I would think the “asshole” status would relate more to stories I’ve heard about denying basic medication (especially pain medication) to the poor.
While undoubtedly widespread - almost entirely thanks to A Brief History of Time - the notion that he was vindictive against counterfeiters while at the Mint is, at best, an exaggerated reputation.
For a start, not many cases tended to arise. The notably controversial occasion of Newton effectively sending a counterfeiter to his death was William Challoner in 1699. But this was a messy case in which Challoner had himself been flinging all sorts of potentially fatal accusations at Mint officials and the whole thing wound up out of Newton’s hands in Parliament. The general view since has been that, while the affair may have ended as a political stitch-up, Challoner was a counterfeiter. Newton personally justified the sentence in this instance by noting that Challoner had earlierly and unremorsefully caused a fellow counterfeiter to be sent to the gallows.
More generally, he expressly requested to the Treasury that he be relieved of anti-counterfeiting duties, though unsuccessfully. And under him the Mint’s policy became that too severe sentences in such matters made courts unwilling to convict and hence were to be advised against.
Newton still could be hardline in individual cases. But the exceptional Challoner case arguably aside, his attitude thus seems more reluctantly practical than zealous.
He was, however, still a huge asshole.
I just wanted to agree that Mother Theresa and Thomas Edison were assholes.
Edison did indeed have traveling demonstrations where cats and dogs (usually stolen by local thugs) were electrocuted to prove how dangerous AC current was.
The Ghoul Of Calcutta used money on preaching instead of providing better medical care for the poor. She also refused to return money that had been stolen and then donated to her by the thief.
It may be a good time to review the immortal line from Charles Dickens (or was it Emily Dickinson?):
Actually I think it was from a letter by Emily Dickinson to Charles Dickens, hence the references to Chuck.
I’ve known a couple of acting professors over the years who worked at some point with Charles Nelson Reilly (who, though most famous for Match Game and episodic guest appearances, was actually a big wig in the theater world as a director). They did not have nice things to say about him- namely that he would humiliate actors in front of the company during rehearsals and that he was prone to foul mouthed tantrums on other people’s incompetence and impossible to please. OTOH, these were acting teachers- people not known for their inordinately high tolerance for accepting constructive criticism- so it’s possible he was exaggerated.
I mentioned recently that Garrison Keillor has a terrible reputation among writers and others who’ve worked for and with him. They describe him as an egomaniac who has never done anything wrong, who if material works it’s all due to him regardless of whether or not he wrote it and if it flops it’s completely due to the writer and or other performers, and that he underpays writers and takes complete intellectual ownership of anything they create for him (i.e. he can use it in his books or elsewhere without credit).
Media escorts used to have a “Golden Dartboard” award for the most obnoxious author they escorted during a publicity tour. (They were compelled to do away with the awards by book publishers who didn’t want the negative press.) Some of their awards for most impossible to please/rudest personalities were Lewis Grizzard, Betty Friedan, Deepak Chopra (who apparently is nothing like his “inner glow and world peace” talk show persona when there are no cameras), Faye Dunaway (who I don’t think I’ve ever read anything nice about), Gore Vidal (no surprise there- one said that Vidal made him stop en-route to his engagement so he could hire a lawyer to sue a critic who’d written a negative review), Art Linkletter, and Martha Stewart. By far the worst “I will not work with this A-hole again” author was Douglas “Generation X” Coupland, who comes across as psychotic:
In fairness I’ll include:
And I’ve also read very positive things by those who worked with Kurt Vonnegut, Charmaine Harris, and Billy Graham during their book signings and promotions.
Al Capp.
For those unfamiliar, he created Lil Abner. It was a comic strip that (in the early years anyway) was funny, had action, and was filled with joy and sweetness and innocence.
Al Capp hated almost everybody at a level just below Phelp’s intensity. Most people have to narrow down their hatred to keep up the level, not Capp. I have no proof of Capp explicitly hating blacks, latinos, and Jews. But I’d be shocked if he didn’t. The man was concentrated hate.
Gandhi had a thing about sleeping with young women, and had no problem in preaching non violence while enciting mobs. And oh he was anti-untouchables and his Hindu Revivalist themed movement pretty much freaked out the muslims, a fact that he knew. And oh, the whole poverty thing, the saying was “it costs a lot of monet to keep him poor”
Nehru, was a big womaniser, spent too much time with other peoples wives, including Lady Mountbatten.
Vallabhai Patel, was a man who most around him could not stand.
On the Pakistan side
MA Jinnah was a man who mistreated his wife, was cold and distant to all, had a rather scary relationship with his sister, and vicious to his subordinates.
Sir Muhmmad Iqbal; made a gallent attempt to keep all of Lahores prostitutes in business on his own, and rumour has it, murdered one.
