Not Impressed

So there was this guy who blew himself up in downtown Stockholm yesterday. Apparently he blew up his car as well. I am pretty sure that when you act as a terrorist you are supposed to maximize the amount of damage you cause to your attended targets. This is especially true if you are a suicide bomber, as this man appears to have been. The idea is not just to wreck your own car and injure two witnesses.

Now all the questions are starting to sound like this “did he have an accomplice, like say Al-Qaida or something like that helping him out?” This is where one should be prepared for endless analysis and conjecture. The Swedish media is salivating. My first guess is that this was a lonely (read isolated) young man who thought this was somehow his only course of action. I also have to go by the assumption that he was a nut job. The meaning here is obvious: he failed to do more than make second page headlines after the first evening outside of Sweden. Apparently he was upset about Lars Vilks. Well that is fine, it is ok to dislike someone else’s artwork, but that is in no way a justifiable reason to blow yourself up.

If you don’t like freedom of speech there are plenty of shit countries that one can go live in and please don’t understand me wrong: I don’t like religion, but I believe that these people have a right to believe what they want to believe, but it isn’t allowed to affect others in a physically harmful way. Ever. Period. I believe in freedom of speech and I think it should be protected, and that includes mocking religions. To be honest: if your religion can’t take a joke or any kind of criticism for that matter, then there is something wrong with that religion to begin with.

Another thing that would-be radicals should take into consideration is that when you go around blowing yourselves up like this, it doesn’t do the people left behind any good. Suicide bombing has not solved any problems, instead it has the opposite effect: it makes people like your cause even less. It makes you seem strange. Its even stranger to a computer addicted Western world that can’t understand the fondness a few extremists have with a weird, sullen man in a cave somewhere in what is left of Afghanistan. Think about it, how is your family going to be treated after you kill someone else because of your religion. Terrorism is a way of destroying the societies we live in today, but what they aim to replace it with is so much worse than any of the problems we are currently facing. I just hope the Swedes don’t overreact now, but I won’t be surprised if they do. The Sverige Demokraterna are going to eat it up like jello!

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Neruda for Saturday

From Isla Negra: Memorial de Isla Negra

Exiles! Distance

Grows thicker.

We breathe air through a wound.

To live is a necessary obligation.

So, a spirit without roots is an injustice.

It rejects the beauty that is offered it.

It searches for its own unfortunate country

And only there knows martyrdom or quiet.

-Pablo Neruda “Exiles”

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Friday Post

I am on my second coffee for the day and I do believe its time for a post about that there reading list. I am currently reading Phillip K. Dick´s novel Ubik, which is probably going to take me until Wednesday at the earliest to finish. The story seems fantastic, but I am just not in the reading mood today. I still haven’t gotten a shot at the Franzen novel which I am guessing has to do with the amount of people trying to read it and I just didn’t get to my reservation fast enough. What will probably happen now is that because I have heard so much about the book, I won’t enjoy it and secondly I probably know too much about the story. Here is the reading list with one new addition:

1. Der Kleine Brüder by Sven Regener (finished)

2. The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike (finished)

3. The Handmaid´s Tale by Margaret Atwood (finished)

4. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (considering buying this after all the reviews it got)

5. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (non-fiction)

6. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (orig. Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said)

7. The 158-Pound Marriage by John Irving (finished)

8. Going After Cacciato by Tim O´Brien

9. The Green House by Mario Vargas Lhosa

10. Grimms Wörter by Günter Grass

11. Wait Until Spring, Bandini by John Fante (finished)

12. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick(finished)

13. Ubik by Philip K. Dick

14. The Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick (finished)

15. Porno by Irvine Welsh (finished)

So I finally got around to reading the sequel to Trainspotting, which I consider to be Mr. Welsh’s best novel to date. All in all I am not so impressed. I will admit it was entertaining and all that, but it was quite a departure from the original. By that I mean that Trainspotting was a fantastic story told through remarkable characters, while Porno was the same characters but nine years older and without a great story. Hard but fair.

Tonight I am having dinner with some friends at Lei e Lui in Mitte. It’s the same restaurant that catered my wedding. The food is always fantastic and I am looking forward to great food and seeing good friends. Hopefully I will take some photos.

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FIFA and Wikileaks

So the world cup went to Russia and Qatar. Since those will be the summers when I will supposedly have some money in the bank, it’s too bad that the destination to watch either Germany or Sweden (both?) play is going to be either of these.

Now to be blatantly honest, Russia has some breathtaking nature and to go hiking or canoeing on some of those rivers would be amazing beyond words. It’s the cities (other than St. Petersburg) and the anti-foreign mindset that bothers me the most about Russia. Not to mention the levels of corruption. This is before we even start talking about Qatar! I am guessing it will be the first world cup with tea and coffee as a sponsor, and no beers served on the premises. Fifa goes where the money goes and right now that isn’t in the US, Spain, or England. The only real surprise here is really that China didn’t make a bid, because given the odds they would have had a good chance as well. Bizarre.

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The Wikileaks “scandal” seems to be dominating the headlines in most of the western countries, or at least in the countries where I read the newspapers. Maybe it’s just me but I don’t quite get what the big deal is. Please open your diplomacy and international affairs textbooks to page 1: every nation looks out for its best interests 100% of the time. While the descriptions of the heads of state may have been cruel, it wasn’t as if we didn’t assume that this was how the leaders view one another. The real scandal here is with those who act outraged and pretend as if the USA is some sort of beacon of enlightenment. Its not and never has been. We really should accept that, it would be so much healthier than believing the American religion.

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Book Review: The Handmaid´s Tale by Margaret Atwood

In our society today we can look around us and see the obsession that our fellow humans spend on conspiracy theories and the fear of a new totalitarian society. People like Glenn Beck spend hours of their time trying to convince followers that a person like Barack Obama is a socialist who will, if given the chance, turn the United States into a Third Reich or a Stalinist Communist land. Whether or not one takes such arguments seriously or not, the point that fear mongers are allowed so much time to spout them is what is worrisome. As citizens we should be involved in our democracy and take good care in understanding what our politicians are advocating for. That is a significant departure from lying and pretending that something sinister is at work when the reality is otherwise. Case in point: the 2010 midterms where the democratic party lost their majority in congress, proving that democracy is just as alive and well as it was before. I bring this up as an example to show that paranoid thinking is easy to indulge in today, mainly because fact checking often seems to be virtue long forgotten by today’s media. The inability to fairly consider differences of opinion and the conservative American principle of rejecting other countries ideas because they are too “European” is where we are today.

Now onto the dystopian novel that is The Handmaid’s Tale. Atwood paints a picture of an American society where a group of fundamentalist Christians have taken over the United States government, using the excuse that society has become too liberal and too free to be able to carry on. This sect, or better put paramilitary organization, of fundamentalists quickly goes about turning the US into a theocracy in many ways reminiscent of present day Iran, though as the book goes on even more extreme in substance and action. Women, within the first couple of weeks of the take-over, have their rights taken away. All the things that women’s suffrage fought long and hard for vanish almost over night. This fundamental aspect of the story then draws our focus away from the more historic aspects of what such a take-over would imply and takes us to the narrator, who relates her experience of the oppression. She doesn’t attempt to be a hero; in fact all she really wants is to have her husband and child returned to her. At times, she even appears to accept the new political regime of oppression as it is and instead looks to her survival first. To be fair in many ways Atwood is more exploring the way women have been oppressed through time, than she is the practical implications of a Theocracy. This is one of the strengths of the novel.

