Commenters were mostly favoring the alleged tax cheat over the cool person, with all the arguments turning on Capone’s career as a mobster:
Brian: “Big Al is still buried somewhere under Giants Stadium. Gotta go with Capone here.”
Chipmunk: “Does anyone have to ask if Capone would be more interesting than Winkler? Zed’s dead baby, but resurrection is a thing.”
Ben: “Given the discussion in the Xiao-Li post a couple days ago (do the extra words help reader or no?), and then the Google post (let’s just drop everything but a few keywords), I think Al is a slam dunk. The idea is that mobster talk is always trying to come at a point sideways without actually saying the thing, so we would maximize decoration and minimize content. So it’s sort of the opposite, and that’s fun. ‘What was the population of the United States in 1860?’ -> ‘Say Lincoln comes to me and says, “I want to buy a hat for everyone”, how many hats would that be?'”
Extra credit to me for reformatting the quotation marks to quote Ben’s comments, thus going to the elusive 3-quotes-deep level which we associate with Joseph Conrad and not anybody else.
Anyway, yeah, all these mobster things are interesting, but . . . (1) they’re basically variants of the “mobsters are cool” argument, but Winkler’s already in the “Cool people” category, and (2) Winkler may not himself be a mobster, but he hangs out with Chechen gangsters which is close enough. So I’ll have to go with the Fonz, despite Raghu’s report that he is no longer a culture hero to modern youth.
Today’s matchup
Jane Fonda is listed as the fourth seed in the Traitors category. Just to be clear: this is a joke. Jane Fonda is not really a traitor. She expressed her right as a resident of a free country to dissent from its government’s policies.
Roald Dahl is unseeded in the Children’s book authors category. Our local expert thought this was a scandal that Dahl was not seeded, but look at who got the top seeds in that category and you’ll see it was a tough call. Dahl was brilliant but no way would I rank him above Beverly Cleary, for example. But that’s as a writer. Here we’re talking seminar speakers.
Other relevant information: Dahl was a fighter pilot and intelligence officer, not a traitor at all. From the other side, Fonda wrote Jane Fonda’s Workout Book, unfortunately for adults, not kids.
As with so much in life, I think the concept of ‘Traitor’ is best understood as a matter of degree rather than either/or. Speaking out against the war in Vietnam, and imploring U.S. soldiers to stop fighting, is hardly traitorous at all, maybe 0.05 on a scale from 0 to 1. And one can certainly argue that it’s justified, or more than justified, by other considerations. I would make that argument myself. But going to North Vietnam and sitting on an antiaircraft gun and telling the North Vietnamese that the Americans are in the wrong…that’s pretty traitorous. Aid and comfort to the enemy. I’m not saying it was wrong, necessarily — the U.S. was napalming children, for crying out loud — but…well, in the language people use today, or anyway used two or three years ago, if it wasn’t traitorous it was “traitorous-adjacent.” So I think Hanoi Jane can be in this category even non-jokingly.
Dahl…shouldn’t we be canceling him? His Wikipedia page says “Dahl and his work have been criticised for racial stereotypes, misogyny and anti-semitism, the latter contradicted by those who knew him.” Funny that those who knew him contradicted the anti-semitism bit, but not the misogyny or the racial stereotypes. But man, what a page he has. Check this out: “At age eight, he and four of his friends were caned by the headmaster after putting a dead mouse in a jar of gobstoppers at the local sweet shop, which was owned by a “mean and loathsome” old woman named Mrs Pratchett.” Very Dickensian. And then there’s this: “Throughout his childhood and adolescent years, Dahl spent the majority of his summer holidays with his mother’s family in Norway. He wrote about many happy memories from those visits in Boy: Tales of Childhood, such as when he replaced the tobacco in his half-sister’s fiancé’s pipe with goat droppings.”
