The good folks at TIME magazine are at it again with their list of nominees for person of the year (and once again showing us how myopic the American press can be... No African contender). There are only two forerunners in my book for the award: Musician Lady Gaga and recently arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a.k.a whistleblower of the year and my personal hero for 2010. Among the other 25 nominees is Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, head of the proposed Cordoba House a.k.a the Islamic center a.k.a the mosque that Muslims build at the site of their conquest (or a few blocks away from it)… the last part was sarcasm. There’s former Alaskan governor- you bet’cha -Sarah Palin. Just for fun, I’d like to say as a “peaceful Muslim” I “refudiate” her nomination. Hehehehe! Of course there’s America’s chocolate savior superman, Barack Obama. Will there ever be a year during his presidency, when he doesn’t make the list?
There are some questionable nominees like ‘the unemployed American’. Well excuse me TIME, as an African who’s lived here in Nigeria long enough I can tell you ‘the unemployed African’ has been our person of the year for quite some time now, so we’re not crying over yours. Also included are villains (by American standards of course), Chinese President Hu Juntao and Tony Haywood (a villain by any standard) of BP oil spill… and they still couldn’t put Robert Mugabe… not one African. Iranian president Ahmedinajed and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez were pardoned from this year’s list… as was any African.
Other nominees include Mark Zuckerberg, founder of facebook, who has a movie- albeit one he doesn’t like, but a good one –based on his creation titled, The Social Network. There are names I never heard of or did and forgot who they were like Liu Xiaobo (he’s the guy causing trouble for the Chinese Government, kind of like how Assange is pissing the world off), J. Craig Venter (some crack scientist), Jonathan Franzen (the great American novelist, who’s great American novels I’ve never read) and a bunch of others. Still in the weird nominee category are the 33 Chilean miners who got nominated for… well being stuck in a mine, but perhaps the most undeserving is LeBron James. SERIOUSLY? For making a decision on TV? We’re not talking Michael Jordan here. LeBron made the list and no African did (LeBron being Black doesn’t count)? Still in the weird category, speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made the list. For what? I don’t live in the States, but did she really pass a bill that made America or the world better? This is the Congresswoman quoted for saying, “We have to pass the bill so that you can, uh, find out what it is?” WOW! She sounds like she belongs in the Nigerian House of Assembly. Glenn Beck’s only real achievement might be making Bill O’Reilly look meek.
So who should’ve made the list, but didn’t? Judeo Mayor Michael Bloomberg who stood up for the Cordoba House, while the Christeo-Muslim president flip-flopped on the issue. (See what I just did there? I’M A GENUIUS. In order not to irk any fanatical Jew or Muslim, I’ll save the term Judeo-Muslim for another day.) For all her good work (depending which Korea you ask) Hillary Clinton didn’t make the list.
And now to the main issue at hand: who should win? I’ll tell you who I think should win, screw the TIME panel. Lady Gaga. Why? Line up a picture of all the nominated contestants and ask a 9 year old with Cable TV who they know/who’s more popular? Ra-ra-ra-ra-ra!
