The voice of America

By Bob Gaydos

Last week I wrote about the revolution in Egypt and how difficult it can be for mere mortals to know what to do when life, as is its tendency, confronts them with the unexpected, never mind the unplanned. Specifically, I addressed those critics who were instantly telling President Obama what he should say and do with regard to the situation in Egypt, even though no one had any precedent to refer to in the Middle East. Arabs have not been in the habit of rising up against autocratic governments.

I suggested that Obama would best be served by paying heed to the message of the Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

I further wrote: “As I see it, Obama needs the wisdom part in this crisis. He can’t control what happens on the streets in Cairo or any other Arab nation. What he can do is speak forcefully and eloquently, in public to the world and in private to Mubarak et al, about what the United States of America stands for and hopes for and will support in any country whose people want it: freedom, human rights, dignity, opportunity, equality and justice for each and every citizen. That message always has and always will resonate around the world. …”

Among the comments I received were the following from my fellow Zest of Orange blogger Michael Kaufman:

“Bob, this is so beautifully written and full of great insights that I am almost hesitant to disagree with you about anything. Still, I have to take issue with your conclusion, not because I disagree with your sentiments regarding America’s vision for democracy and commitment for human rights, liberties, and peace, but because that vision has been so clouded by the actions of our government, our military interventions, intelligence agencies, private contractors (i.e., Halliburton, Blackwater, etc.), for decades. Where was America’s vision for democracy when the CIA toppled the Mossadegh government and installed the Shah in Iran? Or when our government assisted the Chilean fascists who overthrew the Allende government and murdered thousands of Chilean citizens? Have we forgotten the lessons of Vietnam, the napalm, My Lai? What vision of America did “Shock and Awe” and Abu Ghraib send to the world about what America stands for? And when will we learn that “American exceptionalism” might play well at home but it means nothing in Afghanistan, where we are just another occupying foreign power destined to fail. Given this track record the kindest thing we can do for the Egyptian people is to leave them alone. After all, until they took to the streets of Cairo, the United States stood for … Hosni Mubarak.”

OK. First of all, I appreciate the kind words and have the utmost respect for Michael as a writer and, even moreso, as a decent human being. He cares passionately about the things people should care passionately about. But Michael, I believe, has fallen into the trap many liberals fall into when offered the opportunity to be unabashedly proud and patriotic in support of the United States -- they look for any and every possible excuse to criticize their homeland and overlook all the reasons to praise it.

All those examples Michael cites of American misbehavior or outright criminality in regard to other nations are absolutely true. And wholly irrelevant. Simply because America has been guilty of reckless or abusive actions in the past -- actions which belie its foundations in liberty and democracy -- does not preclude it from reminding itself and other nations that those principles are written into the very birth of this nation and, through better and worse, remain the cornerstone of America.

Truth be told, millions of people around the world are weary of hearing about the grand American vision. Yet when oppressed citizens of other nations take to the streets to protest against their governments, it is virtually always to gain some part of that American vision, not the Russian or Swiss or French or Chinese vision. I think it’s because they know, even with all its flaws and self-serving behavior, America remains, not only the best example of how to offer the most people the greatest opportunity for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” but also, by virtue of its economic and military might and influence (however varying) around the world, the most likely source of support for those seeking some measure of freedom.

Yes, America has propped up dictators and repressive governments in exchange for “stability” or security, or oil. We have engaged in wars without justification. We are far from perfect because we are human. This is why I did not use the word “exceptionalism” in my column. I think it is loaded with tons of freight, not the least of which being its suggestion of arrogance and egotism. We Americans clearly do not always know what is best for other peoples, even though some of our political leaders and “average citizens” may like to talk and act as though we do. But we are allowed to learn from our mistakes. (How about slavery?) No one can deny what the United States of America stands for because it is written into our Constitution, as amended over the years with a great deal of blood, sweat and tears.

(Brief aside: A local businessman told me that as the revolution in Egypt went on in the streets, with citizens demanding President Hosni Mubarak step down, some of his customers were saying, “We need to do that in this country.” No we don’t. We did that 135 years ago when we told the King of England to take a hike. It was a bloody mess. We now believe in the orderly transition of government in this country. We replace those leaders we don’t like through democratic voting. It’s one of the main qualities that sets us apart from many other countries and is a history lesson that should be well known and cherished by any political group that takes its name from the American Revolution.)

