Only-NeverInSweden

New York Times In Defense of Clean Energy

2012-01-28T12:36:00.002+01:00

This post is addressed particularly to any New York Times reader who might see comments on the lead editiorial in the New York Times on 28 January. Anyone who lives in one of the Nordic countries is quite familiar with energy technologies apparently unknown to NYT staff but if you are, for example, in Sweden enjoy the pics of Big Glenn below.

The editorial has the strange title In Defense of Clean Energy, as if one had to defend Clean (Renewable) Energy. Only in America, apparently, given Republican and Tea Party love of fossil fuels.

So here a short report on new Renewable Energy developments in Gothenburg, Sweden and at Champlain College, Burlington, Vermont.

In Gothenburg, Gothenburg Energy, in cooperation with American General Motors, has just christened the largest wind turbine in Sweden. The turbine, for reasons unknown named Big Glenn is 145 meters high and will produce 15 million Kwh/year. This is equal to the annual production of all 10 of the other turbines that surround Big Glenn, those each about 50 meters high. I write this while on one of those islands in the distance, where I can look out over the water you see in the picture.

Those other 10 turbines look like this one in a Wind Farm at Brahehus Castle on E4, a famous historic site. On one side of the road a wind farm, on the other magnificent Brahehus. No conflict between 21st century renewable on one side, a magnificent view on the other (Brahehus pic to be added when I am back in Linköping).

On the other side of the Atlantic, a small ray of hope, again from Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont. You can read about and see Champlain’s first venture into geothermal at my earlier blog post a few clicks below at 11/23/2010.

Here below you see the artist’s rendition of the new dorm project at Champlain College consisting of buildings that will be heated and cooled by the next geothermal system under construction. Ground Source Geothermal (GSG) works. If you are in Burlington, take a look.

Imagine, all these buildings heated and cooled by a system that you will not be able to see and that will not be emitting greenhouse gases as in the "good old days" when all such were heated by fossil-fuel systems.

Champlain College has entered the 21st century, when will the University of Vermont take that step? And, for that matter, when will the New York Times publish its first serious article on GSG?

Here you see Big Glenn with all 10 of his neighbors. Note that all these wind turbines are placed in an industrial area where off to the right there remain giant cranes in the Gothenburg ship-building district.

And here is Big Glenn seen from Rivö, the high-speed catamaran ferry that was returning me to the mainland on 30 January 2012.

Take this boat (a pre-catamaran ferry) to see Big Glenn-Nästa, Styrsö Bratten!
Written while on that island (Styrsö) you see at the end of the boat's wake!

Time to Meet Hawa and Edna

2012-01-22T18:38:00.000+01:00

I want quite simply to introduce you to two extraordinary women who were introduced to me by Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist a little more than a year ago. Christmas 2010 was approaching, and I was trying to find organizations to support in place of giving Christmas presents within the family.

Nicholas Kristof made my first two choices very easy. On December 18, his column had the title, Gifts of Hope and in it he presented ten organizations who deserved support but who were probably unknown to most NYT readers. One of the ten was the Edna Hospital in Somaliland in northern Somalia. Three days earlier his column had focused on another hospital in Somalia, which I will refer to here for convenience as Hawa Hospital.

Edna is the first name of Nurse Edna Adan, whom you see in the first picture with Birgitta from France. Edna is the founder of Edna Hospital, a maternity hospital, filling in part the needs of mothers to be in a country with among the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world.

Hawa is the first name of Ob/Gyn Doctor Hawa Abdi whom you see in the center of the second picture flanked by her daughters Amina and Deqa, who are also physicians.

You can easily find stories in the Times about these two extraordinary women and their hospitals and just as easily find the links making it easy for you to contribute, should you wish to do so.

The goal of this post is quite simply to suggest that it makes it easier to give if you find personal reasons for doing so. My first reason for selecting these two women and their hospitals and in addition Doctors Without Borders is that they all meet the most absolutely critical needs in one of the countries of the Horn of Africa.

