mood: bleak

i'm sick. i haven't been sick like this in a long time. it started yesterday when i was driving with a colleague to copenhagen. i suddenly knew i was going to throw up and luckily he pulled over quickly. then despite attending a workshop, i continued to throw up the rest of the day. by the time we drove home, i was getting achy all over and i'm sure i had a low grade fever. miserable. i went to bed immediately with a kitten and tiktok and slept for 10 hours. so far today, no throwing up, but the thought of food still turns my stomach. i have kept a cup of tea down, so that's something. 

so i'm hanging out in bed with travis, my comfort kitten, candles burning and my laptop on my lap. and i'm thinking about all the madness in the world. in the early days of this blog, i would have been on the barricades, writing about it. the incomprehensible slaughter of innocent women and children in gaza, the way the war in ukraine drags on, but seems to have been forgotten in the face of the horrors being committed by israel and hamas. the criminal trump's increasingly fascist behavior and his likelihood of being the nominee. i just don't know what to say. or do. i feel rather helpless in the face of it all. 

here i am, tucked up in my cozy, warm bed, fretting about some stupid bureaucracy imposed on our little creative group by the local bank and recovering from the flu while the world rages out there. and i can't help but berate myself for it, wondering if it's similar to how ordinary germans just sat back and let hitler do all he did. did they feel as helpless and wrapped up in their own pettiness? 

war in ukraine :: do what you can

i've been thinking a lot about my russian friends and how they must be feeling. i wonder what they're thinking? what news they have access to? what they believe? whether they have children who might be sent to putin's folly of a war. i'm friends with one on facebook, but she hasn't answered my message. she might not be able to now, if putin turned it off. so terrible what he's doing and how those who will suffer from his actions are the ordinary people in both ukraine and russia. such an amazing culture, with so much of the world's best literature and music and art.  

since i wrote this a couple of days ago, my friend in russia has answered. she's ok and though she's vague in her posts, she actually still has access. and she said we must all hope for peace. what else can we do?

i'll tell you what i did today - i bought some prints from a ukrainian artist. it's a small gesture and probably only significant to the artist who i bought them from, but it made me feel like i was doing something. and i don't want it to be in some fortunate western kind of way, but maybe it is. but still, i hope it made a difference. please support yulia if you can. her illustrations are lovely and she has a cat. you may have to print yourself at the moment, but honestly, isn't that the least you can do?

be kind to yourself

the new york times told me to be kind myself today. i'm not sure i've done that or that i even know how. instead, i bucked up my chin, packed up my laptop and headed for the library and a decent internet connection and i worked. i pushed aside everything that yesterday brought up in me, including those things which i had suppressed and made myself forget. i've not articulated them to a soul since 1991, so it's a bit hard to know where to begin now. i need to find a space to whisper them out loud to myself. and that's a bigger step than we might imagine. the courage of ms. blasey ford yesterday was incomprehensible. i have no idea how she summoned it. and no idea how to feel if it was all for nought.

an accidental bug for lunch

my lunch today consisted of a bug that i accidentally swallowed on my way to the car. it kind of went downhill from there. the afternoon was filled with diagrams of squares and circles and funnels and data and ways of boxing in creativity and others taking credit for ideas not their own. it was disheartening to say the least. it didn't help to get home and watch a bit of the horror show before the senate judiciary committee as a petulant, entitled manchild freaked out that his frat boy ways were found out and half of the country remained on his side. memories of a sexual assault i had buried away from even myself resurfaced. my wonderful friend cyndy is dying. and the full moon is waning. these are troubled times we are living in and it can feel pretty hopeless. especially when you have a bug for lunch.

reality:check

CPH:dox, the copenhagen documentary film festival, is sending some of their films out to the provinces, and so i had the chance to see two of the films at spinderihallerne in vejle. spinderihallerne is one of the few bright spots in vejle, which otherwise rather thinks more of itself than it actually should. it's an old factory in the center of the city that's been converted to a museum, café, event and coworking space and they've done it very well.

the films i saw were maxim pozdarovkin's our new president, about the fake news about the american election IN russia. you can see a longish trailer for it here. i spent much of the screening with my mouth gaped open in horror. it's easy to understand how the russian trolls spread their insane, conspiratorial stories on our shores. what's less easy to understand is how anyone fell for it. i feel sad about russia today. i spent many years studying russian and russian culture and i think what's happening under putin does a rich and intelligent culture a real disservice.

the other film i saw was called pre-crime - about the algorithms and technology that's "helping" police departments all over the world catch criminals before they even are criminals. if you've seen person of interest, you'll realize that reality and fiction are far closer than we may like. but can you imagine being approached by the police because you landed on a computer-generated list of people who might someday commit a crime? what if you had been hanging out with the wrong crowd, but you weren't doing that anymore, what if you'd gone back to school and gotten your life in order when they came knocking? what would that do to you?

