The gun toting right wing christian lunatics are going crazy again. Over their right to put Kalashnikovs under their beds. Take away our guns, they say, and soon they'll take away our freedom of speech.
Yeah right. Everyone can see it coming.
There are two words for these hopeless people.
1. Den
2. mark
Denmark is one of those weaponless peacenik dictatorships where there's been no censorship since 1967. None. It's forbidden by law. Nothing can be censored. Under any conditions. It simply doesn't work so don't try it.
There are other things that don't work in Denmark - things that work in places like the US. But that only means Denmark is a nicer place.
2008-07-18
You Pick Your Paradise
Paradise is out there - but not where you'd expect it. To find paradise you have to take the time to look. Few people do. They open travel magazines and pick up a prefab tour. Oh what fun. Five minutes for pictures. Two months later you look at things in those pictures you never saw before. You can say 'I was there - that's me, that little speck, at the foot of Big Ben'.
Hanna Brodda published an interesting article today. Not that she's necessarily enlightened but she's pointing in the right direction.
http://www.e24.se/kvinna/kronikor/artikel_505983.e24
Some parts roughly translated.
How can a career person choose to live outside the city? In most cases I suspect a STRONG factor.
A stereotype dream.
With a house, a garden, and a patio it's always great weather. You see how you come home from work and choose to sit outside in the evenings. On Saturdays you let the children and the dog loose in the garden and they play side by side all the while you go on sleeping - and later when you want to get up you partake of a wonderful breakfast on your patio. You like to tinker with things so when you have time on your hands you build a nice play cottage for your overly happy children.
Crash! But wait a minute! It's first now in the middle of June it gets warm enough to sit outdoors and eat. And now it's only two hectic weeks remaining until your holidays. And during the holiday season your residential area on Lidingö, in Danderyd, or in Bromma literally dies - and you don't want to be abandoned, your children don't want to be abandoned either, so you have to go away on your holiday too.
Maybe you won't have a barbecue after all. Not on any of the eleven evenings all summer when the weather permits. How are you going to have the time to make the food, carry it out, when you have to work, pick up the kids, and make it home before both you and your children are starving - the trip suddenly takes longer than ever before. Anything from fifteen minutes to an hour - yes it does: don't listen to them when they say 'when I'm sitting on the commuter train it's only 7 minutes to the central station'. You don't work at or live at the central station! You have to keep on traveling, changing trains, waiting - and whoosh but suddenly you've 'traveled' away the time you needed to make your barbecue.
I live in the city and I am scared to death of the suburbs. I gave it a real try in Mälarhöjden for a few months but I ended up running away. It was empty - at the playground, on the street outside and in my garden. Not because there was a war on but only because there are so few people who can find room to live in a villa area.
The children played in my beautiful garden for four minutes. Then they wanted to visit a friend or they wanted me to come out and play. And I didn't have time for that because I had to re-kalk the bathroom.
We didn't have time with a play cottage because the ground was weak, the facade had to be polished, and the apples that fell down in droves had to be shoveled up.
It was a level of stress I wish on no one.
It's not the city; it's not the country; it's the work life. The rat race. The ekorrhjul. That's what you have to get out of. Then if you want to live in a city or the countryside is your business. You choose.
You pick your paradise.
Hanna Brodda published an interesting article today. Not that she's necessarily enlightened but she's pointing in the right direction.
http://www.e24.se/kvinna/kronikor/artikel_505983.e24
Some parts roughly translated.
How can a career person choose to live outside the city? In most cases I suspect a STRONG factor.
A stereotype dream.
With a house, a garden, and a patio it's always great weather. You see how you come home from work and choose to sit outside in the evenings. On Saturdays you let the children and the dog loose in the garden and they play side by side all the while you go on sleeping - and later when you want to get up you partake of a wonderful breakfast on your patio. You like to tinker with things so when you have time on your hands you build a nice play cottage for your overly happy children.
Crash! But wait a minute! It's first now in the middle of June it gets warm enough to sit outdoors and eat. And now it's only two hectic weeks remaining until your holidays. And during the holiday season your residential area on Lidingö, in Danderyd, or in Bromma literally dies - and you don't want to be abandoned, your children don't want to be abandoned either, so you have to go away on your holiday too.
Maybe you won't have a barbecue after all. Not on any of the eleven evenings all summer when the weather permits. How are you going to have the time to make the food, carry it out, when you have to work, pick up the kids, and make it home before both you and your children are starving - the trip suddenly takes longer than ever before. Anything from fifteen minutes to an hour - yes it does: don't listen to them when they say 'when I'm sitting on the commuter train it's only 7 minutes to the central station'. You don't work at or live at the central station! You have to keep on traveling, changing trains, waiting - and whoosh but suddenly you've 'traveled' away the time you needed to make your barbecue.
I live in the city and I am scared to death of the suburbs. I gave it a real try in Mälarhöjden for a few months but I ended up running away. It was empty - at the playground, on the street outside and in my garden. Not because there was a war on but only because there are so few people who can find room to live in a villa area.
The children played in my beautiful garden for four minutes. Then they wanted to visit a friend or they wanted me to come out and play. And I didn't have time for that because I had to re-kalk the bathroom.
We didn't have time with a play cottage because the ground was weak, the facade had to be polished, and the apples that fell down in droves had to be shoveled up.
It was a level of stress I wish on no one.
It's not the city; it's not the country; it's the work life. The rat race. The ekorrhjul. That's what you have to get out of. Then if you want to live in a city or the countryside is your business. You choose.
You pick your paradise.
