What a Wonderful World

Here in David Amulet’s world, we love lists. And, apparently, we are not the only ones.

The world just can’t get enough of rankings and compilings.

In the past few weeks I’ve seen lists of the best movies of all time, the most important books of the last century, the most spiteful things to do to your landlord, and the worst things to say under your breath to your wife.

That last one is just mine. You don’t want me to share, trust me.

But one new list in particular has caught me eye. This weekend, we got yet another ranking of the world’s seven most something; this time, it’s the globe’s most amazing human-built structures:

• The Great Wall of China
• Petra in Jordan
• The “Christ the Redeemer” statue in Brazil
• Machu Picchu in Peru
• The Chichen Itza pyramid
• The Colosseum in Rome
• The Taj Mahal in India

Like any good list, this one generated some controversy.

The Egyptians seethe because the ancient pyramids inexplicably didn’t make the cut. Surely the absence of any Athenian sites angers the Greeks.

This time, however, critics cannot blame a panel of architects or egg-headed professors for the results. These results followed a very democratic process, which drew more than 90 million votes online, split among 21 sites.

Maybe that’s the problem.

If there is going to be a worldwide poll, it needs better publicity than this one. I only heard about it after the voting had closed. If this were a fully representative survey of world opinion, I think we’d have to include the following structures:

• The Egyptian Pyramids, the world’s most recognizable structure
• The International Space Station, the world’s largest space creation
• The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the world’s most tempting climbing target
• The Washington Monument, the world’s most blatant phallic symbol
• Jessica Alba, the world’s most beautiful structure