LEONARDO vs PAT

If you search for any list of the greatest humans of all-time, you will find religious people tend to dominate, and they're all male.  Here is one with Jesus Christ at the top.  Next are scientists/technologists, with world leaders also prominent.  In this list of 100 there are only two females, Queen Isabela at #65 and  Queen Elizabeth I (not II) as 94, among 98 men. 

A case can be made that it's harder to gain fame these days:

Five years ago, I wrote a tongue firmly in cheek posting on  ELON MUSK vs PAT TAKAHASHI.  A few friends thought it was hilarious.  On this Sabbath, I toyed with doing a similar analysis involving Jesus Christ.  Then I thought, nah, it would probably not be taken in good humor by some.  So what about a famous artist-technologist like Leonardo da Vinci?

Leo has it all over me in the art department, for he painted the Mona Lisa (worth $850 million) and the Last Supper (only around $100 million).  I minored in art as an undergraduate and misplaced a few oils and pastels I once cherished.  While The Last Supper is a large mural, the Mona Lisa is only 2'6  by 1'9".  I dropped by to see her when I was in Paris last year.  She is now glass protected (note the reflection showing the audience) and kept sufficiently away from tourists, but I vaguely recall that when I first saw her many many decades ago, she was uncovered and you could just about go up to touch her.

Leonardo was born in 1452, and no one knows his last name.  The da Vinci part just says he is from the Vinci region of Florence, Italy.  I have a real last name which means high bridge.

He was born out of wedlock, had no formal education and was gay.   I had a normal childhood, earned a PhD and am heterosexual.  He really knew anatomy and articulated on a wide variety of topics.  For $30.8 million, Bill Gates now owns da Vinci's Codex Hammer, which provides info like why the sky is blue and how fossils originated.  As far as an occupation, he worked as a military architect and general engineer.  He lived in Italy until his final two years, when he moved to France, dying at a very old age in those days of 67 from a stroke.  His remains were never located.  While I am a biochemical engineer, my knowledge of anatomy is limited, but my blog pontificates on just about everything.

On Wednesday I presented MY GRAND SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS TO PLANET EARTH AND HUMANITY.  Here is how we compare on the the grand challenges Humanity faces:

                             Leonardo              Pat

World Peace          nothing              HuffPo

Military weapons  lots                    nothing

Global Warming    nothing              HuffPo

Anatomy                lots                    nothing

Future Aviation      helicopter          HuffPo

City Planning         lots                    HuffPo

Blue Revolution     nothing              HuffPo

SETI                       nothing              extrasolar planets

Hydrogen                nothing             drafted the bill that became law

Fusion                     nothing             Star Power for Humanity

Granted, many of these topics were just not known in his days.  This comparison nevertheless shows how easy it is to craft an analysis that makes one look good, for you can select the parameters.

Say you are Leonardo DiCaprio.  Your mother picked your name because she was visiting the Uffizi museum in Florence, Italy when you first kicked.  She just happened to be looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting at that moment.  Entered the entertainment industry at the age of two.  In 1997 acted in the most expensive movie ever made, Titanic, which went on to become the highest-grossing film ever made to that point.  Surprising, because Rotten Tomatoes audiences only rated it at 69%, although reviewers said 89%.  In 2002 turned down the role of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars.  Became an environmental activist:

                                                            Leo daV         Leo DiC

Won an Oscar                                        no                    yes

Speaks Italian                                        yes                    yes

Chaired Earth Day                                 no                    yes

20 million followers on Twitter            no                    yes

Rich                                                          no             $260 million

Or, say you are a proud father, known as the Supreme Force, or God.  You send your son to save Humanity.  Getting him to Earth is a bit tricky through a mysterious birth.  Orchestrated were various successes, providing special gifts, with humbleness.  Unclear whether he actually did marry Mary Magdalene.

                                                    Leonardo           Jesus

Born in manger                                no                   yes

Great speaker                                   no                   yes

Performed miracles                          no                   yes

Walked on water                               no                   yes

Saved Mankind                                  no                   yes

Was resurrected                                 no                   yes

Will someday return                          no                  soon

Try this out.  You, too, can fashion a successful life, for you select what is important.

My favorite song #7 is Somewhere Over the Rainbow, by Judy Garland, a kind of repeat, for #23 was Israel Kamakawiwoole's Over the Rainbow, but paired with What a Wonderful World.

The ballad was composed by Harold Arlen, with lyrics by Yip Harburg, written specifically for the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz (RT: 98/89).  However, where would the world be, or Judy, if MGM executives prevailed in removing the song from that film, because they said it slowed down the movie.  Associate producer Arthur Freed stood up to this nonsense and told Louis B. Mayer, the song stays--or I go.  To which Mayer replied, Let the boys have the damn song.  Put it back in the picture.  It can't hurt.

There is, by the way, a new documentary, entitled Over the Rainbow, released last year, about the Church of Scientology.  Also in 2019, Renee Zellweger sang Over the Rainbow in Judy (RT:82/85).  A version by Jackie Evancho, and more recently by Ariana Grande.

The American Film Industry selected Over the Rainbow as its best song, which also topped the National Endowment for the Arts and Record Industry Association's Songs of the Century list, starting with 18,000 songs, and whittling it down to 347, which was All Along the Watchtower, Jimmy Hendrix.  #100 was A-Tisket, A-Tasket by Ella Fitzgerald.  

Right behind Over the Rainbow were Bing Crosby's White Christmas, Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land, Aretha Franklin's Respect and Don McLean's American Pie.  McLean has avoided answering the question, what exactly does American Pie refer to?  Turns out that the name of the plane killing Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper was not American Pie.  So what?

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