Time magazine has named its Person’s Of The Year for 2005 as Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono. Bono and the Gates’ join an auspicious list which includes Hitler, Stalin and The World.
Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono were jointly chosen under the name The Good Samaritans, for all their humanitarian work over the last 12 months. Still, it could have been worse. Time could have gone with Jennifer Aniston like everyone else did.
The naming of Time’s Person Of The Year has been an annual event
ever since 1927, and the accolade is given to whoever "most affected
the news and our lives, for good or ill," over the course of any year.
Usually, Time magazine‘s Person Of The Year is a Pope or a President
or a head of state. This year, though, Time had a change of heart. It
decided to award the Person Of The Year title to the man who made it
possible for you to play computer solitaire when your boss isn’t
looking (and his wife) and the tiny man who goes "Doo doo doo," on the
iPod adverts.
Obviously, though, this is nothing new. Solitaire has been on
computers since – roughly – the dawn of time, and Bono has been going
"Doo doo doo," in any number of identikit songs of his since he was a
nipper. So why has Time decided to name Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono (CDs)
as its Persons Of The Year for 2005? Let’s ask the magazine itself:
"For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring
politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope
strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda
Gates and Bono are Time’s Persons of the Year."
As well as being a slightly sinister nerd, Bill Gates is arguably the world’s greatest philanthropist. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the world’s biggest charity and, according to Time magazine, has been "giving more money away faster than anyone ever has." It’s thought that The
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has saved more than 700,000 lives by
supporting vaccination programmes in developing countries, as well as
donating thousands of computers to libraries and sponsoring enormous
scholarship funds.
And Bono? Bono gets to shout at politicians and stuff.
Read more:
Gates and Bono praised by Time – BBC
[story by Stuart Heritage]
J. T. Mitchell says
No matter how you slice it these are worthy recepients. This web site is the most pesamistic and cynical web site I have ever seen. I love to slam it and will continue to do so. Who’s next Mother Teresa? Dali Lama? J.T.
gareth says
“Bill Gates is arguably the world’s greatest philanthropist… The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the world’s biggest charity and, according to Time magazine, has been “giving more money away faster than anyone ever has.””
For fucks sake JT, get a clue, would you.”pesamistic and cynical”? Get a dictionary while you’re at it, would you.
Doug Schulek-Miller says
Strange. I know Gates, but I thought Sonny Bono died years ago. I didn’t think he was that great at the time, so why on earth would he deserve a spread with Gates? Besides that, if he did die, what did they pose with Gates? That’s a disgusting thought.