Re: Who is your hero?
 

[ QUOTE ]
david byrne. he's so weird. but so cool.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll always have a love spot in my heart for the dude.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Although storming a beach in the face of machine gun fire certainly takes courage, I think that hunkering down in a freezing foxhole day after day, without warm clothing or much food, while having to face random, terrifying artillary attacks takes much more fortitude.

[/ QUOTE ]

im not taking ANYTHING away from any of those people. But what other choice did they have?

[/ QUOTE ]

And there you have a short history of the world.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
the real Larry David

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]
he was in my dad's fraternity at University of Maryland. Apparently he was a huge nerd.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

[ QUOTE ]
inchoatehand

[/ QUOTE ]

wow, i botched this one pretty bad. i mean saul lynch. (or whatever, you get it)

Re: Who is your hero?
 

For a long time I had no heroes but right now I think I have two, Bill Gates and Ingrid Newkirk (the co-founder & director of PETA).

Re: Who is your hero?
 

I'm a big Bart Giamatti fan. He quit his job as the president of Yale to become the commissioner of baseball, ignoring the opinions of a lot of people in order to pursue a childhood dream.

Funnily enough, I was a big fan of his kid--Paul Giamatti--for years before I figured out they were related.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

I was sitting in my car waiting for a friend and saw a little girl walking her dog one day. It was a little dog.

Suddenly a large dog that had no owner or leash came running towards them out of nowhere. That big dog was going to eat the little one!

The little girl stopped and grabbed her dog and reached up as high as she could with the little dog in her hands. The large dog was just barely unable to reach the little guy. But that did not stop him from barking and bouncing off the little girl's chest.

She didn't flinch! I got there as fast as I could but she didn't need me. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

So some random 6-10 year old girl who's name I will never know is my current hero I'm sure her dog thinks highly of her also.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

Hugh Hefner is one for sure. Another one is Chuck Norris.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Hugh Hefner is one for sure. Another one is Chuck Norris.

[/ QUOTE ]

One Thanksgiving, Chuck Norris' wife forgot to cook a turkey. Chuck Norris went out back to the shed and swallowed one of his live turkeys whole. Ten minutes later he barfed it up, cooked, stuffed, and fixed with all the trimmings. Chuck Norris' wife was amazed. "How did you do that??!" she asked him. Chuck Norris turned to his wife and gave her a roundhouse kick to the face. "don't question Chuck Norris," he explained.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

fkn Chuck Norris!

Re: Who is your hero?
 

[ QUOTE ]
fkn Chuck Norris!

[/ QUOTE ]

did you know that Chuck Norris is one-eighth Indian?
It has nothing to do with ancestry....the man ate a fckn Indian!!

Re: Who is your hero?
 

Leonardo DaVinci

Re: Who is your hero?
 

Pfft...underachiever...

Re: Who is your hero?
 

[ QUOTE ]
For a long time I had no heroes but right now I think I have two, Bill Gates and Ingrid Newkirk (the co-founder & director of PETA).

[/ QUOTE ]

The same Ingrid Newkirk who complained to Yasser Arafat about a the fact a donkey got killed in a terrorist attack which killed people as well.
Who said that the winner of the Indy 500 drinking milk was mocking cows
Who want's to get eaten when she dies
Who believes that the yearly slaughter of chickens is comprable to the
holocaust.

Good Choice

Re: Who is your hero?
 

hugh hefner strikes me as an unadapted prick. i don't look up to him at all.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

All the Chuck Norris jokes suck. Was Vin Diesel not cool enough?

Re: Who is your hero?
 

[ QUOTE ]
hugh hefner strikes me as an unadapted prick. i don't look up to him at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do. The guy had enormous balls and risked 'em too, coming out with an expensive, quality nudie magazine in those times. These days people don't really understand how uptight society was back then. It's like the people of those days lived on a totally different planet than we do now.

