The 2010 Nobel peace prize will be awarded to one a record 237 nominees the sheer according to a Nobel official earlier this month.  This surpasses last year’s record of 205 nominees which was comprised of 199 individuals and 38 organizations according to Geir Lundestad, the committee’s permanent nonvoting secretary.

“The long-term trend has been upwards. Not every year, but almost every year, we have a record,” Lundestad told The Associated Press. “I also think there’s a short-term trend. There’s a renewed interest in the prize after it went to President (Barack) Obama last year.”

Obama received the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for, among other achievements, bringing the U.S. into the fight against global warming and for supporting multilateral diplomacy.

The fiercely secretive Norwegian Nobel Committee refuses to name candidates, but nominators sometimes announce their picks. This year, known nominees include a Russian human rights group, a Chinese dissident and the Internet.

Those with nomination rights include former peace laureates, members of national governments and legislatures, selected university professors and others.

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A Norwegian politician nominated Russian human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina and Memorial — a prominent rights group she works with — while a Princeton philosophy professor put forth Liu Xiaobo, a recently jailed Chinese dissident.

Lundestad said the committee reached a final count after its first meeting of the year, on March 9.

At that meeting, the five-member panel added its own nominations to those put forth by others, he said, though he noted that “they did not add particularly many this year.”

The 2010 laureate will be announced in mid-October, and the prize will be given out on Dec. 10 at a ceremony in Oslo.

Last year’s recipient, President Barack Obama has named 10 charities to share his $1.4 million Nobel Peace Prize, with causes ranging from wounded veterans to Haiti’s earthquake survivors and education for minorities.

“These organizations do extraordinary work in the United States and abroad helping students and veterans and countless others in need,” Obama said in a statement.

He had vowed to donate the prize money to charity after unexpectedly winning the prestigious prize last year and his selection included some politically important domestic constituencies.

The White House said $250,000, the largest single amount, will go to Fisher House, which houses families of wounded veterans while they receive treatment.

This was followed by a $200,000 donation to the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, set up by former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush at Obama’s request to help survivors of Haiti’s January earthquake.

Following is a breakdown of Obama’s donations:

$250,000 to Fisher House, a national nonprofit organization providing accommodation for families of patients receiving medical care at military and Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers.

$200,000 to the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, which was set up in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake to help survivors.

$125,000 or to College Summit, a national nonprofit organization to increase college enrollment rates.

$125,000 to the Posse Foundation, which awards scholarships to promising public high school students.

$125,000 to the United Negro College Fund.

$125,000 to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund.

$125,000 to the American Indian College Fund.

$125,000 to the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation.

$100,000 to AfriCare, which promotes health, food security and access to water primarily in Africa.

$100,000 to the Central Asia Institute, which provides education and literacy, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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My Take: Well, at least he gave most of the money to American organizations.  I think he should have given it to America in general and help with the national deficit.  I realize it would not have been much of a scratch on how much the deficit really is, but it would have helped.  Or better yet, give it to the Medicare fund, which the government stole money from, oh excuse me, borrowed money from.

In his position, he really didn’t need the money.  It’s not like he has to buy a banquet tablecloth from the next White House banquet or anything.  No matter what, I think he did the right thing in giving the money away.  I know I would have been hard-pressed to do it myself.  In my case, I would need to buy quality table cloth, even if I didn’t need it

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The economic turndown, as it has been called, has led Americans to find new ways to survive.  One man, Jim Kennedy, discovered a way of surviving by using his 1 million mile plus stockpile of hotel and airline points to keep a row over his 46-year-old head.  His California man has been doing this since his home was foreclosed on.

Since being kicked out of his foreclosed home on Jan. 17, the former corporate development manager has relied on all those miles accumulated during years on the road to find a place to stay — a Holiday Inn Express here, a Hampton Inn there and a Motel 6 in between.

Wherever he can find a room for points, Kennedy stays. He switches hotels, sometimes staying up to a week in one location, depending on the availability of free nights or where he needs to travel for interviews. Hotels often charge different rates, even when paying for points, for different nights and Kennedy shops around for the best bargain.

