I have decided to make this a one hundred person list. That decision to go with 100 instead of 91 is one of the remaining big decisions in this little project. There are still of course all of the decisions related to deciding who will be on the list.
My first post on this list had twenty-five names:
https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/the-last-year-of-the-9-11-decade-has-begun/
President Barack Hussein Obama , Josef Ratzinger, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, Her Britannic Majesty, Elizabeth, HRH Charles Prince of Wales, David Cameron, Sarah Palin, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Glen Beck, Hillary Clinton, President Nicolas Sarkozy, Benjamin Netanyahu, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Carl Svanberg, UN Secretary Ban Ki Moon, Hu Jin Tao, Timothy Geithner, Al Franken, Barney Frank, Vladimir Putin, Bobby Jindal, Bill Richardson, Bill Clinton and Osama Bin Laden
The second portion had fifteen people to watch:
https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/fifteen-more-people-to-watch-in-9112011-9112021/
Barons Rothschild, Britney Spears, Carl A. Brasseaux, Philip Lord Norton Baron of Louth, Carlos Slim Helu, Charles Bolden, Taylor Swift, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson, Kate Middleton, Catherine Princess of Wales, Princess William of Wales, Princess Catherine, Prince Luís of Orléans-Braganza (born Luís Gastão Maria José Pio Miguel Gabriel Rafael Gonzaga de Orléans e Bragança e Wittelsbach, Ms. Gail J. McGovern, Me, His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani and Prince William of Wales
The third portion of my list had ten people watch:
https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/12/11/ten-more-people-to-watch-from-9112011-9112021/
Gaudencio Borbon Cardinal Rosales, Queen Sofia of Spain, Su Graciosa Majestad Sofia la Reina Catolica, Oprah Winfrey, Bill O’Reilly, Julie Ann Yannatta, Vitaly Alexandrovich Lopota, Amy Grant, Ratan N. Tata, Mark Zuckerberg and Jean-Cristophe Niel
The fourth portion of my list had five people to watch:
Liu Zhijun: 刘志军, King George Tupou V, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Heinz-Otto Peitgen, Julie Taymor
The fifth post had thirteen people to watch:
Charles Alan Murray, Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr, Professor Ei-ichi Negishi, Drew Brees, Angela Dorothea Merkel(- Kasner), General Stanley Allen McChrystal, Danica Sue Patrick, Melinda French Gates (born Melinda Ann French, Marilyn Vos Savantt, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, Carla Gilberta Bruni Tedeschi, Madame Nicolas Sarkozy, Air Defense Commander Shigeru Iwasaki and Amy Hungerford
My most recent post in this series had eight people to watch:
Howard Lutnick, His Serene Highness Albert II, Sovereign Prince of Monaco (Albert Alexandre Louis Pierre Grimaldi), Elbert Leander “Burt” Rutan, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Hoseyni Khāmene’i ( سید علی حسینی خامنه ای), Dr.Tracy E. Caldwell – Dyson(Ph.D.), Lang Lang, Natalie Portman ( נטלי פורטמן, Natalie Hershlag), John Christopher “Johnny” Depp II
Then comes this post of nine people. That should bring my new total to eighty-seven. Twenty-five and fifteen brought us to forty. Ten more got us to fifty. Five more to fifty-five. Thirteen more got us to sixty-eight. Eight after that came to seventy six and now nine brings us to eighty-five. The advantages to this odd system are actualy numerous. Given that they are embedded in this blog these posts have the advantage of all being of different numbers and so being easier to keep track of in this context. I have now decided on one hundred people for the list. So that means I have fifteen people and probably two more posts listing those named left in the series. Probably the total will get uneven again. Eleven and four are the most equaly paired numbers for which I have not used at least one of the paired numbers in a previous post. Then I hope to do a post on the top ten as the ones so far are in no particular order. After that, assuming I am not derailed, then before September get here I will do a post on those who almost made it and a post summarizing the list and its purpose.
