Request for Serious Debate

The US seems to have lost all capability to debate when it comes to serious issues. Generally it turns into a shouting match lead by the loudest ignorant person around. For instance the Tea-bagger-or-bags-or-whatever-they-wish-to-be-called seem to never run out of steam. They are against "Czars" though this term was started by a republican and has never been questioned under any other presidents. Or what about health care being used as a way to compare Obama to Hitler (ironically this is a slap in the face to anyone who fought Nazism).

Today I ask for a serious debate about Homosexuality on two fronts: Marriage and the Military. Lets get things started: the military has the famous don´t ask don´t tell policy that is used to prohibit homosexuals from serving openly. The reason given is usually something about unit cohesion though no proof is ever presented to back up this claim. Is this the best answer for the reason that gays are discriminated against? Because straight people are uncomfortable, though no one has been able to prove this? Every other western democracy allows homosexuals to serve openly and their militaries aren´t falling into disarray and confusion or turning to orgies either. Please give me a good reason beyond some form of conservative religious morality.

Secondly we arrive at marriage. Marriage is a state institution. What that means is that in terms of legal framework it is something that the state recognizes as a union of two individuals (it can be talked of in more romantic terms but that is not the purpose of this post). At this point in time the US states tend to recognize only the marriage between a man and a woman (defined by what and shouldn´t they have some athletic gender test to make sure that this is always followed). What is the reason for denying marriage to same sex couples who wish to look out for one another until they die in both the romantic sense as well as the legal (financial and death) sense? Is there any reason beyond conservative religious morality that is used to defend straight marriage as being the only option that should be tolerated?

For those who wish to cling to religious answers please note your constitution is secular and calls for a separation of church and state so as not to discriminate against minority groups and others who do not share the same religion.

Which Mad Hatter will win?

Well the Republicans already think they have the 2010 election in the bag and it would probably be good to let them keep thinking that for now. The question that I am chewing on right now is which of the mad hatters they have available will get the nomination for the 2012 election. Palin, Huckabee, and Romney have all made sure to keep their names on the tip of potential voters tongues. So what do these people really stand for? Well what do the republicans stand for.

If we try to boil it down to ideology questions then the first thing we get to is that the government should spend less. Less of course on social issues and more on military doodads and campaigns. Following this notion that government always ruins things and can´t run things we should turn to the stellar way that free enterprise has always worked for the good of mankind (when you can find an example, then please leave a comment). Another one they like to talk about is that government shouldn´t regulate health care, but should ban all forms of abortion. They claim to stand for family values and this has worked with keeping the Dobsonites on board till now. The problem is of course that they don´t really practice what they preach on that one. Their foreign policy is essentially simple: who isn´t for us (giving us troops for our wars and bases) is against us and socialist etc. They also seem to believe that the US is not capable of commiting wrongs (please tell this to the Slaves, the people of Iraq, and countless other countries they have meddled in).

From what I have boiled down so far I get a party that I wouldn´t vote for in my worst nightmares. These are some candidates that creep me out.

Kitchen Nightmares

I have been watching a few episodes of Gordon Ramsays Kitchen Nightmares and last night I noticed a difference between the English version and the American one. The American version is shown on Fox, which while that doesn´t necessarily tell you much it should say that there is something that American audiences love to see: as much drama as possible. The English version on the other takes a more traditional food program take where it focuses on improving how the kitchen is run and lets the drama be a less in your face and more sophisticated type. Therefore as a cook I prefer the English version better.

The episode I watched last night featured a restaurant in Scotland now known as Abstract and which had probably the fanciest walk-in refrigerator I have ever seen in my life. They actuall had the produce as fresh as possible (meaning crayfish were still alive and everything) and the produce was all the most expensive one could get. The way to do this: have a multi-millionaire owner.

Anyway I made the Creme Brulées last night and they are looking to be a great success. More information to follow.

Sick and Back again...

Had some small and annoying cold thingy thats kept me behind for a couple of days here but now it seems the worst is over and I am on the way back to good health. Tomorrow is a big day for cooking and I am planning on making Flammkuchen (as the Germans call it) or Tarte Flambée (French). Of course I am doing the vegetarian version so no bacon. This is a dish which is Alsatian in origin. To go with this I am also planning on serving Creme Brulée for dessert. This will be the first time that I have made Creme Brulée at home so I am a bit nervous about messing that up. However the friends we are having over for dinner supposedly have a burner so I am going to call them in a few minutes and ask them to bring it along.

My experience with Creme Brulée is that it has to be watched rather constantly so that the eggs don´t get a chance to overcook, because if they do you end up eating sweet scrambled eggs. There is also no better smell than when you have cut a vanilla bean and gotten some of the seeds on your hand. For a whole day you can smell vanilla on them.

I am still trying to decide if I should have some starters. I was thinking about some form of italian bread chips (the name is escaping me) with some tapenade or something like that. We shall see what happens.

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Almost forgot to mention that we are planning on drinking Federweisser which you can read about here. Seeing as how its a fall thing, I think everything here is pretty much timed perfectly with the season.

Paranoia U.S. and A style

I have lost all hope of any kind of logical debate occuring in the US over healthcare. From either side. In my time living in the US and following politics there I cannot say that I have seen any good debates take place where both parties were involved. Take Presidential debates: both candidates blow smoke up each others ass because the American public don´t like to see their politicians bicker. Americans also supposedly believe in this concept of Bipartisanship. Bipartisanship is in many ways a practical way of saying hey we don´t actually want anything to really change so we take this half-assed approach where we water something down to the point where both parties look like losers. The democrats need an FDR, desperately and at the moment they haven´t got it. To Obama: stop bending over backwards and shove this thing through.

Paranoia and right-wing populism seems to be the way that the Republicans are going to retake the house and the senate. Too bad I would have loved to hear something solid coming out of their mouths instead of the garbage they are spewing at the time.

Funniest statement of the month: a man was interviewed on BBC about Carter´s comment that race is motivating a lot of the criticism of Obama (something I have not taken a stand on yet) and said something like this... actually racism in the US is not a real issue anymore. I almost died laughing wondering who the idiot who said this was.

Tonight Barcelona vs. Inter or as the press likes to call it Etoó versus Ibrahimovic. Hope Messi and Ibra rip through Inter.

Invitation for Lesbian Haircuts

Todays facebook highlight had to be the invitation for a Lesbian haircut that a certain Quebecoise native sent me. I checked it out and laughed myself silly for about five minutes and then started thinking about it. How do these women go to a barber and request these styles? Do they do what we all did when we were young: take a photo of some celebrity we wanted to look like and kinda thought we would if we had their hair, or do they have proper terms for them? Are there barbers who specialize in cutting Lesbian´s hair? There are plenty of women in Berlin going around with these haircuts in any case.

Tonight the group stage of the Champions League begins and while I have to work tonight I am looking forward to watching the Barcelona/Inter Milan game tomorrow. It will be fun to watch Ibrahimovic face his former teammates so early on.

Tomorrow I have my first Yoga class for this fall term. Its going to be fun and a lot of pain. Last time around I was really starting to notice a difference after a month or two.

I think that there is no longer anything worth saving in the Republican party and hope that they will eventually expose themselves as the corporate party that they are instead of sucking up votes by playing nationalist and family value cards. Despicable.

There is something fishy about all this...

These protests have been the talk of the summer (and now the fall as well) in the US and A. They don´t necessarily seem to be going away either. Fox News and their make out buddies (you know who you are) take the approach that this is the voice of the "normal" American speaking out against his country being stolen out from him by fill-in-the-blank a. african-born unconstitutional leader b. marxist c. socialist d. fascist e. hitler f. stalin. g. mao h. all of the above. Just what exactly has he done so far to merit any of these empty phrases being thrown at him? I am not so sure really.

Health care. Its a debacle in the US and there is really no ignoring that. If the republicans manage to block this bill and/or water it down as they are hoping to do, we will be facing another long drawn out period of waiting for Americans to get tired of being taken advantage of by big corporations who reap profits off them being sick. That in itself is sick enough to merit change. Does anyone really truly deep down believe that capitalism will solve its own problems? It hasn´t been able to so far in history so why would that change this time?

Le Weekend

This weekend was spent in the following manner: Friday was filled up from 11 am to 1 am with the wedding of a friend, Saturday was spent in a relaxing manner where the house was also cleaned up and I got a chance to watch some of the Barcelona game, then Sunday was spent having breakfast with a friend in Friedrichshain, going to the market in Boxhagener kiez and then home to do nothing (which is definitely underrated).

Today I wasted some time looking at photos of protestor´s signs in the US that are against Obama. I don´t really know what to think about this most of the time. I have narrowed it down to two options: A. these people are completely out of their minds and paranoid about everything or B. these people have no idea what is going on and are using this opportunity to prove just how bad American schools are for promoting free thinking.

All these notions that the US is being destroyed that are promoted on all the media outlets by such scum as Glenn Beck and co. are actually counterproductive to any debate taking place. These people are screaming that they should be heard, yet they are actually well represented in both the House and the Senate so this brings us back to the idea that American schools are doing fuck all to educate them about how democracy actually works. A diversity of ideas and a healthy debate are what make democracies and cultures strong. That Obama is labelled a Fascist or Communist at every turn is a slap in the face to anyone who fought either of those two forms of government. In fact it is a slap in the face to every veteran from WWII. I wish the Republican party had some intellectual thinkers who could debate things so that there would be a debate and not a minority mob chanting in the streets about their paranoia.

