Debates about dominance

I was bored at some point last night so I started flipping channels. No, that isn’t exactly how it was, I was really flipping channels because what I was watching had been interrupted by commercials and I am not having that. As I was going by CNN, I noticed that there was some form of group debate on the current economic issues that the United States is going through or facing however it should be described.

There was all this talk if America was bowing out from world leadership and dominance and what that means and how they could come back and etc. A yawn was my response. I am so tired of this empire talk that seems to keep on repeating itself over and over again. Everyone keeps seeing the sun setting on the American Empire as we know it and here comes another dark age again right?

I am not buying it. Not yet anyways. I don’t think China is really as strong as everyone is betting on them being. I still think America has a couple of Aces up their sleeves and if the right people play them at the right time, that things will be back up and running in no time. I also think that Europe should stop waiting for the United States to act on all things, be it economics, social politics, or international issues. Europe should do their thing. Why should we expect someone else to do all our work for us?

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I realize that I sometimes get funny looks when I tell people that I wanted to live in Europe. I guess its always that notion that the other side of the pond is always so much more intriguing. Luckily for me, I come from both sides and since I can’t live in both at the same time, I picked the one that appealed to me the most. Best decision of my life says I.

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Doom and Gloom

Things aren’t good. Everyday I get slapped in the face with harsh economic news with very dark and evil predictions of things to come. I think it’s a bit early to prophesy doom, but on the other hand the indicators aren’t exactly pointing up at the moment.

The governments of Europe and the United States are all talking about restraint and cutting spending. The problem with such a course of action is that it will inevitably hurt the poorest of the poor and mean nothing to the rich. If we look closer at the United States as a whole, the current political philosophy being espoused by the right wing block and from some centrists is some form of Beatlesque “Let it be” mentality. Where am I going with all this? Well for starters the infrastructure of the United States could use a serious upgrade (ports, rail, and airports), but no one is willing to shell out the cash for it. These kinds of things allow the creation of jobs and allow for the creation of jobs in the private sector as well as it allows for better production and shipping options for firms.

However, the populist scream of the moment is that we do nothing, because in the United States the notion is that government is the problem (I seem to recall it was the private sector that got us into the whole mess but hey why go against the rage on the street). Since we won’t be building for the future, I am going to continue the dark prophesies with my own: if you don’t build it, they (prosperity) won’t be coming.

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The GOP field for 2012!

There is an election coming next year and I am not feeling all so great about it. The good news is that the economy is slowly recovering and Obama has honestly done quite well, while the bad news is that the GOP is going to throw everything at him including the kitchen sink to try and knock him out. Can they do it? Well, to be fair, stranger things have happened in American politics.

So far the only real election news is about the candidates who will be running against the President. They don’t seem like much at the moment, but given enough air time they might be able to come across as ready, willing, and able to do the job (that is what media consultants and advisors are for). What I am wondering is, besides the obvious claims of “he’s a socialist and he’s destroying our country,” what the GOP message is? I know that they all don’t want to raise taxes, which means their understanding of economics is juvenile at best, but besides that I don’t really see what their visions and goals are. Being the anti-incumbent only works when the incumbent was really unpopular.

Mitt Romney is the one who has been getting the most buzz of the gang up to this point and that doesn’t bode well for the GOP. Romney is boring and average at best. He doesn’t really shine in any way and what is worse at this time in history is that he is a moderate in a party that doesn’t like moderates very much. How is Mitt going to show that he can be a tough nut on the international scene, when he is the inspiration for Obama’s “socialist” health care system? Add to all this that he is a Mormon (which is a cult by the way), and I start to believe that his whole presidential campaign is just a bunch of fluff that the wind hasn’t blown away quite yet.

Could Newt Gingrich be a contender then maybe? The man is a debacle as a person so I find it hard to believe that he will be able to inspire people to dream of America in new ways. Sure his bark is loud and ugly, but his bite is pretty wimpy and its really kind of sad that he wanted to drag his terrible personal life through the limelight one more time. Then again that is exactly what the presidential race is a good time for: airing your dirty laundry. Newt has a closet full, a houseful, and a couple of summer cottages full to be sure. Hope he can handle the scrutiny!