it was a very thought-provoking day, but also quite sobering. it is frightening how we all are voluntarily giving up so much information - through facebook, instagram, location-sharing and yes, even free google-owned platforms like this blog - that's sold on to those who would use it against us. it gave me thoughts of seriously living off-grid. but i think that's become quite difficult. plus, i'm such a device-geek that i would find it very hard. what if i could no longer photograph every cup of coffee or the adventures of my minifigures or share the latest things the cats are doing? but, what if that could be used against me in ways i cannot even imagine.

both films had a talk after them - the first, about fake news in general and the second about the state of surveillance in denmark. neither talk made me feel any better. but it feels really important to have the conversation. i'm glad denmark is still funding such things. this event was free. i used my whole saturday afternoon learning something new and being provoked to think and there was even free popcorn. i don't think it gets much better than that.

when is a cold the flu?

you have a cold - it's the kind where you're achy in your shoulders, your ears are ringing, you're coughing up small balls of phlegm from a very sore throat and though your nose isn't stuffed up,  every breath you take is too cold on your sore throat. and it does no favors for your general mood. and by you, i naturally mean me. on top of it, there's another mass shooting at a school, and another bunch of horribleness flares up on facebook among the gun-toting set. i hate being confronted with the wilful ignorance of people i grew up with. the world is becoming so polarized, i honestly fear for all of us. and there's no sense engaging with the deplorables, no amount of logic or reason will seep through their thick, redneck, racist skulls. they sent out their useless, ineffectual, insincere thoughts and prayers and next week, there will probably be another shooting and nothing will be done about it. especially if the perpetrator is white. hands will be wrung and more white supremacist mental cases will buy assault weapons. and that orange jackass in the white house will pose for photos with his grimace and a thumbs up and then rush off to his tee time. and if your head is all stuffed up and your ears are ringing, you might feel rather hopeless about it all.

and it will be compounded by other things which facebook brings to you...like awful, sad stories of a horribly sick little girl who is also being slathered with hopes and prayers - everyone apparently conveniently forgetting that a god that would turn a fever into pneumonia and cardiac arrest in a little girl, doesn't seem all that merciful or inclined to perform miracles. but on that front, you can kind of forgive the thoughts and prayers, because they probably at least bring comfort to those involved. you just mostly wish that facebook didn't involve you in these things.

and you wish this stupid cold or flu or whatever it is would run its course and loosen its grip. hmm...maybe a few thoughts and prayers sent my way would help...

* * *

knausgaard's journey to understand russia.

beautiful.

makes me want to dig out my turgenev.

* * *

and it turns out john b. maclemore of s*town fame made some music.

it involves ambient and field recordings mixed with tor lundvall's work.

* * *

do you know jonathan pie?

you should.

* * *

the food you take you with you when you immigrate.

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i like these short, short stories.

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need more podcasts?
there are some new ones on this list.

we can't laugh anymore

i am genuinely worried about the state of the world. not only is it filled with the spray-tanned satan's distractions (see the weekend's nfl bullshit), it's also filled with his name-calling threats at north korea, which has another madman at the helm and possesses nuclear weapons. at least the russian noose seems seems to be tightening, which is probably why he's pandering to his racist, white supremacist base so loudly on twitter. do not pay attention to the man behind the curtain...the great and powerful oz has spoken...

but i fear that all of the noise he has put in the air has rendered us all unable to talk or listen or have a dialogue and worst of all, unable to laugh or joke. about anything and everything. we have become strident and righteous and holier-than-thou where our own beliefs (opinions?) are concerned. and even amongst friends, we can no longer laugh or express an opinion that's might not be in alignment with what that friend currently believes.

not that long ago, at a party, i exploded at someone who trotted out that tired line about what a terrible candidate hillary clinton was, so i am as guilty as anyone else. and seriously, has there ever been a person more genuinely prepared to be president? (don't get me started). but genuinely, it's a trend that worries me.

here's an example:

forgetting these righteous times that we are in, i accidentally got involved in a strident exchange on a friend's facebook page about the words idiot, moron and imbecile. she posted that we shouldn't be using these words anymore, we should do better. and she feels this acutely since her beautiful daughter has the extra chromosome of down's syndrome.

in the early part of the last century and probably on through the 1950s, these words were psychological diagnoses for people of an IQ below 50 (and in some cases below 25), and people with down's syndrome fell into this category. i appreciate that. however, they are no longer used in this way in psychology and have entered mainstream speech, on par with stupid and dumb (dumb surely also had a diagnosis attached at one point).

