QUOTE OF THE DAY: Tom Lehrer

In light of the EU-Nobel Peace Prize debacle, the following quote by American singer-songwriter and satirist Tom Lehrer seems particularly prescient:

"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."



This he famously quipped when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1973, i.e. as the heinous Vietnam War dragged on and in the same year in which Kissinger connived with the CIA to overthrow Salvador Allende and replace him with Augusto Pinochet in a violent coup in Chile.

How very fitting these words are nearly forty years later...

Do you get my point?

IT SAYS IT ALL: The EU Nabs Nobel

The EU being awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize continues to irk me...more so with each passing day it seems.

I went looking for cartoons online that I felt were the funniest, smartest and even arresting (sorry, an irresistible pun) in capturing the sheer hypocrisy of this Nobel debacle. Here are some of the best I found: 


Cartoon by mackaycartoons, courtesy of Toonpool



Cartoon by Rafa Senudo, courtesy of Public Service Europe



Photos from the Occupy movement, courtesy of Richard Brenneman

And perhaps my favourite thus far:


        Cartoon by Kianoush Ramezani, courtesy of Cartoon Movement

They really do say it all.

IT SAYS IT ALL: Nobel Da Paz?

I came across this terrific cartoon today which effectively and tellingly lampoons the ludicrous recent decision by the Nobel committee to award the Nobel Prize for Peace to the European Union:


Cartoon courtesy of Antero (Portugal), as cited at keeptalkinggreece.com

"Nobel da Paz?" is "Nobel for Peace" in Portuguese, and the bruised nations of Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece are depicted. 

As the blog www.keeptalkingreece.com scathingly commented:

"This must be the joke in the history of Nobel Prize. Crisis-torn European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2012,  ‘for its historic role in uniting the continent’. Unless the Nobel Prize committee members had a sudden attack of a cynicism, KTG would say that Barroso, Van Rompuy & Co deserve to win the prize for a single reason: Living peacefully in their bubbles while many European Citizens, especially those in the South, live in conditions that violate the EU human rights standards and conventions.

In Greece and Portugal, in Spain and Ireland in the North, where social cohesion is breaking apart, the social welfare is collapsing, the needy cannot cover basic needs and the poor with less than 6,000 euro annual income get taxed. But that’s history on the making and ‘social peace’ has nothing to do with the Nobel Prize standards."

Again, it has taken me this many days to finally summon the anger I have with this outrageous award to the EU.

For cartoon and commentary alike, it's a case of enough said.

RANT: The Nobel Prize for What?!

Yes, it has taken me almost a week to fully digest what must surely be one of the most astounding and most revolting pieces of news for the whole of 2012:

The European Union is awarded this year's Nobel Prize for Peace...


Image courtesy of Russia Today

Yes, I still can't believe it...

The EU wins a prize for PEACE?!!!

The European Union won the much-coveted peace prize for its efforts to promote peace and democracy in Europe. This, as we all know, whilst the EU is in the midst of its biggest crisis since the creation and establishment of the-then European Economic Community and earlier incarnations since the 1950s.

"The stabilizing part played by the EU has helped to transform most of Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace," according to the committee.

Uh-kay...

The evidence is here, folks, plain to see:

The world has indeed gone well and truly mad (suspected for some time now)...

Armageddon is indeed upon us (that's what you get for not hedging your bets, Vittorio)...

The Mayans were right after all (I didn't see that coming)...

Aliens are about to invade (thank goodness, at least that)...

After all, if the Nobel panel could see fit to award a prize for peace to a bloc of nations as collectively (some more than others, it should be noted) destructive and war-mongering as the European Union, then one can only assume that the end of the world is truly nigh. 

Not to mention that many of the world's top ten sellers of arms are comprised of EU nations (with Germany 3rd, France 4th, the United Kingdom 5th, Italy 7th and Sweden 9th, as ranked in sales of 2001-2012, as per stats given by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute).

"A continent of peace?" Are they for real?

How can one even begin to take such news seriously and somehow attempt to deconstruct it in a meaningful, sober manner? 

When something is so patently absurd, it deserves nothing but derision and ridicule.

However, this is, after all, the same Nobel committee that saw fit to award Barack Obama of all people the same prize back in 2009. And we all know what a champion for everlasting peace he has been for the world.

Nobel Peace Prize? This year, unfortunately, it's more like the Nobel Dreck Prize.

Shameful.

Do you get my point?