"Person of the Year" cover
(Dec.25, 2006 issue)
Clearly it's possible on many levels to disagree with Time's choice of "me" as "person of the Year." Here's Time's rationale for their decision.
"To be sure, there are individuals we could blame for the many painful and disturbing things that happened in 2006. The conflict in Iraq only got bloodier and more entrenched. A vicious skirmish erupted between Israel and Lebanon. A war dragged on in Sudan. A tin-pot dictator in North Korea got the bomb, and the president of Iran wants to go nuclear too. Meanwhile nobody fixed global warming, and Sony didn't make enough PlayStation3s.
"But look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men [sic]. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.
"The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It's not even the overhyped dotcom Web of the late 1990s. The new Web is a very different thing. It's a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it's really a revolution."
Although I'm not sure that "it's really a revolution," the web users is a very interesting choice. It seems to me that, although the potential is there, at this point web users - especially in politics - have had a far more negative than positive effect. It much easier to attack someone and knock them off their perch (Dan Rather, for example) than to build someone or something up and actually make positive change.
Time also selected 27 people (or pairs and groups) who they think "made a difference."
International figures such as, the Iraqi people and Muqtada al-Sadir, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Cuba's Raul Castro, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Germany's Angela Merkel, Korea's Kim Jung IL, and Pope Benedict XVI. (Why not, Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah and Israel's Ehud olmert or Chile's Michelle Bachelet?)
From the U.S. political scene, obviously the "Three Stooges" [my label] Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, the Democrats' "Gang of Four" [Time's label] the leaders Nancy Pelosi and Reid and the managers, Chuck Schumer and Rahm Emanuel, Al Gore, the Iraq Study Group, John Murtha, Condoleeza Rice (what has she done?), Superpastor Ted Haggard, chairman of the National Association of Evangelicals, Rep. Mark Foley and Jack Abramoff (all three of whom probably had more effect on the Democrat's victory than anyone in the party). But given Time's ultimate choice, what about Connecticut's Sen. Joe Lieberman and netroots supported challenger Ned Lamont?
Obviously show biz contributed its "difference" makers: Katie Curic (no Dan Rather? Curic would still be getting up every morning if it weren't for him), Stephen Colbert (I think Democracy Now's Amy Goodman or even Countdown's Keith Olberman has made more difference, Colbert is just an extended Daily Show [or SNL] sketch), Michael J. Fox, the cast of TV's Heroes, oddball Brit comic Sacha Baron Cohen (He made alot of money, but difference?) and from sports Roger Federer and Tiger Woods (What difference have they made?). From business the Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwartzman and Bill Ford and the grain farmer. And let us not forget Pluto, who was demoted.
Perhaps the most interesting choice is Mexican citizen Elvira Arellano, the undocumented worker who took refuge in a Chicago storefront church when threatened with deportation. With the brewing fight over immigration, she may actually be the real "Person of the Year." "She says she will not take her son back to a country she gave up for a better life; nor will she leave him to fend for himself in the U.S. 'It's wrong to split up families. I'm fighting for my son, not for myself. It's a matter of principle. I don't want him treated like garbage,' she says, adding, 'I am a mom and a worker. I am not a terrorist.'"
(Photo by MATTHEW GILSON FOR TIME)
There will always be bitching over choices like Time's "Person of the Year," but afterall I'm not a bad choice, my mom really would be proud.
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