One of the parts that had the biggest impact on me was the idea that a society like this is only truly capable of coming about when the elements needed for its realization are already in place. Christianity historically has not always been very favorable to intelligent and strong women, despite what the more recent teachings of the church would lead us to believe (and they have made significant strides in some of these areas). Still there remains in American and in Europe this nostalgia, it’s fair to call it sexist, that things were better previously in the organization of the “traditional” gender roles. Then again, this is itself the most common fallacy in the appropriation of history by fundamentalists and conservatives: things were actually better before and we were happier without our current freedoms. Its one of the ideas, expressed by the oppressors in the novel, that there are two types of freedom: “freedom to” and “freedom from.” The kind of freedom we had in the liberal USA in the book was freedom to and what they are given by the fundamentalists is freedom from. This is a typical argument we can spot today in the arguments of those who want to tell women how they should dress: that requiring women to cover up gives them freedom is the most normal argument for heard for the veil. Going along with this is the notion that women are to blame for the horrible treatment they are often afforded by men: they dress provocatively and that is why men rape them. This horrible idea doesn’t deserve further explanation as it never has and never will hold any substance.

Atwood also deals with a very important topic in the idea of the control and possession of a person’s body by others. In the case in the book, the women of the Republic of Gilead have lost their ability to choose sexual partners (and preferences) and are either forced into arranged marriages or used to produce offspring for those at the top who are unable to do so for a variety of reasons. Perhaps this is the greatest fear that Atwood expresses: the fear of losing control of ones body. The narrator can accept the significant changes to her society, but what she has the most trouble with is that others want to control her body and dictate how she should care for it. The other idea expressed somewhere in the midst of this is that the men in our society were unhappy with the way things were going: that they no longer felt satisfied with their lives. That such a problem would necessitate oppression is laughable and disturbing all at the same time: and yet it’s been a kind of rationalization used by oppressive regimes before. The notion that those who impose repression are doing it for our best is as old as humanity itself.

For those who have not read the novel I don’t want to write too much more and destroy it for you, but I do on the other hand want to recommend it as a reminder that we should remain active and not give fundamentalism or false historical narratives about our nation’s past the chance to gain ground in our society.

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Tuesday´s Photo of the Week!

I have worked in Restaurants as a cook for several years now. It’s an experience that gives me a strong sense of what is and what isn’t good, quality food. Something I have learned while living in Europe, both as a consumer and as a cook, is that restaurants located on tourist shopping streets tend not to have good food. Instead they sell something more like an idea and you just happen to get food along with that idea or concept. Now of course there may be exceptions to every rule, however I don’t think this is one of them:

Add to this that they specialize in schnitzel and then also have pizza. I don’t get how the two fit together so well.

Taking a train ride for ten hours (to and return) gave me plenty of time to read so here is the reading list as it stands:

1. Der Kleine Brüder by Sven Regener (finished)

2. The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike (finished)

3. The Handmaid´s Tale by Margaret Atwood (finished)

4. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (considering buying this after all the reviews it got)

5. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (non-fiction)

6. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (orig. Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said)

7. The 158-Pound Marriage by John Irving (finished)

8. Going After Cacciato by Tim O´Brien

9. The Green House by Mario Vargas Lhosa

10. Grimms Wörter by Günter Grass

11. Wait Until Spring, Bandini by John Fante (finished)

12. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

13. Ubik by Philip K. Dick

14. The Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick (finished)

I am currently on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Dick, which will be followed by Ubik. The Handmaid’s Tale by Atwood was so good that it’s going to get a review in this blog tomorrow so watch for it.

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Cologne

Its been snowing softly all day. Its cold outside and on the surfaces elevated above the ground, on parked car roofs and other inanimate objects, it’s staying. It’s still too warm to stay on the paved streets or sidewalks that are still busy. The minute the sun pokes its head through the overcast, grey skies is the moment that it will be gone even from those places. Its only November, there will still be plenty of time for blizzards and freezing weather.

Cologne is on the list of things to do tomorrow. It’s going to be a quick little weekend. The train rolls out around eight in the morning and then we arrive sometime after noon. There will be some time spent with friends and family. On Sunday there is mass and Clara’s cousin will go through some Catholic ceremony-not one that I am familiar with. Cologne is a place that I don’t care to live in but love to visit. It’s a small city yet it retains a feeling of its own steadily eroding self-importance. It was once one of the greatest cities in Europe. My how the mighty have fallen.

Sometimes, when living in foreign countries, we learn to make the most out of the small things. For instance: we learn to laugh at the signs that incorporate two languages at once. Sometimes it’s done to be cool, as if the native word wouldn’t suffice, a pattern all to common in Sweden, and others it’s done just for humor. This is probably one of the latter:

I am more than halfway through The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. It’s been fantastic this far and once I finish with it, I will write a post or two reviewing it. Have a lovely weekend.

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Thursday´s Nameless Post

I finished the novel The Man in the High Castle last night. It’s a chilling reminder of what life might have been like, had there been a different ending to the Second World War. Of course the problem with a book like that is that while the scenario suggested is plausible, so are an endless number of other outcomes. Sometimes history turns and pivots on such small moments of time and singular events, while at others there is more than meets the eye, and sometimes we never know exactly what lead to today.

Earlier, I was sitting on the bus on my way home from the unemployment office, which wasn’t so bad when you consider the horror stories that some people tell about the bureaucracy here. In any case, I was still thinking about the future and the various shapes that the future is capable of taking and I realized that most of them, when we sit and imagine them, come out as being dystopias. Especially in this day and age of cynicism: every future is a dystopia of some sort waiting to happen, every utopia we can imagine must have some dark side to it. Why is that? Is it possible that the future is always unpredictable, meaning beyond our control, and therefore to be feared? Or is it the unknown part of the future that leads to the fear of it? This kind of thinking is what I imagine is responsible for the conservative movements continuous worship of the past. The notion that it was better before and so we should return to that is ingrained together with a fear of the future. It also seems like it has some kind of control elements to it: when everything is defined and understood; then it is safe. Isn’t that why we often dislike new art or new music? Because we haven’t fully been able to make sense of or understand it yet?

Perhaps it’s simpler than all of the above reasoning. We know too much about our past, we have seen what humans are capable of toward one another and toward nature; therefore we assume we will not get any better than we already are (and the idea that we are somehow doing better than before is dependant on what measurements are being taken and by whom).

Here is the reading list as it currently stands:

1. Der Kleine Brüder by Sven Regener (finished)

2. The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike (finished)

3. The Handmaid´s Tale by Margaret Atwood (currently reading)

4. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (considering buying this after all the reviews it got)

5. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (non-fiction)

6. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (orig. Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said)

7. The 158-Pound Marriage by John Irving

8. Going After Cacciato by Tim O´Brien

9. The Green House by Mario Vargas Lhosa

10. Grimms Wörter by Günter Grass

11. Wait Until Spring, Bandini by John Fante

12. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

13. Ubik by Philip K. Dick

14. The Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick

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A Wild World or a post about international issues...