thinking that if we don't laugh about the spray-tanned satan, we must curl up in fetal position and cry uncontrollably (an option i've also tried), i attempted to joke on my friend's post against the use of such words, asking if we couldn't still apply them to him since it was a kind of diagnosis. this is a friend who i have known for nearly a decade and who i know to have a wonderful sense of humor and who knows, in her heart of hearts, that i would never purposefully be mean to her or her child. but it seems that her humor is gone in these days of righteous indignation and so she and her possé of like-minded folks, jumped all over me for my insensitivity and accused me of insulting her child. i was sincerely not insulting her child, i was insulting trump. you see, those words are no longer used as terms of diagnosis, and haven't been during my lifetime, and they have taken on (or perhaps returned to) meanings that pretty accurately apply to the current president. 

the fact is, words often change meaning over time...

Idiot Origin: 1250–1300; Middle English < Latin idiōta< Greek idiṓtēs private person, layman, person lacking skill or expertise, equivalent to idiō-(lengthened variant of idio- idio-, perhaps by analogy with stratiōtēs professional soldier, derivative of stratiá army) + -tēs agent noun suffix

even mark twain used idiot in the sense i meant it: "Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." - [Mark Twain, c.1882] so perhaps the psychological designation assigned to the word was the aberration.

maybe we need to return to a place where we can talk to one another, joke about things that are serious, not look for offense where none is meant, and thereby cope with these times in a way that helps us all. is that too much to ask?

* * *

these architectural depictions of mental illnesses are poetic and beautiful.

* * *

when in macedonia...

aka, there's an app for that.

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have you listened to alone: a love story?

of hurricane fatigue and the spray-tanned satan

i've battled for months (how long has that spray-tanned satan been president?) with jaw problems from clenching my teeth in my sleep. i find it difficult to let go of the stress the man causes me with his one outrageous, unpresidential, moronic tweet after another. but recently, i've noticed a kind of numbness coming over me. i still can't stand to hear his voice, but i fear i'm becoming immune to the ignoramus, and along with him, my sense of outrage or even empathy is fading. i've noticed it most in connection with these hurricanes. even tho' i know a couple of people who were in the path of both - one who was close to her due date with her first child (he came and they are both totally ok), i have had a hard time mustering caring about it. i've exuded more than few sighs as i open my nytimes app or listen to the daily, and it's all harvey and irma all the time. isn't there any other news? and i fear that it's because the cheeto has rendered me immune. because what can possibly be worse than him? but it's so dangerous to let him render us numb and uncaring. because then we are truly lost. i've got to do something to get back my empathy and caring. but what if it takes a hurricane of our own?

lacking words

i don't seem to be able to find many words about the events in paris on friday evening. the horror seems at once too great and too commonplace to articulate. we grow numb from the frequency of these things, from them happening in the places where we work or play or go to school or go to relax and have fun. we could easily end up afraid to leave our homes. doors locked, minds closed, alone only with those we love and that which we know, afraid to let anything and anyone new in, lest they harm us. i don't think such a world would be that much fun. and i hope it doesn't come to that. so, we do what we can - symbolic gestures, like changing our profile picture in solidarity with those who lost their lives - to say that we stand with paris, feel for them, our hearts bleeding for them. i'm not sure if it means that much and i only left mine for a little while. it suddenly felt disingenuous. i've only ever been at the airport in paris and frankly, it's not my favorite place - so what business do i have standing in solidarity? i can't even really imagine how those people felt - how frightened they were, how panicked, how horrible it must have been. on some level, i just can't relate. i feel a bit numb about it. but, i hope that people will defiantly return to the cafés and concert halls and streets and football stadiums - that they will go about their lives, that they will not live in fear, because living in fear means those terrorists have won. hmm, maybe it's time to finally go see paris.

* * *

and on a happier and better-smelling note - a story of the last perfumer in belgrade.

makes me want to go to belgrade.

with thanks to bill for sending me the link.

et småligt land

these days, there are many refugees on the move throughout europe. leaving their war-torn homes in syria and iraq, coming ashore in barely seaworthy boats on greek islands, getting on trains or trucks, or failing that, walking their way up through europe. they're trying to get to germany and sweden, which are the main european countries standing up and taking responsibility, opening their doors, their stadiums and hearts. meanwhile, the minority, xenophobic and apparently tone deaf danish government took out ads in newspapers in the middle east, discouraging people from coming to denmark. this means that the hundreds of people who need to cross denmark to get to sweden are being stopped at the borders these days. yesterday, several hundred of them walked along the motorway and it had to be closed at one point for their safety. some danes form "welcome" committees on the overpasses, spitting down on the refugees and screaming obscenities in broken english. these are shameful, dark times.

