Tested for Ten

I recently came across the following question on a test.

Name 10 of the most influential people of the 20th Century and, in three sentences or less for each person, explain who the person is and the impact he or she had.

As it turned out, I wasn’t taking the test, but I tried to imagine what I would write if I were.

The key word, of course, is “influential.” To whom? Are the sheer numbers of those influenced important? Influenced how? For good or bad?

For me, personally, I’d list my parents, who lived entirely within the 20th Century. My dad was a urologist; my mom was a kind of amateur mystic and, well, Mom. For better or worse, I am what I am because of them. Hey, I owe my existence to them. Now that’s influence.

But I think the test designers had something else in mind. They wanted to learn about “influential people” who might test awareness beyond the test taker’s mother, father, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, teachers, Little League coaches and friends.

I’m also thinking that the test givers might be weary of some candidates whom all the other test takers are certain to mention. Folks like FDR and MLK.

Consider going for surprising, but none-the-less, valid candidates, like Edward Bernays, the “Father” of Public Relations, or “Big Brother,” Orwell’s fictional creation who has taken on a life of his own, or Yogi Berra, seer of the not-so-obvious obvious.

Then there’s the question, what does “of the 20th Century” mean? Could a candidate live previous to the 20th Century to influence it? Several religious figures (Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammed) come to mind. And what about Marx, Locke, Thoreau and Rousseau? They are alive and well in today’s world.

But enough question begging. At some point the test-taker must set pen to paper.

Here are ten, in no particular order and in much less than three sentences:

Walt Disney, because everyone needs a fantasy or two — or two hundred.

Jonas Salk, because everyone needs a life and his vaccine saved millions of them

The Wright Brothers, because we need to get around, fast and faster. (or do we?)

Hugh Hefner, because we need to be OK with sex.

Rosa Parks, because we ALL should be able to sit anywhere we want.

George Orwell, because we need unvarnished truth-tellers — and clarity.

Adolf Hitler, because humanity has a Dark Side and (still) needs to learn how to oppose with it through some means short of war.

Lee Harvey Oswald (or James Earl Ray), because a single bullet can, alas, change history.

Mohandas Gandhi, because virtue has nothing to do with money or possessions, and everything to to do with spirit and justice.

Louis Armstrong, because who and where would we be without music?


That’s a list, not THE list.

What’s yours?

Would Gandhi buy a "Gandhi" pen?

In the late Neil Postman’s prescient book “Technopoly,” he foresees the media-besotted day when there will be an advertisement for wine that includes an endorsement by Jesus Christ.

Postman envisions Jesus holding up a glass of California chardonnay and preaching, “When I transformed water into wine in Cana, this is what I had in mind. Try it today. You’ll become a Believer.”

Postman notes the idea isn’t that far-fetched. He cites a Hebrew National frankfurters' ad proclaiming that their product exceeds federal standards. The reason for the special care is in the ad’s tag line: “We have to answer to a Higher Authority.”

Thus, writes Postman, do media transform the sacred into the profane. Eventually, Postman warns, the profanity of pervasive advertising will consume all we hold sacred.

Postman's book came to mind last week when I came across a newspaper story about Montblanc, the maker of extravagantly priced, status-symbol pens and other knick-knacks for the super-rich.

It seems the firm has created a "Mohandas Gandhi edition" gold pen aimed at India's new wealthy elite.

Before continuing, recall that the ascetic Gandhi lived virtually possession free. He owned little more than an extra loincloth, sandals, a pocket watch, a rice bowl and his spectacles.

Montblanc is “commemorating” the great non-violent leader's 140th birthday with the pen.

Price: $24,763 per pen.

Happy birthday, Bapu.

The newspaper story reminds us that in India today “more than 450 million Indians struggle to get by on less than $1.25 a day.”

The good news for Montblanc is that India’s economy has produced enough multimillionaires in recent years to provide a market for the Swiss firm’s Gandhi pen, which is 18-karat solid gold and engraved with Gandhi’s image. It comes with a saffron-colored mandarin garnet on its clip and an impressing-sounding rhodium-plated nib.

But wait, there’s more. Only 241 pens will be sold. Why 241? Montblanc says it chose the number to honor the number of miles in Gandhi’s grueling “salt march.”

You have to figure that factoid alone is worth a grand or two of the pen's price. It's certain to enliven gin-and-tonic conversations on at least 241 palatial Indian verandas.

To soften the grotesqueness of invoking Gandhi's name to sell pens, Montblanc is giving the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation $145,666 plus $1000 for each pen sold. (By the way, I can't find any reference to the Gandhi pen on Montblanc's web site under "special editions." Perhaps that's because the company is being sued by a consumer education group.)

One wonders whether the donations to the family foundation are what led Gandhi’s grandson, Tushar Gandhi, to pitch the pens with his own endorsement. “I consider the Montblanc pen their acknowledgment of the greatness of Gandhi. They are doing it the only way they know how…. His writing instrument was his greatest tool.”

Whatever you say, Tushar.

Actually, it was the caterpillar

One of the things I love about teaching is how much I learn — and the surprising ways I learn it.

Near the end of a four-hour class (don't ask) the other night, I had occasion to refer to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" — wrongly as it turned out.

We had just watched a short episode from John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" documentary, based on his classic book. At one point, Berger stares into the camera and exclaims a tenet of consumerism:

"You are what you have!"

Our discussion about the statement led us to consider Gandhi, who "had" virtually nothing. Who was he?

I speculated that, paradoxically, we was everything he didn't possess. I suggested that what we are left with when we strip ourselves of possessions is the answer to...and here is where I went astray...the Cheshire Cat's sweeping question, "Who are you?"

Whereupon, Amy, attentively taking all this in, gently interjected, "Actually, it was the caterpillar."