Tim Pawlenty reminds me of a long and exhausting yawn that you witness from the person sitting next to you towards the end of a long transatlantic flight. Ditto for Paul Ryan. Plus Ryan doesn’t know how to count which the CBO has proved a couple of times now.

Michelle Bachmann is a time bomb that has ticking for quite some time now and is just waiting for the right camera angle to explode. Its just a question of when the Americans who vote for her are going to realize that she is insanely weird, and that her views on the world are at odds with most normal people. It’s a shame that no one has made a documentary about her yet. It wouldn’t even need a sarcastic narrator to get the audience laughing.

The GOP field for 2012!

There is an election coming next year and I am not feeling all so great about it. The good news is that the economy is slowly recovering and Obama has honestly done quite well, while the bad news is that the GOP is going to throw everything at him including the kitchen sink to try and knock him out. Can they do it? Well, to be fair, stranger things have happened in American politics.

So far the only real election news is about the candidates who will be running against the President. They don’t seem like much at the moment, but given enough air time they might be able to come across as ready, willing, and able to do the job (that is what media consultants and advisors are for). What I am wondering is, besides the obvious claims of “he’s a socialist and he’s destroying our country,” what the GOP message is? I know that they all don’t want to raise taxes, which means their understanding of economics is juvenile at best, but besides that I don’t really see what their visions and goals are. Being the anti-incumbent only works when the incumbent was really unpopular.

Mitt Romney is the one who has been getting the most buzz of the gang up to this point and that doesn’t bode well for the GOP. Romney is boring and average at best. He doesn’t really shine in any way and what is worse at this time in history is that he is a moderate in a party that doesn’t like moderates very much. How is Mitt going to show that he can be a tough nut on the international scene, when he is the inspiration for Obama’s “socialist” health care system? Add to all this that he is a Mormon (which is a cult by the way), and I start to believe that his whole presidential campaign is just a bunch of fluff that the wind hasn’t blown away quite yet.

Could Newt Gingrich be a contender then maybe? The man is a debacle as a person so I find it hard to believe that he will be able to inspire people to dream of America in new ways. Sure his bark is loud and ugly, but his bite is pretty wimpy and its really kind of sad that he wanted to drag his terrible personal life through the limelight one more time. Then again that is exactly what the presidential race is a good time for: airing your dirty laundry. Newt has a closet full, a houseful, and a couple of summer cottages full to be sure. Hope he can handle the scrutiny!

Tim Pawlenty reminds me of a long and exhausting yawn that you witness from the person sitting next to you towards the end of a long transatlantic flight. Ditto for Paul Ryan. Plus Ryan doesn’t know how to count which the CBO has proved a couple of times now.

Michelle Bachmann is a time bomb that has ticking for quite some time now and is just waiting for the right camera angle to explode. Its just a question of when the Americans who vote for her are going to realize that she is insanely weird, and that her views on the world are at odds with most normal people. It’s a shame that no one has made a documentary about her yet. It wouldn’t even need a sarcastic narrator to get the audience laughing.

Sunday Hate

I hate Sundays. I think I have kind of always hated Sundays. One reason for this is that the next day is Monday. That means either back to school or back to work. As if the coming week wasn’t bad enough, there is always the issue of what one should do on a Sunday. A lot of stores are closed or have bad opening hours; so shopping is out, and besides who wants to jostle with a bunch of other people on their day off.

Should one spend the day in the park? Well if you like being surrounded by a sea of blankets in the summer full of people just like you. Should one go to a café? The cafes are always full with people brunching their way through the early part of the day and then later by big groups of people meeting up to socialize. There is nothing wrong with any of this; it’s just that I want something else when I have free time.

I usually don’t go skating on Sundays at least not during the early nice spring weather. Why? Because the skatepark in my area is so packed that it becomes unbearable. Once upon a time I lived in a city with a skatepark that was open 24 hours; that is they left the lights on. That was quite a while ago and those days are passed and to be honest I don’t really miss that place.

The ideal days off then are from Monday to Thursday. The weekend is a good time to work and then you can take off and enjoy what everyone else can’t because you are free.