At any rate, I humbly believe that an American president who has demonstrated not only an understanding of the limits of power and the value of humility in domestic and foreign relations -- and who is also a living symbol of the opportunity awarded every (natural born) citizen of this nation -- is more than justified in reminding citizens of other nations what America stands for and hopes for and will support in any country whose people want it: freedom, human rights, dignity, opportunity, equality and justice for each and every citizen.

If not us, Michael, who?

bobgaydos.blogspot.com

What can you do when life happens?

By Bob Gaydos

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,” John Lennon famously, and ironically, wrote. You’re driving along on cruise control, daydreaming about the future and wham! Suddenly you’re in a Coen Brothers movie.

If only you had turned left instead of right. If only that idiot hadn’t run the red light. If the klutz had jumped over you instead of landing on your ankle.

Life happened to Hosni Mubarak last week as he was, perhaps, contemplating whether to remain as president of Egypt a few more years or pass the job on to his son, what with elections in his country being foregone conclusions. Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians were in the streets demanding that Mubarak resign. Three decades of autocratic rule apparently was enough. That, plus the lack of any meaningful work for young people in the onetime jewel of the Arab world.

Mubarak could be excused for not seeing this revolt coming because neither he nor any other Arab leader has spent much time paying attention to Tunisia, a poor neighbor to the west of Egypt, with an even more repressive leader and even fewer job opportunities for young people. What happened in Tunisia is the stuff of grand movies, and history.

One afternoon, a young man who helped support his family by peddling fruit was stopped by a female government inspector and asked for his license. Not having one, he offered to pay the $7 fine (a day’s earnings) if he could go on selling fruit. This was not an uncommon practice. The inspector not only said no, she reportedly spit on him, slapped him in the face and confiscated his fruit cart. Angry and humiliated, he went to government offices to appeal his treatment. No one would see him.

So the next day he returned to the street in front of the government offices and set himself on fire. With his death in the hospital, a martyr was born. Huge mobs took to the streets protesting against the government. Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was forced to flee the country. Egyptians followed it all on television and the Internet. Heck, if Tunisians could do it, why not Egyptians?

Indeed, with the nascent government in Iraq being the only semblance of democratic rule in the Arab world, why not Jordan or Yemen or Libya or Syria or …

And so, life also happened last week to Barack Obama, on the other side of the world and trying to figure out how to create jobs and revive the economy of the United States, the most powerful nation on the planet, which had plunged into a recession because everyone was too busy planning their retirement homes while banks were selling worthless mortgages. Suddenly, everything our president knew about the Middle East was meaningless because Arab citizens had never risen up so boldly against their repressive governments. Seeking stability through support of dictators has been SOP forever for the State Department, even though it backfired in Iran, a Persian, but Muslim, country. The downfall of the shah caught Jimmy Carter looking elsewhere.

And now everyone it seems has advice for Obama on what to say, what to do about Egypt, even though there is no history for this set of circumstances. “Does he want to be seen as the president who lost Egypt?” a talking blonde head asked on (of course) Fox News, while the rest of the world was still trying to make sense of what was happening and hoping things wouldn’t turn violent. Already producing talking points for the ill-informed opposition.

Somehow, I don’t think that’s the primary question on Obama’s mind right now. Of course he doesn’t want to “lose” Egypt. Nor does he want other Arab nations to fall under the control of militant Islamists. But he has to figure out exactly what he and leaders of other free nations can actually do to have a positive influence on events in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East.

That klutz in the second paragraph landed on my right ankle. Shattered it. Touch football. I was 35, athletic, divorced and out of work. Not a care in the world. Two operations and a right leg a tad shorter than the left later, I long ago stopped dreaming about running. No tennis, basketball or baseball, at least not in any competitive sense. I eventually got another job and, later, a wife and two sons. Life happened in ways I had not planned. Along the way, a friend introduced me to a prayer (I confess I am not a religious person) that I see as the companion piece to Lennon’s line (and it’s even more famous): “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

I eventually got Reinhold Niebuhr’s drift: Don’t get all worked up over stuff you can’t do anything about. Life happens. You can fuss for awhile, but focus on doing the best with what you can control; that’s where the rewards are. For me, that meant doing a lot of coaching of my sons from the time they were big enough to swing a bat or throw a ball. I could still move well enough for that and it was loads of fun for a lot of years. They turned out pretty good, too.