Exactly. What a delight to be corrected with such a bizarre assortment of words suddenly and unassumedly dropped into a lofty discussion.

"Actually, it was the caterpillar." I can hear her saying the words as I write them.

They brought me right down to earth, where I belonged — especially after four hours.

Lewis Carroll would have loved it.

As I grow older, I am certain to have many more "actually-it-was-the-caterpillar" moments.

Amy's phrase will help me, actually, grapple with "who" I will have become.

Costs compared: Blazer seat vs. a college degree

The $66,000 that rich Blazer fans are shelling out for season seats in the Rose Garden hasn't stopped gnawing at me since I wrote yesterday's post.

Now I'm seeing comparative numbers and weighing value and values.

Today we find on The Oregonian's front page that four years of college (tuition, housing and living costs) at Southern Oregon University goes for a relatively inexpensive $69,000. Surprise, surprise, a lot of talented high school graduates can't afford the price tag, just a shade over what those season Blazer seats go for.

Four years at Reed College works out to a whopping $192,000. If our fat-cat Blazer fan opted out of his Rose Garden "Premium" seat for three years, he could pay for four years, or a "classroom seat," at Reed for some worthy high school graduate.

What might our stay-at-home BlazerManiac-turned-philanthropist (yes, that's what I'm suggesting) do with his time? He could always watch the Blazer games on TV. There are some pretty good books out there. He might even take a course in philanthropy.

If enough premium seat holders walked away from the Rose Garden, the Blazers might find themselves in financial straits worse than the ones they are in now. Who knows, the Blazers no longer may be able to afford $3 million West Hills estates like the one Scottie Pippen recently sold.

Would that be all bad? $1 million will still put a tall roof over their lofty heads.

It’s a leap I know, but Mahatma Gandhi's saying comes to mind: Be the change you want to see in the world. And, yes, the “you” means me and you, as well as our premium seat holder, Pippen et. al.

Truth to tell, most of us have bought $66,000 seats (or their equivalent) at one time or another.

The political courage to love

The Vietnam vet who confronted me on the streetcar Sunday (see previous post) has led me to a sobering conclusion.

We are one domestic terrorist attack away from electing a war-hardened John McCain as our next president.

Seen this way, the absurdly premature polls now pointing to a Democratic victory in 2008 are numbers from nowhere.

Suppose a terrorist cell, or a solitary suicide bomber (or, perish the thought, an agent provocateur) detonates a bomb in an all-American shopping mall some Saturday in the next 18 months.

Two hundred dead? Four hundred? One thousand gravely wounded. Many victims are children. Depictions of the devastation and agony are delivered again and again to the TVs in every living room in the land.

Baghdad suffers such carnage each day.

Here, once will be enough.

Will a vengeful, flag-waving, self-righteous America then vote for a Clinton/Obama ticket or Obama/Edwards? An Edwards/Richardson pairing? How about Al Gore?

Not a chance.

A “United We Stand” America will send a McCain/Giuliani or a McCain/Brownback war team to the White House.

And the killing goes on and on and on.

The important point is this: The likely winners, like all the candidates in both parties, will be, self-proclaimed “Christians.” Once again, they will be too weak, yes, too cowardly, to put into practice Christ’s most challenging commandment: “Love your enemy.”

As a people we should ask, where do we find leaders with the moral strength and courage to chance such love?

Can our system of government even nurture them? Do we, a frightened people steeped in “might makes right,” bar them from the halls of power? Would we, who venerate a Christ or a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King, ever actually have the courage to elect such a person—to act in the name of love?

I fear that unless we (and here I mean all humanity) quickly evolve so that we vest such leaders with real power, we as a species are doomed.

I don’t think that my streetcar acquaintance had any of this in mind when he challenged me about my service to our country; but this is where his challenge has led me.

Wilson High's "Peace" problem solved!

Wilson High School administrators have gone all wobbly about students’ writing “Peace” on the Hillsdale school’s windows. Seems that "Peace" is a political statement.

My sources tell me that if the word isn’t expunged early next week, the student painters face suspension.

“Peace” as a problem?

Let’s see, we have “Peace be with you,” “Peace of Mind,” “Let peace begin with me,” “The US Peace Institute,” “Go in peace,” “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and “Peace studies.”

Hmmmm.

OK, agreed, context shapes meaning. Let’s assume that in this time of war the word “peace” might be taken as opposition to war in general, and the bungling, bellicose Bush Administration/Halliburton oil-grab in Iraq in particular.

Now that we are hyper-aware of context, what do we make of Wilson's martial mascot—the helmeted Trojan, who is either a battle-ready warrior or the logo for a contraceptive (subtle message there, kids)?

Either way, isn’t the mascot a political statement? As an opponent of war, I’m personally offended by the thoughtless choosing of Trojan warrior as a mascot, just as I am that the biggest sports rivalry in the state is called “The Civil War.”

Many “family values/anti-sex education” activists might have problems with a beneath-the-radar condom logo association—especially now that I’ve pointed it out to them.

And if politics is a problem, the school itself is named after Thomas Woodrow Wilson. Here we have double trouble. Wilson was both a politician and the winner of the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize. Yes, you read it right: "Peace Prize."

Oh-oh.

So here’s my suggestion: if the school can be named after a politician and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and the mascot can be a warrior or a contraceptive logo, then the name and the mascot are fair game for “Peace” and non-violent heroes.

In the name of “Peace,” let’s rename the school “Peace High School” and make its mascot Gandhi. The sports teams can be called “The Passive Resisters” (known for unusual defensive play) and the cheer from the throngs can be Gandhi’s call for peaceful change: “Satyagraha! Satyagraha!” which roughly means “Seek Truth!”

"Seek Truth!" indeed.

Peace.