What Does Obama’s Prize Mean?

The Nobel Peace Prize goes to President Barack Obama.
by Charlie Leck

The announcement came as a stunning surprise and the questions were immediately raised by one and all. What does it mean? Why? Doesn’t it seem premature?

I found that I needed to carefully read the explanation from the Nobel Committee in order to understand what is going on here. You can go to this You Tube site to hear the Committee announcement. I’ll include the full text announcement below.

“He has created a new international climate. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.”

“…for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperate between peoples.”

“Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.”“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future.”

And, in that final quotation you find the essence of the rationale behind the award. Even more so than he has in the United States, Barack Obama has captured the imagination of people all around the globe and given them hope for a new age of peace and understanding between peoples. Perhaps it came even more from his campaign for office than it has come from his actions after taking office.

What will be henceforth so very interesting is to see how the award may now actually affect and influence the actions of the President in matters of international diplomacy and our nation's military reactions to crisis.

Stay tuned!

Announcement

The Norwegian Nobel Committee

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in he concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."

Oslo, October 9, 2009

Wonders in the Tree House

When the city of Saint Paul was controlled by the mob!
by Charlie Leck

The projection from the guys refinishing the floors in our house is that we'll be able to move back in on Friday. That's the day my wife flies to New York City, so I'll be alone here during the move in. We'll probably wait until Monday to begin moving the furniture back in. The good news is that I'll be able to reclaim my office Friday morning and blogging will then become much easier.

As I am reminded again and again, there are often wonderful discoveries to be made even in moments of great inconvenience. Such happened yesterday in the Tree House.

The bookshelves in our little guest apartment are the resting grounds for some of the tackier books I read. Anything that falls into the category of mystery, thriller, spy or crime novels end up on the shelves up there. A couple hundred books are neatly lined up, according to author, on the shelves. Another hundred have been haphazardly piled on top of the shelved books because there isn't space left to shelve any more. There's all of John Grisham's work, most of John Sandford's novels, a dozen or so by Patricia Cornwell, all of Anne Perry. John LeCarre, Jody Compton, M.C. Beaton, Richard North Paterson, Dick Francis, Tom Clancy and a host of others. There's also a very nice set of all of Arthur Conan Doyle's work. Lately, I've been piling on these shelves all of the works of Daniel Silva as I've finished them. I have always thought that everything up there in the Tree House had been read.

Yet, I was standing there in the early afternoon yesterday, thinking about how I had to either put some more shelves in the big room up there, so I could more neatly shelve all these books, or I had to weed some out and get rid of them. About ten percent of the books are paperbacks, so I thought, perhaps, those could go. As I fidgeted with a few of the books, trying to find the appropriate spaces for them, I picked one up that didn't look at all familiar to me. Hmm!

It was a paperback by Steve Thayer called Saint Mudd. Thayer wrote an extradinarily good murder mystery call The Weatherman. I'd read it about 10 years ago and counted it among my favorites. Another of his books, Wheatland, which I hadn't liked, stood on the shelves, too. With certainty I realized that I had not read this other book that proudly proclaimed on its cover that it was by the author of The Weatherman. Hmm!

So, I sat down in one of the less than comfortable chairs that we keep up there and began to read. Three hours later I was approaching the mid point of the book and enjoying every page of it. The Twins game was about to begin on television and I sadly set the book aside in favor of the ball game.

Well, I want to recommend this book to those of you who fit into each of the following categories:

You like mystery stories!

You enjoy reading about the history of our own metropolitian region (the Twin Cities)!

You can handle a few explicit descriptions of sexual escapade and some raw language!

You like compelling 'who done it' surprises.

The setting is Saint Paul, Minnesota. The time is the early 30s and prohibition is coming to an end. The protaganist is a columnist for a cheap and failing city newspaper.

Even though I'm only half-way through this one, I am willing to tell you that you'll be captivated by this terribly good story that goes way beyond simple mystery. Thayer is a marvelous story teller and a very good writer. Certainly you'll be able to pick this book up for a song in any good used book store. Go for it!

What I realize now is that I've got to order the other four books by Steve Thayer that I've not read.

Here's the Steve Thayer web site's description of Saint Mudd.

Steve Thayer's web site home.

Other books by Steve Thayer.

Living in the Tree House

Illustration by Stiles Designs. Visit the web site!

Making way for the hardwood-flooring boys!
by Charlie Leck

Running my life with less is what I’m trying to do this week.We’ve had to abandon our house. We won’t be able to get back in until, at least, the weekend. Our hardwood floors on the main level are being restored and refinished. They’ve not been attended to since we built our home in 1991. I had no idea what a mess it this process would be (is). There are massive amounts of extra fine dust everywhere – except on the newly sanded floors, of course, because those have been immaculately cleaned for the shiny finish that will now be put upon them.