last night, instead of standing up and taking any responsibility, the danish prime minister, lars løkke rasmussen, apparently went to a wine tasting. the police, overwhelmed with people at the borders, have elected to stop trying to register those who don't wish to seek asylum in denmark and just let them go on through to sweden. yesterday, they were stopping them, but the numbers are too large for that now and taking people off trains and buses to forcibly register them was only creating chaos and large crowds of people walking on the motorways.

for all of my complaints, i do love living in denmark and i love many things about it, including the welfare state which allows people to get back on their feet when they're down. but this makes me (and a whole lot of danes) sad and embarrassed and ashamed. and it's the direct result of years and years of heightened xenophobic rhetoric. and now the whole world is watching and it's not a pretty sight.

in the same boat

still trying to absorb what happened last evening in copenhagen and like with the charlie hebdo events a few weeks ago, i find it too easy that the supposed perpetrator is killed before making him explain. now we will assign whatever meaning we wish to it - fear, terror, suspicion - and it will only continue in the long run. us against them will solidify rather than dissolving.

i have this notion that instead of being afraid, we need to hold more events where we discuss free speech, we need to have so many of them that no disgruntled, disenfranchised person with skewed ideas can possibly attack them all. we need to overwhelm them with the freedom of our speech.

the kitsch of clichés

clichés go down better when painted on driftwood

i had an experience this evening which is increasingly bewildering to me, the more i ponder it. it was a supposedly inspirational talk by a self-styled "poetic clown, philosophical humorist or humorous philosopher, a spiritual pirate who juggles words like a verbal bubblebath." you might guess that these are direct translations from his own description of himself. well, this aging hippie (they're all aging now, aren't they?), spent nearly two hours rattling off the most astonishing array of aphorisms and clichés (is there a difference?) heard outside of a stephen covey seminar, all while sprinkling this oral diarrhea with sexist jokes and read-aloud newspaper clippings shown on an overhead projector. the overhead projector i could have dealt with as a kind of hipster retro thing, but it seemed quite unironically meant. i think it may have represented the extent of his technological capabilities.

here are a few of the gems i managed to scribble down before i was overcome by incredulousness at what i was hearing...and bear in mind that they were just spouted ad nauseum, without any real connection.

"how can you have a comeback if you've never been anywhere?"

"without cultural ballast, you can't navigate a life."

"they know the price of everything but the value of nothing."

"it's healthy to live for fun but no fun to live healthily."

"the direction is more important than the speed."

"we've got short-term politicians and long-term problems." (i'll grant that this one rings a little bit true.)

"get up in the morning with expectations and go to bed with experiences."

there were many, many more, a dizzying array more. each more clichéd than the last.

but most worrying of all was the audience's reaction. they. loved. it. they were rolling on the floor laughing. they ate it up, like it was porridge drenched in butter, cream and fresh maple syrup. and it was about as stickily sweet as that. even worse, several people i talked to said they found him so inspiring. i do wonder what they were inspired to do (other than slit their wrists or bite down on the cyanide capsule)? i weep for the world. are we really so unreflected as that? do we really want to be spoon-fed pap delivered rapid fire and supposedly disguised as sage advice?

they lined up during the break to plop down $30 (150kr) on his book, in which he had collected even more aphorisms. he also had planks of driftwood (see above) with aphorisms painted on them in 70s style hand-lettering (that, at least, i could appreciate, the hand-lettered type, not the clichés). i don't think he sold any of those, but i'm also not sure he was trying to, as they belonged to some old wooden boat he has, which he said "sails around with a load of thoughts." as if. a load of shite, more like.

why do people seem to need such easy clichés and what on earth about them makes people characterize them as inspiring? if they were really inspiring, we'd all go home and change our lives...begin painting our own thoughts on driftwood (oh wait, i already do that) and go dancing through the grocery store (one of his suggestions). but no one is really going to do that.

these things are a bit like horoscopes, we can reflect whatever cares are on our minds onto them, picking and choosing the ones that we feel really speak to us. but why do we want to be spoken to in such platitudes? and why do they seem to make people feel so good? the mood afterwards was buoyant and people really felt entertained and inspired. except for me. i was shocked at all of the degrading comments he made about women (they can be home secretary but never foreign secretary was just one) and far more horrified than inspired. in fact i wasn't inspired at all. really pretty much just disappointed in my fellow townspeople. how on earth could they buy into such kitsch?

am i just a total snob or is there really something wrong with the world?

