July 15, 2025
"Five Catholic saints are on the list, including Elizabeth Ann Seton.... However, there is not a single female athlete, unless you count sharpshooter Annie Oakley."
From "Who’ll be in Trump’s hero garden? There are a few surprises. The list of nearly 250 includes the famous, the obscure and, in some cases, the intentionally controversial" (WaPo)(free-access link).
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45 comments:
A sharpshooter demonstrates visual acuity, manual dexterity, and respiratory modulation.
If Amelia Earhart is in they should also have John Denver.
"If Amelia Earhart is in they should also have John Denver."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN1thMC6LZY
So dumb to complain about whites dominating the list when there's no break down between Italians or Jews or Germans. I will assume that many people the WaPo considers "white" wouldn't have thought of themselves that way.
Intentionally controversial? Were all the women unPlanned, certifiably organic (i.e. catbon-based), of the female sex and feminine gender? Albino?
I could've done without Ruth bader Ginsberg or E. Roosevelt. And what is this annoying "enslaved people"
Black Africans delivered their brothers and sisters in an enslaved condition. Take them or leave them. We have Plans... uh, plans for their equitable inclusion.
I don't mind the term "enslaved people." It serves to emphasize, for me, the American truth (also held by some others) that no person is innately a slave. YMMV.
Renee Richards.
Problem solved.
You're welcome.
I LOVE the idea of Hero Gardens. When I was in my landscape architecture program, I suggested one based on famous comedians, tracing their roots back to ancient Greece. A Hero Garden based on Star Trek captains would thrill me to no end.
As usual, the comments over there are LIT!
My nominees for female athletes:
Babe Didrikson
Wilma Rudolph
Althea Gibson
I was surprised to see Gabby Gabreski's name on the list. His was a rather obscure accomplishment.
note the author's slant
" If the White House accepts the offer, maybe the four presidents depicted there can come off the garden’s to-do list. Only 246 to go."
Bezos still has pruning to do
Sports doesn’t seem to dominate the list. I read the list at Wikipedia, since I don’t want to give WaPo any information. Wikipedia remarked about Patton being on the original list and not Eisenhower. Surprised they didn’t mention Halsey being on the list but not Nimitz. Ultimately, it is like any other listicle, you may agree with some and not others.
In the war hero category, I nominate
Vernon Baker
My nominees for female athletes:
Babe Didrikson
Wilma Rudolph
Althea Gibson
I agree. another add to cover gays
Billie Jean King
The Hall of Fame of Great Americans has been forgotten and neglected. It was at the Bronx campus of NYU, which was given to Bronx Community College when NYU moved to Greenwich Village. Thousands of Americans visited in the 1920s and 1930s and now it's in disrepair. Maybe our so NYC president should pay a visit there. Not much diversity and inclusion. Maybe that's not such a bad thing. But it was designed by Stanford White, so ...
No Brittney Griner? hm.
Why wouldn't you count Annie Oakley? She was a great shooter and shooting is an official sport.
I’m looking at the list on Wikipedia, which may or may not be different than WaPo’s list. It’s not bad, but I would drop the Presidents, other politicians with a few exceptions, and most of the Hollywood people.
I recommend Ainslie Bashara: the 19 year-old counselor who led the evacuation of 16 girls from her cabin, Giggle Box, during the Texas floods. She used a headlamp to guide the children through the night and ensured all were accounted for during multiple trips to safety.
Lame.
Birches said...
“So dumb to complain about whites dominating the list when there's no break down between Italians or Jews or Germans. I will assume that many people the WaPo considers "white" wouldn't have thought of themselves that way.”
Gen-Xer here. It did not occur to me that I was supposed to think of myself as white until I was about 24/5 in the early ‘90s.
I knew I was white in the sense that I was supposed to check that box on the government forms. But that meant about as much as the fact that I was right-handed. Maybe less.
ALP said...
“A Hero Garden based on Star Trek captains would thrill me to no end.”
Some names to get your thoughts on:
- Ronald Tracy. Clearly a bad guy, but he *was* a starship captain.
- Garth of Izar. A legend, but then went crazy and started to commit genocide.
- Edward Jellico. He was right. The crew of the Enterprise D were slow to realize they were no longer in exploration mode, but were on a war footing.
- Kathryn Janeway did the best she could with what she had, but has been made out to be better than she was.
I visited the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in in Emmitsburg, Maryland, in October 2022 when I took a road trip from Florida to Gettysburg. I had ancestors buried in a cemetery in Emmitsburg, which is why I stopped there. I had lunch at a local barbecue place, then checked to see what else was in the area, since I had some time to kill before heading to Gettysburg to meet up with my family. I'm not Catholic, but I found the shrine interesting.
