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In case you haven’t heard the buzz the Nobel awards committee have decided to give President Obama the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. Placing him alongside Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, the Dali Lama, Kofi Anan and Desmond Tutu along with many others. Only three other US Presidents hold that title: Jimmy Carter (for his outstanding peace work) Woodrow Wilson (for founding the goddamn League of Nations) and Teddy Roosevelt (for ending the Russo-Japanese War, giving The Hauge it’s first case and probably cause he threatened to beat it out of them with a stick.)
"Grrrr..."
All that said, the induction seems to have come a little early. Nelson Mandela spent twenty-seven years in prison and was forced to work in a lime quarry for standing up in what he believed in. There was even a plot by the South African aparthied government to spring him from jail just so they could shoot him down. Gorbachev faced Chernobyl and decided to go public about it, completely rewriting the Soviet Union’s freedom of information policies. He also faced arrest and a millitary coup by some of his closest friends, brought about the downfall of the very government he was elected to. He also had the strength to hold on end the Cold War and steer his country into the 21st century. Obama certainly faces adversity, but his toil is just beginning. He is the new guy and the nomination seems more like a pat on the back, a welcoming into the club. To put it lamely: He’s the new superhero on the team with cool powers and hip dialogue but until he takes his licks and really slugs evil in the face, he’s just an obvious revamp.
’76 Prize winner Mairead Corrigan Maguire (guess where she’s from) puts it well in her response to the news: “President Obama has yet to prove that he will move seriously on the Middle East, that he will end the war in Afghanistan and many other issues.”
Big decision time there, B.O..
On the positive side this kind of seals the deal. Barak Obama has been entered into one of the big lists of the modern world and he’s going to have to prove that he’s worthy of the honor. We are really close to closing Guantanamo and ending policies of torture in US institutions and Obama has pushed that. Voices across the Middle East, where most of Obama’s work remains unwritten, have spoken out to his worthiness as a candidate. There are still detractors but hope seems to be a catching thing. Even Mahmoud Ahamadinejad’s adviser gave congratulations, urging Obama to continue to spearhead the fight against injustice.
So who knows what will happen, Obama seems mired in the many hurdles the presidency has to offer when it comes to reforming a nation, changing our world image and patching the huge holes in our foreign policy. The greater Middle East will be Obama’s crucible in the years to come. Can a President who has elected to send more troops to Afghanistan in one hand and take the Nobel Peace Prize in the other and not have a sense of contrast?
Hopefully in 2012, or even 2016, we’ll be able look back and understand that this was the right decision. One thing is for sure: There is a long road ahead.
- Palestinian Prime Minister Fayyad drafts document that pushes statehood, infastructure for Palestine.
- Some aboreal treelines advancing as planet warms, study says.
- Wikipedia to launch controls on editing certain pages.
- CIA used mock executions, electric drills, firearms and other “enhanced” interrogation techniques on terrorist subjects investigation reports.
- Iran puts hundreds of opposition leaders on mass trail under the pretext of destabilizing the government and trying to start a coup.
- North and South Korea to hold talks to re-unite families separated by the Korean War.
- One dies, two rescued after being swept into the sea while hundreds crowded Thunder Hole in Acadia Park to watch huge waves from Hurricane Bill.
This summer has been a strange one for health care in America. Back in July Walmart announced it was backing Obama’s health care plan and supported a universal single-payer care program. Just recently Whole Foods’ CEO wrote against “ObamaCare” (in the form of a national health care program) in the Wall Street Journal saying: “A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America.” Everyone it seems is taking a side and making enemies.
Now on the Walmart front, aside from the speculation that “the mean old giant has met the baby Jesus and now loves the people of America”* it seems most likely that this is a huge business ploy. Walmart is the largest private employer and so will have a huge part in negotiating what the employer health care mandates are and can set the bar higher for it’s competition. Also, the need for employers to supply health care to their workers will make the market a lot harder to enter. I am not a buisiness major, I picked a lot of that info up here.
And Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods whose statement has stuck in the craw of hundreds of upper-middle class yippies does have some good sugguestions, like making medical costs transparent and honest so that a positive form of “doctor shopping” can take place where a patient can know what he’s getting in for and what he is actually paying for up front. As he puts it: ”What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?”
America has the most expensive health care system in the world. The second is Norway, however Norway does not have 15% of its population uncovered by health insurance, nor does it have a privately run health insurance industry a trait we share with a large number of third world nations and only a very few developed nations. Now there have certainly been health care reforms that have gone bad, and though America is not going to close all rural hospitals and tell sick people to go to Washington DC for treatment. we certainly could stand some positive changes.
- Civilians waiving white flags of surrender killed by Israeli troops, a Human Rights watchgroup says.
- US Mayor gets teeth knocked out while defending gandmother and child.
- Worlds oldest pupil dies at age 90.
- Brad Pitt might become mayor of New Orleans.
- Swiss bank agrees to spill over 4,000 names of potential US tax-evaders.
- Pyongyang calls Hillary Clinton ‘a funny lady’ and says ‘sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl.’
- Califonia’s senate decides to pull an all-nighter to figure out this whole $28,000,000,000.00 budget deficit thing.
- China breeds live mice from skin cells.
- Iran’s opposition leader unveils new broad-based political front that will give the opposition to the June elections legal status.
- Khameneni, Iran’s Supreme Ayatollah, orders the dismissal of current vice presidential choice.
- Three people escape Bruges jail in hijacked helicopter.
- Britain’s Prince William spends entire day being cool with a bunch of homeless kids on a mountain.
- N. Korea has stepped up the execution of Christians.
- Ireland realizes it doesn’t have a law against blasphemy and quickly passes one.
- Bill Gates criticises the U.S. for not adopting a national identity card.
- Two lobstermen get into a turf-war shootout, ruin it for everyone else.
- Christian Anti-War activists play hide and go seek and halt a training exercise featuring 24,000 Australian and American troops.
- Two Uighur “lawbreakers” are shot by Chinese military in aftermath of rioting that claimed 180 lives in rural China.
- Tennessee forces it’s residents to reexamine that old chestnut, the 2nd Amendment, as it relaxes gun laws.
- This is just a really cool article about whales.
- Obama starts to investigate claims that hundreds/thousands of US captured Taliban fighters were executed or left to suffocate in shipping containers.
- Drunk badger disrupts traffic in Germany.
- Man turns Rome’s Spanish Steps into one of those ball pits at Chuck-E-Cheeze’s.