I like Jane Fonda and I bet she would give a fascinating talk, so I was inclined to argue for her, but Dahl’s Wikipedia page is so great that I’m inclined to quote big chunks of it to support his candidacy. Indeed, I cannot resist so here’s one more:
[Dahl] and his fellow Hurricane pilots swept in [to attack a Vichy French airfield]:
. . . low over the field at midday we saw to our astonishment a bunch of girls in brightly coloured cotton dresses standing out by the planes with glasses in their hands having drinks with the French pilots, and I remember seeing bottles of wine standing on the wing of one of the planes as we went swooshing over. It was a Sunday morning and the Frenchmen were evidently entertaining their girlfriends and showing off their aircraft to them, which was a very French thing to do in the middle of a war at a front-line aerodrome. Every one of us held our fire on that first pass over the flying field and it was wonderfully comical to see the girls all dropping their wine glasses and galloping in their high heels for the door of the nearest building. We went round again, but this time we were no longer a surprise and they were ready for us with their ground defences, and I am afraid that our chivalry resulted in damage to several of our Hurricanes, including my own. But we destroyed five of their planes on the ground.
Having learned about Dahl’s fascinating life I think this one should be no contest, even though I think Fonda would be a worthy speaker. Really my only reservation is that Dahl might fill the coffee urn with something revolting. But we could post guards.
I agree with you on Dahl, but you need to be *really* careful what you serve at the seminar buffet, lest you find yourself an accessory to something-or-other: https://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/Alfred_Hitchcock_Presents_-_Lamb_to_the_Slaughter
Jane Fonda and Roald Dahl’s careers butted against each other exactly once, in the April 1974 issue of Playboy. The mag featured an interview with Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden, followed immediately by Roald Dahl’s short story “The Switcheroo”. But the highlight of the issue had to be the photo spread featuring Zero Mostel.
Shame Zero Mostel didn’t qualify for the competition. You’ve got people known by initials, but not people known by numerals. It’s not fair!
Gotta go with Dahl though. More from Wikipedia: “In August 1934 Dahl crossed the Atlantic on the RMS Nova Scotia and hiked through Newfoundland with the Public Schools Exploring Society.”
Dahl’s books are excellent (currently reading “George’s Marvellous Medicine” with our youngest), but I don’t want to hear him without an editor in between. “Racial stereotypes, misogyny and anti-semitism” — no thank you.
I would much rather hear from Dahl than Fonda.
Dahl was an amazing individual. I have read (cannot find the reference right now) that Ian Fleming modeled James Bond’s ability to charm women after that of Dahl’s. Dahl wrote the screenplay for the Bond movie You Only Live Twice,
Dahl met and worked with an amazing range of well-known people. Eleanor Roosevelt invited Dahl to White House dinners and to stay with them at Hyde Park. At this time Dahl was working for British intelligence. He ended up spending many weekends at Hyde Park.
Apparently, spurred by medical problems of his son and equipment failures, he put together and coordinated a team that developed a valve for drainage of head injuries. it was used about 3000 times before superior technology was developed. The team refused royalties and the device was basically sold at cost.
Dahl would have lots of material for a talk.
Bob76
I met Dahl once. He came to our elementary school. We were able to talk to him directly without an editor in between, if you can imagine that horror.
A joke vs. an unfairly unseeding (well, maybe)? Karma would seem to dictate Dahl is chosen, but I cannot help thinking that Jane Fonda is witty and brilliant enough to turn the tables and show that the joke is on us, if given the opportunity. I go with Fonda, but I would just ask her politely not to include workout videos in the slides.
Who wins the rules?
Rule of Cool: Fonda was in “9 to 5”, a decidedly uncool movie, however funny. Dahl was an ace fighter pilot.
Rule of Kill: Fonda tried to save lives by ending the Vietnam War. Dahl, once again, was an ace fighter pilot, which means he must have killed at least five people.
Rule of Law: Fonda was obviously a bit transgressive, you know how those actor types are. But Dahl was out there committing legitimate crimes as a child.
Rule of Three: Fonda had three husbands and three children. Dahl had only two wives and five children.
Rule of the road: Fonda was American, so she drove on the right side of the road. Dahl was British, so he drove on the wrong side of the road.