@RT_com: Watch VIDEO of airliner crashing onto #Moscow highway recorded by a dashboard camera http://t.co/hvKAbkEv
Swiss roll
@LukeMeAtSix_: BREAKING NEWS AUSTRALIA IS UNDER ATTACK BY A PHOTO SHOPPED SWISS ROLL http://pic.twitter.com/FDW8A1Du
In the eye of the beholder
The Swedish tradition of celebrating Saint Lucia on December 13 is an ancient tradition. For ages it has been celebrated with children in a candle lit parade singing Christmas carols. Sweden seems to currently be suffering from a cultural identity crisis in what seems to be at a breaking point. All over the country traditions are being questioned, discarded and shunned in something reminiscent to a cultural revolution.
The ”progressive” and ”modern” elements of the Swedish society has a tendency to use racism and intolerance as the leverage in lobbying for these changes. The latest expression of this process of denial of the cultural heritage and traditions is the banning of the use of gingerbread costumes traditionally used in the Saint Lucia parade in a school in Sweden. According to the school it is racist to dress up in gingerbread costumes.
It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I tend to agree. This also means that shame, and racism is in the eye of the beholder. Gingerbread does have a brownish color. There are also people around the world that have a more brownish skin color than most Swedes have, although in the summer most of them try to get some color on their pale bones. So I suppose, but I might be wrong since I don’t know, that the school in question thinks that a dress that share a remote similarity to a color of skin that many people have is racism. I’m sorry but I’m not following. Does the school mean that the manifestation of a different color of skin, or that this is implied, is offensive? I think this is very odd and so does others as well. In all the years that I as a child celebrated Lucia, I never thought that my ginger bread costume was offensive or racist. I have asked others that similar to me dressed up in gingerbread costumes as kids, and like me no one have any memory of any racist meaning in the Saint Lucia celebration and up until now no one ever even thought about it as being racist.
So if all traditions are to be dissected, deconstructed and discarded or changed it kind of ruins the initial idea of traditions, which is that they stay the same, basically, in a world that otherwise is changing. This is very strange, since Swedes by no means are unaware of the value of traditions in other circumstances or in other countries. Swedes travel a lot and often are interested in learning about other peoples’ traditions. But the ”progressives”, in considering their own traditions as racist, it seems like they not only is missing the point with the large variety of different traditions around the world and the diversity it signifies. Also its like they attribute an unrealistic and twisted importance to their own traditions in a global perspective. If regional Swedish traditions are offensive and racist in Sweden according to these progressives, does that mean that the they also mean that other traditions in other regions and countries are racist or is it something that just applies to Sweden?
Is a world without diversity in traditions and local traditions the only world without racism according to this avant-garde? No one dress up in brown! No one dress up in red! No yellow clothes either! Are white clothes allowed? Or in the name of equality, brotherhood and tolerance maybe all should dress up in blue clothes.
S:t Lucia, December 13
Swedish court: Homeschooling = abuse
This needs to be put into perspective because frankly I find this judgment so repulsive and repugnant to all I believe in that the statement in itself cannot carry the absurdity of it.
The Swedish court is making it legal to act in direct contradiction to the UN declaration of human rights. A declaration that Sweden has signed.
The court motivated their decision with the phrase that the parents because of homeschooling are isolating their child from meeting peers and therefore are: ”lacking in care of Domenic in a way that results in permanent danger for his health and development.”
In Sweden there is an administrative policy and rule that courts shall adhere to current scientific results and research, apparently the court ignores this. There are tons of research contradicting the opinionated view of the court about homeschooling and isolation.
Its ironic that the ruling that goes against science and violates the most fundamental human right, is delivered the same day as the Nobel prize is delivered, hosted by the Swedish royal family in Stockholm, celebrating science and the peace prize.
Its ironic that the ruling that goes against science and violates the most fundamental human right, is delivered the same day as the Nobel prize is delivered, hosted by the Swedish royal family in Stockholm, celebrating science and the peace prize.
The court ruling means that parents that homeschool in Sweden loose custody of their child!
Not only that, it will be done without any due process. The child can be removed from the parents without previous notification or possibility to defend your right as a family or parent or child in advance.
I wonder what has happened to Sweden and when did this start?
Oops!
This would probably a goof moment for the construction workers to say ”I’m sorry” alternatively move to another country.
Chateau de Bellevue was considered to be a treasure of the village Yvrac near the city of Bordeaux in France. Unfortunately the new Russian owner, Dmitry Stroskin, became a victim of the inadequacies in the Polish educational system, as the Polish construction workers hired by Mr. Stroskin apparently couldn’t understand the directive. Not only that, they not once before running the bulldozers into the chateau struck them that it would be a good idea to ask: "Is this really right?”
