Someone out there has been named Time's Person of the Year five times! (and owns a 6th!)
OK. someone in America, I guarantee you, there's a person out there who was born in the late 1940s, was a quiet conservative/moderate living in the heartland who also served most of his life in the U.S. military (or was called up for the reserves with Iraq) and took part in a political protest, maybe Occupy Wall Street but more likely a Tea Party rally, in the last year.
You are an amazing person, whoever you are, because you have now been Time magazine's Person of the Year a whopping five times, in 1966 (the Under-25 Generation), in 1969 (Middle Americans/the Silent Majority) in 2003 (the American solidier), in 2006 (You...."yes, you") and now in 2011 (The Protester). The incredible thing is another Time honoree is sitting right there in your home, The Computer! (1982), although in fairness you probably didn't own one at the time.
Actually, you could have won two more times if you were a whistleblower (2002) or a Good Samaritan (2005) but I didn't want to push it.
Anyway, Mark Zuckerberg (2010) has a lot of catching up to do. Is it too late for him to enlist, either in the Army or Occupy Palo Alto?
Just one short commentary -- I think Time was off by about 97 percent or so in its choice. While I salute protesters of all stripes, I think the real Person of the Year is the 99 Percent, not just the folks at the vanguard in Tahrir Square or Zuccotti Park but the great bulk of us who realize that from Hosni Mubarak to Lloyd Blankfein, the world has been ripped off by the 1 Percent. How the 99 Percent deal with that will be the story not just of the year, but of the 21st Century.