-> MEMBERSHIP SPECIAL
To read this article in Deutsch, Francaise, Italiano, Portuguese, Espanol, Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Russian, copy and paste the complete URL ("http://www.g21.net/bot02.html") and enter it in the box after you click through.
G21 WORLD HQ - During the waning hours of 2002, we polled our staff writers and the Mailing List Membership for nominees for our "Bottom Ten" list of individuals for the year. Much like Mr. Blackwell's famed "Worst Dressed" list, ours is a reverse listing; we are choosing the people the world could have done without last year.
What follows is a digest of List Member comments and our final choices, after extensive auditing, of the dregs of humanity last year.
Among the things that interested us about this exercise was that mostly politicians and business people were nominated. Very few "celebrities" received nominations -- exceptions being Michael Jackson, Eminem and Moby. The only (so-called) journalist nominated was Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly and radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, though people are supposed to be disgusted with journalists. With the exception of Rupert Murdoch, the media and its moguls went mostly ignored. NO automakers were nominated, either. MacDonald's, Coca Cola, General Electric and the Disney Company were never mentioned. Not a single oil company was mentioned. Their public relations strategies seem to be working. The leaders of Sierra Leone and Nigeria got off Scot-free.
Not a single attorney or physician was mentioned. Clarence Thomas was the only jurist to receive a nominaton. No governmental agencies in the US or elsewhere came under the opprobrium of our Mailing List Members or writers. That includes the IRS in America and the National Health Service in Britain.
No one mentioned e-mail spammers, Internet porn sites, evangelical Christian activistists, Jehovah Witnesses, or the Catholic Church. (Yours Unruly being the exception in the case of the latter.)
This is an indication to us that even among our supposedly clued-in and well-read Mailing List Membership, much of the response -- despite the country of origin -- is based on the Mouthpiece Media agenda. We found this a bit disappointing.
Some of the comments were witty, nonetheless, though we found the lack of international awareness a continuing downer. We'll hope for better next year.
(As you'll see from this digest of the responses, not all readers were on track with the concept.)
Let the Games begin!
1. George Dubya Bush - for his desperation to pay back big business before fund raising starts for his next term.
2. Tony Blair - Great Britain had a bulldog, now its a puppy dog.
3. Aerial Sharon - arrogant to the extreme, killing innocent people is part of the power game.
4. Saddam Hussein - staying in power at whatever cost is paramount.
5. All the crooked CEO's of big business - a spell in jail will give them time to contemplate their greed.
6. The advertising agencies - that continue to insult our intelligence.
7. The New Years honours lists - that recognise political hacks, public servants and overpaid business people.
8. Bleating and whining beneficiaries who continually expect hand outs instead of hand ups.
9. The Politically Correct liberal academics who have never had a dollar of their own at risk.
10. Terrorists who hide behind religion as the justification for their actions.
Have a great day.
Cheers,
ONE MAILING LIST MEMBER SENT US THE LINK TO THE 13th Annual Sour Orange Awards in the St. Petersburg Times. "Hey! No fair! Send us your own ideas. " We might change the rules next year, but for now we only want your nominees.
Well, one of the nominees for bottom ten in income for 2002 (outside of the
hills and hollars of West Virginia, that is)... should be Mr. Rod Amis.
ROD RESPONDS: Darhl, this was not about income, Baby, this was about dirty deeds. If we had to go on income, I'm sure I'd be running close with a lottah folks down here in Nawlins. There are more poor people here than in Beirut.
As you can see from this sampling of our Mailing List Members' responses, a pattern was starting to develop that was easy to follow. When we did the final tally of reader responses the Mailing List Version of the "Bottom Ten" came out like this:
10 - Al Queda
That's how the readership poll came out. Next, you'll get the opinions of the G21 Staff. It may surprise you, because even though we feel our writers are in tune with our readership, there were divergent opinions at the end of the day -- including my own. One example of where readers and G21 Staff disagreed was Bill O'Reilly. Though the television commentator obviously p.o.'ed enough of our readership to make their lists, he didn't have the "heinous quotient", in the minds of those of us producing this magazine, to even qualify. What follows is a sampling of some of the writer responses, mine, and our "official" BOTTOM TEN LIST FOR 2002.
Honorable mention to anyone who failed to hire you, Rod, in 2002.
