Days of Change

Day 340 – And the Olympics were Political?

You win some, you lose some.

In an uncharacteristic case of reality, Morning Joe started off Friday morning with the aforementioned host and Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin making fun of Jackass’ Nobel Peace Prize win. Halperin even compared it to the highly unexpected Oscar win of Marisa Tomei for “My Cousin Vinny.” In reality, we all know the more pointless award is the Grammy and the other multi-racial recipients who proved the case.

Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus, the frontmen of Milli Vanilli, were possibly the least happy Grammy winners in history. They knew that win would put a spotlight on their pop music already hated by critics. Their lip-syncing to monitors was soon discovered, leading tor their downfall.

The Nobel Peace Prize could be worse for Jackass than the Olympics vote. There are those drinking the Kool-Aid (the ones not in the DNC calling those not congratulating Jackass terrorist sympathizers) who want to point out the double standard of criticizing Jackass for not getting the Olympics and criticizing him for winning the Nobel Prize. The truth is that he had little to do with either. The power of his personality could not get him the 2016 Olympics. The power of his personality did not get him the Nobel Prize, either. If you believe, as White House Puppetmaster David Axelrod does, that the Olympics decision was politics, can you also believe that the Nobel Prize was devoid of politics?

What we all must realize is that Jackass won in the true spirit of this award. Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, a substance that was instrumental in modern civilization. Instead of seeing that, many criticized the invention for being used in weapons. After reading an accidentally printed obituary (in a French newspaper, of course) that condemned him for his terrible invention, he started the Prizes to assuage his guilt over people who didn’t like him.

Jackass is the culmination of the power of guilt. His academic and employment opportunities were all based on his carefully crafted biography. A post-racial society was promised to his voters, along with the end of the politics in Washington. He won the Nobel Guilt Prize the same way he won the presidency, with the votes of people who think how others see you is more important than how you see yourself.

Can the president be influenced by guilt into pacifism with this award? Certainly. He can be influenced into just about anything given his track record, as long as it gets in the Teleprompter.

Maybe the president will meet up with fellow winner the Dalai Lama at a reunion, because it certainly won’t happen in the US anytime soon.