New at Reason

December 22, 2006

The hell with Time magazine.  Notable personalities and reason staffers offer their own choices for man/person/object/idea of the year, 2006.

Comments

|12.22.06 @ 2:17PM|#

"since the magazine is being criticized left and right by people who think it's some sort of copout to honor a genuinely important story"

That's just the problem. It is a story, not a person. The internet is the person of the year. Maybe, instead of making the user driven internet into a person (by assuming that all of its readers have a computer), Time should have, you know, maybe just written a story about you tube and myspace?

Frankly, whoever "you" is, I think most of their work stinks.

Guy Montag|12.22.06 @ 2:23PM|#

As Time Person of the Year 2006 I condemn your baseless attacks on my award ;)

:-|12.22.06 @ 2:26PM|#

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. They speak truth to power at significant risk

Comedy is...risky? Certainly so in North Korea. Not so much in New York City.

Franklin Harris|12.22.06 @ 2:27PM|#

I'm siding with Jesse, but then I'm the guy with a web site, half a dozen defunct blogs, one active blog, a MySpace page, a LiveJournal, a Vox page, and a Friendster page. I have a digital camera, a word procesor, and when I get a digital video camera, I will be the viceroy of all media.

|12.22.06 @ 2:28PM|#

Most of these are defensible choices, but craig's had me rolling my eyes. Significant risk of what, becoming billionaries?

Franklin Harris|12.22.06 @ 2:38PM|#

Jon Stewart's "jokes" are so obvious I don't even see how they qualify as comedy. Now, Colbert is funny, which is itself a miracle given that he parodies people who are already self-parodies.

Guy Montag|12.22.06 @ 2:39PM|#

In further comment, Penn Jillette's choice of Norman Borlaug is very good. I hope he gets it as an individual award next year, but I am happy to share it with him this year.

|12.22.06 @ 4:04PM|#

Since there is no cash for Time's "award", I ungraciously decline.

|12.22.06 @ 4:10PM|#

I have to agree with Messrs. Weigel and Dreher. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should be the hands-down choice. He seems to have had his picture on Drudge Report every single day this year.

|12.22.06 @ 4:23PM|#

I nominate Juanita!

|12.22.06 @ 4:34PM|#

(Me, I just want Dennis Miller and Jon Stewart working together. Their chemistry kicked ass when Miller showed up on the Daily Show.)

Thomas Paine\'s Goiter|12.22.06 @ 4:34PM|#

I'm going to go with either Milton Friedman, as Nick said, or Steve Irwin.

Friedman for everything that's already been mentioned.

Irwin, though mocked in every circle, was a conservationist without lying, a preservationist without hyperbole, and served to educate more children on zoology and biology than all of the middle school science teachers in this country put together.

|12.22.06 @ 4:37PM|#

I will be the viceroy of all media.

Now, help me out with how this goes. We've Howard Stern up top, then comes Franklin Harris, who acts as his official representative in cyberspace. Can I be, like, an archduke or something?

|12.22.06 @ 4:41PM|#

With all due respect to the FCC and the editors at TIME...
fuck you too.

|12.22.06 @ 4:46PM|#

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. They speak truth to power at significant risk
=========================================
Stewart has good timing but he's woefully predictable. Colbert, however, is a genius.

My uncle is from Georgia. I asked him if he liked Comedy Central. These are his exact words: "I really like Stephen Colbert, but that Jon Stewart's too liberal. Colbert's more conservative. I like that." When someone can ruthlessly mock the Fox News crowd and still retain them as loyal fans, said person is a comedic superstar.

G.O.D.|12.22.06 @ 5:31PM|#

"Nash, through his pass-first-ask-questions-later-but-also-score-at-will style of play, is as much a philosopher as a basketball player, someone who's continually redefining what it means to be "the man" on the court. In this, what will be his championship season, he's going to become as important to basketball, and therefore to world culture, as Michael Jordan was in his prime." -Neal Pollack

Comparing Steve Nash to Michael Jordan is like comparing Spam to prime rib. A goofy-looking Canadian white boy vs. a man who did things on the court nobody had ever seen before and dominated an entire league for years? Neal Pollack must smoke crack.

grylliade|12.22.06 @ 6:08PM|#

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. They speak truth to power at significant risk.

Damn, beaten to the punch! I mean, this is one of the stupidest things I've seen all year. Why is it that people like to pretend that we live in some tinpot dictatorship? If I had my way, Bush would be impeached, tried, removed from office, tried for treason, and hanged by the neck until dead. Above his head we could write Sic semper tyrranis. I think he's done that much damage to the republic. But that doesn't mean that anyone who speaks out against the administration is doing so at personal risk. Had the Republicans won Congress in a landslide this last election, maybe in ten years we'd get there. Maybe.

Jennifer|12.22.06 @ 6:12PM|#

If Craig Newmark is reading this, please tell us what Stewart and Colbert are risking. Seriously.

Thomas Paine\'s Goiter|12.22.06 @ 6:13PM|#

a man who did things on the court nobody had ever seen since Dr. J retired.

FYP

|12.22.06 @ 6:24PM|#

grylliade,

Agreed.

Also I have a question about that quote. What exactly does "speaking truth to power" mean? As far as I've been able to determine, the phrase was originated by the Quakers, to be able to define their belief that nonviolence is the only way to resolve a dispute.