1. Joanne “Jo” Rowling, OBE, J. K. Rowling was born 31 July 1965 and is a British author best known as the creator and writer of the Harry Potter series of books series, which came to her as project concept on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990. The original book series has ended and like some others on this loist she may seem to be someone who already had a great influence and despite her relative youth is on the way down as such things go. However, she is on this list legitimately for the present and the future. To attest to this I note that in October 2010, J. K. Rowling was named ‘Most Influential Woman in Britain’ by a group of important magazine editors. Her philanthropic contributions include supporting such charities as Comic Relief, One Parent Families, Multiple Slerosis Society of Great Britain, and Lumos (formerly the Children’s High Level Group). She also has close ties to some young performing artists who are likely to shape their field in the near future to some degree. These include Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson who were leading actors in popular Harry Potter series of films, in which Rowling had overall script approval and served as a producer on the final instalment as well as developing friendships with cast and crew to some real degree. The Potter books have won significant awardsand sold more than 400 million copies. . Rowling was living on British welfare benefits before writing her way to multi-millionaire status and an Order of the British Empire. As of March 2010, Forbes listed Rowling’s net worth at $1 billion. The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List ranked her as the twelfth richest woman in Great Britain. Forbes also ranked Rowling as the forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of 2007 and Time magazine named her as a runner-up for 2007 Person of the Year. She has promoted advanced literacy, the survival and popularity of the novel and mythological and flokloric literacy among many other schievements.
2. Nicholas Sparks, Nicholas Charles Sparks was born December 31, 1965 in Omaha, Nebraska and is an internationally-bestselling American novelist and screenwriter. Sparks has published 17 novels, with themes that include Christian faith, young love, marriage, romance, tragedy and fate. Six have been adapted to film, including Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, Dear John and The Last Song. Nicholas Sparks makes this list because of the seamless blend of a compelling commerical impact, compelling popular art, a dynamic and integrated personal and family life and his ties to sports, Roman Catholic and educational communities. NicholasSparks was born into the family of Patrick Michael Sparks who was a practicing professor and Jill Emma Marie (née Thoene) Sparks who was a committed and an optometrist’s assistant. He was the middle of three children, with an older brother Michael Earl “Micah” Sparks (1964–) and a younger sister, Danielle “Dana” Sparks (1966–2000), who died at the age of 33. Sparks has said that she is the inspiration for the main character in his novel A Walk to Remember. Sparks was raised Roman Catholic and is of English, German, Irish and Czech ancestry. While his family traveled for his father’s studies and early teaching gigs they settled in one place for his years at Bella Vista High where he graduated as valedictorian in 1984. He enrolled at the University of Notre Dame with a full track and field scholarship. In his freshman year, his team set a record for the 4 x 800 relay. The world of Track has remained a huge part of his life as his website bio says of a later period in his life: “That same summer, my oldest son, Miles, a seventh grader, began competing in track and field. I went out to the local public high school, where I’d been told they’d installed an all-weather track. I took a look, realizing it was nothing more than an oval, asphalt road. There wasn’t a chance kids could practice on it without getting injured, so my wife and I decided to donate an all-weather tartan track, one that would foster a love of running and appreciation of an active lifestyle.I also decided to begin coaching the local high school track team, focusing on the 400m and 800m, for competition at the high school and Jr. Olympic level. Little did I know how much a part of life coaching would become over the next few years.” Sparks did some writing of vaired kinds while at Notre Dame but majored in business finance and graduated with honors in 1988. He also met his future wife that year, Cathy Cote while they were both on spring break. They married on July 22, 1989 and moved to Sacramento, California. They are deeply tied to the Cahloc faith as he has said “I was raised Catholic, baptized, confirmed, Sunday School, went to Notre Dame, go to confession, go to church weekly. My oldest son is an altar boy. All my children go to the Catholic school. My wife Catherine was raised Catholic. We were married in the Catholic Church.” The filming of his movies and the support the films have gotten from Sparks have made him a huge new factor in popular culture. In June 2004, the film version of The Notebook was released, starring Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling. It was a huge success, he himself has called it “an instant movie classic, and a perfect companion to the book”. That first published novel was an instant publishing success. It followed an unpublished novel and a book which he had collaborated on and which was published and