🏜 arizona :: maybe for the last time 🏜

(this is a substack that i just published)

i just spent nearly two weeks in the united states. i was very conscious the whole time that it might be my last trip there. our daughter is moving back to europe this summer to continue her studies in portugal. without her in arizona, i won’t really have any compelling reason to visit there again, despite still having some friends there. i still have family in the midwest, including my sister, but with the situation being what it is, i have to wonder if there will be a united states to go back to a year from now.

what struck me most during my visit was just how normal everything seemed. people were driving their cars, doing their shopping, picking up their coffee at the starbucks drive-thru, dining in restaurants, enjoying happy hours. just going about their lives as if there wasn’t a circus being performed from the whitehouse. as if the entire post ww2 world order wasn’t being torn asunder by a merry band of unqualified, unserious nitwits and the world’s (formerly) richest man and his minions.

i looked on in fascination. and i did all those normal things too - drank margaritas at happy hour, ate delicious mexican food, stopped by trader joe’s for those new light pink strawberries everyone on tiktok is talking about, got a new tattoo, shopped at the gap and old navy, went antiquing, picked up starbucks and ordered the best breakfast burritos ever from door dash. i even celebrated my birthday while i was there.

and it all felt so normal. it was just a really nice holiday in sunny arizona.

is everyone just avoiding reality? i honestly don’t know. i do my share of protecting myself from the daily deluge of the news, as i just can’t take the pace at which it’s coming. but i do follow along and know what’s going on. i do know that those clowns shared classified battle plans on a friggin’ signal chat, on which they included the editor of the atlantic (and any number of russians who were surely listening in as well, since at least one of them was in moscow at the time). i know that trump continues to threaten to take greenland and to insult denmark for being a “bad ally.” i read today that the european union is advising everyone to have 72 hours of food supplies laid in (that doesn’t really sound like enough if you ask me).

how can any of us think this is normal? how can we go about our normal lives, drinking cocktails and eating chicken & waffles for brunch? how did i do that? i honestly do not know.

going down in flames

the whole shitshow in the house right now, with the repuglicans' inability to elect a speaker, is like driving by an accident on the highway. you just can't help but slow down to watch the flames. and i have so many mixed feelings about it. i'll admit i'm mostly amused as i write this. though the utter dysfunction of one of the branches of the united states government isn't amusing at all. it does seem quite satisfying to see these clowns make fools of themselves. over and over again. where is the shame in these people?

i remember back when dan quayle was the vice president. that's when i began to be embarrassed for my country. little did i know that it would only go downhill from there. i thought he was really the lowest we could sink. a vice president who couldn't spell potato. oh, how we long for those innocent days. 

but honestly, these craven assholes are reaping what they sowed. at least biden and pelosi's house got a shit ton done over the past two years. nothing will get done now, if they're even able to seat the congress, it'll just be one long shitshow. but at least, it will likely make it very, very clear that no repuglican can be president in 2024 with this level of dysfunction.

while it's not the beginning of the end of the repuglican party (that started long ago and as you know, i blame reagan), it's surely the death throes. please let it be the death throes. let's hope they're going down in flames.

finding joy in the small things when the world seems to be falling apart

it's been a lot lately. the land of my birth is busily being dismantled by a tyrannical minority, against the will of around 70% of the population. and it feels like there's nothing that can be done about it. apparently we weren't paying proper attention for the past 50 years. or we weren't willing to do something about it because we didn't really believe they would be that backwards or that evil. but they are. and then some. and it's very disheartening. i find it very difficult to listen to it. mostly, i feel shame. being american is embarrassing again. i remember when obama was elected, i rejoiced that i wouldn't have to hide my passport while i was in an airport line anymore, but alas, i need to hide it more than ever. or finally get that other passport. it's definitely time.

i find myself looking for around me at the little things to be able to find some joy, despite how disheartening and humiliating it all is. things like the baby chickens our chickens hatched out and which two hens are very dutifully tending (though only one of the hens is in this photo).