Berlin and Fall

The weather has taken its turn and the clouds are gathering. It seems that the summer has lasted so long that I am having a hard time remembering what a fall is like, though I won´t deny that I would have liked it to stay away a bit longer. Especially as I have started skateboarding again now pretty frequently.

I have a job interview tomorrow which is good, though its another restaurant job which doesn´t make it as great as I would wish. Maybe if this keeps up I can find a restaurant that focuses on Env. friendly food and make my mark through the world of food. It isn´t exactly what I had in mind but if that is where its at then I will be happy all the same.

I recently read the novel, or novella is more correct, named The Road by Cormac McCarthy. While I found great portions of it pretentious, I will say that some parts of it triggered my imagination into thinking whether or not some of the happenings would be possible. For instance if the governments completely ceased to exist and nothing grows anymore are humans going to return to a tribal mentality or even an individualistic cannibal lifestyle where friendship is only based on whether or not they increase the persons chance of survival (meaning at some point if the survival chances are lowered the said friends are likely to try to eat each other without even having to think about it). Essentially, we are just one nuclear war from falling apart. Somewhere there are dusty red buttons that some lunatic designed in the name of Mutual Assured Destruction.

Inhofe is a liar

Read the following link about Sen. Inhofe and once you are finished and if you find yourself agreeing with anything the guy is saying, please go check yourself into a mental hospital.

Link

Berlin, Berlin

Raining cats and dogs this morning and to add to all that it didn´t start till about four in the morning when a loud crack of thunder pealed through the sky and woke me up. Maybe the grass will return to its more natural green color before fall has its savage way. Speaking of fall the leaves are turning just slightly and that means that winter is peeking its frigid eyes on us.

Amidst all this it somehow stopped raining a few minutes ago and that means that if this sun thing keeps up long enough the skate-spot at Hasenheide will be dry enough to hit up by six in the evening. Needless to say I am hoping for this option. Today is work on application day as well as try to figure out what other paperwork needs to be filled out so that I can change my name day.

I want to write a blog for ESPN about Hertha Berlin (the local Football team in the Bundesliga), but there is no contact information to get ahold of those individuals who can pull those strings. Work is ok for now but seeing as how the high season is about to end (if it has not already done so) means I need to find another temp. job for the moment.

Otherwise things are good today, going for a skate, got payed, and having chanterelles for dinner with the most beautiful woman in the world, well it doesn´t get much better.

CIA Probe and politics

Supposedly if Obama decides that the hood of the CIA should be popped open and a look given to the machine running beneath it, it would be bad for politics. First it would somehow take away from morale at the CIA and second Republicans and moderates would have a fit.

Let me see if I understand this correctly, because maybe I am just a bit confused here: The CIA, a US government agency is accused of torturing people (which is illegal in the US), and people don´t want to know. Pathetic. A nation that likes to think of itself as a democracy and a place of laws has an obligation to investigate and prosecute for misscarriages of justice; no matter the scenario.

The other side of the coin is this: if the CIA didn´t do anything wrong then there will be no consequences of this investigation, so if they are innocent as they claim then they should welcome an investigation. This doesn´t seem to be the case.

Finally, in regards to Republican stances of righteous anger about prosecuting their sacred cow, I ask how was it possible that they went after Clinton for a blow job but torture is somehow ok. Something is rotten in that party.

Anti-Semitism, Aftonbladet, and Freedom of the press.

I have no way of knowing how much you, dear readers, are aware of the current "crises" between the Swedish and Israeli Governments. I will however attempt to give you a quick rundown. First let me be honest; I am biased towards Sweden as I am half Swedish and up till a few months ago lived there.

Donald Boström wrote an article where he makes the accusation for the sake of bringing it to the public´s attention that the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) might be stealing organs from some of the palestinians that they kill in combat albeit those they take back to their base to do "autopsies" on. Question number one; why would you do an autopsy on someone you shot in combat, or do you not have any faith in the power of your own weapons?

The Israeli foreign ministry and also Mr. Netanyahu accuse Aftonbladet and Boström of bringing up old Anti-semitic claims against the jews and that they are showing off the racism that is apparently evident in that neutral land (we can discuss this at another time). They also demand that the Swedish government distance itself from this article and condemn it. The Swedish government refuses to do so and states (quite correctly) that according to their constitution they are not permitted to do so. Question number two; why are the Israelis reading Aftonbladet?

Aftonbladet is really a tabloid where celebrity gossip is mixed with fairly small snippets about international affairs and some actual first class sports journalism. Let me restate this: Aftonbladet is a Tabloid. Sweden´s law prohibits the government from making positive or negative statements about the press, that is their law. Why is Israel pressing a nation to go against its constitution when they don´t appreciate anyone telling them what to do? Whether or not the article is false or not I know not. Boström presents no evidence except a photo of a palestinian man who was killed by the IDF and then autopsied for some reason. He also connected it with some organ ring in the US supposedly run by a rabbi. Whether or not there is truth I know not. I doubt it however.

The next topic is the accusation that the Swedes are showing Anti-semitism here. This is Israels go to answer whenever it is criticized for anything. However the problem is that Israel is a state and not a people group. True the population of Israel is primarily Jewish but this in itself is another dilemma: is being jewish a religion or a race? Apparently if one criticizes the IDF which is a part of the state of Israel then one is Anti-semitic. Therefore any critic can be labeled easily as racist and ethnocentric and written off. That is pretty pathetic. If Boström had alluded that this was normal "jew" behavior then he would have been anti-semitic. He was however not making a claim like this and so I find the Israeli statement labelling this as Anti-Semitism fairly weak. Further Israel is now acting like they are going to not allow Swedish journalists access to the country. The Swedish Journalist association made a statement about this today in Dagens Nyheter; till now only dictatorships have done things like that.

Lesson learned; In Israel whatever a tabloid writes is cause for indignation.

Health care protest=staged

Read this if you weren´t sure.

Health care and the Republican mind

Two things in need of change: the United States health care system and the mindset of the Republican party. I am not the only one who is noting that the Republicans have fallen off the deep end. By accusing the other party of being fascist or communist, they are essentially appealing to a right wing base (which is where fascism lies incidentally) and they are ignoring the use of any facts and reasonable debate. It is one thing to disagree with the idea of health care reform, it is another to call someone a fascist over it without any real proof of this.

A perfect example of this ridiculous behavior is Sen. Jim DeMint. I am going to go a step further, I am going to call the man what he actually is: a grade A idiot. We are talking about someone who sits in a powerful position in the US government and had quite a few idiots vote for him. Here is saying that the US is on its way to becoming like Germany or Iran. First off I live in Germany and I can tell you that there is more freedom here than there is in the US anyway. What makes me wonder about DeMint is whether or not he has really ever traveled anywhere and seen the world or if he is just another Republican All American with his head up his ass.

Introducing Micke Huckabee: the moron

This article pretty much sums up Mike Huckabee´s uber simplistic take on the world. Hey Mike while we are at it, can we give the land you currently call the USA back to the native Americans? Didn´t think so. Hope the Republicans pick you for their presidential candidate as it would mean the end of modernity and the return of the dark ages.

Weekly Politcal commentary

No one should be surprised that this blog is carrying on about political issues (including race, gender, etc.) I am generally quite open about where I stand which compared to the President is indeed to the left. So here we go...

Any talk about discrimination against white people is the most ridiculous thing that I have heard (shame on Limbaugh and co. for continually harping on all the discrimination against them). This article does well to point out the fact that despite all this talk it is still the white man running things.

The health care battle is starting to scare me. I will be honest I can´t really afford to live in the US at the moment, as my standard of living would be lowered due to the bills I would have to pay to private insurance companies who are just what they are called: private. Anyone who believes that capitalism can "solve" things is ignoring the stupidity of humanity, and besides if it could solve things then why do we need government in the first place. When a republican administration really does create a smaller government then I will observe the experience and weigh it based on its own merits, though to this day I haven´t seen this to be the case (can´t count Reagan, he poured all that money into the military which sorry to say is another government operation).

The President should come down hard on the righties and let them know they aren´t the only ones who can create a scene. He should demonstrate that the Democrats are the party in power for one reason: that is how the people of the nation wanted things to be (its called a democracy for a reason). So its about time that Congress and the President got to work.

Finally, the right to bear arms. This should be the one thing in the constitution that would need some work. If you have a rifle for hunting that is great. If you have an semi-automatic and take it to protests, there is something wrong with you period. This is something you don´t even see in most third world countries.

On the perception of weakness

I was skimming headlines and through a few clicks I ended up on some conservative blog about Russian submarines being spotted outside American territorial waters. Of course the article itself isn´t so much interesting as the comments that follow it. What makes the comments themselves interesting? The paranoia and the fear that the current president is somehow weak. Its bizarre to me to read all this but I can kind of understand where its coming from. For the last eight years the country has suffered from having to hawkish leaders who were more likely to pull the trigger than try to work things out. Here´s a lesson that people who think the president is weak should learn: Diplomacy that doesn´t come through a gun barrel is a lot more challenging then squeazing a trigger.

Why all this paranoia about Russia by the way. Of course they are flexing their muscles but they were doing this under Bush as well. How do you think they feel about the US recruiting all their former satellite states for NATO? Essentially these paranoid individuals seem to think its ok for the US to act aggressor but not for anyone else to play the same game. Excuse me while I go throw up. Weakness is not the use of diplomacy as a first negotiating tool, its the use of force when its not called for that is. Paranoia about Russia is equivalent to being a dumb hick who is unaware of recent history.

