I certainly didn't know his name. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gregg-easterbrook/greatest-living-american-_b_56665.html [rquoter] Gregg Easterbrook Greatest Living American Ignored Today in Washington I was in the room as the greatest living American received a medal. George W. Bush, Nancy Pelosi and others were present. But will you ever hear this event occurred? To judge from tonight's major network evening newscasts, perhaps not. Cameras were allowed at the ceremony but I saw none from the major networks, though the international press was significantly represented. And will you recognize this great man's name when I say it? The greatest living American is Norman Borlaug, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, and joins Jimmy Carter as the two living American-born laureates around whose necks this distinction as been placed. Do you know Borlaug's achievement? Would you recognize him if he sat on your lap? Norman Borlaug WON THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE, yet is anonymous in the land of his birth. Born 1914 in Cresco, Iowa, Borlaug has saved more lives than anyone else who has ever lived. A plant breeder, in the 1940s he moved to Mexico to study how to adopt high-yield crops to feed impoverished nations. Through the 1940s and 1950s, Borlaug developed high-yield wheat strains, then patiently taught the new science of Green Revolution agriculture to poor farmers of Mexico and nations to its south. When famine struck India and Pakistan in the mid-1960s, Borlaug and a team of Mexican assistants raced to the Subcontinent and, often working within sight of artillery flashes from the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, sowed the first high-yield cereal crop in that region; in a decade, India's food production increased sevenfold, saving the Subcontinent from predicted Malthusian catastrophes. Borlaug moved on to working in South America. Every nation his green thumb touched has known dramatic food production increases plus falling fertility rates (as the transition from subsistence to high-tech farm production makes knowledge more important than brawn), higher girls' education rates (as girls and young women become seen as carriers of knowledge rather than water) and rising living standards for average people. Last fall, Borlaug crowned his magnificent career by persuading the Ford, Rockefeller and Bill & Melinda Gates foundations to begin a major push for high-yield farming in Africa, the one place the Green Revolution has not reached. Yet Borlaug is unknown in the United States, and if my unscientific survey of tonight's major newscasts is reliable, television tonight ignored his receipt of the Congressional Gold Medal, America's highest civilian award. I clicked around to ABC, CBS and NBC and heard no mention of Borlaug; no piece about him is posted on these networks' evening news websites; CBS Evening News did have time for video of a bicycle hitting a dog. (I am not making that up.) Will the major papers say anything about Borlaug tomorrow? Borlaug's story is ignored because his is a story of righteousness -- shunning wealth and comfort, this magnificent man lived nearly all his life in impoverished nations. If he'd blown something up, lied under oath or been caught offering money for fun, ABC, CBS and NBC would have crowded the Capitol Rotunda today with cameras, hoping to record an embarrassing gaffe. Because instead Borlaug devoted his life to serving the poor, he is considered Not News. All I can say after watching him today is that I hope Borlaug isn't serious about retiring, as there is much work to be done -- and I hope when I'm 93 years old I can speak without notes, as he did.[/rquoter]
It's kind of vain accomplishment, but i'd like to nominate so people out of normal. 1) Anyone stands up for what the believe in....no matter who crazy, rational, stupid, logical, or courageous cause it may be for. I think that's the most fundamental thing to being any American is fighting for what you believe in whether it's protesting the right to do something or to remove public officials from office, or fighting some eminent domain law where you could lose your house or etc. Whether you're a republican, democrat, anarchist, White, Black, Asian, hispanic, poor, rich, young, or old. That's supposed to an essential fundamental for our society. 2) American military service members They're putting their lives on the lives for maybe just or unjust cause.
thanks basso. i don't think recognition matters one iota to men like borlaug, he did it because he had a calling. there are very few people born into this world with such noble purpose and the ability to see it through. i think he is almost as important an american as vince young.
Almost..... Nice article though. I was hearing about this the other day on NPR so its not like the media is totally ignoring this.
the reason those people lived wasn't because they had greater access to food, it was because Chuck Norris choose not to kill them.
Chuck Norris would've been declared the greatest living American but there was no need to state the obvious.
