Influence Pandering

My high school psychology professor once asked the class to name most influential person of the modern era. His answer: Johannes Gutenberg. Yes, our world would be radically different without the invention of the printing press, and, according to Time magazine, without the soccer star Thierry Henry. That's right, it's that time of year again when Time magazine comes out with its list of 100 most influential people in the world and gets it completely wrong.

Not that I don't love Leonardo DiCaprio and Justin Timberlake, but the list does not include George W. Bush, the president of one of the most influential nations on earth who landed America in one of history's greatest military quagmires, Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad, the leader of Iran (who may very well inspire America's next use of force), Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela who nationalized the country's oil fields and is threatening to do the same to the banks, any of the Republican candidates for president (well, they might be right there), the guys from Google who pretty much control my universe, or Vladimir Putin, the man leading Russia into a spiral of tyranny and despotism.

Who did make the list you ask? Tina Fey, the creator of 30 Rock, opera singer Ann Netrebko, romance novelist Nora Roberts, fashion designer Alber Elbanz, whiny heart-throb John Mayer, and arbiter of chic Kate Moss. Wow.

The issue of who made the cut isn't the most disturbing part. The complete distortion of truth contained within the explanations is what really prompts ire. Time chose celebrities, not (all) real journalists, to profile the men and women most important in the world. As a result we end up with one-sided nonsense and shameless self-promotion. They let Donald Trump ramble on about the money he gave Wesley Autrey, New York's subway hero, and Barbara Walters shield herself from any post-Rosie fallout by ending her piece on O'Donnell with "Her mother would be proud," etc. Then we come to Naomi Wolf's piece on Tyra Banks, in which the writer claims the America's Next Top Model host as a feminist icon. How the mighty have fallen. The worst offense comes from Jack Canfield, author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. He profiled Rhonda Byrne, author of The Secret, a book that has sold four million copies in six months. As Salon.com pointed out it is "snake oil [that] unabashedly appropriates and mishmashes self-help clichés..." Doesn't sound too dangerous? The piece's author, Peter Birkenhead, also points out that in this age of AIDS the book purports that, "You cannot 'catch' anything unless you think you can, and thinking you can is inviting it to you with your thought." And in this age of huge economic imbalance, "The only reason any person does not have enough money is because they are blocking money from coming to them with their thoughts."

The only people that are brought to task are international figures who have no PR power on our shores. But then again, it doesn't take much courage to bash Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the Sudanese dictator aiding the genocide in Darfur.

There are some good and interesting choices in the issue: Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia; Amr Khaled, Egypt's Dr Phil; Svante Pääbo, who decoded fragments of DNA from remains of Neanderthals; and Pony Ma, the creator of QQ.

Despite all the flubs, it could have been worse: At least Time didn't attach Mylar to every page and insist we were the 100 most influential people of the year.