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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Playing the guitar (again)

The guitar, my preferred and only instrument, can in the right hands sound wonderful and entrancing. So far on this blog I have featured an artist who many consider to be the greatest jazz guitarist in the world, Django Reinhardt. Now I have thanks to some Spanish friends stumbled across the Spanish flamenco guitarist Paco De Lucia, who is the coolest and probably the fastest player I have ever seen. A trivial fact about Paco is that he learned to master the guitar without even being able to read notes very well, which makes me think that perhaps there is still hope for me.

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David vs Goliat

Sometimes the small victories can give the greatest pleasure, Especially when the odds are against you. Or when your adversary represents a classically unjust and usually unbeatable institution like doormen, as was the case this Tuesday night. We were 5 boys, going to the quite tacky Anglo-Saxon pub with Australian origin in which you usually find both guys and girls who has drunken themselves to caveman level, and the doorman takes one glimpse at one of my friends, let’s call him English Dave, and says that he is too drunk to get in. This was of course just an excuse to stop us from entering since they are trying to manage the boy/girl ratio. I asked him though to take another look at Dave, and perhaps re-evaluate his state. But no, he is too drunk. Dave tries to talk to him as well but he is not open for arguments. So we move 20 meters down the road, and I put my glasses and my shirt on Dave, and suggests that he should try to enter alone, and the stupid muscle mountain doesn’t recognize him in this elaborate disguise. Once inside we were cracking up about this smooth outmanoeuvring, and we ended up having a great time. Small victories..

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Amazing Amazonians

The picture above, from a remote corner of the Amazonian rainforest in Brazil, was taken from an airplane during a flyby performed by the National Indian Foundation. Their mission is to locate and protect indigenous tribes. The tribe discovered last week is one of the very few remaining on earth that never have been in contact with the outside world. I find it fascinating that there still exist people who live like this, unaware of and protected from Paris Hilton, ethnic and religious conflicts, poverty, starvation, unemployment, employment, career stress, dating, and all the other problems and obsessions that haunt modern man.

It must also be the wet dream of every anthropologist to go study such a tribe. Who knows what they might have discovered, or what strange things they might be up to. I therefore think that the National Indian Foundation should operate a bit more like the MIB, i.e. keep the undiscovered tribes undiscovered, and thus protected from the madness of contemporary society. Sure, locate them, set up a natural reserve, and do what you can to stop the destruction of the rainforest, but don’t go shouting out to the world, “Hey! Look what we found!” And if possible, they should try to be a bit sneakier when locating these tribes. From now on they will probably live in fear of that giant noisy bird devil that one day swept over their village with a furious roar.

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History in the making

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Adonis the sex object

After a recent visit to a gay club, where pick-up methods can be quite straightforward to use a euphemism, I have for the first time experienced what it must be like for some girls who tend to get a lot of male attention in the clubs. That is to say, trying to defend yourself from being groped/kissed/licked in the face by guys who don’t really care if you approve or not. I am not complaining, you walk into a gay club and you deal with the culture, but it helped me understand why some girls develop a cold or bitchy attitude towards guys in clubs. After being subjected to less sophisticated approaches time after time, I guess you loose faith a bit in the opposite sex and develop a blasé attitude. On the other hand.. if you peel of all the social etiquette, learned morals and inhibitions, perhaps the guys in the gay club were just.. free.

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Almost purple rain

During the last rainfalls here on the Riviera, we had some very warm winds sweeping in. I thought it was quite pleasant. Turns out these winds come from the Sahara dessert, the rain that fell therefore contained a brown/red sand, which is now covering all vehicles, windows, and balcony rails in the region. As a result, 3 of my shirts are now stained by Sahara sand. The only people happy about the situation are probably the car wash owners who must regard it as a blessing from the sky.

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Regrets

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It is easier to come to terms with mistakes you have done, than getting over what you wish you had done but never did.

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The Adonis Dictionary - Tourist

Tourist

tour·ist /ˈtʊər ɪst/ Pronunciation Key [too r-ist]

–noun

A person traveling, especially for pleasure, usaully staying in hotels and going sightseeing. Is often seen walking very slowly in stupid looking clothes, (e.g. flowered shirts, shorts, and sandals with socks in them), with little idea of where they are, what they are looking at, and what they have just ordered in the overprized restaurant with the charmy waitor who invited them from off the street.


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Than the man II

A few hours after I published the previous post about Burma and senior general Than Shwe, I got the news that he is now letting aid organizations into the country unconditionally. I guess he must have read my post and realized the inhumanity in his irrational behavior. It might also be a result of UN chief secretary Ban Ki-Moon's negotiations.

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Than the man

I want to express my disgust for the Burmese military junta for not doing more to help the victims of cyclone Nargir. They are not letting aid organizations into the country freely, so far only a quarter of the 2.4 million affected have received aid. And journalists have extremely limited rights to move around in the effected regions and cover the misery. Through a reporter at the Guardian who managed to slip by government controls, we are given some insight into the ridiculous efforts made by the inhumane and despotic senior general Than Shwe. A camp of 40 tents is set up outside of Rangoon, 40 tents! The handouts of rice are so insufficient that villagers have to draw straws to decide who will get food and who won’t. The only full hearted effort from inside the country comes from Rangoon civilians who have set up small scale aid stations, handing out one cup of rice per person.

