The Nobel Mess

This is what we know.  There's this guy in Norway, who has the job of being a peace researcher for the Nobel Peace Prize.  He's ticked off and pretty upset.  His hostility?  Well....he says that folks who run the Nobel Peace Prize don't grasp that the intent to take down the world's military, and make the world a safer place.  He bases this on the intent of Al Nobel.....the rich guy who started Nobel Prize business originally.  Al has been dead for over 110 years, so it's not a simple task to figure out his rules and instructions.  To be kinda honest....folks have taken vast liberties over the past hundred years.

So this researcher wants a formal inquiry, where groups of guys would form up and investigate the process, the candidates, and how things have been over the past three years (that's how far they can go back and yank back the prizes.....apparently, someone wrote a rule where your prize could be yanked back).

The standards for the Peace Prize have kinda drifted along over the years.  So folks got it for just making up peace treaties.  Some got it for standing up against corrupt regimes.  Al Gore got it for sizing up global warming and making Nobel folks happy about saving the world.  Jimmy Carter got his for mostly promising the Egyptians and the Israelis a bunch of cash and military weapons each year....if they'd just agree to a peace treaty.  President Obama got it simply by winning the President's job of America, and the Nobel folks figured that he would tear down Gitmo and dismantle the US military (neither as happened yet).

What does this add up to?  Well....it's kinda like a Baptist church accusing all its deacons of being lazy Baptists and not carrying out God's word.  Or, it's like all the guys who work at Jack Daniels meeting and swearing that they just won't ever drink or sip the stuff they manufacture.  Or, it's like everyone at Ford Motor Company....driving a Toyota.  Or, it's like Democrats standing up and suddenly all voting for Canadian oil to run across America.

I pondered over this for a while.  There are a vast number of folks today....that the minute you see a tidal wave sweep the Pacific....they want to call up the US military to save thousands of people (mostly because the US military is the only organization in the world that can move heaven and Earth, if ordered, to do a job).  There's also a vast number of people who kinda remember the Nazi occupation of France, and how some Americans landed at Normandy.....to establish a force to oppose Nazi relations in Europe.  And there's a vast number of people in the United States, who think that a fair number of radical Islamic folks need a kick in the seat of the pants.

So this Norwegian peace researcher will get his committee, and some folks are going to have to explain in public how exactly the current rules conflict with Al Nobel's intention of the 1800's.

There's a funny way of viewing this mess and Al's 1800's view.  In the late 1800s....the US was this minor league military force....whose greatest achievement was the Battle of New Orleans and Gettysburg.  On the world's achievement list....neither probably amounted to a major episode.  Al Nobel was dead for twenty years by the time that World War I rolled around, and he never got to see the US walk into the situation and stop the war within eighteen months.  Al Nobel never saw Nazis kill off seven million Jews.  His perceptions of the late 1800s?  They might be mostly worthless.

The problem here is that a bunch of whacked-up folks have talked themselves into believing the Nobel Peace Prize means something, and they have to keep this running.  One groups wants just to reward folks who save mankind, and the other group just hates mostly Americans, unless they act European or elitist, so they want to award anyone who is mostly anti-American.  My humble guess is that we might actually see a case where they end up with two Nobel Peace Prizes.....one for peace and one for mankind.

The comical thing here is that some folks with the Nobel crew....are still waiting on President Obama to deliver.  And if he ever did.....they might have to figure out a way to give him a second award (just my humble opinion).