Top Ten list of people we should ignore:

10. Robert Mugabe (There should be no need to explain his presence on the list).

9. Kim Jong-Il (Seemingly proud to be out of his mind and insane, suffers from penis envy which goes a long way to explaining why his starving country is building nuclear weapons).

8. Glenn Beck (hate speech promoter and all around liar-for-ratings).

7. Sean Hannity (See Glenn Beck).

6. Orly Taitz (Birther lawyer and dentist and real estate agent also out of her mind yet still able to practice law).

5. Sarah Palin (imagine her as president and once you finish vomiting your migraine will show up, has demonstrated repeatedly she is incapable of running anything but Wasilla).

4. Dick Cheney (torture can be justified, I am sure a certain Reich´s Führer would have agreed 110 percent, responsible for making the US just that much less safe).

3. Mahmoud Ahmadinajad (Where to start... Stole an election and is generally regarded to be out of his mind as well).

2. Karl Rove (need I explain why)

1. Mark Sanford (showing why people shouldn´t vote for a party claiming to be about "family" values).

Note: this list does not infer value based on the numbering system used, it is simply how they came to mind.

Weekly Commentary

In just a week Lou Dobbs managed to flush his journalistic reputation down the toilet by continuing to cover the non-story that is the birthers. Actually the real story would be about the people behind these types of conspiracy theories. Or what about the GOP senators and representatives who are pandering to the fringe base with their bill concerning the birth certificates being or not being (check the video at Huffingtonpost to see what kind of weirdos are making your laws).

Picked up my new passport from the US Embassy in Berlin. I have to say that I went in there completely prejudiced against Embassy security, having dealt with angry and irritated little jerks in Riga. These guys were completely friendly and even wanted to talk about books I was reading. My respect goes to those guys. Except for the Marine with his war face in the second office, staring everyone down who walks through his diplomatic halls.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is now playing for FC Barcelona. First congratulations to him: everyone wants to go, but few are given the opportunity. I hope he makes the most of it and does two things: wins the Ballon D´Or and Champions League next year.

On the football note it seems Sweden will not be playing at the next world cup in South Africa which means that I will be supporting the German national team. The only good thing to come out of this is hopefully that Sweden realizes they need a new strategy to reach some new footballing heights.

The Birthers or the nutcases among us

Today I have been reading and trying to keep up with this bizarre group of people called the birthers. For those who are completely unaware of this group, its a bunch of conspiracy theorists residing in the USA who are for various reasons trying to have President Obama removed from office by claiming he is not a "natural born citizen." Of course they are completely wrong on two accounts: A. his mother was a US citizen and B. he was born in the US.

I am going to be completely honest. If I found out that any of my friends were in any way associated with this movement it would be automatic cause for the end of that friendship. If I were to meet anyone who holds this view (not very likely as these nutcases are generally unaware that there is a world outside the US) I would in no way associate with them. Period. The soldier who took this to court should be dishonarably discharged and held in contempt of court along with his lawyer who should never be permitted to practice law again in any state. Period. Anyone supporting this movement is in no way a patriot but instead completely delusional and insane.

Strange Summer, Job search, and more

This is going to go down as an even worse summer than last year if the weather continues as it is now; rain, cloudy, sunny for five minutes and then repeat. Add to this that the humidity can reach almost tropical levels (Which means another storm is coming) and you have a recipe for a rainy year. I am going to Sweden next weekend for what could be called a mini-honeymoon before the real one in February (which will be on the islands of Maui and Kauai).

The job search is on and so far I have found a few places that I am interested in applying to but now I just need to get my letter of application finished.

That is about it for right now, I am still making pizza and hoping the sun will come out tomorrow so I can go for a skate, which would be the first skate in three months.

Trapped in the rain

Went to the Berlin Library (AGB) and got trapped there in a downpour of torrential tropical rain. Before I got here the weather was so humid that I was sweating just sitting at my computer. There is no escape from the European summer and considering that this is what was sorely missing until a week ago I shouldn´t be complaining.

Just picked up Paul Auster´s book Moon Palace which I do not believe that I have read and am therefore very happy to do so now. I dropped off Marina Lewicki´s Two Caravans (which I do not recommend by any stretch.

I am getting married in a week and that is incredible. Now I just need to keep looking for a job. Time is going by so fast, too fast almost.

Considering that the rain is coming down as hard as it is, I guess it means I won´t be skateboarding today. Oh well.

Le Weekend

Big plans, big plans. Actually a lot of wedding related stuff. There is supposedly a job fair as well so I need to fix up my CV a bit (you know add the part about having a masters degree). Getting a haircut as well around 11. I guess the term trim is more correct.

In the evening its time for some Under 21 European Championship footall. Sweden vs. England and to be perfectly honest and clear, Sweden aren´t tipped to win. Then again we weren´t tipped to win against Serbia either, which we did on Tuesday 3-1. We did it in style and team Serbia collapsed like a wounded giant and by the time the referee had decided to blow the final whistle it was an eleven man Sweden vs nine man Serbia (both red cards coming after the score was already 3-1). What I am trying to say is that if we go out tomorrow and battle our little hearts off, there is a chance we could pull this off. Not a big chance, but a chance all the same.

Ahmadinejad or the other option

I read an interview with Moussavi about two weeks before the election. Its funny to hear the GOP hyping this guy up as the person who would be able to bring peace and harmony to the region. Would he be better than the incumbent? Without a doubt, yet he is by no means what the GOP think of as a free leader. Look up the interview in Der Spiegel and make up your own mind.

There is still the question of whether or not the election was rigged or not. From everything I have read and heard, it was rigged. Shame on those who did it, it makes them look stupid and weak.

John Fante

I read the Road to Los Angeles when I was still in undergrad at FSU. It was part of a creative writing course and it was supposed to get us into exploring new ways of writing prose. At the time I had a sort of love/hate relationship to the book and though I knew that Fante had written some more stories using the same character, I didn't jump at any opportunities to read on.

That all changed three days ago. I was at the Berlin Library and looking for books in English which can be a trying experience (to be fair they have a great selection but you have to order most of them in advance if you want to get them, so browsing is not the optimal way to do things) and there it was in front of me: Fante's Ask the Dust. I picked it up with a feeling in my gut that this was probably not going to be the most exciting book I had read recently but whatever it was there and why not have a go. I had a go and its been a rollercoaster of an experience. The prose is straight from Fante's mind and onto the paper. At times it becomes impossible to separate the author from the main character Arturo Bandini (essentially himself, but in fiction format). At other times I was so lost in the story that I couldn't put the book down.

Note: its not for the weak of heart, and not for people who like happy endings. After all its John Fante and there is a good reason that Charles Bukowski thought he was god.

The Wedding Approacheth

And I am feeling it every minute. The thesis is done, stamped and over with. My provisional degree is on my desk and within the next three months the official one will arrive. Haven't decided whether or not to hang it on the wall: this always struck me as a lame thing to do.

Was sitting at my desk trying to figure out directions to two doctor's offices where I had to go and pick up some reinbursements for various reasons, and while I was doing this the sound of a trumpet and an accordian slowly made its way up the street. That is why the window is open almost 24/7: to hear the street life. Anyway I finally looked out and saw three guys making their way past all the cafes; two of them playing a barely perceptible tune, the other collecting money in a disposable Starbucks cup. They were being modest and only went with a grande. Didn't help their music. Saw the same group perform in a park. They approach some people having a perfectly good day and annoy them until they pay some money. All the while they wear the creepiest smiles and seem very into what they are playing.

Some strange person requested me on Facebook. Have no idea why and honestly find it annoying that someone I don't know in any way would think I would like to be friends.

Musings of a Master

Seems like the elections might have been rigged in good ole Iran, but who is really surprised?

Leaving Lund in the morning with a one way ticket to Berlin. Bout time for that one really.

Berlin better have a better summer this year than last. I am tired of getting rained on. I feel like a lot skating is in store for me and that the mini ramp at YAAM is going to have some hot sessions as well as the Warschauer Benches.

Getting married in less than a month and it is going to be amazing. Can't wait to see everyone who is invited.

Now I get to find out what a Master's degree means in terms of jobs. Going to be exciting. Thinking about a Sustainability Advisory company for the Surf industry. Any excuse to see the inside of a wave barrel.

The conspiracy theorists

I will name at least three of them. While their party is out of power and in the wilderness, they are promoting conspiracy theories for their eager uneducated listeners. Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Michael Savage. They all imagine that the government is fascist (or when they want another word they turn to communist or socialist anything to fit the moment). The best part is that quite a few million people sit around listening to these "prophets" words of wisdom.

Hilarious actually.

Tin foil hat

Listening to a speech by Sarah Palin. Now, don't misunderstand me, I don't agree with just about any of her ideas of how the country should be run or with her ideas of how to interact with the world (someone who hasn't traveled to other countries doesn't have much clout in telling me how the world works). Basically what I am trying to say is that I will never vote for her.

Listening to her speech however is pure pleasure. To hear her talk about how government is ruinning our lives and destroying our "freedoms" and being weak to all these enemies who are just waiting to pounce for no good reason at all. Its like listening to that homeless person on the street with the tin foil hat on his head so the government can't send signals or hear his thoughts. The bum is Sarah Palin and if you look closely enough she and the rest of her choir all have homemade tin foil hats on. I just hope the audience is smart enough not to believe the bum

Americans with Guns

So now you can carry your guns in national parks. Its jolly great is what I say. That stupidity goes this far. That a bunch of paranoid nuts get to buy handguns in sport stores and then carry them around in their everyday lives. Not to keep wild animals away. Not to protect themselves from gang wars (how many of these NRA guys really live in an inner city). No they want the guns so they can feel masculine and tough. A gun is a symbol of power. Without it they are simply not men. For them the loss of a gun is the same as testicular cancer: a loss of manhood. The gun then is truly a phallic symbol in every sense. Just like rape is a control method used by men in prison, so the gun is a feeling of being in control in their everyday lives. To them this is the freedom promised by America: the myth of the wild west never disappeared. They traded the horses and wide open plains for pick-up trucks and interstates. The thing that bothers me is they don't seem to be using their brains for much.

