Tag Archive: Person(s) of the Year

Person of the Year:  Pililani Mombe Nyoni

This Malawian woman used social media for good as opposed to cat videos or self-aggrandizement when she used WhatsApp to identify and help save more than 50 Malawian women working in slave-like conditions after they were tricked and trafficked to Oman.

Honorable Mention: Gisèle Pelicot

Drugged by her husband and pimped out to be raped on film by over 50 men over a period of years, this French woman opted to make their trial very public, “so the shame of rape should be felt by the other side.” Unable to face what they were doing to a conscious victim, in the end, all 50 men and her husband awoke to find themselves thoroughly screwed, disgraced and imprisoned.

Give yourself a pat on the back  unless you can think of a more worthy recipient (because we can’t).  

Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Perhaps the only real world leader that is alive today. Against all odds when the rest of the world had already rolled over and ceded imminent victory to Adolph Hitler’s diabolical Russian understudy, the President of Ukraine stepped up and inspired hope (not fear) in his people and the world.  Spartan King Leonidas would be proud (and anyone else who is not proud of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his people should be ashamed).

Runners Up:

Marina Ovsyannikova, a journalist and the only Russian with the balls to publicly call out Putin’s lie on State news.  She was subsequently fined for “discrediting” Russia’s army (which seemed quite capable of doing that all by themselves). She continues to be a thorn in the Kremlin’s side. She is currently facing charges that could lead to 10 years in prison.

Related Quote: “I go to the courts like I go to work… I deeply regret that I never got around to acknowledging all the greatness of the Russian world. I could not express my gratitude to Putin on behalf of 30 million Russians who live in the 21st century without sewers and warm toilets”  — Marina Ovsyannikova

Dmitry Muratov, a Russian Independent News Editor, who still refuses to call Putin’s war special, auctioned off his Nobel Peace Prize medal for $103.5m saying all of the  money from the sale would go to help refugees from the “war in Ukraine”.

Bridger Walker

In a world and a year where everyone else seemed obsessed with their personal well-being, aggrandizement, and/or likes, this 6-year old from Cheyenne, Wyoming didn’t think twice about putting himself in harm’s way to protect his sister from a vicious dog.

American “Get out the Vote” volunteers

Because they may have saved their country if not the world from a man who is clearly mad (and not just at those voters).

Mamoudou Gassama (a.k.a. French Spiderman)

A Malian migrant in Paris who risked his life to save a strangers child while citizen bystanders watched, filmed and cheered him on. His exceptional heroics seemed to fly in the face of: 1) the image many nationalists are trumpeting of the refugee bogeymen that are invading civilization as we know it; and 2) the idea of walls being the answer.  The French President thanked Mr. Gassama with a medal and citizenship.  The City of Paris has offered him a job with their Fire Department.

Animal of the Year: King Coon (a.k.a. the #MPRracoon)

Anxious locals and the world watched while this migrant racoon scales the outside of a 25 story (305 ft) skyscraper in St. Paul, Minnesota.   Earlier in the year, another (or perhaps the same) racoon climbed up (and then back down from) 700 feet on a construction crane in Toronto.