In response to the Oct. 5 column "Nobel Prize awarded properly," I couldn't disagree more with the opinion of the columnist. The Peace Prize has never been awarded to someone who has yet to accomplish anything. Attempting to put Martin Luther King Jr.'s accomplishments as little more than raising consciousness to the civil rights movement and therefore comparable to Obama's "accomplishments" is a dishonor to a man who by 1964 had accomplished quite a bit.
By the time he won the award, MLK had already helped boycott the discriminatory practices in Alabama, not to mention having delivered the most important and influential speech of the 20th century.
I would also like to mention that Gandhi was nominated five times for the Peace Prize but never won. Because of this egregious oversight and the fact that a few unsavory characters have won the Peace Prize (Arafat, Kissinger, Tho), it is essentially meaningless. I also find it ironic that Obama wins the Peace prize while his nation is embroiled in two wars.
Michael Peth
senior-astronomy and astrophysics
