Into the wild

I am in the Swedish countryside behind a modem connection, typing on a 5 year old laptop, and I am blaming these horrendous circumstances for my lack of posts lately. I will return with fresh posts (that aren't actually anti-posts like this one) by beginning of next week. I also have some exciting news to announce that will somewhat change the nature of my blog. (Me and my blog are relocating, more on this soon)

A tout a l'heure.

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Don't visit Malaysia 2007

Since I am on a long vacation, (or between jobs as you might put it) I have had the pleasure of watching a lot of TV lately. I have also had the mixed pleasure of watching commercial campaigns to boost tourism in some, mostly eastern countries. These TV commercials all follow the same principle, nice scenery, hospitable old people, beautiful girls dressed in folklore outfits, accompanied by the cheesiest music a la Celine Dion. The one that annoys me the most is the publicity for Malaysia. It’s featuring one of the worst songs I have ever heard in a commercial, not counting for example short cat food jingles. It’s so horrific that it crawls beneath my skin and makes me instinctively reach for the remote to change the channel. If the remote would not work I think I would jump out the window or head butt my lightweight flat screen TV Zinedine Zidane style. I dare anyone to find a worse or more annoying song than this one. Without further ado, I give you Malaysia’s “Visit Malaysia 2007 – One Golden Celebration" campaign.

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Cleaning Beijing

You know when you sometimes as a kid cleaned your room by hiding all the mess in a closet or sweeping your dust under the rug? Well if you get away with it that’s fine I guess. China seems to think that applying this cleaning methodology actually will improve the image of the country, the regime, and Beijing. Houses and shops that would be exposed during the Olympics, and don’t meet the standards aesthetically, are being hidden by brick walls or huge signs. This has of course been observed and published by foreign media, thus the effect is the opposite. Hiding your citizen’s houses and shops doesn’t really boost your image does it? Perhaps they view it differently. On the same note, for some reason the workers in the Olympic press centre can no longer access the site of Amnesty International. The communist party is like a kid, trying to hide away its mess in a closet.

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Only in France?

Yesterday I experienced for me unprecedented queue arrogance. I have seen a lot of people cheat in lines, the queue culture is not as strict here as in northern parts of Europe, but this took the price. I was in one of two lines for the cash registers in a sports store. In the queue beside me there was an old French couple. They were there before me, but in a different queue. And then as I had waited in line a minute or so, the man in the couple leaves his place in their queue to take a better one, right in front of me! I was so astonished I couldn’t even say anything. I thought that there must be some kind of explanation, but in retrospect, I think not. If anyone could attempt an explanation I am all ears. The man did not look senile.

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Other side of the woods

When I was a child, there was a man, who lived on the other side of the woods. He could not understand, why God, who is so wise, had created

Doormen

premature ejaculation

and Robert Mugabe

When you can sit on a rock, in the forest, and just watch. Tv.

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Who peed on your floor dude?

I want to share with you one of the greatest momentarily unsolved mysteries I’ve experienced, a phenomenon that surpassed my intellect and logical ability. How difficult is that you might ask yourselves, well, here’s what happened.

One morning a couple of months ago, my French roommate woke up to a quite surprising sight. Next to his bed in the middle of the floor there was a pool of brown/yellow liquid, perhaps a litre or so. Naturally he was baffled, and since there was no one else around, he turned his suspicion against me, asking if I had peed on his bedroom floor. He even told me that he had dreamed that he heard the sound of someone peeing. To the best of my knowledge, I was innocent, so we started brainstorming about possible explanations. A cat that snuck in. No. We couldn’t find a cat so we ruled that option out. A rat! Rats can get in through tiny openings, but neither my roommate nor I had ever heard about rats relieving themselves in people’s bedrooms. We did not entirely rule this theory out though. Given the volume of the pool, a hamster was also suggested.