When I think of international affairs, I try to view the subject in terms of rational thinking. It would be wiser to say that I think of the areas of soft power, hard power, and diplomacy as areas where there is room for a lot of negotiation. This unfortunately leads to me thinking that every state actor is looking to achieve something that to them is logical and will increase their trade, security, etc. The problem with this thinking is when certain state actors seem to be insane. Take Russia for instance, whenever they are playing hardball about something its because their desires aren’t being realized enough to compromise on something with the US and usually when something decent is offered they are willing to work with it (the new Start treaty, though now its congress that is irrational).

This little monologue was designed to bring the topic to the state actor known globally as North Korea. For every day that goes by, it seems like the leaders of that country are more and more determined to blow themselves up and take the world with them. There has been a lot of talk about there being a new leader in the works and all, but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t still be acting rationally. The whole idea behind having the nuclear option is so that you don’t have to use it. Essentially: the threat of the best possible offense is really a defense. So why are they suddenly shelling South Korea? Why did they sink that ship a few months ago? What are they hoping to achieve?

Is it possible that they live in an imaginative world where they can shell the South, take pictures of the smoke, and show it all to their citizens, suggesting that they are winning the fifty-year old conflict (date check please!)? Whatever it is that they are up to, it doesn’t look very positive for anyone involved.

Now, try translating this international view of rationality to the people involved with terrorism. Sure they have made their pleas pretty clear (every time we get a video from a cave somewhere), but there is no way that those demands are going to be met. This suggests that they are no longer operating under the guise of logic. In fact I am going to go ahead and say that they aren’t. They are operating under the guise of a religious dogma. I am not going to sit here and condemn religion, I am not a fan, but I don’t have a problem with people who chose to believe what they want to about the universe. What I do have a problem with however is when that belief threatens the lives of others. Perhaps what is most comical about the century we live in, is that a bunch of bearded men in a cave, somewhere in a desert, have the power to affect how we go to work some mornings-and all because they seem to think their god gave them a right to interfere. It’s a wild world.

Speaking of wild: when I moved back to Europe from the United States, Ireland was hailed as the prime example of how the free market could change a country and put it on a course to greatness. Well the bubble has popped, and to be honest I can see how it can be fun to watch a meltdown like this up close.

Jonathan Chait really enjoys the way that the right wing economists had written about Ireland then and now. I am a fan as well, especially since the joke is now on them.

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Monday Update

The weekend was a mix of work and pleasure and now that Monday is here, I find myself stuck with something like a cold/cough and the fact that I am expected to work a short shift tomorrow. That means I am going to have to hope for a good night´s rest and dream myself well. To put it another, more truthfull way: I am going to have to work while sick. The reality of that is that billions of people around the world do that daily. In many jobs or countries there are no sick absences allowed. Why, are you sick? Well we´ll just get someone else. Luckily for me that isn´t my case, but I still need the money.

The Germany-Sweden game ended a 0-0 draw. To put it another way: it was really boring, but because of its tight defensive strategy, it was exactly what Sweden needed after that 4-1 drubbing by the Netherlands. There will be no more Internationals untill January something. Until then, there will be the local leagues and Champions league to look forward too. Champions league is on tomorrow by the way.

The reading is slow this week, but maybe if I stay sick long enough I can saw through a few books here before December rears its ugly head. Christmas is looming as well, and I have no money whatsoever. Its looking like its going to have to be a very creative Christmas when it comes to gifts.

Ideas anyone?

As someone who bicycles daily (or did till my bike bit the big one) I found this article quite worth the read. Its always amusing to hear the types of negative responses that bicycling causes with car drivers.

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Imminent Friendly

Today, at 20:30 CET, the Swedish National Team is taking on the German National Team. I want to say a few things and make a prediction. Starting with the prediction seems like a good idea: 3-1 to Germany. Its true that Germany may be down a few superstars, but their replacements are, to say the least, more than adequate. Sweden will get a late goal and it will come from a cheap corner that Germany let them have when the game was over anyway. This is the last international of the year, the Germans don’t want to lose and the Swedes need to prove that they still have some fight left in them. I would love it if Sweden were able to eek out a draw. Denmark tied Germany 2-2 this year in Copenhagen, so it’s far from impossible.

From the Sweden squad, I am hoping that Oscar Wendt shows he can dominate at this level and that Ola Toivonen, Pontus Wernbloom, and Rasmus Elm also show it. Hamren, the Sweden coach has said he wants to see some attitude. I would like to see that as well. Too bad attitude won’t be enough.

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Let a Conservative tell you how it is...

There are times that I feel like I just sit here and harp on and on about the current conservative movement in the United States. I´m pretty sure I´ve covered every angle. Of course to be sure that my dear readers don´t just think that I am the only one seeing things this way, I bring you David Frum, former speech writer of President Bush, and I quote...

"Too often, conservatives dupe themselves. They wrap themselves in closed information systems based upon pretend information. In this closed information system, banks can collapse without injuring the rest of the economy, tax cuts always pay for themselves and Congressional earmarks cause the federal budget deficit. Even the market collapse has not shaken some conservatives out of their closed information system. It enfolded them more closely within it. This is how to understand the Glenn Beck phenomenon. Every day, Beck offers alternative knowledge — an alternative history of the United States and the world, an alternative system of economics, an alternative reality. As corporate profits soar, the closed information system insists that the free-enterprise system is under assault. As prices slump, we are warned of imminent hyperinflation. As black Americans are crushed under Depression-level unemployment, the administration’s policies are condemned by some conservatives as an outburst of Kenyan racial revenge against the white overlord."

Want more? Read it right from the horses mouth. I have to conclude I am impressed. Of course in no way do I agree with everything he is saying, but still its damn well written and has a good point.

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It’s going to be one of those weekends that contains a bit of work, a bit of play, and some of those in between things. Clara has an exhibition at a fair for green products and companies so I am going to help out with that. Then on Saturday I have to work from 15-19 or something like that. This evening I am helping set up the exhibition for starters. I am thinking about calling up a couple of friends for a beer or two, but we’ll see what happens.

I am planning on getting a lot of reading done this weekend and last night I managed to finish The 158 Pound Marriage by John Irving. I put that one down and began, this morning, to read Wait Until Spring, Bandini by John Fante (I am a growing fan of his work).

On to the reading list update:

1. Der Kleine Brüder by Sven Regener (finished)

2. The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike (finished)

3. The Handmaid´s Tale by Margaret Atwood (on order from the library)

4. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (considering buying this after all the reviews it got)

5. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (non-fiction)

6. Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick

7. The 158-Pound Marriage by John Irving

8. Going After Cacciato by Tim O´Brien

9. The Green House by Mario Vargas Lhosa

10. Grimms Wörter by Günter Grass

11. Wait Until Spring, Bandini by John Fante

The list is starting to grow, but the newest addition shouldn’t take more than a weekend to saw through.

