He took it.
Give Donald Trump credit. Truly a wonder. A continual marvel of what human beings are capable of doing: the Great Pyramid of Giza, Hoover Dam, and Donald J. Trump.
I'm serious. Despite decades of his toddler pettiness being ground in our faces, daily if not hourly, the man still manages to surprise. How can that be? Maybe because we cling to our traditional values, and confronted with someone who is an utter moral void, untouched by conscience, self-awareness or humility, the mind just rebels and insists on assigning him a notional decency he actually doesn't possess. We rush to cover the naked madman with a blanket.
And he took it. The irony of a man who thunders against DEI as undercutting achievement through merit, then turning around and accepting a prize earned by a Latina, hardly needs to be pointed out.
Maybe my mind boggles extra hard at this because I'm so averse to awards. Sour grapes, perhaps, since I seldom win one. But unlike the president, I don't go out of my way trying to win them either. I have never, for instance, applied for the highest award in journalism, the Pulitzer Prize, because A) applying seems a waste of time; B) I know how political the award process is, being familiar with Tribune panjandrums on the awards committee and C) I am too busy writing stuff.
Not that I wouldn't take one. From the Pulitzer Prize Board at Columbia University. Not from any random past winner. Though it's fun to imagine a scenario similar to what played out last week in the surreal farce called Washington, D.C.
"Hey buddy," Mark Konkol says, over the phone. "You know, I was reading another one of your hard-hitting columns and was struck, yet again, by how unfair it is that I was given the Pulitzer Prize while your high-caliber professional journalism is somehow always overlooked. So I'm going to hop on my motorcycle and blast up to Northbrook and give you mine, along with my heartiest congratulations."
That would horrify me. I would beg Mark not to do it.
Honors can curse as well as uplift. They're a monkey's paw. Even legitimately won prizes. I wasn't the paper's charities, foundations and private social services reporter for long, but managed to write a story on how the MacArthur Foundation's "genius" grants ruin people's lives. Recipients kill themselves, get divorced, have breakdowns, stop creating whatever it is that snagged the award in the first place. Not all winners, obviously. But enough for a story.
The MacArthur Foundation didn't send out a press release tipping me off to this. I just knew it had to be so, and went looking. Because every rose comes with thorns. With honor, mitigation. In 2009, Barack Obama was abashed, almost horrified, when nine months into his first term he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He said he didn't deserve it. He was right.
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"No end in sight. Every day, something worse...a greased slope downward toward darkness." Nailed it again, Mister S. Another one sailing over the bricks and the ivy, and bouncing off the sidewalk and into the street
ReplyDeleteDo teen-agers still read "Catcher in the Rye" anymore? is it still a rite of passage at fifteen, the way it was for me and my buddies, in the final springtime that JFK would live to see? I hope so. I really do, if you want to know the truth.
Nobody assigned it to us. Best friend gushed about it, and said it was a must-read, and soon the rest of us were devouring every word. Still have my copy, with. the iconic red and gold cover. The New York preppie, approaching a nightclub...suitcase in hand. Long gray overcoat, red scarf, and the red hunting hat turned backward, the way he liked it.
The blurb in the lower righthand corner proclaims that this "unusual" book "will make you laugh, and may break your heart, but YOU WILL NEVER FORGET IT." Bingo. So many passages that have stuck with me for a lifetime. Like the one in which Holden Caulfield's buzzed former teacher warns him:
"I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of terrible, terrible fall. But i don't honestly know what kind...this fall I think you're riding for--it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling."
Doesn't even feel like a slippery slope anymore, Mister S. it feels like free-fall now. A plunge into an abyss of unknown depth. And we're nowhere near rock bottom...or the rocks at the bottom. Three more years of falling and falling? Only if we're extremely lucky.
Makes one wonder where we'll be in 3 yrs.
ReplyDeleteSuch cogitations should probably not be taken while already in a gloomy mood.
DeleteThree years. Three more years. I've reached the point where I wonder, every goddamn day, if I'll still be breathing in 2029. That's the year I will turn 82, if I'm still around and not scattered ashes, or urning my keep in an hourglass on the mantel.
DeleteMy father did not make it past 82. On the other hoof, my grandmother, mother, and aunt reached 87, 92, and just short of 95, respectively. Which means I still have a pretty good shot.
Grizz, are you and He That Shall Not Be Named the same age?! If only 1 of you makes it to 82, my money is on you - and that's not just wishful thinking! If both of you make it to 82, only one of you will be aware of it. Again, that one person would be you.
DeleteIf you are referring to Mr. Tangerine Man, he was born in June of 1946.