or our very cute, but very fraidy indian running ducks, who stay, as husband puts it, in an organized clump and have the cutest penguin-like walk.

or the four-leaf clover i spotted as i sat in the garden the other day.

or the daily walks i've been taking during most of june to keep a new back problem at bay and to spend some time in my body as well as my head while listening to the cozy daisy dalrymple mysteries. 

or enjoying a really good cup of coffee in my favorite handmade ceramic mug. and the fact that my peonies are blooming.

it helps me feel less helpless. i can have an effect on things. i can pull those weeds in the garden and tend to the plants, i can feed the kitties and spend time with them in a favorite corner of the garden. i can do interesting work with interesting people. i can look forward to my child coming home in a week or so. i can put new sheets on the bed and snuggle into them at night. i can take a long walk. i can have long, deep conversations with husband. i can invite friends over and enjoy spending time with them.  i can sit in the chair i recovered with handwoven fabric and have the privilege of working from home and making a good living. and i can vote. for now, voting matters and is something concrete that i can and will do. it's clearer now than ever that it's important, so let's remember this horrible time and get our asses to the polls come november. our lives and the freedom to live them on equal footing with all those old white men might very well depend on it. 

i'm so over you, facebook

i had a couple of interesting encounters today with facebook’s helpdesk, which, in order to elevate it and make it seem more posh, they have chosen to refer to as “facebook concierge” (insert eyeroll emoji here). i am here to tell you that it doesn’t help. i don’t think it’s an actual bot (though it might be, i wouldn’t put it past facebook to fool me). the “people” answering your question (it happens via chat) all have strange names that i suspect are made up to seem pan-national – names like wani and jeia and azri (actual names i encountered today). maybe they just want to seem futuristic. 

all their chats are full of excessive amounts of flattery and friendliness. “thank you so much for providing more information,” and “thank you so much for sharing this with me!” and “thank you so much for your kind patience!” and then the slightly betraying non-native english, “thank you so much for sharing with me this.” and “it was wonderful speaking with you today,” despite not speaking with me at all, but only chatting. in fact, re-reading the chats, which of course happened via messenger, i am thinking that maybe it was a bot after all. but it was a clever bot, i’ll give them that. 

i feel a little sheepish for the way that i embraced facebook in the early years. i thought it was fun – i loved sharing thoughts and photos. husband saw through it and never gave in to it the way that i did. he’s so much smarter than me. i’m too trusting.

but back to facebook’s “concierge”…do you think they solved either of my issues today? well, you would be right if you said, “no.” and this is despite the fact that the account i contacted them about is my work account and my work spends millions of monies per month on ads in nine countries, so you’d think they would be a little more inclined to help. but alas, they were not. they gave me utter shite answers like “have you turned off ad blockers?” (hello, facebook, can you say self-serving? and also NO), or tried an incognito browser, or used a different computer? no, yes and yes. and yet, still the same issues. because my issues are related to the account and not the computer. 

oh, and did i mention that i had to verify myself 8 times – those being the ones that actually came through. i was asked to verify many more times than that, but whoever is pushing those codes through was asleep on the job. because honestly, facebook sucks. i cannot even express how much it sucks. and how much i wish that i didn’t have to use it as part of my job. i believe i’m at the point where i’d deactivate my account if i didn’t have to use it for work. 

the only consolation is that these are surely facebook’s death throes. they’re knee-deep in the midst of a roman empire-like demise. and it obviously gets very ugly before it’s over. dealing with their so-called concierge is only a small part of it. the rot is obvious whenever i log on. it's clearly populated by everyone's racist uncle  (or aunt or cousin). even the once-wonderful new york times cooking group is a prickly hotbed of righteousness these days. and the group for the isdal woman podcast is truly awful. people are just so mean to one another. there’s no room for nuance and intelligent discussion, or even just asking questions and definitely no room for  listening anymore. i have been as guilty of it as anyone, but i think as far as facebook is concerned, i’m over it.

so it's a good thing that today, my long-awaited invitation to clubhouse came through. thanks to one of the child's friends, who thought of me when she got in. i suspect my soul is young. but that's the stuff of another blog post on another day.