Instead of demolishing an old outhouse on the premises which they were hired to do, they leveled the chateau to the ground! OUCH!
Now the once proud architectural treasure of 140 000 Sq. feet looks like this! Its gone!
1.4 million to go to the moon
1,4 million for a trip to the moon. Any takers? @universetoday: Golden Spike to Offer Commercial Human Missions to the Moon http://t.co/0LmjqGEe
Hanna Widerstedt featuring Lois Vulgorette
This would probably be interesting for a non Swedish reader, or not, Hanna Widerstedt a Swedish artist is the most trending person in Google searches in Sweden. Friend of reason naturally wonders what her claim to fame is creating such interest. I believe this might take a little explanation into the Swedish mentality to be able to grasp.
Sweden has an artschool that is famous for or should notorious for its student project that runs of the charts. Not so long ago one student project was widely discussed and reported about in the media since a student had pretended to be crazy and got herself admitted to a mental institution, another brought a storm of protest since he or she, (don’t remember which it was) vandalized a subway train and had it filmed.
This time Hanna Widerstedt has made up a personality, participated in the TV-Show big brother, writing a blog and mingling with the ”hot” and popular in the cyber universe of bloggers, reality stars and wannabes in Sweden. She started her own blog exaggerating everything. She calls her made up personality ”Lois Vulgorett” and the project the ”LV Project."
She describes her experience as living in ”a bubble of angst and champagne.”
Besse Cooper
Besse Cooper, native of Tennessee, born August 26, 1896 has passed away at age 116. She was the oldest human alive, a title that now have passed to Dina Manfredini born April 4, 1897 now age 115.
Mrs. Cooper has said that the secret to her longevity was ”minding her own business and eating no junk food.” Mrs. Cooper passed away with her hair just done, and according to her son it looked like she was ready to go.
The perspective Mrs. Cooper gives is amazing. When the first Ford model-T came of the assembly line she was 12. She was 15 when Titanic made her historic journey. At the first television broadcast she was 32. When WWII broke out Mrs. Cooper was 43. In 1969 when a man walked on the moon for the first time she was 73. On August 6, 1991 when the first world wide web site went online Mrs. Cooper was 94 and just about to turn 95 and at the turn of the millennium she had reached the age 104 and was still going strong.
Mrs. Cooper has seen 12 decades, three centuries and two millennia. She leaves behind 4 children, 12 grandchildren and more than a dozen great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.
Only in Las Vegas
@TIME: What's better than getting married in Vegas? Getting married at a Denny's in Vegas | http://t.co/Ie2FMkt8
Beware of the ”Nobel" poet!
If you thought that all writers and poets were peaceful thinkers contemplating the nature of human existence, here’s maybe something that will change that perception. The Swedish ”Nobel” poets Göran Malmqvist and Per Wästberg, both members of the Swedish Academy of literature, the very one that decides who receives the Nobel Prize of literature every year, are on a mission to destroy the Chinese poet Li Li.
In a mail to Per Wästberg, Göran Malmqvist writes about Li Li: ”I’m gonna destroy him, I’m gonna crush him like one crushes a lice with the nail of the thumb", to which Per Wästberg replies ”You can destroy him, with my blessing.”
This after Li Li published a poem that offended Göran Malmqvist since it was about a man with a 40 year younger wife, as it happens Mr. Malmqvist’s wife is 43 years younger than him. This in turn was, as one can deduct from the heated reaction of Mr. Malmqvist, interpreted by Mr. Malmqvist as a direct response to Mr. Malmqvist criticizing Li Li for translating poems by the Swedish poet Tranströmer wrong, translating ”kantarell” (a mushroom) into ”caramel” when translating his poems into Chinese.
Well there you have it, beware of the poets because they have sensitive egos as it appears and sharp claws, I mean pens.
Tomboys will be tomboys
"More surreal news from Occupied Sweden. The most insanely socialist, watchful, interfering, nannying and just plain paranoid society on earth appears to have arrived at its nadir. How did this clique manage to quietly take control of a previously independent-minded people?"
The author of the article in SVD sums it up at the end of the article by asking what men are so afraid of?
I don’t think that one automatically is afraid just because one does not agree on all the ideas and theories that are popular at the moment. When I grew up as a boy, no one tried to make me wear dresses or decided for me that I should play with dolls. When I think back I cannot recall that I have had any major trauma due to this. I played with typical boy toys, all days long. I have daughters, they play with toys. They have cars, guns, bows, firetrucks, spiderman suits and pirate stuff, when my daughter recently turned 8, I got her a compound bow but also some typical girl toys. They love girly toys, dolls, ponies, princess dresses and what not. But here’s the thing, first of all, no one is telling me what is right or wrong to buy, secondly, they prefer to play with the girl stuff, it is their choice.