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A free-market policy proposal for Alliansen

For those who read this blog, you are probably aware that I am not one of the bigger fans of the current Swedish government. While the respective parties have certainly come center to get the current majority that they have, and add to this that the left of center parties did a particularly pathetic job of selling their reasoning as to why they should be running the country, I am still not sold on a lot of the ideas. That having been said, I have a proposal for Alliansen, one that I think that even they should like: privatize the selling of alcohol in Sweden. To put it in other words: get rid of Systembolaget.

Now I do appreciate that the Systembolaget has a perfectly good selection of wine, hell its even better than most stores I have visited in Germany or the United States, but I don’t think the government has any business selling alcohol. Now if the pharmacies were sold off (which I was against for the sole reason that they would end up becoming chains and not do a whit of good for small business owners), and the company that produced Absolut Vodka (a company which made a profit no less), then I don’t see a good reason for holding onto Systemet. There would likely be a big kafuffle in the Riksdag about how all Swedes are natural born alcoholics and how they wouldn’t be able to handle buying beer past 20:00 on a Friday night. I just don’t buy this argument. I believe that behavioral patterns would change according to the situation and rules that would be put in place. Take the case of Germany: they love to drink but they also know how to work. One final note: regulate the market so that supermarket chains can´t buy up the market. Make it a small business thing.

Now to other things, namely the reading list. This is what it looks like as of this moment:

1. Der Kleine Brüder by Sven Regener (finished)

2. The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike (finished)

3. The Handmaid´s Tale by Margaret Atwood

4. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (considering buying this after all the reviews it got)

5. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (non-fiction)

6. Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick

7. A Widow for One Year by John Irving (switched to The 158 Pound Marriage)

8. Going After Cacciato by Tim O´Brien

9. The Green House by Mario Vargas Lhosa

10. Grimms Wörter by Günter Grass

Of course as I said I may or may not be able to read all these books before Christmas.

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Name-calling

I am in the midst of some form of political debate on Facebook, which is a really bad idea in the best of times. I won’t give all the details here but let me say that the debater has suggested that the President is a socialist. I would like to mention before going any further that the President before was called a fascist. Neither is correct. To use such terms out of context and without proper background is to cheapen the arguments made by either side (and to cheapen the suffering of those who were oppressed in such systems). In the case of Obama he bailed out Wall Street and kept the automotive industry alive (something that his predecessor was quite happy to do as well as I recall). Now when he enacted a health care reform that was eerily similar to the Republican suggestion in 1994 and also to that of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney he is a socialist? That is weak tea by any standards.

This is all before we go into definitions of what Socialist really means: the political ideology that the means of production should be owned publicly (or common owned) and regulated as such. What I continuously fail to see in the United States is this actually taking place. The case of General Motors could be used here, but that is also being put back on the market because the government doesn’t want to be involved in things like running a business. The democrat idea then is to regulate private industry (like all governments have always done) through laws and/or taxes (carrots and sticks). The degree of the regulation required is the difference between the parties and not that they are massively opposed sides in a war for the American soul (as the radio show hosts would like to paint the whole thing). Both sides want what’s best for America. Is this really so hard to understand?

To add to the healthcare question, if the insurance companies had done such a good job, then there wouldn’t have been a need for government interference. However as the health care system in the United States affects the government, it was therefore the government’s job to act to reduce its deficit and to better the ways that American citizens are treated. The Obama plan did that really well on paper so lets give it time to work in reality. There was no public option because a. it would have been impossible to get in the senate and b. I don’t think Obama believes in that because he as he himself has demonstrated in other policy: he is a capitalist.

Can we stop name-calling as a way to disagree over policy? Lets talk about numbers instead of listening to blowhards tell us who is good and who is evil. I think the American people are smart enough to decide these things by themselves.

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Musings of a Thursday

Unbelievable I just managed to lose an entire post just as I finished it. The main point of the post that should be here is that the Republican Party should really thank their chief strategist for his work this election cycle. The Democrats should start demanding that the President illustrate why the choices made were necessary and stop letting the Republicans control that debate in the media.

I also wanted to recommend the book I am currently reading: The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike. It has been pure magic so far (pun intended).

Also, today, I have been musing over why American Evangelicals are so entwined with the Republican and conservative movements. It is something that I completely fail to understand. How does Ayn Rand mix with the Bible? I am at a loss.

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P.S. Great read for today: by Gail Collins at the NY Times

P.P.S. Another thing to check out: by Paul Krugman at the NY Times

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Welcome to the Flood

Lets dig a bit deeper into the results of election night. The Republican Tsunami was there all right and yet it didn’t get the Senate. That means that we are in some kind of a deadlock. Somebody is going to have to play ball to make things happen. Who that someone is remains to be seen, as does what the offers and ideas are that are to be played over.

Remember that when any party (in the US only two are really represented on paper) gains a majority, it means that a significant proportion of its members are part of what could be called true party supporters and the rest are some form of loose coalition members (the Blue Dog Democrats are this to the Democratic Party). So now the Republicans have to deal with a bunch of people that they might not have to during their time in the opposition. In other words they have added to their majority by opening their arms to people who are not the usual Republican fit. The Tea Party fits this role.

For those Democratic supporters who were bitter because they hadn’t been given a cake that they could have and eat as well by Obama, and therefore didn’t vote I say this: shame on you. You have put back the chance to make real change once again. I had a lot of hope in 2008, in 2010 not as much, but I still voted because a Republican future is not something that I have any interest in being a part of.

To belabor a point that needs to be exhausted beyond anything else in the circus that is America: fear, ignorance, and hate won an election. To those who voted based on those things it’s really sad that you call yourselves Americans. In a century where information and knowledge seems to be just the click of a mouse away, we seem to be turning to garbage more and more often. Europe is laughing, and while the typical Republican thing would be to ask snidely who are they, I find myself thinking that they have every reason to laugh. A country that takes Tea Partiers and their queen Sarah Palin this seriously deserves to be laughed at.

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The Big Day

At this point it’s too late to start wondering what could have been. The elections are upon us and the predictions are only pointing one way. The Democrats might as well go ahead and put a disaster stamp in the party’s history book for this chapter. I for one have been impressed with what they have accomplished, and I am not some person who believes that change happens overnight. The Republican Party will at best take the House and the Senate today and at worst only takes the House. That will be enough to bring a gloom to my hope for further progressive change. We will see stagnation in American politics as the Republicans bask in their conquest and then realize that it won’t be as easy as they had thought all this time. The Tea Party will be frothing at the mouth like zombies over their shoulders and when they misstep they will pay for it.

I wonder how long it takes before they go centrist? Will they compromise? What will compromise cost them? How long before the coalition they have built frays? It’s going to be a very interesting two years to say the least.

I am ashamed of my country. I had big hopes after the cowboy was gone that we were going in the right direction, that reason and intellect might even be something to admire once again. I was wrong. People like Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, and Hannity exist on the airwaves because people are willing to listen to that garbage. They want their politicians and policies to be as simple as a two hour-long radio show. They want to know who to hate. Hate is something that is growing in America. Its strange how instead of moving forward and trying to improve our lives we have turned to hating our neighbors, to blaming them for our bad choices, and hating on anyone and anything that comes from outside our own limited spheres of knowledge. Der Spiegel has an article today about the end of the American Dream. Its one of the most frank and forthright articles I have read about America in a long time. I recommend it to everyone who reads this blog. The gist of it is this: Americans have lived beyond their means for decades now. They used to brag about it to the rest of the world. Now economic reality has finally caught up with them and instead of change they are just going to get mad and vote for the same party that encouraged the bad behavior from the beginning.