In the meantime I can’t get to my loft-office to use my computer. My books and papers are all up there where I cannot go. I’ve got withdrawal shakes that this laptop computer, with no Internet connection, cannot cure. I’ll write this and then go off to a lovely little coffee shop (Crow River Coffee Company) in Watertown, where I can get wirelessly on-line to post this rambling.

Of course, I am worried that the world cannot get along without my vital postings. Afghanistan is a mess – the chaos that I long ago predicted – and the President is having trouble with the progressives in his party who don’t believe any real health care reform is possible without universal care or a public option at the very least.

Local Politics
I’m also supposed to be running a local political campaign here in my town. A scoundrel wants to be reelected to our city council and another scoundrel with a disreputable past wants to get elected. They’re both libertarian oriented guys who want to take government supervision out of just about everything. You know how these wingers think – that a property owner ought to be able to do whatever he wants on his own property – like draining his pickup’s oil directly on to the ground – or sticking a big out-building right on the property line in plain view of the house his neighbor just built so lovingly. They haven’t any regard for the wonder and importance of our natural wetlands and they think it is okay to randomly drain them, fill them and build upon them. Go ahead and do it when no one is looking. These guys want to get rid of our fine police department and they believe we could return to the vigilante days of volunteer deputies in charge of law and order with no supervision (or very little of it supplied by a county sheriff’s office that is 25 miles away). These guys don’t understand much about protecting the beautiful environment and open space that we have out here. They propose to allow property owners to make all the money they ever dreamed about, when they can chop up their land into tiny parcels where cheap, but profitable, little houses could be sticked together all over town.

So, our little town is under a serious threat right now. Winning is vital. I have a difficult time sleeping at night when I think about it. I push myself to do other things so that I can relax a little bit.

Fortunately, sports madness is consuming our state and this wonderful metropolitan region right now. The Twins finished the regular season tied for first place in their division and face a one game “play-in” this afternoon at 4 P.M.. The Vikes played the Packers last night and the whole state – and our neighboring state, Wisconsin – was crazy with anticipation while they waited for the nationally televised encounter. If you’re a football fan you know all about this passionate encounter between the Pack and the Vikes (with superstar Brett Favre in the middle of it). Our professional hockey team, The Wild, also started its season this week and this is, well, simply put, the State of Hockey you know.

I got lost in the Viking game last night and I expect to immerse myself in the Twins game this afternoon. That will mean a touch of relaxation for a while before the intensive work to save our town begins again.

Well, I’m about to put a last period on this rambling essay, but first I’ll take a quick glance at the newspaper.

H1N1
The general population is getting more worried about this strange flu epidemic that crawls across the nation. A perfectly healthy little boy died from the disease a couple of weeks ago. He’d been loaded into an ambulance for a trip to the hospital and died before the vehicle could even begin the journey. He’s the seventh death from the disease in our state.

RACINO
Support is growing to turn our horse race track, Canterbury Park, into a RACINO; that is, a combination racetrack and gambling casino that would provide huge amounts of income for the state government that might allow them to help the Minnesota Vikings build a new and wondrous stadium. It’s an issue I don’t care about one way or the other.

Republicans are all over Obama
The President foolishly threw himself into Chicago’s attempt to get the International Olympic Committee to bring the 2016 Olympics to the windy city. The Committee did not choose Chicago and somehow this becomes a vital catastrophe to the right-wingers. In his column this morning, Paul Krugman calls the Republicans “a party of spite.”

WHAT I WANT FROM HEALTH CARE
The President of Alina Health Care and Hospitals, one of the giants in the industry began a column that ran in today’s newspaper with a powerful couple of sentences. Then the rest of the column trailed off to mediocrity and seemed to avoid his own opener.

“I want everyone to have health insurance and access to health care service. Health care is a right, not a privilege. The United States is a country built on capitalism and self-reliance; yet compassion valued in equal measure. My neighbor who was laid off deserves coverage, the ingle mother without benefits deserves coverage, and the poor, disabled individual with a preexisting condition deserves coverage – plain and simple.”

Nevertheless, Kenneth H. Paulus, who wrote the above statement, makes it pretty clear he opposes a public option that would compete with his company.

Enough then!
"Enough then," as we say around here in Minnesota. Don’t worry, I’ll be back in my office by Friday and then I’ll be able to put together some respectable blog themes.

Twins Win

Win Twins!
by Charlie Leck

In truth, this is not one of my blogs. I'm going to send you on to Blog from the Moderate Left, to read a posting by Jeff Flecke about the closing the Metrodome. Flecke very cleverly calls it "the worst, most beloved stadium in Major League Baseball." Indeed, it has been a terrible baseball stadium, but, boy, did it provide us with a slug of memories. Yesterday's game, and the ceremony that followed it, was no exception.

Following Flecke's essay there is a video that highlights many of the wonderful moments in the stadium that we, here in Minnesota, simply call "the Dome." Even if you don't like baseball, you'll find Flecke's piece well worth reading (I think).

