Issue #45
Last Update October 2, 2006
National New York Stringer Awards by New York Stringer Staff December 5, 2005 This article marks the first annual New York Stringer Awards. Nominees were chosen by the Stringer permanent staff. The final awards were determined by our Editor and Publisher, David Katz. For this first award year, Stringer Awards were granted in five categories: Fiction, History, Science, Mathematics, Medicine and Law. In addition, four special awards of gratitude were made in the fields of Journalism, Education, Oratory and Religion. And the winners are:
The 2005 New York Stringer Fiction Award (Lifetime Achievement) - President George W. Bush. The anti-Washington, Mr. Bush cannot tell a truth. While his every word on Iraq has been false, misleading or mendacious, he has spun fantasy upon fantasy in every conceivable area (Heck of a job, Brownie). Although others in his administration have been just as outrageous in their handling of facts, the President earned his award by not only creating a fantasy world in which facts are ignored, but has openly and proudly chosen to live in it. We poor "reality based" journalists can only marvel at the alternate reality created by this "faith based" politician.
The New York Stringer 2005 Award in History (Rewriting of) – This award is shared by Mel Gibson, son of a Holocaust denier, producer of The Passion of Christ and the in-production epic The Holocaust, and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has denied that 6 million Jews were purposely killed (just collateral damage during wartime, he says, and the number was much smaller). The New York Stringer staff wanted to present Mel Gibson with a special chutzpah award, but was overruled by the editor, who felt that in these days of alternate realities (see Fiction Award, above) Mr. Gibson and Mr. Ahmadinejad should be honored for their creation of alternate history.
The New York Stringer 2005 Award for (Pseudo) Science – Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who rocked the world with his announcement of major advances in stem cell research, only to be outed by his own collaborators, who told the world the research had been faked.
The New York Stringer 2005 Award in (Imaginary) Mathematics – A joint presentation to Allan Greenspan and the Republican congressional budgeteers for reinventing Imaginary Numbers. Mr. Greenspan pressed for massive tax cuts to take care of the problem posed by President Clinton's budget surplus (remember budget surpluses?), and then forgot to change policy when President Bush and the Republican budgeteers eliminated the surplus all by themselves. Now that even Greenspan can no longer ignore the huge deficits, Congressional Republicans are frantically looking to cut money from programs that benefit actual citizens so that the amount of red ink will appear to be reduced. Only by use of Imaginary Numbers, that can appear when tax cuts, war and corporate handouts are required, and disappear when medical care, housing, decent wages and retirement benefits are discussed, can they have our cake and eat it, too. (See Fiction and History, above, for more discussion of "faith based" vs "reality based" government.)
The New York Stringer 2005 Award for (Bitter) Medicine – to Congress, for creating a drug benefits plan so complicated, arcane, ineffective and wasteful that the problem of drug benefits for the elderly has been solved. The mental exercise required to understand the new benefits will ward off Alzheimer's for many, while the rest will die of apoplexy or lack of drugs as they see themselves and the government being ripped off by the drug companies. Three features of the plan insure that disaster: the government is forbidden by law to bargain with the drug companies over prices; insurers get to pick and choose which drugs they will and won't offer, forcing the elderly to predict in advance their drug needs when they choose an insurer; and the odious "doughnut hole", the gap in coverage that appears when the ill need medicines most.
The New York Stringer 2005 Award for (Above the) Law - awarded jointly to Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld for their creative legal theories eliminating habeas corpus, allowing the use of torture, and supporting warrantless spying on American citizens. Their interpretation of the Constitution allowing Presidential powers to be unchecked by either of the other two branches of government is so unique that even the Founding Fathers never thought of it.
Unlike the Annual New York Stringer Awards, the special awards of gratitude are offered in true tribute to the recipients. Here are the 2005 winners:
The 2005 Special Award of Gratitude in Religion goes to Jimmy Carter, America's only Christian President. Unlike the phony piety and pandering that mark the religious statements of most of today's politicians, President Carter has chosen to live a life that his Savior would actually approve of.
The 2005 Special Award of Gratitude in Journalism goes to Frank Rich of the New York Times. When he converted from critic to political columnist, we were dubious. His lengthy, hard-hitting, fact-filled and clearly written Op Ed pieces exposing the Bush Administration's ineptitude, deceptiveness and greed have converted us into fans. Only massive self-control on our part has kept us from sending him love letters.
The 2005 Special Award of Gratitude in Oratory goes to Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, who had the brilliance to identify the Republican Right with Social Darwinism. Besides being true, this may cause some confusion among the anti-evolutionary, anti-Darwin religious right.
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