Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Everyone's doing it, so I'm doing a slightly modified version of saram's poll. I've also seen it on destrss, LexTalonis, and rebekah's pages. The only change I made is making each category five items. Some of the questions imply “grand” answers; I've tried to give a range when possible.

Five Figures That Shaped History

1. Jesus
2. Werner von Braun (ie. space travel, satellite technology, etc.)
3. Abraham Lincoln (his changes to the American nation are directly responsible for both its social problems, and every major world war afterwards)
4. Paddy Roy Bates (Pirate radio broadcaster who helped set the way for commercial radio, and the man who has singlehandedly kept the small country movement alive)
5. Matisse (Don't underestimate the impact that movements like Fauvism had)

Five Truly Inspirational Movies

1. Altered States
2. The Mosquito Coast
3. The Last Temptation of Christ
4. Gattaca
5. Birdy

Five Inventions Modern Society Couldn't Exist Without

1. Psychedelic Drugs (many early computer scientists give experimental drug use much of the credit for the radical chain of inventions that brought us to where we are now)
2. Non-representational democracy
3. Telecommunications technology
4. Store and retrieve media systems
5. Vegan Philosophy (vegan living is the only way we can support billions of people on this planet at a high standard of living)

Five Ground Breaking Musical Artists

1. Peter Gabriel
2. Mike Patton
3. Leon Theremin
4. David Bowie
5. Brian Eno

Five Devastating Events

1. The destruction of Aborigine culture (Which caused the loss of 30,000 years of coherent history, a history dating back at least 25,000 years earlier than any other culture. This is in my opinion one of the most profound losses we've ever faced as a race.)
2. The Mahabharata war (In which not only a similar amount of history was lost, but in which a level of science similar to our own 20th century science was lost, and the human race was set back 5,000 years)
3. The burning of the Mayan Libraries by Bishop De Landa (In which almost all history and science of South America, including records of the destruction of previous cultures, was lost)
4. The asteroid strike of 8000 BC (At which point we moved from being an advanced society back into pre-history)
5. The invention and popularization of monotheism

Five Books Everyone Should Read

1. The Good Life (by Scott Nearing, the definitive “back-to-the-land” book)
2. The Real Lincoln (the most history-shattering book an American can read, and impeccably well documented and researched)
3. Stupid White Men (radikal thinking made easy)
4. The Food Revolution (hard numbers making a case for responsible eating, without any moralizing)
5. The Bible (it defines the dominant culture of the planet)