2006 Top 100 Influential

Every year Time magazine puts out a list of what it thinks are the top 100 people, who through their talent or moral examples are supposedly transforming the world. I was looking at the list today and thought I would share some of it with you. There are names I don't recognize ,names I dispute as being deserving and names I think are in fact among a list of top 100. The list of names are grouped into five categories, which I list below along with a few of the names from each.
1) Arts and Entertainers- These are people who supposedly have fans all over the world and who have spawned others t imitate them. Among those on the list are: The Dixie Chicks (No doubt they made it because of their controversial concert pretest against George Bush last fall), Ang Lee (The director of homosexual film 'Brokehart Mountain'), Nicholas Ghesquiere (The latest hot fashion designer in the changing of the guard of designers), Rain..who's real name is Ji Hoon Jung (A Korean pop star on the list, showing that not all pop music is western), Renzo Piano (the Italian engineer who is bringing creativity to modern building designs), Tyra Banks (The Queen of mean models who has saddled the world with another awful "reality" show..'America's Next Top Model'), Meryl Streep and George Clooney (Well, there has to be a few overexposed actors and actresses on the list)
2) Scientists and Thinkers- These are far more important to the safety and prosperity of the world, since they come up with the big ideas of the age. So it's nice to see there were almost as many name here as on the former category. Among the names are: Mike Brown ( The Cal Tech astronomer who discovers terrestrial bodies. He discovered the "new planet" this year, called Xena), Kelly Bromwell ( The Yale based director of a center that wants to fight obesity in America. Don't give this guy a donut as a reward for those efforts), Richard Davidson ( In his Wisconsin lab he is studying the concept of brian imaging on behavior to find a way the human brain can actually shut off and control disease) Ma Jun ( Alas! The list isn't entirely American. This environmentalist from Beijing wrote a book called "China's World Crisis", a call to arms to stop the Chinese government's disregard for environmental degradation), Jimmy Wales (The lone wolf, non expert American entrepreneur who founded Wilkopoedia.org, that on line encyclopedia that is edited continually by experts for far better accuracy than the usual encyclopedia)
3) Leaders and Revolutionaries. This is the fun category- dictators, democrats, religious leaders, even a TV host all rolled into one. They often change the world by their influence and often enough, not for the better. Among those selected for this category were: Mugtada al-Sadr (The lunatic Iraqi Shi'ite leader who's idea of brotherhood seems to be murder and lies), Hugo Chavez ( Venezuelan dictator and controller of the largest oil reserve sin the west. He is emerging as the leader of Latin America and a menace to George Bush), George Bush (sigh...I knew he would be on the list), Mahoud Ahmadinejad (fanatical Iranian leader moving his theocratic third world nation to nuclear capability. A pleasant thought, huh?), Ayman al-Zawahir (The requisite mass murdering, religious nut who has taken the role as the leader of al-Quida), Wen Jiabao (China's practical Premier who knows technology trumps political doctrine any day) Bill Gates (Like Bush, they had to put him on it. Are you as tired of Bill Gates as I am?), Ismail Haniya (The Hamas leader elected as head of Palestine. Is he leading the region into war?), Junichiro Koizumi (The smooth Japanese Prime Minister that everyone seems to like and find interesting)
4. Heroes and Pioneers- These are people form all fields of occupation who allegedly move people to do the right thing. Among these idealist people are: Wynton Marsalis ( I had to include him because he is from my own New Orleans. Marsalis is the world's greatest jazz trumpeter, but has been noted even more lately for trying to save his city following Hurricane Katrina's destruction), Angelina Jolie (I am not kidding. This air head actress is on the list because of her well publicized efforts to bring attention to poverty in Africa. Well....he does help her career with the free pub from it all), Elie Weisel (the, author teacher, activist humanitarian survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp who shakes the world's consciousness and conscience about the evil all around us), Jan Egeland (The European guy who showed the world the holocaust in Darfur and shamed the governments of rich industrial nations into sending more financial relief after the 2004 Tsunami), Chen Guangcheng (The blind Chinese activist who risked his own life to stop the forced sterilization policy by leaders in Shandong against thousands of Chinese villagers who were deemed ineligible to bear another child under the Chinese family planning policy), Wafa Sultan (The writer activist who is fighting for the rights of Muslim women and the death of the fundamentalist islamic movement that she sees as a "clash between the mentality of the twenty-first century and the Middle Ages),
5) Builders and Titans- These are the movers and shaker of the business world. Included on the Time list are: Vikram Akula (She is using advanced technology-smart cards- to make venture capital available to more than 800 million people in India who live on less than $2 a day), Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe ( The founders of the controversial myspace.com social network, Huang Guangyu The richest man in China, he's done it by beating rival on price and by expanding rapidly. It is said that "as Huang goes, so goes China"), Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum ( Dubai's ruler who is a rare example of Islamic reason in a world of Islamic hatred and intolerance. His honest and reasonable business enterprises are shaping Dubai as an example that Islamic states can be "normal" ones).
Ok, after taking a look at the list I have compiled, and these are some of the more recognizable names on it, do these people really matter to you? Probably not, at least directly. But there is an indirect effect on all of us, on our society. And if Time would have made a realistic list of people who really matter to us, it would have been too anonymous to be interesting. Why would anyone want to read about the street vendor who sells the best chicken or the plumber who fixed my sink?
Yes, they would be important to me, but not interesting to a reader. So I guess the list is more symbolic or representative of the society at large, than it is a list of direct influence on each of us. What do you think about all of this? Do you have a list of your own? Uh....If you need to know how to spell my name I ca....never mind.