Finding a hotel that offers a free breakfast is a bonus, though he notes that the free breakfasts can get monotonous. A lot of hotels, regardless of chain, seem to get their food from the same supplier, so even the powdered eggs taste the same.

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“You get tired of the same options every day,” said Kennedy, who was at first reluctant to let his identity be known because his 85-year-old mother doesn’t know that he lost his job 19 months ago. He said she has no money to help him and “she worries a lot.”

He searches for hotels with free Internet service so he can send off resumes, and also looks for “a place with a microwave and fridge so I can buy frozen dinners.”

Even the entertainment options are important. Kennedy says he knows which hotels offer HD TV and how many channels they provide. .

Sometimes the hotels have an unpleasant and surprising fee tacked on: $10 to park at a hotel near Disneyland, $20 to park at an airport hotel.

“That’s three, four days of my food budget,” Kennedy said.

Before the recession, Kennedy helped a software company acquire a rival, checking over the finances in a job that paid him $120,000 a year.  Today, he gets $450 a week from the state of California.

That money goes for his car’s lease, which he uses to drive up and down the coast for job interviews, his cell phone, gas, car insurance, his storage locker and, of course, food.

Otherwise, he is living off all those loyalty points: about 85,000 with Starwood Preferred Guest, 400,000 with Hilton Honors, 100,000 Delta Sky Miles, 120,000 American AAdvantage, 200,000 United Mileage Plus and 125,000 American Express Membership Rewards points.

On a typical night Kennedy mixes points with cash, hoping to stretch out his cache of points a little longer. For instance, Starwood’s Sheraton Four Points offers some rooms for 1,600 points and $30.

“So you can see with 90,000 points, you can drag it out for a long time there,” he said. “If you wanted to stay at the Ritz Carlton, it is a lot more points than the Motel 6.”

Kennedy said he never envisioned a lifestyle of constantly checking in and checking out of hotels.

“I kind of did when I was on the road, he said, “but at least I had a place to come home to.”

After living this lifestyle for two months, Kennedy estimates that he has about three months left until his points are all gone.  Hopefully, he will find a job before that time arrives.  Unfortunately, the response he’s been getting is it employers are getting 300-400 applications for each position please apply for.

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My Take: Well, at least he is better off than most people on unemployment.  They need should look into promotional products or imprinted bags to advertise his availability.  Don’t laugh, I have heard of many people that advertise themselves to get a job.  It’s not like they’re using promotional golf shirts or plastic bags with their name on them or anything.  They are just advertising like a good business would.

Of course, he might be able to get a job as a Sacramento CA unarmed security guard.  You definitely do not need a college degree for that.  It also pays more than Mc Donald’s.  I am sure that there are openings with anyone of the California security guard patrol services they might be able to fill.  They would probably have to keep track of his own time and attendance, but its service he goes to work for has good business payroll solutions he shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

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An agricultural worker, Joe Griego, had his life changed in seconds when he turned his back on a bull in a row in southern New Mexico dairy.  The bull attacked and took been serious injuries on Griego.  He soon discovered that his injuries were not covered by New Mexico workers compensation benefits, which was the worst part.  After discovering the problem with New Mexico State workers compensation and others decided to sue the administrator and its director.  These agricultural workers are demanding farm and ranch workers be included in workers compensation coverage.

Thirty-three states, including neighboring Colorado and Arizona, already require workers’ compensation for farm workers, although some limit coverage or exempt small farms. But New Mexico’s agricultural workers fall into a job category not protected under state law.

Griego, 41, said he didn’t sue the dairy where he was injured because he wants to help change the law statewide.

“It’s hard to just wake up in the morning and face the pain. And financially, we’re losing everything,” Griego said. “There are a lot of people who got hurt in agriculture … but are afraid to step up.”

