Most admired people in history

I admire Winston Churchill. He was a man of vision, loyalty and conviction. He knew what was real and what wasn’t. But he made mistakes and was practically written off at one point for his views. But he made a comeback because he knew what he had to do to save England from a Nazi invasion, and people recognized him as the man to do it. He was very clear on what core values were and how to maintain them. And obviously he loved his country and his countrymen.

Other people I revere

Leonardo DaVinci,
whose masterpiece work, Mona Lisa, is truly sublime. His inventive and creative genius extended across a wide range of thought beyond art, to science and mathematics.

Kurt Vonnegut. What can you say about a man who lived through the horrific bombing of Dresden in 1945 as an American POW by because he had the strange luck to be in a strong walled basement prison, and then went on to enlighten and entertain millions of readers for 60 years?

Theodore Roosevelt- Here was another brave spirit who was not daunted by the powerful money interests. He busted the trusts and pushed passage of graduated inheritance taxes and income taxes (both to target the rich, who by all logic should take the responsibility for making national progress easier). Oh yes, he also established the US National Park Service. What a great leader and he was a Republican! He would surely be ashamed of the GOP if he were alive today.

I first heard about Buckminster Fuller through the Philadelphia Inquirer or a magazine. He often visited Philadelphia, and as a boy, his ideas attracted me. His inventions, such as the geodesic dome, the dymaxion car, seemed so powerful, and the theory of cybernetics made me curious. These concepts seem so cutting edge but they also seem necessary and inevitable to me. His theory of systems made sense to my naïve mind then, and it still does to my much more mature mind. (all kinds of systems, I am an engineer by profession)
An interview with an expert on this subject of systems and sustainability. taxonomy Who was Buckminster Fuller? Bucky had a lot to say about design in his book “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth”. I take it seriously, and it is a reference for me. Maybe it had a lot to do with the fact that it came out when I was in high school, and it was required reading at my Friends (Quaker) school.