Stuck in Lund

I am here for about two weeks much to my own disappointment. I am tired of university towns. Ok, I will admit that when you live in Berlin its hard for everything else to in any way come close to the feelings that Germany's capital can provide. I have my defence on Monday. Then after that its a waiting game until Friday when graduation takes place. Then on the fifteenth its back to Berlin and the opening of the job hunting season.

I just had a genius idea that could one day make me a lot of money: A thesis coach job. What I mean is that I would be paid to coach people through their theses. Since professional coaching seems to be in right now in the business world, I can't think of any reason why this wouldn't work in the student world as well. Think about all these students with too much money on their hands and procrastinating like there was a thousand tomorrows, it could work.

Saturday at 20:00 Sweden plays Denmark in a world cup qualifier that quite frankly Sweden has to win. Otherwise we can kiss South Africa goodbye in which case I will be cheering for Germany. This game is going to hang on one man: Mr. Ibrahimovic. If he has a good game then the Danes are going to lose. If he has a bad game it can end 0-0 which no one likes (except the Danes of course). Anyway its time for a Swedish win. We have the squad quality for it so I want to see some goals.

Last day...

This is the last day to work on my thesis and its ending one minute at a time. Every second that goes by is a missed opportunity to add, edit, or remove words and sentences. What would happen if I just stopped now, cold and walked away from it. Left it to die on this old computer. What if I never bothered to turn it on again? Is it failure if you choose not to follow through?

This is highly unlikely to happen of course. In a minute or two I will return to the work at hand and try to establish which sentences go where, which sentences have to go, and which have to be created.

I hate this thing and it really is consuming my life, one second at a time, as it marches on toward the Monday high noon deadline.

Intolerant religion

The title sounds harsh. This is not an anti-religious post. Its time to talk about Liberty University, the school of Falwell. This last week they banned a group of students who had organized a student Democrat group. The thing is the group had already been around for a while and there had not been any problems with them before. Note that the republican group was not banned. So what is going on here? First Liberty is a private institution and therefore has the right to say who can and who cannot be represented on campus, however if they in any way accept federal funding than I think that they have to allow groups like these.

The statement that is really being made here is that one cannot be an accepted Christian and a Democrat in the eyes of the people running Liberty. They are also saying it is completely in line with Christian teaching to be a Republican. How do they come up with this line of reasoning? I really do want to understand this but I have to say it looks like they are taking a real black and white approach to such issues. This is not a black and white kind of world.

Secondly they are doing something that a university should not be trying to do: they are indoctrinating. Wait don't get me wrong I know most professors lean one way or another in university life, I am not an idiot who is suggesting there should be no bias. However if what you preach is real, then you should allow for a powerful debate so that it can be tested. Banning a group is only pouring gasoline on a fire: are they willing to play with the fire?

Listening but not hearing anything...

I watched part of Cheney´s speech yesterday and then I read different pundits opinions on it. It seemed like a good deal of people really think this old man really did some great things for this country. Supposedly he kept millions of American´s from being killed and so on by torturing people, no to him they are just terrorists...

Turns out he was full of his usual lying and distorting on these issues. I am not buying what he is saying for a minute. Why? Because he tortures and because he seems to think that the only way of doing things is the way he would like to do things. Its really sad to think this ego-maniac was a heartbeat from the presidency. We would have really seen what a fascist government looks like. What about all these conservative pundits? Obviously they are listening to their religious neo-con god figure and when god speaks they all say amen because in their small minority the ends always justify the means.

Conservative thinking

Was reading a conservative blog by some common fox news commentator. She noted that the bust of the group trying to blow up synagogues in New York was something he inherited from Bush. What I imagine she would have said if they hadn´t been stopped would have been it was all Obama´s fault. They tend to use some great reasoning.

In another of her posts she commented about losing freedom because of the MPG regulations in cars. Plus she also tried to use statistics about highway fatalities to prove that higher regulations would lead to less safe cars. Actually this is a good case of correlations: its actually bad car design that leads to fatalities not the car size. Then there is this notion of freedoms that they are really clinging to like it was the only tune they knew how to whistle; suddenly they won´t be able to choose gas guzzlers. Hmm, so its ok to be able to drive badly engineered vehicles that pollute (and thus affect everyone around them) but not ok to regulate these things. So why don´t we get rid of rules on public decency (they would argue that its morality that counts (but remember theirs not someone elses)) but yet at the same time it is a freedom that is lost. What about people who don´t want to drive cars yet can´t lead the same lives as those who do? Apparently they have no freedom of choice. I could go on and on.

Irony

I think the funniest thing that is taking place right now in the world of the media is the presence of Mr. Ventura in the spotlight. Why is it amusing? One of the people who has actually done combat time, been waterboarded (in training), and served in high office in this country is putting out a very strong argument against torture. His notion: if this country is going to stand for some principles then you can´t do this. Exactly, but what is scary is that the right wing seems totally happy with torture under the excuse that they were afraid of a ticking time bomb. Is it ok to torture someone when you are afraid? Seems an easy way out.

The democrats are losing their chance to make a statement by helping to close Guantanamo Bay. They are also losing their credibility as a strong party. Keep it up and we´ve blown the next election.

Excusing torture (a post about brothers)

When I was a child, between the ages of 5 and 12, my brother and I constantly irritated one another. Many times he irritated me to the point where I finally decided that I had had enough and that I would hit him to make him stop. To me this seemed like a perfectly rational reason for hitting my brother but to my father it just wasn´t very convincing.

We hear an excuse like this quite often on tv and the news now (usually by republicans) that torturing (you can call it whatever you want Cheney but lipstick on it doesn´t make the pig anything else) is justified if it a.) gets answers and b.) saves lives. By hitting my brother I also usually was correct that he would stop bothering me, the only problem: I don´t have the right to hit people. Police officers don´t have the right to strike people in custody. The U.S. Government doesn´t have the right to torture people that they have taken into custody. We have signed treaties against it and we have prosecuted others who have employed the same techniques. If ever there is a more conventional war where U.S. soldiers are captured and these same torture tactics are applied to them, there will be outrage when we can´t prosecute these people later on down the road if we don´t deal with our own dirty laundry now.

Finally, I am ashamed of my country for not coming out harder against these things and I am ashamed of leaders who took the easy way out instead of going the hard road that they always talk about and is the reason we elect them in the first place.

Political Thoughts (again I know)

Seems like most people are referring to them as "harsh interrogation techniques" and yet in other wars that America has fought they were considered torture and anyone who was caught on the other side doing them was sentenced for war crimes. My how times have changed for "God's nation" (complete and utter sarcastic remark written with a snear on my face).

Unfortunately we are learning the same lesson we learned under Clinton, to do something you usually have to come center. Too bad, because there is so much that needs to be done and a harsh and firm stance would be nice, very nice.

The Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy should be removed from the military now, immediately, without further pause. Why are we waiting, whose interests are being protected by this? If we are worried about losing servicemen who will quit in "disgust" (bigots is the right word for that type) then we are being silly: if bigotry is a reason to stop serving your country then we shouldn't want them there in the first place.

Cheney please keep on talking, everytime you open up you let us see just what a monster you really are. Republican redemption will come when they tell Limbaugh he isn't welcome and that the former VP is a lunatic.

McDonalds Claim: in the ballpark

Today I was wasting time and avoiding my thesis so I read for a bit from Time magazine's online articles. They had an interview with the person at McDonalds who is responsible for their recent entrance into the specialty coffee market.

Their claim: While our coffee is not Starbucks quality its about a dollar cheaper per drink and the quality is in the ballpark.

A reminder to McDonalds: A ballpark can be a very big place.

Bachmann and the beast

Michele Bachmann, the politician from Minnesota, who would do well to talk a lot less. This is the classic stereotypical case of the far-right American politician who really buys into the whole idea that the United States is created by God and is somehow his country. Historically, people who have bought these types of arguments usually become known as dangerous nationalists. In the US though nationalism has its own party: they are called the Republicans. Do you doubt me? Then read some of their websites or listen to their leaders rant and rave about end times and the need to be at war permanently and so on.

My real question though is how does someone like Bachmann get elected? She is well educated(far more so than Palin) and she appears to have some kind of radical right wing base that either has no problem listening to her lies or believes them themselves. What really bothers me is that Minnesota is a normal state, they have a lot of well educated individuals so how does someone like this make it into power. Its a mystery.

1st of May

Well its possible that we were in the news, well not me of course, but my neighborhood. Not really my neighborhood either but the neighborhood next to mine. There were these guys you see, and they were dressed in black and wearing ski-masks and they decided to do what people dressed like this on May Day usually do; they scooped out the cobblestones from the street and sidewalk and started throwing them at a few of the 5000 police officers dressed in what they call riot gear. Anyway by the time I got there, around 10 p.m., things had quieted down and there was a block party where I live and we thought well the rioting is already over so why not go check out the area and see what is going on now.

