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As of December 1996, Tiger Woods had yet to win a major tournament. The amateur golf legend had just turned pro a few months earlier, instantly snagging megabucks from Nike and winning a pair of low-wattage tournaments before the year was out. In those days, it was still unclear whether Woods would live up to the hype. Would the phenom burn out, or would he become the greatest golfer—nay, the greatest athlete—any of us had ever seen? Sports Illustrated didn't wait to find out. The magazine named Woods its 1996 Sportsman of the Year.
An award bestowed on a galvanizing figure who'd yet to realize his potential—sounds a lot like how some have characterized Barack Obama's winning the Nobel Peace Prize. While Oslo's Nobel committee and SI's editorial team aren't usually mentioned in the same breath, the institutions played the same notes in their celebratory write-ups. The difference: Sports Illustrated went way more overboard with the wishful thinking.
"Tiger will do more than any other man in history to change the course of humanity," says the golfer's father Earl Woods in Gary Smith's Sports Illustrated essay. "I don't know yet exactly what form this will take. But he is the Chosen One. He'll have the power to impact nations. Not people. Nations. The world is just getting a taste of his power." SI's Smith was also happy to play along. "[S]omething deeper than conventional stardom is at work here," he wrote, "something so spontaneous and subconscious that words have trouble going there."
While others have called Obama the Chosen One, the Nobel folks didn't get as carried away as Earl Woods. And the Nobel committee, unlike SI, didn't invoke its honoree's race. "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the Nobel Committee explained. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."
Sports Illustrated looked prophetic when, four months after handing Woods the Sportsman award, he crushed the field in the 1997 Masters. Woods still has some work to do to change the course of humanity—I mean, he wasn't even able to save General Motors. Still, the Nobel Committee would be thrilled if its pick turned out as well as SI's. For Obama to live up to the Nobel, he'll need to score the political equivalent of a 12-stroke Masters victory.
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With all due respect to Herta Müller, whoever she is, if the folks over at Nobel were set on giving Barack Obama a prize this year, they should they have given him the Nobel in literature instead. Nine months into a presidency with as many setbacks as successes, Obama has a thin CV for a Peace Prize winner. At this point in his administration, isn't he still a more accomplished author than president? Dreams From My Father is a remarkable memoir that played a significant role in Obama's rise to prominence in American politics, and eventually to the presidency. If the idea of giving him a Nobel was about acknowledging that historic achievement—of becoming America's first black commander-in-chief—recognizing Obama as a writer is more fitting than praising his "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," as the peace citation does. Could Obama have won the White House without his talent for writing? Without the memoir, the speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention, the speech on race during the 2008 campaign?
Giving Obama the prize in literature also could have gone a long way toward repairing the committee's reputation for being anti-American. Not to mention its reputation for picking obscure authors very few people have actually read. There are over 7 million copies of Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope currently in print. This was a rare chance for the committee to award writing that is at once widely popular and of real merit. Sure, Obama's oeuvre isn't as large or varied as those of past winners. But throw in some of the great speeches—the speech on race, the inaugural address (which was published in book form, after all)—and you've got a compelling if untraditional laureate.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.):
No. 6: "Vj Day." Today is Victory over Japan Day, or V-J Day for short. On this day in 1945, at a little after noon Japan standard time, Emperor Hirohito announced his acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, marking the official end to World War II. President Truman cautioned that "the proclamation of V-J Day must wait upon the formal signing of the surrender terms by Japan" which happened on Sept. 2, 1945—the day Truman actually declared to be "V-J Day." The day is celebrated as a holiday only in Rhode Island—if you live there, enjoy the day off!
No. 8: "Damon Weaver." In November, then-10-year-old Damon Weaver sent a message to President Obama on YouTube asking for an interview. Yesterday, he got his wish. Weaver grilled the President on how to improve education in poor communities, if it was possible for him to improve school lunches, what to do if you get bullied, and whether or not the president could dunk. He also played his sources off each other, asking the president: "When I interviewed Vice President Joe Biden, he became my homeboy. Would you like to become my homeboy?" Watch the video and read the transcript at ABC.