sunday morning reflections

sunday morning finds me leisurely looking through pinterest, facebook, my flipboard blog feed and the new york times on my li'l iPad. husband always gets up and makes tea and delivers a cup, milky and sweetened with honey, so i don't have to leave the warmth of the quilts. the cats curl up next to me, purring and jockeying for position and it's pretty much my favorite hour or so of the week.

if i view the world through the lens of my various feeds, i have learned that vladimir putin has some canny editorial writers, we can no longer use the words lame, crazy or insane, disney has been infiltrated by the illuminati, the reason that time magazine didn't put putin on the cover in the US this week (he was on the cover everywhere else) was because the media is controlled by 6 corporations, sweden is awesome, there are a lot of injured, homeless animals in need of homes, iowa beat iowa state (i surmised this more from the silence of certain iowa state folks in my feed), people think it's homemade if you combine 4-5 premade ingredients (cake mixes, oreos, cool whip, jello and tortilla chips), eating the resulting sweet dessert will likely bring you closer to jesus, there is major flooding in colorado, berlin is where all the cool stuff takes place, triangles are the new circle, autumn is upon us, the latest trend in photographing food is to place it against a dark background, which serves to make it more moody and poetic and according to my myers-briggs profile (ENTP), i am sirius black from harry potter. 

i do wonder what effect this melange of input has on me? does it connect new synapses in my brain or reinforce the old ones? are my horizons expanded or narrowed? do i end up feeling helpless about my ability to do anything about the state of the world? do I even have the first clue about what state the world is in? does it take away my desire to argue against the madness before i even begin? am I even allowed to call it madness (that illuminati thing is pretty out there)? is it all a load of bullshit?

i listened to a pretentious panel of "experts" yesterday on P1 (our NPR equivalent, only even better) debate the ability of individuals to live more sustainably in practice. they justified their purchases of non-organic food, designer bags, frequent airplane travels, long showers and wasting of energy with homes filled with electronics they never turn off and ended up concluding that we as individuals cannot do anything about living more sustainably. we might as well load our grocery cart with cheap chicken and sit in front of our enormous flat screen televisions, clad in prada, planning our next holiday in bali. they decided that we should wait for governments to wake up and regulate us, since we were too lazy to take steps ourselves.

and while that's a pretty dire and cynical conclusion, and it rather pissed me off when i heard it (as i was driving instead of biking, no less) upon reflection, i don't think it's that illogical in light of the input we feed in to our brains. a lot of what we read and expose ourselves to points to individuals not being able to make one iota of difference (after all, the illuminati and those 6 corporations are controlling everything). and i'd like to say that it's lame and crazy of us, but apparently that avenue is now closed as well.

also in my various feeds, i came across a guardian piece by jonathan franzen about our frustrating way of conducting ourselves in the modern world. he harkens back to an austrian intellectual, karl kraus, who was  blogging in a journal called the torch, before blogging was invented. maybe we need to do as kraus did, and spend a lot of time reading stuff we hate, so as to be able to hate it with authority. i'll admit i'm not good at that, as i blogged the other day, i've been turning off those who post the most objectionable stuff on my facebook feed, because i don't want their vitriol polluting my mind or messing up the steady stream of photos of kittens and lego minifigures. 

i think i've said it before, but we have to start fighting back. we've been slacktivists long enough. it's time to start arguing against the madness. because not doing so clearly isn't working.

the A&F thing is much ado about nothing

i have to start by saying that i have long loved abercrombie and fitch, from the artfully ripped jeans to the dark moodiness of their stores, with that alluring scent of buy-me that they waft through the air. i get a little light headed just thinking about it (in a good way). hell, i even once named my cats after the place. the A&F items in my wardrobe are largely sweatshirts, but one of my favorite dresses - a simple blue linen one, that i've worn to tramp through egypt, russia, morocco, turkey, greece and the balkans, as well as my own back yard is also one of theirs. these clothes are old friends - they've been with me through thick and thin, we've had good times together and we will continue to do so. they're somehow an essential part of who i am. and also of how i see myself. and want to see myself. it's also how i want to see husband, so his wardrobe has had its share of A&F items as well.

there's a tag on the inside of this sweatshirt that says, "this body is incredibly shaped to meet and exceed standards for perfection." i bought it in an A&F shop in a mall in fargo (we could ask how exclusive they really are if they are in the mall in fargo, but i digress) in 2003. it's ten years old. so what the ceo of A&F said recently isn't news. it's how A&F has always been - targeting exclusive, upscale, popular kids. like me. because i want to be that and see myself as that. and i do.