The guy deserves every penny of his wealth, and did a lot to change social consciousness.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

[ QUOTE ]
, and did a lot to change social consciousness.

[/ QUOTE ]

I saw a show on the history channell not to long ago about hue and they talked about how on his old school TV show he had black performers on and how that was so unheard of at the time. Lots of other stuff like that too

Re: Who is your hero?
 

I'm going to answer this question seriously, I haven't read other responses yet to see if this is the flavour of the replies (but I suspect it isn't).

1) Norman Borlaug.
2) Norman Borlaug.
3) Norman Borlaug.
He is responsible for saving LITERALLY billions of human lives, and virtually nobody knows his name. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug
and in no particular order:
4) Carl Sagan
5) James Randi
6) Stephen J. Gould
7) Michael Shermer
8) Ray Hyman
9) Bob Parks
10) Harry Houdini
11) Stephen Barrett
12) Richard Dawkins

Re: Who is your hero?
 

[ QUOTE ]
The guy had enormous balls

[/ QUOTE ]

that's the rumor

[ QUOTE ]
It's like the people of those days lived on a totally different planet than we do now.

[/ QUOTE ]

Planet Happy Days

[ QUOTE ]
did a lot to change social consciousness.

[/ QUOTE ]

I only got it for the pics and Gahan Wilson.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

lots of people had enormous balls and risked them in business, but it didn't get as much street cred because it didn't involve nude women.

when i've seen interviews, biographies, etc i get a dead impression that he hasn't changed his mind or thought much about anything for 20 years. he's got enough wealth to create a bubble that he can live in where "the world doesn't change." it's not just "old dude with old dude tastes" kind of things, his house really seems like a time warp and modern celebrities come to visit to provide details on what modern celebrity life is like. more importantly maybe, it lets him effortlessly maintain his image.

i agree that he deserves his wealth.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

Gahan Wilson was godly.

Great, lengthy interviews that pretty much set the standard, and world-class short fiction by the best authors living. Lots of excellent articles too.

And thanks for all the boobs.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

Street cred? That's always been a ridiculous notion best left to the ghetto and the white boys who want to pretend they understand anything about it.

"Street cred for showing boobs" is not a concept that would apply to the 50's.

As to change, what is this change you speak of? He's an old man. Let him bang his triplets already. And enjoy his house. Whatever you think he should be thinking now, although I'm generally not all that fond of that sort of a concept, just go ahead and think it for yourself. That's your job. You're a young guy and nobody's stopping you. Not by way of criticism or meant personally in even the slightest way, but just as a plain fact, Good luck coming up with 1/100th of the guts he had.

Other people didn't risk as complete social ostracism, or legal punishment, as he did to gain their wealth, so there's no comparison there at all.

Society wouldn't be anywhere near as open if he hadn't come along and risked everything.

We're lucky to be able to take a lot of things for granted now.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

One of my favorite quotes is from Hef:

"I'm sure from the outside it looks like my life is really good but, I can assure you, it's really much better than that."

Re: Who is your hero?
 

the street cred to which i'm referring is what he obviously has now. people worship tony montana and hugh hefner.

have you seen 'the aristocrats'? the best part of the whole movie is watching him try to figure out whether he was supposed to laugh at gilbert gottfried or not.

in his interviews he comes off as the biggest "they don't make them like they used to" and "it isn't like it used to be" guy ever.

i have no problem with him enjoying triplets, living in his house, or whatever. he earned that stuff. it has nothing to do with his business - past, present, or future. as a person, as a human being, independent of playboy he comes off as a stuck-in-the-mud prick. as he's entitled to live his life however he wants, i'm entitled to say that in no way do i look up to him as a person and i hope i never end up that way.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

Well, he was never an actor. And I think whatever street cred he has has probably fallen rather than risen for quite some time now. What was gutsy back then is by now established and uncommented on.

As to the glory days talk he might indulge in, that fits at least 90% of old people.

