Friday, October 12, 2007

Tis the Season for Nobels ...

Today Former Vice President, and almost President, if not for a little bit of manipulation, Al Gore, along with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize ... Imagine, a world where the environment and peace are FINALLY interconnected and even inseperable ... like John said - "it's easy if you try !!"

I had two realizations about the Nobel Peace Prize today ...

One realization was that many of those who have won the Nobel Peace Prize are among my personal heroes ... Martin Luther King Jr, Desmond Tutu, The Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, President Jimmy Carter, Elie Weisel, Nelson Mandela, Medecins Sans Fronteres, Jody Williams, Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa, Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, on several occasions - the United Nations: Peacekeepers, UNICEF, and the High Commissioner for Refugees, and The International Committee of the Red Cross ... just to name a few ...

The second realization I had after investigating the list of Laureates, was the fact that there are no less than FOUR American Democrats on the list - Gore, Carter, Woodrow Wilson and Cordell Hull ... while I could only identify ONE Republican - Henry Kissinger ... I don't know if that is just a coincidental fluke or if it is telling us something ...

For now - congrats to Almost President Al Gore ... he is truly a man of Peace !!!

1 comment:

Jeanne said...

But didn't the Nobel Peace Prize also go to Henry Kissinger? He was hardly a peace monger.

My feeling is that too often it goes to politically safe candidates. Or to people who should have gotten it a decade or two early, because they became safe icons. Do you know what I mean?

Nelson Mandela should have gotten it during all those years he was in prison ...

Not disagreeing with you, just adding some context.

Al Gore gets this because we took ther presidency away from him and he accepted that without a fuss. If he had made a fuss, I like to think, he would be president now and we wouldn't be in Iraq.

Jeanne