Did you know that there is a reader poll that you can visit to give the thumbs up or down for each prospect on a fairly long mid-list of possible persons of they year? Click here to participate (will open in a new tab or window). I have no idea how much influence, if any, this poll has on the final decision. But this year, the poll was clearly hacked and I assume that will be taken into consideration.

Have a look at the results so far, as of this writing:

Mohammed bin Salman is the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Somewhere in Saudi Arabia there is a room full of women in purda and being carefully overseen, clicking on this poll and deleting their cookies, again and again and again.

Putting aside the Prince for now, note who are in second, third, and fourth place! Wow. A movement, a repressed class, and an African American rebel. Next in line is the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Then comes Mueller and Clinton. So, the top six presumably non-hacked names are explicitly and firmly anti-Trump.

Trump himself is 8th/9th, nearly tied with the Pope, Come, and Putin. Sad to see the new leader of the Free World, Angela Merkel, down at 3%. Near the very bottom is a mix of people one would not normally see on this list at all, so good on them. And, Steve Bannon, not quite last but close to it.

Just for fun, here are a few fake Time magazine covers of some of the people me and my various Facebook friends were thinking should be selected.

You can find a few others here.

Meanwhile, somebody call somebody about Time’s poll being hacked!

Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:

In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden, now in Kindle or Paperback
*Please note:
Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.