Nobel Peace Prize

It seems to me that the best thing the Nobel Peace Prize can do is to promote peace. That sounds simplistic, I’m sure, but the recent award to Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese dissident, fills that criteria. By shining a light on the imprisonment of this fifty-four year old dissident who has made it his life’s work to promote personal freedoms in China, the Nobel committee has drawn much needed attention to his plight. In a statement that reeks of walking-on-eggs diplomacy, President Obama called for more personal freedom in China where reforms have not kept pace with its economic growth. www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/world/09nobel.html China, for its part, has implored the world to look at them as the leaders who have lifted millions from poverty – the absence of personal freedoms a trifling by-product. Time will tell if the prize helps or hurts Xiaobo’s personal plight. It is unlikely that he even knows he won the prize, and his wife has been made “unavailable for comment”. But, I think the Nobel committee was right on with this one.

Aiming for the Center

I applaud New York’s Mayor Bloomberg for the announcement of his intention to help bolster the political center. www.digitaljournal.com/article/297779 With the angry and divisive tea party and Sarah Palin garnering so much media attention, it is refreshing to see someone of Bloomberg’s stature trying to be a voice of sanity and moderation. The mayor’s announcement coincides with former President Bill Clinton’s statement that “the Republican party is far enough right to make George W Bush appear liberal.” It is a time of perilously antagonistic politics. I like that Bloomberg is openly supporting both Republicans and Democrats. That type of position can only get the focus back on the issues and not just the ideology. I would really like to think that Bloomberg’s motivation is purely altruistic, and not, as his detractors say, merely a ploy to position himself for a run at the presidency in the next election. But for the time being, at least, he has my support.

By Sam DelPresto

Prohibition

Prepare yourself for the second coming of Prohibition. Not the actual feeble government attempt of the 1920’s, but an onslaught of shows and books about it. On top of the list is the recently released “Last Call,The Rise and Fall of Prohibition” by Daniel Okrent, . www.amazon.com/Last-Call-Rise-Fall-Prohibition/dp This book is the basis for much of the forthcoming Ken Burns’s PBS series on Prohibition. The book is a fascinating read about not just the criminal response to Prohibition that has become so much a part of the American historical tapestry, but also of the well intentioned people who managed to get a constitutional amendment passed in the first place to initiate it. For those who love politics for the sake of politics, it is a must read. Just as a teaser, let me tell you Carl Rove did not invent anything new. And if you can’t get enough of the “lore,” HBO will present a new series, “Boardwalk Empire” that will be digging in once again to that fertile narrative source. For whatever reason, Hollywood can’t get enough of this stuff, and apparently, neither can we.

By Sam DelPresto

Strange Bedfellows

Here in New Jersey, the governor has announced his intention of taking over the Atlantic City casino and entertainment district. www.nj.com/star-ledger/2010/07/christie Not since the end of Prohibition has a government eyed more greedily income from sources they once considered unsavory. I’m skeptical that the state government can do a better job than the pros., and it just doesn’t sit well with me. It’s too close on the heels of the revelations that exposed many on Wall Street as little more than gamblers who bet on derivatives using other people’s money. It brings to mind an Ambrose Bierce quote, “The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.”

By Sam DelPresto

LeBron

It’s over. Lebron has signed with the Miami Heat. www.lebronjames.com I tried a self imposed media blackout to see how long it would take before the news reached me. My sources tell me that Lebron was instrumental in capping the gushing BP oil well in the gulf coast. Also, according to a source that must remain nameless, the Palestinian terrorist group, Hamas, has announced that it will resume talks with Israel now that the uncertainty of Lebron’s free agency is over. With his trusty sidekicks, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade, he is on his way to Pakistan to calm the rebel leaders before heading over to Afghanistan to meet with Taliban officials suddenly eager for peace now that the NBA situation is more stable. So, I can understand all the hype.

I can only hope that Bret Farvre can lend a hand.

By Sam DelPresto

Minorities

As a white male of European descent, it is not often that I find myself in the minority anywhere I might wander. But I did this past weekend. Oddly enough, it was not in a place I expected to be a minority. Many of you are picturing a lot of stereotypical situations where I might have strayed. But it was not where you think. I was at a college graduation at a highly regarded university on the east coast of the United States. The disparity between us “whites” and the Asian and Middle Eastern “majority” was more pronounced during the portion of the Commencement where they conferred post graduate degrees. There was about a three to one ratio of “non-whites” to whites in both the Masters degree and Doctorate degree portions of the program. The undergraduate mix was a little more even. This apparently, was not an aberration www.bsos.umd.edu/socy/vanneman/socy441/trends/collrace.html To paraphrase an old quote, “I have seen the future, baby, and the future is now.”

Vultures

It is an inarguable fact that someone, somewhere makes money on every disaster. But the story in a recent New York Times article about the windfall profits being made by bankruptcy attorneys is setting new heights (or depths depending on your point of view) to test this adage. www.dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/who-knew-bankruptcy According to that article, “The lawyers, accountants and restructuring experts have already racked up $730 million in fees and expenses, with no end in sight.” for the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy alone. Fees include hotel fees, as much as $864 a night, $364 dry cleaning bills, and $500 a day limo fees for the people called in to “rescue” these assets. There seems to be no limits to fees and expenses that can be charged against the carcass of this or any other major company in bankruptcy. If there was anything left at Lehman, the cure is certain to eat it alive.

By Sam DelPresto