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.

road trip :: brobergs take the south 2018 :: part 3 :: the road

on our summer holiday, we drove 2,875 miles in our rented toyota sienna. that's 4,627 kilometers if those are what you relate to. no matter how you think of it, that's a lot of asphalt. luckily, the sienna was roomy, so it accommodated our suitcases and our snacks and a cooler of drinks and everyone was comfortable, so there wasn't any fighting or complaining about who was sitting where. we took turns driving, but husband did do the bulk of it.

i have found myself reflecting on the many roads we traveled and how that's true of life as well. and despite us all being in the same vehicle, traveling down the same roads, we undoubtedly each had our own experience of them. for my part, i told myself stories of the places we drove through and past.

in northeast alabama, i looked out the window at the countryside flying by. it was dotted with shabby, flimsy trailer houses with broken down vehicles and too many dogs in the yard. houses where it looked like people didn't have the energy to care about the junk on the falling-down, tacked-on porch. you could feel that life wasn't easy there, just driving past it. then there was a road in mississippi where the houses along the way were small, but built with care. they looked much more charming and kept up - with inviting porches that had chairs and plants, you could feel a sense of community and that people lived there, rooted in the place. then there was the gulf coast near mobile, alabama and on towards pensacola. the sandy beaches were beautiful, but ugly high rise buildings gave it an uninviting soulless quality.

the roads in the bywater neighborhood where we stayed in new orleans were in a very bad state of repair. but yet, i'm not sure i've ever seen a more charming place. colorful houses, long and narrow, but adorable - with shutters in contrasting colors and loads of gingerbread. each one unique, but somehow also harmonious - sort of like you would like to be as a person - your own individual style, but also playing a melodic chord - signifying belonging, yet room for individuality. what more could you ask in your road.

in savannah, we arrived in the evening at our airbnb and got turned around and started following the roads into a less prosperous neighborhood, where the main businesses seemed to be the liquor stores and greasy takeout joints on every corner. just a few blocks in the other direction was savannah's utterly charming downtown - filled with shops and cafés and restaurants. we managed to find our way to a most amazing chocolate café, where we ended our long day on the road with chocolate fondue, cheesecake and chocolate cocktails. such contrasts just a few blocks apart. the same road able to take you two very opposite directions, both literally (obviously) and metaphorically, all in the space of a just a few blocks.

all these roads represent so many stories, it was a veritable cacophony, i want to go back and listen to each one. and make more of my own.

road trip :: brobergs take the south 2018 :: part 2 :: school bus graveyard

alongside a georgia highway, we were looking for a stand to buy peaches when we came across an amazing sight - a line of graffiti-clad old school buses.

it was part of an auto mechanic shop and we went up and asked if we could have a look. a rather crotchety man with a heavy southern drawl directed us back out to the highway and a path you could take to walk up along the row. he very sternly warned that we shouldn't try to go beyond the row of buses or climb on them in any way. we assured him we wouldn't.

it would have been impossible to do so anyway, as they're very well blocked-off in between. there are multiple warnings to stay off, so it's not the most welcoming place.

there are some cool old cars up on top as well - i suppose to add discouragement for climbing them.

i don't know the story of it, as i think it's primarily a working mechanic & junk yard and only incidentally a bus graveyard, but it seems like proper graffiti artists were involved in painting the buses. at least some of them.

the starkest warning was one about snakes. i'll admit that worked on me and i didn't want to get too close to the buses.

it's quite a large area and it would have been cool if they'd had an observation tower you could climb up to get a better view.

i couldn't help but include this shot of this really cute guy i saw there. gotta love that scruffy beard.

