Since I received two comments on it I felt that I should talk about the Nobel Prizes that were awarded last week. I can’t believe that Bell Labs picked up yet another win in physics. Talk about one of the most underrated places for scientific advancement in the world. Most of your day to day life is influenced by the work of Bell Labs. And, I was completely screwed out of the prize in literature. I was in complete understanding that my reviews of The Pick Up Artist 2 was the epoch of the English language.
Oh, wait, the comments were about the other award. My mistake.
You know it is not a good sign when the announcement of the peace prize is met with gasps of astonishment from journalists. This is not an award that is well known for its shocks. It’s not like the Best Supporting Actress Oscar though in this case it is very similar to a win by Marisa Tomei. I’ve spent all weekend thinking about how in the world Obama winning the Peace Prize makes sense and I have made zero progress.
Let’s start with the technicalities. Nominations were made on Feb. 1 at which point Obama’s accomplishments were a) being elected president and b) making some nice speeches. The five man panel who chose the award in Norway did so this month during which Obama accomplished a) being president, b) giving some nice speeches and c) uh, not allowing an asteroid to slam into the earth? Really tough to think of a third accomplishment of his first year in office. Certainly nothing worthy of a peace prize. The journalists captured in North Korea were freed by Bill Clinton, we aren’t any closer to peace in the Mideast and he is leading a nation involved in two wars one of which we are looking at escalating.
So clearly this award wasn’t about what he had accomplished and even Obama admitted as such. I know that much of the talk has been that he was given the award because of the promise of his presidency. That hope of change and a step forward and just a vague sense of progress. Except that all of those platitudes are really, really intangible. The better way of saying this is that he is given the Peace Prize because he isn’t George Bush. This isn’t an indication of how positively the rest of the world views Obama; it is a sign of just how negatively they viewed Bush.
It was interesting that on Friday I saw a lot of pundits recommending that he politely decline the award and to be honest, I was kind of hoping that he would. It is a great honor to be sure and I can feel pride in that it was given to an American in much of the same way that I feel pride when the US wins a bronze medal in Team Handball but it was a truly undeserved award at this time. It was given for future promise, for the possibility of what might happen, for a beautiful future that for all purposes might be imaginary. Given the people who are doing concrete work to make the planet a better place and to help the oppressed I wish that they would get the attention. In past years Doctors without Borders and the Society Against Landmines were given well-deserved focus for the amazing work that they do and this time I think that the committee missed the point. That said, they also have given one to Kissinger and many people consider him to be a war criminal so who knows what the committee is actually thinking.
(Also, has Obama said what he is going to do with the prize money? Please, please give it to charity.)
As always, this is just an award decided by five Norwegians so it shouldn’t be considered to be the be all and end all of the world. And I certainly don’t want it to seem like I am blaming Obama for receiving the award: he didn’t nominate himself or campaign for the award and seemed to be legitimately shocked at receiving it. And it is a major honor so I congratulate him on it. I just wished that it was awarded on results instead of promises. Because right now I have seen a lot of promises out of Washington and very little in the way of results.
Best of 120 Minutes: Frente! I’m not excited about that but they do use the exclamation point as part of their name. It would be like my officially changing my name to Chris is Super Awesome! Actually, I should get started on the paperwork for that…
Your five random CDs for the week:
1) The New Pornographers “Mass Romantic”
2) Various Artists “Down to the Promised Land”
3) Pearl Jam “No Code”
4) Mindy Smith “Long Island Shores”
5) Mary Chapin Carpenter “Come On Come On”
3 comments:
This is DJ btw I never know how to sign in...
I am not debating you in particular as much as I am using this forum to express my anger about hoopla Nobel-gate. I wholly agree that the awarding of Obama has at least as much to do with him not being Bush as anything else.
I find the constant pecking at everything "Obama" to be really tedious. This is coming from a person who did not vote for him and who voted for Bush once. But so far in his administration Obama has had to deal with controversy over his ND speech, that Boston apology thing, some ACORN weirdness, this Nobel thing, the gun freaks loading up on ammo, and countless other irrelevant nonsense, that has very little to do with who he is as a person or politician.
What he has done that is hardly talked about is stave of economic disaster at least temporarily, opened the door to diplomacy where it was firmly shut in previous administrations, bailed out troubled institutions while at the same time warning that future bailouts will not be so easy, brought the military's stance on gays into at least the 20th century, and dealt with demeaning protests such as the ND and Nobel stuff with class.
Symbolically speaking, his mere election is confirmation to non-WASPS in America that achieving the highest office in the land is a reachable goal. It also proves that Americans can no longer be separated as whites and blacks. Instead we have a whole generation of people that are part white, black, Asian, Hispanic, Eastern European, Pacific Islander and, therefore, just plain American.
I think the 2nd to last paragraph is a complete 180 on your thesis here and it is the best takeaway from your post. He did not nominate himself. It actually DOES appear that people are criticizing him for receiving an award that he may or may not deserve at this moment but that he most certainly will deserve when all is said and done.
Finally I think it is a monumental insult for people to want him to "politely" decline the award. Just like it was an insult for Obama to be told he should decline the honorary degree from ND based on his stance on abortion. Any action to that end would not be "polite" but rather a submission to pressure from the mindless talking heads of the world.
I think the jury is still out as far as Obama's work as a human and president, but I will say if "5 Norwegians" feel his work in "strengthening international diplomacy and copperation amongst peoples" merits recognition, good for him. Who cares?
I'll probably erase this tomorrow when I wake up.
the taun-taun sleeping bag lives! are we too old to have sleepovers?
http://gizmodo.com/5378464/drop-the-knife-the-tauntaun-sleeping-bag-is-now-real?skyline=true&s=x
I don't lose too much sleep about who receives the Nobel Peace Prize. Jimmy Carter has one. They gave one to Al Gore for making a movie.
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