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Time: Good Choice

http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-ebola-fighters-choice/ 




Sometimes I argue with Time's choices for person of the year.


This year I cannot. The "Ebola fighters" generically are the POTY, and I can't imagine anyone more deserving.


All I'll do then, to pad out this entry, is quote a bit of Time's own thoughtful commentary on the Ebola outbreak that has made so many calamitous headlines in 2014.


"This was a test of the world's ability to respond to potential pandemics, and it did not go well. It exposed corruption in African governments along with complacency in Western capitals and jealousy among among competing bureaucrats. It triggered mistrust from Monrovia to Manhattan."


That's sobering, even if the alliteration in that final sentence is a little too neat.


The other finalists for the POTY distinction were: Ferguson protestors; Vladimir Putin; Taylor Swift; Tim Cook; Roger Goodell; Massoud Barzani; Jack Ma. Perhaps I should have been paying attention to some stories with greater care this year, because I had to Google each of the latter two. Barzani is the president of the Kurdish regional govt in northern Iraq. It's been a big year for him, with ISIS and all that. Jack Ma is the CEO of Alibaba, essentially China's answer to eBay.


Seeing the alternatives laid out like that simply confirms my sense that the actual choice was the right one.



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