I hope everyone who is reading this is voting today.

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A Tsunami, a reading list, and the great adventure

Its Monday today. Tomorrow is Tuesday any which way you want to turn it. Tomorrow is also election day in the US. According to most reports (thus began a sentence that would be frowned on by most high school teachers) the Democrats are heading for a pounding at the bottom of a Tsunami like wave of Republican resurgence. Time is the lesson that American politicians and strategists aren´t learning very well from. In a two party system you can beat your opponent to a pulp. To use another boxing metaphor: you can even have the luxury of having him out on his feet. The problem is there is no way to deliver a real knock-out blow. Leaving the boxing metaphors aside, its worth remembering that both parties are known to come back strong from what is about to happen tomorrow. The Democrats had a good run and while I personally felt they got a lot done (though I would have preferred more) a lot of people don´t share my sentiment. Now let the Republican resurgence take on the arrogant tone of the winner and may they be like that famous wolf who huffed and puffed but couldn´t blow the brick house down.

On a side note, we are now going to hear a never ending stream about how they are going to really cut government spending and how its really going to make America more free and richer and so on etc etc. Now we turn to a former governor of Florida Jeb Bush for the most idiotic quote of the day: "The only privilege that I was born with was to be a citizen of the greatest nation in human history." I wonder if he came up with that himself or if he had some speech writer do it for him. Either way its about the most preposterous thing I have heard someone like that say in a while. The man was born with a silver spoon in his mouth to say the least. This is the dumbest thing I have heard in a long time.

I finished Der Kleine Brüder by Sven Regener and have since moved on to Cannery Row by Steinbeck in German. After/during that I have Updike´s The Witches of Eastwick to look forward to and honestly I think I will start it pretty soon (as in tonight).

In other news that might be interesting I am no longer a pizza baker. Due to disagreements between employer and employee I now find myself in a search for a new job. Any clues or hints or flat out great ideas would be kindly appreciated.

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P. S. I also picked up an old classic: For a Few Dollars More. Little did I know that it was starring the legendary/infamous Klaus Kinski. Hell, had I not seen that I might not have checked it out.

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Reading and the Weekend

What are your weekend plans? These days I hardly get any comments at all on this blog, and when I do they are spam 99% of the time. So if there is anyone out there that still reads this, please take a few seconds and make a comment or two about your plans. For myself, the minute I publish this post I am off to bake pizzas for four hours and then I will come home around midnight exhausted. On Saturday I am working from 15:00 till 19:30 and afterwards I am not sure what I will be doing.

On Sunday, Clara and I have a brunch planned with some friends. That will be fun and it will give us a chance to get together and see some people that we unfortunately don´t see often enough. As for the rest of Sunday? I have no honest idea, probably double check my German homework and do some reading. Maybe another blog post?

I just finised Der Kleine Bruder by Sven Regener. My first opinion was that it was quite funny but not quite as good as the first one had been. Of course that is always the complaint against sequels and I admit that for me this is a cliche that rings true. Next I am going to read either the Witches of Eastwick by John Updike or Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. Both are sure to be quite entertaining. I wish you all a great weekend.

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Who Built It?

Reading about the end of the New Jersey-New York Tunnel project thanks to Chris Christie. When I first heard about the end of this project I didn´t like it one bit. Rail is necessary for future growth, especially in areas like NY and NJ where there is not necessarily any extra capacity for new highways. So why cancel this project that provided jobs? Christie was on about it exceeding costs, but while that is certainly the case (most infrastructure projects carry hidden costs and underestimates), it doesn´t really tell the whole story. More fundamentally its about a world view and a lot of political posturing. Republican voters want this kind of savings and it is one of the reasons that a man like Christie was elected in the first place. However its possible that the money can´t simply be moved to other projects anyway: they were for this project solely.

I am reading an article about America´s economical woes on Spiegel at the moment. Its in German and deals with the issues of today. It notes the anti-tax, anti-big government feeling that the Tea Party is screaming (echoed by the Tea Party/Republican leadership). In the end it uses the cancelling of the bridge as a metaphor for the death of the American Dream in a way. The country is unable to realize its dreams of being a top nation among nations any longer. Considering that the Republican plans got us to what we have today, how then are the further realization of their dreams going to help us any? They don´t have the answer except by using the familiar Ayn Rand idea that we need to tell Government to get out of the way. So I start to wonder than just who it was who built the infrastructure in America? Who built the highways, the ports, the hoover dam, and all that good stuff? Well it wasn´t private companies that is for sure. At this point I am really curious as to whether or not the Tea Party is really going to be happy with what they are about to get? We´ll leave the social issues for another posting.

Link to the Spiegel article

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European Cup Qualifying and Immigration

There are two things on my mind today. One is the disastrous game that Sweden played against the Netherlands yesterday and the other is immigration. Lets start with the game. Almost everyone had agreed in advance that there was only a very small chance that Sweden could really beat Holland. Stranger things had happened of course, but when one weighed up the levels of the players on both squads, it quickly became obvious that Holland had a significant advantage. Sweden also walked into their trap: they played the game and Holland just waited for any mistakes, and when the mistakes came, well wow. That is called being efficient. Nevertheless, I applaud the Swedes for trying and I think it can be a good lesson for the team if they are willing to take heed. I also think that it shows what the football academies in Sweden need to be promoting: a fast, pass-intensive game with a focus on two-way play, as well as a strong sense of team.

Now to immigration: Horst Seehofer has been making a splash and following in the footsteps of Thilo Sarrazin by making negative comments about Muslim immigrants. As an immigrant myself, I find these comments so oversimplifying that its almost unbelievable that the antagonists get so much air time. On the other hand I wonder if this isn´t just a bit of clever posturing and trying to redefine themselves within their respective parties (note that Sarrazin lost his parties support and Seehofer is still in command). To elaborate on that further: I wonder if this is not simply a way for Seehofer to attempt to get Christian Democrat voters and other conservatives to believe there is some sort of threat coming from the "others" who are coming to Germany. This way he can energize his base. Its more an American political move than a typical European one, which is why I am not super certain about it. Still I keep a wary eye on the whole thing. A political party using the name of Christ is rather presumptuous in any case.

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Wanderings and wonderings

Sometimes I wonder if I really should keep writing this blog. I want to write more about thouroughly researched topics, but most of the time I just churn out a series of rants in paragraph and sentence form. This trend is not likely to be discontinued. On Saturday I received an email that meant a lot to me. It wasn´t from any potential employers to tell me that I was being considered for a post somewhere, no in fact it came from the government of Florida. It was an email to let me know that my request for an absentee ballott had been received and that I was therefore going to be voting in the coming elections. Joy immediately descended upon me and I knew that I would not be among those who sit back and say well things went bad and I didn´t do anything about it. I don´t need to state who I am going to be voting for, anyone who reads this blog could figure that out in a heart beat.