It was a standoff. People all over the square, many of them having nothing to do with the rioters, just waiting for a fight. Waiting in the eerie darkness with no cars on the roads, a helicopter circling somewhere above, and several hundred police officers blocking off several of the streets. We finished our beer and went home. When we turned on the news the next morning, we learned that we had just been in the eye of the storm and that it got worse before it was all over. 200 were arrested. Most of the stores were still boarded up on Sunday.

A welcome change

Today this blog will leave behind politics for a post or two...

Its time to talk about Ice Hockey. The IIHF world championships are on and I have been trying to keep up with them, even watch them when I can (Germans aren't all that crazy about it). So part of the time I have watched the games from LNT (Latvian TV which streams some of the games online for free).

Anyway this looks like another bleak year for Team Sweden. We have once again a rather average group of NHLers and KHL and even a few from the SHL. So we crushed Austria, then lost in a shootout to Latvia (for the first time in history by the way), and then against all odds came back from a 2-5 deficit and beat the USA in overtime 6-5. Not bad, so now today around 16:15 we get to take on Russia. If we lose (high probability) we have to beat Switzerland and France to have any hope for advancing (note that beating those two would be a walk in the park with our top A team available).

It might be a very short World Championship this year.

Disturbing at best

Certain conservative news programs have been running with the idea that it is immigrants who are bringing the flu. This is really racist and a sick, uneducated guess. Its stuff like this that leads to violence and hate. It also provides good ratings, because people want some kind of conspiracy theory to live by. Take Michael Savage, he is proposing that its Al Qaeda at work. Somehow, in a cave somewhere in Pakistan, they have managed to figure out how to make a flu virus and then they set it off in Mexico. Does that even sound like it stands a chance. The only bright note in all this racism and idiocy is Fox New's anchor Shepherd Smith who has been the only voice of reason on the network. Here's to you Smith, may some better network scoop you up one of these days.

Here is to you Glenn

This will be the first edition of the Paranoid awards (a.k.a The John McCarthy Prize). This months goes to none other than Glenn Beck. Congratulations on making up news (none anywhere other than Fox as lying) and proving the point continuosly that you don't need a brain to be a personality on TV. I bet your stomach rises to your mouth everytime you hear there is a White House press conference, where you fear the outcome will be the announcement of the end of the US as you imagine it to be. Here is hoping that your ranting and raving is just losing more of the conservatives and that the rest of us will see your party for what it really is; a bunch of paranoid pre-teens.

Torture

I am really impressed that Dick Cheney is continually seeking out the spotlight and trying to paint a better picture of himself. I am also continually impressed that so many Americans have decided for themselves that what we did was not torture (even though after WWII we prosecuted Japanese for waterboarding as well as our own soldiers after Vietnam). The thing that is really sick with denying that it was torture is that these people are probably the same ones who believe in manifest destiny (get over yourselves America is just another country).

Lets look at another country that has done extremely horrible things: Nazi Germany, but I would be willing to wager that if they had managed to surrender without the Allies taking full control, there would have been no Nuremberg trials and no one brought to justice. People would even have said, no what we did wasn´t really all that bad, hell it was even necessary. The sense of guilt that Germany finally took on was not something they immediately accepted, but had to be pushed on them from the Allies. That was necessary. In the US however the officers will get away with it because they followed orders (that excuse didn´t fly at Nuremberg). I know these are two very different examples but the idea about guilt and accepting the truth is the same. I am happy the US has a president who isn´t arrogant and can even admit that the US makes plenty of mistakes. Refreshing difference from Cheneyism.

Gingrich

He is not what he was yet wishes and hopes and thinks that he could be. The once and future king? No doubt all the recent jockeying by Newt G. is meant to set up his bid to be President in 2012. The sad thing is that we really don´t need someone like him in that office. By now the world would have been destroyed (he would have attacked N. Korea), Cuba would have been invaded (because after all people everywhere just want the freedom that GW had on tap), and there would likely be no Venezuela as well. Obama is soft he says. I say Newt is looking more like his namesake every minute. First off Obama has presented and acted in a manner worthy of a President, and second the actions he has taken have not shown any signs of weakness. If being strong means making threats and ignoring others then the Republican party is a group of bullies.

Now getting down to things I find really interesting is Newt´s accusation that Chavez is a dictator. Where is Newt getting his information from? Is he not aware that this man is democratically elected and that he will remain so until the moment he refuses to step down should he lose an election. To lie about this on tv only further confuses Americans. Oh wait so I guess I will go one step further then... I am officially calling Newt, the Newt, Gingrich a slimy little liar.

Right Wing extremism

This one bothers me. One of the government departments released a warning about far right groups being a threat to US security in the future. Now its being slammed by the republicans and their puppetmasters the radio show hosts. In all fairness the report was not as clear as the one released a few months before about extreme left wing groups (don´t recall hearing any complaints about this one). Two things then: the republicans are going to attack everything Obama does from now on till the end of the first term so everyone is just going to have to get used to it, the second thing is that considering all the apocalypticism that the right wing media has been stirring up as of late, this report seems very justified. With radio show hosts and politicians talking about secession (gov. of Texas) and revolution and so on it seems that there is a good chance a group of isolated psychos in the US have a good chance to do something stupid. Of course getting a hold of the automatic weapons to do so wouldn´t be a problem either.

Its a sad time when you have so many people spewing hate on the airwaves. I guess it proves that there are a lot of sore losers out there.

Republican´s like teabagging

Its almost too much, that the GOP would set themselves up for this kind of joke but they went ahead and did it so let them choke on it (the teabags that is). Apparently its going to be a real riot with plenty of strange Americans out and protesting at what they think is socialism (but in fact lower tax policies than under the Reagan years for 95% of Americans). That is what makes this so amusing; these people are out and about protesting about something they don´t understand. This should be one of those signs that the Republican hardliners aren´t really completely there or it could just be a sign that they are into strange things like....teabagging. Wish I was in the US right now so I could go congratulate all the people who are proud to be teabagging together...haha this just doesn´t get old.

the Mad Hatter and the Hare have a tea party...

This thing with tea parties in the US is really one of those amusing things that just couldn´t be allowed to pass by without a blog post. Let me put it in these terms; if Democrats had done the same during the Bush years, we would have been told we were anti-american and unpatriotic. Yet these conservos throwing tea that they paid for into the water are heroes according to Fox News. The term "Fair and Balanced" should be changed to "Fully Biased."

To those engaged in tea parties; I refer you to Jon Stewart from the Daily Show "losing is supposed to taste like a shit taco." Your actions are a mocking of everything those original Boston residents stood for. All this talk about revolution by the way is actually tantamount to treason and if it had come from Liberals you would be saying this as well. Get over it, come up with something good policy wise, and try to win the next election; that is how it works in a democracy.

Florida and Sustainability

I was reading Time Magazine´s online webpage today and they had an article about a sustainable development housing scheme that just might come to be a reality (whether it actually works the way its supposed to is another thing). Anyway what is amazing isn´t the article itself, or the project for that matter. What is worthy of a blog post is the way that the author, Michael Grunwald, slams the way the state has been developing previously. I will have some quotes that illustrate Mr. Grunwald´s opinion (that I admit I share to its very core):

1. "The community of Babcock Ranch is designed to break new frontiers in sustainable development, quite a shift for a state that has never been sustainable, and lately hasn't had much development"

2. "southern Florida's planning-nightmare sprawl of golf courses, strip malls and cookie-cutter subdivisions named after the plants and animals they replaced"

3. "It's no secret that growth has been Florida's primary economic engine for decades. Yet Fortune 500 companies haven't flocked to its sprawling bedroom communities with lousy schools and overpriced houses, and the paving of paradise has left the state with overtapped aquifers, overcrowded hospitals, overstretched services, traffic jams, a dying Everglades and a vanishing sense of place."

I think the last one really sums it up best. Here is to you Mr. Grunwald, you have summed up the state in only a few seconds.

News or not news?

I like to read Foxnews sometimes. Why is the question that is most likely coming to your lips at this moment? Because they are amusing. First, they always have this celebrity section down at the bottom with a couple pictures of scantily clad females wearing way to much make-up. Secondly, their layout is oddly reminiscent of a gossip tabloid and the headlines of most of the articles seem to back this up. Thirdly, the content of their political commentaries are pure classics in the sense of how biased they are. Take today: there is an article stating that the President has yet to attend church in Washington. I don´t see what is so newsworthy here. In fact the only point of this article is a weak attempt by some right wing nut to try to impose his views on why Obama is not a Christian and so on. A typical right wing evangelical stance (I apologize to the evangelicals who vote left). The truth is that its actually none of this writers business when or if he goes to church.

Final note: I want someone to write a book doing research about all the lying that Sean Hannity does on his show. Its amazing that Fox news would present themselves as serious journalism and then run with this type of programming, don´t get me wrong I very much like the fact that this man spews his lies whenever he opens his mouth, I just wish the rest of the media would really do their homework on the issues and call him on it. Of course I don´t see this realistically happening, but it would be nice.

Anti this, Anti that

There is a lot of talk about Anti-Americanism in the US press. They sit around and talk about why there is this feeling going around in Europe that is a hate for the US. Then they go on to explain it as being some kind of jealousy because America is so great (this is American Exceptionalism (I prefer the term nationalism) at its best). I always find this idea really amusing. I have lived on both continents and I don´t really know what the Europeans would be so jealous about.