Here is the updated reading list:

1. I Married a Communist by Phillip Roth (finished)

2. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (finished)

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

4. Going After Cacciato by Tim O´Brien

5. The Green House by Mario Vargas Lhosa (hard to find in English)

6. Grimms Wörter by Günter Grass

7. Buddha’s Little Finger by Victor Pelevin (taken a break for now)

8. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (finished)

9. Invisible by Paul Auster (finished)

10. The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike

11. Peeling the Onion by Günter Grass (currently reading)

12. The Blind Assassin: a Novel by Margaret Atwood (finished)

13. Villages by John Updike (finished)

14. The Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt

15. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

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Late Update

It is time for an update. I was in Spain for about two weeks and couldn’t think of anything good to write, plus I was trying to write a bit of fiction. That went ok, but I am not really satisfied with my work: I never seem to be. I expect perfection from myself. I hate doing things half assed. I think this is a positive attribute that I possess, but at the same time I can see that it also holds me back from trying new things here and there. What usually goes along with this type of attitude is the fear of failure. I don’t know why I have that. To fail is to be human and everyone will sooner or later. The trick is to learn how to turn that failure into a future desire to succeed again. I am talking in clichés here and will just give the book list as it currently stands.

Reading list 2011:

1. I Married a Communist by Phillip Roth (finished)

2. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (finished)

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

4. Going After Cacciato by Tim O´Brien

5. The Green House by Mario Vargas Lhosa (hard to find in English)

6. Grimms Wörter by Günter Grass

7. Buddha’s Little Finger by Victor Pelevin (taken a break for now)

8. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (finished)

9. Invisible by Paul Auster (finished)

10. The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike (finished)

11. Peeling the Onion by Günter Grass (currently reading)

12. The Blind Assassin: a Novel by Margaret Atwood (finished)

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Idiocy vs Islam (which one is worse?)

I thought for a few days that I could do it: that I could just stop writing about the idiocy that is American politics. Reading news nowadays generally results in my blood boiling to the point that I don’t feel like doing anything at all. It isn’t healthy, and yet I keep doing it.

Today I read an article about a woman with the name Brigitte Gabriel (she uses a fake name). I wanted to go ahead and quote something that she said. I thought perhaps some of you might find it interesting, as I know that I did.

“America has been infiltrated on all levels by radicals who wish to harm America,” she said. “They have infiltrated us at the C.I.A., at the F.B.I., at the Pentagon, at the State Department. They are being radicalized in radical mosques in our cities and communities within the United States.” -NY Times

My first reaction to this was to start laughing and I am not talking about a light chuckle here either, I mean serious eardrum splitting laughter. Then after I let it sink in a bit I realized something more serious about this: history is just repeating itself in a very sad way. Does anyone remember the McCarthy era? It was that wonderful time in American history where the HUAC in the government blacklisted people because of their personal political beliefs. Its really hard to believe this today, since Americans are brought up on some kind of steady diet of freedom, liberty, and justice since the moment they are born, that it was possible their own citizens had been forced out of earning their daily bread.

So how was the HUAC really any different than Pete King’s Congressional hearings this coming Thursday on Muslims? I don’t really know yet, but to be honest I am not looking forward to finding out either. If America were really the great country that the Republicans keep telling us it is, then why is it threatened by a religion? This is all really a waste of space to be honest and the truth is that you cannot really reason with idiots like Gabriel or King: they are right and you are wrong end of discussion. What we can do on the other hand is ignore them and the people who vote for King would be wise to stop doing so: the man is not completely there.

If people live in America and choose to follow a religion, then they are free to do so. Of course they are not allowed to kill because of their religion, but we have laws for that kind of thing like most nations around the world do. Holding a hearing on the threat of a religion really amounts to nothing less than fear mongering. Of course that was what the HUAC was all about anyway.

All this got me thinking about a song by Bob Dylan: Talkin John Birch Paranoid blues.

Substitute the word Muslims for commies or reds and you get just about what the right wing sentiment is at the moment. Things don’t change at the core they just acquire new shapes.

