nabeepchen

I meant to post this earlier today. Oh well….

Check out the Google design for today. Whoever that artist is over there, well, now that’s talent.

So here we go, a multinational company and a talented boy. The boy, because he lives in Cuba which the US has declared a land verboten (never mind the 11 million people living there who have suffered due to the US actions), has been denied a prize that he won fair and square.

It makes me sick. It makes me sick that Nikon thinks it needs to kiss ass with some American politicians.

Nikon withdraws prize to Cuban boy

Cuban President Fidel Castro presented a digital camera to a Cuban boy Wednesday after Nikon refused to give the 12-year-old a camera he had won in an international painting contest for children. Nikon invoked a backlash in Cuba by refusing to send Raysel Sosa the camera, citing economic sanctions imposed on Cuba by the United States.

As a co-host of the contest, Nikon presented digital cameras to all the other winners at the competition ceremony held in Algeria in June.

But the Tokyo-based company skipped Sosa because the camera contained U.S.-made parts that are prohibited from being exported to Cuba by the U.S. government, giving him a painting set instead.

A Nikon spokesman said the company is considering giving Sosa a camera that does not conflict with the ban.

Now is this one of the most sickening stories of the year, or what? The 12 year old won a painting competition. Art is not politics and should be kept free from it. If Nikon is awarding a camera as a prize, then so be it. Everyone gets the same prize, and if some dork from the US gets his knickers in a twist, well, he’ll get over it. What is the US going to do, ban Nikon from the U.S. because of this?

Nikon should have stood its ground, or simply given the boy a camera without any parts made in the US. But now with this fanfare, and making themselves look like fools, they have also made this boy feel inadequate as well. Everyone else got a prize except him. Nice going, Nikon. You should get the Mother Theresa award for compassion.

Good for Castro for giving him a camera.

And the next time that Nikon holds an international competition, or any other company for that matter, make sure to tell the talking heads that politics will be left out of it.

The story appeared in the Seattle Times, and probably elsewhere