The following days, this mysterious pool occupied my mind. The thought of rodents leaving liquid souvenirs in your flat is not a reassuring one. But as time passed we stopped talking about this incident, until it happened again. This time the pool was even bigger, and some of the liquid was also found on top of the bed. It was time to find the culprit and hold it responsible. So we grabbed our weapons of choice, a golf club each, climbed up on the bed in our morning robes, and started poking around. No creature was to be found. We noticed though that the liquid had splashed up against the closet. This would require someone peeing from a higher altitude than a rat would be capable of. The liquid was also odourless.

So, as we gazed upwards to find the source, we saw a brown stain alongside a beam in the roof. Water had been leaking through the wooden beam, attaining the urine-like colour, and then splashing down on the floor. Mystery solved, golf clubs back in the bag, silly feeling settling in.

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Predictability

It's convenient when people you don't like keep reaffirming your disregard towards them. If they did not you would have to develop mixed emotions about them. Like if Paris Hilton (I have to stop referring to Paris) would suddenly start up a charity organization for homeless people or starving kids in the third world, or if Bush, after his term ends, would join Al Gore in his quest to raise awareness around climate change.

I made a point about the visible pattern in Will Smith’s choice of movie characters in an earlier post. It is convenient for me that in his latest movie, "Hancock" he plays.... a superhero! If he would suddenly start playing losers or bad guys, I'd loose the pleasure of trash talking him.

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Same father?

Actor Alex Baldwin...... ........... Actor Stephen Baldwin

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Anything goes

The old dinosaurs from REM came to Nice last Saturday to play for a couple of thousand people in a very small park. There had been virtually no marketing prior to this concert. No posters, no media coverage, nothing. I don’t know if REM are very known in France in general, but it appears not. Anyway, me and a friend, who weren’t keen enough on the concert to get a ticket, were sitting outside in the park listening a bit. I’d say there were about 100 people doing the same thing. A group of 6 or 7 police officers were patrolling the area. There were no signs of disturbances, (why would there be at a REM concert?) except for a highly intoxicated/drugged up homeless person who was getting a bit too friendly with the eavesdroppers. He was told to leave once by the police, and when he failed to do so he was handcuffed and arrested. To be fair to him, we were intruding in his home. This park is mostly occupied by SDFs, (Sans Domicile Fixe, or Without Fixed Roof) as they are called in France. He was probably just very happy to have this many visitors, not to mention REM, in his home.

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Anyway what I wanted to point out by describing these premises, was that there was no need at all to use teargas at this very “tranquille evenement”. Yet the highest ranked officer was walking around with his teargas pistol in his hand, un-holstered, like a cowboy. Given what I’ve learned about French macho culture and the not so high expectations on professionalism from peace and order keeping forces, this is not very surprising to me. I’d take it he was either trying to impress girls, or he was just doing it for power kicks. Not a huge point to make, I know. Just a cultural observation from a country that once upon a time enlightened Europe.

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Thin is in but fat's where it's at!

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the "No-Lita" campaign by fashion creator Oliviero Toscani

This is an initiative I have been waiting for a long time. The German health minister, Ulla Schmidt, has succeded in making the German fashion industry leaders sign a voluntary code of conduct that will ban anorectic or grossly underweight models from the catwalks. The Italian government has followed suit and signed a similar agreement with the heads of the fashion world. For too long has sick stereotypes imposed on women and girls by the fashion world caused anorexia and unhealthy ideals. Hats off to you Ms Schmidt for pioneering this initiative that hopefully will turn things around. Speaking of bad ideals, can someone please also ban Paris Hilton from the media while we're at it??

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On the shoulder of giants

Today cnn.com was refering to my blog in an article about Ingrid Betancourt. It must have been quite briefly cause I only had 14 visits via this link. Perhaps they had a closer look at my blog and decided that the content did not really meet CNN standards.

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Fictioned reality or reality fiction?

