Celebrating Human Excellence

If you get the opportunity to watch historian/documentarian Ken Burns deliver a lecture on the National Parks, or anything else for that matter, I urge you to seize it. I had the pleasure of being one of a couple of thousand attendees at his talk yesterday in Santa Barbara, CA, and I wasn’t the only one who had tears in his eyes listening to Burns’ magnificent insight into what it means to be an American, and, more to the point what it means to be fully human. 

This may sound stupid, but I often wonder whom I’d nominate for the task of introducing the human race to the leader of an alien civilization.  This would need to be someone who represents the very best of who we are, in terms of intelligence and compassion. Burns is in my top five, to be sure.

Of course, Ken Burns isn’t the only celebrity who has accomplished something to advance humankind.  Leonardo DiCaprio has done a yeoman’s job promoting environmental sustainability in the face of climate change.  Linked here is the trailer of his film on the subject.