Time's "Person" and "Happy Holidays" share a commonality

Yes, that's right. The current "Person of the Year (POTY)" - which is 'You' - (see yesterday's blog entry) and the use of the phrase "Happy Holidays" share a commonality. It occurred to me earlier today when I was going around the office telling people that I was the POTY, but I'll get to that link in just a bit. A little background story first.

When I went around the office, I expected accolades to come my way. After all, it's not just anyone who is named "POTY." Well, the others said that they were also POTYs. At first, I suspected that they were just trying to steal my thunder, because I know that when I looked at the cover of Time, it was my reflection looking back at me. They said that they didn't see my reflection, but rather, they saw their own. I checked it again just to make sure, and sure enough, it was still me. I handed it back to them and told them that it was me on the cover, but they insisted that it was still their reflection.

By that time, I had had enough of their shenanigans, so I looked over their shoulder so that they could clearly see my reflection in the cover. Well, I saw my reflection - but I also saw theirs! I thought, "What the heck...?" I know that in the past, Time has had more than one POTY in a given year, but I don't recall a time when it was one person, then another, then the first one again, then both of them together. And I don't certainly don't recall the POTY changing according to whomever happened to be looking at the cover at the time. Needless to say, this revelation that I wasn't the only POTY was rather disappointing.

Okay, I've had my fun, but I hope I made my point about silly it was for Time to name the POTY as 'everybody'. There's others that they could have named. Easily. Heads of churches or of states. Prominent politicians. Certain celebrities and their crass remarks or bad behavior. They just had to pick one. The way Time is justifying it in their article, it sounds all cutesy and PC and such (especially the rotating parade of photos in the article's website page), but it's really a pointless pick. It's like those kids' games in which the score isn't kept so that "there are no winners or losers". Blech. Why even bother in that instance.

The commonality between this year's POTY and the usage of the phrase "Happy Holidays" is that they are both meant to be inoffensive, but they both fail in that regard by being offensive anyway. It makes one wonder why these folks keep believing that they aren't being offensive. The way I see it, ya might as well run with the dragon instead of pretending that you can somehow make everyone happy.

Now my little POTY trophy ain't so shiny no more...