Today we celebrate… Nothing… This interestingly enough is apparently the required accomplishment for winning a Nobel Peace Prize. Make promises far beyond the ability of any single individual to fulfill and then epically fail and you are a shoe in for a Nobel Peace Prize.
If only the music industry worked in this fashion, I could promise to record the greatest album since the Beatles “Abby Road” or Jimi Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland”, go into the studio, fuck around, produce a bunch of crap and yet still sell ten million copies and win a Grammy award.
I could, just by proclaiming myself the words greatest guitarist, receive all the accolades afforded to an individual whose skill and talent earned that recognition without I might add ever actually providing proof of that claim.
Now I don’t know about you, but as for myself, I couldn’t actually live with that. Oh, I’m not denying that the money wouldn’t be nice. However, the rest of it? I have a problem with making claims about myself that have absolutely no basis in reality what so ever.
Now I’m not claiming that I am perfect or anything or that I don’t exaggerate my own abilities a bit, but I do believe that an award given a person should have some genuine article of reality behind it, not simply empty words asserting as fact substance that simply does not exist.
Yes I do want to record a CD that will be the equal of the afore mentioned records, and hope that circumstances will permit me to one day soon make a genuine attempt at doing exactly that. Nevertheless, what I could not live with is claiming that I was going to record such an epic record, never actually doing so and yet still receiving the full accolades of having recorded such an album.
Unlike certain well-known public figures, I simply could not accept an award based entirely on my desire to achieve rather than actually making an effort to produce a valid effort at achievement.
Call me naive or simple minded if you must, but this is how I feel concerning awards given out for achievement. They should reflect actual genuine achievements as opposed to mere vague unsubstantiated desires to achieve.
Which kind of makes you wonder about his Law Degree at Harvard. No one has seen his writings anywhere and no one has seen his grade except his Honors. No one has seen his works at Columbia. No one even remembers him at Columbia!!
Wonder if George Soros promised the Norwegians Nobel Prize Committee money if they gave award to Obama…
Or maybe a Winter Olympics…;-)
soros is capable of doing anything. He is getting one of his obama rewards with the Brazil oil deal.
The Pink Floyd track “Echoes,” first appearing as that particular incarnation on the album “Meddle’” had it’s genesis as tracks recorded individually by all four band members and put together in a rough composition titled “Nothing, Parts 1-24.”
It then evolved through live performances as sequentially “The Son of Nothing” and “The Return of the Son of Nothing.”
It eventually became the fantastic 24-minute opus we know as “Echoes,” although has also been introduced by Roger Waters as “We Won the Double” and “Looking Through the Knothole in Granny’s Wooden Leg.”
“Unlike certain well-known public figures, I simply could not accept an award based entirely on my desire to achieve rather than actually making an effort to produce a valid effort at achievement.
Call me naive or simple minded if you must, but this is how I feel concerning awards given out for achievement. They should reflect actual genuine achievements as opposed to mere vague unsubstantiated desires to achieve.”
In fell swoop, the Nobel Peace Prize committee shredded the last vestiges of the image that the Nobel was both “prestigious” and that it was awarded based on merit.
Based on comments I’ve read from across the globe, the most common reaction has been “wtf?” and that Obama hadn’t done anything to deserve it.
I don’t know about you, but when everyone knows a contest is rigged, then the “winner” will always be “tainted” and “suspect”.
Obama should have done the right thing and turned it down. Which some have done in the past.