Little Thinkers Quote of the Day (10 of 16): Albert Einstein

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Top 20 List: The Most Influencial People in the World

We read an excellent story in "The New Republic" (Dec. 9, 2013 issue) about who actually were the most influential people of all time. The story was an extended review of a new book entitled "Who's Bigger? Where Historical Figures Really Rank?"...........We will publish the list on our sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time," but here we are going to compile our own slightly subjective list.

We will put parentheses around where the individuals stand on the "TNR" list in parentheses; we will also mark if the individual has a Little Hinkers doll in their image, as is the case with Charlie Chaplin, pictured bottom, with a star (*):


1.* Jesus Christ (pictured) (1)

2. Mohammed (the reason for the image of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey) (3)

3.* William Shakespeare (4)

4. *Gandhi

5. Aristotle (8)

6. Thomas Jefferson (10)

7. *Karl Marx (14)

8. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

9. * Albert Einstein (19)

10. *Socates

11. Martin Luther King, Jr.

12. *Abe Lincoln (5)

13. George Washington

14. Charles Darwin (12)

15. *Leonardo Da Vinci

16. *Sigmund Freud

17. *Eleanor Roosevelt

18. *Florence Nightingale

19. *Charlie Chaplin (pictured bottom)

20. *Mozart


http://www.newrepublic.com

http://www.philosophersguild.com

http://www.nationalcathedral.org/

http://www.visitistanbul.org

Post GOP Convention Response ....zzzzzz

Mitt Romney, pictured above, did not get around to delivering his stump speech until circa 10:30 p.m. last night, which was apparently almost as late as when Democratic nominee George McGovern gave his party nominee acceptance beach at the 1972 Democratic Convention in Miami.

Our personal, which is assuredly a bit biased, New Jersey governor Chris Christie gave the best speech in Tampa whereas Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) gave the worst.

We thought we'd do something a bit different with this entry by using seven terms to describe the Republican convention: they are Zippy the Pinhead, Albert Einstein, Che Guevara, Charlie Chaplin, Peter Pan, Kyla Ross (a member of the Fierce Five Olympic gymnastics team) and Yakubu Adesokan, the Nigerian paralympic weight-lifter who won gold this week at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London; we do owe Mad Libs as our inspiration for this:


"The 2012 GOP Convention seemingly featured everyone from Condi Rice to Zippy the Pinhead this week in Tampa. One of the highlights/lowlights was when Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) essentially compared President Barack Obama to Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara. Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina might have benefited with a quote from Albert Einstein, so liberal critics of her Tea Party politics would come to the realization of just 'how smart' she is. When Ann Romney said her husband should be president, she mentioned how great she was as the title role of Peter Pan in a fifth grade play. She also said he was as funny as Charlie Chaplin, which drew an applause from Karl Rove and John McCain. Last night, every Olympic athlete except Kyla Ross came on stage to endorse Romney, and then retreated to the hot tub backstage. Paralympic athlete Yakubu Adesokan was considered for a speaking lot until his birth certificate disclosed that he was born in Nigeria. "


http://www.rubio.senate.gov

http://state.nj.us/governor

http://www.thehill.com

http://www.theonion.com

http://www.floridadems.org

http://www.zippythepinhead.com

Quote of the Day/Week- Frida Kahlo

Greetings to those of you in Thailand, Greece and Norway who have been visiting us lately.

Today, we start a series of quotes from persons associated with the Unemployed Philosphers Guild, a toy/novelty production company which offers everything from Russian Leon Trotsky (who was friends with Kahlo) to Albert Einstein. Today, there are advertising a Leonardo Da Vinci plush toy for $17.95.

The manufacturer also offers a plush toy of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, pictured here, for the same price, and there is also a Frida Kahlo puppet for $5.95.

Here is Frida's quote; it is reference to her relationship with fellow Mexican painter Diego Rivera:

"There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst."

www.philosophersguild.com

www.fridakahlo.com

http://www.fridakahlofans.com

Casulaties of Modern Technology (8 of 12)_ Etch A Sketch

Of course, we love Albert Einstein here at The Daily Vampire, but the reason for this entry, which was originally going to feature Hallmark greeting cards, is for a politically honest gaffe made by Eric Fehrnstorm, a spokesperson for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign.

This week, Fehrnstorm told CNN following Romney's win in Illinois in response to a question about the possibility of the Republican Mike Dukakis (forgive the editorial comment) shifting his stump speeches to win over independent voters as opposed to staunch right-wingers who have seemingly split the vote between Romney's two main Republican foes, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.

And, in case you were in a village in Uzbekistan, and you missed what Fehrnstorum said, it was this: "You hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You kind of shake it up and start all over again."

As for the product itself, its origins go back to th elate 1950s, according to the manufacturers, the Ohio Art Company (which relocated production to Shenzhen, China, in 2001), when Andre Cassagnes, a French electrician discovered that a drawing toy could be created with joysticks, aluminum powder and glass.

As a result, the first Etch-A-Sketch went into production in 1960, and it became very popular with baby boomers. The Etch-A-Sketch was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, NY, in 2008.

To be fair, the Etch-A-Sketch, which was not as popular as it was in its heyday until Fehrnstorm gave new attention to something that most of us played with the backseats of station wagons as kids, is not really a Casualty of Modern Technology. But, it has evolved since the toy was introduced to the market. The modern Etch-A-Sketch also allows for coloring.

Quote of the Day/Week- Anton Leeuwenhoek

Though his name is just slightly less difficult to spell than that of acclaimed Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul ("Blissfully Your's), we are quoting the great Dutch biologist Anton Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) today as part of our month-long series of quotes from scientists and artists. Previously, on this blog, we quoted Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin for this series.

Here is the quote from Leeuwenhoek (yes, we got it right; it takes a few tries though!):

"A man has always to be busy with his thoughts if anything is to be accomplished."

Quote of the Day/Week- Albert Einstein

This month, we are quoting famous scientists and artists. We begin with the German-born American Albert Einstein (1879-1955) who was known for his theory of relativity: e=mc2; we have no doubt that if he were alive today, he'd been an Angry Birds video game addict.

I saw an Albert Einstein, just like the one pictured here, for a mere five dollars as it was being sold by a Washington D.C. vendor, but I opted to get another tie instead though a part of regrets passing it up.

Einstein, who was Jewish and first came to the United States in 1921, formally left Germany as Adolf Hitler was emerging as a powerful, dangerous political force in 1933. He took up an academic position at Princeton University in Princeton, NJ, where he remained until his death.

I first heard this quote at a Unitarian Universalists service several weeks ago; it is regarding miracles:

"There are two ways to live: as if nothing is a miracle or as if everything is a miracle."