Vulgaria selects Maria Sharapova in the category of Hottie.
We could move her to another category of course, but we will leave her there for now. Shakespeare has been commisioned to write a sonnet about her grace and beauty; while Michaelangelo is already selecting marble for her statue.
In addition to her physical charms, she is also a world class tennis player.
Her work with the UN, involved with Chernobyl related charities will be a great asset to Vulgaria. Moved as she was by the horrible events in Beslan, we name her our goodwill ambassador and head of all children's charities.
SebCountry's newest citizen is entrepreneur Steve Jobs. Whilst I am personally not a fan of Apple's closed environments, it's hard to argue with Jobs' track record, and more importantly his idea to market computers to individuals for personal use.
I hereby declare Joseph Kinsey Howard the National historian/writer of Displaysia.
Howard was a mid 20th century historian of Montana and the Canadian plains. He spent his early life in Lethbridge and moved to Great Falls later in his childhood.
Joseph Kinsey Howard (February 28, 1906 – August 25, 1951) was an Americanjournalist, historian, and author, who wrote extensively about the history, culture, and economic circumstances of Montana. One of the state's most noted authors of nonfiction, Howard's landmark 1943 book, Montana: High, Wide, and Handsome is a respected account of Montana history that has influenced later generations of historians. Howard also authored numerous other historic and literary works, and was a vocal, articulate and persuasive advocate for a variety of social, economic and environmental reforms.
__________________ I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love." - John Steinbeck
I did not like Muhammad Ali when I was a child in the 1970s. He was arrogant. I usually like underdogs. It was later that I grew to admire his remarkable career and life. It has been said that he was the most famous man on the planet in the 1970s. The Rumble In The Jungle might be the single greatest moments in sports. I recommend Norman Mailer's book The Fight. I shed a tear when he lit the torch at the Olympics. Who didn't?
Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.; January 17, 1942) is a former Americanboxer and three-time World Heavyweight Champion, who is widely considered one of the greatest heavyweight championship boxers of all time. As an amateur, he won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.[1] After turning professional, he went on to become the first boxer to win the lineal heavyweight championship three times.
Originally known as Cassius Clay, Ali changed his name after joining the Nation of Islam in 1964, subsequently converting to SunniIslam in 1975 and more recently to Sufism.[2] In 1967, Ali refused to be inducted into the U.S. military based on his religious beliefs and opposition to the Vietnam War. He was arrested and found guilty on draft evasion charges, stripped of his boxing title, and his boxing license was suspended. He was not imprisoned, but did not fight again for nearly four years while his appeal worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it was successful.
Nicknamed "The Greatest", Ali was involved in several historic boxing matches. Notable among these are three with rival Joe Frazier and one with George Foreman, whom he beat by knockout to win the world heavyweight title for the second time. He suffered only five losses (four decisions and one TKO by retirement from the bout) with no draws in his career, while amassing 56 wins (37 knockouts and 19 decisions).[3] Ali was well known for his unorthodox fighting style, which he described as "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee", and employing techniques such as the rope-a-dope.[4] He was also known for his pre-match hype, where he would "trash talk" opponents on television and in person some time before the match, often with rhymes. These personality quips and idioms, along with an unorthodox fighting technique, made him a cultural icon. In later life, Ali developed Parkinson's disease. In 1999, Ali was crowned "Sportsman of the Century" by Sports Illustrated and "Sports Personality of the Century" by the BBC.[5]
The actual archive footage of Ali talking is amazingly watchable and mildly shocking, even if you've seen most of it before. Ali is arguably the greatest boxer of the 20th century, but he also might be one of the most charismatic conversationalists ever 1 (which — all things considered — is a far more rarified achievement).
Last edited by troutman; 09-19-2010 at 10:08 PM.
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In the Doctor Category, Team U.S.Eh! selects the Angel of Death, Josef Mengele.
While obviously a complete nutbar, Josef Mengele is one of the most infamous physicians of all time. His experiments while at Birkenau and Auschwitz were abhorrent, and inexcusable.
While interested in heredity and human abnormalities, Mengele had a great fascination with twins.
The subjects of Mengele's research were better fed and housed than ordinary prisoners and were, for the time being, safe from the gas chambers. When visiting his child subjects, he introduced himself as "Uncle Mengele" and offered them sweets. Some survivors remember that despite his grim acts, he was also called "Mengele the protector".
The book Children of the Flames, by Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Shiela Cohn Dekel, chronicles Mengele's medical experimental activities on approximately 3,000 twins who passed through the Auschwitz death camp during World War II until its liberation at the end of the war. Only 100 pairs of twins survived; 60 years later, they came forward about the special privileges they were given in Auschwitz owing to Mengele's interest in twins, and how as a result they have suffered, as the children who survived his medical experiments and injections.
Auschwitz prisoner Alex Dekel has said: "I have never accepted the fact that Mengele himself believed he was doing serious work — not from the slipshod way he went about it. He was only exercising his power. Mengele ran a butcher shop — major surgeries were performed without anaesthesia. Once, I witnessed a stomach operation — Mengele was removing pieces from the stomach, but without any anaesthetic. Another time, it was a heart that was removed, again without anaesthesia. It was horrifying. Mengele was a doctor who became mad because of the power he was given. Nobody ever questioned him — why did this one die? Why did that one perish? The patients did not count. He professed to do what he did in the name of science, but it was a madness on his part."