DeleteI became Grizz What Izz in August of 1947. He's 14 months older.
"being familiar with Tribune panjandrums on the awards committee"
ReplyDeleteNeil your forgetting, it was the Tribune people on the Pulitzer Committee that were livid when Ben Bradlee & his absurd, holier than thou attitude denied the Sun-Times a Pulitzer for the Mirage tavern series! They were impressed as can be by it, probably also jealous that they didn't think it up & really wanted the S-T to get one then.
Trump's dementia isn't slowly seeping in as a normal aging process, it's a flooding tide with a hurricane behind it.
ReplyDeleteApparently, just like his father's: "In October 1991, Trump was diagnosed with "mild senile dementia", with his physician citing symptoms of "obvious memory decline in recent years" and "significant memory impairment". A few months later, another physician reported that Trump "did not know his birth date [or] age", amongst other difficulties.[132][137] Mary L. Trump recounted that as her grandfather's dementia progressed, he failed to recognize people he had known for decades, including her and Donald.[138][137] According to Fred III, his grandfather needed to be reminded why he was at Donald's 1993 wedding (to Marla Maples) despite being designated the best man." (Wikipedia)
DeleteApparently, they kept him busy at work signing blank papers, and his phone was only connected to his secretary. If little Don reaches that point, they'll have no choice but to 25th him.
DeleteGreat column but I'm dying to read the one about MacArthur winners! It sounds fascinating. PLEASE give a link for it!!
ReplyDeleteOh right! Sorry, I meant to put that in. The link is there now.
DeleteWhat really astounds me is that Machado offered it to him.
ReplyDeleteListening to trump alternatively bragging, whining and threatening nations on the world stage this morning is so embarrassing I had to change channels, put my head down and just go to work...all the more miserable.
ReplyDeleteAn excellent column today, Neil.
ReplyDeleteI am again reminded of how some of us live in a completely different reality from others. There is no world where what is happening make sense, aside from Germany in the lat 1930s (or to be fair any place that is run by a tyrant). And i think, until we are willing to admit and begin to state how this is no longer just about a deranged "leader." This is about his enablers. This is about those who think his actions are either OK, or justified.
Each day I am disappointed by Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries pathetic version of leadership. I am disheartening by the lack of democratic voices calling out their "colleagues" decades long double talk. I am nauseated by the "media's" corruptness and failures.
Perhaps one day we won't be as afraid and force people read between the lines. After all, if rumors are true, Netflix makes its directors spell out the answers five times throughout a 90 minute movie; maybe its time to spoon feed the ignorant. Isn't that what Fox news does?
If Machado thought she could brownie him to get support for her to lead Venezuela, she's sadly mistaken.
ReplyDeleteI got the sense from watching her speech, that Machado knew exactly what she was doing. She knows that the medal doesn't mean anything and cannot be transferred. She has what matters, and trump having the medal proves she is the better person and that Trump is a fool.
DeleteSure it would be helpful if he were to help her, but i doubt she expects him to. I think people are being too literal with this... but maybe im wrong
She could have sent him a picture of the medal. He'd be just as happy. "Look what I've got." He's an idiot.
ReplyDeleteThat Trump accepted another person's Nobel Prize is one of his least surprising acts, as its totally consistent with who he has always been, though manifested at a higher level. In earlier years he harangued Forbes Magazine to place him on the Forbes 400 list, even disguising his voice and taking on the persona "John Barron" to press his case. Though unqualified, he ultimately succeeded due to his unrelenting pressure. He badgered Time Magazine to name him "person of the year", going as far as
ReplyDeletecreating fake magazine covers of himself, which he framed and hung on the walls of his golf clubs, bestowing the (fake) honor on himself. He organized and rigged golf tournaments for the sole purpose of winning them, then installed plaques with his name engraved on them on the walls of his self-owned golf clubhouses. He has accepted military honors, including a soldier's purple heart medal, claiming he "always wanted to be awarded one, and this way is much easier". At some level, he always truly believed he deserved these things, and now he is incapable of recognizing the difference. He believes the Nobel committee made a mistake, and Machado "did the right thing" to correct the wrong. He can't even remember her name because the only person who matters is himself. In his deranged mind, he was awarded gold bricks, FIFA and Nobel Peace prizes legitimately. Yet even so, he can't let go of past grievances, and can't forget a one - losing the election in 2020, not receiving the Nobel directly, having a senator vote against a bill he favors....all eventually become targets of his narcissistic rage, which is as insatiable as his ego. so yeah, no surprise that he grabbed the medal when he had the chance.