No. 60 "Chris Brown Changed Man." Tracks from Chris Brown's upcoming album, Graffiti, were leaked to the Internet yesterday. The biggest news is the title of the first single: "Changed Man." In the chorus, Brown promises, "I'm a make it up to you and show the world I'm a changed man/ Cuz you mean that much to me." No word yet on whether the track is dedicated to Rihanna, but Brown's public apology on July 21 and Rihanna's recent statements protesting the court's restrictive restraining order hint at a reconciliation. A low-quality version of the single is here.
Photograph of Chris Brown courtesy of Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.)
No. 1: "Cash for Clunkers." The Obama administration's Car Allowance Rebate System (colloquially known as the "cash for clunkers" program) begins today, although NPR reports that some dealerships have already jumped the gun. The program allocates $1 billion to be distributed across the country to Americans who are willing to trade in their old gas guzzlers for more energy efficient cars. Visit cars.gov for the full guidelines before November 1st, when the funding for the program runs out.
No. 15: "Emma Watson Died." Googlers seem misguided this morning: Emma Watson is not, in fact, dead. She did, however, recently confirm that she was going to Brown and not, as the Daily Mail reported, Columbia.
No. 72: "Jay Z Run This Town." Jay-Z released today his much anticipated single, "Run This Town," from his upcoming album "Blueprint 3." The track was originally supposed to feature Drake, but now includes the one-two punch of Rihanna and Kanye West. Yesterday, Jay-Z announced that he would be making his first U.S. festival appearance this summer filling in for the Beastie Boys at All Points West after it was announced that Adam Yauch had cancer.
Photograph of Emma Watson courtesy of MAX NASH/AFP/Getty Images.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.)
No. 25: "Obama NAACP Speech Video." Googlers were eager to watch and read Barack Obama's speech at the 100th annual NAACP Convention. Obama spoke on the themes of responsibility and individual achievement, telling his audience that there were "no excuses" for failure. Addressing black parents, he said he wanted to see more children aspiring to be doctors or Supreme Court justices because "our kids can't all aspire to be the next LeBron or Lil Wayne."
No. 74: "Billie Holiday." Billie Holiday died 50 years ago today. To commemorate the anniversary of her untimely death, WNYC's Leonard Lopate show interviewed jazz historian Dan Morgenstern on her legacy, and Baltimore sculptor James Earl Reid reinserted panels referring to Jim Crow into a Billie Holiday statue. (The panels had been removed by city officials in 1985, right before the dedication.) Watch rare footage of the lady singing the blues here.
No. 94: "Jumbo Squid." San Diego residents no longer need to go to the zoo to see mysterious creatures: Flying jumbo squid have invaded the shoreline in recent days. Known as Humbolt squid, marine bioligists have been trying to figure out what is causing the invasion—theories range from a recent earthquake to global warming. Watch a video of a dazed squid on the National Geographic Web site.
Jumbo squid photograph courtesy David McNew/Getty Images.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.)
No. 1: "Obama Looking at Girl"; No. 2: "Obama Checking out girl"; No. 3: "Mayra Tavares"; and No. 7: "Tail to the chief." You wouldn't think a wire photo of world leaders at the G8 summit would own the top three Google Trends spots. But the Drudge Report, TMZ, and other sites yesterday picked up on a Reuters shot in which President Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy appear to be ... appreciating certain assets of Mayra Tavares, a 17-year-old Brazilian delegate to the summit. Since then, the photo has been making the rounds across the web. Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times claims, after video review, that it was Sarkozy, not Obama, who was doing the real ogling.
No. 20: "Edgar Martins"; No. 21: "Ruins of the Second Gilded Age." The New York Times on Wednesday removed photos from its Web site after it was revealed that the photos had been digitally manipulated. Metafilter commenters were the first to uncover the manipulation, and the animated simulation of the alteration is striking. The work of Edgar Martins, the photographer responsible for the images, is now being rigorously examined for other instances of manipulation. The Times's "Lens" blog promises Martin will tell his side of the story soon.
No. 45: "Nikola Tesla Inventions"; No. 53 "Nikola Tesla Death Ray." Google has decided to go all out in celebration of the 153rd birthday of the pioneer scientist whose experiments formed the basis for modern electric power. The Google logo today features purple sparks and electricity leaping from the letter G, which is drawn in the shape of his Tesla coil transformer. This follows the April celebration of Samuel Morse's birthday with a Morse code Google logo.
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