Monk

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Let's use this space to let Thomas Friedman stick it to Dubya
using Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize.

It will help to relieve some of the stress.

( Friedman )

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Well, if Al Gore was falling into a messiah complex before, we can just start calling him Jesus Christ now. He actually won the Nobel Peace Prize, after all. Look ma, on top of the world!

The speculation that he would take another run for the presidency with the Nobel under his belt seems less likely. Why get the mud of a political campaign on his shiny white robe? He is above such worldly tussles.

All I have to say is, Congrats, dude! Maybe this makes up for having the 2000 election stolen from you.

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Christopher Hitchens manages to wake me up anent the presidential contest, which isn't easy since it feels like a slow-running soap opera these days. Hitchens is speculating that Al Gore, a.k.a the Goracle, will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and this will move him to get into the presidential race:

On Oct. 12, we shall hear again from Oslo, and I will be very surprised indeed if the peace prize is not awarded to Albert Gore Jr. (Don't ask what a campaign against global warming has done for "peace"; that would be like asking what Mother Teresa or Henry Kissinger had ever done to reduce global conflict. The impression is the main thing.)

So, and if I am right, the former vice president will then complete a year in which An Inconvenient Truth has been awarded an Oscar and he has authored a best seller. Roll it round your tongue again: an Oscar, a best seller, and a Nobel Prize in the space of 12 months or so. Not bad. And meanwhile, the field of Democratic candidates looks—how shall one put it?—a trifle etiolated. Sen. Clinton may have succeeded in getting people to call her "Hillary" and to have made them feel resigned to her front-runnership, but what kind of achievement is that? Sen. Obama cannot possibly believe, and doesn't even act as if he believes, that he can be elected president of the United States next year. John Edwards is a good man who is in politics for good reasons, but there is something about his populism that doesn't quite—what's the word?—translate.

Hitchens also reports rumors that Gore is waiting for the Nobel committee's announcement before he makes up his mind.

I cannot help but think that Hitchens is bored, too, and is just stirring a little mischief. Although Gore has favored the removal of Saddam from power, Gore was very much against this war, whereas Hitchens has been a soaring hawk. Even so, I'm now looking forward to the Nobel announcement.


(Source: Christopher Hitchens for Slate.com)

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If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, is it because Al Gore and a bunch of elderly rockers organized an all-star stadium gala on its behalf? The colossal flopperoo of Live Earth is a heartening reminder that there are some things too ridiculous even for global pop culture, and one of them is the Reverend Almer Gortry speaking truth to power ballads.

-- Mark Steyn for New York Sun

I wouldn't be as gleefully mischievous about it, but I did think the show to save the world was silly, though I am dull like that. Yet, the silliness is there:

Still, for the brave few who stuck with all 174 hours of Live Al, there was something oddly touching about seeing rock gazillionaires who'd flown in by private jet tell Joe Schmoe all the stuff he doesn't need. Your own car? A washer and dryer? Ha! Why can't you take the bus and beat your underwear on the rocks down by the river with the native women all morning long?

As long as we're making environmentally-friendly lifestyle suggestions, here's one thing we don't "need": Stadium rock. Amplifiers. Electrified instruments. Entourages. Recorded music. They all add up to one helluva carbon footprint.

Global warming is presumably a serious problem, but there is a certain frivolousness in these efforts, seemingly as much about vanity as anything real.

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Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" aired on cable over the weekend, and Monk got to see it for the first time, or at least parts of it. In order to keep our primate-protagonist's attention, it might have helped to include some spring break shots while talking about how hot it is getting, perhaps explaining the popularity of thong bikinis as a way to try to keep cool. Anyway, the Times has an article today giving a critical assessment of the documentary.

( generally true but perhaps exaggerated and alarmist )

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Al Gore really needs to get over himself. Here is Muareen Dowd writing about him:

The man who was prescient on climate change, the Internet, terrorism and Iraq admitted that maybe his problem had been that he was too far ahead of the curve. He realized at a conference that “there’re ideas that are mature, ideas that are maturing, ideas that are past their prime ... and a category called ‘predawn.’

“And all of a sudden it hit me,” he told John Heilemann of New York magazine last year. “Most of my political career was spent investing in predawn ideas! I thought, Oh, that’s where I went wrong.”

That he imagines he is an overlooked savior who was too far ahead of his time is an indication of why he is so wrong.

He makes a good guru. But that is probably disastrous in the White House. Jimmy Carter is an example of this. Maybe some people are too good for politics? Let that be their consolation.


(Source: Maureen Dowd for The New York Times)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Al Gore announced on Thursday a series of worldwide concerts to focus on the threat of climate change, with a powerhouse lineup from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Snoop Dogg to Bon Jovi.

-- Associated Press

I just love America's answer to world problems: Let's throw a party!

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