Living in France, it has been impossible not get caught up in the Betancourt case. If you happen to live somewhere else, and managed to miss the story, Ingrid Betancourt is the French-Colombian former presidential candidate in Colombia who was kidnapped by FARC, The armed guerrilla in Colombia, 6 years ago. Betancourt was the FARC’s most valuable hostage, and a powerful base for negotiations. There have been massive campaigns in Colombia, France, and elsewhere to negotiate for her release. Given the FARC’s weakening situation with massive dropouts of rebel soldiers and the death of the former leader Manuela Marulanda and three members of the secretariat, Betancourt was probably their last high card to play.

She was freed one week ago in a spectacular rescue operation where Colombian army agents infiltrated the FARC and convinced the rebel in charge of the hostages that they should be moved to the new nr 1 guy, Alfonso Cano. Once the hostages were inside the helicopter, the accompanying rebels were neutralized, and the army agents revealed their identity. Not a single shot was fired. Not a single dollar changed hands. Officially, that is. Swiss radio has claimed that according to “reliable sources”, a ransom of 20 million dollars was paid for the release of the hostages, and the check was supposedly written by the US government (3 of the released hostages were US contractors on a counter narcotics intelligence mission). The “operation” could merely have been a PR stunt to build up confidence for president Uribe and to calm worried investors to start pumping money into the emerging but unsafe market of Colombia.

The only reason I have to believe in this theory is that the whole operation sounds a little bit to perfect and Hollywood like. Speaking of Hollywod, several movie scripts about the Betancourt story are already in the pipeline. I can picture Benicio del Toro in the role of an infiltrating Colombian army agent. Too bad Raul Julia isn’t alive to play the part of hostage guard nr 1. What a box office failure though, if it somehow is proven before the grand premiere, that the whole operation was indeed scripted. Sometimes reality actually beats fiction. In this case, I will not be very surprised if, as usual, it's the other way around.

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Mercury sinking on Mercury

Mercury, the planet they say is closest to the sun, is obviously shrinking. One hypothesis is that the core is cooling off. I don’t know why but I find this very alarming. I will be back shortly with possible implications for people living on earth.

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Robert Mugabe, rhetorical mastermind

Robert Mugabe is a joke. The only thing is that he is not funny. He is a tragic, despotic and ruthless man. In these last “elections” in Zimbabwe he once again intimidated the opposition and the voters, this time to the point where Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change, found it futile and dangerous to stay in the elections and pulled out. He even encouraged the people to vote for Mugabe if they were threatened, and said something in the lines of “don’t be foolish! God knows what’s in your hearts.” I find this very troubling and sad. Here’s a man who has been brave enough to face and criticize Mugabe, a man who wants to bring an end to the era of economic mismanagement and tyranny in Zimbabwe, knowing that the wife of a former opposition leader had her hands and feet cut off and was burned alive, and in the end he feels forced to encourage his supporters to vote for his lunatic adversary.

Mugabe is also stupid. To show you, here’s a few examples. The following is a statement he made about homosexuality:

“It's unnatural and there is no question ever of allowing these people to behave worse than dogs and pigs. If dogs and pigs do not do it, why must human beings? We have our own culture, and we must re-dedicate ourselves to our traditional values that make us human beings... What we are being persuaded to accept is sub-animal behaviour and we will never allow it here. If you see people parading themselves as lesbians and gays, arrest them and hand them over to the police!"

Apparently he sets dogs and pigs sexual instincts as a frame of reference for what kind of sexual preferences humans should have. No comment needed. And this is what he said about Hitler:

"This Hitler has only one objective: justice for his people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people and their rights over their resources. If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold". Enough said.

And to top if of, I give you his latest blunder. Take a look at this clip where Mugabe is “bothered” by an ITN correspondent:
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His answer is obviously not very well thought trough. He knows he stole the elections, that the process was unfair, he tries to attack the British with his reponse, and the result is poetic:

ITN Correspondent: "On what basis do you regard yourself as President of Zimbabwe?"

Mugabe: "On the same basis as Gordon Brown regards himself as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe."

So, on a false basis. Smooth Robert, very smooth..