My second reason for selecting these three is that I have close friends and acquaintances from Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea which make up the Horn. My friends from Eritrea (one doctor and two nurses all sisters) led me me 8 years ago to Doctors Without Borders. Then as I became acquainted with more and more Ethiopians and Somalis and developed friendships with them and learned about the severe need for support for mothers to be and for their babies, I was programmed to respond to Nicholas Kristof's recommendations concerning Edna and Hawa. And, strange as it may seem, here in Linköping, Sweden, at the Red Cross I have found women related to Hawa or who know her.

You can see one of my Eritrean friends and two of my Somali friends in another post in this blog. I leave it to you enjoy the task of trying to identify which is which. Send me an Email if you want to engage in the identification game.

2012-01-08T16:24:00.000+01:00

2012
The Tree in the Pond No Longer Reflecting

Just a few reflections to begin 2012. Just below these lines you see the sign on the tree from the post that was the most enjoyable (25 September 2011), not least because it required many hours of running along the Göta Canal, then photographing, and then composing. A group of artists working under the name of Meteorprojekt placed a variety of objects and inventions along a stretch of the canal (see the post) with the sign you see here: Har du sett något? Have you seen something?

I simply add the suggestion När du ser något, ta tiden att titta - noga. When you see something, take the time to look at carefully.

My New Year's card, sent so far only to family, suggests that you take the time to study two photographs of The Tree in The Pond (km 3.2, LOK milen, Vidingsjö, Ullstämma naturreserv). I say no more. (Just click on the first picture and you can see the trees at full screen size. Going out to visit my friend - The Tree that is - now Saturday, 21 January).

2011-09-09

2011-12-09

Den första Lundgren jag vet något om var skogsvaktare uppe i Hofors och som Ni kan förstå från bilderna är träd, levande eller icke levande en väsentlig del av mitt liv.

Jag hade inte haft en chans att göra annat än fotografera trädet tack vare placeringen In The Middle of the Pond. Men när jag kom tillbaka till Linköping söndag 8/1 var det klar blå himmel uppe och helt vit snö nere. Då var valet lätt. Hur hade trädet nu? Bilden visar svaret. No more reflections until spring, at least for The Tree in the Pond.

2012-01-08

Spår

This pond was created when I was in Burlington, Vermont in June and so too was another pond upstream in what had been a wheat field crossed by a road at km 8 on Vidingsjö milen (10 km trail). I did not venture out on the ice to get to know the Tree in the Pond close up since I did not know if the ice would bear my weight.

Jag sprang tillbaka till den andra dammen och där, till min förvåning, såg jag konstiga spår (tracks) i snön. Here they are, titta! (Look!) Whatever made them was drawn to the sun (This is Sweden, after all.)

Och här är svaret-Here is the answer. Det var en man som hade skridskor designade för "long-distance" skridskor åkande. I was both jealous and happy. I love to skate so that is the jealousy part but I want to go out to the Tree in the Pond and now I know I can so that is the happy part.

Det visade sig att farsan var med den yngsta ishockey spelaren i familjen och så skall det vara som i den näst sista bilden. It turned out that the father was there with the youngest hockey player in the family, and that is as it should be as you seen in the next to last picture. (Fotnot för någon som har sett SVT Kronjuvelerna som jag har, Ni kanske kan reflektera om vad Ni ser här och var och en av ungarna i filmen, de som kan skridskokonsten så att säga.

Hör av dig om du har sett något! Let me hear from you if you have seen something! Njut av 2012 ute i skogen, på isen-Enjoy 2012 out in the forest, on the ice.

Nu har jag fått krama The Tree in the Pond och samtidigt fått se något nytt och vackert, iskristallerna på den elektrifierad vajern runt dammen

Now I have been able to hug the Tree in the Pond and at the same time see "något nyttt", something beautiful, ice crystals on the electrified wire fence around the pond.