As I see it, Obama needs the wisdom part in this crisis. He can’t control what happens on the streets in Cairo or any other Arab nation. What he can do is speak forcefully and eloquently, in public to the world and in private to Mubarak et al, about what the United States of America stands for and hopes for and will support in any country whose people want it: freedom, human rights, dignity, opportunity, equality and justice for each and every citizen.

That message always has and always will resonate around the world. And it will survive even a fruit peddler being slapped by a bureaucrat in Tunisia.

Bobgaydos.blogspot.com

The answers are in the stars

By Bob Gaydos

I blame it all on the stars. The ones in the sky, not on reality television. If they could have just stayed where they were supposed to stay, where they have been for billions and billions of Carl Sagan years, none of this other stuff would be happening.

You know, thousands of birds dropping dead out of the sky. Dead crabs washing up on the shore of Great Britain. Rightwing blowhards being dropped by conservative radio stations. A leftwing bloviate shown the door by a leftwing TV station. Republicans muttering not so much under their breath anymore that they wish Sarah Palin would just shut up.

Just when we had the sides all chosen up for the game, someone went and moved the stars and suddenly I’m a Taurus, not a Gemini. But hey, I don’t feel like a Taurus. I have been Gemini-like pretty much since I became aware of the signs of the Zodiac. Charming split personality, that’s me. Keep your bull to yourself, Parke Kunkle.

What kind of name is that anyway? Parke Kunkle. Who names a kid Parke when he’s already got Kunkle to carry around? Kunkle is an astronomy instructor at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, which sounds like a great place to get lost for your career. But with the Internet, nobody need be lost forever. So when Kunkle sat for an interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune to help fill their Sunday paper, the stars were already aligned for his moment in the sun. (Please don’t tell me how to mix my metaphors. It’s my blog.)

Kunkle told the Sun that the stars had moved. Well, the Sun didn’t know anything about it, so it ran a story about how the Zodiac was all messed up and those signs people follow in the paper every day to help them plan their lives were, how to say this delicately, wrong.

OK, I can feel the scientists out there getting agitated about the stars “moving” references. That’s just a writer’s conceit, see? I know the stars didn’t really move, but it makes it easier to get people into the story than telling them the earth actually tilted on its axis thousand of years ago, altering its alignment with the stars and, of course, altering the signs of the zodiac, which were conceived about 5,000 years ago and are based on the earth/stars alignment. See how boring it can be explaining science? Call it the Fox news approach.

But here’s the real deal: Good old Parke tells us that scientists knew about this starry shift 2,000 years ago. Wow. How come WikiLeaks couldn’t find out about this? Not content to leave it there, with Pisces now Aries and Virgo now Libra, he also tells us there are really 13, not 12 constellations.

The scientists have known about this a long time as well, he says. Apparently they kept Number 13, Ophiuchus (Nov. 29-Dec. 17), secret because 12 signs fit neatly into a calendar year and Ophiucus is a yucchy name to say, much less have to admit to being one.

So there you have it. That’s why the birds dropped dead in Arkansas and Louisiana. It wasn’t the weather or bad food or poor navigation skills. It’s also why we’re having all these snowy days in January. I’m convinced it’s why Andrew Luck, the best quarterback in college football, decided to stay at Stanford for another year instead of coming out to be the first draft choice of the worst team in the National Football League, the Carolina Panthers, who (I could not resist this) truly have no luck at all.

It’s why WOR Radio in New York and WPHT in Philadelphia have dropped Glenn Beck, not because his ratings were falling and advertisers were leaving. It’s also why WPHT also dropped Sean Hannity, who had previously been dropped by KSL Radio, a Mormon station, in Utah. It has nothing to do with Beck ranting about crime around Independence Hall or KSL’s mission statement which calls for advancing “integrity, civility, morality, and respect for all people.” Its just Aquarius and Capricorn not knowing what’s what or who’s who.

Same goes for Keith Olbermann, the brightest and loudest star in the MSNBC galaxy, getting the quick shuffle out the door to even the sides. Here’s your money, Keith; keep your mouth shut.

The wacked-out zodiac (and what do you think the zodiac killer is thinking these days?) may well be responsible for the recent strange conversation between the president of the American Atheist Group and Bill O’Reilly, who still has a job at Fox news, but who has been told by his boss, Roger Ailes, to “shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually.”

The atheists had posted a billboard calling religion a scam. O’Reilly said he could prove them wrong: “I'll tell you why it’s not a scam in my opinion: Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can't explain that.”

Atheist: “Tide goes in, tide goes out?”

