What a wonderful world

Ever notice what happens when you place the word “new” in front of something? It loses a bit of its value, especially when judged against the “old” version. Like New Coke. Or The New Adventures of Superman. Or New Jersey.

Now we have the New Seven Wonders of the World. Chosen by Internet vote and worldwide text messaging — so you know it’s scientifically accurate — a private Swiss foundation has declared seven manmade sites as the planet’s new and updated “wonders.” If you haven’t seen the list yet, here it is:

1. Brazil’s Statue of Christ Redeemer

2. Peru’s Machu Picchu

3. Mexico’s Chichen Itza pyramid

4. The Great Wall of China

5. Jordan’s Petra

6. The Colosseum in Rome

7. India’s Taj Mahal.

And here are the “ancient wonders of the world,” as sanctioned by the Paris-based UNESCO:

1. The Great Pyramids of Egypt

2. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

3. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia

4. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in Asia Minor

5. The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus

6. The Colossus of Rhodes

7. The Pharos of Alexandria.

You will quickly notice a few points about these two lists. First, there’s no “Rice Terraces of Banaue” on the new “wonders” list, despite this being a text-messaging contest. The Philippines has missed a golden opportunity here! You could have shoehorned the rice terraces onto that list easily, with a little serious texting power. But strangely, the few Filipinos I mentioned it to had never even heard of the new list.

That’s possibly because… it’s bogus! Hey, even UNESCO can’t get behind this new list, saying it “is the result of a private initiative which cannot contribute in any significant or lasting way to the preservation of the elected sites.” Personally, I think the UNESCO is just jealous because Jennifer Lopez showed up at the “new world wonders” ceremony, and not theirs.

The second thing you will notice is that people don’t collect tons of photos of themselves standing in front of the Colossus of Rhodes or Hanging Gardens of Babylon. That’s because these sites are all in ruins! The only surviving “ancient wonders” are the Great Pyramids of Egypt — and so, naturally, these have been excluded from voting this time around. There is probably a good reason that a new world wonders list was desperately needed: people got tired of booking tours to Greece, bragging to their friends that they would “finally get to see the Statue of Zeus at Olympia” — only to come back bearing photos of dust and pebbles. Oh, yes: they do have those “artist’s renderings” of what the Statue of Zeus or the Mausoleum of Halitosis “might” have looked like. These drawings all look like they were rendered around the time Davey Crockett walked the earth. Do us a favor, UNESCO: hire some CGI people. Make with the Industrial Light and Magic.

But the new, improved list is no better. Included on the short list were other man-made wonders that didn’t quite make the final cut. They included Angkor Watt in Cambodia; the Alhambra in Granada; the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul; the Kiyomizu Temple in Japan; the Kremlin in Red Square, Moscow; New York’s Statue of Liberty; the Sydney Opera House; and Carmen Electra’s Breasts, among others.

We can see Angkor Watt being on there, but the Sydney Opera House? The Statue of Liberty? It must have been gratifying for China to finally get its Great Wall among the top seven, along with India’s Taj Mahal: after all, those have been longtime favorites. But of course, this says something about the whole “listing” culture we live in, and how it’s changed since the notion of “seven wonders of the world” cropped up around the time of Herodotus, back in 484 B.C. His list has not survived (though it reputedly did include Carmen Electra’s Breasts). However, one written up by the poet Antipater of Sidon, around 150 B.C., did. It’s the first mention of at least six of the seven “ancient wonders of the world” as glimpsed by man:

“I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the Colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, ‘Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand.’”

Sadly, his lengthy rhapsodizing over Carmen Electra’s Breasts has been lost to the pages of history.

Today’s tourists, in contrast, are spoiled rotten. They want their ancient sites to be perfectly restored and preserved. Immaculately clean, with rubble you could eat off of. We love boasting about the “world wonders” that we’ve checked off our lists (I myself have visited the Great Pyramids, the Colosseum in Rome and the Great Wall of China). But this “new list” — it’s kind of like comparing the “Seven Classic Rock Stars” to the “Seven New Stars,” which might look something like this:

“Old” list:

1.The Beatles

2. The Rolling Stones

3. Jimi Hendrix

4. The Who

5. Bob Dylan

6. Led Zeppelin

7. Pink Floyd

“New” list:

1. Kelly Clarkson

2. Clay Aiken

3. Ruben Studdard

4. Fantasia Barrino

5. Carrie Underwood

6. Taylor Hicks

7. Jordin Sparks

As you can see, “new” is not necessarily “improved.”