In any case my family was here over the weekend, except for my sister who is at Bible School in a small town somewhere in the woods of Småland. Here is a picture my brother took of me trying on some pretentious glasses.


Of course the glasses turned out to be too pretentious but I may as well admit that I am looking for something like those in the near future.

I have decided to publish my reading goal for the rest of the year. Here are some of the books I want to read before 2011:

1. Der Kleine Brüder by Sven Regener
2. The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
3. The Handmaid´s Tale by Margaret Atwood
4. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
5. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (non-fiction)
6. Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
7. A Widow for One Year by John Irving
8. Going After Cacciato by Tim O´Brien
9. The Green House by Mario Vargas Lhosa
10. Grimms Wörter by Günter Grass

This is of course a list of books I would like to read, it doesn´t mean I will be able to finish them all. I am also taking recommendations. Leave an idea as a comment.

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More Questions and Questions again...

Time is running out in the sand. The democrats are starting to reveal themselves as they run around in circles, sweaty palmed, and shouting about how they stood up to the elites in Washington. Part of what makes American politics so interesting is the importance of the candidates identities. In other countries, most people vote for parties with a specific policy in mind. Not so in the United States where its about who you vote for first and then secondly what you vote for.

This is the reason that a character like Sarah Palin makes so much headway in the US. Or am I really off on this one? This is also the reason that a party like the Democrats had to make so many compromises on something like Health Care Reform i.e. there simply weren´t enough votes for something too radical. Of course the word "radical" is all about how you define it. What Obama has done from a standard Western European scale is simply centrist policies that leaned a bit to the right. In the US he was labeled a communist, a fascist, a socialist, and every other label that the right could throw at him. Sometimes the beauty of history is that we can read about what idiots have said in the past. Unfortunately we aren´t always able to evaluate them so rationally in the present. Thus the loud banging of drums and calling for heads to roll in Washington.

Lets consider the Tea Party. Again. Its really becoming a boring topic wondering who they really are and what they stand for and so on. From where I am sitting they are among the most stupid people in America. This goes back to their understanding of American history as well, which has led to an almost national religion based on the founding fathers. Isn´t that what other stupid countries do.

I left a country in 2006 and thought now there is no hope for that place. Fast Forward four years and if the Republicans get back in then I´ll be there for Kaddish at the all American funeral of the nation. Au Revoir just and fair America, we never knew ya!

Valet 2010 eller hur Sverige vek ner sig

Jag får börja den här posten med att be om ursäkt. Min Svenska borde vara mycket bättre än det rost belägna paragraferna som era ögon kommer att rulla över här nedanför. Men det får vara som det är. Det som sägas måste är för viktigt för att skriva på Engelska. Nånting hemskt har hänt ett av mina land. Sverige Demokraterna har fått plats i Riksdagen för första gången i vår historia. Alltså ett parti som öppet är emot immigranter (främlingsfientligt som det annars heter) har tagit plats i ett land som länge hävdat sig som ett öppet och välkommnande samhälle. Det är bland dom fegaste sakerna vi någonsin gjort.

Jag ska inte försöka bluffa er som läser det här med iden att Sverige har fram tills idag varit ett land utan rasister eller hat. Det är bara att se tillbaka på vad som hände när vi började öppna våra gränser: det hatet som alltid funnits under ytan började långsamt att sippra utt. Nu har elefanten i rummet som ingen talar om blivit det stora samtallsämnet. Det är långt ifrån lätt att få det att försvinna. Jag ber också till dom borgerliga och till dom i oppositionen att man tar det här tillfället för att förklara varför vi ska vara ett öppet och mångkulturellt samhälle. Om vi gör fel nu och bara ignorerar dom här frågorna som väktes av detta val så har vi gjort precis som Sverige Demokraterna vill.

Nån som jag känner försökte förklara för mig att främlingsfientlighet inte var lika med rasism. Att ogilla andra för att dom inte är Svenska (på nåt gammalmodigt definerat sätt) är också en form av rasism. Nu får vi hoppas att våra politiker gör det modiga och tar denna uppgift på allvar. Vi ska jobba tillsammans för att avvekla denna rasism som bubblat upp till ytan. Vi ska inte bygga ett lock på det hela och låtsas att vi inte har nåt att göra med det hela eller att det inte finns. Rasismen kommer bara att överkommas när vi tar det på allvar och samtidigt inte viker ner oss när det blir som mest obekvämt att göra nåt åt det.

A steady oncoming storm and other things

If you are the democratic party, at this point it would probably be time to panic. The president doesn´t seem to know how to take control of the situation and the media is frothing at the mouth everytime a report comes out showing the republicans are closing in on the house and senate. Ok well this did happen before in the Clinton years, but lets be real americans and only remember as far back as three years max. In any case, the Democrats did real things while they were in office such as the healthcare reform which is going to cost them. Changing things always has a price. So lets all welcome back the republican party: a bunch of stuffy, white lets-change-nothing-because-everything-is-perfect kind of party. There seems to be no stopping the storm.

In other news fall is here. No the leaves aren´t turning brown (the sky is gray more than fifty percent of the time though), but the tourists are thinning out and there is a cold bite to the air that wasn´t there just two weeks ago.

Sweden plays its first Euro-qualifier against Hungary on Friday. Sweden should win this one but you never know till that final whistle. Here´s hoping that the next blog post will be about the joy of having three points on the road to Ukraine.

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A pack of wild horses

I am sitting here in Berlin, a city drenched in rain and listening to the cars drive by on the wet pavement. I am trying to think clearly. That seems to be difficult this morning. One reason could be that I haven´t had my morning coffee. I checked the container we keep the coffee beans in and it wasn´t enough to make a full cup. I am also not in a mood to run to the store. So it goes.

I read this article in the New York Times. Its shocking and eye-opening while at the same time only really yawn provoking. Its about all the lies that Americans believe about Obama and the Democrats at the moment. There are some things there that I can only hope we will be laughing about in ten to fifteen years. There is this feeling in my gut though that we may not be in the end. That when these lies keep popping up in the future we´ll have to grown and wonder what kind of mindless idiots we are dealing with. In this day and age, and with the access that americans have to the internet and news sources, the fact that so many of them are capable of believing these kind of lies says a lot about the nation as a whole. For me its once again a reminder of why I am where I am.

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The children running the orphanage or the Ground Zero Mosque manufactured controversy

There is a mosque being built in a location near the area in New York known as Ground Zero. That is the spot where the twin towers used to be. Remember those buildings that had two planes flown into them and then collapsed once the heat proved to much for the steel girders. A tragedy and an attack all at the same time. Now there is some controversy about one of the buildings in the area. Sometimes I wonder how America became as strong as it did. I wonder how it got so many things done when the politicians are arguing about this kind of garbage.

