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Friday, October 9th, 2009 06:51 pm
i do not pretend I have an attention span today
Okay, in my defense, I was literally mostly asleep during work today and so while I read "OBAMA WINS NOBEL" it didn't really penetrate at all until I dragged myself home, despite teh fact I read all of CNN (I don't remember it. I dont actually remmber most of the day. Yes, I am literal I was mostly asleep). Seriously, somehow--I do not know how--I had a vague "Huh" and then wandered off.
So it was at five o'clock when I got home that I was vaguely staring at the TV and said "Holy shit, Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize?" Which ended with my family looking at me with patience.
I have two thoughts on this after reading--and you know, having read the guidelines for the Nobel, since Stargate Atlantis fandom really encourages you to research awards Rodney really believes he should get (if you were ever in SGA, you know this. That's why all of us came out of there with math related PTSD and have at least two websites talking about unsolvable math problems. And some of us may have modeled a certain graphing one with toothpicks and multiple colors of pens).
My first, completely irreverent and inappropriate thought, was "Holy shit, they gave a peace prize because they were just that shocked that an American president was getting along with others." Which you know, is true. It's like when the school bully abruptly helps someone pick up their books after years of knocking them out of their arms--you want to encourage this. And you know what? Totes legitimate. He might also be getting it for not starting a new war, since you know, last eight years? We've had a habit of starting those.
So if you think of it as a way for the international community to say "We are totes amazed that Americans are not starting new wars and don't look like that, remember the last eight years?" Well. I see it.
Two, theory has never been excluded from the Nobels. And I agree, his work up until now has been good, though not spectacular, and his speeches are amazing, but a part of me thinks it's also something much more instinctive. I mock theory being used in the place of practicality a lot, but there's this; it's not that he's saying anything new. It's that he's saying it and believes it and making others believe it too. And that he makes us believe we can make theory and hope into practical action. Nobels award theory; they also award effort.
Okay, and fine--anything that makes the conservatives lose their shit and drag out "antichrist" without irony works for me. My dad is a superconservative. When he winces at the rhetoric? That's like the gold standard of conservatives doing it very wrong. Though to this day, I cannot see how anyone reads Left Behind as a totes true history of the future.
In other words--I'm happy about this. I mean, I'm ecstatic about this. And also, I'm giggling inappropriately at what must have happened when the White House found out. If it wasn't at least ten minutes of "You're fucking with me" interspersed with "Seriously, who put you up to this?" I will be shocked. Most people just don't wake up, get their coffee, and find out they've won a Nobel.
So it was at five o'clock when I got home that I was vaguely staring at the TV and said "Holy shit, Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize?" Which ended with my family looking at me with patience.
I have two thoughts on this after reading--and you know, having read the guidelines for the Nobel, since Stargate Atlantis fandom really encourages you to research awards Rodney really believes he should get (if you were ever in SGA, you know this. That's why all of us came out of there with math related PTSD and have at least two websites talking about unsolvable math problems. And some of us may have modeled a certain graphing one with toothpicks and multiple colors of pens).
My first, completely irreverent and inappropriate thought, was "Holy shit, they gave a peace prize because they were just that shocked that an American president was getting along with others." Which you know, is true. It's like when the school bully abruptly helps someone pick up their books after years of knocking them out of their arms--you want to encourage this. And you know what? Totes legitimate. He might also be getting it for not starting a new war, since you know, last eight years? We've had a habit of starting those.
So if you think of it as a way for the international community to say "We are totes amazed that Americans are not starting new wars and don't look like that, remember the last eight years?" Well. I see it.
Two, theory has never been excluded from the Nobels. And I agree, his work up until now has been good, though not spectacular, and his speeches are amazing, but a part of me thinks it's also something much more instinctive. I mock theory being used in the place of practicality a lot, but there's this; it's not that he's saying anything new. It's that he's saying it and believes it and making others believe it too. And that he makes us believe we can make theory and hope into practical action. Nobels award theory; they also award effort.
Okay, and fine--anything that makes the conservatives lose their shit and drag out "antichrist" without irony works for me. My dad is a superconservative. When he winces at the rhetoric? That's like the gold standard of conservatives doing it very wrong. Though to this day, I cannot see how anyone reads Left Behind as a totes true history of the future.
In other words--I'm happy about this. I mean, I'm ecstatic about this. And also, I'm giggling inappropriately at what must have happened when the White House found out. If it wasn't at least ten minutes of "You're fucking with me" interspersed with "Seriously, who put you up to this?" I will be shocked. Most people just don't wake up, get their coffee, and find out they've won a Nobel.
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From:"HEY LOOK, YOU GOT THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE, GUESS YOU'RE GONNA FEEL REAL STUPID IF YOU START ANY WARS NOW HUH!"
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From:THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Well, this is not how I expected to wake up this morning. After I received the news, Malia walked in and said, "Daddy, you won the Nobel Peace Prize, and it is Bo's birthday!" And then Sasha added, "Plus, we have a three-day weekend coming up." So it's good to have kids to keep things in perspective.
Cutest. Thing. Ever.
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From:• Myth: The prize is awarded to recognize efforts for peace, human rights and democracy only after they have proven successful.
•Fact: More often, the prize is awarded to encourage those who receive it to see the effort through, sometimes at critical moments.
