Last month, rapper Kanye West interrupted an MTV Video Awards ceremony to protest the selection of Taylor Swift for “Best Female Video.” So widely did the fallout from this episode spread that President Obama soon weighed in against West (“He’s a jackass”). Obama himself would soon become the subject of a similar award-related imbroglio, when he was bizarrely chosen as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. No doubt one of the conservative pundits waxing indignant about Obama’s Nobel will one day nab one of those lucrative prizes conservative pundits are always awarding to each other while some more deserving reactionary mutters angrily to his friends.
Such is the nature of awards. Nearly every field of human endeavor has a regular prize. And nearly every prize seems to regularly go to a clearly undeserving winner. Woody Allen’s character complained in Annie Hall, “They’re always giving out awards. Best Fascist Dictator: Adolf Hitler.” If an award like that really did exist, though, they’d probably end up giving it to Mussolini.
I started having my doubts about awards at the tender age of 13. NASA had announced it would select one teacher for a trip on a space shuttle. The dopiest, flakiest teacher in my school decided to apply. Naturally, she was one of two teachers in the state of Michigan selected as a finalist, out of more than 10,000 applicants.
This recollection was so surreal that I recently decided to look it up. Perhaps my memory had failed—surely, either she was smarter than I remembered, or she could not actually have been selected by a federal agency as an elite representative of the teaching profession.
The truth was actually worse than I remembered. A 1985 Associated Press article on her selection described her as a “puppeteer, ventriloquist, hot air balloonist, and former airline stewardess.” (My brother, whom she taught in seventh grade, recalls that the puppets figured prominently in her teaching method.) The article describes the proposal she pitched to NASA. “Her proposed special project on the shuttle,” the AP reported, “calls for running up ‘the biggest telephone bill in history’ by contacting children at their homes and having her puppet talk with them, maybe even help them with their homework.” Clearly, she was no rocket scientist. But the people at NASA were rocket scientists. And they apparently found her plan impressive.
Some years later, Gino Toretta of the University of Miami won the 1992 Heisman Trophy, which goes to the best college football player. Toretta was approximately the third-best player—at his position, within his state. He was probably one of the worst starters on his own team. Toretta went on to be selected in the next-to-last round of the NFL draft, where —without suffering any major injuries—he completed a total of five passes in his career.
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COMMENTS (5)
Are you trying to suggest that when the Academy Awards announced its pick for the best picture of the year, there might actually have been a better picture out there?
Okay, which one?
And does President Obama know about this? It might make him feel better to know that maybe, just maybe, he really doesn't deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.
[Secretly, though, Barack wants them to change it to the Obama Peace Prize. Some say his insuffereable ego is matched only by his insufferable lies. No awards invented yet for that though]
Oh, and maybe your teacher will win it next year. She's a puppeteer, right? And hot air always helps. Does she speak bullshit?
Oh boy: Your field.
The "National Magazine Awards". ... view full comment
Are you trying to suggest that when the Academy Awards announced its pick for the best picture of the year, there might actually have been a better picture out there?
Okay, which one?
And does President Obama know about this? It might make him feel better to know that maybe, just maybe, he really doesn't deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.
[Secretly, though, Barack wants them to change it to the Obama Peace Prize. Some say his insuffereable ego is matched only by his insufferable lies. No awards invented yet for that though]
Oh, and maybe your teacher will win it next year. She's a puppeteer, right? And hot air always helps. Does she speak bullshit?
Oh boy: Your field.
The "National Magazine Awards". Hey, too bad about TNR. But it could have been worse. Hell, what if Stephen Glass had won for "Hacker Heaven"?
Life is cruel. If you go to Wikipedia, the Stephen Glass entry is longer than Marty's. And longer than yours. And way, way, way, way, way longer than mine. Or, what's left of it after JD's edits.
Anyway, it's closing in on the end of the year. Time for all of us to start thinking about the Most Important Story Of The Year.
Up until today I was placing all my chips on the White House contribution to the Wall Street scams. But after being rivited by CNN's coverage of Balloon Boy, it's all back up in the air again.
Gee, I wonder how long his Wikipedia entry will be?
gw
"Yet it’s widely understood that the committee frequently chooses recipients in order to encourage or empower them, rather than to reward actual achievement."
Since when? If it was "widely understood" that the award is simply to encourage or embolden individuals, no one would have been upset. It's precisely because it is widely understood to be the opposite -- an awarding of achievement in the area of peace -- that Obama's selection has drawn so much ire.
"Yet it’s widely understood that the committee frequently chooses recipients in order to encourage or empower them, rather than to reward actual achievement."
Since when? If it was "widely understood" that the award is simply to encourage or embolden individuals, no one would have been upset. It's precisely because it is widely understood to be the opposite -- an awarding of achievement in the area of peace -- that Obama's selection has drawn so much ire.
I think you're right, oscist, that it wasn't widely understood; I think I disagree with you on whether it was an actual misunderstanding (assuming I'm not reading too much into what you wrote). The NPP usually goes to people with no accomplishments (a Foreign Policy article 6 months ago wrote that something like 27 of the last 37 have), and some of the most celebrated recipients hadn't accomplished anything at the time. Think MLK Jr. or Aung Suu Kyi. Others had accomplishments, but they weren't really related to peace (Mother Theresa).
Also want to nitpick Mr. Chait here: just because wine awards don't all go to similar wines doesn't mean that the distribution is completely random. It cou ... view full comment
I think you're right, oscist, that it wasn't widely understood; I think I disagree with you on whether it was an actual misunderstanding (assuming I'm not reading too much into what you wrote). The NPP usually goes to people with no accomplishments (a Foreign Policy article 6 months ago wrote that something like 27 of the last 37 have), and some of the most celebrated recipients hadn't accomplished anything at the time. Think MLK Jr. or Aung Suu Kyi. Others had accomplishments, but they weren't really related to peace (Mother Theresa).
Also want to nitpick Mr. Chait here: just because wine awards don't all go to similar wines doesn't mean that the distribution is completely random. It could be a point of decorum not too try to overshadow another award by choosing the same recipient, for example, or (more likely) it could be like college admissions in that it's roughly random selection over a non-randomly chosen set of top candidates. With a large enough pool of excellent wines to choose from you wouldn't have any repeats, but you wouldn't have the kind of silliness implied by "completely random", with Cristal as likely to win as Night Train
Originally the award was designed to be given to those who had done the most to bring about peace. This means it should go to international mediators and those who make peace with their internal or external enemies. While there might not be good candidates every year, there are many who fit this criterion who haven't received the award. It took the Nobel Committee in Oslo 23 years to award Carter for mediating the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. There are two figures in the Obama administration who deserve it for their work in the Clinton administration: George Mitchell for mediating the Good Friday Agreement in Belfast in 1998; Richard Holbrooke for mediating the Dayton Accords for Bosnia in ... view full comment
Originally the award was designed to be given to those who had done the most to bring about peace. This means it should go to international mediators and those who make peace with their internal or external enemies. While there might not be good candidates every year, there are many who fit this criterion who haven't received the award. It took the Nobel Committee in Oslo 23 years to award Carter for mediating the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. There are two figures in the Obama administration who deserve it for their work in the Clinton administration: George Mitchell for mediating the Good Friday Agreement in Belfast in 1998; Richard Holbrooke for mediating the Dayton Accords for Bosnia in 1995. Obama should give each of them half of the peace prize.
I'm of the opinion that Obama's redirection of U.S. foreign policy away from unilateralism is itself Nobel-worthy.
I'm of the opinion that Obama's redirection of U.S. foreign policy away from unilateralism is itself Nobel-worthy.