Heroes

done4good

In JW land having such was verboten. Who are some of yours and why?

I will go first:

1. Nikola Tesla - Greatest inventor ever, and the only one I know of who was a true scientist as well.

2. Elon Musk - There is a reason he chose the great inventor's name for his masterpiece work...Also has a serious pair...

3. Jim Morrison - Brilliant and Mad poet.

4. Mike Krzyzewski - The epitome of success.

5. Maya Angelou - Brilliant humanistic poet and writer.

6. Albert Einstein - Do I actually have to qualify this?

d4g

done4good

7. Steve Wozniak - The engineering mastermind behind Steve Job's early success.

Wasanelder Once

1. Dick Van Dyke - Watched a two hour interview with him. NOT once did he badmouth anyone, not even an enemy. He is the most pleasant and likable person I have ever seen.

2. Paul McCartney - Brilliant song smith and businessman. Ever positive.

3. Stephen Fry - Though often blunt, a great mind with a razor wit and vocabulary.

4. David Pouge - Tech writer and explainer of things scientific. An intense, but practical enthusiasm for science and tech. Great series on PBS.

5. Jimmy Carter - Four years as president and not one war. Into his 90's a worker for better things in the world, health and political. Helped wipe out a major disease in africa that killed millions.

truthseeker100

A hero is someone who has respect for others and boldly questions authority.

millie210

I like the quiet heros, the ones that live on anyones street.

The ones that make you glad you know they are out there.

Great thread done4good.

I will go and think awhile about a hero anyone here might know and be back!

LoveUniHateExams

Good idea for an OP, done4good.

I suppose my hero has to be former HW champ Joe Frazier.

He was champ from 1968-1973. He grew up poor, in the racist Deep South. He was a Gullah. From what I've read, the local doctor's in Beaufort, S. Carolina, treated whites first, and the local grocery store had a caged parrot that was trained to sing "niggas teefing, niggas teefing". He refused to let any of this racist shit get to him and dreamed of one day emulating his hero, Joe Louis, and becoming HW champ.

Joe and his dad, Rueben, worked on a white-owned farm, together with other black people. Apparently, one day Joe saw a kid on the farm catch a beating that was over nothing, so Joe caught the bus north to first Brooklyn, then Philly, Pen.

Joe walked into a boxing gym to lose weight and met trainer, Yank Durham. They went to white business groups and black business groups, telling them that one day Joe would be HW champ. They were brushed off - Joe was apparently too small, his arms were too short, he wouldn't amount to anything.

Joe had other ideas. He won the Olympic gold in 1964 and a version of the HW title in 1968,unifying it by beating Jimmy Ellis in 1970. He put up with a lot of shit from Muhammad Ali, giving him three tough fights and beating the crap out of him in 1971 - when they were both closest to their primes.

He also had the guts to share a ring with George Foreman twice - something that Ali ducked out of.

So, there you have it. Joe Frazier (b.1944, d.2011) - tough physically, but even tougher mentally.

PaintedToeNail

Ulysses S. Grant-He championed civil rights at a time when doing so was taboo. He appointed African Americans to high government offices, attempted peaces with Native Americans (he made a mistake in trying to include them in Euro-American style culture to the detriment of their own, but he was trying have them accepted by the mainstream Euro-Americans.) He attempted to right the wrongs of the 1862 order that he drafted against the Jews during the Civil War and actually became an advocate for them.

He also signed into law the first National Park, Yellowstone. Without his protection, it would have probably would have been turned into an oil field by now.

truthseeker100

I always think of the forgotten heroes. I live very close to highway 401 it's called the highway of heroes here in Canada. Seems appropriate as we are getting close to remembrance day Nov.11

Xanthippe

1. William Wilberforce who led the campaign to abolish slavery in the British Empire and died three days after the act was passed in parliament.

2. Emily Hobhouse who visited and drew attention to the 45 British concentration camps in South Africa where men, women and children were being starved by British forces during the second Boer War. She battled against the authority of Lord Kitchener and started a fund to feed those starving people.

3.Lady Mary Montagu who while living in the Ottoman Empire discovered the local practice of variolation against smallpox which she brought back to England. After she recovered from smallpox herself she had her children protected with this method while in Turkey. She enthusiastically recommended it in England but met with much resistance. Edward Jenner built on her knowledge and developed the vaccination thirty years after her death.

4. Eglantyne Jebb who founded Save the Children in 1919 to feed the starving children of the people who lost the war in Germany and Austria.

truthseeker100

There is also Banting Best McCloud& Culip. University of Toronto the discoverers of Insulin.

Heroes

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