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American Politics and Debt

The US Political Media are obsessed with talking about debt, debt, and debt. Its almost like they woke up one morning and were like “oh, shit we have debt, we really didn’t know that.” Then on top of that, there has been this continuous, and its not ending any time soon, talk about cutting this and cutting that. The list of things that is going to be cut looks oddly like the usual Republican wish list. Planned Parenthood? Oh, yeah because that took up so much money.

There are two things that aren’t up for discussion on the Republican side of the spectrum: the defense budget and raising taxes. I agree there are things that could be cut, but the real problem the Americans are having has to do with the fact that the Republicans cut taxes and then maxed out their credit card. Irresponsible, but that’s what that party stands for.

I have realized something from watching American politics: it’s a circus act, and a freak circus act at that. That idiots and fools are given so much time to spew garbage, lies (I am looking at you Huckabee), and wallow in their own stupidity is a great portrait of a country that seems to be stuck in the toilet. To be honest, I am not sure a people as stupid as the Americans deserve a country so rich and free as what they currently have. With all that being said, I am going to try to write about other things on this blog for a while. I will let the idiots take care of themselves.

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If she only had a brain!

I am in the mood to be particularly vile today. I want to tear something or someone to pieces. I got out of bed after attending a great concert yesterday and the only thing that I can really think of doing is ripping someone to shreds. I mean this figuratively of course. I have chosen my weapon this morning as well for this deserved ripping: the written word, which as we shall soon see is the appropriate tool. I have chosen my target: Bristol Palin. Let the ripping commence!

She’s got a book deal and it’s for a memoir. Pardon my limited understanding of the literary world and the American system as a whole, but I have somehow been under the false impression my whole life that someone writes a memoir after they have accomplished something memorable in their life that probably effected others as well. Usually a memoir would include some great event. Think Mandela, Gandhi, or even someone as horrible as Silvio Berlusconi (but he does have stuff to write about). Bristol Palin though, what does she have? Well to be fair and balanced like her dear mother’s devoted channel, she was on Dancing with the Stars (or something like that) wasn’t she? Besides that she got knocked up, in what may or may not be the most famous out of wedlock pregnancy since the virgin birth (in America dear readers only in America), by a head case redneck named Levi Johnson.

Add to this that she is Sarah Palin´s daughter and suddenly we have a book taking shape. Wait, I still haven’t seen anything here that is really memorable at all! Maybe someone should tell her that this is what a diary is for: people’s lives that aren’t good enough to be memoirs. We live in a capitalist society and it’s the markets that decide whether or not a book like this comes to fruition (or comes to term). That means that someone at a conservative book company decided that this was really good enough to sell. I don’t know what this proves more than that the worst and most tasteless garbage sells pretty well apparently. Are they even going to pretend that Bristol is going to do the writing? Will Bristol even read the book? I would like to go on and mention that this girl is obviously a nitwit for allowing someone to do this for to her, but then when you think about it this might be how the Palins are planning to pay for her college, since they don’t make enough between Sarah’s Fox News skits and all those speaking fees. Desperate times call for desperate measures and so as the rest of America suffers in the midst of economic stagnation, they will have to do so with more information about the Palins on the front shelf at Borders.

Was Bristol famous before she got knocked up or was it during her first trimester? That anyone cares so much is a shame, and if any other politician’s kids have ever written books like this then shame on them as well. America is a place where nonsense is being sold for profit. Where can I cash in?

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Trains again and books of course

Thinking about the issue with the funding for trains and public transport in the United States. Why can’t they just give the money to the states that really want it? There must be some governors and states that can come up with a plan for the future, where they want to invest in and diversify their various transportation networks. Its one thing to call a train system socialist and all that political jumbo designed to ignore the actual issues at hand, but its another to consider that these kind of things might be really useful to have in the future.

The notion that urban development in the US is to be entirely based on the Automobile in the future is pretty laughable to be honest: you can only fit so many cars in an area. Where are we going to keep parking all the cars? The list of problems with not diversifying the transport options keeps growing. Is there anyone who is listening? I hear crickets chirping.