O'Reilly: “See, the water, the tide comes in and it goes out … It always comes in, and always goes out. You can't explain that.”

Actually, had the stars not been out of alignment for thousands of years, O’Reilly may have known, intellectually, that tides rise and fall due to the combined gravitational effects on the Earth caused by the Moon and the Sun. That what the scientists tell us. For thousands of years, how these celestial bodies are aligned has determined the daily rise and fall of sea levels. It’s a scientific fact. You know, the same way that how the stars are aligned with the Earth has determined what happens in our personal lives for thousands of years. …

Actually, it’s all Parke’s fault.

bobgaydos.blogspot.com

Rummaging for the future in the past

By Bob Gaydos

I’ve spent the past few days rummaging through cardboard boxes and those old post office mail crates (tell me you don’t have a couple stashed away) on a search for some personal stuff long ago relegated to the archives, AKA the walk-in closet. I do this kind of stuff when I’m avoiding writing for this blog or, as is more often the case, when the only stuff to write about is seemingly the same, old nasty crap. Sorry for the bluntness, but that’s the way I feel about it.

My Zestoforange co-bloggers, Jeff Page and Michael Kaufman, bless their ever-acerbic minds and hearts seem to have no difficulty rising to the challenge of commenting on whatever may be the controversy du jour. They continue to call out the bad guys and thank God for that. I pretty much agree with what they write, but to me it is all part of an endlessly recycled argument in which nobody ever listens to the other side. It’s the stuff that ends marriages and divides nations. At some point, it’s pointless.

So I wasn’t going to write about the shootings in Arizona because I didn’t think I had anything new to say and, more to the point, it wouldn’t make any difference. And then, as I’m rummaging through the boxes, discarding old memos and scanning old editorials, I come across a copy of the Times Herald-Record from Dec. 22, 2006. Why am I keeping this? I flip through to find out and suddenly it hits me in the face: “ ‘Final’ thoughts of an editor.”

My last editorial at the Record. The one they let me sign. The one that expressed exactly what I talked about at the top of this piece and that still holds true more than four years later. I wrote about my worries. To wit:

“I’m worried. Not about Iraq, or global warming, or terrorism, or even urban sprawl. Well, sure, I’m worried about those things, but, truthfully, they’re mostly out of the control of any one of us. It requires collective action, a meeting of the minds, — compromise — to do something positive about complicated issues. What worries me is I think we’ve forgotten how to do this — all of us, not just Congress and the state Legislature. … I think our society has become coarser and, in many ways, less tolerant. This is evident in our culture, our schools, our political debate.

“Honest differences of opinion over the most mundane issues now routinely degenerate into personal attack and shouting matches. You hear a lot of this on TV and radio. The internet puts no filters on any opinion, however hateful or unfounded in fact. It is ‘buyer beware’ and pretty much free of charge. We have abdicated debate to the extremes. We complain about politicians who can’t work together, yet constantly return to office those same officials because they delivered some money for a favorite cause. …

“Here’s where the stuff comes in we don’t want to hear, the stuff we call hokey or lame or naïve. Sorry if you feel that way. Complain to the next guy.

“We have to stop whining and yelling at each other and listen for a change. We need to stop looking for someone to blame and accept personal responsibility. That doesn’t mean ignoring the liars and charlatans in our midst. It means expressing in clear, no-nonsense, non-threatening terms what we expect of each other. It means respecting those who mean us no harm but may disagree with us. It means recognizing our common roots and dreams, as individuals and neighbors. It means teaching our children by deeds as well as words. It means fessing up to our mistakes and honestly trying to fix them.”

Yeah, that’s how I still feel. Nobody is trying to fix things. Well, almost nobody.

My 16-year-old son, Zack, came home from school Thursday and said, “Obama’s speech was really moving last night.”

“Really?” I replied, confessing with some embarrassment I hadn’t known the president planned to speak and never bothered to listen to him later.

“Yeah,” Zack said, “I was going to watch ‘The Office,’ but Obama was speaking so I listened. It was powerful.”

Well now. I was reminded. Yes, Barack Obama, someone I have criticized for not facing down his hypocritical critics on the right, clearly understands the need to find the solution rather than living endlessly in the problem. It is in his DNA as well as in his books. It’s why I and many others were thrilled when he was elected president. Persistently trying to bring people together, to disagree civilly, to compromise, is often seen as a sign of weakness, but it’s what I was looking for when I said goodbye to the Record.

