Time magazine's Person of 2004. (And a warning to skip the boring first paragraph if you're not a friend of mine.)

Ahhh, the joys of being back online. The computer gave us quite a scare this week when it broke. It didn't screw around, either. I mean it just broke. But my wonderful husband did some research and figured that it was the power supply. He went to Best Buy last night (thank you, late holiday shopping hours) and bought one and installed it and my computer works again. And it didn't lose any software or information (we had no idea if everything, including a massive project I'm working on, would be lost). I woke up today to the irritating, beautiful low whine of my computer. Oh, thank you Jesus. I've been suffering without Internet access. I couldn't read the news, or check the weather, or look up directions or store hours, or search the classifieds for a job, or look at my e-mail or anything that I would normally do with my most beloved modem. It was almost enough to make me get a job.

I was dismayed to learn this morning that Time magazine has named Bush Person of 2004 (didn't they used to call that "Man of the Year?"). (Wow, that was a punctuation minefield. Maybe Daisy would like to help since I'm too lazy to pull out a style manual.) The story is a little bit off, though. Well, the AP story synopsis made it seem weird, at least. Apparently the Time editors awarded the honor to Bush for "reshaping the rules of politics to fit his 10-gallon-hat leadership style." It seems like you could read that line either as Bush is a bold larger-than-life leader or a steamrolling power freak. And this line describing Bush's methods is even more loaded: "for sharpening the debate until the choices bled, for reframing reality to match his design, for gambling his fortunes — and ours — on his faith in the power of leadership." I can't figure out from this blurb whether the article is pandering to the left and right or taking subversive shots, disguised as praise, at Bush. Or maybe it was just written by committee. Either way, I'm intrigued.