America's Greed Affair with Fossil Fuel

2011-11-07T19:26:00.000+01:00

I read the New York Times OnLine every day here in Linkoeping, Sweden and I read it soon after it is issued, this made possible by the 6 hour time difference.

Almost every day in this newspaper that is read throughout the world, I read one or more articles about the latest developments on the energy scene in the United States.

At the present time, most of the "column inches" on energy are devoted to the development of natural gas trapped in shale, development made possible by "fracking" a technology that has side effects and water supply demands that are in keeping with the sound of that word - try it, say it out loud a few times.

Proponents are given ample space to sing the praises of this development, and even a seemingly non threatening NYT writer like David Brooks (in the Times today, 7 November) can only sing the praises of fracking.

I have just read The Debate Forum, which also is devoted today to fracking. There you will see the level of thought concerning renewable energy that dominates in the USA. The writers may mention solar and wind but that's it. You will never see a serious article about renewable energy use in Sweden or Denmark to name two countries that are leaders in renewable energy.

Why? Read Paul Krugman's column, also today, with title Here Comes the Sun. There you will read what is obvious to anyone not counting on getting rich by selling rights to a fracker, there are so many people, many of them in the Congress, who can meet the needs of their greed by preserving fossil fuels as the only source, that serious development of renewable is not possible.

I write this in an effort to convince myself that it is a waste of time to try to comment on this subject by writing comments to Time's articles or by sending Letters to the Editor. If you look at an older post here in 2010 you will see a picture of Ground Source Geothermal at Champlain College in the USA. When I wrote that post I thought / Finally/Äntligen, even in the USA. I was wrong.

Never in America Renewable Energy Part 4

2011-10-25T11:02:00.001+02:00

The text below is copied from my comment published in the New York Times as no. 82 in the comment section on Paul Krugman's column. (Added 25 October / An important proposal to create GSG at Roosevelt Island was reported in the NYT on 24 October and will be added here ASAP). I plan to add several pictures above but since my comment has my blog referenced I want to add a comment at this time, more later. My text below says simply, until the United States government develops renewable energy plans that are at least as good as those in Sweden, Denmark, Germany and possibly other European countries it is doomed to fall far behind these countries environmentally and "energetically".

Interestingly, the first comment filed on Krugman's column says the same thing I do, using Germany as example instead of Sweden. That comment was approved of by 424 readers. Although my comment was submitted at 1:30 AM Eastern Standard time, the Times shows it as being submitted at 10:21. I note this because ordinarily the first comments printed are those that are the most read.

The Times shows the following comment as being submitted at 10:21 am. In reality it was submitted at 1:30 AM since I was writing in Sweden.

I agree with Paul Krugman. I am an emeritus professor in geology familiar with America,the Fossil Fuel Nation, who, in retirement, lives in Sweden, the Renewable Energy Nation.

I ask a simple question: Who in the United States is doing the analysis to show what full scale conversion to Renewable Energy sources could do for employment while at the same time moving America into a future the Republicans do not want to see?

The answer is, to judge from what I read every day at midnight New York Time in the NYT OnLine is: Nobody, either in the institutional sense matching API efforts or in the journalistic sense.

For both the President of the United States and the New York Times there are only two kinds of renewable energy worth mentioning: wind and solar, neither of them 24/7 sources. Both are valuable, neither provides widespread multi-level employment opportunities.

Thus I offer a simple proposal for a journalist or a Think Tank.

Study the renewable energy system in Sweden - present and planned -(or another European country) and compare that in detail with the energy situation in, let’s say enough of New England to give a population matching Sweden’s 9 million (I’ll suggest Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island all of which I have lived in).

A sample. Heavy frost outside here in Linkoeping, Sweden where all 140,000 of us are being kept warm by Distance Heating (DH) based on the combustion of municipal waste and by Ground-Source Geothermal (GSG). My home heated by DH, my neighbor’s by GSG. The buses and taxis outside my window are running on BioGas produced in Linkoeping from waste. The rail system is running on electricity from hydro and nuclear power. The landscape just west of me provides a magnificent display of wind turbines on a scale I have never seen in New England.