road trip :: brobergs take the south 2018 :: part 1

we had a family road trip in the southern united states this summer. we visited 6 states none of us had ever been in before - tennessee, alabama, mississippi, louisiana, florida and south carolina.  the others hadn't been in georgia before, but i had. and technically, i flew through miami in 1988, but that doesn't really count as being in the state. this time, we visited beaches and the state capital, so it must count. i expected to have heavy exposure to trumpanzees, but we didn't actually speak to a single one. that surprised me quite a bit, but then i saw this piece in the nytimes - it seems we followed that blue route through the south, perhaps guided by some subliminal survival instinct. or maybe we just didn't really talk to enough people along the gulf coast. but we also ran into a surprising amount who vocally volunteered their embarrassment at the mangled apricot hellbeast.

a quick list of impressions/lessons/thoughts:

~ two weeks was just the right amount of time, even tho' we did have our occasional flagging moments. at the end, i was both longing to go home and wishing we still had a few more days and that's exactly how it should be.

~ cheesecake for lunch is awesome in the moment, but come late afternoon, proves not to be such a good idea.

~ way-finding and map-reading were the biggest challenges, even in this day and age of ubiquitous gps. we didn't have a phone plan where we could roam, so we were constantly looking for wifi to help us do our route planning. in the morning, we would plan our route in google maps while on wifi and then the gps does actually follow where you are, but if you deviate from the route you planned while on wifi, the google maps app doesn't handle it well. also, husband was horrible at being the navigator if i was driving, which is weird, because he spent 18 years in the military and is otherwise good at maps. everyone stayed happier if i did the map-reading and husband did the driving. tho' even then there were a couple of kerfluffles. lesson was that maybe we should just know where we are in a general sorta way. and we did buy a big atlas of the united states. it helped out on the highways and byways, but not as much within cities.

~ several of the best things we found were quite random -  a cooling creek/waterfall (mardis mill falls) on a hot alabama day, windsor ruins off the natchez trace, which we found by talking to an older couple at another point of interest along the way, and the space museum just over the louisiana-mississippi border on the way towards biloxi.

~ we actually stuck to our budget and we didn't really deny ourselves much to do so.

~ since we were five more or less adults, we needed two hotel rooms, so we were looking for rooms on the budget end, since we were mostly looking for a good night's sleep and not a place to hang out. plus, we wanted to save our money for great coffee, fun experiences and shopping in goodwill! after a few days of disappointment in the mid-range ($65-$80/night) hotels, we looked to airbnb, and we felt much, much happier. there, we found quirky places with personality, a bit more luxury and charming hardwood floors, still in our price range. if you haven't tried it, i'd be very grateful if you used this link when you do.

~ you should stay off the interstates and get onto smaller highways and byways. we did some of this, but undoubtedly not enough. when you do hit the small highways and byways, make sure you have a full tank of gas, as gas stations can be surprisingly few and far between. we stopped at one in a small town in mississippi where it was clear we were the only white people who had passed through in a long time. that made for some amusing conversations while we waited to use the bathroom.

~ shopping at goodwill is awesome and our child is a wizard at finding the best stuff there, no matter the location. probably the best one we visited (and we tried to visit as many as we could) was the first one, south of atlanta. maybe our eyes were freshest, but i think it also had the best selection. i got an awesome t-shirt that says, "sorry i'm late, i didn't want to come." that makes me laugh.

~ there seems to be a disturbing trend in the states - one of which i was previously only peripherally aware - from barbara ehrenreichs' amazing nickle and dimed book, but never imagined i would actually encounter (which sounds more arrogant than i mean it to). when we were staying at the lower-priced hotels, it seemed like many of the other patrons were folks who seemed to be living with what they euphemistically call housing insecurity. it appeared that the hotels were full of people who probably had work, but not enough money for the deposit on an apartment, so they were forced to live on a weekly or even day-to-day basis in these hotels. i was waiting to ask for a wifi sign-in and i witnessed two young women paying their rent, peeling the fee off a roll of one dollar bills (perhaps from waitressing tips). initially, they gave the clerk, who was behind thick bullet-proof glass, since it was nearly dark, less and he said, "no, it's $63." the second girl reached down her cleavage and got a roll of her own bills out and peeled off the remainder, saying, "there goes my fun money," and rolling her eyes. i felt a little bit shocked. others stood in their doorways, smoking or chatting on the phone, obviously very at home in the hotel. it made me aware of a stark reality in my home country. and also acutely aware of my own privilege.

