2011: Winners and Losers

Well, it's that time of year again, which hasn't been around since . . . last year. And it's my favorite time - to take stock of the winners and the losers of the year gone by.

So many things happened in so many different walks of life this past year, and there are some momentous and monumental events that really don't have a place on this list. The tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan isn't a case of win or lose; it's a tragedy of huge proportions that the Japanese people weathered as best they could. Ditto for Irene, the first hurricane to hit New Jersey since 1903. So there'll be no assigning of winning and losing to people who were affected by such large natural disasters - that's not what I'm after. I will be assigning a loss to a group of people for the way they handled things in the aftermath of a less serious but somewhat freaky natural disaster - see below.

And, incredible as it may seem, there will be no mention of anyone who's associated with "Two And a Half Men" on this list. Charlie Sheen may not be "winning," but he isn't losing either, having secured himself a new show and made a bundle off audiences full of suckers who went to see his stand-up non-comedy routine. And the show itself is still on and enjoying strong ratings, despite earlier reports and rumors of an early cancellation, so I won't be bothering with that either.

You'll also notice that I don't have many politicians on either the winners or losers list. Apart from Mitt Romney, who has survived onslaughts from several more conservative opponents for the Republican presidential nomination, you don't see many politicians who are winners these days. As for losers, you'll see nothing about Michele Bachmann, no nasty comments about Rick Perry, no mention of Herman Cain. I could try to tell you that this is because I don't like to kick people when they're down, but if you've read what I've said before about Democrats, I don't think you'll buy that. I decided to concentrate on only the most egregious political stumbles for this list; if I focused on every political loser of the year, I'd be here until Leap Day. Leap Day 2016.

So here, in no particular order, are my winners for 2011:

Adele. Once, the British pop singer was expected to fizzle in the United States, but she's since conquered her personal demons and since conquered America with just her singing - no pink hair, no kissing Britney Spears, no meat dresses. Sometimes well-behaved women do make history.

Woody Allen. Midnight In Paris, Woody's love letter to the American literature and music of the 1920s, was not only received ecstatically by the critics, it's his highest-grossing film in a quarter century.

Zooey Deschanel. It's hard not to love this bubbly actress/singer, and maybe that's why her sitcom "New Girl," about an ebullient young woman who moves in with three guys - is the biggest hit of the 2011-12 season.

the Dallas Mavericks. Pluck and persistence throughout the basketball team's history - and against the Miami Heat - paid off, as the Mavs won their first NBA championship ever.

Mitt Romney. His campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination survived challenges to his right from Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and more recently, Newt Gingrich, and at this writing, he's on his way to winning to the Iowa caucuses . . . and becoming a formidable opponent for President Obama.

David Beckham. American soccer fans finally understand what the fuss over this guy is all about. He helped lead the Los Angeles Galaxy to their first Major League Soccer championship in six years. Bend it!

the Boston Bruins. Thirty-nine years is a long time to wait for your favorite hockey team win the Stanley Cup, but the Bruins, who last won it when Nixon was President, finally brought the cup back to Beantown.

Keith Olbermann. Separated from MSNBC in the wake of the Tea Party's rise to power in January, the left's clown prince of commentary has found a new home on Al Gore's Current TV, where Olbermann is just as irreverent as ever. By saving his career, the Current TV folks are the best persons . . . in the world.

Prince William. One could argue that Kate Middleton had a good year, becoming Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and positioning herself to become queen consort of Britain one day, but the prince, the future King William V, deserves applause for marrying her. The affable William proved that nice guys sometimes finish first.

Volkswagen. I have a personal bias toward the German automaker, of course, but you can't argue with its recent success in the United States; its U.S. sales are up 24 percent over 2010, the new Tennessee-built Passat won Motor Trend's coveted Car of the Year award for 2012, and the American division is slated to make its first profit in eight years. Now if Volkswagen of America could only improve the Jetta and bring the Polo over . . ..

And now, without any ado, the losers of the year:

Libidinous politicians. Remember when Anthony Wiener was going to be the next mayor of New of New York? Or when Dominique Strauss-Kahn was the next president of France? Well, now you can forget it.  And Arnold Schwarzenegger's sexual post opened cans of worms from how he goverened California, tarnishing his reputation.

LeBron James. So, LeBron, let me see if I have this straight . . .. You left the Cleveland Cavaliers and your home state of Ohio to join up with the Heat in sunny Miami in hopes of getting to the NBA championship only for your new team to collapse against the Mavericks for the trophy? Congratulations, big guy, you missed the brass ring and you ticked off people in two cities in the process.

Former Northeastern U.S. governors. Eliot Spitzer, hoping to re-invent himself as a talk show host after a sex scandal forced him out as governor of New York, saw his CNN show canceled. And when former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine tried to re-invent himself by going back to Wall Street and running MF Global, $191.6 million went down the tubes as a result of trading on European government bonds - including billions in customer assets. Ironically, Spitzer might have been a position to keep Corzine from fooling around had he not fooled around in a different way.

Tom Hanks. Hollywood's favorite everyman acted and directed in Larry Crowne, about a middle-aged man who loses his job and go back to college. So what? Critics and audiences said the same thing. The first indication that it wasn't going to work out was that he wrote the screenplay with . . . Nia Vardolos, the answer to a trivia question whose entire career is based on knowing Tom Hanks. You can get in a lot of trouble if you don't pick your friends well.

Jennifer Finnigan. Apparently sensing a decline in the popularity of daytime dramas, the Canadian TV actress must have thought she made a smart move by leaving CBS's "The Bold and the Beautiful" for the ABC sitcom "Better With You." But while "The Bold and the Beautiful" remains on CBS even as ABC daytime dramas are going off the air, "Better With You" was canceled after one season. Her only saving grace? She didn't appear on an NBC show (see below).

Rock and roll. R.E.M. broke up, another contemporary rock station in New York City failed, and the biggest story in rock in 2011 was not Foster the People or the Black Keys but the twentieth anniversary of the release of Nirvana's Nevermind. Small wonder most of the pop performers profiled on "60 Minutes" lately have not been rockers. And all rock has to offer in 2011 is Dawes? A band that retreads the blandest 1970s LA rock clichés? Rock fans may not give in, but they'll keep living in the . . . past.

Jersey Central Power & Light. I lost my power for three days after the freak October snowstorm. As Public Service Electric and Gas customers, my mother and I were lucky; New Jersey's Jersey Central Power and Light took up to three weeks to restore electricity to some of their customers, giving the utility a huge black eye for how they handled a huge blackout.

NBC. The question "Is that still on?" normally applies to TV shows. Never before has it applied to a whole broadcast TV network.

MSNBC. So they start out booting Keith Olbermann in January and moving Ed Schultz to 10 PM Eastern, and Lawrence O'Donnell moves from 10 PM Eastern to 8 PM Eastern, and Cenk Uygur takes over at 6 PM Eastern to host a show without a name. Then Uygur gets thrown out in July and replaced by Al Sharpton, whose show is finally named "PoliticsNation." Meanwhile, Savannah Guthrie leaves "The Daily Rundown" at 9 AM Eastern, to be replaced by Chuck Todd's goatee, and then Alex Wagner gets her own show, while Ed Schultz and Lawrence O'Donnell trade time slots in October and . . .. Ahh, forget it - how do you take seriously a cable news channel whose most consistent star is Chris Matthews?

Pennsylvania State University. The scandal there is too sad for words, or for satire.

The only reason Teri Polo does not appear on this list for appearing in a sitcom expected to be hit only to see it canceled after seven weeks is because it hurts too much for me to include her.

That's it for the winners and losers of 2011. Happy new year.