Imagine the labor force needed to create that in New England. For a small sample see Only-Neverinsweden.blogspot.com (Larry Lundgren/emeritus Univ Rochester)

Har du sett något-Have you seen something?

2011-09-25T01:40:00.011+02:00


Välkommen-Welcome to the Göta Canal on a fall day in Sweden

So Let's take an Old Fashioned walk! Själv springer jag. I run.

She rides her horse.

But you are going to walk.

And, when you, like I, stop, you are going to take this advice from:

Olive (You're Not Alone)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkg7Ozu0pH8

Open another browser, paste in the Olive URL and listen while you look-it works 2/2/2012

(In English, Have you seen something?)

Open your mind (eyes), surely it's plain to see, you're not alone


*And when you look behind, you will surely see a face that you recognize*


*It is the distance, that makes life a little hard*

So thought Eva Dickson, she above on the tree so close to home at

The Castle (Ljungs Slott)

I will not falter though, I hold on to your hope,

Safely back where you belong

Eva Dickson did not make it back "Safely where she belonged". She was driving her car north from Africa through Iraq when she, like Iranian woman poet, Forough Farrokhzad, drove her car of the road - for Eva near Baghdad - in1938, like Farrokhzad meeting her death at an all too early age. (The figures on the tree symbolize Eva Dickson's adventure from Africa northward.)

Eva Dickson never could settle down, her situation, like the situation in the Arab world was always fluid. She perhaps drove her car shouting

"Insha' Allah" trusting in God to help her say in a never attained old age,

"I Have Always Lived in the Castle"

So listen to Olive, open your mind - and your eyes
and you will surely see all this and in your mind's eye much more

Ett stort tack till följande konstnärer som jag aldrig själv träffat

But maybe I will, Insha' Allah, some rainy day in October
between Högåsa and Ljung Wa

Only In Sweden
2011-09-24

källor
meteorprojekt.blogspot.com
http://www.popularhistoria.se/artiklar/aventyraren-eva-dickson/

Black, brown, and beige are only colors

2011-07-31T14:45:00.004+02:00

Thinking about/responding to human difference (One in a series-maybe)
Lite svenska här så jag kan göra detta mer begripligt för mina vänner som kommit till Sverige och först måste lära sig svenska innan de kan också ta an engelska. Idag, 5 september 2011, förkortar jag den engelska texten och lägger in lite svenska här och var.

Where I write in the past tense "wrote" instead of "write" och på svenska skrev you can be sure that this is where I have changed the original text.

Today on July 31 2011, I have just discovered that I started my blog Only-NeverinSweden.blogspot.com exactly two years ago to the day. My primary interest then, as now, was to learn and write about the way human difference is “met” (thought about etc) in the region of my birth, New England, USA and in Sweden the home country of “farfar and farmor” and of “mormors far och mor”, where I have lived since 1996.

I wrote the original version to provide a background for asking friends about Human Difference or perhaps better about identity. Who am I?

In the original I wrote that I would make contributions to organizations like Doctors Without Borders if friends read this and perhaps wrote about their individual identities. I made contributions to Somali Relief Funds, and will make more in the future so that is taken care of.

Osman and me-Red Cross, Linkoeping

Abdi-Winooski, Vermont

Iman (left) and friend-Linkoeping

Jean Luc and me-Mount Philo, S of Burlington, Vermont

Här kan Ni se fyra vänner till mig. Alla fyra har rötter i Afrika. Detaljerna följer på engelska.

Here are four friends of mine, two of them standing next to me, another next to another friend of hers, and one alone. Osman, a friend of mine who has lived in Sweden and in Taunton, MA next to my birthplace Attleboro MA. Abdi another friend of mine who runs Halal Market and Banadir Store in Winooski, Vermont. Iman, a Medical Doctor who has lived all of her adult life in Sweden. And to the left, Jean Luc and me up on Mount Philo in June 2011.