so i have to say that my feelings aren't hurt by his statement. in fact, i find it refreshingly honest. the world is full of hierarchies and most everything is aimed at one or the other place in the hierarchy. it's about marketing and target audiences and who you're trying to reach and what you're trying to sell. am i the only one watching mad men? and he was being honest - their audience is the cool the kids, the posh ones, the snobs. why is it that we can no longer admit that there are differences between people? why does the world (or maybe just the internet) get outraged by something so nonsensical and so not newsworthy (it not being news and all)? what the hell is the matter with people?

maybe it's all just a publicity stunt. but i still love my A&F sweatshirts and especially that blue linen dress. and i'm not giving them to anyone. they're part of me, part of my story, part of who i am. let the homeless have ralph lauren instead.

pondering the world she will inherit

four years ago at this time, this blog was filled with politics. after eight years of dubya, and with the colorful figure of sarah palin (i actually kinda miss her) involved, i just couldn't get politics off the brain. plus, the air was filled with hope and promise with obama in the race. now, four years later, i find i feel much less passionately about it. and i don't feel even a glimmer of hope. what i feel is an inability to comprehend and a great degree of fear for the world which my child will inherit.

that said, i think obama is getting a bad rap. memories are short as to the mess he was handed after eight years of dubya. no one really yet knew at that point what the financial crisis meant. i would postulate that we still don't fully know. but he does seem to be a bit mired down. partially in an uncooperative house and senate and partially in an overwhelming array of things gone wrong. there aren't any easy answers.

i am bewildered that anyone could possibly be against universal healthcare. just read this story by nicholas kristof and tell me it makes sense. we have universal health care in denmark and although i was frustrated last winter with my local doctor, that had far more to do with a lack of customer service-mindedness than it had to do with socialized medicine. it is an enormous relief to know that if something is wrong...sabin falling from her horse in a riding lesson...we don't have to hesitate to go to the ER to find out if her collar bone is broken. we don't even think twice (tho' next time, we will get food before we go there, as there can be a wait - but that's true of ERs everywhere and again, has nothing to do with socialized medicine).

i am puzzled that anyone accepts the rhetoric against women being spewed by the republican party. it is the twenty-first century and it's simply unacceptable that in the so-called developed world there should be any question about access to birth control or a woman's decision-making ability over her own body.

and how romney can be forgiven for his 47% statement, made to a group of people he was sure were like-minded. he has said outright that he has no respect for half of the population. he won't release his tax returns. and he doesn't give a single detail of any concrete plan. and his supporters and their shirts saying, "let's put the white back in the white house" are simply beyond shameful. how anyone with a functioning brain can consider voting for him is beyond me.

but i really, truly don't get people who should seriously not be voting republican - for example, because they are living in a lesbian partnership and work for the federal government on an indian reservation and until recently had a child that was in state-sponsored care in a home - are intending to do so. because that seriously makes no sense.

it's like there's another logic in play in the US, one to which i no longer have access.

but that said, i have cast my absentee ballot for obama. i think he's the best choice if i want the world to still be a place i can in good conscience hand over to my child. plus, i want my president to be smarter than me. and i'm sure he's that. i can't say the same for slippery mittens romney.

reality is frequently inaccurate

i am a confirmed collector of quotations. i have small notebooks full of them. many from books and a few from films, but mostly from the clever people who surround me. i remember some years ago, a friend complaining that he could never make my quote book. but if you are trying too hard, you'll never make it. and he did eventually do so, with some quote about biology, as i recall (i cannot currently locate that small notebook, as many of my books are still packed away awaiting the renovations of this house).

but i've found myself thinking about quotations recently. because a lot of them seem to be floating around. there are these trendy postcards with pithy comments on them that i think have been brought on by an odd combination of mad men and pinterest. and those "keep calm and ..." variations. and my facebook feed is full of self-help quotes. platitudes really. and i wonder what it is that makes us need platitudes so much at this particular juncture? they're generally quite obvious and a bit vapid and aimed at boosting our self-esteem. but why do we need that?

is it really more prevalent now than in other times? has world economic crisis really shaken our confidence so much that we need empty reassurance that it's all going to be ok if we just believe, don't look back, crush monsanto, eat right, live in the now, stop medicating, eat raw, grow our own, look for the silver lining?

but what if it's not...what if all of the true Idea People are gone and all we're left with is mediocrity? and these platitudes are the logical conclusion. and what we're witnessing is the end of civilization as we knew it? what if it's not going to be ok?

where are the cutesy 50s postcards about that?

we won't solve the world's problems on a monday morning

the longer i live outside the country of my birth, the less american i get. it stands to reason. we are most affected by the environment in which we find ourselves. for me, this means that i have become more egalitarian (what? a differentiation in the car taxes by area (200% instead of 150%) to help with traffic congestion in cities? no way, car taxes must be the same for all), i have better taste, i am less likely to talk to strangers or say "excuse me," and i think that famous people should be allowed to get on with living their lives unmolested (winona, you did NOT just take a hit on that 17 when the dealer has a 6 up).