GAYNOR PAYNTER, our new writer from SOUTH AFRICA, made these choices:
Okay, nominee number one: Robert Mugabe.
Surely by now the world should know that persecution of a particular race
just does not work?
Number two: Michael Jackson. The last time I looked it wasn't a good idea to dangle little babies over balconies.
Have a fab 2003!
And the last sample is from STUART ALTMAN who works on our RDR column:
1. saddamn hussein (easy one)
What did The Voice from Mt. Olympus have to say? Well, it was a year when I felt I had too many choices. Here's why:
My blood boiled during 2002. On my "short list" of things that made me angry were
In other words, during our little editorial conferences about this list, the Publisher's short list was well over ten nominees. So we thrashed it out.
Herewith the "official" G21 BOTTOM TEN LIST FOR 2002:
10 - TRENT LOTT - He was a late starter, but between our readership and our writers, we had to agree that the former Senate Majority Leader deserved a spot on this list. Jocular support for the forces of hate and bigotry are never acceptable. Great toast, pal!
THE WORST PERSON AROUND TODAY IS ARIEL SHARON. If ever there was a so-called leader who was pursuing a policy counter-productive to his own people, doctrinaire in the extreme, and hell-bent on drawing other nations into a conflagration they would rue for generations, Sharon is that leader. Like Rumsfeld and other people from a bygone and best-forgotten era, Mr. Sharon is pursuing a policy that the world is best without. He is the other side of the Kim Jong Il coin. And he already has nukes. You want to make a case for "regime change?"
One of the first people to write in with "Bottom Ten" nominees was BILL H., of an unspecified city in the USA. He wrote:
Ariel Sharon
George Bush
Donald Rumsfeld
Richard Perle
Benjamin Netanyahu
Bill O'Reilly
Rush Limbaugh
Tom DeLay
Kim Jong Il
Saddam HusseinHILARIA L., Guerrero, MEXICO, sent us this list of nominees:
Dick Cheney
Donald Rumsfeld
Richard Perle
Paul Wolfawitz
Joe Liebermann
John McCain
Tony Blair
Alan Greenspan
Ariel Sharon
BeezelbubWe got a special kick out of this list from LOU H-S, of Christchurch, NEW ZEALAND:
Good Morning Rod,
From a sunny Christchurch in New Zealand.
LouHere's what our pal, DARHL S., of Tamba Bay, FL., USA had to say:
RIC W., of Austin, TX, USA is a guy who has often disagreed with prior versions of the "Bottom Ten". Thus we were surprised when he sent us this list:
10. The CEOs of America:--When everything isn't enough
9. The thugs in al Qaeda--Cowardly adversaries for the coward Bush, a perfect foil
8. The Saudi Family--We're your friends, honest
7. Sharon--That didn't work, let's do it again
6. Putin--Gas 'em all, let the ghost of Stalin sort 'em out
5. John Major--A Ditto Head with a nice tailor
4. The American electorate who didn't vote
3. Gephardt and the Democratic bumblers who think Republican Lite will sell better than Republican Bully
2. Karl Rove and the rest of the cynically manipulative fear mongers of the Bush League
1. George W (as in Why be a Statesman when you can Terrorize with God on your Side) Bush
EDITOR'S NOTE: Our auditors could not determine whether Ric W. was mistyping John Major, the former British Prime Minister for Tony Blair, the current. So we decided that Blair lucked out in this poll.
CYBER FISH WRAP
AMERICAN DREAMS
G21 AFRICA
G21 ASIA
G21 BOTTOM TEN OF 2002
G21 BARNES & NOBLE BOOKSTORE
G21 Digital Internet Postcards
JOIN OUR MAILING LIST. You'll be glad you did. Surveys that affect our look and feel and much more. Be part of the In-Crowd!
GLOBAL*BEAT
HOT LINKS
IRISH EYES
LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA
MY GLASS HOUSE
NEW YORK STATE
POWERSSOUND
RADIOACTIVE
RDR
THE SEX COLUMN
TABLOID HART
VICTORIA'S SECRETS
VOX POPULI
RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT ARCHIVES.
LAST WEEK's EDITION
MEET THE G-CREW! These are the people behind this jam-band every week.