and on that note, i'll sign off for now. more about the trip, with actual photos, tomorrow. i'm still sorting through all of them.

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...

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knausgaard's journey to understand russia.

beautiful.

makes me want to dig out my turgenev.

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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.

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do you know jonathan pie?

you should.

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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.

magnifying the woes of the world

i scroll my facebook feed and it depresses me. it's filled with scorn and outrage for the spray-tanned freak that holds the reins in the land of my birth. i too feel scorn and outrage for him and his most recent behavior (e.g. the past 7 months). but i also find it exhausting. and so i post pictures of kittens and i spend time with them and their joyous little souls. and i clean and tidy and donate and throw away and organize in our "box room." and between rain showers, i go out to the garden and i try to convince bella to be my friend. and i sit with molly and talk to billy and i pick kale and carrots and beans and cucumbers. and i feel better for a few minutes. but the monster is still there. and facebook still continually throws him in my face. and so i wake in the morning with an aching jaw and i try to forget. but i can't help but think that's not the right thing to do. there must be something we can do. that we should be doing. other than sharing the words of people more eloquent than we are or more outraged, to people to whom it won't make an iota of difference. and meanwhile climate changes means we haven't had any summer. and that weasel pulled out of the paris accords, which, while weak, were at least an agreement that most everyone agreed upon. and i wonder if bringing a child into the world was the right thing to do in light of the world we are leaving her. and i think those fucking assholes who voted for him should be ashamed of themselves. and i fear many of them are members of my family. and i think back to myself, screaming at my mother from a street in paris, as she told me how horrible obama and hillary were and how they were trying to take away her right to be a christian. and i remember thinking about how horrible it was that it might be the last conversation i'd ever have with her, since i certainly wasn't speaking to her again after that utter bullshit. and i told her so. and for a few minutes, it scared her back into her old self and we actually ended up having a proper conversation. tho' my throat was raw the next day from the screaming. and now this is my memory of paris. and i feel despair again. for all of the things that are lost and irreparable...the damage the cheeto is doing. and the loss of the mother i remember. and i realize facebook is but the magnifier of the woes of the world.

paradox :: soft guns

soft guns. in light of police shootings and folks murdering one another daily with guns in the united states, what could be more paradoxical than a set of cuddly guns? especially ones with happy, cheerful, bright flags extending from them, cartoon gun style? these were my contribution to our spring exhibition in creagive, our local group of creative souls.

paradox :: a whole bouquet of soft guns

i think i also made them as a way of working through how i felt about mom's bowling ball bags full of handguns and ammunition that we found in her car last december. i still can't breathe when i think of what she might have done with those guns in a fit of alzheimer's-induced paranoia while she was still alone out in her house. and a state that renews a permit to carry a concealed weapon for an elderly woman with dementia, when they've just ruled her unfit to drive. unfit to drive, but fine to go around with four loaded handguns. now that's a paradox.

i find myself thinking about that obsession my mother has with guns. especially one old, wonky 22 rifle that belonged to her uncle adam. a memory of him wanting her to have it has imprinted on her otherwise swiss cheese brain. interestingly, her sister, whose memory is just fine, tells a different tale of how mom got that gun - rushing to sergeant bluff to get it before a cousin could snatch it up after uncle adam died. it wasn't presented to her in solemn ceremony after all. and for some reason, it's the one thing she can remember these days. she's constantly asking my sister when she will bring it to her so she can go hunting. as if one hunts pheasants in the middle of the summer with an old 22 that doesn't shoot straight. as she stamps her foot and hisses in frustration, she doesn't seem to understand that she won't be going hunting again. maybe i should send her a soft gun to comfort her.

