himself via self-immolation using the gasoline.
• May 12: A cleaver-wielding man broke into a kindergarten in China’s Shaanxi Province, killing nine, including seven children, and injuring 11 before returning home to commit suicide.

  In what appears to be a related attack, on Monday a young man in his 20s attacked six young women with a meat cleaver at a market in Foshan, in southern China, before jumping to his death off a three-story building. (Note: China bans handguns for civilians.)

Maybe it’s just me, but shouldn’t it be illegal for American investment banks to conspire against their own country by handing out a bunch of lousy mortgages then bundling them together and selling them to some poor sap who thinks they’re good and then betting that those loans will fail? Isn’t that pretty much a sure thing? When your country is in the midst of a precipitous financial crisis brought about by thousands of bad mortgage loans, isn’t what Goldman Sachs did the equivalent of economic treason? Don’t the officers and board members responsible for this cynical, self-serving ploy deserve prison time? Watch the hearings. They don’t get it. They are smugly superior. Well, yeah, a bunch of people may have lost their home and jobs, but look how much money we made. That‘s why we deserve those big bonuses. If Congress can’t find room for bipartisan agreement on regulating and punishing these blood suckers, then we have truly lost our way.

Speaking of which, maybe it’s just me, but does anyone believe the pope and members of the Vatican hierarchy when they say they plan to get serious about rooting child molesters from the ranks of their priests? This molestation scandal has been going on for decades and has now spread from the United States across Europe. Can South America be far behind? Thousands of faithful have left the flock and tens of millions of dollars have been paid to families of victims in hush money and yet every time a new scandal is revealed, the pattern is the same: Priest (or bishop) molests a number of young boys over a period of time, is eventually found out, is sent somewhere for “rehabilitation” and eventually winds up working in contact with children again. No one ever calls the cops. Now, we have high-ranking cardinals attributing the molestation problem to homosexuals, following in the Church pattern of ignoring science in favor of self-preservation. They also divert attention from the more serious matter that church leaders have allowed this sin to go on by covering it up at almost every opportunity and by stubbornly refusing to find any place in the church for women, except in the pews. A Catholic Church with married priests (who have children) and women priests and altar girls would have dealt with the molesters swiftly and surely a long time ago.

On a less serious note, I have always thought Jim Carrey was a moron. Now I have proof. The actor of a thousand faces and one emotion ended his long (for Hollywood) relationship with Jenny McCarthy via Twitter. First: Jenny McCarthy! Second: Twitter! Third: Jenny McCarthy! Oh, and for good measure, he tweets (Is that really a word?) that Tiger Woods’ wife was complicit in his behavior. Carey is a moron.

Speaking of which, maybe it’s just me, but shouldn’t officials of Cal State Stanislaus, a public university, have revealed all the details of the contract they signed with Sarah Palin for a June speaking engagement there? It seems to me, students shouldn‘t have had to go dumpster-diving to find out that Palin insisted on having pre-screened questions, bottled water, bendable straws and a first-class hotel reservation for her visit. As for the fee, that’s still anybody’s guess. Maybe it’s just me, but shouldn’t boards of trustees represent the best interests of the public university?

And really, Michael, whatever happened to baseball players knowing the basic rules of the game. Exhibit’s A,B,C and D: Angel Pagan and Jose Reyes of the New York Mets and Brian McCann and Eric Hinske of the Atlanta Braves. During a recent game, Reyes hit a popup to the infield with runners on first and second and less than two outs. This initiates the much-maligned infield fly rule, which is simple: Batter is automatically out, runners go at their own risk. Here’s how it played out: Reyes’s popup was dropped, (but he was out as soon as he hit it). He ran to first anyway and stood there. McCann, who picked up the ball, threw it to first where Hinske tagged Reyes and the bag (both redundant). Meanwhile, Pagan who was on second, ran when the ball was dropped and kept running while the Braves threw the ball around and scored on a headfirst dive. Bravo, Pagan, right? Not quite. After the game, Pagan said, “I’m sure a lot of people don’t know all of the rules. (Yes, they’re called non-players.) You can’t know every one.(How about the ones that come into play almost every day?) But we talked about this in spring training. (Way to go, coaches.) I knew the batter was out (good), but I didn’t know you could run. I’m glad I learned that. (Again, way to go coaches.)”

