Time Magazine is pretty certain that books don't change the world.

Time Magazine likes to make arbitrary lists. I enjoy arbitrarily commenting on arbitrary lists. Here the two shall meet again.

Time has come out with their "Time 100"--the 100 (American-centric, popular right now) people who affect the world the most. Of the list, 25 slots are devoted to "Artists." Immediately, Time sees if you're paying attention by putting Lady Gaga as the #1 artist. And why not? It's always been known her humanitarian skills are second to none--in that she only sings occasionally, so as not to harm the delicate sensibilities of starving third world citizens.

Time includes Robert Pattinson, too. Nothing affects the good people of the world like the man who portrays a vampire in a novel for teenage girls. My goodness, that sort of cache is pope-like, it's impossible to deny. He has a doll in his likeness, too. Sure, so did He-Man and She-Ra, but you never saw them make Time's list, now did you?

Of the 25 (who hardly qualify as) "Artists," two people who write actual books made the list. This was probably an oversight on Time's part, but we'll give them their due. One of them, Chetan Bhagat, is a self-described banker who "can't get numbers out of [his] head." Put another way, he's a wordsmith. The other, Suzanne Collins, once wrote for Nickelodeon television, and now has a series of children's sci-fi books that I've never heard of because puberty has long passed me by.

So, as you can see, we lovers of the written word are setting the world on fire. A self-described banker/math junkie and a children's sci-fi author is as far as we get. Apparently Time is too high-brow to consider Paula Deen's cookbook as a literary masterpiece for 2010. Well, la-di-da. At this pace for writers, though, 2011 seems like a sure shot for Paula.