and you can have one too, if you're interested -  you can find them in my shop on big cartel - price is €70, including shipping. they are one of a kind and i will not be making any duplicates, tho' i may make more eventually. it was quite therapeutic to sew these up.

how will we ever get through this?

we saw this sickening sight when we visited the national building museum two days after the inauguration funeral.
they have hosted 19 inaugural balls since the late 1800s.

as we landed yesterday in billund, the final leg of my long journey home, i listened to an inane conversation in a thick, countryside danish accent taking place behind me as i scanned the front page of the new york times i grabbed from the rack as i left paris. my eyes filled with tears as i felt very intensely that mid-atlantic feeling - the one where i feel i belong neither here nor there.

the damage wrought by donald trump in one short week is incomprehensible. as i checked in for my flight home to denmark at washington dulles, on the floor below, people with valid green cards and visas were being turned back on the basis of their religion and nationality. on the way to the airport, my uber driver from ghana told me about how he was going to finish his master's and go back to ghana (he had been in the u.s. for 25 years and even had citizenship). in line for security and again on the train to the terminal, i had a pleasant chat with two muslim women about how sensitive the security machines are - they even picked up the little metal ends of a cord on my dress and i had to be patted down as a result. we parted ways and wished one another a pleasant journey. i didn't think to ask where they were from and i hope that they will be allowed back in if that's what they want.

i feel that much of what's happening renders me speechless - i can't find the words to express how embarrassed, mortified and powerless it all makes me feel. so i obsessively read the words of others - on facebook, on the nytimes and washington post, on blogs and such - voraciously consuming other people's words. and feeling that i no longer recognize the country of my birth. and it's only. been. one. week.

how will we ever get through this?

where are all of the dannede people?

danish has this great word, dannelse. google translate tells me it's formation in english, but it's more than that. it's a combination of education (the danish word for that being uddannelse), being widely read (at least partly in philosophy), having travel experience (slow travel of the kind favored in another age) and displaying good table manners. kirkegaard was a dannede man. erudite, gracious and a deep thinker.

the dannede person is capable of synthesizing complex thoughts and having a coherent overview of complex situations, further s/he is able to articulate real arguments with a basis in logical thinking.  s/he dresses well and can equally well dine with royals or with a table full of smoking intellectuals at the algonquin. s/he probably writes - essays, novels, fairytales, poetry or perhaps even the constitution. s/he commands respect because when s/he says something, it's thought-through and erudite.

we are sorely lacking such people in the world today. and i'm not sure how it happened. husband's theory is that it all went sorely wrong when the masses got money. once we no longer needed to be particularly educated in order to succeed financially, people stopped seeking education. eventually these people, who lack any basic training in how to form logical arguments and systematic ways of thinking about the problems facing the world, end up in places like the congress of the united states. and it all goes horribly, horribly wrong.

they have a lack of respect for the principles of a democratic process they don't understand - instead behaving like naughty children who throw a temper tantrum and stand and stomp their feet when they don't get their way. they don't understand the bigger picture or the tradition into which they've fallen - that when a bill is passed by a majority and signed into law, you cannot later tack it onto some other bill which has nothing to do with it and hold a whole country hostage. that's not how democracy works.

what seems to be the saddest part of the kindergarten that is now the american house of representatives (and i'm being sorely unfair to kindergartens here) is that there doesn't seem to be any adult supervisors. i have read time and again over the past week that this is a handful of extremists with a new and decidedly not dannede stranglehold on the repugnant party. there was a time when there were smart republicans out there, but they seem to be curiously powerless and silent and not doing a damn thing to rein these clowns in.

how on earth can the united states go around the world, forcing democracy down on the heads of afghanis and iraqis when they can't even get their heads around how it works at home?

i shake my head and feel grateful to be observing it from afar.

