We welcome the newest member of our staff, Woodrow ("Woody") Stockdick, who comes to us as our curmudgeon-at-large from somewhere far beyond the trivialities of Andy Rooney. We’re not sure how often Mr. Stockdick will be contributing to our efforts to make the world a saner, lovelier place. "Most days," he says, "I’m so enervated by the insanity I encounter I can’t even summon up the energy to open Word, much less get my fingers to function meaningfully on a keyboard."

For a while the Indonesians were in the running with the Petronas Towers, which look like nothing so much as a Buddhist temple that’s been Photoshopped to a fare-the-well. Then the Arab Emirates started checking in with some petro-dollar highrise fantasies of a faux-Miami-Beachness that even Frank Lloyd Wright never glimpsed in his worst nightmares. (Las Vegas gets off because, well, just because—I mean, tongue-in-cheek, no matter how big or how gaudy, doesn’t count.)

Leave it to the Chinese, who, whatever else they may’ve given us over the millennia, spent much of the 20th century elevating interior decoration to a level of kitsch not seen since the glory days of Acapulco. Now, having got prosperous enough that they can do exteriors—God help us—they’ve outdone themselves—and the rest of us—by erecting (and we do mean erecting) something called the Taipei 101 in the capital city of Taiwan.

At 1674 feet Taipei 101 is the tallest building in the world. Phallic qualities aside, such massive elongation cries out for an architectural celebration of arrogant verticality. Whatever you thought about the design of the World Trade Center, it at least had those simple, unashamed parallel lines reaching to the very heavens. And of course the Empire State Building with its soaring setbacks defined the visual essence of tall. Not to mention the soaring swoop upward of the Chrysler Building.

So what have the Chinese, reaching beyond Babel itself, done?

They’ve taken what should be a visually elevating shaft and 1) broken it in 8-story sections, 2) given each section a confusing INWARD slope so that the eye trying to look heavenward is constantly interrupted by SHELVES big enough for Godzilla to loll about on, 3) clad the whole thing in gloppy aquamarine reflective glass popular on your lower-level American banks of the 1960s, and 4) superglued on some—you guessed it—enormous decorative geegaws. Look out your 105th-floor window and what do you see? The world’s largest dribbly-wibbly.

The building’s promoters speak in reverential tones of a tribute to—you ready?—bamboo shoots. The more educated eye, grasping for meaning, thinks to see references to classical Chinese temple architecture but then realizes the whole thing is UPSIDE DOWN. The inescapable effect is of a gigantic, many-barbed spear flung into the earth.

One can only hope that what man hath put together, God—given the earthquakes and typhoons to which Taiwan is subject—will in his own good time put asunder. Barring that, perhaps our phallicly challenged suicidal Muslim friends may want to re-think their future targeting.