Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize

Congratulations to a great man on unifying the world during an economic crisis and taking over the collosal mess left behind by the previous administration. He has written 2 books, is a professor at the University of Chicago, an intellectual as well as a politican. His achievements should not be put aside because he is the president or because people think he is only getting the award as a result of his eloquence and fame.

Is Torture Ever Ok?

Everyone has been talking about it. The Obama administration published the debated torture methods authorized during the Bush Administration. Waterboarding, Stress positions and Confinement are the main categories and were supposedly not designed to inflict severe bodily injury. If you look at the pictures and analyze the methods from a third-party point of view, then it would seem like these methods are pretty safe. I wonder if you were being put in these positions if you would feel the same. What if you have arthritis? What if you had sores and cuts? How do you decide which method to use on each prisoner - or do you use them all?

The Obama administration has stated that the U.S. does not torture. Period. But he has been rubbing conservative Christians in the U.S. the wrong way. They have vehemently protested his policies on abortion and stem cell research (which can only lead you to believe they preferred the Bush Administration which would in turn, lead many to question their credibility) and could it be that they are also finding fault in his torture policies because they simply are unhappy with his other policies? I would have thought that conservative Christians would believe in humane treatment for all of God's creations, and yet they are happy to have bodily pain inflicted on anyone who the government feels may have information - in an era when the government created new laws that take away civil liberties and allow anyone to be detained without cause.

CNN published a story about Ken Cordier, a devout Christian who was a Vietnam POW, tortured for 6 years. He believes that torture is wrong in all circumstances. I guess when you are on the outside, looking in, torture seems like a good idea to "protect" our country, but when you have lived it then your view might be slightly different. It is interesting, though, that Cordier did not consider the "enhanced interrogation" techniques introduced by the Bush Administration to be torture.

The story also mentions Rev. Ronald Kuykendall, an evangelical pastor in Gainesville, Florida. Kuykendall is all for torture, citing the New Testament (Romans 13:1-7) "everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established." Oh. Well doesn't that apply to Muslim countries too then?

It is a complicated issue, but I know one thing for sure, we agreed to follow the Geneva Convention, which says no country can torture prisoners of war, whether that be physical or mental torture. We throw a fit when other countries don't follow the rules, but we seem to hold ourselves to a different standard.

Frost/Nixon - A Must-See for Every Journalist

Frost/Nixon is an excellent movie whose story is not lost on anyone who has ever done an interview for broadcast. It follows the dream of a journalist who was hungry for recognition and ratings, who put his career and personal prosperity in jeopardy to score an interview with Nixon after he resigned. And not just any interview, a no-holds-barred interview costing Frost $2m. The twist is that the $2m came out of his own pocket, not backed by any network and Frost was a British journalist with experience in Australia, nothing related to American politics. No one believed he would be able to get a decent soundbite from a political figure as versed in semantics and as slippery as Nixon.

Of course, if you know anything about history or journalism then you know how the story ends. It is an amazing triumph for a man who no one believed in, and to be fair, at one point I almost wasn't sure how the story would end :).

One thing to note is that the movie does dramatize the situation Frost was in by a lot. It portrayed him as a big-time talk show host with little-time experience, when, in fact, he had done numerous hard-hitting interviews. I have to wonder how Frost, who now has his own show on Al-Jazeera English: Frost Over the World, feels about it.

But as the movie is made, it is still inspiring to any journalist. It makes us proud to do the research, put in the time, study the techniques, and eventually emerge triumphant with the golden soundbite. The "I may have made mistakes" statements that mean so much. I recommend all my journalist friends go see it (among others) and I, myself, would like to see it again. But I don't want to give away too much here...

SUPERBOWL SPOILER ALERT: The Steelers won the Superbowl today!!!!!!!!!!! It was a nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat-then-crawling-toward-the-TV game that went down to the last 5 seconds. They won their 6th Lombardi trophy, and their coach is the youngest to ever make it to the Superbowl, let alone win it. It was such a great game and there were moments when I thought they were going to lose it. ALTHOUGH, part of me can't help but notice that President Obama predicted the Steelers would win...and he seems to have an eerily magical touch...