How you get from any of that or anything you said to world class prick is something you haven't really explained.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

spaceman bryce
istewart

Re: Who is your hero?
 

[ QUOTE ]
One of my favorite quotes is from Hef:

"I'm sure from the outside it looks like my life is really good but, I can assure you, it's really much better than that."

[/ QUOTE ]

Heheh, I love it.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

[ QUOTE ]
the street cred to which i'm referring is what he obviously has now. people worship tony montana and hugh hefner.

have you seen 'the aristocrats'? the best part of the whole movie is watching him try to figure out whether he was supposed to laugh at gilbert gottfried or not.

in his interviews he comes off as the biggest "they don't make them like they used to" and "it isn't like it used to be" guy ever.

i have no problem with him enjoying triplets, living in his house, or whatever. he earned that stuff. it has nothing to do with his business - past, present, or future. as a person, as a human being, independent of playboy he comes off as a stuck-in-the-mud prick. as he's entitled to live his life however he wants, i'm entitled to say that in no way do i look up to him as a person and i hope i never end up that way.

[/ QUOTE ]

what would you expect from a guy who wears knockoff italian smoking jackets? and then to steal one and act like the other person is the one wearing a knockoff? that is not classy on many levels.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

tony montana wasn't an actor either.

watch cribs, listen to hip-hoppers (a gigantic part of modern culture) discuss their idols, etc. look at who shows up at the parties in every issue of playboy. i think hefner is as big as ever.

sure people get in ruts as they get older. what irritates me about his phrasing is that it's not a "hey i'm happy with this thing over here" kind of thing. he responds to new ideas in an, "i don't care for that" sort of way. it drives me berserk when people respond to things as if they've evaluated them when they clearly haven't, much more than somebody saying "i'm just not going to try that."

so it's that, it's also the general prick vibe i get from him in biographies/interviews. i've seen enough of him to know that i don't like him as a person. it's perfectly fine for me to have this opinion.

his business work speaks for itself.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

My hero would have to be Michael Jordan.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
For a long time I had no heroes but right now I think I have two, Bill Gates and Ingrid Newkirk (the co-founder & director of PETA).

[/ QUOTE ]

The same Ingrid Newkirk who complained to Yasser Arafat about a the fact a donkey got killed in a terrorist attack which killed people as well.
Who said that the winner of the Indy 500 drinking milk was mocking cows
Who want's to get eaten when she dies
Who believes that the yearly slaughter of chickens is comprable to the
holocaust.

Good Choice

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't really want to get into a fight about this. I agree that she has made many melodramatic and counterproductive pronouncements. However, I believe that many of these pronouncements (for example the equation of the Holocaust with factory farming) would not seem anywhere near as outrageous to you or many other reasonable people if you had as complete an understanding of the depth and extent of animal exploitation as she does. Furthermore, I have a lot of respect for the sincerity, seriousness, and longevity of her commitment in the face of persistent public scepticism & apathy & the concerted efforts of powerful business interests to discredit & ridicule her effors. Finally, I have found her uncommonly generous & gracious in her personal relationships.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

Judging Hefner as an actor seems like a really weird criterion.

What new idea isn't he into that you can't seem to forgive him for? Is it hip hop or rap or something? I'm at a loss as to how some old dude just liking what he likes, like most everyone does and old dudes completely specialize in, could be something remarkable or something that makes it practically sound like it sparked a grudge.

You really haven't been able to make it clear why you're so hard against him.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

Good question. My dad, #1, Ronald Reagan, #2.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

I'm very sure you're completely right regarding the lack of knowledge most people have of what the conditions of factory farming are really like. But as true as that is, it just doesn't matter a whit. There's the part others may be missing, but that last is the critical part, and you're the one that's missing it when you rationalize comparing factory farming to the Holocaust.

Frankly, I think how we treat people is on a whole other, and much more serious still, moral level than how we treat dogs or chickens or cows.

That has nothing to do with being an animal lover.