I have finished reading Joseph Conrad’s novel Lord Jim. For anyone who enjoyed Heart of Darkness I can honestly say that from everything else I have read from him, this was the closest in magnitude (and yet it still didn’t quite make it). Now I have moved on to the Widows of Eastwick by John Updike. After that it will time for Günter Grass in German for the first time.

The Reading List as it stands:

1. I Married a Communist by Phillip Roth (finished)

2. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (finished)

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

4. Going After Cacciato by Tim O´Brien

5. The Green House by Mario Vargas Lhosa (hard to find in English)

6. Grimms Wörter by Günter Grass

7. Buddha’s Little Finger by Victor Pelevin (taken a break for now)

8. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (finished)

9. Invisible by Paul Auster (finished)

10. The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike (currently reading)

11. Peeling the Onion by Günter Grass

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Guttenberg revisited!

I have been doing some more thinking about this plagiarism thing with Guttenberg. Basically I have started comparing the political systems and their processes in Germany and Italy. Is this an oversimplified way of thinking about things? Yes, without a doubt the two countries cannot simply be thrown together and thought of as having similarities. So why did I take the whole thing in that direction? I thought about Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He is the scandal man of Europe. Everyone knows the man is rotten to the core and that while it may not be so in the case of money, the way he uses media and treats women has led to most people viewing the whole Italian democracy as something as a farce: if you can keep getting elected to office with all this baggage then you must be doing something right.

Now then, moving on to Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg. I should add first that he is no longer a Dr! No, once the University of Bayreuth had discovered and reviewed how much plagiarism was in his dissertation, they stripped him pretty fast. Lets be honest, it’s a major scandal. It’s something that most politicians wouldn’t survive. So why is he still defense minister? Well for one thing he is so popular among the CSU/CDU that they are well aware that if they lose him as the poster boy, then they are all but done for in the next set of elections. That begs the question though: are these two parties more interested in the next round of voting than they are in the integrity of their own leaders, and by extension Germany’s leaders? It certainly appears so.

What has Guttenberg done to defend himself? Not a thing worth reporting. He claimed it was at a time in his life when he was very busy (because only he has such times and that we should forgive him because of it). I highly doubt that if you tell a police officer anywhere in Germany that you were speeding because you were busy that they are going to say “oh, so sorry, can I accompany you and make sure you arrive on time.” It is highly doubtful. Lets go back to the Italy thing. I hear a lot of jokes about the Italians and their pathetic leader here in Germany from the Germans, but what I don’t hear is the sound of real outrage from Mr. Guttenberg’s own party demanding that he stop defiling their party (and by extension their democracy) with his mere presence. At least step down from the ministerial post. Better people have been fired for less.

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To doctor or not to Doctor...

There has been some big news brewing in Germany the last couple of days. CSU darling Theodor zu Guttenberg, a shooting star of the conservative movement and possibly the next chancellor, has been accused of plagiarizing. To make things as clear as possible he has been accused of plagiarizing several different parts of his doctoral thesis. I wasn’t very aware about how plagiarizing is dealt with in German universities until this case came up and now that I am learning, I am quite surprised to be honest. It seems that they are a bit more relaxed with these kinds of things. A lot of people have even been coming to his defense and claiming that this is somehow politically motivated.

Why would anyone ever have sympathy on a plagiarizer, especially when they have used their doctoral thesis to propel them to the place where they are today. As far as the accusations go that this is somehow politically motivated, it seems strange to have to ask this question but whatever: either he did or he didn’t plagiarize. If there is one small sentence somewhere in the thesis then that is one thing, now if there are several paragraphs worth of stolen sentences then I would say this seems like a slam-dunk case of a person loosing his doctorate. It would be even funnier if Merkel fired him after that. Of course like most politicians these days, he seems to not have anything stick to him too long. He is like Merkel in that sense: both of them are made out of Teflon.

Now Guttenberg has given up his “Dr” title, but while that seems a bit hasty (the university gives and takes those kinds of things), it isn’t as if he is out of the danger just yet. For one thing the man has lied to everyone, made the university he attended look really bad, and is now trying to simply take away his title as if that will magically fix everything. If he remains in power that will say a lot about German attitudes toward their possible next chancellor.