I have daughters that now are adults, they were raised the same way. They turned out just fine. They were more into the boy toys growing up, they were real tomboys. Sometimes they’d crack me up running around with helmets and waiving toy swords wearing princess dresses, taking off their helmets and underneath they had their hair full of pink bows! Now they're two typical young women with nail polish and make up and all that. But again its been their choices no one else’s.
Speaking of Peace: Captain Vasili Arkhipov
This is what a real hero looks like, the Russian Submarine Captain Vasili Arkhipov, he saved the world during the Cuban crisis.
In times of the Nobel Peace Prize I always think about this amazing hero that is so unjustly kept in anonymity. The Nobel Peace Prize has been criticized for being a political venue instead of giving the prize to those who really deserve it. This year it was awarded to the European Union.
In my mind, as long as the Nobel Peace Prize is NOT awarded to the memory of Vasili Arkhipov, it is awarded to the wrong guy. He is without a doubt the one man in history, any time period included, that to his merits can add: ”I single handedly saved the world!” Not only that, he also showed us something else, he showed us that ”the buck stops here.” He is an excellent example of that every person has the possibility to choose and change the world, in 1962, the buck stopped with Vasili Arkhipov.
In accordance to this my question is: What is the Nobel comity doing?
Captain Vasili Arkhipov, refused to follow orders during the Cuban crisis in 1962. He refused to fire a nuclear weapon against the United States. For this he was punished in the Soviet Union. His heroism was kept a secret for 40 years, and he has suffered for it and died humiliated as an outcast in 1998. How does the world thank him? It doesn’t. The Nobel Prize goes to the European Union!
Every organization depend on the chain of command and in a way even society does the same. In the Armed forces to refuse an order is not appreciated to say the least. I have myself served as a green beret, an order is meant to be followed and our lives actually depend on it. But as Captain Vasili Arkhipov showed our lives also depend on our ability to be able to determine when not to follow orders. Captain Arkhipov did not by his action endorse anarchy or civil disobedience, he endorsed humanity. If we would put ourselves in his shoes, it is easy to realize that by making this decision he knew his next stop would probably be Siberia and the Gulag.
One needs to put this in perspective. In 1962, during he Cuban crisis everything was under tension. Basically The U.S. and the Soviet were staring each other down from the barrel of a gun and the Soviets lost their nerve. That’s what happened, they ordered Captain Vasili Arkhipov to fire a nuclear weapon. They meant business, they didn’t start of with mortars or conventional bombs. For some reasons the Soviets were freaking out and went for the big guns right away.
The immediate result of an attack like that considering the political climate of the times would probably have meant the annihilation of the human culture as we know it. President Kennedy would have been forced to retaliate and Europe would have seized to exist more or less, it probably would have been vaporized in a nuclear cloud.
So every year at ”Nobel” times, I thank this great man in my mind for his heroism and for my life and health, and for everything else I have in my life that would have been extinct or wiped of the map. The Nobel comity gives the Peace Prize to pop politicians and super organizations, peacefully killing the great symbolical and inspirational meaning of the prize in the process.
Make October 27 "Vasili Arkhipov” day in memory of this extraordinary man and the gifts his heroism has granted us all.
Skynet is arming up
Europe is testing its drone project ”Neuron”, an unmanned stealth attack drone. Neuron flew for 25 minutes in Istres, France and was piloted by two pilots. Neuron is the biggest drone for the time being with its wingspan of 12 meters and length of 10 meters.
The use of drone technology has been criticized by international law experts, apparently a bomb from an unmanned plane is more dangerous or unethical than one from a manned conventional aircraft(!?).
I for one fail to see the logic in that, and how come there are no international law experts condemning the use of missiles? Their unmanned too, aren’t they? My reservation would be that it is with a certain feeling of uneasiness that I see unmanned ”things” of destruction that flies, walks, rolls or swims around. One need only to take a quick look into the world of fiction to realize that there are avenues down that road that we definitely do not want to go.
Christmas Calender of Advent ”Luck No 1"
This is a good occasion to introduce a tradition that is commonly practiced in Scandinavia. Its the Calender of Advent, basically a Christmas Countdown. Every day has its own ”lucka” followed by the number of the day, ”lucka 1"! is december 1 and "lucka 24" is Christmas eve, which is the big day in the Scandinavian counties. As an adjustment to the rest of the world my Calendar of Advent will run to ”lucka 25” or ”Luck 25".
My Calendar will comprise of special and interesting photographs. Usually a Calendar is a picture of something Christmas like, Santa, snowy Christmas trees, the Nativity sceen and has 24 or 25 little openings that you can open each day with a little image behind it, or a little peace of chocolate or a little present, the imagination is the limit. Kids love these things.
Christmas - 24 days!
