you know what? we're jumping on this bandwagon.

everyone and their dog will be writing about this, but fuck it. we're going to write about it too.

and the nobel peace prize goes to....

barack obama!!

sure, he's great. he's an alright president and he knows how to pull out the rhetoric when he needs to.

this isn't a blog about why he shouldn't have gotten the prize, although there are a lot of reasons.

the point of this blog is that there are people in this world who do extraordinary and rare things that promote peace on a global and individual level. and the prize is a chance to recognize these people, who often face extreme danger in their work, for doing what they do.

like dr denis mukwege. dr. mukwege is basically the only gynecologist in the DRC who treats injuries resulting from rape-- and in a country where rape was an accepted and widespread tool of war, this isn't a small task.

as of october 2008, dr. mukwege had treated 21'000 women. he founded the panzi hospital.

this year is the 50th anniversary of china's official seizure of tibet, so a lot of people speculated that any one of a number of chinese dissidents would get the prize.

or maybe it could have been piedad cordoba, the leader of colombians for peace and a senator. colombians for peace facilitates negotiations between the government and the guerrilla groups.

afghanistan has been a pretty hot topic this year, and maybe if the world was as serious as it says it is about "helping women" in afghanistan they would have given the prize to sina samara, a human rights activist, leader of the afghanistant independent human rights commission, and is a U.N special envoy to darfur.

people like these don't ever expect any recognition beyond making people's lives better. that's what this prize should be about.

maybe, in a few years, obama will do something that really warrants the nobel but i think that probably right now he should say "thanks, but no thanks" and see that it travels to someone really deserving.