which seems to be related to the spirituality of the Lakota Sioux people. The films sold his books and still do and more are being made into film as I type this. Discussing the period after the first movie Sparks writes: “In August 2004, I was surprised when three of my novels, The Notebook, The Wedding, and Nights in Rodanthe, all appeared together on the New York Times paperback bestseller list”. Sparks plowed that financial boom into lots more successful writing but also into sport and do-goodism. “Around that time, I was also asked to serve on the USA Track and Field Foundation Board of Directors, an honor which I eagerly accepted”. He coached New Bern High School to indoor and outdoor state championships. This and writing constant bestsellers was not all he did. He writes: ” Autumn 2005, brought yet another undertaking when my wife and I sponsored a family from New Orleans, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The family – one member, a son, was a young athlete I had met the previous summer named Karjuan Williams – moved to New Bern, and my wife and I spent a lot of time and energy establishing them in a new household”. Early in 2006, Sparks and his wife together with Tom McLaughlin founded The Epiphany School. The school is a Roman Catholic prep school with a difference. “My intention is that, by the time every student has graduated, he or she will have visited 26 countries on six continents, whether it’s studying history of the Americas among Mayan ruins, Ancient Greece at the Parthenon, or ecology and the environment in the rain forests of Costa Rica”. His track coaching at the New Bern High School has more or less ended but was as successful at state and national levels as his huge writingcarreer has been. According to websites New Bern High School was recently voted the greatest high school relay team in history. In race records the team is either referred to as New Bern High School, or Track Eastern Carolina. If America is to be remade then Nicholas Sparks is pised to be one of those involved in remaking it. Sexuality, family, sport and education are being impacted in the USA and abroad by this single private citizen and those with whom he associates.
3 . Maria Ioannidou, Μαρία Ιωαννίδου is director of the Acropolis Restoration Project and an independent architecture & planning professional and civil engineer. She directs an extensive, internationally acclaimed antiquity conservation and restoration programme that has been ongoing on the Acropolis of Athens since 1975. She is in an institution where past diectors have been men but where a female Greek-American archiect who is not herself has also made a major contribution. When one considers the history of Venetian Knights in Constantinople and Turks throughout the Hellenic world it is impossible to see the destruction of the Parthenon and acropolis as unintentional. the greatest cataclysm which can be usefull compared to two flying busses hitting the World Tade Center happened in the Great Turkish War in the late 17th century—when the Ottoman Empire was at war with Venice and other European countries and Greece was an occupied nation. The Turks used the magnificent Parthenon they saw as a diabolic temple of pornography as an ammunition dump. Thea Venetian attack on Athens in 1687 included a cannonball that set off the Turkish munitions, blowing 700 huge stone blocks from the Parthenon’s now ruined walls that then eroded much more in recent centuries once out of structure and had all been strewn around the Acropolis. From 1997 to 2002 Cathy Paraschi, a Greek-American architect fitted these damaged pieces together. She made real progress but incomplete progress. Maria Ioannidou has the duty of leading the challenging Restoration, comprising a number of sub-projects that aim to stabilise, conserve and prolong the life of the Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis, is supported by the Greek State and the European Union. Ioannidou explains, “we’ve adopted an approach of trying to restore the maximum amount of ancient masonry while applying the minimum amount of new material.” That means using clamps and rods made of titanium—which won’t corrode and crack the marble—and soluble white cement, so that repairs can be easily undone should future generations of restorers discover a better way.There have been some bravura feats of engineering. The 1687 explosion knocked one of the massive columns out of position and badly damaged its bottom segment. There have been new damages from recent earthquakes that the restorers have had to deal with along with everything else. The team and one of its expert leaders designed new equipment to deal with the problem including a metal collar that exerts precisely controlled forces to grasp a column securely without harming the stone. This allowed repair of bottom segments in massive columns and also allowed more learning about the column construction which has challenged many ideas in the histroy of technology. The knoweledge and symbolism involved explains why although on the brink of bankruptcy, the Greek government committs serious money to improving the country’s architectural treasures. In the next several day as of this posting, it will reveal a restored temple on the Acropolis rock. Greek pre-Arabic mathematics were tied to geometry and the human measure and they were very advanced. They also had very advanced power tools and this personmakes the list for working in a nexus of productive science, patriotism, feminism and historical consciousness.
4. Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, Дми́трий Анато́льевич Медве́дев, was born on September 14, 1965 and is the third and current President of the Russian Federation, inaugurated on 7 May 2008. He came to the presidency after taking the popular vote in the presidential election held on March 2, 2008 with 71.25%. Medvedev’s candidacy was backed by then President Vladimir Putin and by his political allies and machine. They belong to the same political party and he was first informally endorsed by this largest Russian political party, United Russia and then later formally endorsed when several pro-presidential parties had been brought on board. Medvedev had a solid background but more as an appointed technocrat and had never held elective office prior to 2008. The current President has served as First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian government, Vladimir Putin’s Chief of Presidential Staff, e Chairman of Gazprom’s (the oil and gas nationalized giant) board of directors and other minor or affiliated positions. His endorsement and partnership with Prime Minister Putin is significant with Putin’s history as the tough Commie headed for the inner circle who has tried to find his wayinto the world of reforms and to a role as enlightened man in a new political consensus. Medvedev has legitimate progressive libertarian and democratic credentials within the Russian context as well as a certain inborn facility with neo-tsarist icnography which he shares with the very different Putin. Anatoly Sobchak was, an early democratic politician of the 1980s and 1990s and was one of Medvedev’s professors. Medvedev joined Sobchak’s team of democrats in 1988 and worked the head of Sobchak’s successful campaign for a seat in democratized Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR. As President, Medvedev has made economic modernization one of his top agendas. Even his childhood speaks more of intellect than toughness and ideological orthodoxies of the recent past. Dmitry Medvedev I believe born and certainly brought up in Leningrad. Medvedev’s father was Anatoly Afanasevich Medvedev (November 1926 — 2004) a Professor at the Leningrad Institute of Technology, his mother is Yulia Veniaminovna Medvedeva (née Shaposhnikova, born 21 November 1939)His wife Svetlana Linnik seems to have been what Americans would call his high school sweetheart. He is half ethnic Ukrainian, was in Communist youth organizations and joined the communist party in college but has always been part of the wave seeking legitimacy within the constructs of Western Civilization’s political traditions. His work outside government also related to living out in the renewed free market. Medvedev earned a degree from the Law Department of Leningrad State University in 1987 (together with a number of influential soviet leaders of his generation most of whom continue as leaders of the Russian Federation) and in 1990, received his graduate level Candidate of Sciences degree in private law there. Medvedev , worked as a “docent” at his alma mater university, now renamed to Saint Petersburg State University, in addition to his business activities and participation in the Saint Petersburg City Administration. He is not so easy to read in souch a short sketch and his situation is not simple. Nor is there a simple way of describing Russia’s role itself. But he is certainly a person to watch in the coming decade. .
5. Buzz Aldrin, Dr. (Col. {retired})Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr. was born in Montclair, New Jersey on January 20, 1930. Aldrin is an American mechanical engineer, retired United States Air Force pilot and the astronaut who was the Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 11,who on July 20, 1969, was the second human being to set foot on the Lunar surface, following his mission commander Neil Armstrong. Buzz became an engineer as a West Pointer when he graduated third in his class from the US Military Academy. He joined the Air Force and dsitinguished himself as a combat fighter pilot in Korea and was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross. After more military experience he earned his Doctorate of Science in Astronautics at MIT and wrote his thesis on Manned Orbital Rendezvous. He came to NASA in 1963 as part of the third astronauts batch, Aldrin was the first with a doctorate nicknamed “Dr. Rendezvous.” His mother, Marion Moon, was the daughter of an Army Chaplain and Aldrin celebrated the Eucharist according to protestant rites when he landed on the Moon. His father, Edwin Eugene Aldrin who studied with rocketry’s early giant Goddard, served with distinction in the military becoming a Colonel in the Air Force did advanced studies Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and towered over musch of Buzz’s early manhood as a resprected aviation pioneer. Dr. Buzz Aldrin has at least three US patents freceived for rocketry inventions. He devised many of the docking and rendezvous techniques for spacecraft in orbit which are still used today. These are just a few of his space related contributions. But all these years are overshadowed by 21 hours spent with Neil Armstrong on the lunar surface and when the two returned with 46 pounds of moon rocks having operated before history’s largest worldwide television audience of about 600 million people. He still stays in touch with the crew of Apollo 11, advocates for Space and had a brief stint on the popular show Dancing With the Stars. Dr. Aldrin is both my Facebook Friend and part of an online novel’s reader group I have established but I do not really know him nor even know how much he really knows about me for that matter.
