Heroes of Conscience

Today I'm going to take a second to acknowledge heroes of pacifist ideals. We'll start out with a small, but certainly not insignificant gesture of altruism.

I am a foodie and addicted to Food Network. One of my favorite shows on that channel is Chopped where four chefs are pitted against each other to cook a three course meal with surprise ingredients. At the end of each course a chef is eliminated. In each show you get a cross section of the stereotypical chef, from the braggart, egotistical, self centered to the humble, pleasant, caring chef. Two guesses as to which I prefer. This weeks episode had an amazing moment of altruism. It is a very competitive show and often leads to hurt feelings and smashed egos, but there are some definite gems of kindness. My two favorite chefs are Madison who is the all time most winning chef so far and Lance Nitahara. It is chef Nitahara we will talk of today. He had returned for a redemption round (after losing the dessert round to Madison) and ending up winning. His final competitor was competing to gain the $10,000 to travel to see her dying Grandmother in France. Nitahara, after winning, decided that his competitor needed the money more then he did and gave it to her so she could see her grandmother. Chef Nitahara, I applaud you.

The second I found out about today. Incase you hadn't heard tragedy struck Norway this last week. First of all, my prayers to them. I have been avoiding discussing the situation there since I thought it would be in bad taste to give my opinion on what should be done in response so close to the attack. Just recently I found out that I didn't need to bother. The Nordic countries are known very well for being pacifist in their foreign policy, but this was an attack equivalent to the terror of September 11th. When asked if Oslo would be stepping up their security in the wake of the attack he replied, "I don't think security can solve problems. We need to teach greater respect." That is a response that took true courage. They chose to set aside the violent response the world would have seen as right in favor of peace and education. They saw a future with violent response or lowering of rights and freedoms as a path they didn't want to walk down. For them it had no possible benefits that outweighed the consequences of a possible violent counter response or the lose of basic freedoms. Norway, I applaud you as well.