Arguments I have heard against it: Islam(or muslims) were the ones who attacked America. Actually this is a crock of you-know-what, it was Al Qaeda that attacked, not a religion. Religions are not tangible objects that can attack buildings. Its insensitive is another argument. Muslims died there as well so this makes it even stupider. Plus its private property and the owner is not a radical but a very big moderate. Not allowing it would be an act of bigotry and intolerance. Another argument: more than 50% of americans don´t want it. Majority is always right? guess we´d have no interracial marriage then either, or still segregated schools, and the list goes on. To be honest I haven´t heard a good argument yet. What a bunch of loonies running that country. Further proof that for all the talk, most of the time you only tolerate things that are similiar to yourself.

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In search of the Aha moment

It could be called a quest. Or some sort of journey. Or maybe, when over-analyzed, a goal driven search for a meaningful occupation. Translation: I am looking for a job. I spend my days, in between working two restaurant jobs and trying to occasionally skateboard (not happening today) looking for work. I am not just interested in a job for its own sake, though at this point a more solid income that doesn´t rely on the weather wouldn´t hurt anyone. I want a job that when I wake up in the morning I don´t lie there in bed thinking; shit I have to get dressed up in uncomfortable clothes and go to a workplace somewhere far off where I do something I don´t even enjoy. Millions around the world face this dilemma. I have faced it before (though arguably the pay wasn´t as good back then).

What is all this about then? I am looking for the Aha moment: that point in time when I am looking through job adds and I see a position that really gets me going. A job offering that has my name written all over it. A job whose central work area is something I will take to like a hobby as opposed to a career. Does it exist? Well not so far, or someone else has it and isn´t willing to let it go. As Kurt Vonnegut would say: "So it goes."

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Saturday Clouds

Its been raining bad weather since sometime yesterday morning. You wake up slowly, stumble around the house trying to figure out what all you have to do. Get dressed, go to the market, and then go to work for a few hours. The rain starts pouring and your shift gets cut short. No big deal really, a bit more free time is always appreciated. Though the money would have been nice as well. Every month is a massive effort that seems to end with just the right amount of money on the positive balance. A term one could use is making ends meet, or scraping by. Anyway you want to look at it, it comes down to survival. I don´t look at it that way though. I pretend I am in some form of bohemian lifestyle.

After the month and a half football withdrawal following the end of the world cup, two of europes leagues are back in business today: the French and the Dutch. Not that I will watch any of those games though as that would entail piss poor streams on some server that is going to crash at any minute. Too bad, but Bundesliga is just around the corner. There is also a national team friendly next week. Sweden meets Scotland. Zlatan is back. Its going to be fun.

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Have some Tea, America!

When I read any article on any news site about the current tea party phenomenon I remember exactly why I left the United States. I left the loon bin to the loonies. Don´t misunderstand me here, Europe is full of loonies. Its crawling with them. The difference is that they don´t have the same loud screaming presence that they have in the US. They don´t have someone like Limbaugh or Beck poisoning the airwaves with their constant spewing of hate and rage (as they make millions from it).

The Tea party claims to be real americans. Sarah Palin claims to be the real america. If that is the real america: this conservative, pseudo Randian America, then I want no part. Period. I want out. If the republicans storm back in to office and fall all over each other trying to help the rich people out and at the same time trying to encourage only the kind of lifestyles that Dr. Dobson prescribes, then I want out. I am sick of a nation that talks about its tolerance and then does the opposite. I am sick of a nation that talks about peace when holding a gun to someone else´s head. Sick to death.

The republicans are looking good the polls say. Says a lot about America doesn´t it!

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All good things....

Spain won the 2010 world cup. That was completely deserved. A country that has for the last fifty years (and probably more) produced so many spectacular football players has finally won its first world cup. They also look like they might continue to be unstoppable, though as history has often shown, time does things to winning teams that fans would like to forget. For what its worth though, Spain deserved that World Cup.

In about a month or month and a half, most of the leagues in Europe will be in full swing again and the qualifiers for the next European Cup will be underway. The Swedish national team missed the World Cup and has now added a new coach and started to bring in a younger generation of players. This bodes well for our chances of reaching Poland/Ukraine 2012. We have to face Hungary, Holland, Finland, Moldova, and San Marino. We will probably lose to Holland who have one of the best teams in the world at the moment. Otherwise our chances look solid to go through as the second place team in the group. Oh, and to boost things just a bit in advance Zlatan is back. This is good news for the national team which was missing a key player for the new system which will be 4-2-3-1 like most other international teams. Personally I am looking forward to the qualifiers and the up coming friendlies. Its going to be a good time all around.

As for me I have worked every day this week and it will be nice to have a weekend skating with my Stockholm crew who is on visit for eight days starting on Saturday. Lots of skateboarding to be done!

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Props to Spain

How to begin this? Spain deserved to win that game. Germany fell to far back in hopes that it would be able to stop the play and counter, however in doing so, they let the Spanish run wild with the ball. You never let the spanish run wild with the ball. Until a team learns to do that, they will continue to feel the pain of La Furia Roja. Spain will probably also win the world cup because besides beating Brazil (and lets be honest they weren´t that great) Holland haven´t done all that much to prove they are real contenders. Then again thats the way it goes at world cups sometimes: luck of the draw can lead to match-ups that allow teams to reach the final easier than others.

All the same I have had a fantastic world cup. I have watched every germany game with friends and most of them in public viewing. Its been a blast and to be honest this is the way a world cup should be enjoyed. The vibes on the streets here in Berlin has been fantastic. The German team can now focus on the third place game (which they should win). They should also remember that they have been the most consistent team in the world for almost a decade now. A silver in 2002, a bronze in 2006, and now a chance for another bronze in 2010. Not a thing there to be ashamed of. Next time its going to be a far more experienced team (dare I recall that Spain were quite young in 2006 and came back in 2010 a better side...). Anyway Germany thank you for a wonderful world cup and please finish it with class by beating the snot out of Uruguay and please get that record for Klose he deserves it!

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Die Mannschaft keeps the world cup alive

I remember 2008, I had just returned to Berlin after a holiday and had arrived in time to find a tv set for the european cup final. It was Spain vs Germany. To be honest I didn´t favor germany´s chances: despite getting that far they had done so in a way that was much less impressive than Spain´s own journey. Sure enough the Spaniards controlled the game and there was this feeling all through the game that there was really no chance that there would be an equalizer at any time. There wasn´t any question either of it being a fair outcome: Spain played the pants off the Germans.

Fast-forward to 2010. A world cup in South Africa. A lot of talk about how much Spain was a favorite to win the world cup and despite the all-star roster they have, a lot of unimpressive games. They lost to switzerland to start things off and haven´t been a high scoring team. One of their strikers has been god awful and the team just isn´t clicking in the same way it was in 2008. Now look at Germany, and at this point I still want to point out that I am a skeptic of Germany actually winning. So much can happen in those ninety minutes of play. Germany has impressed. They dismantled England and Argentina, and have been growing as a team as the tournament has progressed. 2002 they made the final only to lose in the last minute. 2006 they took third place. Now its 2010 and they have their best team in a long time. Germany has a good chance to take it all. I am close to believing in that fourth star on their jerseys after this tournament.

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Dog Days

Welcome to the once weekly update of this lovely blog. I spent a portion of this morning, which is going to end seven minutes from now, listening to various songs by Josh Ritter and David Gray. Both of them amazing musicians, oh to see them live. I am still somewhere in the middle of the Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller. To best describe it, one would use the words pure madness, but then again I don´t see enough madness around me at the moment to not need some of that craziness. The sun is beating down on the street outside my third story window and life is stirring in ways typical of a Berlin Friday.