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Rick Scott and the Train to nowhere...

The governor of Florida, Rick “the crook” Scott, has turned down federal money for a high-speed rail link between Tampa and Orlando. My first reaction was: well big surprise here, a Republican/Tea Party governor turning down an infrastructure project. Since reading the article though, I have been giving the entire project a little extra thought.

At this moment in time there are places in the United States where high-speed rail would work (the Northeast corridor for instance) and places where it wouldn’t work (the Dakotas?). Arguments about density and cost-benefit and all that can be made over and over again and most times the numbers aren’t too thrilling if you are a train advocate. That being said there are some other issues that need to be taken into account when you have a project of this nature. First and foremost it’s an infrastructure project meaning an investment in the future. If you build something for the long term, then a lot of your long-range projections will be off because we aren’t fortunetellers who can peer into the future. One of the Republican arguments against rail investments is that it won’t be competitive. Yeah, I can see the point, but is the interstate system competitive? I don’t really think so, but I don’t hear anyone (but I could be deaf) yelling that we need private roads everywhere to compete with the federal roads.

Does anyone reading this know where I could find a chart comparing subsidies that road, airports, and rail receive per year? I would love to have a look at what the numbers say. Remember that development as a whole follows the pattern that the government lays out. If you don’t believe that then you just have to take into account that suburbs, the way we have them today, wouldn’t be possible without highways and the interstate system (and cheap oil but that is another post for another day). The American low-density existence wouldn’t be possible without this system. So why can’t we offer the Americans another option: that they wouldn’t have to live in the suburbs and could ride a train? I thought Americans liked freedom of choice. I hope they spend all that federal money somewhere else, where the people like having jobs and would like to diversify their transport options for any variety of reasons, plus they like offering their kids new futures. Didn’t America used to be about optimism?

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Reading List

Short post today to save time. There is nothing much going on for a report or comment. We still have no real information about how our water-damaged apartment is going to be fixed. The Champions League game tonight between Arsenal and Barcelona should be a wonder to behold. Barcelona should win to be honest. Would love to see the Englishmen win this one and then take the Camp Nou by storm. Not going to happen?

Here is the reading list as it stands for 2011:

1. I Married a Communist by Phillip Roth (finished)

2. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (finished)

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

4. Going After Cacciato by Tim O´Brien

5. The Green House by Mario Vargas Lhosa (hard to find in English)

6. Grimms Wörter by Günter Grass

7. Buddha’s Little Finger by Victor Pelevin (taken a break for now)

8. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (currently reading)

9. Invisible by Paul Auster (finished)

This is currently all I've got, so I would love some tips from anyone reading this blog.

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Brooks, what are you saying?

Just finished reading David Brooks latest column in the NY Times. It’s an interesting observation on a book by Tyler Cowen called “The Great Stagnation” that I have yet to read. I wanted to add a few thoughts of my own to Brooks ideas. The idea of the book is that as society in the United States has changed from an industrial and manufacturing base to a more consumer oriented society we have lost a few things. First off, more people now choosing careers that create fewer jobs. For instance that manufacturing nowadays is reliant on less people and that jobs for other companies require less people. This isn’t really surprising at all. In many ways its merely a confirmation of the fact that more of the jobs we used to do by hand, or that were labor intensive, are now being done by computer controlled robots or have moved overseas. Is there really a big surprise in that Mr. Brooks?

Brooks then seems fascinated by this in the sense that he thinks there was some sort of golden age. That according to Cowen’s book, and Brooks seemingly agrees, the economic growth accomplished by the United States up to the seventies was done cheaply. Ok, that may be the case when you run it through certain economic modeling, but as most people can figure out for themselves the problem lies with what your pricing mechanism is. For instance we have built a society based around the Automobile. What if we then run out of cheap fuel? Then our very way of life at the moment, which is (has been?) extremely cheap in the United States (a post-industrial nation), suddenly becomes more expensive. Once again how one makes such calculations so as to conclude that things were cheap seems tricky at best. Add to this that the nostalgia for the way things used to be is usually based on a false understanding of the past. To belabor the point: how we view the past is always dependent on our current situation, both when it comes to means and how we are doing in terms of psychology.