The thing that isn´t talked about so much is Anti-Europeanism that is coming back from the US. All these comments about Socialist European governments and this idea that the European Union is failing somehow are some of the most amusing sentiments around. However no one in the US is condemning these attitudes or even questioning them. Why do these sentiments exist? Probably due to a lack of experience. Most of these "haters" have never left the US for longer than a week or two of vacation and thus suffer from what I would call a nationalist tendencies. They know there is another mountain with another set of pastures that are somewhat different, but they never even bother to read up on it. So as long as they shout about anti-americanism, I will shout back with anti-europeanism.

Back from the Baltic

Ok, I am back in Berlin and working on the ever present thesis. Its going to be a long two final months but I am going to get this done, or die in the process. Sometimes after working on the whole thing all day I feel that I actually know nothing about what I am doing. That is of course an exaggeration but this is apparently how it feels to write a thesis. Anyway Clara and I, as well as some others, spent the weekend at the Baltic Sea in a small town near the German port of Rostock. It was beautiful, sunny and we came back with a little bit of red skin. When we got home we found out that the tree directly outside our bedroom window had bloomed and this was a source of great joy, as well as the fact that its pretty much non-stop sunshine here right now. The summer is going to be amazing.

Prediction

By the time the Republicans are done using the word socialism, the average American will assume that it means anything not Republican approved.

Sustainable Republicans

Its definitely a strange title for a blog post on such a liberally biased blog as this (yes I admit my bias). So what could I possibly mean by using such a word to describe a republican? The easiest answer would be to say that they have highjacked the term like just about everyone else these days (after all, an ill defined term can be used quite freely; freedom is a good example). No, what I mean by using this term in the same sentence is the interesting stance that the Republicans have taken on the bailout money and stimulus spending. They keep talking about or kids being poor (shall we remember for the sake of argument, just who spent the last eight years running up debts for the sake of planting a flag in "freedoms" name). This talk about the future generation is therefore a discussion on sustainable development; since one of its key notions is intergenerational equity. If you are rather unaware of what I am going on about here then you may try reading about it on Wikipedia (and then go to your library since your taxes pay for it) and read up on John Rawls. The Republicans are making the argument that our kids are going to be poor because of our choices now. This is rather strange, because in general the republicans have no problem using up all the oil and other non-renewable resources (in the name of the father, the son, and the free market). So if businesses were to use up all these resources that would be fine in the sense that it was a free market decision but trying to save the economy now in the hopes that growth in the future will make up for the lending is not ok. Strange thinking.

Today is Spring

There are tourists out and about. I went for a walk to set up and interview and lo and behold more than half the conversations I "intercepted" as I walked by groups of two or more at cafe´s and on the street corners were in English. I shouldn´t be surprised. Especially in the case of Americans. Berlin offers so much for so little. Cafe´s, Art, Street life, Bars, Alcohol, Restaurants are all available at small prices in comparison to what one would have to pay in Paris or London. Plus there is less control here and still something a bit wild for being a capital city. Today was also the first day without the winter jacket and so that is pretty much proof that winter is over.

Monday Monday

Nothing much happening worth reporting or commenting on. Maybe that is good. The headline from Berliner Zeitung (which is not an evening gossip tabloid) was that a seven year old boy tried to mugg a seventeen year old girl in a park in Berlin. The little thug approached the girl (who was jogging), kicked her, and actually managed to get her cell phone before she got herself together and took care of the little twerp. Of course now he is on the front page of the news with instant celebrity status. I hope he tries it again when he is a bit older and someone kicks his teeth in.

Portugal-Sweden match report

Back in the day (and I am talking 94 here for anyone who remembers) the Swedish national team was known for its defense. That is how we did so well and got ourselves a bronze at that World Cup. Since then our defense has gone back and forth and not been as stable (note in 94 we also had someone named Brolin need I say more). Nowadays we don´t have Brolin, but instead Zlatan (who is better all around I think). Yesterday we also found out we have a spectacular defense. Granted Johansson didn´t exactly play at tops, but then again Christiano Ronaldo didn´t exactly score either so there isn´t too much to say there. Mellberg and Majstorovic proved that playing together, there won´t be too many teams who can break through. That means we just have to get our offensive qualities a bit sharpened. That means that we need to let R. Elm play more and it means that Anders "Taco" Svensson is probably not far from the end of his career on the international stage. Anyway we tied Portugal in a game that anyone who wasn´t rooting for Sweden will call ugly and defensive. It doesn´t matter if we can beat Denmark twice and Hungary one more time, we will be in South Africa.

I want to know

I think that Obama should release as much information about what the CIA and military have been up to for the last eight years. I want to know just exactly what they were doing waterboarding people for. I want to know how they were allowed to do this and whats more I want those responsible held accountable for it. Cheney is wrong and an idiot about national security. Protecting someone does not give you the right to do what you want no matter what the case. I know that there are going to be voices from the right accusing the whole thing of being a witch hunt, but considering that they are usually the ones going out on those kinds of hunts, they should taste their own medicine.

The little PM that could

Its really funny. Yesterday he lost a parliamentary vote of confidence (meaning his coalition had failed and that he would have to at best seek a new coalition or let the president call for new elections) then the next day he decides to come out and criticize US stimulus spending. That would be like George Bush trying to tell the world that McCain hadn´t really lost the day after the election. Ok maybe that wasn´t a great way to put it, so instead I will say it was like listening to a team of footballers who just lost the world cup 3-0 and then have the balls to tell the first media microphones they run into that they were the better team. The Czechs are a funny little country.

Thinking high density vs. urban sprawl

You are silent oh readers of these words, it would be nice to hear you speak your minds every now and again. Today I was sitting reading from Richard Florida´s book "Cities and the Creative Class" and while I can´t find myself agreeing with everything he says, I do find it interesting in many ways. He talks about how to create cities that are attractive to creative individuals and how this approach will lead to better local development (mostly in an economic perspective) but of course any type of development has externalities (which is where I am concerned). I keep thinking back to the US and its development patterns: how the ususal thing to do is to build office parks, residential areas, and shopping centers and all of these separated by wide roads and zoning differences. What do we lose in this system? First I would argue we lose exercise; every one has to drive to work. Because we all have to drive to work we lose time in traffic (the US government has figures on how much money is lost in traffic jams every year and its not pennies we are talking about here). By living in Suburban growth patterns i.e. the cul-de-sac lifestyle, we isolate ourselves from others (this is even more true in the case of gated communities which are honestly class segregation). Why do we live like this? The standard laissez fair argument would be that this is what the market desires. My counter to that is that there are other growth patterns that could be tried in cities, but no one is willing to innovate or be creative (note here the influence of Florida). My background studies at the moment have a lot to do with sustainable development and so I take that type of approach to building and development as a whole: our housing situation in the US is not a long term approach, nor is the shopping center development. These areas are built for twenty year boom periods and not for long term stability. That is why suburbs all look the same. What would happen if some developer in coordination stepped outside the box and created more interesting places to live that didn´t just rely on spectacle (getting a famous architect)? Would it work? Could we produce more interesting neighborhoods with more stable living and work patterns? Or is the suburb really as good as they said it would be in the fifties?

Its a good feeling when

You wake up in the morning to the sound of the alarm switching on the radio for you and get to listen to the weather report and then the traffic update on Deutschlandfunk. There is something relaxing about hearing about how long the lines are on the autobahn that morning as millions commute back and forth in their gas guzzling Audis and Volkswagens. The word to remember is Stau, which is essentially the German word for traffic jam. Meanwhile, our hero i.e. me, is laying in bed thinking about how if things got really bad, all I would have to do is to get up and get on the subway. Cars are for suckers.

Which is more absurd?

The idea that climate change will severely affect our planet or that we can continue consuming natural resources at the current western rate?

Thoughts on Watchmen

Its been a while since I gave a movie review on this blog. I thought I would do "Watchmen" since I just finished it. I get this feeling about most superhero movies that they are divorced from reality (ok I know its a movie but still). The Dark Knight went some of the way in bringing a more grim outlook to these kinds of movies but I still felt that in the end it wasn´t dark enough. The stereotype about comic books are that they are for kids so then we call them graphic novels to juice it up a bit. Watchmen is not a children´s story. Nor is it a cookie cutter superhero adventure. It wasn´t written that way and when it was brought to the big screen it wasn´t portrayed that way. I didn´t like 300 (the director is the same) and I had this feeling going in that I wasn´t going to like this movie either. I did like this movie, in fact its one of the best I have seen in the last two years. The music choice was excellent as was the cinematography. Its funny, how many super hero movies use Bob Dylan? Usually the standard formula is to use whatever average and popular rock band is available. Instead this used really good music. I found myself sitting there thinking with all this great music when is Hendrix´s take on All Along the Watchtower going to show up and then at just the right moment it did.

Finally on the ending; excellent and the jokes about Ronald Reagan were spot on. "We don´t dignify absurdities" should be the media´s slogan.

Some more thinking...

Ok I have to say that there is anger over Obama being on a late night show and over him filling out a basketball scorecard is probably the most amusing thing I can think of. Is that the best they can do? These were things that didn´t take very long and are a normal part of someone´s life. Do they expect him not to use the toilet, not eat, and never ever think about anything fun? Stiff uptight white guys.

Bored and Amused

I am bored and amused with the republican critique of Obama appearing on Leno´s show. They are claiming it demeaned the office of president etc. The truth is they weren´t clever enough to come up with it in the first place. All the same though the joke about the Special Olympics wasn´t so funny, though I can guarantee you everyone makes these kinds of jokes in private. So what does demean an office of the president. Secrecy and Torture, two things the republican party stands for, oh yeah and the general promotion of greed as an avenue to freedom.

