Gonna build me a bunch of Beacon of Speech statues in my front yard.
These'll be my statues, I just have to get the money.
If you try to take down one of my statues, I'm gonna shoot you in the kneecaps.
Here's some interesting trivia. Who is the only person in history to win the Nobel Prize in Physics twice? John Bardeen. What do you mean you've never heard of him? Probably because he lived a quiet Midwestern life of cookouts and rec activities when not teaching and researching at the University of Illinois.
A few years back, I had a really bad and intense nightmare that I was in Hell. Not the fire and brimstone vision popularized in modern culture, but a desolate urban landscape populated only with the vilest of humans. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was Emanuel Swedenborg's vision of hell.
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was an Engineer by trade, but was known as a vocal proponent of nuclear disarmament. Not just because it robbed humans of their dignity, but because he was one of the only members of the nijū hibakusha.
If the greatest gift a person can give is laughter, then Dana Snyder is a comedy Santa Claus, lending his talents to such varied comedies as: Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Chowder, Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell, and the Thundermans.
The second leading point scorer in the history of the International Hockey League, Jock Callender averaged about a point a game over a 20 year minor league career, including a stint here with the Cleveland Lumberjacks. After his playing career ended, he joined the Lake Erie Monsters coaching staff.
Editors Note: I personally ran into Jock Callender while he, and a small group of players, was visiting a local hospital handing out Monsters gear to Cancer Kids.
Between Vietnam and Iraq Wars, the largest military operation in America was Operation Urgent Fury. You don't remember that one? In 1983 Vice Admiral Joseph Metcalf III was the Operational Commander of all U.S. Forces during the successful campaign to rescue U.S. Citizens in the Invasion of Grenada. Reagan got himself a big W rolling a country of 300 million over a country of 90,000.
Editor's Note: North Korea is still pissed about that one. It is estimated that there were 34 North Koreans helping to defend Grenada against the American forces.
Who wrote one of the greatest monster riffs and commanding guitar solos in the history of Rock Music? Vernon Reid. The song Cult of Personality is one of the most powerful American political statements in the history of music.
When all is said and done, Tina Fey might be the greatest comedy writer that Saturday Night Live has ever produced. Don't believe me? Tina Fey co-created the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, with the un-comic premise of the adventures of a woman who was held captive in a bunker for 15 years. And it's hilarious.
No one, and I mean no one, has stood by their principles more in their lifetime than Ralph Nader. In 2016, he was awarded the Gandhi Peace Award from the group Promoting Enduring Peace. Attacked by corporations, the left, the right, and multiple powerful ne'er do wells, Nader has been a strong proponent of breaking up the two-party system.
The longest reigning elected pope was Pope Pius IX. Many consider him the first modern pope and set up the First Vatican Council. Straight from the Vatican website, Pius IX combined firmness and understanding, fidelity and openness. With the fall of Rome (September 20, 1870) and of the temporal power, the saddened Pontiff considered himself a prisoner of the Vatican, resisting the "Laws of Guarantees", but approving the "Work of Congresses". He consecrated the Church to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, disciplined the participation of Catholics in political life with the Non expedit and restored the Catholic hierarchy of Scotland.
I don't have to buy this statue, I just have to buy a plane ticket to Poland and steal it.