Normalizing Trump? Unexpectedly.
Some of the names on the list (see wikipedia) are frankly ridiculous, but I assume they were on there for "name recognition". Some of the sillier ones:
Robert Gould Shaw (assume because of the movie Glory)
Laureen bacall ( Wow, marrying Bogie really made her!)
Ira Hayes (Another Hollywood movie)
Harriet Taubman (Taught in school)
Sojourner Truth (Taught in School)
Elizabeth Stanton (Dont we already have Susan Anthony?)
William Donovan ( I guess being competent is not a criteria)
Mary Fields (1st Black women to do something)
Augustus Tolton (Another African American first something)
Irving Berlin (why not cole porter too? Or JP Sousa?)
And if you're going to put Einstein on the list, you might as well put Fermi or Von Braun there. They did more for US defense and NASA.
Most significant absence: Charles Lindbergh.
Left Bank - I agree in principle at least - presidents are honored enough as it is, unless they did something else (like Washington) to be considered a "hero". Athletes, musicians, and actors should only be there if they were exceptional outside their field, like Clemente, or as in Robinson's case truly groundbreaking. But Babe Ruth? Ted Williams would be a much better choice, and his Korea wingman is on the list.
Samuel Colt but no John Moses Browning?
Good to see Norman Borlaug on the list.
What jumped out at me was how steeped the WaPo is in identity politics. They don't give a shit about human beings. All they do is reduce people into representations.
It's not hard to find 250 American heroes. Look for heroes!
It would be hard to find a female athlete that was even close to an average male in the same sport, but Annie Oakley fits the bill. So if we are being blind to identity politics as would be refreshing, this is more fair than most.
Female athletes: Yes to listed. Pass on BJ King - Nonmother of abortion in America AND the fixed battle of the sexes with Bobby Riggs. If "cheaters" get in, she's got to get in line behind Lance Armstrong.
Male athletes: Kobe Bryant? No Bird, Magic, MJ??? Football almost ignored. Butkus, Jim Brown, Paul Brown, Halas, Johnny U.??? The greatest male athlete of all time - Secretariat!!! Maybe put Trigger in with the Hollywood crowd, too?
Hollywood: Bogey and Bacall; bye-bye. Marilyn; Yes! Did I miss Clint? Where the fuck is Clint?
Military: Was Robert E Lee on the list? Maybe Curt LeMay? Really glad to see Ben Davis, Jr. here. Should have been 1st Black 4-Star. Clair Chennault - c'mon!
Space related: Get John Glenn off of there: opportunist of the first rank. Replace with Von Braun. Maybe put Joe Kittinger on there (parachuted from edge of space).
Which modern Female athlete would approve of being chosen by Trump to be on a list? Ha. I can already picture the frown and the speech that follows.
Surprised that Rockefeller didn't make it. Glad to see Roberto Clemente on it. (at least as listed on wikipedia). I like this idea, especially as an instructional thing for middle school students. It invites debate.
Well Jim, it's early but I think they should reserve a spot for Caitlin Clark. I think she'd be OK with the nomination.
Jim does have a point though, re. "modern".
I was once acquainted with a female who'd won Olympic Gold. She went on to a career in the USAF. Wonderful person. She would have loved being nominated by Trump.
In the really old days, a locker room was just a locker room. All about sport and bonding or rivalries. Few distractions.
Then came agents, endorsements, unions and God-Almighty ESPN.
I agree with Gravel that athletes shouldn't be on there unless they are groundbreaking for other reasons--Jackie Robinson obviously belongs there. I don't really have a problem with Babe Ruth because he is bigger than baseball. But Kobe Bryant? Hell, why not Tom Brady?
I could see Trump hemming and hawing about whether he should put Robert E. Lee on the initial list. Just for exploding head purposes.
bagoh20 said..."It would be hard to find a female athlete that was even close to an average male in the same sport, but Annie Oakley fits the bill."
The shooting sports are interesting in that the performance differential, if it exists, is small enough that many US competitive shooting events have been coed for years, with women often among the winners and/or top finishers.
Biff said...
“The shooting sports are interesting in that the performance differential [between men and women], if it exists, is small enough that many US competitive shooting events have been coed for years, with women often among the winners and/or top finishers.”
God created man; Samuel Colt made them equal. And that includes women.
Bagoh and Riff: watch Lena Miculek shooting videos. She's a helluva shooter and has a goofy presence that makes her very entertaining.
May this government project serve as an example of why government should not be in the business of memorializing history, as it tends to omit, offend and oversimplify.
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