The Greatest

Sherman Alexie’s most recent poetry collection, What I’ve Stolen, What I’ve Earned, just came in the mail. Unsurprisingly, if you’ve read my poetry posts, I’m loving it. His work expands my mind, inspires rage, sadness, laughter and delight, all while his humor and lyricism float me into a warm, peaceful nest.

In the first free verse poem, Crazy Horse Boulevard, he asks:

Who are the six greatest humans beings who ever lived?

and goes on to answer: 

Off the top of my head: Crazy Horse. Martin Luther King, Jr. Michelangelo. Emily Dickinson. The person who invented the small pox vaccine. That’s five. I’ll leave the last spot open because I’m sure I’ve forgotten somebody obvious.

Pick this, or any of his poetry collections up  -- you’ll be happy you did. Serious and true!

Back at the query Who are the six greatest humans beings who ever lived? though. It was weighing on me as I attempted sleep last night. I had to get up and employ the Google engines.

I found this Cass Sunstein review, Statistically, Who's the Greatest Person in History? Why quants can't measure historic significance, of a book by researcher dudes, Steve Skiena and Charles Ward (a Google engineer).

To answer the question, Skiena and Ward unleashed their science/research guy quantitative analysis-foo on Wikipedia page hits and PageRanks (but only the English language Wikipedia pages. hmmph). Yeah, these were investigative methodologies for our short attention span, self involved times. It’s amazing that Justin Bieber, Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga aren’t at the top.

Skiena and Ward’s top six?

1. Jesus
2. Napoleon
3. Mohammed
4. William Shakespeare
5. Abraham Lincoln
6. George Washington

Really? Seriously?

Buddha doesn’t even make it into the top 20. Neither does Crazy Horse, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi, Václav Havel or Eleanor Roosevelt.

I got probs with their conclusions. Oh yes I do. Sunstein’s review is long-ish but well worth the read.

At HuffPo Book Blog (they have one! who knew?) Antonio Garrido lists
Women in Classic Novels Who Rebelled Against Their Time Period
(which classifies as greatest to me even if fictional)
His top six are:

1) Cleopatra
2) Joan of Arc
3) Moll Flanders
4) Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed aka The Blood Countess
5) Hester Prynne
6) Jane Eyre

Seems to me that greatest human being is highly subjective. Of course it is.
Given this, here’s my top six. It’s based entirely on me, ME, ME -- my opinions and experiences. Why?  Because I know what I know.

The Maderer Nf2 Pit Crew past and present:

Robert Ojemann (R.I.P.)
Michael McKenna
Scott Plotkin
Simmons Lessell 
Fred Barker 
Stephen W. Parker

Well, that shot my Six Greatest Humans wad, didn’t it?
OK one more:
Whoever invented email and text messaging.

Who's on your Greatest Human Beings Ever list?