For example, I am unemployed at the moment and have a hard time finding work in the field that I studied. Therefore I tend to conclude, at the moment, that I have done something wrong during my academic years and that this is having an affect at this moment. Whether or not this notion is based on reality is another thing. Were I to be employed I would instead conclude that I had studied exactly the right thing at the right time. To be fair to Brooks I should probably read that book…

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Life takes a strange bounce

It’s been lovely today. Its just one of those days where it didn’t really matter how much you got right to start with or for how long for that matter. You come home at five in the afternoon. Your wife is cleaning up the bathroom. You wonder why and then you have a look. A pipe somewhere in the ceiling has burst or something like that and suddenly the whole bathroom has been destroyed. Like I said, at that moment in time it doesn’t matter anymore how much had been accomplished that day, because the rest of it is ruined.

You try to smoke a cigarillo, the kind you really like, the kind you like to enjoy because they are easy to enjoy. It’s impossible at this point to enjoy anything. You have applied for something from the Tax Office. It was supposed to arrive eight days ago. It’s holding up your payments from a job you did last month. You call them, and the first two times they transfer you to a phone line that eventually hangs up on you. You call them back the next day. You finally reach the person who processed your paperwork. They tell you that there isn’t anything they can do, since it is someone else in another department somewhere that sends out the official document with the special number that you kind of needed a week ago.

Sometimes the ball doesn’t go into the open goal when you kick it from four meters out. It bounces off one post and then the other before it runs out back onto the field and a defender clears it away. Football can sometimes be a great metaphor for life. I keep hitting the posts at the moment. It’s so close and yet it seems that really its always so far away.

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Things of present

I haven´t found the drive to write anything on this blog recently. I don´t really know why. I have been writing though. Its been a long time since I got beyond writing one page of fiction and then finding myself stuck in writers block. I haven´t had an aha moment though: instead I just pushed through the garbage (and there is a lot of it) and found that there was something to write about after all. I am writing about Latvia. No that isn´t true actually. I am trying to write about people´s experiences with Latvia. Whether its a way to achieve an understanding for myself or whether or not it actually becomes something worth reading will hang on me.

I will try to have another post soon about the Swedish national team. The B-team easily demolished Cyprus´ A-team so lets see what the A-team can do to the Ukraine. I am stoked.

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A wish list or an article about the Swedish National Team

There has been a slight hint of spring in the air the last couple of days. It could be the lack of snow (though its still freezing outside) or it could be that the first real Internationals are being played next week. I think its a combination of the two. As a follower of team Sweden (BlåGult) I have been reading as many articles as possible about the selected squad and what can be expected from them. I tend to drift from euphoric phases of optimism to the deepest depths of pessimism. I want to see Sweden at Euro 2012. To get there, its going to take a lot of heart and hard work. Its also going to take a bit of luck.

Sweden isn´t bad really, but they aren´t world beaters at the moment. The 4-1 loss in Amsterdam at the hands of the Netherlands was a good reminder or wake up call about the quality we have at the moment. Sure there are stars in the team, players even who have the potential to be something great. The problem I see is that many of them aren´t taking that final step up. I will grant that its easy to sit here and couch-coach. I don´t see the practices and I don´t get to watch all the games. I wish I did though. I wish I were a players scout.

For Sweden to reach Euro 2012 I think a few things have to happen. First we need to find a solution to the right back. Right now we are playing a young guy from Rosenborg BK named Mikael Lustig. He is still young enough where he can be developed, but I think that Adam Johansson from IFK Göteborg is a better option. I think he is more mature and a better defender than what Lustig is at the moment. A strong and solid defensive back four is the kind of base that Sweden needs to have if they are going to have a chance to hang with the bigger teams. You have to be able to rely on the back four to hold down the ship when the storms are raging. If you can´t rely on them, then there will be no solid effort on scoring once you get one or two of those rare chances against a top ten side. Sweden´s other problem is the midfield. Anders Svensson needs to stay because without him at the moment there isn´t much holding the whole thing together. I also have to admit I like Kim Källström, though he has a nasty habit of disappearing or being over-eager at times. If he can get his game together when it matters he is one hell of an asset. One player who needs to take a solid step forward in his personal development and really grab the bull by the horns is Rasmus Elm. He has had a lot of injury problmes and fitness issues the last season and a half, but it seems he is finally starting to move forward again.

