On Wednesday, Dec. 10, Time magazine will announce its 2014 Person of the Year, and after learning who landed on the short list of candidates, we are more than a little confused. Some of the names on the list are not too shocking.
There is Tim Cook, who introduced a bunch of new Apple products this year and then decided to come out of the closet, making him the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company. There is Taylor Swift, who, as a top-selling artist, decided to pull her music from Spotify this past fall because she believes the streaming service is not compensating artists nearly enough.
But some of the other contenders are a bit baffling.
Like Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who guided his country through hosting the Sochi Olympics in February under subpar conditions. He has also been one of the ringleaders in the ongoing strife between Russia and eastern Ukraine. Then there is NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who has spent the last six months living under a microscope because it seems the majority of even NFL fans believe he purposely set out to cover up several domestic violence cases within the league, including the now-infamous knockout punch by Ray Rice that was caught on surveillance tape and then shown to the world.
The Ferguson protesters have also made the list, but wouldn't it have made more sense for the peaceful protesters in New York City's chokehold case to have made it instead? By pointing to Ferguson, sadly the first thing that comes to mind for many people is either the rioting and destruction of local businesses after Darren Wilson was not indicted, or else the video of Michael Brown's grieving and angry stepfather directing the crowd to burn things down.
The Ebola caregivers are also candidates for Time's Person of the Year, and perhaps as a whole they actually deserve the award. Even when the CDC tried to make nurses like Amber Vinson or Nina Pham their personal fall-girls, they carried themselves with dignity, healed and went right back to work, ready to treat more Ebola patients if they were called to do so.
What are your thoughts on Time's short list? Who do you think is most deserving of the award this year? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below.
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