C[omp]ute

From: "andrew cooke" <andrew@...>

Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:15:23 -0400 (CLT)

I'm not sure if this is just me being stupid, or whether there's an
interesting idea here - something about national context.

Albert Schweitzer is famous, apparently.  I'd never heard of him, but this
question on AskMe -
http://ask.metafilter.com/65735/The-importance-of-Schweitzer - and the
related fuss on Meta -
http://metatalk.metafilter.com/14457/Why-did-my-question-get-deleted -
suggests that his name is recognised by "everyone else".

The wikipedia page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Schweitzer -
gives some background, where he's mentioned alongside people like Russel
and Einstein.  There's even a Disney reference.

Now I'm fairly well read.  What's the deal here?  How come I missed this
name?  As I said, maybe I'm just a doofus.  But I'm reminded of a similar
experience with Eric Hoffer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer -
who turned out to be little more than a cold war propaganda tool (don't
bother buying his books, although someone somewhere still seems to be
providing funding for them to be bound as rather nice hardbacks at a
surprisingly low price...  I had hoped for something like an American
Orwell, but "Ordeal of Change", at least, has none of the subtlety or
compassion).

In this case, however, I don't see what makes Albert S important within
the American context.  Is it something to do with religion?  My only wild
guess is that he's used by the left as some kind of "liberal but
religious" tool.

Curious,
Andrew