50. Maimonides' 13 Principles of Jewish Faith--Put into poetic form as the "Yigdal" and the "Ani Maamin," this distillation of the Torah is found in a commentary on the Mishnah by Maimonides, who is also known as the author of The Guide for the Perplexed.
No.1: Belief in the existence of the Creator, be He Blessed, who is perfect in every manner of existence and is the Primary Cause of all that exists.
49. Friedrich List--You may think this is a joke entry, but it's not. . . at least not completely. If you think of mercantilism and Europe, you probably think of the French and men like Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Perhaps the first to take a scientific approach to political economy, he was a proponent of the German custom union, the Zollverein, which he helped design. The first man to serve as professor of economics at the University of Tübingen, this author of The National System of Political Economy was jailed in Germany and spent some time in exile in America due to his liberal politics. Opposed to classical economics, he saw political economy as lying within a framework of nations rather than within a single all-encompassing market.
No.1: n/a
48. Internet Top 100 SF/Fantasy List--A rare internet-only list, it is maintained by Tristom Cooke of the University of Adelaide and compiled with the help of voters.
No. 1: A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. Martin
47. Business Ethics' 100 Best Corporate Citizens--In the Enron Age, i's nice to see that some companies aren't totally full of crap.
No. 1 General Mills
46. SportsCenter's Plays of the Week--This staple of ESPN's mainstay program has helped turn sports highlights shows into short-attention-span theater.
No 1: This week? Some diving baseball catch, probably.
45. Harold Bloom's The Western Canon--Harold Bloom crafts a reasonable reading list of books, divided into the Theocratic, Aristocratic, Democratic, and Chaotic ages. Somehow, the Qu'ran and ancient Indian works like the Mahabharata are "western." Bloom wrote an entire book on the Western canon.
No 1: Chronologically speaking, probably the Epic of Gilgamesh.
44. Mr. Blackwell's Annual Best & Worst Dressed List--Born Richard Selzer, Mr. Blackwell has made a career out of trashing celebrity apparel for over 40 years.
No.1: Anna Nicole Smith (Worst of 2002)
43. The NPR 100--Lots of lists came out of Y2K madness. One of these lists was the NPR 100, a set of pieces about the 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century.
No.1: n/a
42. The FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives--A PR program originating with J. Edgar Hoover, almost 500 criminals have been featured and almost 95% of them have been apprehended. The list gave John Walsh a solid TV career with Fox's America's Most Wanted. The most recent man on the list to be caught is Eric Rudolph.
No. 1: The Ten Most Wanted list is not ranked, but I'm guessing Osama bin Laden is number one in the hearts and minds of most people.
41. The Seven Deadly Sins--Pride, Envy, Anger, Avarice, Sloth, Gluttony, and Lust. Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Spacey made them famous. Listed by Pope Gregory the Great in his Moralia in Job, they originally included sadness instead of sloth and reached their current formulation in the writings of Thomas Aquinas. They are contrasted with the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy (feeding the hungry, satisfying the thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, visiting the imprisoned, and burying the dead), the Spiritual Works of Mercy (teaching the ignorant, counseling the needy, chastising the sinful, comforting the sorrow, forgiving enemies, suffering tribulation, and praying fervently for all), or the Four Cardinal and Three Theological Virtues (wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance, as well as faith, hope, and charity).
No. 1: n/a, but lust and gluttony probably rank up there as the most fun
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