6. Kundun, The Highest Point,Ogyen Trinley Dorje, Dalai Lama is currently unique in histroy and not really like any of his predecessors nor entirely separate from them. Living in northern India and fleeing the conquest of Tibet by the Communist Chinese government the 14th Dalai Lama serves as the head of state for the Central Tibetan Administration (“Tibetan government in exile”). Bothe preserving and popularizing some of Tibaetan Buddhism’s religion and tradition hea has also been freed from huge amounts of time spent in ritual obligations and has become a popular culture star. This 14th Dalai Lama remains the head of state for the Central Tibetan Administration (“Tibetan government in exile”) and is a worldwide spokesman both for deep Tibetan values in a sacred tradition and for whatever will help his case. He has never been a simple figure. His lack of orthodoxy is indicated when he has stated that the institution of the Dalai Lama may be abolished in the future, or the next Dalai Lama may not be Tibetan and may be female. The female thing and his many female admirers in the west maks the fact that all Buddhism has a very dark and arguably evil side of its history as regards women and that of all these traditions the one that most offend the sense of shared humanity, fairness and life for typical women the Gelug or “Yellow Hat” branch of Tibetan Buddhism. has the worst record. But of course that is a very incomplete and controversial part of the story. He has also been a symbol for Tibetans afraid of being overrun and wiped out by the Han Chinese. Tibet does have historic ties to the Chinese Emperors and the Chinese have kept some Lamaseries running and helped Tibetans. On the other hand heroic battles by Tibetans with swords on ponies against the superpower still occur and they remeber their Nobel Peace Prize winner and and he also gives some focus to their art. His title combines of the Mongolian word Далай “Dalai” meaning “Ocean” and the Tibetan word ་”Blama” meaning “chief” or “high priest.” The Dalai Lama is believed by his devotees to be the rebirth of a long line of tulkus who are considered to be manifestations of Avaloitesvarahe bodhiattva of compassion, the reincarnation of a series of spiritual leaders who have chosen to be reborn in order to enlighten others. The role of this man will continue to evolve and its relevance may be affected by changes in the East and West in the future.
7. Zachary Richard is an environmentalist ,poet and singer-songwriter who in1996 founded Action Cadienne an organization dedicated to promoting of the French language and the “Cadien/Cajun culture of Louisiana. In choosing Zachary Richard I am especially aware of him as a musician and worry about choosing him to the probable exclusion of Michael Doucet and Paige Reese but he is much more than an Acadian musician. In March, 1997, Zachary Richard was decorated Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres de la République Française. Also in 1997, Zachary was enrolled in the Ordre des Francophones d’Amérique by the government of Québec. Richard has received three honorary doctorates, bestowed by the University of Moncton (New Brunswick), the University of Louisiana (Lafayette) and Ste Anne’s University in Nova Scotia. His albums include High Times, Mardi Gras and Migration, Mardi Gras Mambo, Zack’s Bon Ton,Snake Bite Love, Women in the Room, Cap Enragé and Faire Récolte. These works have generated recognition including gold and double platinum albums and numerous reviewed awards. His role in the Cajun Renaissance was significant when as a young already working artist he bought a Cajun accordion. From that basis he earned his credibility in promoting the Cajun tradition, because it really was Zachary who energized an increasing old man driven genre when he formed the first new generation Cajun/Rock band. While living in Montreal, Zachary published three volumes of poetry and won the prestigious Prix Champlain for in 1998. A third Zachary Richard volume, was awarded the Prix Roland Gasparic in Roumania with mention of his militant commitment to the defense of the French language in North America. Zachary had published three children’s books with his daughter Sarah. Recent years especially have seen him work in important television documentaries including his production, narration and scoring of Against the Tide, the story of the Cajun people of Louisiana with LPB which was awarded Best Historical Documentary by the National Educational Television Association (NETA) in 2000 and its truly French language version, received the Prix Historia from the L’institut d’Histoire de l’Amérique Française in 2003. He has also worked with Coeurs Batailleurs ( a 26 part series exploring the Acadian diaspora), Migrations, about North American avian migration which won the Liriot D’or (first prize) at the International Ornithological Film Festival (France) in 2008, and Kouchibouguac, about the expropriation of 250 Acadian families in 1978 for the creation of a national park.
