Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathen, The Locust Fork News-Journal Person of the Year

Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson

When a lone writer sits in front of the glow of a computer screen in the early morning hours when most of the world is asleep trying to figure out a way to articulate what matters, that is to say, to paint a picture of the forest while everybody else seems to be counting the trees, the easiest thing to do is Google all the year-end stories written by everybody else.

Every year about this time, the Associated Press has its top stories of the year dispatch, and this year they even included the Facebook vote. According to AP and the members of Facebook, the state of the economy and the inauguration of the first black president in U.S. history shared top honors.

But where would the mainstream media be without Michael Jackson? So his death placed third, followed by the so-called “Miracle on the Hudson,” the Swine flu epidemic and the monumental fight in Congress over trying to reform the American health care system.

Then there was also the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, the woes of the U.S. automobile industry, the upheavel in Iran, and last but not least, Sonya Sotomayor’s nomination and confirmation to join the nation’s highest court.

So who does Time magazine name as its 2009 person of the year? A nerdy guy most Americans have never heard of, Ben Bernanke, the boring head of the Federal Reserve. Why?

“He just happens to be the most powerful nerd on the planet,” Time proclaims. “He is the most important player guiding the world’s most important economy. His creative leadership helped ensure that 2009 was a period of weak recovery rather than catastrophic depression…”

True, sort of, although the president should get some credit for that. All of which just goes to show that nothing matters more in capitalist America than money, and as far as the media goes, it is clearly not about readers anymore. People don’t matter. Advertisers do.

Of course no list of important stories from this year would be complete without mention of the sexual transgressions of golfer Tiger Woods, who draws more people and money than any politician or athlete ever. In spite of virtually dropping out of the game after being chased down and beaten with a golf club in Florida by his scorned wife, he was still named professional golf’s 2009 Player of the Year. Go figure.

On the local scene, and just to prove that some news outlets take seriously this idea that all news is local, when the scaled back staff at the Birmingham News is tasked with coming up with a year-end list, a fire at a Woodlawn church tops the list. Please…

Here at the global and local Locust Fork News-Journal, however, when we think of the most important stories and people of the year, there really is no contest. We have no doubt if given the opportunity to vote on it, the people of Alabama would agree with us on this at a rate of nearly 100 percent.

The University of Alabama’s first Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram is without a doubt the person of the year around here, followed closely by Saint Nick Saban, who we think should easily win Coach of the Year honors.

But of course that’s just football, and football is just a game. So there must be other stories that really matter and other people who deserve some kudos, right?

As our regular readers know, we place a lot of emphasis on the environment on this alternative, independent news site, so it should come as no real surprise that we are always keeping nature at the top of any list around here.

What is the most important story of our time? I find it hard to believe the global warming summit in Copenhagen didn’t make any of the other top ten lists, since none of the other stories are going to matter by the end of this century if we don’t start dealing with climate change now.

There are plenty of things we could criticize our new president about, including not moving fast enough to clean the partisan politics out of the justice system and for not moving swiftly to counter the problems associated with too much power in the hands of a few corporate monopolies, most notably the telecommunication giants such as ATnT, where domestic spying on innocent Americans is still the order of the day. We can’t catch a lone nut carrying explosives onto a plane from Nigeria to Detroit, but we can intimidate grandmothers who have the gall to take part in democracy by joining peace and environmental groups.

Obama’s participation in the climate conference is not one of the areas he should be criticized for, although the mainstream media managed to bash him for not coming away with a sealed deal. The deal may not be done or perfect, but he did play a leading role there. Obama has already rolled back many of the most destructive environmental policies of the anti-science Bush administration, so we think that deserves at least as much of a mention as Michael Jackson.

So President Barack Obama is our national and international person of the year, for beginning the work of righting this ship of state after eight long years of Bush and company trying their damndest to sink us.

As for the local Southern scene, there is really only one story worth mentioning on the environment front, and that is the massive TVA coal ash spill in Tennessee that is now creating havoc in Alabama’s Black Belt. Why this story does not rate more national, regional and local attention is beyond me, although one of the top rated and highest circulation news sites in the country had the foresight to make it the lead story on Christmas day.

Who is the person most responsible for helping to bring this story out of the darkness and into the light? Our local person of the year is Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathen of Tuscaloosa, who deserves the credit for being more of a bona fide environmental activist than all the other fine people working for all the other non-profit organizations in the state.

Here’s to you John.

If you like this and have a few bucks to spare, send him a donation to support the work he’s doing.

BTW, if you like this analysis a little better than the New York Times, AP, Time magazine and/or al.com, feel free to send us one too…

Alabama’s Nick Saban and Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram, sharing the top honors as The Locust Fork News-Journal’s Person of the Year

If you think we missed something and have other suggestions, we welcome them in the comments…

© 2009 – 2015, Glynn Wilson. All rights reserved.