However, it seems that the phrased is used (like Newmark did) to mean "saying things the establishment doesn't want to hear". Me no understand.

|12.22.06 @ 6:28PM|#

[clear throat, look into camera, engaging smile, sly wink to Halle Berry] Good evening ladies and gentleman. I'm not too big on speeches, so I'll try to keep this short. [pause for laughter] Being selected as Time's androgynous "Person of the Year" is a huge honor. [wait for applause] I wasn't expecting this award and I was quite surprised when a friend on the east coast, who had just picked up a copy of Time at a news stand, phoned at 4am to congratulate me. Thanks for the heads up, Mr. Letterman! [pause for laughter] I want to thank my mom for encouraging me all these years. I couldn't have done it without you. Thanks to my friends and co-workers who have always been there for me. Thanks to my adoring fans! [pause for exuberant cheering] Your slavish adoration has always inspired me to be an inspiration to you all! [more cheering] Thanks also to my dedicated stalkers for always keeping it real. Finally, I'd like to say to my ex-wife, "In your face, bitch!" [smile, wave to the crowd] There's a party on my yacht tonight and you're all invited! [impulsively kiss Heather Graham, exit stage right]

|12.22.06 @ 8:23PM|#

I agree with KMU that Kim Jong Il is the man (Whoops! So sorry, "person") of the year.

He is more of an immediate threat than Ahmadinejad. The president of Iran is still several years away from completing the development of a nuclear weapon that can be fired, while Jong Il may be nearing that point. Ahmadinejad's own citizens recently rejected his party in local and Council elections, seriously damaging his image at home and forcing him to work with other Iranian parties who have, at times, been harshly critical of him. North Korea, however, does not give its citizens any (real) vote.

Kim Jong Il has a key American ally just south of him. He can blast Seoul whenever he wants. And he could not care less about the welfare of his own people; if his country is bombed, he'll just duck and hide, then shrug off the losses of his own citizens. And if attacked, he'll have an excuse, in his own mind to lauch his weapons at Japan.

|12.23.06 @ 12:28AM|#

Person of the year: Copyright infringement.

|12.23.06 @ 11:06AM|#

Gaius Julius Caesar.

|12.23.06 @ 12:16PM|#

It is unfettered idiocy to assert that people who get paid to jabber on cable television are risking anything, not matter how critical they are of any politician. Hell, Michael Moore has made himself a gazillionaire by "speaking truth to power", which is quite likely the most, inane, insipid, phrase employed in regards to current American political culture. Note to Newmark: Solzhenitsyn spoke truth to power. Jon Stewart? Not so much.

Sheesh, there simply is no limit to the stupidity within American political punditry, is there?

|12.23.06 @ 2:44PM|#

Markos Moulitsas
Creator of the political blog The Daily Kos.

Al Gore. No person has drilled global warming -- one of the key challenges facing our planet in the coming decades -- into the public debate as effectively as Gore did this past year. If we are to avert what appears to be calamitous disaster, it will be because of Gore's work this year.

Oh, wow, I guess I'm an Episcopalian when it comes to Global Warming, but Kos and Al appear to be batshit crazy snakehandlers.

"[C]alamitous disaster", c'mon Markos, that's fucking crazy.

|12.23.06 @ 4:50PM|#

It is batshit, but whatever Gore did, it was probably better than "you" filming your buddy crash a skateboard into a parked car.

|12.23.06 @ 7:33PM|#

I dunno, Lamar, I've had some crazy buddies over the years and I'm sure that some of the shit they've pulled would make for some pretty good video. I don't know about skateboards and parked cars but cars, guns, alcohol,...well...you know. :)

Guy Montag|12.23.06 @ 11:39PM|#

Isaac Bartram,

Just curious, how often do you think that Episcopalians have Jews in the choir?

Yes, I understand your context from the post, just asking your opinion as a worldly sort.

|12.24.06 @ 12:19PM|#

Time missed an amazing opportunity. They should've made Muhammad the "Person of the Year". With the appropriate image on the cover. That single act would've restored Time's glory for a solid decade. Heck, the buzz alone on a Muhammad cover would've lasted at least six months.

How disappointing.

|12.25.06 @ 9:45PM|#

Guy, having read the articles, the impression that I get is that Ms Fairbanks likes church music in spite of being Jewish. Further I suspect that the Music Director Dr. Elliott is open to good singers regardless of religious affiliation.

One feature of Episcopalians I know is that they are rather open to difference, and I suspect Dr. Elliott is no different. In other words I suspect that St Paul's has no membership requirement to participation in the choir.

Hell, I know atheists who like church music. Indeed in one Italian town I stayed in some years ago the head of the local Communist Party sang in the local church choir and met a couple of times a week with his best friend the parish priest where they earnestly disputed the existence of God.

But then I know nothing of church music. I was a birthright Quaker.

Possibly this is not much different than a a Quaker in the Marine Band.

|12.25.06 @ 10:30PM|#

Isaac Bartram: Put me in the atheist/loves church music column (cantors too). Also, I've crashed a skateboard into a car, but since nobody was there to take the video, I don't think it actually happened!!

Merry Christmas, all. This is the only day of the year I will apologize for being an out and out dicktard (see generally Duke DA posts).