Nobel, Obama and Joanne Woorley

So, I already feel strange writing this...but I went to sleep in a new house ...the fourth in as many weeks ...and I could not sleep.
I think it was the gods of “ideas unfulfilled” keeping me awake. And the dry interior of this house...but the first sounds more fancy.
I am going to write about some things that are...can you believe this?....political.
You know things in the world have gotta be outta whack when I pull up my stool to the political table.
Okay.
I woke this morning to hear that Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize.
I was very happy for him. I am sure he didn’t know it or really care...but I was.
Then as the media crushed around me...TV’s in the subway, live ribbons in the school where I teach, the cover of the internet edition of the paper...I was a bit shocked at the MAJOR backlash.
Everyone, but me it seemed, was mad...or indignant...or filled with disbelief.
When I saw a clip of the Nobel announcement and heard the gasp in the background when his name was announced...for some reason...I got mad.
Why was it such a problem?
All of the people who like to talk politics...a club to which, again, I happily possess NO MEMBERSHIP...armchair Jon Stewarts, if you will...meant in the most positive of ways...Jon Stewart is the only way I can stomach such talk...all those people were giving their soundbites...saying he hasn’t done anything yet.
He hasn’t done anything yet?
What?!
Maybe I am naive...and uninformed...and sometimes majorly unread...but I was on the earth during his entire campaign and during the very closely watched beginning of his presidency.
I didn’t have to be an avid CBC or CNN watcher to hear the news.
But here are the things that immediately come to my mind.
(I have had to look some of these things up to recall the situation and context...but remember people I am not Bob freaking Woodward people... Woodward... Woodard...Woorley...I am not Joanne Woorley...didn’t she write for the New York Times?...or she was on Laugh In!...whatever!)
Here we go...
Have you EVER felt our world more united or globally aware during the election of a major world leader?
People wanted him to win...or didn’t...as a world community.
He brought people to their computers, TV’s and radios to listen and research and blog and fight and clear things up...as a world...though we didn’t, we all felt like we had a vote and our say. People were proud to say they got the chance to vote for him.
He is a son of the world...everyone wants to claim him...has a President of the United States ever boasted such a varied heritage? Born in Hawaii with dual citizenship due to his Kenyan father he has brought hope and brotherhood to parts of the world that haven’t often been mentioned in a sentence with the United States of America....that I can tell...remember...I am just a layman...and not fancy.
He, in a jaw dropping decision, granted his first TV interview as President of the United States to an Arab news station and has continually reached out in a way no sitting American president ever has to the Middle East...THAT I CAN SEE...that I can find in documentation. I remember feeling giddy, for some reason, when I saw that he had done that interview.
(According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations.....)
Have you ever seen a nation so pissed off at a government that more than half of them, thousands who had NEVER voted before, decided to buck about 300 years of slow moving change and force a dream to come to fruition?
People all over the world were given pause by the simple fact that he was in the running...let alone the fact that he became President...spurring people who live in a minority ANYWHERE in the world to dream bigger dreams, to feel like maybe they can change the world.
Did you see him when he made his first speech looking so cool and confident...including everyone within it? Letting everyone feel a part of his vision for the country and the world...people who have NEVER been included in a talk with the government. Ever.
This man and his election, his campaign, and his presence made a world who had, and still has, fallen into the abyss of the greatest financial crisis EVER believe that it could be fixed...I am not an economist...but I know that I felt that way...and maybe my opinion is not studied...but he made the people who weren’t fancy feel that it might be alright. He brought us peace and hope by the simplest definition.
And as for the “War on Terror”...what a mess...what a clean up...what a thing to walk into the middle of. I don’t know anything about the military or war...so I cannot say what he is doing here or how it will all turn out...but he seems to be going to the nations...he is reaching out to them...instead of finding “230 degrees of Kevin Bacon” between Bin Laden and Hussein.
And just as a side bar...America was in such bad shape...and I know that the Nobel is a world prize...but it bears being said...that they were in such bad shape...that this nation voted for a man who’s name contained Hussein and sounded a bit like Bin Laden ...enough to get you taken off the ticket for dog catcher in the past!
Maybe it is the idea of him, and what the idea of him has caused and nurtured, that has won the peace prize more than his actions as a single man.
But he has brought the world to the tipping point and changed all of our minds...THE WORLD...some for the positive and some for the negative.
But all I know...is 5 people from totally different political parties (Labour, Progress, Liberal and Conservative) decided he is changing and bringing peace to the world...It is their prize...I assume they are smart enough to figure out who they want to give it to and for what reasons...they have been doing it for over 100 years, people.
Back to your regularly scheduled blogs about So You Think You Can Dance and crap that happens to me during my day.