Rest In Peace: Nelson Mandela (1918 - 2013)

Today we mourn the death of international hero Nelson Mandela. His life personifies 'the heart of a lion'. He led the fight against apartheid with extraordinary vigor and resilience after spending nearly three decades of his life behind bars. He sacrificed his private life and his youth for his people, and remains South Africa's best known and loved hero.


Mandela was born July 18, 1918. He was jailed in November 1962 for leaving the country illegally and for incitement to strike. While serving the sentence he was charged with sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment.

In prison Mandela demonstrated his heart by never compromising his political principles. He was always a source of strength for the other prisoners. Nelson Mandela's reputation grew steadily. He was widely accepted as the most significant Black leader in South Africa and became a potent symbol of resistance as the anti-apartheid movement gathered strength. He consistently refused to compromise his political position to obtain his freedom.


More people watched his release from prison on February 11, 1990 than any other prisoner in the history of the world. Some even analyzed the details of his speech he gave on his release! He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. He served as president of South Africa from 1994-1999.

Mandela has honorary degrees from more than 50 international universities. Nelson Mandela retired from public life in June 1999 and he currently resides in his birth place - Qunu, Transkei.

Here is my Pinterest board dedicated to Nelson Mandela

Villagers, do you remember your participating in protests against apartheid? Do you remember how you felt when Mandela was finally released from prison? Can you deny that this quite man of peace found a way into your heart?

Rest in peace, Madiba!

41 - Health Care Reform Can't Wait

41 -- that's the number of leading economists -- including three Nobel Prize winners -- who sent a letter to President Obama and Congress urging the swift passage of comprehensive health insurance reform to curb skyrocketing health care costs.

41 -- is also the percentage of adults under the age of 65 who accumulated medical debt, had difficulty paying medical bills, or struggled with both during a recent one-year period.

No ifs, ands or buts about it -- if we do nothing to reform our broken health care system, costs will continue to skyrocket and break the budgets of American families, small businesses and the Federal Government.

If we pass comprehensive health insurance reform, we can reverse this trend and control rising costs. According to some of our nation's leading economists, "the health care reforms passed by the House and Senate -- with recent modifications proposed by President Obama -- include serious measures that will slow the growth of health care spending."

President Obama Accepts Nobel Peace Prize and Shares His Thoughts on 'War and Peace'

This morning the President spoke at the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony at the Oslo City Hall. His speech accepting the prize was well worth reading in full, an excerpt is below:

Of course, we know that for most of history, this concept of "just war" was rarely observed. The capacity of human beings to think up new ways to kill one another proved inexhaustible, as did our capacity to exempt from mercy those who look different or pray to a different God. Wars between armies gave way to wars between nations -- total wars in which the distinction between combatant and civilian became blurred. In the span of 30 years, such carnage would twice engulf this continent. And while it's hard to conceive of a cause more just than the defeat of the Third Reich and the Axis powers, World War II was a conflict in which the total number of civilians who died exceeded the number of soldiers who perished.

In the wake of such destruction, and with the advent of the nuclear age, it became clear to victor and vanquished alike that the world needed institutions to prevent another world war. And so, a quarter century after the United States Senate rejected the League of Nations -- an idea for which Woodrow Wilson received this prize -- America led the world in constructing an architecture to keep the peace: a Marshall Plan and a United Nations, mechanisms to govern the waging of war, treaties to protect human rights, prevent genocide, restrict the most dangerous weapons.

In many ways, these efforts succeeded. Yes, terrible wars have been fought, and atrocities committed. But there has been no Third World War. The Cold War ended with jubilant crowds dismantling a wall. Commerce has stitched much of the world together. Billions have been lifted from poverty. The ideals of liberty and self-determination, equality and the rule of law have haltingly advanced. We are the heirs of the fortitude and foresight of generations past, and it is a legacy for which my own country is rightfully proud.

And yet, a decade into a new century, this old architecture is buckling under the weight of new threats. The world may no longer shudder at the prospect of war between two nuclear superpowers, but proliferation may increase the risk of catastrophe. Terrorism has long been a tactic, but modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale.