The question is can he be what the national team needs: a playmaker? The same question mark hangs over his Alkmaar teammates head Pontus Wernbloom. Sure he has been good against average sides such as Hungary, but can he really put his play into a higher gear when the shit storm is raging? These are the kinds of questions that Sweden needs to answer in these two games next week. What about Bajrami and Sebastian Larsson? I am still not sure they are really the answer. I am hoping though, hoping really hard. The next challenge coming our way to Euro 2012 is Moldova. Sounds easy on paper, but its three points that we can´t be without. Its three points we have to have.

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Saturday Post

Its Saturday and its been a pretty productive day by my own standards. I am right in the middle of making delicious vegetarian lasagna for Clara, myself, and two friends of ours. At the same time I am also making vegetable broth from all the leftover vegetables we have collected over the last week and a half. This is one of those things that remain a work in progress. This is the fourth time I have made it and I am still learning how to do it and what the combination for a good taste is. This time I added some stalks of rosemary. We will see if it adds anything to it. I want to make my kitchen into a place where I do most, if not all of the cooking from scratch. Sometimes that is not possible, and sometimes there is simply not enough time. There is a massive difference in taste, and taking the broth as an example, last week we made a soup using the broth as a base and then adding some more fresh vegetables and pasta and letting them simmer some. The final taste was incredible and not even comparable to store bought broth.

I haven’t watched a single episode of Sarah Palin’s Alaska (I think that’s the name) but I can’t help but wonder if she runs for president, will she then have a reality show about how the whole thing goes? What would that be called? Sarah Palin Goes to Washington? Sarah Palin’s Washington? If anyone has any good ideas then please post them below.

The new congress spent some time reading the constitution for everyone to hear. I like that Time Magazine asks the question as to whether or not there is some kind of Constitution Cult that is rearing its head right now in the US. The quote at the end by Jefferson is pretty damning of the whole “original interpretation” idea. Well there will always be nuts among us, now we have people who fall for the American Religion. Classic.

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First Post

The New Year is here. It brought with it large explosions that lasted up to around four in the morning and then piles and piles of dirty snow and the wrappers and leftovers of the fireworks. The city, of course, is the one who will have to clean the whole thing up like they do every year. I think this is probably one of those ironic moments in Germany, a land so proud about being clean: that on New Year’s eve and day its ok to litter. Going to the baker in the morning was like walking through a bar just after they closed: half empty bottles and cups lined the street.

My first book of 2011 I actually started in 2010. It was Phillip Roth’s “I Married a Communist.” It was only the second Roth novel that I have ever read, but I will admit that it won’t be the last. While at times the story line was bland, the characters themselves kept the thing afloat and all the insights into the McCarthy era were extremely interesting and irritating at the same time. It will forever be one of those classic ideas to me that a country can call itself the greatest on earth and then turn around and tell its own people what they have to believe in order to be permitted to work.

That’s the thing I want to point out as we begin the new year: that our end results or present versions of old projects often have little to do with their origins and history. The original United States allowed for slavery and gave no votes to women, and yet if you speak to some people, they would give up everything they had to go back to that time of constitutional purity. I am guessing that most of these people have no background in American history beyond the third grade.

The book list for 2011 will keep the books that weren’t finished from last year as well.

1. I Married a Communist by Phillip Roth (finished)

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

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

4. Going After Cacciato by Tim O´Brien

5. The Green House by Mario Vargas Lhosa (hard to find in English)

6. Grimms Wörter by Günter Grass

7. Buddha’s Little Finger by Victor Pelevin (Currently reading in German)

Finally an apology for today’s post, I know it isn’t that great or fiery or whatever, but it’s the first one of the year so it needed to be gotten out of the way.

First picture of the year was a great success as well: Quiche with tomatoes, Asiago cheese, and spinach.