Time Person of the Year
We watched the CNN special tonight that went behind the scenes at Time magazine and documented the process by which they choose their annual "Person of the Year" award. Those who love to rail against the MSM will be pleased if not flattered by their decision, and no doubt many bloggers and other contributors of "user-generated content" (which should get awarded "Most Overused, Awful Buzz Word of the Year") will rejoice. Many will say it is 2.0 navel-gazing at its worst.
Detractors will have their own opinion on who it should have been if not all of Us, and Seattlest will throw our hat in the ring, focusing on one short moment of the CNN special that passed ever so quickly when Soledad O'Brien interviewed a panel of bloggers (Dooce was the only woman of the group). One of them guffawed at the thought of 2006 being the Year of Al Gore and Global Warming. "This is definitely not the year of Al Gore" he sputtered. A few sympathetic chuckles from others in the group, and they were off talking about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and nominating "the bad guys" for this year's pick.
We're not fawning Goreophiles but that moment just might come back to haunt us all. Like Barack Obama, according to that panel, Al Gore hasn't hit a mystical peak of significance and now-ness to justify ascending Time's yearly throne. Here at Seattlest, as we contemplate the hundreds of thousands of people still without power (and the surprisingly small number of casualties from this storm), we hope in a way that he never does, because if that peak comes we'll all be looking back at this moment and thinking "Huhn, Al Gore in 2006. Maybe we should have fucking listened."
