who do you admire?

[ecojeanne]

Who do you admire the most? and why?

[ecojeanne]

anyone at all? who inspires you?

[starbuck]

I admire people who can keep their cool in heated situations. I have a fiery Italian temper in real life. I doubt it comes through on the forums, but I dunno.

Sometimes it feels good to unleash on people, but more often than not, I'll wish that I'd kept my cool.

[Gribble]

I admire anyone who can get married, work 40 hours a week for someone else and raise kids, all without being utterly miserable.

I've yet to meet anyone like that.

[Mish]

At the moment (they change all the time)

Mother Theresa and Aleksandr Pushkin

First for inspiring views and for doing what is right, when it was so much easier to do wrong. Second for inspiring ideas that stir so many feelings.

[Gribble]

Mish, have you ever read anything by Christopher Hitchens? I don't really know much about the guy, but I caught him on television a while ago discussing Mother Teresa.

He pointed out that her Home for the Dying in Calcutta, the thing that made her most famous, was a squalid, miserable hive of the sick and dying. A suitable name, I suppose. No medical aid was provided. Just a cot and a nun to say a few prayers.

That's better than nothing, sure. However, millions and millions of dollars passed through the withered, impoverished hands of Mother Teresa. Money that could have been put toward easing suffering. Instead, she built a bunch of nunneries all over the place.

Makes me pause and wonder.

[DoesntMatter]

I admire cool people. Like General John J. Pershing, William T. Sherman, and a man with the initials JJ

[Gribble]

I can't believe you left Patton out of your list. You fail so hard.

[Dasein]

Jesus..because he's uh..Jesus

[doppelgaenger]

Leonardo da Vinci (for his scientific observations)
Sir Isaac Newton
Lao Tzu
Nestor Makhno
Karl Marx
Adolf Hitler (just for his rise of power)
Giogio de Chirico
Jules Verne
Ludwig Suetterlin
Ludwig Strauss

Some of my recent admirations have been from the Bay Area movement.

I know, really cliché answer, but: my lover. I am going to brag about her; she is amazing, and better than me if we could be compared. Sometimes I wonder if I even deserve her, or have even earned her from my young age. I could spend a fortnight talking to her... and she is my inspiration for doing what I do.

[Mish]

Mish, have you ever read anything by Christopher Hitchens? I don't really know much about the guy, but I caught him on television a while ago discussing Mother Teresa.

He pointed out that her Home for the Dying in Calcutta, the thing that made her most famous, was a squalid, miserable hive of the sick and dying. A suitable name, I suppose. No medical aid was provided. Just a cot and a nun to say a few prayers.

That's better than nothing, sure. However, millions and millions of dollars passed through the withered, impoverished hands of Mother Teresa. Money that could have been put toward easing suffering. Instead, she built a bunch of nunneries all over the place.

Makes me pause and wonder.

I didn't read books on this, but I saw a documentary once which mentioned Hitchens and some of the conditions inside these places. I agree that the money she recieved could've been spent better, but in light of the amount of work that she's done for the poor and bearing in mind that she's started from scratch in the slums and kept pushing for something better for these poor communities even in the face of extreme hardships ones where most other chairty workers would've given up makes me overlook her other imperfections.

And at the end of the day no one is perfect. Show me any person and I will find how they could've done better in something.

[boobaa]

Mother Theresa

Although Pushkin had his bad sides also, my attention goes to Mother Theresa.

What did she actually do, red example please. Only thing she is famous for is sobbing and putting people in her little castle where there weren't even enough beds. These people just waited their deaths, waiting so called forgiveness. She did not make anyone happy besides the ones who donated money so they felt good about themselves... Inspiring ideas? Hey, I have many ideas, maybe some of them are inspiring... I should write them don, maybe I'll get famous.

[Gribble]

And at the end of the day no one is perfect. Show me any person and I will find how they could've done better in something.

Nobody's perfect. I could have been a lot nicer to some of the people in my life. However, if someone donated millions of dollars to me and I just happened to own a building filled to capacity with the sick and the dying, I think I'd be inclined to put some of that money toward helping them with their pain. I can't imagine doing otherwise. And I'm not exactly the most selfless guy around. It's just weird.

[Tedel]

The Pope... can I run for miss Universe now? Just kidding.

I admire three men, I think: My father, because he's what we call here un viejo zorro (an old fox); a priest called Gonzalo, because he really knows how to call everything by its name; and the other one is dead and not very manly: Oscar Wilde. He obviously understood how people acted, reacted and what moved them as few others have proven understand.

[Gribble]

I admire three men, I think: My father, because he's what we call here un viejo zorro (an old fox)

My grandmother used to refer to my grandfather as the old fox. Except she had a strong accent and when she said fox it sounded quite a bit more like ****.

For the first ten years of my life I thought my grandfather's nickname was old ****.