Who would you have picked?

Alfred Nobel was a Swedish man who invented things like dynamite and ballistite. Ballistite, as we all know, is a smokeless propellant which was developed after gunpowder, a smoky propellant, was. And we all know that it is manufactured today as solid fuel rocket propellant.

When he got to be elderly, Mr. Nobel established the now-famous annual prizes to be awarded in the areas of science, medicine, chemistry, and literature. And there is a fifth award, the Nobel Peace Prize. The story behind the fifth prize is that an obituary of Mr. Nobel was mistakenly published eight years prematurely (in France), and it called him the "merchant of death" and stated that he "became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before". That's not a nice thing to read about oneself. So the story goes, that Mr. Nobel set up the Peace Prize to be awarded, according to his will, "to the person who shall have done the most or best work between nations for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for holding and promotion of peace congresses." Although Mr. Nobel did not give an explanation for his Peace Prize, some say it was his way to compensate for developing the destructive things he invented.

This morning we awoke to the news that President Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for peace. I was surprised at how many objections and criticisms I have read about his award. There are many, many deserving indiviuals who could have received this award. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee keeps the nominations secret and asks that nominators do the same. (But one nominee was 1939's Adolph Hitler. His name was removed from the list a few days later by the man who nominated him in the first place. And as it happened, no Peace Prizes were awarded during WWII anyway.) This year there were 205 nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize. Who would you have picked?

I am proud that an American leader won the Nobel Peace Prize, and if nothing better, this prize will make him be accountable for the work towards peace which we all beg for.

Who would you have picked?

Here is Wikipedia's list of Nobel Peace Prize laureates through the years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Peace_Prize_laureates