Ignoble Peace Prize

According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

It would be laughable if it weren't so tragic. Of course the rest of the world wants a weak America; they would love to dictate the actions of our leaders. Our current president is suggestible, a pawn for those who insult us openly while they fawn over him as a great peacemaker. As long as he persists in his delusions: that bread and circuses will satisfy, that our foreign policy is best expressed with smiles, surrenders, and simperings; that the great nation he leads is an evil nation and deserves every attack terrorists can send us, he will continue to gain trophies from those who hate us. Why are we surprised?

Obama had only been in office for eleven days when nominations for the Peace Prize closed. During those eleven days, and for months before, he was busy campaigning and charming and criticizing the country he aspired to lead. So what great deed precipitated this award? And why so soon? Why couldn't they wait until he finished a term in office at least?
They couldn't have.
Why not?
Because their purpose was not a noble one.
They were not honoring a great man; they were simply affirming his political alignments, seeking to further manipulate the thinking of the nation he represents.
Who knows? In three years their award might seem even more ludicrous, their real agenda even more obvious. They could not take that chance.

Sorry, Mr. Noble.

Change

David stood quietly, waiting for his change, one anxious little brown hand holding tightly to the sack which held a loaf of bread.

“Change, change,” mumbled the old clerk as his slow fingers sought the right amount, “Everybody wants change, today.”

It was a comment that needed no answer, but the clerk at the next counter—a young fellow hardly out of school—responded immediately, as if irritated by the old man’s teasing:

“And why not? Sometimes change is good; it’s needed.”

The aged man stopped, his gnarled hand in mid-air, and turned around to address the clerk, whose face was full of enthusiasm and something else, satisfaction perhaps.

“He’s nothing but a socialist,” he said softly, yet not able to keep the anger out of his words.

“Is that so bad, old man,” countered the clerk, not without affection, “now maybe you'll be able to afford another pair of glasses; maybe they'll be able to save this tumbling economy.”

“Or have to close down the store, and we'll be out of a job,” said the older, with a humph.

“That’s the problem with your generation, always seeing the worst; grumbling, griping, grieving. Face it; your party lost the election. Life will go on.”

“Not all life,” said the old man, sadly, turning back around to face his little customer whose hand was still open for the change.

The exultant clerk couldn’t stop talking now, even though he found himself addressing the elder's mute and stubborn back.

“Now don’t start sounding like one of those “sanctity of life” types. As far as I’m concerned it’s a matter of definitions--semantics. This change is just what we need. You’ll see. We haven’t had a man like him in the capital before. Don’t you see how he brings people together? There’s an energy there. They love him.”

“Ay, they do,” admitted the older man as he gave the child a handful of change. Something like a shadow was on his face, and he smiled—rather sorrowfully, David thought--as he reached into a jar on the counter, pulled out a red, striped peppermint and bestowed it, as an apology for the unnecessarily long wait.

David skipped and ran all seven blocks to his crowded ghetto. Children up and down the block were putting toys away and rushing through narrow doorways into the cheerless tenement walls, and the intense evening sun made yellow stars of the dingy cobblestones.

Although he was greatly enjoying the peppermint, a parting gift from an out-of-touch generation, David felt that the younger man was right: Change is good!

It was great to be a young German in 1933.

“Come quickly, my eldest son,” said his mother pulling him inside. “It’s almost Sabbath.”

This post is in answer to a writing prompt from Sunday Scribblings. Our topic was "Change".