Mengele eventually escaped to South America, living an affluent lifestyle under protection from Nazi ex-pats. Mengele moved from Argentina to Paraguay, then eventually to Brazil where he died in 1979.
In 1977, his only son Rolf, never having known his father before, visited him in Brazil and found an unrepentant Nazi who claimed that he "had never personally harmed anyone in his whole life".
In a 2008 book about Mengele, Argentine historian Jorge Camarasa speculated that Mengele, under the alias Rudolph Weiss, continued his human experimentation in South America and as a result of these experiments, a municipality in Brazil, Candido Godoi has a very high birthrate of twin children: one in five pregnancies, with a substantial amount of the population looking Nordic. His theory was rejected by Brazilian scientists who had studied twins living in the area; they suggested genetic factors within that community as a more likely explanation.
On 31 October 1517, Luther wrote to Albrecht, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, protesting the sale of indulgences. He enclosed in his letter a copy of his "Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences," which came to be known as The 95 Theses. Hans Hillerbrand writes that Luther had no intention of confronting the church, but saw his disputation as a scholarly objection to church practices, and the tone of the writing is accordingly "searching, rather than doctrinaire." Hillerbrand writes that there is nevertheless an undercurrent of challenge in several of the theses, particularly in Thesis 86, which asks: "Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?"
Luther objected to a saying attributed to Johann Tetzel that "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory [also attested as 'into heaven'] springs." He insisted that, since forgiveness was God's alone to grant, those who claimed that indulgences absolved buyers from all punishments and granted them salvation were in error. Christians, he said, must not slacken in following Christ on account of such false assurances.
I dunno, money for salvation always sounded like a good idea to me...
Last edited by Montana Moe; 09-20-2010 at 12:27 AM.
The Boss. The superstar that relates to the common man. His legendary marathon live shows set the standard for rock and roll concerts, without lasers or explosions. The E Street Band is a dynamic and charismatic force. His passionate music is full of drama - celebrations of working men and women, tales of wasted youth and unfulfilled dreams. After 9/11, he was able to put into music and words what we were feeling.
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949), nicknamed "The Boss", is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band. Springsteen is widely known for his brand of heartland rock infused with pop hooks, poetic lyrics, and Americana sentiments centered on his native New Jersey.[2]
Springsteen's recordings have included commercially accessible rock albums and somber folk-oriented works. He is known for putting on electrifying live performances that routinely last more than three hours, and sometimes (especially in the earliest concerts of his career) more than four or five.
His most successful studio albums, Born to Run and Born in the U.S.A., showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life. The latter album made him one of the world's most recognized musicians.
He has earned numerous awards for his work, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award, and continues to have a strong global fan base. He has sold more than 65 million albums in the United States and 120 million worldwide.[3] He was a 2009 recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors and in the same year Forbes ranked him 6th in The Celebrity 100.[4]
In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine considered Springsteen the 23rd Greatest Artist Of All Time and the 36th Greatest Singer Of All Time. It also ranked Born to Run and Thunder Road in its 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time list, in 21st and 86th, respectively.
Rolling Stone magazine also ranked 8 out of 16 Springsteen's studio albums in their 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time list, making him the 4th artist with more albums in the list, only behind The Beatles (with 11), Bob Dylan and Rolling Stones (both with 10).
Robert Johnson has been appointed the Secretary of Music for the Republic of Displaysia!
Simply put, Robert Johnson is responsible for almost all of the music I love. He has been credited by so many epic artists in rock and roll history with piquing their interest in pursuing musical careers that his influence simply can't be understated.
Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911 – August 16, 1938) was an Americanblues singer and musician. His landmark recordings from 1936–1937 display a remarkable combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that have influenced generations of musicians. Johnson's shadowy, poorly documented life and death at age 27 have given rise to much legend, including a Faustian myth. Johnson's songs, vocal phrasing and guitar style have influenced a broad range of musicians; Eric Clapton has called Johnson "the most important blues singer that ever lived".[1][2] Johnson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an "Early Influence" in their first induction ceremony in 1986.[3] He was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone's list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.
__________________ I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love." - John Steinbeck
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SebCountry's newest citizen, in the Rebel category, is Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Kemal found himself on the wrong side of World War II, where he was an excellent commander. When the Ottoman Empire was defeated, he got himself appointed as the General Inspector responsible for overseeing the demobilization of the Ottoman armies. He used this position to covertly lay a foundation for a future nationalist movement, which he later parlayed into a modern, secular Turkey.
Vulgaria selects Galilei Galileo as our scientist.
"Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy,"[6] the "father of modern physics,"[7] the "father of science,"[7] and "the Father of Modern Science."[8] Stephen Hawking says, "Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science."[9]"
"...and Albert Einstein called him the father of modern science"
By age 16, Richard was commanding his own army, putting down rebellions in Poitou against his father, King Henry II.[1] Richard was a central Christian commander during the Third Crusade, effectively leading the campaign after the departure of Philip Augustus and scoring considerable victories against his Muslim counterpart, Saladin, but was unable to reconquer Jerusalem.[3][4]
While he spoke very little English and spent very little time in England (he lived in his Duchy of Aquitaine, in the southwest of France), preferring to use his kingdom as a source of revenue to support his armies,[5] he was seen as a pious hero by his subjects.[6] He remains one of the very few Kings of England remembered by his epithet, rather than regnal number, and is an enduring, iconic figure in England.[5]
