Awards for the Best of the Best

in the Second Millennium

By Sally Morem

I took a highly scientific sampling of eight people,

myself included, in the year 2000 to determine these
winners for the Best of the Second Millennium List.
Those answers getting two or more votes each have
their vote totals posted in parentheses after that
particular answer. How would you vote?

Enjoy!

Greatest Discovery

America (2), DNA, lysergic acid (like totally, dude), electricity (2),
Q-tips (huh?). It’s America and electricity in a photo finish.

Most Important Invention

Printing press (4), silly putty (now that’s just silly), birth control,
Exacto knife (a cutting edge invention to be sure), the automobile.
The printing press blows away the competition with many copies.
Most Ominous Invention

Communism, nuclear power (2), atomic bomb, WYSE terminals

(time to terminate ‘em), the gas chamber, dynamite. And the
winner is: nuclear power. And here I thought it was Communism.

Greatest Explorer

Columbus, Magellan (2), Jacques Cousteau, Amerigo Vespucci,

Marco Polo (if you can). A lot of searching went on, but we’ve
determined Magellan is the winner.

Greatest Watershed Event

Galileo looking through his telescope, the American Revolution,

one participant doesn’t watershed (party pooper), Vietnam War,
the new general manager being hired for his company (Geez,
what’s the color of his nose?), Theory of Relativity, Man on the
Moon. An all-around tie, except for the party pooper who’s all
wet.

Greatest Injustice

Slavery (3), the Holocaust (2), sweatshops/child labor, forcing

Christianity on indigenous peoples, my paycheck (ouch!). Slavery
wins, if you can call that winning.

Most Forward-Looking Thinker

Leonardo da Vinci (2), Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr, Neville

Chamberlain (say what???), Buckminster Fuller, Jules Verne. And
Leonardo wins as far as we can determine from the da Vinci code!
Most Retro-Thinker

Karl Marx (2), Oliver Stone, any KKK member, Fibber McGee
(not Molly?), Ronald Reagan. And Karl Marx “wins” for having
the nerve to invent Communism.

Biggest Hoax

French Revolution-it did NOT lead to freedom, Communism,

Death of Elvis (he’s alive and living at Donut World!), equality
and justice (presumably because they are imagined by political
philosophers), the jackalope (I thought it was real!), Orson Welles’
radiocast of the Martian invasion (I thought that was real!),
religiosity. There is no winner. All of them are hoaxes.

Greatest Reversal of Fortune

Post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union breaking up,

Gandhi’s assassination, Native Americans, Cliff Clavin’s Final
Jeopardy bet, Pete Rose, Napoleon. A tie. But I’ve gotta give the
nod to Cliffie.

Most Influential Religious Figure

Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King Jr, Timothy

Leary (???), Gandhi (2), Jesus, Jimmy Swaggert and Jim Bakker
(???). After much meditation, I’ve determined that Gandhi is the
winner.
Greatest Military Leader

Eisenhower, Napoleon, Che Guevara (Wait a minute, didn’t he die

before the Grand Revolution was on like Donkey Kong???), Hitler
(loser), Oliver North (Wasn’t he caught?), Admiral Rickover,
Patton. A tie. They all won their campaigns here (except Che and
Hitler).

Most Dominant Trend

Development of technology, expansion of political liberty, spiritual

ignorance, cell phones, hitchhiking (?), exercising (while
hitchhiking?). A tie. But during the past few years since these
awards were named, clearly cell phones have proven by far to be
the most dominant trend.

Greatest Artist

Rembrandt (2), Johann Sebastian Bach, Jim Morrison or Andy

Kauffman (?), Salvador Dali (2), Van Gogh, the Artist Formerly
Known as Prince Now Known as Prince Again. Hello Dali and
Rembrandt in a tie. Just picture melting watches painted in the Old
Masters’ style.

These results are best taken with a river of salt.

Let’s hope that our crew of eight will do a much
better job next millennium.