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please help gwen get stories to her students.

beyond logic and reason

last friday, south dakota's governor signed a bill which will allow teachers to carry firearms into their K-12 classrooms in the state of my birth. the bill does not mandate that teachers carry a firearm, but it authorizes an ominously-named "sentinel" who has had training (ala law enforcement training), to carry a gun on school premises. (you can see a whole list of all the bills he signed on friday here - there is probably reason to be alarmed on numerous counts, but that's another story.)

when i first read it in a new york times facebook post on friday, my initial reaction was a flush of embarrassment. people know i'm originally from south dakota and they will ask me about it, holding me responsible, taking me to task (tho' i haven't voted in south dakota for years (i vote in illinois, as it was the last state where i lived before moving to denmark)). but people took me personally to task back in the era of the monica lewinsky saga - "what are you doing to your president?" ("what monica did, given the chance," was always my pithy answer). alas i have no pithy answer for this one.

after a couple of days of thinking, my embarrassment hasn't abated. mostly, i think that south dakota was duped into this by a clever gun lobby. they got some numbskull of a freshman member of the house to introduce the bill, fed him a bunch of lines about it making schools safer, especially rural, isolated schools (where, to my knowledge, there have been no shootings) and some ego-stroking about being on the leading edge of the arming teachers movement and the republican-controlled legislature and governor steamed it right through. without thought or substantive debate. and frankly, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. and if they're not, i'm certainly feeling ashamed enough for them too.

even the largest newspaper in the state, the sioux falls argus-leader (which my parents refer to as the scene of the crime, since they met there), hasn't had a single editorial on the topic (at least not that i can find online). and they too should be ashamed of themselves.

a powerful gun lobby pushes such an detestable piece of legislation through in a conservative, sparsely-populated state and thinks it will start a domino effect of legislation in other states. and sadly, they're probably right. because we now live in a world where we legislate our to alleviate our fears. lawmakers are reactive, not proactive. but all of the legislation in the world can't prevent the lunacy of an individual with easy access to firearms.

these school shootings that have been happening (for years now - i remember one in the early 90s when i was a student at the university of iowa) are tragic and horrible and shouldn't happen. but how anyone can think that ensuring that there are guns present in a school can possibly help is simply beyond my ability to logically comprehend.

growing up with guns

i really do hate to use one of my last posts leading to number 2000 on the connecticut shooting, but i find i have a bit more to say, so use it i shall. tho' i do think that what jenna said about it is so well put that there's not really more to say.

i got a mail from a friend about the way that he, like many of us americans, was raised around guns.  and i have to admit that i was too. we had a really lovely rather bauhaus-style pistol in the buffet drawer and a number of shotguns standing down at the bottom of the basement stairs. i remember peeking in the drawer at the pistol to scare myself or show it conspiratorially to some friend, but never actually daring to touch it. it wasn't loaded anyway and i don't recall any bullets in the buffet drawer, so i imagine it was quite harmless. and i also imagine it's still there, tho' i didn't check when i was home last summer.

i loved (and still do) the story about it - my mother had inherited it from her aunt, who had been married to a banker in sgt. bluff, iowa. back in the 50s, someone had tried to kidnap her - it was such a wild story that it was written up in a one of those 50s detective magazines, mostly because as i recall, aunt mimi was feisty enough to escape from the kidnappers. but afterwards, her husband bought the pistol to protect her, in case it happened again. and we ended up with it in our buffet drawer. i think my dad tried to sell it to someone at one point, but it came back shortly afterwards, so that didn't really stick.

i also remember as a kid going with my mom to trap shooting competitions - she was pretty good and could compete with the best of the men. i always thought that was pretty cool. and a little bit as my sister often says, "mom is such a boy." i spent a lot of time reloading her ammunition with the reloader we had in the back room - a little dose of gunpowder, some bb's, a cap and a crimp (probably not in that order). i quite enjoyed that as a child.

