Pointless Digressions Narrowly Misses Nobel Prize

It is that week--the week when the word comes down from Oslo and throughout the world there are cries of jubilation matched by cries of outrage.  Apparently there is little enthusiasm in Beijing for the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to democracy activist Liu Xiaobo, currently resident in a Chinese prison. When the awards are presented in Stockholm, Liu may be given an extra cup of gruel.

There was also some huffing and puffing from certain church groups regarding the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Medicine to Robert Edwards, the British doctor who opened the path to in vitro fertilization and its many spin-off applications.  Not all church groups, we hasten to add, objected to this award, only those who, in the political arena, are termed wingnuts.

Finally, we turn to the Nobel Prize for Literature, awarded this year to Mario Vargas llosa of Peru.  He is the first South American writer to be so honored since Colombia's Gabriel Garcia Marquez got the nod in 1982.  And that's not the only link between these two authors.  In 1976, in Mexico City, Marquez appoached Llosa to embrace him and got a punch in the nose instead. 

This is carrying literary criticism to a new level.