Open a discussion on the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize and you are confronted with quizzical looks, raised eyebrows and confusion writ large on many faces. There are nods and negative shakes of heads, wry smiles and gasps of Oh No!
Numerous people cannot come to a conclusion whether to congratulate Obama or to avoid talking about him to spare the embarrassment. Yet others look at Obama with a sympathetic sigh as if to say “You are not to blame. We are only sorry for the weight of the burden loaded on your shoulders now.”
Probably Obama himself is bemused, not just surprised but a little embarrassed as well.
Jut nine months into his tenure of office and to be nominated only when 12 days since his formal inauguration – isn’t it premature?, Too early? - to award him the Nobel Peace Prize? - The judgment is still questionable.
The Norwegian Committee states that Obama was chosen for the 1.4 million $ prize because of his extraordinary efforts to strengthen the international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. He has of course created a new climate in international politics.
Is the Norwegian Committee sitting in a glass palace? How can they talk about peace enough to merit a peace prize? It is sheer delusion to sit in the comfort zone of safety and peace, to pretend that the charm and vision of an articulate and attractive president provides solace for those deprived of the luxury.
At the moment the people who conceivably deserve this award are probably Obama’s speech writers. They have delivered the golden words. It is up to Obama to deliver the golden deeds.
Perhaps the objective of the Norwegian Committee has changed.
The Prize appears to be awarded as an incentive rather than an achievement.
• An incentive to have the USA and European troops leave Afghan and Iraq?
• To encourage Obama to continue to pursue the lofty goals and visions spelt out by his administration?
• Or for his vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons?
But why reward him when only the negotiations are going on? He hasn’t wound down the two destructive wars Afghan and Iraq..
He should have been given the space and time to make good on his promises. He has indeed initiated some moves towards changing the world view about the Muslim world but the results are yet to come. The prize should be issued only for tangible results
It looks as if Obama has been rewarded for potential more than for achievement, for vision more than for action
• Is Obama being rewarded for being on the right road?
• Isn’t it cynical to do that just because he says the right things and makes the right moves?
Temptation bids me conclude that the Nobel Peace Prize judges could have been hugely influenced by the apparently radical change that Obama’s administration represents over its predecessor.
Does it belittle some past winners of this prestigious award and will it diminish the impact of his success?
Gandhiji was not awarded the peace prize though he worked for Hindu Muslim unity - that is another matter and there are many who still lament it.
Henry Kissinger for one has the blood of thousands of Vietnamese on his hands. He gave intelligence and security arguments in favor of every war that the US waged against Muslim countries (Iraq and afghan). Yet he was deemed honorable enough for the Nobel Prize in the year 1971
Former Israeli Minister Menachim Bein too was an honorable man worthy of the prize. He invaded Lebanon after he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 (jointly with Mohammed Anwar Al-Sadat, President of Egypt.)
President Shimon Peres Foreign Minister of Israel who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, (along with Yasser Arafat President of Palestine and Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel). ordered the bombing of Lebanon several times. The Lebanese still recoil in horror at the memory.
Elie Weisel (1986) is still hunting Germans who he believes worked with the Nazi government. His sole aim is to hand them over to Israel for trial and execution. Still he was honored with the laurel
Looking back at some of the recipients of the Nobel prize I see a few who ill deserved it. Taking them into consideration, Obama is an angel by comparison.
As the war still rages in Afghan, and Iraq being far from peaceful; peace is only an illusion. People have resigned to the fate that they should learn to live with the conflict. When daily, millions die and suffer needlessly because of the ongoing military conflicts, the best that is offered to us is someone who gives us hope.
Obama’s speech in Cairo was an inspiring address to the Arab world. It was very much in the mould of the speeches he made to US electors during his run for the oval office. It inspired hope. (Not since John F Kennedy did any US President come to office with such a tidal wave of international hope. )
So Obama‘s political race has to be run right through to the line , so his political achievement in terms of peace can be judged properly and fairly
Obama is already handicapped by the weight of expectations. Adding the burden of the peace prize he is almost cursed to become a man who failed the world.
