Person of the Year 2005

[pzarquon]

Well, TIME magazine has posted its list of finalists (http://www.time.com/time/personoftheyear/2005/walkup/) for its "Person of the Year." This isn't so much an award as it is the highlighting of 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."

They are Steve Jobs, Pope Benedict XVI, Bill and Melinda Gates, The Google Guys, J.K. Rowling, Rick Warren, Condoleezza Rice, Valerie Plame, Bono, Mother Nature, George W. Bush, and Lance Armstrong.

Out of that list, who'd be your pick? Who would you nominate besides these people? And... could there be a Hawaii Person of the Year?

[Pomai]

For Hawaii Person of the Year 2005, the top nominee would have to be
Michelle Wie.

Also in sports:
Layton Aliviado, head coach of the Ewa Beach Little League world champions. If I could nominate the entire team I would.

In entertainment:
Martin Denny, who passed away in Honolulu on March 2, 2005. He pioneered the "exotica" sound that helped bring national allure to Waikiki in the 50's and 60's.

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As for Time Magazine's list, I'm biased.
Steve Jobs is the man.
Mother Nature, more specifically
Ms. Katrina would have to take close second.

[scrivener]

Time really pissed me off in 2001 when it selected Rudy Giulliani as its person of the year. What a wimp-out. It should have been Osama Bin Laden, and I don't see how any argument for anyone else should even have been considered.

This year, I'm thinking it has to be either the President or Valerie Plame. Mother Nature would be a great pick, too.

Locally, I don't see how Martin Denny did anything this year that affected our lives, unless somehow his dying had some kind of impact. You'd either have to go with Michelle Wie, whom everyone was talking about all year long, or the State Legislature for passing the Gas Cap Law; true, the law was passed earlier, but it was this year that we got to see it in action.

[Pua'i Mana'o]

Time ...Mother Nature would be a great pick, too.
.

Now I would have argued for MN in 2004. There were more hurricanes in the gulf and the tidal waves nailing through the Indian Ocean surely wreaked more havoc than this year's, eh? I actually wondered about this last year: did George Bush screw up the planet more than she did in 2004? Because he got the nod.

[Leo Lakio]

They could name "Brownie," the former head of FEMA.

But then, the issue wouldn't hit the newsstands until six weeks later.