OK, after so much divisiveness about Al Gore, Doris Lessing and the relevancy of the Nobel prize in society, I just had to add this one. Why has no one taken any pessimistic pot shots at the recipients of the Nobel prize in medicine, Mario Capecchi, Sir Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies? Is it because scientist don’t make good celebrity fodder like politicians and popular writers? Is it because people pitty scientists as geeks and want to spare them any further grief? What is it?
I bring this up not only to say something good about the Nobel prize for medicine, and in particular one of this years reciepients, Mario Capecchi, but also I do this also for a personal reason as well; I know Mario and some of the folks in his lab.
Mario was a faculty member in the Molecular Biology program while I was in graduate school, he was very helpful to me when I was starting out on my research project. At the time he and Kirk Thomas were just starting out on the research that was to result in this years award. I remeber that they had a very tough time getting funding at the time because of the short sighteness of grant reviewers who did not see the relevenace, or thought it too preliminary to deserve funding (typical). His perseverence finally paid off - congratulations Mario!
And I can state uncategorically that, unlike Ms. Lessing, Mario was extremely grateful for the recognition of his research, his lab is ecstatic, and all his scientific colleagues are very happy for him . And, although folks might argue the merits of Al Gore as reciepient until hell freezes over, I will also add that there is no question that Mario deserves this very much, so there
Here is a nice piece about Mario’s childhood as an 4 year old orphan wandering the streets of Italy after the Nazis took his mother away to Dachau (she did survive, of sorts)
I read an interesting article this morning, somewhat along the lines of J-dub’s initial post. It was about a pro hockey player, 36 years old, making $4 million a year. He has a rare type of cancer, chronic myelogenous leukemia (CMT). All he needs is to take one little pill a day to keep it completely under control.
The guy who developed that little pill works a couple of blocks away from the hockey arena in a clinic, and is struggling to find enough grants to keep working.
With priorities like this, I sometimes wonder if we deserve to survive.
Probably nobody found them controversial, either in choice or in manner of receipt of the news.
Doris Lessing is not a popular writer. I don’t think that anybody knowlegable about modern literature would regard her winning as either surprising or undeserved.
The Peace Prize is often controversial since it seems to be more of a ‘service to humanity’ award. I take it that was what people were raising eyebrows over. If somebody thinks that Al Gore didn’t do the world a service by publicising global warming, I’d be speechless. People have been evacuated from islands in New Caledonia that are going under. The ice cap has receded several miles in Greenland in the last few years. The predicted dramatic climatic events (storms, bushfires, droughts) have been happening everywhere. It’s no longer a secret.
Yes, I feel that way a lot lately, and, if we don’t get off our keisters and start electing officials who hold more sane priorities, we may prove ourselves correct. Sad indeed!
And now that I’ve looked into it a little bit, I am ashamed that I’d never heard of them and I must say you are right: Hell is a part of the earth. One page I read about said that the conflict in Uganda and Southern Sudan is one of the most forgotten about on earth, and that’s reflective, I think, of the fact that I’d never even heard of the Lord’s Resistance Army. It’s been placed upon my heart to make more people aware of this crisis now.
Here are some resources for those, like me, who had never heard of the Lord’s Resistance Army:
. And, although folks might argue the merits of Al Gore as reciepient until hell freezes over, I will also add that there is no question that Mario deserves this very much, so there 