Now, I will still have trouble rising to the challenge of the controversy du jour, so don’t expect a flood of harangues and harrumphs all of a sudden. But Zack reminded me that the future may not be as bleak as I had thought. You have no idea how good that made me feel.

bobgaydos.blogspot.com

There's lame and there's LAME

By Bob Gaydos

A few lingering questions to ponder before the end of the year:

WHO’S TO BLAME? Is there anything sadder and more frustrating for a football fan than seeing an old, humorless, rigid coach berating a 22-year-old player on the football field, on national TV, immediately following that player’s failure to kick an out-of-bounds punt with 14 second left in the game, that failure leading to a winning touchdown for the other team on the last play of the game?

Actually yes. It’s that same old, humorless, rigid coach stating at a press conference after the game that he took “full responsibility” for the botched punt and in the next breath saying the kicker (who was reportedly in tears in the locker room) didn’t do what he was told.

Pretty big bus you tossed the kid under, Tom Coughlin. Way to demonstrate mature leadership. Way to make other young football players want to become a New York Giant. Gee, maybe some day I can miss a tackle and have Coughlin chew me out on Fox or CBS so that everyone knows he wasn‘t the one who missed the tackle. That’s not a particularly effective approach with your own kids and it’s highly unlikely to motivate professional athletes.

Yeah, Tom Coughlin has to go as Giants coach because for all his emphasis on discipline and stability, his teams have been among the most undisciplined and unstable on the football field over the past few years -- even when they won the Super Bowl. But it’s more than that. He has gone from being a cranky-but-talented coach to a cranky, old man who seems to spend most of the game shaking his head on the sidelines and looking like he has indigestion. Those are generally signs it’s time get out and let someone who can demonstrate leadership, not annoyance, take over.

If there are lessons to be learned from a crushing defeat -- and there always are -- in this case it might be that teams win and lose as a unit, not as individuals, and that, as a rule, coaching and disciplining and blame-placing should be done in private, not in public. You can make occasional exceptions for spoiled professionals who think the rules don’t apply to them (Hello T.O., Ochowhatever and Mr. Moss), but never for amateurs and youth league athletes. (Coaches of said athletes, take note.) And if you say you take “full responsibility” as a coach, make sure you damn well mean it.

WHICH DUCK IS LAME? The midterm election, which delivered the House of Representatives back to the Republicans, was supposedly a referendum on how poorly Barack Obama had performed in his first two years as president. After all, he had only pushed through a record stimulus bill to stabilize a free-falling economy, managed passage of health care reform (something presidents had been trying to do for decades) and engineered banking reform, simplified college tuition loans and put protections in place for credit card users. He even got a bill passed on child nutrition. Oh, and he started pulling American troops out of Iraq.

This record was considered a disastrous failure, mostly by Tea Party members, who look on Obama as a Socialist and would apparently prefer that there be no government at all, and ultra-liberals, who thought Obama should bludgeon Republicans into saying yes once in awhile even if their DNA prevented them from doing so. But the man is nothing if not persistent and consistent.

Having been chastised and humbled by his “defeat” at the polls in November, the president has since signed a bill extending Bush era tax cuts for all Americans and extending unemployment benefits for millions. The bill does include tax cuts for the wealthiest, which will increase the exploding national deficit (which Republicans also kept saying was a very, very bad thing), but it also includes so many other benefits for the middle class and businesses that ultra-conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer has praised Obama for outsmarting the Republicans, calling it the bill that ensures Obama’s re-election.

But there’s more. For all his liberal supporters, Obama somehow got Congress to repeal the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell law, which will allow gays to serve openly in the military, and gained approval of an updated nuclear arms treaty with Russia, despite efforts by some Republicans to hold it hostage if Congress approved DADT. Also considered possible is approval of a health bill for 9/11 responders, a bill Senate Republicans inexplicably rejected several times in their desire to punish the president.

I have not been immune from criticizing Obama for not occasionally slapping around just-say-no Republicans for refusing to work with him, even on legislation they support. But Mr. Bipartisan just may be smarter than all of us as he wears out his left arm signing new laws in the wake of a resounding Republican victory that doesn’t give them more power until next year, when they can start being bipartisan for real.

SAY WHAT? George Orwell made my 20 Most Influential Thinkers of the 20th Century list because he saw so many things others did not and put his insights into writing. One of his observations popped up on my iGoogle page the other day: “In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning.”

