New 7 Wonders Of The World Contest

There is an excellent story at yahoo news today about an internet campaign to choose the “new” wonders of the world. It states that over 45 million people have already voted for the top seven out of twenty-one from which to choose.
I had never heard of this campaign but it sounds like fun and I am going to go vote as soon as I finish this post, and I encourage you to do the same. Even though it is a quick bit of fun, it is founded on serious events. Swiss filmmaker, curator, and traveler, Bernard Weber, begin this contest to raise global awareness of the world’s heritage after the destruction of the giant Buddha statues at Bamyan, Afghanistan, by the Taliban in 2001.
As of May 7, the top 10 were the Acropolis in Greece, the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza in Mexico, the Coliseum in Rome, the Eiffel tower in Paris, the Great Wall of China, the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu, Petra in Jordan, the statues on Easter Island, Britain's Stonehenge and the Taj Mahal in India.
The second tier of choices are the Angkor Wat temples in Cambodia, the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the Kiyomizu Temple in Japan, the Kremlin and Red Square, Neuschwanstein Castle in southern Germany, New York's Statue of Liberty, the statue of Christ the Redeemer overlooking Rio de Janeiro, Sydney Opera House and the ancient city of Timbuktu in Mali.
You would think that everyone would be onboard, but there are serious misgivings, by the Egyptians in particular, due to the “popularity” vote aspect instead of historical significance. There has been awarded “honorary” New 7 Wonders status given to the Pyramids so they will not be on the list to vote for as the Egyptians said there importance could not be put into question by such a publicity stunt contest. I think no matter what that this contest isn’t hurting anyone and if it brings awareness of the sites listed and to others not listed it can only be a good thing.
It was nice to see the Statue of Liberty as one of the choices, but I am sure that all of the sites listed are important as historical reference points. We receive too little history in school and I hope that school officials will read about this contest and get their children involved so they may appreciate our world history more then is currently the case.
I know that too a great many people history is boring and who needs to know about it, but I guess because I do like history I want others to enjoy it too. I think that we are better people when we know of how we got to this point in time. The other day in my rant on amnesty I let anger guide my words and was rightfully called on it by varsity blogger James Eaves-Johnson in his From Right 2 Left blog.
Part of being an American is knowing that we can be a great nation, but our past is full of pride, arrogance, atrocities, lots of blood, prejudice of other immigrants, races, religions, and cultures. We are in imperfect country that has on occasion risen above the evil of our past and did great good, such as defeating Nazi Germany and Japan, and championing the cause of freedom and democracy. We have had many failures as we saw with Vietnam, another war that should not have been fought, and we have done evil such helping Saddam remain in power when he was gassing his own people, because he was fighting our enemy Iran, and the contras in Nicaragua, etc. We need to be a little longer sighted when we decide to help or intervene, because invariably it sets in motion events that often turn around and bite us.
Anyway I think that anything that gets people thinking about history is good, so if you have a chance read the story and then perhaps you will want to vote as well. Thanks.

NEW 7 WONDERS