You were named Time magazine "Person of the Year" on Saturday for the explosive growth and influence of user-generated Internet content such as blogs, video-file sharing site YouTube and social network MySpace.I was skeptical when they called the American Soldier the Person of the Year in 2003--couldn't they find ONE soldier, a soldier with a name, as representative of our armed forces? What's that say about English soldiers? Are they somehow inferior to American soldiers? Seems cold hearted to me.
But come on! It's a PERSON of the year. Not a PEOPLE of the year. Singular. One person. Okay, I'll give them suck-up points for naming the American solider a person of the year, but I really must protest using YOU as a person of the year. It's not personal, but my blogs aren't getting much action, all things considered, and I've never uploaded anything to YouTube, and I never created an account on MySpace. Frankly, I'm not very good at being "you."
Some of you might be surprised that the person of the year is "the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse." For good or for ill. Yep, the runner ups this year include Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, China's President Hu Jintao, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
I like the idea of only nominating good people for this particular award--person of the year sounds like a title one should strive for, but we really don't want some people trying to get this illustrious honor. However, so long as "for good or for ill" is the criteria, I agree whole heartedly that Adolph Hitler was an excellent choice for 1938 (perhaps it would have been even better to use him as the Person of the Year in 1939 when WWII actually started--who won in 1939 anyhow?)
But am I the only person who thinks it's a strange contradiction to know that Adolph Hitler and the American soldier have won the same award? And now, every one of us--you who are reading this blog, and me who is writing it--have the honor of sharing an award with Adolph Hitler.
No thanks, I'll take a pass.