Administration spokesman Van Cravens said farm and ranch employers can voluntarily cover their laborers under workers’ compensation. He said some producers cover laborers under liability insurance or pay out-of-pocket for medical bills if a worker is injured. Cravens said the transitional lifestyle of farm workers is a factor in excluding them.

The state Workers’ Compensation Act requires employers with three or more workers to provide workers’ compensation benefits – except for farm and ranch laborers, private domestic servants and real estate agents.

The state workers’ comp agency conducted an analysis for legislative purposes indicating the administration would expect 475 claims per year from New Mexico’s farm and ranch laborers if they were added to benefits, said plaintiffs’ attorney Gail Evans of the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty.

Evans said it is hard to know how many farm and ranch workers are injured every year, as they generally do not report injuries because there is no place to do so.  Nationwide, the agriculture industry is tied with construction as the second-most dangerous industry for nonfatal injuries, and farm work is behind logging and fishing for on-the-job fatalities, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Joining Los Lunas resident Griego, as plaintiffs, are Isaac Marquez, an injured farm worker from Arrey, N.M., along with two worker organizations – HELP-New Mexico and Sin Fronteras Organizing Project. They want the farm and ranch workers exclusion declared unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the state constitution.

Farm and ranch workers make little money – some less than $7,000 a year – and “have no political power,” Evans said.

Carlos Marentes, director of El Paso, Texas-based Sin Fronteras Organizing Project, said chili and dairy producers can provide benefits and not doing so is “passing the costs along to the rest of society, especially in health care.”

Farm and ranch laborers have been excluded from the law since 1937, Cravens said. The lawsuit was no surprise because farm labor groups have tried unsuccessfully to change the law in the Legislature, he said.

New Mexico has about 11,000 agricultural workers. Marentes said most farm workers are legal residents.

John Martinez, director of HELP-New Mexico, said the law needs to catch up with the state’s growing agricultural industry.

“There’s a perception that we’re still a mom-and-pop farm and ranch state, but that perception does not meet with reality anymore,” Martinez said, citing the state’s nationally ranked chili, pecan and dairy industries. New Mexico’s net farm income in 2007 was more than $821 million.

Dairy owner Joe Gonzales of Mesquite said just because some agriculture industries in the state are large doesn’t mean they’re rich.

“We’re an economic engine that has everyone relying on us to buy hay, equipment and pay our taxes, but we’ve had eight to 10 dairies close recently and we’re losing millions in equity due to low milk prices,” said Gonzales, vice president for Dairy Producers of New Mexico.

“We’re caught in the middle – the government sets our pay price and we have no way to pass that added labor cost along like other industries,” he said.

An assessment by the state Workers’ Compensation Administration shows the average cost of premiums to cover agriculture workers would be less than $10, or 1.3 percent of annual net farm income in New Mexico.

Charlie Marquez, spokesman for the New Mexico Chile Association, said a recent agriculture census shows 20,930 farms in New Mexico, 88 percent of them with a net cash farm income of less than $50,000 annually.

Griego said he received $5,000 for medical bills from the dairy where the bull attack occurred but his yearlong absence from work is taking its toll on his family of six. They’re living off his wife’s salary and have gone weeks at a time without electricity or water, he said.

“So, basically, I’m nothing to the state, even though I work and pay my taxes,” Griego said. “It’s just not fair.”

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My Take: I agricultural workers and laborers are right!  They should be included in workers compensation.  They are workers just like everybody else is.  So what if that particular career or has a high injury rate, the idea is to provide medical insurance for them while on the job.  It shouldn’t make any difference what the accident or fatality rate is of any particular job is to whether or not they are included in workers compensation.

That would be just about as ridiculous as telling a Massachusetts DUI attorney that they can only represent a certain type of client.  Or maybe a lawyer can only handle certain types of RMV cases or appeals.  It smacks of discrimination big-time to me.

I think New Mexico needs to change their workers compensation rules.  They need to include ALL workers.  Ranchers and farmers cannot all afford to pay for medical expenses for their employees.  Most of them try to help out at least.

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