Time will tell if Obama can deliver on his words. This award will indeed propel him to do much to prove himself noteworthy of the honor.
The best we can hope in terms of peace is not having the likes of George Bush and his trigger happy followers. Definitely by removing George Bush from office has Obama indeed made the world a more peaceful place? (Temptation bids me conclude that the Nobel Peace Prize judges could have been hugely influenced by the apparently radical change that Obama’s administration represents over its predecessor. )
.
That a peaceful Middle East is the only foundation of a world peace has been universally accepted .
President, Obama has a heavy responsibility. He alone could broker a peace settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. With the he window of opportunity that Obama helped create
I harbor the wish that the Americans will unite behind Obama as he works to manage the burdens he has courageously assumed on our behalf
Let the world’s next generation at least grow up with out dread that someone will push the nuclear button.
Are these attainable or only pipe dreams?
Monday, November 16, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
AN OTIOSE TANGLE
Alcohol is legal. Why not make pot legal too? – Huh!........Huh huh!
Mind you - that is a single dollar question raised by many.
Tobacco is legal and it kills in good time. So will alcohol and so will pot if or when legalized. It is the second major cause of death in the world, responsible for roughly 5 million deaths each year. Smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States. Despite the known health risks of tobacco use, cigarettes are legally available throughout the United States and can be purchased at gas stations, convenience stores, and supermarkets for less than $5 per pack.
What then is the ultimate end of legalizing tobacco spirit or drug?
To kill? To reduce the population that is rising in leaps and bounds?
There seems no difference between alcohol and pot except that one is weed and the other is a chemical
Why should booze be legal when pot is not?
The same set of rules applies. One cannot overdose on pot as one does with alcohol and ALCOHOL IS LEGAL
Alcohol is already a problem. Add pot into the mix and we will have more issues. Accidents involving drunken driving are integral parts of daily life.
Use of marijuana does not cause accidents as reckless as alcohol does. It is less addictive than alcohol and tobacco combined. Drugs as marijuana don’t seem to be as mind altering as beer is .So what harm is there in legalizing drugs with the same limitations as with alcohol. Pot is probably safer than alcohol. If so alcohol should be the illegal drug
The same rules apply again. You cannot go to work drunken .One cannot go to work or drive stoned either. To fit in the last bolt, no one can give alcohol as drugs to anyone under 21. I believe in time it will be made legal at least in certain amounts.
The only reason they would legalize it would be so they could tax it.
A seasonal pot smoker confessed that once you have smoked for a while, you don’t get lazy or paranoid. You don’t get the munchies or giggles. You are still You just higher.
A college student died from alcohol poisoning dashing his bright and promising future. .People who let him get drunk and provided the alcohol should be charged with negligent homicide. Replace alcohol with Mary Jane, I could be alive less a few brain cells maybe, but alive,all the same.
Legalize it and tax the crap out of it. Farmers would profit. The whole plant is totally useable no waste. It would improve the economy.hehehehehe
Marijuana was legal in the USA. It was not until the government started getting greedy they reversed the legalization. Billions of taxpayers money is being spent on the war on drugs and how many non violent offenders are crowding jails and prisons allowing violent offenders to go free.
The results of "the noble experiment"-- undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America clearly indicate that it was a miserable failure on all counts.
Instead of us paying billions on a war we are losing why don’t we turn around and make billions of dollars to put into our economy instead. God forbid if our Pharma companies lose a fraction of their profit because the no longer would have to sell highly addictive overpriced narcotics.
On goes the never ending argumentYaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn!
Mind you - that is a single dollar question raised by many.
Tobacco is legal and it kills in good time. So will alcohol and so will pot if or when legalized. It is the second major cause of death in the world, responsible for roughly 5 million deaths each year. Smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States. Despite the known health risks of tobacco use, cigarettes are legally available throughout the United States and can be purchased at gas stations, convenience stores, and supermarkets for less than $5 per pack.
What then is the ultimate end of legalizing tobacco spirit or drug?
To kill? To reduce the population that is rising in leaps and bounds?