As to awards being a curse as well as a blessing.... one of the best firsthand accounts of living with depression was written by William Styron in "Darkness Visible". His memoir starts with him on his way to receive a prestigious literary award in France, amidst the onset of a deep, suicidal depression which rendered him incapable of even participating in the awards ceremony. The scenario he describes is memorable.
Well said, Jill A.
DeleteThe Noble Peace Prize has joined a long list of “Awards” that have now become meaningless. The Presidential Medal of Freedom, The National Medal of Arts, and The National Humanities Medal come to m8nd. Add that to the Dollars Store selling pardons and here we are. Still.
ReplyDeleteAmen. Most of us have occasionally felt "slighted," although we seldom go around broadcasting the fact. Be that as it may, Trump's behavior is "beyond the pale." To be willing to tell the world that you're considering an invasion of Greenland because you felt "slighted" by the people who awarded the Nobel Prize? And of course, there's the fact that the Nobel Prize is awarded in Norway, which is not the same country as Denmark. So why punish the Danes by invading Greenland?
ReplyDeleteEveryone knows Trump's obsession with Greenland is, as far as I'm concerned, just another distraction hoping to drown out the Epstein files. He's not going to invade it, or buy it. But it did send me down the Google rabbit hole to learn more about Greenland, and who lives there, and it was pretty disturbing. Denmark has been horrible to the indigenous people of Greenland. Stories of forced sterilization of girls as young as 12, no living wages, living in dilapidated government housing projects. And there's only about 55,000 of them. Doesn't really make me feel too sorry for the Danes. Glad Trump is causing them some aggravation.
DeleteCarol. Then you're equally fine with Trump aggravating the USA because our historical record stinks, too.
DeleteMaybe that explains this quarter century exploding cesspool. Cosmic payback.
He is not going to live out his term. I'll be amazed if he makes it through 2026.
ReplyDeleteFrom your lips ...
DeleteI've never seen Trump with a broader, more genuine smile than in the photo of him holding that Peace Prize. As if he had actually won it. Pathetic.
ReplyDelete"Worse is coming because worse always does."
ReplyDeleteAll of the previous posts are spot on; however, allow me a personal note.
Yes, it, it being everything he does, bothers me. At the start of this week, I told myself, let's take a break, less social media, read more books, work on other things. Yet, the "firehose of news" is relentless. And I'm fully aware of their intent: to make you feel overwhelmed and hopeless.
And yet. And yet, what's a caring human being supposed to do?
(Also, No Grizz, teenagers are definitely not reading J. D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye." Kids don't read many books any longer, especially one that is now 75 years old.)
pan·jan·drum /ËŒpanˈjandr(É™)m/ noun
plural noun: panjandrums
a person who has or claims to have a great deal of authority or influence.
Mr. Peanut, I hatted the catcher in the Rye.
DeleteI'm sure i didn't understand it when i read it... but i hatted it.
DeleteAlthough headwear is mentioned in passing in the book, it has no bearing on the plot or any other points.
Further, none of the characters portrayed are employed in the haberdashery or millinery fields.
Hell, I'm 75 years old, too (78, actually). The age of the book doesn't really matter, because KIDS DON'T READ. If it's not on a screen...big, small or teensy...they never see it. Should've realized that before musing about being 15 and reading Salinger's classic.
DeleteMy wife and I were both voracious readers. My sister was a reader. Her thirtysomething daughter was a reader (the whole Harry Potter series in a long weekend). Forgot my own cardinal rule: Never assume.
Wore my blue Cub cap when I read it, with the bill turned to the back.
Guess I hatted "Catcher in the Rye" too.
The only reason that Trump covers the Nobel Peace Prize I'd because Obama was awarded one. Period.
ReplyDeleteCatcher in the Rye was required reading in my English class in the early 1970s. It was a memorable book for me and I loved it. To this day, I still refer to people as "secret slobs" in honor of Holden's roommate.
ReplyDeleteShe still own the prize and got the money. I am not quite sure what she did to win the prize in the first place. Asking Trump to invade her country does not seem like a peaceful thing.
ReplyDeleteI should have added she is not the first to give a Nobel Prize away. A Norwegian author won the prize in the 20's. He turned out to be a Nazi supporter. In 1943 he met Goebels and then sent him his Nobel.
ReplyDeleteLottery winners also frequently suffer terrible times post bonanza. (Oscars can also be a curse) I no longer understand anything in our current freakshow, but if I had a Nobel, I would send it back. It has now been rendered meaningless.
ReplyDelete