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Monday, October 7, 2019

Once more, Alfred Noble must be looking down and crying...

Of recent times, the Nobel Prize has become a complete joke. When I was in middle school, there was a legitimate award between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin for their efforts that culminated in the Camp David accords. This was the highest achievement of the Carter years (achievements, at least positive ones, were rare then) and I believe the then president should have received the prize for his efforts. Like Teddy Roosevelt, he actually accomplished peace among nations.

Jimmy Carter did win the prize in 2002, in an open insult to then President George W Bush. The prize became more meaningless as it was awarded to a snail oil salesmen in 2007 (ALGORE, aka ManBearPig), and a no accomplishment man-child, B Hussein Obama, in 2009. In 2007, the Nobel Committee awarded Gore over Irena Sendler, a woman who helped save over 2, 000 Jews Obama's was really funny, they awarded the prize to him "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." Seeing he was in office for a few months and he had spent most of his adult life dividing peoples make it particularly funny.

Now, the Novel Prize will likely show itself more worthless. Hope you're ready for this:
Controversy stalks Nobel Peace, Literature prizes

STAVANGER, Norway (AP) — Controversy stalks the Nobel prizes for peace and literature in a way it rarely does for science.

The revamped panel at the Swedish Academy who will hand out the Nobel Literature prizes Thursday for both 2018 and 2019 would relish arguments about the winners, rather than intrigue about the #MeToo scandal that forced the institution to suspend the prize last year...

...“Controversy is a natural effect of the Literature Prize,” says Mats Malm, the Swedish Academy’s new permanent secretary, appointed to head a reformed 18-person panel after two years of convulsions at the prestigious institution. “We want to contribute to the international discussion about literature and what it is supposed to be...”

...However, a better signal for this year’s award might be former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who won the Peace Prize alongside the International Panel on Climate Change in 2007. Gore at the time was the face of the climate movement, a mantle now sitting on the slender shoulders of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg of Sweden.

The teenage activist bolstered her profile last month, stepping onto the global stage at the U.N. to berate world leaders.

“How dare you?” she kept saying to some of the world’s most powerful people, accusing them of ignoring the science behind climate change. “You are failing us.”

Last month, Thunberg won the Right Livelihood award, often called the “Alternative Nobel.”

British bookmakers have Thunberg as the hot peace prize favorite this year, with Trump listed as a rank outsider behind several other world leaders, including two prime ministers, Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia and Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
This propaganda out, no accomplishments, she's flavor of the week (Climate change, or whatever it's called now), insults a sitting Republican president, she's in.
The panel could also choose to acknowledge the joint leadership of Greece’s Alexis Tsipras and North Macedonia’s Zoran Zaev. The two prime ministers put 30 years of acrimony between their neighboring countries behind them when they agreed that the former Yugoslav republic should officially be renamed from Macedonia to North Macedonia and Greece should drop its objections to its neighbor joining NATO.

No, those men are actually working on issues of war and peace. So 20th Century.
On the literature side, the British website Nicer Odds has solved the dilemma of having two winners announced this year by only taking bets on the 2019 winner. Among the favorites are Canadian poet Anne Carson, novelists Maryse Conde of Guadeloupe and Can Xue of China and Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, author of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which has been made into a hit TV series...

I remember seeing The Handmaid's Tale in my college bookstore. I read the first few pages and put it down. There is fiction and willing suspicion of disbelief, but good God, this is bad. A few years back I was in bed, sick as a dog, with my dogs next to me. And I decided to watch the premiere episode of the The Handmaid's Tale. And afterwards, I was convinced I wasted an hour of my life. It was that bad.

Bet money on it, Thunberg and Atwood take it.

2 comments:

  1. First time I've seen your blog, and it's right on. You took the Ignoble Prize to the cleaners and concurred with my below-sea-level estimation of The Handmaid's Tale. I hope to keep an eye out from time to time.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for the kind words. Last few months have been rough and I'll trying to dust off my blog, posting more regularly. Hopefully I can keep this up.

      Take care,

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