This morning I was thinking about different ways that people become famous. Not just celebrity fame, but the fame that lasts through death and sometimes even through the fall of your civilization. People like Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Wilt Chamberlain. So I decided to make a list of 20 human beings of lasting fame and why I know their fame.

 

• Emperor Hadrian - Ruler of the largest empire in his time, made paved roads commonplace, had a lot of walls.
• Socrates - Philosopher of ethics, killed himself by drinking hemlock, was featured in a Bill & Ted movie.
• Euclid - Was really good at math, may be singlehandedly responsible for a majority of modern homework.
• Issac Newton - Also really good at math, but got hit on the head by an apple and invented gravity.
• Confucius - Started a philosophy/religion based on common sense.
• Abraham - Patriarch of the Israelites, basically started all these religions where only your own one is right.
• Jesus of Nazareth - Most famous carpenter of all time, was in a book or something.

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There’s been a lot of news lately on financial institutions collapsing (Lehman, Washington Mutual, AIG, and the list goes on). It’s disconcerting and probably not over.

 

I have come to my conclusions as to what this all means, but I want to hear more about what others think. This post will be a discussion post about the collapsing economy and what comes afterwards. Please use the comments to respond with your thoughts, and eventually there will be a consensus on where to stockpile our food and ammo in the face of the coming apocalypse.

 

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Last week I had a conversation with my Editor no one wants to have. It went something like this:

 

Krumble: So … that post you put up, I think —

 

Me: It sucks! I’m sorry. It really sucks. It sucks, sucks, sucks.

 

Krumble: — it could use a little tightening. And more … I don’t know … funny?

 

Not being someone to back down from my principles, I immediately deleted the post and attempted to commit hari kiri. Thankfully, the lack of any sufficiently sharp objects prevented me from opening my stomach.

 

Wait, I thought you were some kind of author or something. At least, I heard you got paid to write once?

 

Oh, you mean in fourth grade, when I wrote Robert K — ’s book report on Bunnicula without reading it for $5? He got a C. (Impressive, for only knowing the title of the book, and well worth what he paid for it.)

 

To be honest, my brush with death wasn’t brought on solely by my failures as an author, and not by WordPress’s strange hate-hate relationship with strike-through text (which, God-willing, I will never be called upon to use again, so long as the Sun burns in the sky) — no — it was the sudden realization that a good number of my fellow Americans seemed to be buying the Sarah Palin horseshit that John McCain and his campaign were selling as Turkey dinner. Mmm … mmm … good! (more…)