Now, maybe it’s just me, but I’d bet everyone of those players played Little League ball and, trust me, as a former coach, Little Leaguers are taught repeatedly about the infield fly rule — both parts. When you’re making millions, you should know this basic stuff, it seems to me. Fines all around if I had my way.

And finally, doesn’t the new Arizona law letting police ask anyone for proof they are in this country legally stir memories of those old World War II movies? Pappers plizz! Ah, maybe it’s just me. 

I’m through griping for now.

By Bob Gaydos

Well, it’s been nearly a week now and I still haven’t heard about any smug, condescending reply from Fox News to Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn’s comments at  a town hall meeting. If, like me, you avoid Fox like the plague, let me tell you that Coburn, a Republican whose arch-conservative bonafides include attempting to stop an extension of unemployment benefits and trying to kill the health reform bill, cautioned the hometown crowd not to depend on Fox News for the facts of any story and actually had the guts to call House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — Beelzebub incarnate in female form to Fox and its far-right followers — “nice.”

Nice. As in just a hard-working family woman who happens to be two heartbeats away from the presidency.

Coburn, a doctor, dropped the “N” word on the crowd as he was discussing his differences with the speaker over the health reform bill. Thus brought boos and hisses. “Come on now,” Coburn said, “she is nice – how many of you all have met her? She’s a nice person. Just because somebody disagrees with you doesn’t mean they’re not a good person. I’ve been in the Senate for five years and I’ve taken a lot of that, because I’ve been on the small side –- both in the Republican Party and the Democrat Party.”

In addition to his lecture on civility, Coburn actually corrected a woman who said she might actually be thrown in prison for refusing to acquire insurance under the new health reform law. “The intention is not to put any one in jail,” he said. “That makes for good TV news on Fox, but that isn’t the intention.”

Wow. This is virtually unheard of today in the Republican Party, where all members seemingly must pay total obedience to whatever inane utterances or lies emanate from Fox News or fear a verbal onslaught from its staffers and questions from Tea Partiers about their patriotism. For proof one only has to look at the shell of a candidate Sen. John McCain has become as he seeks re-election in Arizona by walking a few steps behind Sarah Palin’s leather jacket coattails.

McCain may have finished near the bottom of the pack at the Naval Academy, but he knows what he knows and what Palin doesn’t know and yet he puppy dogged around her in hopes her conservative glamour aura — a phenomenon which he unleashed on the planet — would translate into another term for him. In the process he has disavowed every principled position he ever took in the Senate, positions that were often at odds with fellow Republicans, and actually said he never considered himself a maverick. What was all that stuff about then, John?

This was the presidential candidate of the GOP two years ago, a war hero, the de facto leader of the party, which today has none, the party which today takes its lead from the blabbering heads of Fox News, who reap ratings and money from their distortions and fear-mongering without having to worry about running for election.

Spake Coburn: “What we have to have is make sure we have a debate in this country so that you can see what’s going on and make a determination yourself. So don’t catch yourself being biased by Fox News that somebody is no good. The people in Washington are good. They just don’t know what they don’t know.”

Coburn told the audience to “stay informed on the issues.” Don’t “just watch Fox News or CNN — watch ’em both.” He said, “I do a lot of reading every day (The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal)” to “get a perspective” and “know what other people’s thoughts are — not just what I hear through a pipe channel. I’m disturbed that we get things like what this lady said and what others have said on other issues, that are so disconnected to what I know to be the facts. And that comes from somebody that has an agenda that’s other than the best interests of our country.”

Coburn happens to be friendly with President Obama, from their shared days in the Senate, despite having starkly different political philosophies. Once upon a time, this was normal in Congress, where disagreements over policy did not have to descend to character assassination. The Just Say No Crowd has made it difficult for politicians of character to stand up and speak the truth, at least in the GOP. They’ve hammered this message home on Fox for two years now, or ever since Obama, the champion of bipartisan governing, became a serious candidate for president. There’s no drama in his approach, nothing on which Fox can exaggerate and profit. Only news it can report, if it so chooses, which it does not.

Coburn called them on it and, so far, Fox hasn’t called him a socialist, commie-sympathizer or anything else. (If you’ve heard or read otherwise, please let me know because, as I said, I don’t watch Fox News. Meanwhile, I’ll be on the lookout for any other Republican with the guts to speak the truth about the emperor’s clothes.

Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com.