pheasant hunting is a big thing in the area where i grew up, so hunting was a normal thing to me. many a meal was spent spitting out shot bb's from bites of meat. i never tried shooting pheasants myself, but i remember both of my parents doing so (that was in the days before they were all pen-raised with little sunglasses on). my folks weren't deer hunters that i can recall - dad always said something about how it would really only be sporting when the deer had guns too, but we did occasionally get deer meat from someone else. even today, i'm by no means against hunting (we have a friend who we allow to hunt on our lake - and we thoroughly enjoyed some ducks not long ago), i just don't do it myself.

i remember some raffle or other where dad won a gun, which only added to the 3-4 already at the bottom of the basement stairs, but i don't recall those guns being used that much after mom stopped trap-shooting. sometimes against the odd rabbit that was eating the apple trees or a nasty opossom or skunk that came around. i know i never had any desire to either mess with the guns or use them or even learn about them. they were just there, a fact of life. and i had no interest in them at all.

in the second grade, i was given a bb gun for christmas. we still lived in town at that point and i was told that it was meant to be used to shoot the dog next door, who was a really annoying barker. i probably did plunk him a couple of times (he was really annoying), but mostly, i think we shot at cans with that bb gun. and it certainly couldn't have killed anything, at least not with my shooting skills.

last summer, while we were back home, my cousin took sabin and her cousins out shooting at cans and jars. sabin thought it was fun. and i think it's a fine activity as long as there is adult supervision and proper instruction, which there was.

the fact is that most americans grow up around guns. they're a fact of life, they're in people's homes. we also all know someone who had an accident with one...a kid in the grade ahead of me shot off his toe (it must have been where he kept his brain, because he never amounted to anything after that) and one of my sister's classmates accidentally shot his little brother in the eye and wrecked his vision (but fortunately, didn't kill him).

but none of the guns in our home were assault weapons or semi-automatics. there needs to be more rules surrounding the possession of such guns - because it's just unnecessary to have them. you don't hunt with such guns, there would be nothing left to eat. it seems ironic that there are more rules surrounding obtaining a driver's license than a gun permit and more paperwork for registering a car than a gun.

and completely absurd that there is more support of keeping deadly guns in the hands of people than in ensuring that they have proper health insurance. a skewed set of priorities.

* * *

on a less serious note, how much do i love this?
read the follow-up post as well.

the road ahead

i don't know if today's election results will enable anyone to bridge the gaps, but anyway i am breathing a sigh of relief today. i got up at 4:15 to watch the coverage. at 5:17 a.m. my time, CBS called the race for obama. CNN quickly followed. BBC seemed like they snapped out of a coma and called it a few minutes later. the new york times took nearly an hour. and despite the florida vote still not being in as i write this, obama was re-elected by a comfortable margin.

this whole race was ugly. and the aftermath, as it's played out on facebook at least, is even uglier. i saw some things written there today by bitter republicans that simply scare the hell out of me. the blatant racism and hatred in evidence is frightening. and the things with which they credit the president (the demise of their businesses, their cancer, their dog being hit by a car) are simply astonishing. i've been gone too long. i knew bush had destroyed my country and gave voice to all those extreme lunatics, but but i don't think i fully appreciated exactly how bad it was.

so despite being relieved that obama won, i wonder at what price?

waiting game

i was interviewed about the election live on the radio late this afternoon, during the afternoon drive shift. it was fun. i could get used to that. i have now announced to all of trekantsområde that i am considering seeking danish citizenship if romney wins.

we just had to turn off the television again and i had to close huff post, msnbc and nytimes. i can't take any more. i just want it to be over with. fittingly, i'm reading jon ronson's them - a book about extremists and conspiracy theorists.

however, i'm sure i'll turn it all back on in an hour or so. i am both repelled and attracted. hopeful and in despair. but mostly rather sick to my stomach. it's just a waiting game now.