I guess this had to happen sometime, but some blogging fool has compared Jimmy Wales to Mother Teresa, while trying to coach readers about "leadership".


Elwood Matthews
Spiritual Entrepreneur, Mult-site Pastor and Catalyst, married with two daughters
Interests: Reading, Fitness, Brainstorming, Innovation, strategizer





It's time to blow up the Internet.

There actually are more parallels than you'd think. Mother Teresa took care of dying people in Kolkuta, and didn't bother to triage them, even though some of them could have been saved by very simple things like cheap antibiotics and hydration, which were well within her buget. Her rationale was that dying is not such a big thing, and suffering makes you closer to god while you're doing it.

But when she herself needed complex care, she allowed herself to be private-jetted to Californi,a to have angioplasties on her heart. One rule for other people in her charity, but another for herself.

Well, in all fairness it wasn't a direct comparison, and he mentioned them as examples of "titled leaders," as opposed to "natural leaders." It looks like he's trying to say that only "natural leaders" are truly distinct from mere managers or administrators, and he's just using what he thinks are popular examples so as to avoid having it look like an insult. I'm not saying he isn't a fool, though - I mean, that's a given.

Anyway, it's fairly obvious that nobody reads this particular blog - you've probably directed more traffic to it in the last 6 hours than he's had for the past 6 months!


I say we execute it by firing squad, then we hang it from a tree limb, then we bury it in its own excrement, then we blow it up.

I'd settle for the quick deaths of all the self-appointed "motivational experts" like that fine gent. Man, there's a lot of "life-changing" bullshit on that blog.....

There's the famous story of Churchill making one of his speeches on the need for more air defense spending in April 1938 (about 5 months before "Peace in Our Time" Chamberlain thought he'd reached a diplomatic solution...). He was razzed by some parliament member shouting "How much is enough??"

Churchill said he was reminded of the man who received a telegram from Brazil: "Your mother-in-law dead. Wire instructions.’'

The man is supposed to have wired back: "Embalm, cremate, bury at sea. Take no chances."

Except for the "embalm" part, that was pretty much what the allies ended up doing to the top Nazis after the war.

Em, except for the useful ones. Those they kept.

Well, I don't know about any "top Nazis" who were useful. Von Braun (for example) was not even close to a top Nazi. About all you can say of him is that he was a (reluctant) party and SS member, and ran a factory for the Nazis. You might as well call Oscar Schindler a top Nazi if that's all it took (though Schindler treated his people of course far better than von Braun did-- I don't mean to compare them in any other way).

Examples?

The comparison is pretty spot-on, actually. Both aloof celebrities more interested in self-promotion and opulence than actually making a difference:

You really need to explain when you're reverting to the thread topic. I thought you were referring to the immediately preceding post and talking about Schindler and von Braun! It would probably be fair comment on them too.