The Year of 2012...

The Sage Street Award recipients for the year 2012 are...

Best Event of the Year: The re-election of President Obama and Vice President Biden. Though Obama sometimes seemed lackluster and likely to lose, especially because of the high unemployment rate, the alternative choice of Mitt Romney and the Republican Party/Tea Party was horrifying and apparently uniting for the 2008 Obama voters who stayed the course. It was a transitional election moment, shifting the nation to the left and reaffirming progressive ideas. Runners-up: The Summer Olympics, the presidential and primary election debates (the debates of the Republican candidates were eye-openers about how extremely conservative--and out-of-touch--those candidates seemed).

Worst Event of the Year: The mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut in December. It shocked the nation. It abruptly altered the seasonal mood of joy to tears and reflection. I think and hope it has awakened sensible people, including hunters, to the need for gun restrictions, including bans on assault rifles and large ammunition magazines, and a need to stop encouraging a gun culture, which includes video games and movies. The runners-up in this category were Hurricane Sandy, which hit New York, New Jersey, and the East Coast and brought a new realization of the concern about climate change and the July mass shooting in an Aurora, Colo. theater, killing 12 people and dozens of others. When two of the worst events in America in a year are mass shootings, it says that America has a gun violence problem.

Best Movies (of the ones I saw, which means they could have been produced in previous years): "A Better Life," "The Artist" (which was the Academy Award best picture of 2011-2012), and "The Three Stooges" (the new version with actors impersonating the original Three Stooges). Runners-up: "Being Flynn," "Prometheus," "I Am Four," "Carnage," "Midnight in Paris," and "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter."

Best TV Shows: "Longmire" and "Falling Skies." Runners-up: "The Walking Dead," "Hell on Wheels," "Saturday Night Live," "Merlin," and "Wipe-Out."

Best News Programs: "The Rachel Maddow Show," "The Melissa Harris Perry Show," "The Ed Schulz Show," "60 Minutes," and "360 with Anderson Cooper."

Best Documentary: "The Dust Bowl" (PBS).

Best Discoveries That I Enjoyed: The writing of journalist/author Sanora Babb, the writing of poet/author Nick Flynn, the music of William Brittelle.

Books Most Enjoyed: "An Owl on Every Post:" by Sanora Babb, "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" by Nick Flynn, "Hedy's Folly, The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr" by Richard Rhodes about actress Hedy Lamarr and her inventive brilliance in developing "frequency hopping," "Pete Seeger and the Power of Song" by Allan Winkler, and "Cody's Cave" by Phil Roberts.

Best Songs I Heard for the First Time: "The Color of Rain" by William Brittelle, "You Get What You Give" by the New Radicals, and "Tongue Tied" by Grouplove.

Best Website: The Delta at mvcdelta.com, Amazon.com, Netflix, National Geographic.

Best YouTube Video: "Where the Hell is Matt 2012" about a guy named Matt Harding who dances with groups all around the world.

Leaving a Great Legacy (some amazing people who died this year): Former U.S. Senator George McGovern (the first presidential candidate I ever voted for) for standing consistently for progressive ideas and working to reduce world hunger; actor Andy Griffith for the gentle, quality comedy of "The Andy Griffith Show;" Andy Williams for the song "Moon River" and other standards; Neil Armstrong for being the first man on the moon; U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii; and Donna Summer for "Last Dance" and other disco songs.

Biggest Losers of the Year: Mitt Romney for flip-flopping all over the place; for being pulled like taffy to the right by the Tea Party crowd; spending a billion dollars to lose the election; unable to rationalize Mormonism to the rest of the nation probably because, like numerous religious dogmas put under a microscope, it seems utterly unbelievable; and for the lasting image of a mistreated dog in a carrier on the roof of a car. Runners-up: Actor Clint Eastwood for his embarrassing rant of a conversation with a chair at the Republican National Convention; defrocked bicyclist Lance Armstrong; Donald Trump (not sure what he is but he's on TV too much and is incredibly arrogant); and the NRA for its reckless, selfish advocacy in support of guns without reason and also not thinking about the greater good of the culture.

Person of the Year nominees: Oscar Pistorius (inspirational Olympics runner), Melissa Harris Perry (host of her MSNBC show), Vice President Joe Biden who seems consistent in progressive ways, Ken Burns (for the excellent PBS documentary "The Dust Bowl"), Ralph Nader (consumer activist), Bob Costas (for hosting the Olympics and his statement about the need for gun control that was even prior to the Connecticut school shootings tragedy), record-holding skydiver Felix Baumgartner; statistician Nate Silver who predicted correctly the outcomes of how every state's population would vote in the presidential election, Elizabeth Warren (new U.S. senator from Massachusetts) and Julian Castro (San Antonio, Texas, mayor and Democratic Convention keynote speaker). Note: Biden, Warren and Castro look like potentially great and impressive future U.S. presidents to me.

Person of the Year: President Barack Obama (which was also Time magazine's "Person of the Year") for achieving a second term in office. Stay progressive please.