Moreover, wars between nations have increasingly given way to wars within nations. The resurgence of ethnic or sectarian conflicts; the growth of secessionist movements, insurgencies, and failed states -- all these things have increasingly trapped civilians in unending chaos. In today's wars, many more civilians are killed than soldiers; the seeds of future conflict are sown, economies are wrecked, civil societies torn asunder, refugees amassed, children scarred.

I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work, and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace.

What are your thoughts about the President's speech today in Oslo? Are you proud that he won the Nobel Peace Prize?

VIDEO: Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize for 2009

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.





Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."

The President shared his thoughts on this prestigious award earlier today:



I am very proud of my President today. How 'bout you?

Toni Morrison Endorses Barack Obama

I had to smile today when I heard that Toni Morrison endorsed Barack Obama. I imagine that Sis. Morrison, who won the Nobel Prize in 1993, regretted the fact that she is the source of the rumor that Bill Clinton was America's first Black president.

In a 1998 New Yorker piece, Morrison wrote of Bill Clinton: "White skin notwithstanding, this is our first Black president. Blacker than any actual Black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of Blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."

Today, she took steps to get that monkey off her back as she noted in her letter to Obama that she was backing him because "this is one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril. There have been a few prescient leaders in our past, but you are the man for this time."

Here is the full text of her letter:

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Dear Senator Obama,

This letter represents a first for me--a public endorsement of a Presidential candidate. I feel driven to let you know why I am writing it. One reason is it may help gather other supporters; another is that this is one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril. I will not rehearse the multiple crises facing us, but of one thing I am certain: this opportunity for a national evolution (even revolution) will not come again soon, and I am convinced you are the person to capture it.

May I describe to you my thoughts?

I have admired Senator Clinton for years. Her knowledge always seemed to me exhaustive; her negotiation of politics expert. However I am more compelled by the quality of mind (as far as I can measure it) of a candidate. I cared little for her gender as a source of my admiration, and the little I did care was based on the fact that no liberal woman has ever ruled in America. Only conservative or "new-centrist" ones are allowed into that realm. Nor do I care very much for your race[s]. I would not support you if that was all you had to offer or because it might make me "proud."

In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it. Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace--that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom.

When, I wondered, was the last time this country was guided by such a leader? Someone whose moral center was un-embargoed? Someone with courage instead of mere ambition? Someone who truly thinks of his country's citizens as "we," not "they"? Someone who understands what it will take to help America realize the virtues it fancies about itself, what it desperately needs to become in the world?

Our future is ripe, outrageously rich in its possibilities. Yet unleashing the glory of that future will require a difficult labor, and some may be so frightened of its birth they will refuse to abandon their nostalgia for the womb.

There have been a few prescient leaders in our past, but you are the man for this time.

Good luck to you and to us.
Toni Morrison

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In a statement, Obama thanked Morrison for her endorsement, saying she "has touched a nation with the grace and beauty of her words, and I was deeply moved and honored by the letter she wrote and the support she is giving our campaign."

What do you think about this endorsement from Toni Morrison?

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Says Blacks Are Talented, But Less Intelligent Than Whites

I must admit that I don't pay much attention to the annual Nobel Peace Prize process. I know that Martin Luther King, Jr won the prize back in the day. Of course, Al Gore was a big winner this year.

So, it is no surprise that I didn't know that an American professor named James Watson won the Nobel prize back in 1962. Obviously, the guy has some book smarts to do the things he did with DNA research back in the 1950s and 1960s.

However, the downside for white guys living as adults in America back in the 1950s and 1960s is that they have some whack ideas about race. So, it was also not a surprise to know that Dr. James Watson harbors racist thoughts. I am surprised that the old guy allowed his inner demons out in public. The old boy was quoted as saying that he is "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really."

Watson also asserted there was no reason to believe different races separated by geography should have evolved identically, and he said that while he hoped everyone was equal, "people who have to deal with Black employees find this is not true."

Of course, he is apologizing all over himself now. Not because he thought the racist thoughts ... but, because he got so comfortable that he said them out loud. His cozy position at a New York university is gone as they suspended him immediately upon reading the article. I imagine that Dr. Watson was feeling good about all the nooses showing up in Noose York and elsewhere in the country ... so he thought it was OK for him to let on that Black folks are less intelligent than whites.

Just goes to show that a Nobel Peace Prize doesn't make you a good person.