There seems no difference between alcohol and pot except that one is weed and the other is a chemical
Why should booze be legal when pot is not?
The same set of rules applies. One cannot overdose on pot as one does with alcohol and ALCOHOL IS LEGAL
Alcohol is already a problem. Add pot into the mix and we will have more issues. Accidents involving drunken driving are integral parts of daily life.
Use of marijuana does not cause accidents as reckless as alcohol does. It is less addictive than alcohol and tobacco combined. Drugs as marijuana don’t seem to be as mind altering as beer is .So what harm is there in legalizing drugs with the same limitations as with alcohol. Pot is probably safer than alcohol. If so alcohol should be the illegal drug
The same rules apply again. You cannot go to work drunken .One cannot go to work or drive stoned either. To fit in the last bolt, no one can give alcohol as drugs to anyone under 21. I believe in time it will be made legal at least in certain amounts.
The only reason they would legalize it would be so they could tax it.
A seasonal pot smoker confessed that once you have smoked for a while, you don’t get lazy or paranoid. You don’t get the munchies or giggles. You are still You just higher.
A college student died from alcohol poisoning dashing his bright and promising future. .People who let him get drunk and provided the alcohol should be charged with negligent homicide. Replace alcohol with Mary Jane, I could be alive less a few brain cells maybe, but alive,all the same.
Legalize it and tax the crap out of it. Farmers would profit. The whole plant is totally useable no waste. It would improve the economy.hehehehehe
Marijuana was legal in the USA. It was not until the government started getting greedy they reversed the legalization. Billions of taxpayers money is being spent on the war on drugs and how many non violent offenders are crowding jails and prisons allowing violent offenders to go free.
The results of "the noble experiment"-- undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America clearly indicate that it was a miserable failure on all counts.
Instead of us paying billions on a war we are losing why don’t we turn around and make billions of dollars to put into our economy instead. God forbid if our Pharma companies lose a fraction of their profit because the no longer would have to sell highly addictive overpriced narcotics.
On goes the never ending argumentYaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn!
Friday, October 30, 2009
IGNOBEL PRIZE
As the Nobel awards for this year were announced, there were various strands of chain reactions across the world . Doubts, raised eyebrows, sighs of resignation, nonchalant clucks, helpless shrugs, dry laughter, satiric comments, and exasperated sounds ensued.
One such deflated individual even declared it ‘The Ig Nobel Awards’
He brooded on it so much that he had continuous nightmares about it. Soon the obsession took possession of him so completely that it developed into a picturesque scene before his mind’s eye
.
At the award function he was the MC.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, literati, glitterati, pseudo-intellectuals, quasi-pseudo-intellectuals, and deposed dictators, enjoying the pre-ceremony cabaret”.
He tossed about restlessly till he fell asleep helplessly in total despair
But there was no way of stopping the invading thoughts.
In 1976 William N. Lipscomb was the sole recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his studies illuminating problems of chemical bonding.
Now, nearly 90 he was the chief guestof the awards function. Together with his walker and with The MC as his guardian angel, he made his stately progress through the crowd and onto the stage just in time.
The Nobel laureates of the past years: Dr. Deborah Anderson who had investigated whether Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, Don Featherstone who created the pink plastic flamingo, and Dan Meyers, who participated in a study of the medical effects of sword-swallowing, graced the occasion.
The new winners trooped in and once the laureates and the ‘Ignitaries’ had taken their places there began our ceremony
(The show proceeded as an exercise in controlled chaos)
During the 24/7 lectures acknowledged experts first gave a full technical description of their subject (‘genius’ or ‘nanotechnology,’ for example) in 24 seconds and then a clear summary that anyone could understand in seven words.
However, these theatrics were simply window-dressing for the main event:
The Ten awards were then given away. The achievements speak for themselves — all too eloquently. The winners are:
Veterinary Medicine Prize: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of the UK’s Newcastle University for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.
Peace Prize: Stephan Bolliger, of University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining, by experiment, whether it’s better to be smashed over the head by a full bottle of beer or one that is empty.