8. Chett Chiasson,Executive Director of the Port Commission at Port Fourchon. He is a former Director of Economic Development for the port and has been promoted to the top spot by The Greater Lafourche Port Commission taking the reins from Ted Falgout, who retired at the end of 2009 after thirty-one years of port leadership. This tradition of long tenure, the BP disaster this year and the confluence of energy, economic and environmental issues will make him a necessarily influential figure. The importance of Port FOurchon may be declining but it is truly enormous. “I am honored to be the Executive Director of the Greater Lafourche Port Commission,” says Chiasson. “I look forward to continuing the growth and success that was achieved during Mr. Falgout’s tenure. With the outstanding Board of Commissioners, employees, and tenants we have, the opportunities are limitless.” Chiasson has a B.A. in Political Science and a Masters in Public Administration and is in the AAPA’s Professional Port Manager certification program. His background has been an advantage to port business; he has brought in large projects and new lessees in Port Fourchon and helped to expand property interests at the South Lafourche Airport. Chiasson had been key in relevant activities before the BP disaster such as recouping losses from storm damage, working with several local, state, and federal agencies to repair and rebuild the port’s infrastructure and environment. Chiasson will be Port Fourchon’s second Executive Director in port history and begins his new position as the port begins its fiftieth year.
9. Dr. E. Joseph Savoie, ” ‘Tit Jo'” Savoie is the at the helm of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, which is also the Universite des Acadiens and is former Louisiana tate Commissioner of Higher Education. He is the university’s sixth president . He relatively recently succeeded Dr. Ray Authement, who retired after serving as UL Lafayette’s president for 34 years. When hire he said, “ I’m excited about the opportunity to help steer the University of Louisiana at Lafayette as it continues to move ahead, always focused on student success.” President Savoie has very strong ties to UL Lafayette before becoming Comissioner he had served asvice president for University Advancement, executive director of the Alumni Association, program director for the Union Program Council, student government advisor and as an adjunct assistant professor. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from this same UL Lafayette. Savoie continuedhis studies with doctor of education in educational leadership and administration from Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York. Savoie work prior to presidency postsecondary education includes participating in these reforms in Louisiana: the restructuring of higher education governance; creation of the Louisiana Community and Technical College System; teacher education and school reform initiatives; fromulation of the state’s Master Plan for Public Postsecondary Education and the promotion of collaboration within the entire education community. Savoie has received awards and honors including the 2007 CASE District IV Chief Executive Leadership Award, which has even been renamed the “Dr. E. Joseph Savoie Chief Executive Leadership Award,” the 2004 University of Louisiana at Lafayette Outstanding Alumnus Award and the 2000 Henry Mason Award, which is presented by the Louisiana Chapter of the American Association of University Professors. He and his wife Gail Savoie have a daughter, Jennifer Blaire Saulnier, and a son, Adam Savoie. Dr. Savoie was on the board which elected me as the winner of the 1989 May commencement Oustanding Graduate Award of the Alumni Assoication of the university. I have known him for years and we have never been close or friends (nor open enemies or anything else intense). I believe he is capable of brokering any set of changes which might be good for the Univeristy and the region and other factors and people. He of course may fail as anyone may. However, given the opportunity he will be ablr to play a vital role should needed societal changes thrust his institution into national prominence.
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