M.E. Thomas: Do I have heroes? Yeah, one of my heroes is Robert McNamara, who was Secretary of State during the Vietnam War. Among other things he was President of Ford for awhile, the film Fog of War is about him. He's a very interesting guy because, one of my favorite stories about him is during World War II, he basically pioneered the idea of using data in war. So he was looking at the effectiveness of bombing in Japan during World War II. And at the time the bombs, the bombers would fly high to avoid being shot down by other planes. And they would, they had very poor accuracy, and they'd drop these bombs and sometimes they'd hit their targets and sometimes they wouldn't.
So he was trying to think of a way to, be more efficient about bombing Japan. And he thought what we should be doing, Japan is largely made out of wooden and paper houses. What we should be doing is firebombing, so it doesn't really matter the accuracy, you just hit a target and then the fire will spread. And also have the bombers flying low and just dumping firebombs. So you have improved accuracy, but also improved effectiveness. So we went from typical bombing to fire bombing. Which most people think would be a horrible thing, right? Fire bombing is going to destroy, have more collateral damage, right? But it's going to be extremely effective. And particularly when you think about what we did at the end of the war with the Atomic Bomb, at that point it was just a question of, just try to win the war and win it as quickly as possible. We know that casualties are going to happen, but more casualties are going to happen the longer the war lasts.
So he's, he's a very interesting person because he seemed to be able to make efficient amoral, or even immoral choices, in some peoples minds. But to be able to put that aside for efficiency. And I, I really respect that ability to accept truth on it's own terms, and to not necessarily use ones emotions, or ones personal, you know political leanings, or even ones personal experience to color or taint or limit the realm of possibilities in solving a particular problem. He, I think, is one of the more influential and interesting people in American history that way.
Rob Kall: Any other heroes?
M.E. Thomas: I mean I, I like other people for really different reasons. I, I think that Bach, Johan Sebastian Bach is, you know, an amazing person and it's incredible that we still listen to him this many years after. And you could just listen to it forever all your life and still be able to get things out of it.
I think that Vladimir Nabokov, is such an incredible writer for the same reasons. Mondrian, the artist, so I, I really do like people, and I like art, and I like the world, I think it's an interesting place. It's just I think about things in a different sort of way.
Rob Kall: Okay. Yeah, no question. What do you think about Drew Peterson?
M.E. Thomas: Drew Peterson is he the guy that killed his wife Lacey Peterson?
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