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Now available for preorder:
The San Francisco Panorama
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M O R E
H I S T O R Y ' S
N O T A B L E   P E R S O N S
R E C O N S I D E R E D .


BY TIM CARVELL


[Read about previous notable persons reconsidered. Also, browse the archive of notable persons.]

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SOLOMON

Sure, everybody brings up the baby-slicing as the prime example of the wisdom of Solomon. But what nobody ever mentions was that that was his solution to everything. Contract dispute? Divorce proceeding? Jaywalking arrest? Hey, let's cut this baby in half and see if that settles things! Solomon was kind of a nut.

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JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

"Hell is other people," Jean-Paul Sartre once observed, which marked the last time anyone threw the ungrateful bastard a surprise party.

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CUBA GOODING, JR.

Cuba Gooding, Jr. has, presumably, sometime in the past few years, declined to appear in something. Which means that, somewhere in Los Angeles, there is a screenwriter whose script was deemed "not good enough for Cuba Gooding, Jr." That's got to hurt.

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ART GARFUNKEL

Art Garfunkel seems like the kind of a person who'd Google himself compulsively, which means that, sooner or later, he's going to find this item. If I'm right: Hi, Art Garfunkel!

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PIERRE DE FERMAT

For three and a half centuries, Pierre de Fermat has captivated mathematicians with a single sentence: "I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain." Many people think that this proves Fermat was a brilliant mathematician. I would argue that it proves he was a brilliant self-promoter. Furthermore, I have a truly remarkable cure for world hunger, which this page is too small to contain.

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ALBERT CAMUS

Albert Camus famously stated that "there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn". Of course, he's dead now, which seems like a pretty resounding counterargument to that theory.

 

 

OTHER McSWEENEY'S STORIES:
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Rounder Characters in No Time Flat By John Warner
Puns About Death Are Unavoidable: An Interview with Janet Waters on the Stealing of Deeds to her Burial Plots Last Winter By Chris Waters
Unused Audio Commentary By Dinesh D'Souza and Ann Coulter, Recorded Spring 2003, for Aliens Special Red-State Edition DVD, Part Two By Jeff Alexander and Tom Bissell
Unused Audio Commentary By Dinesh D'Souza and Ann Coulter, Recorded Spring 2003, for Aliens Special Red-State Edition DVD, Part One By Jeff Alexander and Tom Bissell

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