Tuesday Tid-Bits
Who would you choose as your top ten American heroes?
The Stanford News Service posts results from a nationwide survey of two thousand high school students on that very question.
Who are America’s greatest heroes? When 2,000 high school students across the United States were asked this question—excluding presidents and presidents’ wives—Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman headed the list. The only living American to make the top 10 was Oprah Winfrey, who ranked seventh.
In short, the nation’s leading heroes, in the eyes of its youth, are African Americans.
After King, Parks and Tubman, the list included Susan B. Anthony, Benjamin Franklin, Amelia Earhart, Oprah Winfrey, Marilyn Monroe, Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein. A subsequent survey among 2,000 adults yielded similar results. The top 10 list of both cohorts shared eight names.
Now for the adults surveyed:
To compare the students’ responses to adult responses, the researchers additionally surveyed 2,000 American-born adults ages 45 and older, surveying them in shopping centers, downtown pedestrian malls, hospitals, libraries, adult education classes, business meetings, street fairs and retirement communities.
Another surprise: The researchers found remarkable overlap in the adult and student groups. Students and adults listed eight of the same names in the top 10 (King, Parks, Tubman, Anthony, Franklin, Winfrey, Earhart and Edison). For adults, however, Betsy Ross and Henry Ford topped Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe.
A short video discussing the results of this survey is available here.
Mark Halperin’s thoughts on the qualifications the media considers important and not so important when candidates select their VP nominee.
“No Kings Here”..so said George Washington and DJ Drummond concurs:
One of my favorite stories about our first President, George Washington, concerns the period immediately after the victory at Yorktown in 1783. At long last the hated Redcoats were packing up and leaving, and the Yanks could see about putting their plan for an independent America into peacetime practice. The story goes that a grateful Continental Congress wanted to crown George Washington as the first King of the United States, and made the offer not once but three times, before General Washington made it clear that he would wear no crown. “No kings here”, he said plainly.
George Washington was a brilliant and charismatic leader, but he also understood that the nation needed a broader leadership than a monarchy could provide. Too few people realize that the Constitution of the United States was not drawn up until long after the War for Independence, and Washington’s decision was one of many critical choices that proved the United States different from so many other rag-tag revolutions. The leaders of the French Revolution did not choose nearly so well in their structure and form of government, for example.
At some point in our lives most of us have heard an elder say “when I was your age….”
Dennis Prager on that very topic: [limited content at the site some might find objectionable for children]
When I was a boy, we had in our lives adults who took pride in being adults. To distinguish them from our peers, we called these adults “Mr.,” “Mrs.” and “Miss,” or by their titles, “Doctor,” “Pastor,” “Rabbi,” “Father.” It was good for us, and we liked it. Having adults proud of their adulthood, and not acting like they were still kids, gave us security (as well as something to look forward to in growing up). Today, kids are surrounded by peers twice, three, four times their age.
When I was a boy, the purpose of American history textbooks was to teach American history. Today, the purpose of most American history texts is to make minorities and females feel good about themselves. As a result, American kids today are deprived of the opportunity to feel good about being American (not to mention deprived of historical truth). They are encouraged to feel pride about all identities — African-American, Hispanic, Asian, female, gay — other than American.
Have a terrific Tuesday.
Written by Sue