Looking for inspiration

I am looking for inspiration to keep doing thesis work. Don´t misunderstand me, I really like my topic, my place of study, everything. Its just hard to keep a continual focus. Maybe the problem is that if I put in too much effort I might get too much out of it. Well that is actually a horrible thought now isn´t it? I should be striving to be ahead of the pack and do something that stretches itself far from mediocrity and out into the ranges of creativity and the amazing. Pardon me waxing poetic on my own skills. I am actually wasting time in between going to the library.

Building tanks

Today I read that Russia is talking about a massive arms buildup. Or perhaps the way they put it was better; arms modernisation. The firt thought that came to mind as I sat musing about this was why they want to modernise and why they had to make it some kind of announcement? Then my thoughts next took me to that film Operation Canadian Bacon, where Alan Alda as the American president realises that with the cold war over and the economy in a slump, the only kind of solution is to start an arms race. Thats where the Russians are. They have no idea what else to do. So the best thing would be to invest in some kind of militaristic and nationalist pride. This has of course always lead to good things in the past so why wouldn´t it now? All in all a rather cliche thing for the Russians to do. I just thought they had it in them to be more creative.

Spring are you upon us?

Today I had to ride the subway and visit two libraries. One library to pick up research material for my ongoing thesis and the second one to pick up another book by Gunther Grass which I foresee finishing by Friday of next week. The tourists were out in force today with their badly folded maps and their wide eyed stares. The Hertha Berlin fans were out with their flags and scarves as the big game approached for the early afternoon (I am happy to report they held off aspirin-owned Leverkusen). That makes Hertha the Bundesliga leaders which is pretty much unheard of in modern times.

There was also a massive protest that started less than a block from my house. The police were everywhere and it seems that everything went off without a hitch. I followed the whole thing to Gorlitzer Bhf before deciding that I didn't want to stay out watching them march. They were protesting about gentrification and higher rent prices while the economy is stagnating. It was rather disappointing to see the police filming the protesters so they knew who had been there. Its nice to know they are probably running files on the most common protest marchers in Berlin. Paranoia!

The Yellow Journalism trail...

I like to read newspapers, listen news radio (mostly bbc), and read internet based news. I have a wide variety of sources that I turn to. When I want to know whats going on in the US I either read CNN or BBC. Perhaps I will turn to Der Spiegel if the item is big enough. When I want to read European news, I stick with The Guardian, BBC, Spiegel, and Dagens Nyheter. When I want to read sports news I go with a wide variety that is not worth listing. In Sweden we have two sensationalist newspapers that while often wrong, still provide great sports coverage even sometimes before the more reliable sources do. It struck me after watching clips from Fox News today that this is a cable news station that is essentially a sensationalist source. Their talk shows (Hannity and Colmes, O´Reilly) are essentially made up of sensationalist minded news individuals with massive egos who don´t have anyone standing there correcting them. When they do, they don´t accept the criticism. Fox News is yellow journalism at its best. If I was to lift my glass in honor of them this is what I would say:

I propose a toast to Fox News, for its distortions, its falsehoods, and its obvious bias. As a news station that fills our airwaves with things that can´t even be called news or continues its lying (I mean them not correcting Gingrich), they stand as a true example of hate, ignorance, and a complete lack on interest in doing good journalism. Here is to you all the journalists who don´t check your sources and don´t even bother trying to be accurate, it seems you are safe inside those republican walls.

In defense of RL

I can't believe I am writing this. I am going to defend Rush Limbaugh, but only for a short second. Ok, now out with it; I don't think there was anything wrong with what he said about wanting the president to fail. I think almost everyone has those kinds of thoughts at various times (though even with Bush I can´t remember ever formulating my distaste for him quite like that). Enough of the defense, because that is about all there is.

Rush Limbaugh reminds me of a whale. He is big and imposing and possibly dangerous if you find yourself in the water in his vicinity. His vicinity is the radio. On the radio he tells us daily about how much he dislikes democrats and how much the republicans are doing for the country. He doesn´t like african americans very much if at all; all you have to do to understand this is to read his books (I have read both). There is no point in making any comments here about his personal life. Even if they weren´t as disastrous as they are, they only sidetrack us from the real issue: his hate for anyone and anything different than himself. He doesn't like women very much either: he refers to feminists as feminazis and has even gone on to make the claim that ugly women invented this notion to somehow help themselves get into society. I consider myself a feminist (if you want to have this debate Mr. Limbaugh make sure you know what feminism is).

Like his other fellow master of hate and ignorance (and yes I will say it stupidity) Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh is a college drop-out. At least the other member of this conservo-biased media triumvirate is college educated and at least on paper intelligent (I mean O'Reilly of course). In the end I would hope these fools continue to use their hate and ignorance the way they do. I have this image of their hateful words building up a weight that will pull them very far down on the scales of history. We will remember them as they are: arrogant, angry, and out of touch with any form of reality.

BBC

I was reading Justin Webb´s blog today on BBC.co.uk and he made a good point about Republican resistance to any of the Democrat ideas that are being put forward at the moment. The idea is that if any of the Democrat policies actually work, then the Republicans have a lot more to lose at the moment. This will be especially the case considering that their policies have been tantamount to a joke for the last eight years.

Today I am going to Cologne for a funeral. So I don´t know if there will be any updates to this blog until around thursday or so. I am hoping to see the watchmen as well as the Man U vs. Inter Champions League second leg.

Its a...

Slow day today and that could have something to do with going to bed at four in the morning. It all started at a birthday party and then we decided to keep things going around two in the morning by trying out some of the new local bars in our neighborhood. Well we weren´t disappointed. We went o Mama´s and it turns out that is the new busy weekend spot in ReuterKiez (our neighborhood). So today I managed to finish the collection of stories by Thomas Mann that I have been reading and started Jeffrey Eugenide´s Middlesex which I am expecting a lot from, given his quality of work with the Virgin Suicides. Oh yeah it wasn´t all laziness here as I managed to bake a pizza for a late lunch and now am going to do a bit of writing as well as some thesis work. Tomorrow we have to go to Cologne for a few days.

I have this little feeling...

That my thesis is starting to come together a bit. I had an interview with a local community development agency on Thursday and since then I have been feeling good about this whole thing. There is just so much more that still needs to be done. I have gotten to the point where I think of myself as continually at work. If I take a break and eat something or go out and do something else, then it is just a break from work. That will be the nice part about graduating again; the ability to disconnect work and play (don´t get me wrong though I firmly believe that work should also be play but it can´t always be that nice).

Today is Saturday and that means football. All my teams are going to lose today. I know I should be a bit more positive but having been that way for the last three weeks, I am now starting to realize that I just have to assume the worst and that that way I can enjoy when they actually do something good. Just don´t count on it...

Socialism: the joke is on you!

I have been listening to some of the clips where the right wingers are whinning about the idea of universal health care and calling it socialism and doing the same thing when it comes to other ideas coming out of the White House. I have this question for them: are they aware that they lost the election? When a majority votes one party out of office, it means that they are tired of their policies and ideas and if we take this line of reasoning one step further we could even argue that they are saying that the policies were a failure.

Now coming back to socialism. There is no socialist government in the USA, nor will there ever be. The right wingers harping on and on about this subject are merely replaying old propaganda that never really held any meaning. They also love to refer to socialist Europe. Can someone tell me where socialist Europe is? I don´t know, maybe we could say Spain but they don´t have a socialist system so I guess that is out.

The American propaganda voices need this notion of socialism being a threat to our everyday lives to remain somehow relevant in this day and age. I only wish they knew what they were talking about.

Nationalist moment of the day...

Did you known that before WWII and even a bit into the actual conflict the correct way to salute the American flag was identical to the Nazi sieg heil. I love that these small things that aren't thought about very often have such interesting histories. My suggestion: ban the pledge of allegiance and let the dictators of the world sell these kinds of pledges. If what you are selling is that great then you don't need a bunch of children swearing oaths to something they don't even understand. Now imagine if something like this was implemented in Sweden or Germany today, it would immediately be interpreted as a dangerous and slippery slope back toward nationalism.

Republican Prancing

The wild horses are out on the fields kicking up the soils of the great plains and generally revelling in their feeling of freedom. But this vision is not true because there are barbed wire fences stretching across all those spaces that were once open and free. We could take this same approach to the recent Republican meeting; its a place of ideals and visions. Its also a place of whinning and complaining. The thing I find most interesting about it is that they still aren´t anywhere near bringing something new and fresh to the table. They are intent on serving up the same dishes, dirty and crusted with leftovers left standing out too long. They want to lower taxes for rich people and award them for treating their employees as garbage and this will somehow stimulate the economy. They are against big government although they like to spend as much as possible when they are in charge as well. Basically they are a bunch of lyin' snakes.

Thomas Mann

I have been reading my second Thomas Mann book Death in Venice which is really a novella and in my case it was put together with several other of his short stories. The thread that I find unifying throughout his work so far is that I don´t find any strong female characters. I find them to be mostly in supporting roles or even used to portray women in general in a light that seems to me to be very shallow and not logical. I would take this to be a case where the author is possibly an ego-centric male who sees the women that he incorporates into his books as being only a way of showing the male rationality while the female mind is inherently anti-rational and petty. Maybe its just my interpretation but I am wondering if anyone else has seen this?

