The Time 100 special issue is here again, and I find myself asking the same question as Joel Stein asked himself; how did this 100 people affect my life in the past year? Like him I am thinking of putting together my own list of 100 influential people for the past year. Perhaps I should just stick with the Time list, I barely know 100 people and I am thinking finding 100 people who influenced me in the last year would be difficult heck the last 30 years!I see Archbishop Peter Akinola made the list for his stance against ordaining gay bishops in the Episcopal Church in the US, Chen Guangcheng (whose whereabouts are currently unknown) for helping the women of Shandong province fight against the forced abortion and sterilization campaign against them, Mukhtaran Bibi for insisting on getting justice for the crime of violence and gender apartheid against women in Pakistan, Ian Fishback for whistle blowing (Coleen Rowley another famous whistle blower wrote about him), Jimmy Wales ‘Mr Wikipedia’, John Jones, for delivering the verdict in favour of Darwin in the Intelligent Design case, Jim Hansen and Al Gore, the ‘Weather Men’, as well as Jim Yong Kim for his work in trying to bring affordable treatment to AIDS victims in developing countries. Of course there are the usual suspects, George W Bush (guess what he is in there for), Bill Clinton (with Bush Snr) on the fund raising for Tsunami and Katrina victims, Bill Gates (with Mrs Gates) for giving back so much (they are currently providing a 3rd of the capital required to fund malaria research) I think this is really ‘big’ of them, considering that malaria is prevalent in the very places where they are being robbed blind (show me someone who buys original Microsoft products in Nigeria for example), Condoleeza Rice for reinvigorating US policy although her husbands’ (oops!) boss’ war in Iraq seems to be messing up the good job she has done. I was impressed to see that two bloggers also made the list, Arianna Huffington (huffingtonpost.com) and Matt Drudge (drudgereport.com). Among the contributors I was surprised to find Tom Cruise who wrote about J.J. Abrams. Like the Editor, I am wondering when he found the time to write it. I am thinking his inspiration came from the fact that like him the love of JJ’s life is named Katie.
Time 100 (2006 Edition)
Meet the Other 100 by Joel Stein
3 comments:
I always get frustrated reading Time's 100. Only a small handful of the people are ones I would have chosen. I mean Bush? Clinton? Bush Senior? How unoriginal.
I saw this issue and almost bought it, but didn't. I assumed that it would be the usual congratulatory and smug write-ups about many people who have really done nothing to deserve being in the list. But, hey, it's Time! What do you expect. I really hate it when quite unremarkable people are pushed in your face as the greatest thing since sliced bread, when there are far more deserving unsung heroes out there doing incredible work.
@everchange: I think some people on the Time list should do what Oprah did with respect to the Emmy's; remove themselves from the sampling pool.
@Ore: Shey? enough unsung heroes.
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