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My big brother Sweden

I read the news and I wonder what is happening to my home country of Sweden. Since I left there has been suggestions to store all sms traffic, to listen to all digital traffic crossing the nation’s borders, and now in the latest attempt to breach the integrity of the Swedes, the social authorities suggested to keep record of all kids below 18 that are overweight. What is next? To register how much alcohol each person buys in the government controlled stores so that doctors could be alarmed of unhealthy consumption?

George Orwell’s 1984 should be mandatory reading for future generations of Swedes so that people realize that for each step in this direction, no matter how well intended, we are heading for a big brother society.

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Scare tactics in different worlds

In Zimbabwe, Mugabe’s henchmen will cut of your arm; kill you, or worse, if you don't vote for him or threaten his success by running against him in “democratic elections”.

In Sweden, if you vote against a controversial law on wire-tapping all digital traffic crossing the nation’s borders, your right wing party colleagues will tell you that soon you might not have any friends left.

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The not so undiscovered tribe

I regret to inform you that I have spread misinformation on my blog. Regarding my recent post about the “undiscovered tribe” in the Amazonas, It has now come to my attention through The Guardian, that the existence of this tribe has been known since the beginning of last century. The official from the Brazilian Indian Protection Agency has admitted this to media sources. He chose to perform the fly-by and publish the pictures in order to put pressure on Peru to stop logging in nearby regions. The argument was that the media attention was a valuable leverage to protect them, and worth the intrusion of the fly-by, which, as I suggested it should be, indeed is against the policy of the Agency.

Once again, I can’t help to think that my post had something to do with it, (as in the case with the Burmese Junta’s aid efforts), because the article to me seems like a direct response to my post. It feels good to be right, doesn’t it?

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The real reason for the war in Iraq?

Inside sources are saying that information was distorted by the Bush administration, that the people were misled about the nuclear situation in Iraq. So why did Bush go into Iraq? Because of the fact that his rhetoric and his whole base of power is about uniting the people against a common enemy or threat? Yes that’s probably one of the reasons, because what other issue could he run on for re-election? The man is only passionate about making life easier for big corporations and destroying the environment while doing so. Well the fact that Saddam Hussein seized control over oil resources and kicked western oil giants out might also have had something to do with it.

Because it seems now that that four western oil companies, among them Exxon Mobil, will be given access to oil fields, without a bidding process, with the proclaimed purpose to help Iraq increase oil production. It is said that the resources will go out for bidding later on, but obviously, the companies that already have a foothold will be enormously advantaged. Iraq’s cabinet claims that the four companies were given the 2 year deals because of their engagement as consultants to the Iraqi government. But other companies from Russia and China had been doing the same sort of consultancy and were offered nothing.

Just before the news of the contracts came out, Bush started lobbying for tearing up natural reserves offshore to search for new oil sources. Sounds to me like a smoke curtain. Of course, Condoleezza Rice denies that the US government had anything to do with the contracts being signed. With Bush on his way out, he doesn’t even have to face allegations, mission accomplished. And as we all have learned from him, history will judge him, not comtemporary society, and history takes a long time to reach.

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Adieu Euro 2008

Soccer can bring forth both the worst and the best in people. On one side, a joy and spirit that is transcending nations and politics, which unites people with different backgrounds and can give a great sense of national accomplishment, and on the other side, the worst possible combination of feelings: frustration, disappointment and sorrow. Right now, and so many times before, that is what I am experiencing. And I wonder if it is worth it, supporting the Swedish national team. The possibility in terms of good player material has been there for a long time now, but nothing special seems to come out of it. I know a certain coach who should have his license to live revoked..

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3 good news this morning

Israel has just confirmed the long awaited cease fire with Hamas that might lead to further compromises as release of hostages and ease of the Gaza strip blockade. This might enable a new climate for diplomatic negotiations in the near future.

Obama has appointed Patti Solis Doyle, who was fired from the Clinton campaign over a dispute with Ms Clinton, to a key position in his campaign, thus sending a clear message that Ms Clinton is not likely to be his Vice President.

The Swedish parliament has decided to reconsider the controversial and disputed law proposition to legalize wire-tapping of all electronic traffic crossing the Swedish border.

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