generally, i trust the integrity of the media where i live, find the healthcare system to be modern and accessible (even if they're not the most service-minded folks ever), and while politicians are a bit idealess, they're generally not corrupt (i mean, what's a little fudging your taxes among friends).  all of this contributes to my today having generally logically-reasoned, balanced, non-conspiracy theoretical opinions about the events of the world. and for that i blame credit denmark (and husband, all those holes he digs aside, that boy is good for me).

so it's quite interesting to encounter someone who makes wild leaps of reason in the course of an otherwise quite normal and reasonable discussion. for example, that michelle obama hates america. this reasoned from a comment that she made about having never been more proud of america before whatever day she made the speech. conclusion: since she'd never been proud of america before, she must hate it. really? i don't know the context of her comment (and neither did the person making the conclusion), but it seems pretty innocuous to me. and context would seem to be completely necessary to drawing any untoward conclusions. but my impression of clips i see of current american media is that context is irrelevant. and the person making this statement (possibly parroted from something former miss america (obviously makes her an authority on the level of affection for america) gretchen carlson said on fox "news") didn't question that at all. he had just ingested and then passed along the venom.

i really don't understand the venom towards obama. while i grant that he has not lived up to the promise and hope i felt in november 2008 as i bought a huge ring to commemorate his election and for the first time in 8 years didn't conceal my passport in line as i went through passport control, he has done what he can. i simply can't fathom why, when millions and millions have no health insurance anyone would be against obamacare. i'm still reeling a little a bit from a bloggy friend who asked me if it wasn't just horrible for the poor insurance companies? really? you can't be serious.

it strikes me that people's memories are short - does no one recall the mess he was handed by bush, an illegitimate president, bent only on being elected to get the approval of his father? when bush took office, there was a budget surplus.  after two wars that have accomplished little as far as i can see there is now billions in crippling deficits. bush's cronies dismantled the last of the regulation keeping the financial sector in check and i think it's quite obvious to everyone that's been a disaster of global proportions. these are the things that obama was handed to deal with. and no mere mortal could solve these problems overnight.

it's problematic in general that the people who might be the very best for a job like president of the united states or even prime minister of denmark aren't the ones running. it's problematic that we seldom have access to the real person behind the power - they are so spun and fluffed and polished that i don't think we have any idea who they really are and what they stand for, other than remaining in power. but, we've got to keep cool heads and draw logical conclusions and then vote accordingly. michelle obama doesn't hate america. to say so is ludicrous.  and makes me a little bit more inclined to start hiding my passport again when i'm in line for passport control.

rapturous skies

according to trending topics on twitter, the rapture is coming. i'm not sure who decided it (i hope it wasn't donald trump), as that's not really clear from 140 characters or less. it seems most people tend to be using those musing as to what they're going to wear when the end comes. but after a rainy and rather chilly couple of days, the sun broke through this evening and one could practically see the rapture on the horizon. hmmm, i wonder what i should wear...

not proud to be an american

i can tell you without a doubt that the death of osama bin laden did not bring the immediate return of reason to the wheels and cogs of american government. i spent a bit of time outside the american embassy in copenhagen today and what an experience it was. i witnessed instance after instance of lack of common sense in relation to people who had come to the embassy on various errands.

if you come to the embassy with a telephone, computer or iPad, you will not be allowed in. period. they will suggest to you that you take a train 3 stops back to the main train station in copenhagen and stow those items if you didn't come with your own car, where you could leave them to be broken into and stolen. they are so afraid of electronics (despite an elborate x-ray box of an entrance that appears to be encased within a safe, to protect it from the rest of the embassy), you can't have any of that with you at all.

they were even worried about people's car keys that have a little button you can press to lock and unlock the car. i saw a swedish woman being refused entrance due to her car keys. how do they think people get there? and do they think they leave their keys in the car? and do they really think that there's anyone on the planet today who doesn't have a mobile phone that they are likely carrying on their person? good odin, we don't even have a landline telephone at our house, we all have a mobile and let's face it, that's not unusual.

on top of it, you're not even allowed into the x-ray area with your bag until your bag has been thoroughly inspected - without you being present. you stand outside the mirrored doors until they decide your bag is ok - handing it back and forth to the guard for you remove various items. true story.

