Nobel Perspective

Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize. I had just met Corrie for lunch during her break at jury duty, and the restaurant we were attending had televisions tuned to news channels. The main channel was watching a car chase outside of Dallas, and the crowd at the establishment (more of a pub than a fine-cuisine place) was cheering loudly each time the police came close to bumping the driver off the road, booing loudly when the cop would miss, and booing louder for every commercial break. Corrie had left, and I was reading a magazine article about pi, the economy, and some rich dude serving time for (allegedly) defrauding Japanese investors.

I glanced up every so often when the cheering or booing reached certain crescendo levels. On one glance, the scroll ticker on the bottom announced that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. I thought it was some kind of joke, or error, but no...it was wholly accurate.

The Nobel committee said that Bam's outspoken attempt to tackle climate change, stop nuclear proliferation, and ease tensions in the Muslim world were the reasons they gave it to him. Later that evening, Corrie and I talked about it, and she said, "What, did they give it to him because he's a cool guy?" It seems like the answer to that was "Yup, pretty much."

It seems like Dubya really chafed the world with his invasions, his attempts to conquer two countries...his successor wins a Nobel Peace Prize in just nine-months on the job.

As only kids can, Obama's daughter Malia, referring to their dog Bo, put everything in perspective and tops this entire discussion: Obama learned at 6 am that he'd won, remembering later in the day, "After I received the news, Malia walked in and said, 'Daddy, you won the Nobel peace Prize, and it's Bo's birthday.'"

Whatta world...an inexperienced President can win a Nobel Peace Prize while his subjects are getting drunk while cheering and booing police car chases during lunch.