And the Winner Is….

And the Winner Is….
Who Will Get the Nobel Prize for Peace?

Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden on October 21, 1833 and died sixty-three years later on December 10, 1896. Interestingly, when we think of Nobel, the first thing that comes to mind are the Nobel Prizes. Nonetheless, for most of his adult life, he was criticized a great deal for one of his 355 patents, which was dynamite.

Alfred Nobel

Nobel’s interest in explosives was within his DNA. His father moved from Stockholm to St. Petersburg, Russia with his family where he experimented with explosives and other military weapons. As a result of his father’s success, they became quite wealthy, which allowed his father to hire private tutors for him. Alfred learned quickly, and, by the time that he was in his early 30s, he had patents on detonators and blasting caps.

Nobel also worked on nitroglycerin in an attempt to make it safer. However, there was an explosion as the result of nitroglycerin in one of his armament plants. Within three years after the explosion, Nobel found a better explosive, dynamite. Ten years later, he invented gelignite, which was safer and more stable while being more powerful than dynamite. Nobel was a great inventor and businessman. During his life, he built nearly 100 armament factories. To say that Nobel was into weaponry is definitely an understatement.

In 1888, a French newspaper made a mistake and published Nobel’s obituary with this headline: “Le marchand de la mort est mort,” which, in English, is “The merchant of death is dead.” However, the paper thought that Alfred Nobel had died when it actually was his brother. As it turned out, the newspaper’s mistake was a blessing. Nobel went through a conversion experience realizing that his reputation wasn’t at all positive. In his will, he donated his wealth, nine million dollars, to start the Nobel Prize Foundation.

Alfred Nobel and the gold medal

Interestingly, some within his family were surprised that Nobel’s bequest were not going to family members. Some of them contested the will but lost. Nobel’s fortune was divided into a half dozen categories: peace, economics, literature, physics, chemistry, and medicine. The various Nobel Prizes were given “to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.” Each year the recipients receive the profits made by the Nobel Foundation, which is in excess of a million dollars per category.

This brings us to our fake president, Trump. Shinzō Abe, the prime minister of Japan, nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts dealing with Kim Jong-un and the rockets and their nuclear warheads.

Trump and his Rocket Man

Trump, in one of his Rose Garden rants, compared his nomination to that of President Obama’s receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace. Obama received his award in his first term. Trump was nominated because of all the work that he has done with Kim Jong-un. Trump was nominate by Shinzō Abe and asked a rhetorical question, “You know why? Because he had rocket ships and he had missiles flying over Japan…Now, all of a sudden, they feel good. They feel safe. I did that.” Then he said that Obama couldn’t have done what he had accomplished.

Trump, referencing Obama, said that, “With me, I probably will never get it.” Well, that is one of the rare moments of Trump’s honesty. I can assure you that he won’t receive the Nobel Prize for Peace. However, if the Nobel Foundation were to add a couple of new categories, Trump might win one or more of them.

To paraphrase Trump, “Nobel Foundation, are you listening?” Here are my suggestions to the Nobel Foundation for new categories. The first one would be the Nobel Prize for Narcissism. I can’t think of someone that could rival him being narcissistic. Another one would be the Nobel Prize for Sexual Misconduct with Women. In this category, Jeffrey Epstein may get the award over Trump, however, he would be a close second. Finally, the Nobel Prize for Blatant Lying is a sure thing for our fake president.

If I were a betting man, I’d put money on Trump winning two out of the three categories. While he won’t win the Nobel Prize for Peace like his nemesis, Obama, he could brag that he won two Nobel Prizes in the same year. Granted, after receiving them, he would rename them: the Nobel Prize for Greatness, the Nobel Prize for Women Liking Me, and the Nobel Prize for Absolute Honesty.

This is an interesting breakdown of countries that have gotten Nobel Prizes since they began in 1901.