me, i was refused entrance because of the computer thing, but also because my errand there wasn't important enough to warrant my coming in. i was trying to drop off the papers for the renewal of sabin's passport. i had everything in order and simply needed to hand them over. i was actually supposed to send them, because we obtained all of the relevant signatures and such a couple of weeks ago in århus, when there was a consular visit there. i still had the papers on my desk and thought that since i was going to copenhagen, i'd drop them by. wrong. and would you believe they wouldn't even TAKE them from me? they said if i was there in person, the consular officer had to SEE me, and witness my signature (despite the stamp that it had already been witnessed) even tho' it was clearly all filled out and signed and stamped and ready and if i were SENDING the papers, no one would see me.  good odin, we'd had to raise our right hands and give an oath over the signing of the papers a couple of weeks before, but that wasn't good enough for them to take my friggin' envelope of papers. so i had to go to the post office down the street, buy an envelope and stamps and send it.

this is what all of this fear has done to common sense.  it's completely and utterly gone. and i can tell you that it's this kind of absurd and rigid inability to make sense of a situation that's right in front of you that will keep me from ever again living in the land of my birth.

i shouldn't be surprised, i guess a similar sort of temporary(?) insanity was also evident in the jubilation in the streets of various american cities yesterday. the power we ascribed to a man named bin laden will haunt us for years to come. look how it's made us behave.  it all has me feeling quite embarrassed to be an american.

bitter lemons

like many people, perhaps even most people, when i went to university, i took out student loans in order to pay for my studies. eventually, the day came when i stopped gathering degrees (that took awhile) and the student loans, sadly, entered the repayment phase. by that time, i lived in another country.  and it took a good eight months to consolidate the various loans from the various universities i had attended and to convince the good student loan administrators that not only were other countries but yes, sometimes people, even american people, will choose to live in them. and in those said countries, it might be much more efficient to do a regular bank transfer, as opposed to writing a check (which was a very archaic and unused system in a good portion of the world, even already in the mid-noughties).

the whole way along, i had dutifully kept all of the various interested parties informed of my address and contact details. and i had all of the paperwork on all of the loans with me, so i am absolutely certain that, after a stack of letters half a foot high, they were all eventually consolidated into one monthly payment which i continue to dutifully make to this day (it's set up with my bank to transfer automatically), a good five years on. but, as i said, it took awhile to convince these amero-centric folks that i lived abroad and that i needed an account to which to transfer the payments.

during the time that took, some (but strangely not all) of the loans entered default and must have ended up on a list of defaulted student loans. however, those loans are all part of the consolidated package i succeeded, in the end, in arranging and they are no longer defaulted.

then, 2009 comes and the crisis takes hold in earnest.  and suddenly, my parents begin to receive letters addressed to me (tho' never with my correct name) and plaguing phone calls, asking for me. leaving cryptic messages about student loans, but never going so far as to state any amounts or even lenders on said loans, nor what universities they were from. the letters are quite clever - they look very official and while they don't actually claim to be sallie mae, the official federal student loan consolidation folks, they imply that they are working on sallie mae's behalf.  which i know that they are not, because i can see my own records and check on my loan repayment status via the real sallie mae.

so it seems that there are lot of unscrupulous companies out there, who somehow got their hands on some very old information - both address/phone-wise and default-status-wise and they are actually trying to scare my aging parents into, i can only guess, giving them money! all of these companies - which have different names and which have their supposed vice presidents call and talk to my mom, seem to be based in wilmington, delaware. leaving me to think that must be the place that's sucking all of the happiness out of the universe (and here i thought it was the thai airlines lounge in the airport in manila).

what kind of desperate scam artists would do that? prey on someone's elderly parents - trying to scare them - with veiled threats of how much trouble their daughter is in.  even the letters are extremely vague - referencing "your loans" and although they have arbitrary amounts listed as well, absolutely none of the loan numbers or amounts match any of my records. plus, there's the fact that all of my student loans are consolidated and in repayment.

i can only guess that i'm not the only person out there who this is happening to, and i can only hope that other people's parents are as resistent to the threats as mine have been. i guess it's an indicator of how desperate times are that unscrupulous people resort to such tactics. and sadly, i fear it also means that they work, because the letters and phone calls continue to come, badgering my parents. simply because way back when i took out student loans, my permanent address was at their home. and as soon as one of them is told they are on a do not call list, the company name changes to a new P.O. box in wilmington, delaware and the calls resume.

and it seems that the only thing i can do about it is apologize to my parents that they have to endure it and assure them that all of my loans are, in fact, consolidated and being repaid.  i don't know what else can be done...there are a lot of websites out there, with similar complaints - i even read of a canadian woman who had never had a student loan in the US in her life being badgered by these companies. but anyway, i thought i'd write about it here, because bringing the issue into the open can maybe help a little bit.