OK list. Here are some of my choices:
- Abraham Lincoln. I can’t believe he’s not on the linked list.
- Chick Gandil, architect of the 1919 Black Sox scandal.
- Saul of Tarsus, who became St. Paul
- Mark Twain
- Oscar Wilde
- D.B. Cooper
- Cervantes
- Pushkin
- whoever wrote the Q document.
- and, as always, Bill Shatner
“whoever wrote the Q document.” That’d be darn funny, but I’m pretty sure it’s just a psy-op. It’s not a bad list for sure. I’d probably add Augustus, some of his alleged speeches are pretty riveting. Also Heinrich Kramer (author of arguably influential treatise on witchcraft), and Ann Putnam Jr who was responsible for dozens of people being killed over witchcraft accusations, although eventually she repented. Maybe Spengler? I wonder what his observation on the world would be like today, especially as his historical analysis was pretty accurate.
Rando fact: There’s a Japanese Youtube channel where you can find historical, translated speeches by various figures, much of them controversial. Malcom X, Hideki Tojo (for example, his speech where he declared war against America), Hitler (probably only place carrying vids w/ translations),
Goebbels and his declaration of “total war,” Bin laden, SK/NK speeches, De Gaulle, Trotsky, etc. It’s called “History Channel Japan.”
hmm …
Theodore Roosevelt, Ted Williams, John Glenn, Dante, Catullus, Ramesses II, Thucydides, and to lively up things Herodotus, Tycho Brahe and Little Richard. Also, Gen. Erich Marcks the drafter of the Barbarossa directive. Never interrogated since he was killed in an Allied strafing run in Brittany right after D day. I’d like to ask him if he really thought the thing was going to work.
My number one has always been Emperor Norton I.
Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald: let’s get the real story
Billy Wilder
Richard Pryor
Salma Hayek (hey, I’m the one defining “interesting”)
Babe Ruth
Richard Fenyman and Carl Sagan
Malcolm X
Mozart
Charlie Parker
Richard Feynman was an excellent addition. If we are inviting Richard Pryor, we should probably also invite George Carlin. That way we would have both of the 2 greatest standup comics of all time.
If I were making the guest list, I’d want to invite two of my favorite authors, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. I’d be really curious to hear what they think of the 21st Century so far. For that matter, I’d love to invite John Daly and Bennett Cerf to find out what they think of our current politics.
A more interesting question for me is this: Who would you invite to that party if you could compel them to tell the truth with Wonder Woman’s magic lasso? Dick Nixon? Woody Allen? OJ? Claus von Bülow?
Honestly, I don’t know if I could learn anything new from any of those people. Do I need the lasso of truth to know that Nixon covered up Watergate? I suppose he might be able to answer the question about the erased tape. Was it really an accidental erasure? Did that tape reveal the truth about Roswell?
If I had that lasso, I think I’d want to wrap it around the Orange Man and ask him questions while somebody recorded a video of the interview. Did you have sex with that woman, Stormy Daniels? What do you really think about your most ardent supporters? How stupid do you think they are? Did you sexually assault E. Jean Carroll? Do you really believe you lost the 2020 Election because of fraud? Honestly, I have to wonder if he hasn’t convinced himself that he did lose because of fraud. If you repeat a lie often enough, people sometimes start to believe that li+e is the truth.
Only is he could prove Shoeless Joe didn’t cheat. I know math people proved it, but I want to know for sure.
It’s not just a matter of math or observations. Shoeless Joe admitted to throwing the series and/or accepting money to throw it at least three times: (1) in the Judge’s chambers before his grand jury appearance. The judge testified to this under oath later, in Joe’s back wages trial; (2) in his grand jury testimony; (3) to a group of Chicago reporters, after he got drunk with the bailiffs.
In #1 he admitted that he didn’t play as hard as he could have.
In #2 he discussed his part in the plot, and admitted that he received money.
In #3 he admitted that he and his fellow conspirators tried to throw game three, but failed because Dickie Kerr, a pitcher who was not in on the fix, pitched too good a game.
It has been widely misreported that his grand jury testimony was lost when the court records disappeared. In reality, the hard copy disappeared, but was easily replaced because the court stenographer’s notes were not missing, so the document could be recreated verbatim. The transcript still exists, and his testimony is online in its entirety (linked above).
In addition, the fact that Joe received a payoff was corroborated by his wife under oath.
Joe started lying about things soon thereafter. Very few people realize that Jackson was jailed for perjury in his own civil suit for back wages. Even his own lawyer gave up on trying to defend Joe’s innocence in that trial. He “focused his closing argument for judgment on the legal principle of condonation, maintaining that his client should be awarded his unpaid 1921–1922 contract salary because Comiskey had known that Jackson was a participant in the 1919 World Series fix, but had chosen to sign him to a new three-season contract despite that.”