Greatest [insert your nationality] Person

[Dis]

greatest american. me- Dissident

[Pekka]

Diss, that shows that your ego is healthy. Because Ted Striker already said he's the best, so that was already used, but you STILL used it again knowing this.

[Dis]

I just had to set the record straight.

I always ask, why does the greatest ___ person have to be someone from the past. Why can it not be somene living? We tend to put those historical figures on a pedestal. Like with the founding fathers, many were slave owners.

I think the best people are those living today- except Yankee fans of course. But other than them, we have some great people living. We are more caring as a race than we've ever been.

[DanS]

For the Brits, scrap Diana and Lennon and insert Adam Smith and John Locke.

[Pekka]

for brits, erase someone and add sarah young please.

[alva]

For the record, the official top ten for the Dutch election is the following (in alphabetical order):

Johan Cruijf (legendary football player)
Willem Drees (post-WWII socialist prime-minister)
Desiderius Erasmus
Pim Fortuyn (populist politician who was assassinated a few years ago)
Anne Frank (Jewish holocaust victim, famous for her diary)
Vincent van Gogh
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek
Willem van Oranje
Rembrandt van Rijn (famous painter; most famous work: "The Night Watch")
Michiel de Ruyter

I saw this on the tele a couple of weeks and must say that it did make me chuckle a little.
I mean; Fortuyn????? Hey, you no longer get to leugh at the English for including Dianna.
I do hope they never do this show here though.
Gonna be pretty hard anyway, no idea where they would get 10 people anyway.

Ann Frank ???
Never understud what makes her so special.
Could be my aversion to subjects being force-fed at school though.

Well , it looks as if we've got some flemish influence on that list anyway.
Willem prefered Flanders over Holland.
IIRC Rembrandts parents were Flemish??or was it his grandparents?

Clearly the winner should be Cruijf; a great footballer only topped by his poetry, in itself inferior to his unique philosophy.

[Bosh]

Well Boshko's a good old Belorus name. As for great Belorussians, I'm really drawing a blank. I'm so happy that my ancestors got out of that ****-hole...

[Hueij]

Ann Frank ???
Never understud what makes her so special.
Could be my aversion to subjects being force-fed at school though.

You mean that the Holocaust should not be a subject in school?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by joncha
The CBC is doing the same thing right now. Their short list of top ten Canadians:

* Frederick Banting
* Alexander Graham Bell
* Don Cherry
* Tommy Douglas
* Terry Fox
* Wayne Gretzky
* Sir John A. Macdonald
* Lester B. Pearson
* David Suzuki
* Pierre Elliott Trudeau

It's a real sign of desperation to see Alexander Graham Bell cropping up on a list of "Great Canadians".

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Pekka
for brits, erase someone and add sarah young please.

OK- we'll swap her for Princess Diana.


Now for the Finns. Drop all those nobodies, and against every number from 1-10 write "Matti Nykanen". Embrace your nations's true fame.

[alva]

Originally posted by Hueij

Ann Frank ???
Never understud what makes her so special.
Could be my aversion to subjects being force-fed at school though.

You mean that the Holocaust should not be a subject in school?

That's not what I said and you know it.
What I mean is her personnal story, and let me firstly say, that it IS a horrific story indeed. However, I'm sure many others where in exact the same situation at the time, regretably.

Anyway, she's not even dutch...so.
---

Seeing as you brought up the holocaust, yes, there's one thing that always has bugged me.
If you go out talking to youngsters, ( heck, don't have to be young people) many, if not all, will be able to tell you the story of the jews during WWII, however I doubt many even know about the Polish, the gypsies, the gay's, the handicapped....
Why is that?

[DaShi]

Don't feel bad Pekka. I don't even know who Matti Nykanen is, let alone the others.

[Stefu]

Sadly, Matti's fame seems to be waning these days. During late summer he was still going strong in the tabloids, but now he's been eclipsed in the tabloid front by a pack of zoo baboons that people think shouldn't be killed and by a mother manipulating her two children in an effort to keep them from being sent back to their father in America. But I trust that Matti can think up something new and radical to do during his 2-year prison sentence.

Anyway, my list for greatest Finns would be:

Anders Chydenius
Johan Snellman
Elias Lönnrot
Eero Erkko
Jean Sibelius
Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg
Pehr Evind Svinhufvud
Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim
Juho Kusti Paasikivi
Jorma Ollila

[DaShi]

What about Santa?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

What about me?