Economics Prize: the directors, executives and auditors of four Icelandic banks for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks and vice versa, and for showing that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.
Chemistry Prize: Javier Morales, for his work in creating diamonds from liquid.
Medicine Prize: Dr. Donald L. Unger (California) for disproving a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never of the right — for more than 60 years.
Physics Prize: Katherine K. Whitcomb (University of Cincinnati), for analytically determining why pregnant women don’t tip over.
Literature Prize: Ireland’s police service for presenting more than 50 traffic tickets to the worst offender in the country — Prawo Jadzy — whose name in Polish means “driver’s license.”
Public Health Prize: Elena N. Bodnar (Illinois) for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can quickly be converted into a pair of gas masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one for a needy bystander.
Mathematics Prize: Gideon Gono of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank for giving people a simple way to cope with a range of very small to very large numbers by having his bank print bank notes ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000.00).
Biology Prize: Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu (Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Japan) for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas..
After Bill Lipscomb had granted each winner a triumphal hand-shake, the ceremony closed with the traditional, “If you didn’t win an Ig Nobel prize tonight — — better luck next year.”
Idea: courtsey: Peaco Todd
One such deflated individual even declared it ‘The Ig Nobel Awards’
He brooded on it so much that he had continuous nightmares about it. Soon the obsession took possession of him so completely that it developed into a picturesque scene before his mind’s eye
.
At the award function he was the MC.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, literati, glitterati, pseudo-intellectuals, quasi-pseudo-intellectuals, and deposed dictators, enjoying the pre-ceremony cabaret”.
He tossed about restlessly till he fell asleep helplessly in total despair
But there was no way of stopping the invading thoughts.
In 1976 William N. Lipscomb was the sole recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his studies illuminating problems of chemical bonding.
Now, nearly 90 he was the chief guestof the awards function. Together with his walker and with The MC as his guardian angel, he made his stately progress through the crowd and onto the stage just in time.
The Nobel laureates of the past years: Dr. Deborah Anderson who had investigated whether Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, Don Featherstone who created the pink plastic flamingo, and Dan Meyers, who participated in a study of the medical effects of sword-swallowing, graced the occasion.
The new winners trooped in and once the laureates and the ‘Ignitaries’ had taken their places there began our ceremony
(The show proceeded as an exercise in controlled chaos)
During the 24/7 lectures acknowledged experts first gave a full technical description of their subject (‘genius’ or ‘nanotechnology,’ for example) in 24 seconds and then a clear summary that anyone could understand in seven words.
However, these theatrics were simply window-dressing for the main event:
The Ten awards were then given away. The achievements speak for themselves — all too eloquently. The winners are:
Veterinary Medicine Prize: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of the UK’s Newcastle University for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.
Peace Prize: Stephan Bolliger, of University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining, by experiment, whether it’s better to be smashed over the head by a full bottle of beer or one that is empty.
Economics Prize: the directors, executives and auditors of four Icelandic banks for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks and vice versa, and for showing that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.
Chemistry Prize: Javier Morales, for his work in creating diamonds from liquid.
Medicine Prize: Dr. Donald L. Unger (California) for disproving a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never of the right — for more than 60 years.
Physics Prize: Katherine K. Whitcomb (University of Cincinnati), for analytically determining why pregnant women don’t tip over.
Literature Prize: Ireland’s police service for presenting more than 50 traffic tickets to the worst offender in the country — Prawo Jadzy — whose name in Polish means “driver’s license.”
Public Health Prize: Elena N. Bodnar (Illinois) for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can quickly be converted into a pair of gas masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one for a needy bystander.
Mathematics Prize: Gideon Gono of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank for giving people a simple way to cope with a range of very small to very large numbers by having his bank print bank notes ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000.00).
Biology Prize: Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu (Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Japan) for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas..
After Bill Lipscomb had granted each winner a triumphal hand-shake, the ceremony closed with the traditional, “If you didn’t win an Ig Nobel prize tonight — — better luck next year.”
Idea: courtsey: Peaco Todd
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