More Stockholm, Less Syndrome

Stockholm, 1833. Alfred Nobel was born. He would go on to create Peace Prizes. And dynamite. And I'm spending the day searching history for an irony bigger than that one. Wish me luck.

I bring this to your attention because, in a surprise proclamation from Stockholm, our fledgling President was just awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

I'm not kidding. The Nobel Peace Prize. Awarded to a man who's had less experience brokering peace than a Woodstock t-shirt vendor.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't begrudge our President's being publicly lauded by Europe; after all, he's doing his best to bring America into the European Union. And he is a card-carrying, thunderbolt-wielding member of the Olympian Pantheon.

Plus, not even Chicago backroom politics could put the fix on the Nobel Prize Committee, right? Could they? I'm sure it's pure coincidence that, days before the vote, Nobel voter Sven Bidetplungger woke up next to the misplaced head of his horse.

No, our President has justly earned the Nobel Peace Prize, for reasons I will document herein.

Alfred Nobel was the son of a Swedish businessman, named Alfred's Father, who went bankrupt at least twice. Apparently, he couldn't manage to turn a profit providing military supplies to military-supply-hungry Czars, which then and now makes for a pretty lame résumé.

Nobel Justification Update: our President can't seem to manage the managers of the wars his managers say he's managing. But he's doing a crackerjack job at going bankrupt.

When Alfred's dad wasn't busy being hounded by half-staffed Czars, he built bridges. And in a delicious twist of fate, Alfred's career would turn to finding some substance he could use to blow stuff up: stuff like, say, his dad's bridges.

One Christmas, Alfred, while still a Swede-ling, received a gift from his mother (named Alfred's Father's Wife) that would change history: "My First Detonation Kit," which she picked up at Waal-Marknaden for under 12 kronor (batteries and appendage bandages not included). And a career was born.

Nobel Justification Update: our President plans to pre-approve your toys, grant you green batteries, and mete out government-issued band-aids. And though he was never a Swede-ling, he apparently has some experience with "swaddling."

A glimpse into young Alfred's potential materialized early on, when a hasty experiment involving nitroglycerin blew some stuff up, including his brother (named Eric, but not for long), along with several members of Alfred's après-school Arts and Crafts club.

History tells us that Alfred's Father was worried about his son's tendency toward introversion, so he sent Alfred abroad to spend some quality time in the company of career chemical engineers. I'm sure that many of you with socially-cautious children have considered the same therapeutic approach. Nothing like clabbering with a clutch of cloistered chemists to tease out that dormant man-about-town gene, eh?

Nobel Justification Update: our President has some interesting "citizen modeling" plans for your kids, too!

But eventually, as we all know, Alfred invented dynamite, a very stable way for unstable people to blow stuff up. Students of irony will note that dynamite became an instant favorite of peace-lovers everywhere, and also netted Alfred about 483 bungostillion dollars, or about half of America's current debt, not counting interest, health care, the military's need to blow stuff up, and next week's surprises.

And all of Alfred's wealth led to the funding of the famous Nobel Prizes. And all of this leads us back to the fact that our President just won one.

Let's review some other Nobel laureates:

Charles Kao, for "groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication."

Carol Greider, for "the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres." As if we all didn't already know that.

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (and others), for "studies of the structure and function of the ribosome." Sadly for VR, top billing went to Thomas Steitz, since his name would fit on the little commemorative coins.

George "Dubya" Bush nearly won once, in the Physics category, for his brilliantly deductive leap: "imports come from overseas." But he was edged out by a real poser, presented by the US Post Office: "if it's under 70 pounds, you don't have to weigh it." As we speak, several hundred abstract physicists with corduroy elbow patches are pondering this little Schrodinger's Catnip: How does one know it's under 70 pounds until one weighs it?

And now, our President has won a Nobel Peace Prize for, as best as I can tell, "groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of hope in tandem teleprompter communication." I understand he's also the odds-on favorite for the Heisman Trophy and Woman Of The Year.

Upon hearing about his award, during a taxpayer-funded Air Force One lunch commute to a Chicago Taco Bell, our modest President read a poignant speech. He read about how humbled he was to be the only Olympian God ever to win a Nobel Prize. He read that he was honored to hang out with such an august assemblage, since most of his earlier friends also liked to blow stuff up, or were irreverent reverends, or sported monikers like Tony Two-Fingers and Mick The Nose.

White House Voice-Organ Robert Gibbs said, "Obviously, we obviously didn't expect this, but obviously, we, uh, to the end and, did they not? But I obviously don't want to get into theoreticals here, so, and they do might, well, um."

And so, let's close with a telling quote from Alfred himself:

"Second to agriculture, humbug is the biggest industry of our age."

Well met, Alfred.

Well met.