Can You Identify These Villains?

When we were children, we learned from our story books that evil people always look ugly. They have long, crooked noses and misshapen bodies and, for good measure, a witch's broom or perhaps some horns or some vampire-sharp teeth.  And bad people never slip up and do something nice.  Never.  Just as the protagonist never does anything bad.  Ever.

We all know that in real life it's not so easy to distinguish good people from bad people.  It can depend on your perspective; for instance, how they're characterized by the news media (freedom fighter or terrorist), or the clothes they wear (soldier or gang member), your relationship to them and so on.

However, most humans agree on certain universal truths--truths that define acts as good or evil, motivated by either kindness or malice, generosity or avarice, wisdom or folly.  The problem is, every human is, to some extent, a mixture of these qualities.  Compounding this problem is the fact that we don't always know how to put an appropriate weighting on different aspects of their character.  Is a very generous person who cheats on his taxes a good person or a bad person overall?  Or what about a loving parent and good father who cheated on his wife?  Or an honest, well-meaning politician who is addicted to heroin?  As if this weren't enough, there is much evidence that some of the worst criminals have certain abnormalities in their brain function, raising the question of to what extent their behavior should be blamed purely on their character or as the result of an injury, disease or genetic defect in their brain.

In most cases, people who personally knew a criminal (perhaps as a next-door-neighbor) were shocked to discover the truth about them.  They "seemed so normal."


So here's my challenge:  See how many of these well-known people, either from current events or from history books, you can identify.  (Hint:  These are all bad people.)  Scroll down for answers, after you've finished taking the quiz.


HOW MANY OF THESE VILLAINS CAN YOU IDENTIFY?

1. He was credited with leading the first public anti-smoking campaign. He wrote My Struggle Against Four and a Half Years of Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice, in which he expresses his frustration with the administration.  Some book critics say he is a paranoid racist who wraps himself in the flag and represents himself as a true patriot (in contrast to the "liberal" and communist ideologies he opposes) to gain credence with hardline conservatives. His book argues that the country needs to reclaim its self-respect, dignity and greatness in the aftermath of an extremely costly and humiliating war. However, one of the recurring themes is his animosity towards minority immigrants who (to paraphrase) "don't deserve to be citizens, are taking advantage of the system; are not loyal, trustworthy or productive; and who will be responsible for the economic ruin of the country."

2.  He started the "Eradication of Illiteracy" program designed to help illiterate people learn to read in 1997.  He was once an ally of the U.S., a country that tacitly supported his war against a neighboring country and sold him helicopters, materials to manufacture poison gas, nuclear development instrumentation and hazardous biological agents.

3. He was an accomplished leader who was called a genius of war.  He used his own money and time to train patriot forces.  Frustrated by troops who were poorly trained and equipped, he used is own money and time to train patriot forces.  He claimed several victories for the patriots, most notably the Battle of Saratoga--a turning point in the war that led to France entering the Revolutionary war as a U.S. ally.

4.  He liked Star Trek and science fiction novels, and became interested in computers in High School.  He was skilled enough that he managed to hack into government defense systems.  His high school recognized his computer talents, declaring him as "the school's most promising computer programmer" his senior year.

5.  He composed six operas, including Sea of Blood, which has recently received rave reviews in China.  His book, On the Art of Opera can be purchased at Amazon.com.

6.  He was once a promising amateur poet under the pen name "Soselo," known for such lines as:

The rosebud flowered

entwining the violet

and iris awoke

greening in the breeze.

7. Though he was expelled from several schools for bullying and defying school authorities, he eventually obtained a teaching certificate in 1901 and, for a brief time, worked as an elementary schoolmaster. He was an accomplished violinist. He was named after the leftist Mexican President (Juarez). He was once a rabid atheist, but once in power, he became pro-Catholic church. Pope Pius XI referred to him as the “man whom providence has sent us.”

8.  He once worked a suicide hotline and rescued a child from drowning.

9.  As a child, he frequently rescued stray pets, beggars, and fought bullies.  He preached integration, racial equality and nuclear disarmament.  He adopted 3 Korean children, a Native American child, and became the first white family in Indianapolis to adopt an African American child. He headed the Indianapolis human rights commission which desegregated hospitals, churches, restaurants and the police department.  He leaked information from American Nazi leaders on racial militarism.  He headed the San Francisco housing authority and ran free homes and food kitchens for the elderly and mentally ill.

10.  He was a fan of Miami Vice, The Wonder Years and MacGyver on TV.

11. He wrote "Never Learn Not to Love" for the Beach Boys.

(Scroll down for answers)

Answers:

1.  Hitler.  The title of his book was shortened to My Struggle (Mein Kampf) by the publisher.

2.   Saddam Hussein.  Donald Rumsfeld acted as a secret envoy to sell him the materials during his war with Iran in the late 1980's.

3.  Benedict Arnold

4.  Timothy McVeigh

5.  Kim Jong Il

6.  Joseph Stalin

7.  Benito Mussolini

8.  Ted Bundy

9.  Rev. Jim Jones

10.  Osama Bin Laden

11.  Charles Manson



The majority of this information was shamelessly copied from Cracked.com's "List of 23 most surprising facts about awful people."

Odds & Ends #7

1.  Here's a neat video (with some computer imagery) that shows how we landed the Mars rover.  And while we're at it, here's a video of Felix Baumgartner's jump from 24 miles above earth.  Or how about something closer to earth, like this mountain bike video, also these insane bikers?

2.  Anybody have a house cat like this?

3.  If you've been following the Edward Snowden saga, you might find this interesting.  Hopefully we won't be unfortunate enough to see a headline like "Nobel Prize winner imprisoned in U.S."
   Incidentally, would you like to compete with the NSA?  Better yet, get the NSA to pay you for spying on "persons of interest" (that's your neighbors, of course!)  This little helicopter drone is just the ticket.  Stalin would be proud.

4.  In a much earlier post, I mentioned once that I suspected that our current understanding of gravity would eventually give way to a better, more elegant theory.  Some new hypotheses that are potential candidates for a new theory of gravity are here, here, here and here.  Soon we may even be able to test whether Einstein's theory of gravity "falls apart" under extreme conditions and whether a new theory fits better--hopefully a theory that does away with singularities and eliminates the need for the "dark energy" and "dark matter."   Those "things" (in my opinion) ought to be looked upon as huge, inexplicable errors associated with our current theory rather than as some sort of mysterious but real phenomena.  Perhaps it would be too much to hope for a theory that seamlessly integrates with quantum theory as well?