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Discovery's 100 Greatest Americans- SILVER SPRING, Md., April 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Who will be the Greatest American? Political giant Abraham Lincoln or Bill Clinton? Sports legend Babe Ruth or Tiger Woods? Media mogul Oprah Winfrey or Walt Disney? These remarkable people, and many more, have been named by America as some of the top 100 Greatest Americans. I adore lists like these. The Internet is populated by millions of people who profess to hate the current "Top __ List of _____." These are uniformly the same people who then proceed to vivisect the mentioned list in minute detail, then offer three of their own. I'm the same I guess, except perhaps, I'll admit it: I love 'em. These lists remind me of billboard advertising. Now find me one person who is willing to aver: I like billboard advertising. Even I'm not prepared to go as far as that. I remember Lady Bird Johnson only dimly, and only for two things: the elephantine beehive hairdo, and her crusade to eradicate billboard advertising. But if the billboard wasn't effective, ie: everyone ignored it and its message, it wouldn't need a law to banish it from the landscape. It's there because it works. PJ O'Rourke wrote about Moscow, after the fall of the communist empire, and the first thing he noticed changed in the formerly crypt-like city was the appearance of screaming advertising. It's a testament to the moribund nature of the former Soviet Union that shameless advertising seemed an improvement. And he realized that it was the best way for people to determine- What's possible? What's available? What are other people interested in? Should I be too? We're wandering far afield here. What about this preposterous list? Perhaps I telegraphed my chagrin with the "preposterous" adjective, but so be it. This list, and its attendant ceremonies, is as instructive as a classroom, or a billboard, about the American Media. And the American Populace. Mostly the media. Firstly, take notice of the the operative word: "Greatest." To the bookstacks, and Merriam Webster, and we come up with: 5 a : EMINENT, DISTINGUISHED <a great poet> b : chief or preeminent over others — often used in titles <Lord Great Chamberlain> b :
PREDOMINANT <the
great majority> 11 : — used as a generalized term of approval <had a great time> Now many people who know something about American History, and know the definition of Greatness, are shrieking and pounding their foam flecked keyboards right now, and rightly so, over the people excluded and included in the list. But they miss the point. I did too, at first. They are arguing with the ruler, the thermometer, the scale. This list is the symptom, not the disease. Ask an American: Who's great?. This is the answer: Ellen Degeneres (included) is greater than the main author of the Constitution of the United States (excluded). Deal with it. I love the English language. It has been a depressing last thirty years for lovers of the English language. People use use one word when they mean another- they say impacted when they mean affected, less when they mean fewer, vote when they mean predict, historical when they mean historic, and what's with the apostrophes sprinkled all over the place, but never in the contraction for it is? They use disrespect as a verb, fer crying out loud. And they say Greatness when they mean Celebrity. And they don't know that Infamy shouldn't be interchangeable with Notoriety. Paging Doctor Warhol. Let's look who's leading this parade: In the second episode, Matt Lauer and influentials (actors, comedians, politicians, athletes, etc) will offer insights on the top 25 to aid America in another round of voting that determines the top five. The third episode pits celebrity advocates against one another, debating the virtues of their "Greatest American." (emphasis mine) And so, ultimately, the masters of the trivial arts are talking among themselves about themselves, to determine which chimpanzee in the celebrity zoo gets to fling his poo, and who's gonna get poo rained down on them. And you and I, as members of the vast "etc." you saw at the end of the laundry list of influentials, vote, and mutter at the screen: Dance clowns, dance.
Who's not on the list: James Madison Frank Lloyd Wright John D Rockefeller Aaron Burr Teddy Roosevelt H L Mencken Louis Mayer William Morris Arthur Leavitt Gen George C. Marshall Cole Porter George Gershwin Artie Shaw John Singer Sargent Abner Doubleday John Harvard Sam Adams Henry Cabot Lodge Carrie Nation Betsy Ross Louis Sullivan Elihu Yale Dean Acheson Louisa May Alcott Horatio Alger Philip Danforth Armour Fred Astaire Josephine Baker Henry Ward Beecher Irving Berlin Cyrus McCormick John Philip Sousa Albert Bierstadt Buffalo Bill Cody Rachel Carson Scott Joplin James Fenimore Cooper Davey Crockett Richard Daly Andrew Jackson Downing Ralph Waldo Emerson Admiral Farragut William Faulkner Henry Ford Sen. James Gadsden Richard Warren Sears William Lloyd Garrison Geronimo Oliver Wendell Holmes Patrick Henry Andrew Jackson John Jay John Paul Jones Henry J Kaiser Norman Rockwell John Kellogg Meriwether Lewis William Clark Gen Douglas MacArthur Thurgood Marshall Heman Melville JP Morgan Chester Nimitz J Robert Oppenheimer King Philip Joseph Pulitzer Sacajawea Sitting Bull James Smithson Elizabeth Blackwell Elizabeth Cady Stanton Henry David Thoreau Harry S. Truman Earl Warren Frank Capra etc. indeed. |
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