Case of the Mondays

Its monday again and it seems that so far I have no motivation to work on my thesis. This isn´t the best of all ways to start the week, but on the other hand it could have been worse. I did manage to wake myself up at seven and read for about forty minutes from Death in Venice by Thomas Mann so all in all the morning has not been entirely wasted. I find myself thinking that if I could only be more productive and stay focused longer, that I would get a lot more things done around here. The chain of logic that follows from this thought process is also that I would feel better if I got more things done. Seems to me that this is a pretty smart way of thinking. Now its just about translating thought into action. My first idea was to write this post as a way of getting things rolling or sharpening the knife. Next step.... THESIS!

Part time job?

I know what I would like to do for a year now. I would like to teach a university course comparing Soviet, Nazi, and Allied propaganda films. The idea for the course would be to sift through the media material (films) to look for the common threads that are there in every piece of propaganda. If any universities are interested let me know. Book rights anyone?

Gilbert and Sullivan or the Comic Opera

I am going to lay the blame at Clara´s feet for this one. She got in the mood for listening to the Brecht´s The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) so I did the dirty work (got on my bike, went to the library, and checked it out for her on my free student account). While this work may seem remote and unknown, if you know The Doors song Whiskey Bar, then you are familiar with it.

Next thing you know I am suddenly in the mood for more of the same. However I didn´t know where to start. So I came back to something I had some knowledge about; the comic opera´s of Gilbert and Sullivan. Whether you know it or not you are probably familiar with their work as they are often seen in popular movies and such. Right now I am listening to the Pirates of Penzance and last week it was H.M.S. Pinafore. The humour is good and the music is fantastic. Next on the list is the Mikado.

What goes to Switzerland...

I think its amazing that the world has put up with these small tax havens for so long. Its really perfectly sad. Whenever we listened to Republicans talk about tax cuts and why it would be good to give more money to people who already had significant amounts of it, these recipients of tax cuts went and hid their money in these wonderful little countries whose banks and governments sealed their lips. Now it seems that this dirty little system could be under threat. The Swiss are upset that the US is putting them under some pressure to explain why they have been helping its citizen´s hide money that should have been taxed and gone back to the US government (think of all the infrastructure and health issues this money could have been spent on). Don´t get me wrong here I am not saying rich democrats haven´t done the same, just that its time to stop allowing little nations to hold the money.

Down with the Tax Haven culture!

Pirate Bay trial live

If you want and have a knowledge of Swedish, then you can use the svt.se web to listen to the Pirate Bay trial live. The prosecutor´s voice is so annoying it could make you cry and break down and confess to anything. As I sit here listening I am clinging to the hope that they actually pull of a win in this trial. We can go back to the notion of copyrights and all this and I still find myself wondering why a record label (a business) is able to own a song. More interestingly I wish we could confiscate the ipods of several famous musicians and determine where they got their music from. I am sure they are all perfect little angels.

Honestly, while I can´t say that downloading music is legal, I can on the other hand say that the model of selling music that the labels have stuck to is so out of date and inflated that its sad they have to resort to this kind of tactic to try to maintain their cultural hegemony. One might say the king is sitting loosely on the throne.

Open Letter to Rolf Anders

Rolf,

This week I have seen more of you then I have before. We sat in your office and at your dinner table looking at the photos you collected through the years. The thing that strikes me the most about these random moments captured by lens is two-fold: the smiles and the way that no matter what time period the photo is from you were always on a journey. Some were black and white, others full of color, and some slowly fading proving that even time can take these moments away. Some men live lives where they shelter themselves in a community and never venture far away from it. Others live their lives like that of Odysseus; always at sea looking for home and adventure. Looking at these pictures is seems you found that passage somewhere in between. I will never forget that moment just weeks ago when your daughter and I came to see you in the hospital and that even though you were in pain you still looked up at me and summoning all your strength you managed in English and with something of a smile "Nice to see you." You were a fighter, I don´t use that term lightly as it is laden with cliches and other images that don´t tell the real story behind everything you went through. I saw you again a few days after you closed your eyes for the last time. While I cannot say that you looked as handsome as you had the first time we met; just after Christmas at Adenauer Airport (I was nervous and I am sure you were as well), I can say that as I sat there I could see that the suffering was over. At the memorial ceremony there were over a hundred present and I sat there thinking to myself how strange it is that these people lighting candles; that they were able to know you and that I was now sentenced to only see you and them captured on those photos we found in your drawers and albums. They cried because they knew you and knew what they had lost when they had lost you; a friendship and more importantly a friend. I cried because I had lost a person who I would never have a chance to befriend. I don´t think you ever expected to create the chain of events that brought me to where I am now. I will remember you and these pictures will tell stories that even your grandkids will laugh and smile about.

Your soon to be son-in-law,

Aron

David Cerny and Czech vs. The rest of Europe

I don't really know quite how to respond to this controversial piece of art that the Czech's commissioned for their stint as head of the EU. David Cerny is definitely not making friends in the greater Europe region with a work like that. First let me state that I think the EU is a good idea and I wish that a nation like Czech, who has benefited from joining, would grow up and stop whinning about being a part of it. I also find it amusing that their current President is none other that Vaclav Klaus who is a notorious Euro-skeptic. The problem with the younger batch of EU countries like Czech and the other Eastern block nations are that they want all the goodies and don't want to do anything to get them. This is a rather odd state of being but nonetheless one they seem to have adopted quite well. The other problem with these states are that they are willing to do whatever the US asks of them, which has included ignoring the EU to negotiate their own treaties.

So this brings us back to David Cerny. Really I think the piece is hilarious. Its absolutely over the top, and why not? Every piece is a stereotyped image of a country. Like Sweden is a wing from our military airplane that we can't sell wrapped in an Ikea box (that is amazing). England isn't even on the piece, its intentionally left out as being absent. Belgium is shown as a box of chocolates. Germany is a set of highways. France is a sign that says STRIKE! While it should never be acceptable to encourage stereotypes, at the same time we should ask ourselves whether these things say anything about our culture. Of course it is too bad that Cerny managed to lie his way into doing the art (he was supposed to do it as a group project but it turns out he did the entire thing by himself), but that doesn't change the fact that he made a funny piece of art. I like it.

by the way here is a joke about belgium...

What is Belgium famous for? Chocolates and child abuse, but they only invented the chocolate to get to the children. (Note: this is from a movie).

Night and Day

I am watching the Clinton confirmation hearing right now live on CNN. The thing that I am really finding amusing is the page that they are all on. I am realizing more and more as they are talking about various issues, that I don´t really see myself as being on the same page. When they talk about climate change, they talk about it in the sense of national security. When they talk about energy, they talk about national security. When they talk about europe they talk about national security. When they talk about Latin America they talk about national security. That is all they are talking about: themselves. Don´t get me wrong every nation talks about itself, but very few waste so much money on national security. Why don´t they deal with the issues that cause national security? Then they talk about Venezuela as if they are some issue that needs to be dealt with. Who do you think you are and where is your international police badge? Fix your healthcare system and then worry about other countries.

Fools rush in...

It strikes me (funny that the article is already taking a violent turn) that the title is a double entendre: first it refers to me making a statement about the current situation in Gaza and second it refers to the Israeli assault. I am going to be as honest and upfront as possible here: I am not an expert on the conflict that has been going on since the UN partition.

Gaza is and has been under occupation for a long time now. The Israelis may not have bases inside, but they control everything (well almost everything) that goes in and out. They control the airspace and they control the maritime border. Hamas is a terrorist organization (or freedom fighters depending on which side you like to stand on). They don't do nice things and I will not say that they have done much for the Palestinian cause. However at the same time as they are in an occupied area, isn't it justified that they be allowed to fight against their oppressors. True the Palestinian people have always suffered from bad leadership, however when there have been real chances for peace, the Israelis have been the ones who have said no. Why? Because they don't want to return to the old borders. When Israel offers peace they do so on their own terms and don't offer anything valuable in exchange (which is how peace negotiations work). That the United States does not do more to tell Israel that they are in the wrong is one of the tragedies of history.

A final note: What happened to the Jews in the second world war is one of the greatest tragedies of history. However it does not justify what is happening today.

Anti-Biotics, Berlin, and more...

Well pardon for the interuption, but its been a busy little time. It all started when I turned in my final class paper for the semester and then packed up all my stuff. Then I went to Malmö, and after a night of Cash (the man in black) 4 X-mas, I woke up at four in the morning to continue my journey to Berlin. Of course this involved changing busses in Copenhagen which is always exciting at five in the morning with rain and two big suitcases. The buss driver was naturally in a bad mood as everyone was throwing their luggage into the back while he was flirting with some backpacker. Then he decided to yell at me while I was trying to rearrange everything so that we could fit it all in. Plus while standing there someone told me that really I was only allowed to have one large item (I had read two on my travel receipt and the other buss driver hadn't said a word). So then the buss driver tried to figure out how many bags I had. Of course I played dumb and acted like I didn't really understand what was going on (plus I had already put one bag on while he was flirting). Anyway I made it to Berlin without any problems and he even smiled at me as I walked away with all my luggage.

Then Spain was next and once again it was four in the morning. We missed the first subway but somehow still ended up at the airport early (still haven't figured that one out). Then it was seven days of mideval living in Costa Brava with Clara's family. I went swimming on Christmas day in a freezing swimming pool (yes its spain, northern spain). Then of course somehow three days later I ended up getting sick. So sick indeed that once I got back to Berlin I had to take antibiotics for the first time in years. Then I decided that it would be a good idea to look over my finances and so I checked when my next payment was due from CSN (Swedish student grants and loan system) and discovered that they had somehow determined that my program only lasted for three semesters as opposed to the four that it does in reality. This of course lead to me having to reapply for money and I am still waiting to hear from them. Anyway tomorrow is monday and the first day of the rest of my thesis.