Nobel ‘Piece’ Prizes: Iranian Cleric, Prof. Eric Cheyfitz, Prof. Jolene Rickard

The only plausible answer to the Obama Peace Prize is that it is, in fact, just one of many to be

distributed this time around, making his just one segment of a larger distribution process.  Since just about everyone, including liberals and Obama himself, has openly acknowledged that this bestowal is either manipulative, unwarranted, or disgraceful, I shall propose the other recipients of each Nobel ‘piece’ Prize.  The requirements are simple: demonstrate no significant accomplishments towards world peace (deadline today).  Here are today’s laureates:

Iranian Cleric Mojtaba Zolnour – for his aggressive stance and undying love for the hate of the state of Israel.  Most recently, Zolnour, the Ayatollah’s right-hand man of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, said that Iran will “blow up the heart of Israel if the Jewish state or the United States attacked Iran.”  In case this didn’t get the message across clearly enough, he was kind enough to provide a visual as the icing on the cake, adding: “Iranian missiles will hit Israel before the dust settles.”  Last time I checked Obama was not planning on bombing Iran – and with his new Nobel status, this is even more unlikely. Sorry, Motjaba, your hatred will have to remain bottled up for another day.  I guess this explains why the table reserved for ‘Mojtaba Zolnour’ at Hillel’s Jewish speed dating night at Trillium was empty.  Mr. Zolnour, I put you first on my list today because not only do you bring nothing to the table of world peace, you also take much off of it.

Those in charge of the anti-Columbus Day rally – for their public display of revisionist history and anti-American sentiments.  According to today’s article in the Sun, it seems as if the demonstration followed this syllabus: discuss why Columbus was evil, discuss why America is evil, discuss Program Houses.  Where did the program house guy come from?  The program house advocates always somehow manage to stick their nose in at any demonstration, meeting, student assembly, or Skorton announcement they can squirm into.  The correlation? Some analogy about how Cornell is the United States and program houses are American Indians.  Just a wee bit of a stretch.  This has nothing to do with world peace, so it deserves to be a laureate.

Professor Eric Cheyfitz (at Columbus rally) – for the apparent deficiency of subjectivity in his English classrooms.  The professor said in a quote to the Sun that he “teach[es] Columbus’s journals as examples of the beginning of genocide in the Americas.”  Interesting – I actually took a fantastic Freshman Writing Seminar where we read the journals of Columbus, Cortes, and Cabeza de Vaca.  The only difference it seems is that my instructor allowed us to READ and ANALYZE the books instead of directly imposing his opinion on us and teaching with an objective.  Teaching Cheyfitz’s way would be like having students read the Bible in order to be appreciative of the great acts of Jesus Christ.  Do we have classes like that? No, because that’s not how you read a book.  You read it and discuss it and analyze it with minimal preconceptions.  Biased teaching helps nobody; here’s your Piece Prize, Eric.

Professor Jolene Rickard (also at rally) – for revisionist history that almost had me convinced! Here is Rickard’s direct quote: “My ancestors buried their weapons of war under the tree of peace, the white pine…I exist as a Haudenosaunee woman because [they] gave their lives so that I can carry on the message of freedom to the next generation.”  Professor Rickard is referencing her nationality of the indigenous “People of the Longhouse” or Iroquois Indian Nation.  While these Native Americans brought five different tribes under one association through the Iroquois League, they have less than clean hands in the realm of violence.  Yes, they may have buried their WMDs under the tree to keep themselves focused while assembling a wampum belt, but for a lot of the time, they were burying their weapons into the heads of Frenchman, Europeans, other Indians, and each other.  Why? Because there used to be a lot of beavers roaming the Finger Lakes area and everybody wanted them.  Yes, including the Haudenosaunee, and they attacked and took over lands of other Natives to…gain capital.  Revisionist history is bad, and especially in this case, distorts historical efforts towards peace.  For Rickard’s one sidedness, she gets the final fifth of my Piece Prize.