HOME
TABLE OF CONTENTS & BACK ISSUESLESZEK M. of an unspecified USA city was short and not-so-sweet:
"MARDAM" of an unspecified city in SOUTH AFRICA was equally terse:
Meanwhile, JEFF W., of Columbus, OH, USA, told us this:
My Bottom Ten:
1. Clarence Thomas
2. Osama bin Laden
3. Dick Cheney
4. Saddam Hussein
5. The Republican Party
6. Robert Johnson, CEO of Black Entertainment Television
7. Ariel Sharon
8. Bill O' Reilly
9. Sen. Joe Lieberman
10. Ann Coulter
9 - Richard Perle
8 - Bill O'Reilly
7 - Donald Rumsfeld
6 - Dick Cheney
5 - Joseph Liebermann
4 - Tony Blair
3 - Saddam Hussein
Second Runner-up for Lowest Person on the Planet - George W. Bush
LOWEST PERSON ON THE PLANET: Ariel Sharon
G21 STAFF PICKS (A Sample)
DAN VANDEMORTEL, who writes for our IRISH EYES column made these choices:
George W.
John Ashcroft
Henry Kissinger
Osama bin Laden
Ruppert Murdoch
Trent Lott
Troy Glaus
Dick Cheney
Tom Ridge
Donald Rumsfeld
2. Trent Lott(worst speech -- would hate to see him give the best man toast at wedding)
3. Al Gore(worst decision to just give up, when you at least won the popular vote give it another shot)
4. Yassar Arafat(Worst leader in the world and it's a shame the Palestinians have to pay for it)
9 - THE SAUDI ROYAL FAMILY - As Tom Hart notes in his column this week, these people are clearly NOT on our side. That His Fraudulency wants to pretend otherwise is a national scandal.
8 - ROBERT MUGABE - Here was a very clear divergence between our readers and our writers. We feel very strongly here about anyone who promotes hate, no matter what their skin-color or background. Mugabe is a criminal against humanity as far as we're concerned, right up there with Botha and Milosevic.
7 - KIM JONG IL - Sorry, folks, but again we took the international perspective. Playing around with nukes is not our idea of making the world a better place. This dictator is far more of a threat to world peace in the minds of the G21 staff than Saddam could ever be. U.S. policy regarding North Korea is misguided and wrong.
6 - RICHARD PERLE - This man should have been jailed during the Reagan administration and now he is back as part of the War Party in Washington. The Republicans never seem to learn from their mistakes.
5 - TIE DUE TO IDENTICAL HEINOUSNESS: JOHN RIGAS, KEN LAY, JEFF SKILLING, DENNIS KOWSLOWSKI, BERNIE EBBERS, MARTHA STEWART, SCOTT SULLIVAN, ANDREW FASTOW, SAM WAKSAL, ET ALIA - Every one of these people should be in jail, along with their country club cronies. You know it and we know it.
4 - OSAMA BIN LADEN - IF this man is still alive, which we have doubts about here, despite the evidence to the contrary, it's a shame and a danger to humanity. His religious orthodoxy and fanatism are a serious threat to world peace and international stability.
3 - DICK CHENEY - Talk about your Great Satans! Why is this man more protected than the putative President of the United States? You can look everywhere from Yugoslavia to Afghanistan and our current war plans in Iraq and see the legacy he means to leave this world. He beat the GAO, he dodged the fact that Halliburton is one of the corporations that dodge US taxes by doing an "offshore" and he's "a heartbeat away" from having his finger on the nuclear trigger.
SECOND RUNNER UP: This was a tough choice for us. We looked at reader tallies and our own lists, but we had to decide that GEORGE W. BUSH was not the worst of the worst, though he's damned close. He stole the Presidency of the United States and is working diligently to turn back the clock on Constitutional protections and the international balance of power. But he's JUST A PUPPET. He's a born-again Christian former frat boy whose brain is so addled by his cocaine partying days that he can't even produce a sentence in coherent English any longer. That makes him one of the most dangerous men on the planet, in our view. Sadly, most of the American electorate hide their heads in the sand when facing that issue. George W. Bush is close to being the largest threat to future generations this nation has ever produced. But he's not yet the worst of the worst.
+++ check out our VOX POPULI PAGE for more reader comments +++ G21 BOTTOM 10 OF 2003 +++
via e-mail.