I'm also quite ecstatic about this.
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From:The second was "The Nobel Prize committee doesn't care about George Bush". And the third was "Holy fuck the wingnuts will DIE".
All in all?
Obama=awesome.
All he needs now is an Oscar to match Al Gore's.
And seriously, him, not being Bush, and not being McCain or Palin? Has done more for world peace in 9 months than could ever be imagined. I mean he's even trying to stop torturing people. What's up with that?
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From:The Peace Prize has been a joke ever since they awarded it to ElBaradei a few years back, a man who never met a nuclear-weapon-seeking tyrant he didn't like. To award it to Obama for ten days in office just underlines how worthless an award it is.
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From:...then again, didn't Arafat get one? So 6 of one, etc.
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From:That said--awards live in the zone of human decision of all kinds. There's no award that exists in perfect objectivity.
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From:And given Obama's lack of achievement in foreign policy, and especially his silence when Iranian protesters were being killed for marching against tyranny, I cannot be impressed by any future peace prize. There are a lot more worthy candidates out there, who've done concrete things to advance freedom and human rights in the past year or years.
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From:The Green protestors I follow on the internet were pleased with Obama's quiet support for them following the elections this summer. They didn't *want* him to make blustery threats against the regime or talk about things like the "Axis of Evil" -- they believed it would hurt their cause.
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From:And they didn't choose Obama after his first ten days in office. The *nomination* deadline was in February, but they didn't make the decision until last week.
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From:And then Sasha added, 'Plus, we have a three-day weekend coming up.'
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From:I just squee over the girls. They're just impossibly bright and adorable kids.
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From:That woke me up, needless to say.
BTW, Rachel Maddow has made the point tonight that, say Desmond Tutu got the prize ten years before apartheid was dead, and also Aung San Suu Kyi has won the prize and, well. She's still locked up in Burma. So it's definitely not like it's something that's always awarded for something major accomplished; it's apparently sometimes awarded for stuff potentially to be accomplished. Or something like that.
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From:Hey, for last year's Big Bang,
Also, I still love the idea of the Swedish princesses fighting over who got to escort Ronon and John, and the king sitting back and looking smug because by default, he'd be escorting Teyla.
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From:See, that makes total sense to me. I remember someone I was beta'ing looking up foods that mimicked citrus in a way that could cause allergic reactions in people with the allergy, which was news to me and I worried after if I'd ever written him eating any of those foods.
Also, I still love the idea of the Swedish princesses fighting over who got to escort Ronon and John, and the king sitting back and looking smug because by default, he'd be escorting Teyla.
Now I'm imagining Rodney lost in the palace; I visited it with my host family (host family: average height 5.6 and lower, white blonde hair, blue eyes, insanely pale, fuller body type; me: 5'10, brown hair, brown eyes, less pale than I thought, looked like a beanpole) and the reason for the descriptions? That's the only reason I didn't get lost; they could find me by the fact I towered over most of a country.
*g* The king must have felt like he won the lottery.
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From:Mom said she looked for gaps in the crowd and flashes of dark hair. :p
Your experience reminds me of that movie where Tom Selleck played baseball in Japan. Talk about towering over the country!
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From:RIGHT!? :D
My reaction was basically this: 'OMGYAY!!?' --> 'Wait...what? How? Why'? --> *watching of speech by chairman of Nobel Committee/watching Obama's speech/reading up on Nobel history/reading ontd_political (mostly for the outrage)* --> 'OMGYAY!'
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From:I haven't been proven wrong yet. *smirks*
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From:THIS.
I heard it on the radio and thought they were being sarcastic/it was a joke. My brother msgd me exactly 2 minutes later and was like "They awarded Obama the Nobel Peace Prize wtf. This sounds massively premature...". My mother, being a Giant Obama Fangirl was all \o/, Sid and I are maybe a bit more cynical about it.
That said, yeah, he has potential to do awesome stuff and I hope by the end of his term, I will definitely think he's fulfilled the potential they think he has.
Word to the SGA fandom and awards thing lol.
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From:I had an observation by my principal today - and I have to admit that it TOTALLY blocked out the Nobel news until this afternoon, when I got home. I was floored, but the reaction at the White House must have been the funniest thing ever! *snicker*
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From:Stargate Atlantis fandom really encourages you to research awards Rodney really believes he should get (if you were ever in SGA, you know this. That's why all of us came out of there with math related PTSD and have at least two websites talking about unsolvable math problems.
is SO true.
When I wrote "Something to Remind You" I spent HOURS on a website all about different kinds of prime numbers and the associated proofs. I remember being so annoyed when people thought I had made up the sexy primes.
Hee!
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From:"We are totes amazed that Americans are not starting new wars and don't look like that, remember the last eight years?" Well. I see it
Yes! I'm shocked by how many people don't recognize that the prize is not just about a person, not just about concrete achievements, but about something intangible, atmospheric and yet nonetheless quite real, something that only America is currently positioned to represent: hope for world peace.
Most people just don't wake up, get their coffee, and find out they've won a Nobel.
His daughters were so lovely! Malia: 'Daddy, you won the Nobel Peace Prize, and it is Bo's birthday.' Sasha: `Plus, we have a three-day weekend coming up.' If this were literature, I wouldn't be able to think of a better metaphor for the future than of those two children greeting him the news.
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