2007 Year

Was this an extraordinarily bad year for women in sports, or what? Television has its Emmys. Music has its Grammys. We have our Dummies. In a tradition begun all the way back in 2006, The Times again bestows dishonor upon the worst of the worst in sports for the year. The nominees are limited in 2007 to those who were mean to women. It is hardly an exclusive list. Don Imus or Isiah Thomas for No. 1? How about Dubliner magazine? Matt Leinart? You can't really go wrong. NO.

The perfect is the enemy of the good, Voltaire famously said, and that was hundreds of years before the invention of spy cameras, steroids and sports record books that future generations would find impossibly and irresistibly enticing. In 2007, sports fans saw the enemy rear its ugly head so many time that by December's end, they were ready to hoist the 409-page Mitchell Report and swat back in self-defense.

The Hollywood writers strike, the iPhone and the "hyper-tabloidization" of television news are among the American Film Institute's "moments of significance" for 2007. On Thursday, AFI's 13-member jury -- which includes film scholars, artists and critics -- announced seven events that affected "the world of moving image" over the last year.

WASHINGTON -- Was 2007 dull? America's magazine editors seemed to think so. They kept finding excuses to publish stories about other years. U.S. News & World Report ran a cover story on 1957. Rolling Stone published an entire issue devoted to 1967. Newsweek ran a cover story on 1968. And Spin ran a package of stories about 1977. Why? Well, 1957 was 50 years ago. And 1967 was the year Rolling Stone was founded. And 1968 was, Newsweek declared, "the year that made us who we are."

It's impossible to deem the passing of any influential arts, entertainment or pop culture figure more "important" than that of another. It is possible, however, to observe that two performers who died in 2007 managed to transcend the traditional boundaries between art and entertainment like no others: opera's beloved Italian tenor and American soprano, Luciano Pavarotti and Beverly Sills.

Rapid-fire recap of the craziest college football season on record, typed with flying fingers while listening to Chopin's "Minute Waltz." * Sept. 1: Appalachian State shocks No. 5 Michigan in Ann Arbor, 34-32; sets topsy-turvy tone for a Looney Tunes season; world wouldn't see another upset like it for . . . days (See: Stanford boards plane for Los Angeles, Oct. 5). * Notre Dame botches opener to Georgia Tech, 33-3; don't call it a rebuilding year. "May God strike me dead if I use that word."

Bursts of spending marked both ends of the holiday shopping season, but retailers will probably still be disappointed when the fourth quarter is over. Sales at stores open a year or more rose 2.8% last week, the International Council of Shopping Centers said Wednesday, and Michael Niemira, the group's chief economist, predicted the total for November and December combined would be "a tad below" 2.5%, which is what Niemira had forecast would be the gain over last year.

SOME people may call them the year's worst ideas. We prefer to call them singular inspirations -- extraordinary feats of such unparalleled imagination, we couldn't imagine featuring them in Home. Till now. After all, who could resist a press release that starts off, "Nothing says I love you like a new toilet seat"? Or better yet, a pitch touting "a toilet that will save rocky marriages and the planet all in one flush."