Apparently all of Indias leaders in the independance struggle were…Barristers and assholes. The Brits did’nt stand a chance. Mind you considering the kind of men they used to creat the empire, Clive, Hastings the Wellselly’s, well you need ass holes to end what assholes created.
I read the mainstream Lindbergh biography that came out a few years ago (can’t remember who wrote it; reputable biographer, IIRC) that seemed fairly well-researched and well-balanced, and the portrait I have of him is a a guy who was nose-to-the-grindstone, earnest, honestly-motivated, a bit socially awkward, a relatively austere upbringing, the pro-Nazi sentiments ascribed to him were due to honestly-come-by and naive isolationism along with a few naive visits to Germany to check out the Luftwaffe.
I also recall that he and Ann had a relatively strained relationship as they grew older; I believe she had an affair (or at least, an emotional affair) w/French writer Antoine de St.-Exupery. However the impression I had of the two of them is that they were both a couple of emotionally distant, socially awkward people who just didn’t know how to relate to each other with the overwhelming life experiences that the two of them had. But they did seem to have a puritan-like respect for each other; she learned to fly from him, and they shared that love. They also seemed to share a passion for lifelong learning.
All a long way of saying: My ignorance is fought too - I NEVER would have suspected all the illegitimate children and affairs. Very surprising. Very apt contribution to this thread; thank you.
Nice of you to say!!!
I dont even remember where I first heard this, it was also a big shock to me as well; all I knew about Lindburgh was the flight across the Atlantic and then the kidnapping—the “Nazi apologist” angle from an American hero was certainly out of left field
This is purely academic curiosity, but I’ve never heard of anyone arguing anything BUT yersinia pestis for the Black Death. Can you point me to some examples, if you have a chance?
I think Al Capp was Jewish. (Wikipedia confirms this, and states his original surname to have been Caplin.)
I STILL would not be surprised to learn he hated Jews.
Speaking of which
The Inventor Of Seamonkeys
Far from being a lovable mad scientist type, he was a member of the Aryan Nation. He even left them quite a bit of money in his will. This was despite the fact he was Jewish.
And the Charles Keating affair-she refused to return any stolen money given to her. Plus when she was sick she also was given top care in the best hospitals in the world. (In her defense, perhaps she began to believe her own hype? Who knows?)
Oscar Romero was robbed of the Nobel Peace Prize, as I always say!
Ben Rothlisberger. 
To be fair, his childhood truly sucked. Dire poverty, the loss of his leg while a kid, scratching and clawing his way to fame in NYC. If I went through that, I’d be pissed off, too. And people did describe him as lovable and “lots of fun” (as well as truly infuriating to be around).
Also, he stuck it to the man in his comics and visited amputees from the Korean and Vietnam wars in VA hospitals, so I’m inclined to give Al a pass on everything else.
Hmmm.
Results 1 - 10 of about 15,400 for tom cruise “fucking crazy”. (0.29 seconds)
Results 1 - 10 of about 59,500 for tom cruise nutjob. (0.30 seconds)
Dang.
Let’s try…
Results 1 - 10 of about 391,000 for tom cruise insane. (0.23 seconds)
European antisemitism predates Luther by about a good thousand years. Turns out the pope all hated Jews too. Modern antisemitism usually argues that Jews are an inferior race, which wasn’t the big way to hate on Jews back in the 1500s.
I don’t know much about national famous people, but there is a dude who hosts an outdoors show on my local TV station and used to live in my hometown. People that have met him say he is a dick.
This comes down to how you define “modern” antisemitism which is a matter of semantics. (antisemantics?) What I meant was that Luther’s was the oldest work widely used as reference by 20th Century antisemites. I think modern antisemitism doesn’t so much argue that Jews are inferior but that they’re controlling the business world through cheating and dishonesty.
Many “untouchables” loathe Gandhi with a passion. Their hero is Dr Ambedkar.
I don’t hate Martin Luther because of his influence on modern-day anti-Semitism, although he’s also a despicable fuck for that too. I hate him because of what he did to Jews then and there, in Christian Europe, before there was a concept of anti-Semitism. Long before “scientific” based Jew Hatred, there was simple old-fashioned Christian chauvinism, and that is what Luther represented towards the Jews. He was a complete pig, a scumbag, jerk, savage; a deluded and amoral ideologue who had no remorse and deserves none. As I said before, he is being tortured in hell right now, and he will be forever.
I know a lot of Lutherans and they’re fine people. This has nothing to with modern day Lutherans.
V.S. Naipaul.
“Sir Vidia’s Shadow” and corroboration from other sources have completely ruined his books for me.
Sadly, I have been told by people in a position to know that Paul Theroux is equally obnoxious and insecure (though he can’t possibly be as racist). But I’m not listening la la la.