A couple of days later I thought of old George when I read the following (yeah, I read art stuff!) in The New York Times Arts section: “In her sculptures over the last several years, Ms. Bhabha has created a highly distinctive visual universe, one that is most gripping when its various cultural references are fully absorbed and altered. This absorption feels only partial in some of the new figures, and the images in some of the photographic pieces feel simply layered rather than integrated and complicated.”

Geez, I dunno, the stuff looked kinda, you know, integrated and all, to me.

Happy new year.

bobgaydos.blogspot.com

20 thinkers for the 20th century

By Bob Gaydos

The time has come, admittedly much to my chagrin, to wrap this thinkers thing up and return to the real world of Rand Paul, Bristol Palin and Jersey Shore. Lord, what fools we mortals be. (Yeah, I lifted it.)

A few thoughts about this exercise in ego, selecting the 20 most influential thinkers of the 20th century:

• I started it as an escape from the aforementioned world, after a conversation with a couple of friends who had begun it for unknown reasons of their own.
• It quickly became an interesting exercise for my mind and attracted enough interest (I was amazed there was any) from readers to encourage me to do more than a superficial here’s-the-list-live-with-it-if-you-care job.
• I learned a lot about a lot of people whose names were familiar but whose accomplishments --and influence -- had faded into the recesses of my mind. Learning is always good.
• This caused me to actually think seriously about what real influence is -- the kind that spans generations, cultures, life styles and supposed areas of expertise. Who are the people who changed the world?
• For better or worse, this is still my list, albeit with some important input from readers, so disagree all you want. I’m sticking with it.

At last count, I had 14 names. Here are the final six: Carl Jung, Bill Gates, Margaret Sanger, Bertrand Russell, Bob Dylan, and T.S. Eliot

Carl Jung had a profound influence, not only on psychotherapy, but on the culture well beyond. He gave us the concept of introversion vs. extroversion. He also introduced the concept of the collective unconscious, a universal storehouse, as it were, of everything that has happened, even before humans. This influenced Joseph Campbell‘s writing on mythology and the creation of the “Star Wars” movies. Jung also believed that a spiritual experience was necessary for someone to recover from alcoholism. This theory eventually found its way to Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, and in time became the bedrock of all 12-step support groups.

A young Bill Gates dreamed of one day seeing a computer on everybody’s desk. Ta da! Today, with his billions of dollars and generous spirit, he seems almost intent on putting each computer there himself, along with making sure every person on the planet has access to good health care. He may or may not be the richest man in the world, but the Gates Foundation is the largest charitable foundation in this country. And Warren Buffett, no slouch when it comes to vision and making money, has turned over his multi-billion-dollar empire to the Gates Foundation because Buffett says Gates is the smartest man he knows and his foundation is more capable of investing all their billions to help solve world problems. Talk about setting a good example.

Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood and freed women to control their own bodies and, in turn, their lives and futures. A vigorous crusader, her efforts led to family planning, research on birth control, provision of contraception and other health services and education of the public on these issues. Providing women with the ability to control their fertility directly impacted women’s progress around the world in the workplace, in education and in the exercise of economic and political power. Like it or not, those are the facts.

As controversial as he was ubiquitous, Bertrand Russell was a superstar intellectual, philosopher, writer, logician, mathematician, historian and social critic, whose opinions were eagerly sought on every imaginable topic of the day (mostly the 1940s and ’50s). That means people paid attention to what he thought, He also palled around with Albert Einstein (see No. 1 on the list). Russell was a founder of analytic philosophy and his writings influenced logic and mathematics as well as linguistics and metaphysics. When not doing that, the British subject argued against imperialism as well as against Hitler and Stalin. He also campaigned against United States involvement in Vietnam and was a staunch advocate for nuclear disarmament. He also lived to be 97.

Some Russell quotes:

• “It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.”
• “It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go.”
• “Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.”

Bob Dylan has been called the poet-laureate of rock-n roll and the “voice of a generation.” Funny how that voice -- all gravelly and often incomprehensible -- has kept on going through generations, influencing not only musicians and songwriters, but the culture of the country. Would the civil rights and anti-war movements have been the same without Dylan’s musical accompaniment ("Blowin' in the Wind" and “The Times They Are a-Changin'")? Would young Americans have ever found their political voice and power without Dylan’s musical urgings? Maybe, but he surely has had a major influence in both areas, as well as on the kind of music people listen to. He never played at Woodstock, but a lot of people think he did. The stuff of legends, and he’s still on tour.

