Sharing Air with the Pope and Churchill

In elementary school, the absolute highlight of the school year was a day known as “Field Day.” For the most part it took place in one of the final tree months of the school year, as in New Jersey, that was your best bet for weather suitable to let loose the masses to the outdoor elements. For an outsider’s perspective, it may have just been an excuse to ensure the youth of America were getting enough exercise during a generation where Nintendo had replaced Red Rover and other games of athleticism. But for those participating, this was the Olympics, the Tour de France, the World Cup, and the World’s Strongest Man all rolled into one,

A collection of rudimentary track and field events and easy-to-ref team sports, Field Day was a kid’s first real chance at high stakes athletic competition. Sure, they did not quite trust 10 year olds with javelins or pole-vaulting, but there was plenty to find out who would be the Stronger, Faster, Higher of their generation. Yeah, I may have been the runaway champ in the standing broad jump - no doubt a clever skill that I utilize all the time in the corporate world – but their was a reason a so broadly jumped from a standstill.

It was the ribbons.

Yeah, they used to give you ribbons to take home in reward of your grand achievement. You could show them to your parents with pride, as you watched them displace some drawing you did when you were 7 on the refrigerator door (you never thought that fire truck looked quite right anyway.) But ever since big mouth Melanie Phillips wrote a book in ’96 titled “All Must Win Prizes”, the elementary school athletic scoring system came to a crashing halt. Gone were the blue ribbons for first, and red and white for 2nd and 3rd (respectively.)

And in came the purple “participation” ribbons. Yech.

Look, man created competition in order to rank himself among his peers. Competition is not a bad thing. How do you think empires rose and fell? Tidal patterns caused by the moon? Hell, no. Hannibal would have fed his participation ribbon to his elephant.

Why is now a sufficient time for a rant against a Field Day Counter initiative that occurred nearly 10 years ago. No, I’m no longer bitter. But I am a little surprised that Time Magazine, of all publications, has denounced competition. When we covered Time’s Person of the Year for 2005, in true Colbertian fashion, we mentioned we wouldn’t mind being considered for the honor – the award might look nice on our mantle. Well, I believe that Time misunderstood our humble request.

For 2006, I, Chris Condon, have been selected as the Person of the Year. But then again, so has EVERY OTHER HUMAN BEING.

That’s right, Time went with the simple “You” as their Person of the Year. It’s a feel-good pick, rather than focusing on the atrocities around the world this year – Iraq, Israel-Lebanon, North Korea, Colin Farrell’s The New World – they went with the positive virality that has become commonplace on this here interweb. From a historian’s perspective, chalk 2006 up as a Time Cop-Out Year, as they’ve handed out the purple ribbon of equality again, much like “Generation 25 and Under” (1966), “The Middle Americans” (1969), “The Computer” (1982), and our favorite, “Endangered Earth” (1988), when Earth was referred to as Planet of the Year.

(Boy was Venus pissed.)

Apparently, we’re all the Person of the Year due to our grassroots contributions to entertainment (YouTube), knowledge (Wikipedia), journalism (YABNews), and embarrassing frat party photography (MySpace.) But does Time realize what they’ve done by leaving a competition so open-ended even pre-Subway Jared could fit through the door? It’s ALL-ENCOMPASSING.

What if Kim Jong Il reads Time? He’s the Person of the Year! Yeah, Saddam’s in prison, but he does read the weeklies, and he’s Person of the Year! Terrell Owens reads magazines in the trainer’s room sometimes. He’s Person of the Year! Yeah, Floyd Landis cheated at the Tour de France, but he did buy a copy of Time in DeGaulle Airport, and now he’s Person of the Year! Paris Hilton – She grabbed a Time with her tabloid papers and now is the Person of the-

Just kidding. Paris Hilton can't read.