There's just a thing about getting morally glaringly, even ridiculously, out of balance.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
For a long time I had no heroes but right now I think I have two, Bill Gates and Ingrid Newkirk (the co-founder & director of PETA).

[/ QUOTE ]

The same Ingrid Newkirk who complained to Yasser Arafat about a the fact a donkey got killed in a terrorist attack which killed people as well.
Who said that the winner of the Indy 500 drinking milk was mocking cows
Who want's to get eaten when she dies
Who believes that the yearly slaughter of chickens is comprable to the
holocaust.

Good Choice

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't really want to get into a fight about this. I agree that she has made many melodramatic and counterproductive pronouncements. However, I believe that many of these pronouncements (for example the equation of the Holocaust with factory farming) would not seem anywhere near as outrageous to you or many other reasonable people if you had as complete an understanding of the depth and extent of animal exploitation as she does. Furthermore, I have a lot of respect for the sincerity, seriousness, and longevity of her commitment in the face of persistent public scepticism & apathy & the concerted efforts of powerful business interests to discredit & ridicule her effors. Finally, I have found her uncommonly generous & gracious in her personal relationships.

[/ QUOTE ]

It doesn't take much effort to ridicule her.

She opposes pet ownership as slavery, yet wrote multiple books about cat ownership.

This is the same Ingrid Newkirk who opposes any medical research on animals but uses insulin herself, which would not be possible without the use of animals.

This is the same Ingrid Newkirk who opposes even the use of guide dogs for the blind.

This woman is one of the biggest hypocrites in the world today.

You don't get to say that you don't want to fight about this and then continue to defend your position.

It particularly irritates me that she supplies ammunition to my political opponents. (As if right-wing nutjobs need any help right now.) She damages more reasonable animal welfare positions by allowing them to be lumped in with PETA insanity.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

it has absolutely nothing to do with actors or acting. tony montana is a pop culture celebrity. hugh hefner is a pop culture celebrity. i don't know how the 'acting' idea ever came into this.

it is a waste to put effort into explaning something against comments like "you really haven't been able to make it clear." there are 2 parts to communication, and one of them is listening. if you were honestly just trying to see my perspective you would say "i don't understand" rather than phrasing it in the form of a challenge like "you are doing a bad job of making me understand." it's not my goal to make you dislike hugh hefner. i don't care if you do. i was just expressing an opinion.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm very sure you're completely right regarding the lack of knowledge most people have of what the conditions of factory farming are really like. But as true as that is, it just doesn't matter a whit. There's the part others may be missing, but that last is the critical part, and you're the one that's missing it when you rationalize comparing factory farming to the Holocaust.

Frankly, I think how we treat people is on a whole other, and much more serious still, moral level than how we treat dogs or chickens or cows.

That has nothing to do with being an animal lover.

There's just a thing about getting morally glaringly, even ridiculously, out of balance.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree with this world view vehemently and think it is founded on unwarranted, selfish assumptions...but I think it would be best if we agreed to disagree. I simply do not have the time or the intellectual energy to spare in my life right now to carry on this discussion on as serious a level as I think it deserves.

Also, these issues really make my blood boil, and I don't trust myself not to say something I will regret.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

[ QUOTE ]
it has absolutely nothing to do with actors or acting. tony montana is a pop culture celebrity. hugh hefner is a pop culture celebrity. i don't know how the 'acting' idea ever came into this.

it is a waste to put effort into explaning something against comments like "you really haven't been able to make it clear." there are 2 parts to communication, and one of them is listening. if you were honestly just trying to see my perspective you would say "i don't understand" rather than phrasing it in the form of a challenge like "you are doing a bad job of making me understand." it's not my goal to make you dislike hugh hefner. i don't care if you do. i was just expressing an opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay this is just cheaping out on me completely. For shame, and it's time to move on.

Re: Who is your hero?
 

That's fine, but don't take it as an insult if I tell you sight unseen that I value your life, or anyone's, more than I do that of a chicken.