Sunday, October 13, 2013

Old Ozark Friend Wins Nobel Peace Prize!

Deva Hupaylo

My old Ozark friend Deva Hupaylo has won this year's Nobel Peace Prize! -- as I belatedly learned Saturday afternoon (after finally setting aside weekend grading for reading the news).

All right, I'm exaggerating . . . but only a bit. The institution for which she works as Head of the Industry Verification Branch, namely, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Here's a link to the OPCW Director-General Ahmet Üzümcü's statement to the media on the OPCW being awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize for Peace.

I fired off my own statement to Deva:
I just saw the news that you've won the Nobel Peace Prize! Congratulations! Where will you keep the medal?

Okay, more seriously now -- what's your part in this? Will you go to Oslo? If not, can you at least put this on your résumé?
I'm actually rather sure that she won't be going to Oslo. The OPCW may be a small organization, but there are still a lot of directors above her who can't all go to Oslo either. Probably, the OPCW Director-General Ahmet Üzümcü is the only one to go, for he said:
I look forward to accepting this award in humility and in recognition of the professionalism of our staff, both past and present, and the strong support we have received from our States Parties.
But what does Deva have to say? I don't yet know, probably because the OPCW is very busy with the serious work of ensuring that all of Syria's chemical weapons are safely destroyed, so Deva must surely have a lot to do these days . . .

Labels: , ,

10 Comments:

At 5:49 PM, Blogger ilTassista Marino said...

If you're waiting for some friends of yours to win the Nobel in Literature . . . hold on, we're working on it :-D
But we would surely be quicker if an IgNobel Prize for Literature also existed.

 
At 6:17 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Our chances would then be worse -- there are too many IgNobel works of fiction!

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 8:33 PM, Blogger John from Daejeon said...

Great news for your friend, but I wonder if the Nobel Prize committee members buckled under Taliban/Muslim terrorist pressure and decided not to award the prize to a much more deserving Malala Yousafzai. Of course, being gunned down like Dutch director Theo van Gogh by a Muslim terrorist is sure to give anyone pause when casting a vote that might come back at them with the same horrific consequence.

Anyway, it's not like the committee has made some questionable choices in the past. I'm still scratching my head as to what ever possessed them to award the prize to Barack Hussein Obama. I bet they'd like a redo on that one, as they are sure to want on this one in the coming years.

Well, congrats to your friend as her endeavors are most deservedly worthwhile of the prize in most any other year. 2009 would have definitely been a good one.

 
At 9:01 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

I was expecting Malala Yousafzai to get it, but I recall reading that her youth would count against her. Perhaps that was the reason.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 11:25 PM, Blogger ilTassista Marino said...

I'm still scratching my head as to what ever possessed them to award the prize to Barack Hussein Obama

Peace is a Buddhist value, so they were probably referring to Obama's good deeds a couple of dozens of reincarnations ago. Next time he will come back to earth as Godzilla, so he won't know what to do with prizes and the respective money.

 
At 4:14 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

A reasonable explanation . . .

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 5:41 AM, Blogger Carter Kaplan said...

I would love to see Godzilla win a prize, Nobel or otherwise.

But, hey, why not a Nobel War Prize? Let's send a petition to the committee advocating this new idea. After all, peace is simply a perception and a social construction, as is war.

 
At 5:57 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Peace is war by other means . . .

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 7:04 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

A wonderful thing to see, yay Deva and co. With regard to Godzilla, King of Monsters, all I can say is,

History shows, again and again,
How Nature points up the folly of Men,...
Godzilla!!

CPH (apologies to BOC)

 
At 7:56 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Godzilla - equal to a zillion gods!

Jeffery Hodges

@ @ @

 

Post a Comment

<< Home