Service to Community

Brad Spencer and his family

Why take on the hassles and inconveniences of running for office?
by Charlie Leck

I've written before, here on this blog, about my admiration for the Mayor of my town. He's a totally dedicated and honest man who loves his community and wants to serve it.

Local, community politics is a real hassle. Thank goodness there are people willing to tackle the job, put up with inconveniences and dedicate their time to making a small city run better. My hats are off to these people. There are lots of reason why I could never do it. I don't intend to do an accounting of those reasons here.

One angry fellow confronted me once, shaking a finger at me and letting me know what he said was the plain truth: "You don't run for office here in this town because you know you could never win!" That may be. I don't know.

I've always told myself that I don't run because I'm too thin skinned. I witness how hard these local officials work -- the time they put in that takes them away from their homes and families -- and then they reap tons of criticism for what they do. I couldn't take such personal criticism. I just couldn't handle it. For me, it's not worth it.

So now I'm involved in helping a local resident win office as a City Councilperson. He's not thin skinned. Though he has a lot of patience and concern for residents of the community, he's also a tough character who will not be afraid to take action after he weighs all sides of a particular issue.

He's proven his love for his community and his dedication to it. He is a long time Cub Scout leader. Boy, is that an important job. What an effect such a leader can have on the lives of kids. He doesn't just dabble at it. He works hard for his kids and he's determined to making scouting an important experience. He's also a member of the local sportsman's club. Such a club does more, you know, that just promote hunting and fishing. They're deeply concerned about the environment and the wild life that lives in our area. Our candidate is also a leader of a local lake association committed to keeping the lake, on the shores of which he lives, clean, healthy and beautiful. He also spent six years on the Planning Commission of our community -- most of them as the Chairperson of the commission.

Well, you've got to be proud to put in time for a guy like that and so that's what I'm doing. Getting him elected is about the most important thing in my life right now because our town needs some good sensible leadership to give our good mayor a hand.

The election is on November 3rd and I'll take great pride in voting for Brad Spencer and for the remarkably capable incumbent councilperson, Lynn Betts. I hope my neighbors will think about voting for the same two candidates.

I Fear the Far Right

The Atmosphere Created by the Crazy Right is Crazy!
by Charlie Leck

In a recent column by Thomas L. Friedman, “Where did we go?,” the author establishes the same fear that has plagued me lately. The atmosphere is crazy – nuts! Rational, sensible and calm debate has disappeared. Shouting, insulting and cussing is now the style in political disagreement. I have friends who send out the sickest emails that I could ever imagine possible.

It all sounds cute. Holler and scream and claim that the opponent is unpatriotic. Call the opponents liars and cheats. It’s an awful atmosphere and I am ashamed of such Americans. What happened to the old days when we could disagree and yet respect each other?

In the last few days, Tom Friedman has said what frightens me and what all of us choose to ignore.

“Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.”

I fear for our President. I’m sorry. I’m probably not supposed to say it. There are too many crazies roaming around in the world. There aren’t enough Secret Service agents to watch them. Too many of these crazies believe the President is a nutty guy.

I have never felt this fear before. Never!

I hope I am being overly dramatic. I’ll be the first to admit it in seven years, if nothing happens.

Friedman doesn’t linger on this fear he expresses. His major point is that we need to give our Presidents, whoever they are and with whatever party they are aligned, a true sense of legitimacy, so they can operate efficiently in governing the nation and dealing with world problems. That was standard operating procedure in America until the birth of the far left and far right political movements.

“Again, hack away at the man’s policies and even his character all you want. I know politics is a tough business. But if we destroy the legitimacy of another president to lead or to pull the country together for what most Americans want most right now — nation-building at home — we are in serious trouble. We can’t go 24 years without a legitimate president — not without being swamped by the problems that we will end up postponing because we can’t address them rationally.” [Thomas L. Friedman]

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution

Part VII
Crazy Congresswoman Michele Bachman argues any kind of public option or government health care service would be unconstitutional.
by Charlie Leck

In yesterday’s blog I wrote about “a deer in headlights.” On the same subject, there is Michele Bachman.

Can anyone figure out how to turn off her microphone?

The Congresswoman from the 6th Congressional District of Minnesota is at it again. Lately she’s been arguing that the Supreme Court would throw out any legislation the Congress passes that attempts to nationalize our health care institution – or even federalize any portion of it (like a public option).

The Tenth Amendment:“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Well, take a chaw on that one! Then think about the preamble to the Constitution and what it says:

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The old girl is going to have a hard time arguing this one in any kind of debate. All she’s doing is providing her challengers in the 2010 election with the ammunition they need to make her look like a ding-dong – if that hasn’t already be conclusively illustrated and established.

If you want to read about Bachman’s argument in extensive form, go to this excellent article in MinnPost by Eric Black, one of my favorite news writers.

"Is there no longer freedom of speech in this chamber, Mr. President?....Mr. President...MR. PRESIDENT?....You can turn my microphone off now."
- Michele Bachmann-May 16, 2004, Last day of 2004 Session