I have the day off and am contemplating a swim trip to a lake or watching the two quarterfinal games of the 2010 world cup. Not sure which is actually going to happen at this point. Recently I have been suffering from bouts of procrastination and that has affected the output of this blog as well. My apologies to all the readers, its the dog days of summer.

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Fridays

I am in the first fifty pages of Henry Miller´s Tropic of Capricorn and I can only say that I feel inspired, the tone, the sarcasm, the voice: its all perfect. The man knew how to write. As for me? I am stuck on this blog pretending that one day I will write a novel. I can say a thousand times over that I am just trying to find the story, or looking for the right voice for the narration. Its all a crock of shit, and its been cooking for quite sometime now. To look at the whole thing from a spanish perspective: you can´t have a bull fight until you get inside the ring. The ring is this computer, the bull is my inner-laziness, and my matador´s outfit is the keys. Until there is a confrontation, its going to be a lonely day at the ring.

On to the world cup in all its glory. Germany made it through! What a nervy game that was. Lots of indecisivness from both sides and only a single moment of individual brilliance to finish it off. My thoughts always go back to Mr. Linnekers quote about the germans always winning on penalties, well hopefully they can do better than that against England. Sunday will tell all.

I am off to shopping and other such fun and exciting things such as working on a Friday night. May your weekends be merry!

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Wednesdays are for Show downs...

Germany looked brilliant in their first game. They looked good in their second one and still lost. So it comes down to Wednesday. It comes down to Ghana. It comes down to ninety minutes and eleven men against another set of eleven. It comes down, to some degree, on the referee quality. It comes down to nerves and will and all that jazz. I am so nervous I can´t think about much else. Football has that effect sometimes.

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World Cup 2010

By now every newspaper has been running their stories and special takes on the 2010 World Cup so I won´t drone on about it too much. I´ll admit that I have Football Fever. Due to work schedules and odd hours here and there, the first game I will be able to watch will be Germany against Australia. Its going to be magnificent, its going to be wonderful, in a way that only a world cup can be. I don´t think Brazil is going to do it this time, Spain is looking hot, Holland is on the rise, Denmark will be a bottom dweller along with France and Portugal. The drama is here and now and that month of magic that comes once every four years is here. I only wish I could watch every game.

In the middle of May

Sorry about not updating this blog for a long time. I can´t really say that I have been so busy that it would have been impossible to write a line or two, more like I just didn´t take that time necessary. This is of course a confession for being lazy. So what is going on? I am working at a pizzeria and once or twice a week at an ice cream cafe, then besides this I do the occasional work at a catering company. To be honest I haven´t been doing enough reading recently. At night when I climb into bed around 11 or so I just turn out the light and pass out. I have been skating a lot recently as well. It was something that was missing in my life and now I have been doing it enough to reach a level I haven´t been at for about three years. To be honest though I am not back to the level I was at in the fall/winter of 2006. It is getting close though.

To football: the world cup is beginning soon. Sweden won´t be there so I will be for the Germans. There isn´t much to say about the German team (always pretty solid) so I thought I would write a note or two about what I hope the Swedes do. First they have a new coach in Erik Hamren and while new coaches don´t always solve all the problems, they can be a breath of fresh air and a step in the right direction. So what is Sweden´s biggest problem then? The lack of a strong team sense and the ability of key players stepping up when called upon. We are also in some kind of generation shift at the moment, but the new kids just aren´t quite there yet. We need someone to step up and take the reigns (or as we say in swedish: visa vart skåpet ska stå). I am waiting for Wernbloom and Bajrami and one or two others to show some heart and determination. Our big stars are also a problem: Ibrahimovic had an alright season at Barcelona, but is now in the middle of a sea of rumours none of which can be completely dismissed, and Marcus Berg has got to step up his game pretty mightily from the garbage he has shown so far at Hamburg. We expect more from such players. Of course Sweden has come back from dark patches before so there is no reason to think they cannot do the same now as well.

The IIHF Championships are taking place right now and Sweden is going to meet Denmark in the quarterfinal on Thursday. If we don´t win it will be one of the biggest embarrasments in our Ice Hockey history. I will admit though that I had all but written this team off after those shaky performances against Norway and France, but the last three games have pulled us together and our young players have shown a lot of heart. Pääjärvi-Svensson, Ekman-Larsson, and Hedman have been standouts and will be big stars in the years to come. I think there is a chance we win the gold but if we take a bronze only, I can live with that: as long as they leave it all on the ice.

To books. I am reading the Poisonwood Bible, Herr Lehmann, and finishing off Moby Dick all at the same time. I recently finished my first novel from Stanislaus Lem, Solaris, which I have to say was fantastic and I recommend it for anyone looking for a good book to read.

That is that and I hope that the summer finally shows up here one of these days as all this gray weather is killing the mood. Though at the same time, even with the gray skies I have been skating pretty damn good.

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Readings and things

So while this is the third time I am reading Moby Dick, it is still a hard book to get through. For that reason I am also reading other books at the same time. Right now I am reading Stanislaw Lem´s Solaris (afterwards I am going to track down the famous Soviet movie and I will review that here as well). So far I have to admit I am pretty impressed with Solaris. Its one of those books that you approach with a skeptics view-given the large amount of amazing reviews it gets, but that I am finding have good reason to them. I don´t want to give away plot lines but am just going to say that I really recommend it and I am not even half way through.

I am going to Cologne this weekend and will be there until wednesday. Hopefully though I can update with some photos and stuff. I will watch some football this weekend and try to do some skating in Cologne. Of course we are really there to visit family so that is going to be fun as well. If the weather holds up like this tomorrow then I am going skating again. Landed some really good stuff the other day, stuff I hadn´t done in years.

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Obama as the white whale, but who is Ahab?

I am reading Moby Dick for the third time right now. Since the value of a novel is often found in its interpretations, I am going to apply a modern one to a classic. Of course Melville could never have foreseen the tea party and the anger of people when their illusions of America were revealed to be 1950´s fantasies, all the same Moby Dick fits the current discourse really well.

I begin then with Obama as the white whale. This isn´t too hard. He is different from all the other previous whales that the whalers have hunted. Rumours surround his presence in different parts of the world. He is thought to be a destroyer by some. However, since he has appeared he has been gaining a name and a reputation. When he reached his peak, the election or in the book the first fight with Ahab, he changed everything. That brings us to Ahab. He is none other than Dick Cheney. A man with a limited vision of reality who is so possessed with his need for revenge for what he considers a purposeful attack on himself. This attack on Ahab I translate as the American people voting the neo-cons out. Cheney cannot let go of the whole thing and so he is able to bring others to the same fanatical point of rage (the tea party or nowadays most of the republican party). He tells them they have to get the White Whale. The ship always has been and always will be America. Cheney, as Ahab, is willing to take the ship (America) down with all hands rather than see it not doing his will.

Ok so this is all just for fun. But what drives a maniac like Cheney or Ahab? Their wounded pride?
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