politicians etc
hello first time poster so might cock it up.
can i just say Backjob's fart gas anecdote is brilliant?
in the first category, ones to if not admire at least look on fondly/uncritically i have to say my favourite Kenyatta anecdote is when he was attending the 1945 Sixth Pan-African Congress in Manchester with the likes of Nkrumah and one local food and drink magazine editor (i'm from there myself) has always maintained that Kenyatta lived in the city for a while, selling fast food, and he sold 'Jomo-burgers'.
surely complete cobblers of course but i'd like to believe (i know he lived in the UK).
speaking of contemporaries Illinois Democrat Barack Obama is quite interesting, currently the only African-American state senator. a man of Christian faith i was reading his pre-election bumf and it was all fairly solidly progressive, quite good stuff.
what's interesting about how fairly skewed the debate about Israel and the Palestinians is in the USA is that even Obama - quite a darling of the moderate liberal-left in the USA, AFAIK, etc. - even he, his only leaflet comments on Israel just extended to a show of support for those targeted by suicide bombers. all good common sense and reasonable of course but not a peep about any legitimiate grievances the 'average' Palestinian in a camp, say, might have.
he ran against Alan Keyes, a candidate parachuted into Illinois after a sex scandal (brilliantly, involving the woman who plays Seven of Nine on 'Star Trek', the actress Jeri Ryan, Jack Ryan's now ex-wife) forced the Republican Jack Ryan to bow out, and apparently this was the first time a state senate seat was contested by two African-American candidates (from the two main Yank parties).
i'm pretty sure Keyes lost his chips when he made some immoderate comments at one stage about Nazis, Jews, etc.
as for Oona King, the whole Eid mubarak cock-up was an eye-opener.
er and as for the other category, it seems, i dunno, a bit, er, not pointless but i just don't know, to finger a political figure from a country that ain't either a democracy or currently free from turmoil/etc. ('nuff respect to Sufi for their answer above) so i'll go with another Yank for the hell of it.
incoming Oklahoma senator Tom Coburn.
he's the chap who quite charmingly advocates capital punishment for abortion physicians [i'm not a huge fan of the other Okie senator, another Republican called James Inhofe, not least for some fairly dumb things he's said re. the Abu Ghraib scandal].
i suppose slagging off right-wing American senators from the Bible-Belt is too easy and showcases my snobbery but heck...