I could tell it had snow, before I got out of bed this morning. It was before sunrise and it looked very light out. Sure enough, one look out the window and I could see the snow. When I came home from watching the Twins get swept by the Yankees at 10 PM, the sky was all stars and no clouds. Seeing the snow, it was clear that the reason I took today off from work was going to be delayed...till Saturday, I decided sleeping in on Monday morning was a noble cause. I was half expecting my wife to wake me up and tell me President Obama had won the Nobel Prize For Economics.Friday, which I also had off and also slept in, the wife did wake me up with the Obama Nobel Peace Prize news. My wife was quite shocked when I dared ask what Obama had done to get the prize. Of course, she has more Obama posters and stickers in her exercise room that I have. The thought never occurred to her that just being Obama was good enough.
I expected conservative talk radio to be on the tipping point of revolution -- as always -- over the news. The convenience store girl was all excited about the news, when I got my coffee. The library lady was excited too. My brother even interrupted his retirement, afternoon nap to call and see what I thought about it all.
It was thinking they should change the name to the McPeace Prize, until I heard that the 1938 Peace Prize was a tie between Hitler and Gandhi. The committee gave the prize to Michael Hansson, President of the Nansen International Office for Refugees. After hearing this and knowing the Obama didn't have any say in the nomination, I figure he was in order for congratulations.
...but then again, maybe politics is like professional wrestling. Things have slowed down with the Town Hall TEA Party meetings, Obama has turn his gaze away from health care to Afghanistan and maybe the conservatives and liberals decided we needed some political spice in our life. Hence, give Obama the prize an give Hannity, Beck and Limbaugh something to get them through the weekend. When you get right down to it, the Nobel Peace Prize is a contradiction in itself. It was founded by the inventory of dynamite.
In 2007, Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Last week I was going through some of my stuff and found a National Geographic from 1976 with an article about the coming Ice Age. This morning I wake up to the second snow fall of the 2009-2010 winter and we are only 12 days into October.
Does anybody know if Gore has to return a portion of his prize, if the world starts cooling down? Maybe he could donate it to the people's in areas that haven't had snow for generations. But then again, my wife reminded me that it's not "global warming," it's "climate change."
Whatever it is, I just hope I can get my shovels and snowblower out of the shed on Saturday.