And finally, no list of influential thinkers worth its salt is complete without a poet. Poets make us think, not only about the lives we lead, but the manner in which we describe them. Poetic language is like no other, at once incisive, evocative, rhythmic and unforgettable. When it is good. Like T.S. Eliot’s. Eliot did not write as much poetry as a lot of his contemporaries, but no one had the influence he did in the 20th century -- even allowing for the nay-sayers who tore him down after his death. The expatriate American was also a playwright and the most influential critic in England in the 20th century. Plus, one of his lesser works, a book of light verse -- “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” -- became the basis for the hit musical, “Cats.”

Some Eliot:

• From The Hollow Men:

“This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.”

• "Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves."

• From The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:

“I grow old … I grow old …

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach.

I have head the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.”

No matter, sir, those lines still sing to me.

* * *

So, here it is, in no particular order, my list of the 20 Most Influential Thinkers of the 20th Century:

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
13. George Orwell
14. Sigmund Freud
15. Carl Jung
16. Bill Gates
17. Margaret Sanger
18. Bertrand Russell
19. Bob Dylan
20. T.S. Eliot

If you stuck around, thanks for your patience. And now, alas, back to reality.

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No Freudian slip here

By Bob Gaydos

The popular TV show “Big Brother” is a virtual hot house of Freudian slips. And that should make it easy for you to figure out the next two members of The List of Most Influential Thinkers of the 20th Century.

Bravo to “the lady in the balcony” as Dr. IQ used to say on the radio. Yes, hats off to two Europeans whose influence on contemporary thought and culture has not waned even as their ideas came under increasing criticism following their deaths: George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) and Sigmund Freud.

Orwell died 60 years ago, at the height of his writing career. He was 46. Do you have a TV show named after a phrase you created, a phrase so familiar around the world that it tells you all you need to know about the show before you watch it? Rhetorical.

Orwell’s most famous works, “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and “Animal Farm,” have sold more than 11 million copies each and are still widely read by students today. No other writer has produced two books that have been as successful.

From “Animal Farm’s” “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others,” to Nineteen Eighty-Four’s “Big Brother is watching you,” Orwell’s memorable critiques of the failure of totalitarianism have become part of our everyday language and shaped how we regard government efforts to control our lives and the tendency of revolutionaries to abandon their core principle of equality once they gain power. Fiercely anti-fascist, then anti-communist, he was a wealthy Englishman with socialist ideals. His strength was the clear, crisp, incisive way he expressed his views.

Think of “Newspeak’’ (deliberately simple but confusing language designed to discourage independent thought) and “Doublespeak” (holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously)” and you have Orwellian ideas. Thanks to Orwell, we recognize them for what they are when we hear them today. (Well, some Tea Partiers may be the exception.)

Orwell was not only a novelist. He also virtually invented the free-wheeling social commentary column (today we call them blogs) and wrote hundreds of essays. Any serious writer would do well to follow his six rules of writing, as presented in an essay, “Politics and the English Language.” To wit:

• “Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech that you are used to seeing in print.”
• “Never use a long word when a short word will do.”
• “If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out.”
• “Use the active rather than passive voice.”
• “Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.”
• “Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”

And if you dare to disagree with any of this, the “Thought Police” will get you.

And who better to police our thoughts, conscious, unconscious or preconscious, than Sigmund Freud? The so-called father of psychoanalysis was by far the most influential 20th century figure in the study of how the mind works and how it shapes what we become. He believed the unconscious part of our brain, where we store all the stuff that happens to us, including the really nasty stuff, played a primary role in this.

It’s true that a lot of his ideas have been challenged, but a measure of Freud’s unmatched influence is that even the vigorous debate in the field of psychology has revolved to a large extent over whether he was right or wrong. He dominates the conversation.

Freud introduced new ideas on how we think about memory, identity, sexuality, childhood, the meaning of dreams. He gave us the Oedipus complex and unconscious guilt. He introduced the therapist’s couch and lying-down talk therapy, which has evolved for the most part into sitting-up talk therapy. Dozens if not hundreds of movies, plays and novels have been influenced by Freud’s work.

Other forms of therapy have gained prominence since his death, but anyone asked to free associate when the word “psychologist” is uttered is odds-on to respond “Freud.” Sigmund makes The List. His mama would be proud.

* * *

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
13. George Orwell
14. Sigmund Feud

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