2008-07-12
Chills
Our weather is still good but inside I don't know. Just received a message from a friend who will be out traveling and staying at yet another city centre luxury hotel.
I can't say with enough emphasis how much I detest such places. I don't need to reside fifteen floors above sea level with a spectacular view of concrete jungle. It's just not my thing. I've stayed in so many hotels in so many countries and today there's nothing I am more allergic to.
Concrete? Fuck concrete! I want to sit in a garden, listen to the breeze rustling in the trees, watch a bird drop straight down out of the sky to pick something up off the ground. I want to see the sun setting over a sea of green - and not washing over a stone cold facade.
The folly of human beings. Michael Crichton would have a field day with such aspirations. In fact he already has on so many occasions.
Human beings are such pretentious creatures. We need to stay close to the basics of life - the beautiful basics of life. That's where we come from and that's where we derive most of our wonderful enjoyment.
Paradise may exist but paradise is not a high rise. Paradise means things of nature. It always has and always will. Orcs and morlocks live in concrete jungles. Eloi live in nature. Give me Eloi any day.
I can't say with enough emphasis how much I detest such places. I don't need to reside fifteen floors above sea level with a spectacular view of concrete jungle. It's just not my thing. I've stayed in so many hotels in so many countries and today there's nothing I am more allergic to.
Concrete? Fuck concrete! I want to sit in a garden, listen to the breeze rustling in the trees, watch a bird drop straight down out of the sky to pick something up off the ground. I want to see the sun setting over a sea of green - and not washing over a stone cold facade.
The folly of human beings. Michael Crichton would have a field day with such aspirations. In fact he already has on so many occasions.
Human beings are such pretentious creatures. We need to stay close to the basics of life - the beautiful basics of life. That's where we come from and that's where we derive most of our wonderful enjoyment.
Paradise may exist but paradise is not a high rise. Paradise means things of nature. It always has and always will. Orcs and morlocks live in concrete jungles. Eloi live in nature. Give me Eloi any day.
2008-07-01
Representations
Coral roses - and paradise - represent things to us. They represent the exotic. The freedom of getting away from it all. A carefree life. No worries. No tuition fees. No bills coming through the mailslot. No more hassles with neighbours, coworkers, bosses, spouses, children. They represent stepping out of it all - stepping out of one's very society.
But you can never accomplish that. Some people think you can. You can't. No matter where you live you're going to be part of a society. Are you sure you like that society as much as your own? Some societies are indeed better - but a lot are much much worse.
If all you want is good climate: that's fine. But you'll be around people. After that glorious weekend as you waddle your way back to the airport to fly back home again to return to your vertical city - you're leaving people behind. People who live there 24/7/365.2422. Do you dare stay behind, going to ground, making it on your own?
Can you have paradise - with the paradise feeling - even on Monday?
You can. But it's really tricky.
But you can never accomplish that. Some people think you can. You can't. No matter where you live you're going to be part of a society. Are you sure you like that society as much as your own? Some societies are indeed better - but a lot are much much worse.
If all you want is good climate: that's fine. But you'll be around people. After that glorious weekend as you waddle your way back to the airport to fly back home again to return to your vertical city - you're leaving people behind. People who live there 24/7/365.2422. Do you dare stay behind, going to ground, making it on your own?
Can you have paradise - with the paradise feeling - even on Monday?
You can. But it's really tricky.
So What Happens on Monday?
So what happens on Monday? That's the big question. Go out back of your exotic hotel and see the back streets lined with discarded refrigerators, car wrecks, litter, sleeping dogs.
Of course there's the old story of the rich businessman down on the west coast of Mexico. He's walking along the beach and he encounters a fisherman winding up his work for the day. The two of them begin to talk. The fisherman tells the businessman all about his daily life. Up at sunrise, breakfast out in nature, out in the boat with the sky as his roof all day (and glorious weather all the time of course). Back home at dusk, turn over the fish to the lady who will sell them later, have some dinner, relax a bit.
Quite the life, thinks the businessman who then tells the fisherman:
I think I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to go back home and back to work for now and I'm going to work really hard - harder than ever before - and I'm going to save money like never before until I've saved enough and then I'm going to come back down here and live like you!
Of course there's the old story of the rich businessman down on the west coast of Mexico. He's walking along the beach and he encounters a fisherman winding up his work for the day. The two of them begin to talk. The fisherman tells the businessman all about his daily life. Up at sunrise, breakfast out in nature, out in the boat with the sky as his roof all day (and glorious weather all the time of course). Back home at dusk, turn over the fish to the lady who will sell them later, have some dinner, relax a bit.
Quite the life, thinks the businessman who then tells the fisherman:
I think I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to go back home and back to work for now and I'm going to work really hard - harder than ever before - and I'm going to save money like never before until I've saved enough and then I'm going to come back down here and live like you!
A Good Template is Hard to Find
Some of the templates are OK. But I don't like the colours. I'd rather have something based on coral. Coral is my favourite colour. Because it literally transports me to places I want to be. Or seems to. A bit of work online and one finds out what the RGB of coral is - or at least the shade I want. It's ff4040. Ever seen a coral rose? You haven't lived until you've seen one. But finding a template where you can actually change the colours - no. Not for beginners. You have to actually change images stored at blogblog.com. That comes later.
Guess What This Is!
Guess what this post is.
What's a 'paradise Monday'? What's a 'Monday' in paradise? Is it any different from any other day?
That's the question, innit?
What's a 'paradise Monday'? What's a 'Monday' in paradise? Is it any different from any other day?
That's the question, innit?
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