Yesterday, Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk received word that he would be honored with this year’s Nobel Prize for literature. Though he received the honor for his powerful and beautiful writing, the award is especially meaningful because Pamuk was recently tried in his home country for “”insulting Turkishness”” in his literature – the same violation that UA professor Elif Shafak was accused of committing. Pamuk’s honor shows that the world community will not tolerate restrictive speech laws, such as those that allowed Turkish officials to attempt to prosecute Pamuk for comments to a Swedish newspaper that Turkey was unwilling to face the history of the nation’s Armenian genocide at the begning of the century, and the current guerilla fighting in Turkey’s Kurdish southeast. For taking a stand on issues that matter and expressing them in meaningful and artistic ways, we give Orhan Pamuk and his well-deserved award a pass.

Tuesday, the three Arizona gubernatorial candidates assembled at the Student Union Memorial Center to debate the issues the governor elect may face during his or her term. The college voter frequently gets forgotten or ignored in elections – particularly midterm ones. It’s great that our gubernatorial candidates are bucking this trend in both a symbolic and a practical way by staging the debate on campus. Everyone involved with the gubernatorial debate – from the planners at ASUA to the members of UA College Republicans and Young Democrats who arrived in full regalia to support their candidates to the men and women running for the position themselves – deserves a pass.

The best way to make an impact is to get involved, and that’s exactly what some UA students are doing for the Nov. 7 election. Between balancing school, work and a personal life, it is definitely difficult for students to devote time to promoting a candidate’s platform. It’s more than refreshing to see students take a bite out of politics and make the sacrifice of losing sleep right before elections – no matter what party they’re doing it for. Though student political apathy received a fail last week, there is certainly a small group of students on campus whose activism could teach us all a lesson. Students who step outside themselves to make the state we’re living in a better place get a pass.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has always been much more concerned with the militarization of his country than with the petty needs of the 23 million citizens of his totalitarian regime. Famine has led to widespread malnutrition and starvation in the Asian country, and accusations have been made that the nation’s leader has resorted to concentration camps as a means of control. Freedom of speech and freedom of movement are both severely restricted within the country. Good thing he was too busy planning for the testing of nuclear weapons to deal with any of these real problems. North Korea conducted one test of a nuclear weapon earlier this week, shocking – and freaking out – the rest of the world. For engaging in bullying exhibitionism while its citizens suffer the real cost, North Korean military tests get a fail.