It is my hope that the government’s weak response will spur a general discontent with the junta, which will lead to mass protests, (which of course will be met by deadly violence) and later along the line with a little help from some foreign intelligence agency with selfish motives, a coup d’état. Then a western friendly, faux democratic regime is put in place, the country is opened up to western capitalist interests, and people will leave the countryside to work for slave wages at Nike or HM. Hm…

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Orange Jews

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What indians joke about

Patient: "Last night I dreamt I was a Tepee, and the night before I dreamt I was a Wigwam."

Psychiatrist: "Relax, you're two tents!"

[tents sound like tense]

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Hate to say I toad you so

Some people in China are saying that the earthquake could have been predicted, that reports from seismologists about abnormal activity were discarded by the government, that rapidly changing water levels should have been a warning sign, and that strange animal behaviour should have been interpreted as an omen. It is the latter theory that interests me. This strange behaviour includes cows launching themselves into fences, zebras banging their heads on doors, elephants swinging their trunks wildly, and toads swarming a town that was later devastated by the quake. A Chinese TV station did a reportage on the toad infestation. If you want to watch the video, it is still available. It wouldn’t surprise me though if it disappears shortly. People who have been spreading rumors about the quake's possible prediction are going to be punished accoding to the government. The nature of the punishment was not revealed. Also, when a reporter asked a question about these rumors at a live news conference, it was immidiately cut off to show archived footage. When they came back on air, no more questions of this nature were posed.

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The idea that animals can sense when a natural disaster is lurking around the bend is known since long. American scientists have even researched the phenomena but without conclusions. Thinking about it only wrinkles my forehead and I can't come up with any logical or illogical hypothesis.

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There is a lot of superstition surrounding the toad. Some see it as an embodiment of an evil spirit or a witch; some see it as a sign of good fortune, and others, as a sign of impending death! But let’s be reasonable, unless the toad is nature’s own seismometer, this swarming thing was just a fluke. But if I should ever happen to see more than 5 frogs at the same time, I'm not sure I would stick around..

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My body is a wonderland

I have finally started to see some results from my "rigorous” physical training. Without buying a gym card or compromising my lifestyle (beer, wine, cheese etc) too much, I ran a half marathon at a descent amateur time, my muscles are getting bigger and my stomach smaller (with a name like Adonis, you have a lot to live up to). It is like turning back the hands of time in a way when you start to look like you did 5 years ago. So why this shallow fixation with physical appearance? Well, at my age, that is somewhere between 25 and 30, you have to start taking care of yourself if you still want to look like Daniel Craig in James Bond when you’re 45, if you still want to play tennis when you’re 65, and if you still want to play golf when you’re 75. Plus if you let yourself go for too long, your stomach fat will get so attached to your body that the only way to remove it would be through a small but powerful hose (own theory).

I used to think that exercise freaks had their priorities wrong, and if the obsession with fitness takes control of your life, I still regard it as “unhealthy”. But if you view it from an evolutionary theory perspective, exercise freaks and muscle idiots are easier to understand. Ever since the beginning of our history as humans, starting with “Homo Erectus” and to a certain extent even with the plain monkeys, social status and physical appearance have been crucial qualities in fulfilling our strongest drive, sexual reproduction. If you happen to believe in divine creation and all that, and you are offended by the notion of primate forefathers, then I apologize for my omniscient arrogance but I won’t take this perspective into account.

To get back to the point I am trying to make, physical appearance has for a long long time been a key success factor in attracting a partner to mate with. If monkeys and Neanderthals would have had a greater understanding about physiology, they probably would have started to work out. Even though other qualities like social status, intelligence and reliability have more importance to most people in modern times, appearance will always be key quality. So from now on whenever I see muscle freaks, I will no longer think or say anything condescending about them. They are probably just trying to compensate for lack of other key qualities. Only problem is, they are overcompensating. Right girls?

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Sneeze please!

I want to touch upon an important subject. Sneezing and the people who don't. I have come across a few people in my lifetime who hold back their sneezes. One of them is sitting in front of me right now as I type. Whether by chance or not, they have all come across as a bit weird to me. Sneezing, as everybody knows, is the body’s reaction to unwanted particles in the nose or sinuses. It can be something you breath in, dead bacteria going out (a cold), or it can be caused by sharp light. Yes, it’s true, one out of three people sometimes sneeze when exposed to bright light, some doctors call them “photics”.

Holding back a sneeze impulse can be dangerous due to the high pressure exerted on your ear canals. There have even been reports of people suffering from a stroke, trying to suffocate a sneeze impulse. So why do people behave in this way? Because they think it hurts? Because they don't want to contaminate people? Or because they regard it as bad manners to sneeze if it's not in a tissue? And most importantly, why does this irritate me so much?

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Russian Landscape Architects

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