Here I simplify from the original. Jag förenklar.

I just wondered how you the reader think when you meet someone who is different from you. American sociologists seem to believe that the first thing we do is ask what "race" is this person?

Jag bara undrade hur du som läser detta tänker då du träffar någon som inte liknar dig. Amerikanska sociologer verkar tro att det första vi gör är ställa frågan - vilken "ras" tillhör denna person?

Jag säger helt enkelt så tänker inte jag och inte de flesta. Jag är bara nyfiken - berätta om dig själv. Vad vill du berätta för mig?

Just idag skulle jag säga, t ex - jag talar två språk (svenska och engelska), jag älskar att läsa och skriva i dessa två språk, jag är alltid nyfiken och måste lära mig något nytt varje dag. Musik, böcker, människor som visar respekt för andra, och att vara i skogen (springa eller bara lyssna) är alla viktiga delar av mitt liv nästan varje dag. Jag hoppas då och då lyckas med att göra vad jag kallar Acts of Simple Kindness och Rödakorset i Linköping, Sverige har gjort det möjligt för mig och det är jag tacksam för.

I originally wrote this contribution because I had just read and reviewed a new book The Nature of Race-How Scientists Think and Teach About Human Difference by Ann Morning, Assistant Professor of Sociology at New York University. The two different reviews are at amazon.com and amazon.co.uk.

I have read the entire book twice, and to say it simply: I do not understand why so many American sociologists, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the New York Times all think that the best way to think and talk about human difference is to place people in little boxes with a "race" name.

I cannot accept this practice at all and felt that way long before I moved to Sweden in 1996. Geneticall distinct races do not exist and even the socially constructed "races" that Professor Morning and others employ all are thought of in part in terms of some fundamental genetically based differences. This kind of thinking turns up in the USA in noteworthy form when admission to a hospital requires telling the hospital what "race" you belong to.

I believe that scientists can say everything that needs to be said about human difference without ever even mentioning “race” and in this I am strongly influenced by the research of Swedish-born scientist Svante Pääbo. Yet it appears to me from reading Professor Morning’s book (even the questionnaires as noted above) that her mode of thought almost requires that she place every individual she encounters in a particular “race” box or that she expects every individual to be able to place himself or herself in a “race” box.(The box phrasing comes from the nature of the forms in the 2010 United States census and forms given at some hospitals in America.)

I have removed much of what I originall wrote here, but retain anecdotes from her book.

The first part is from the chapter Introduction, the second from the chapter Conclusion):

Ann Morning In America-“When I was twelve weeks pregnant, my doctor ordered a blood test…Before drawing my blood, a nurse asked me to state my race. Usually I describe myself as African American, but on that day, piqued by my curiosity about what race had to do with my unborn child’s health, I gave the full version of my ancestry: African, European, American Indian, and Asian. ‘Oh’ the nurse replied as she noted my answer on the form, ‘So you go in the “other” box’.”

In Italy-“The second time I was pregnant, I had the good fortune to be living in Italy…in Milan, no one ever asked me what my race (or ethnicity) was. …yet it seemed that doctors and technicians were perfectly able to care for me without that element of information that had seemed so indispensable back in the United States….If race were an important constituent of our physical constitution, why wouldn’t Italian doctors take it into account as assiduously as their counterparts in the United States?”

Professor Morning seems to have a touching belief that telling a doctor that she belongs to the African-American "race" is of great medical value. Perhaps this would be true if this "race" were pure and genetically distinct from other "races". Her story shows just how strange her own "social construction" is. Apparently an African-American can have just about any lineage you can think of as long as that "African-American" wants to think of himself or herself as belonging to a "race".

Question to End All Questions-And finally, what about this man, whose father was born in Kenya and in Professor Morning's terminology would be described as belonging to the "black" race and whose mother was born of parents whom she presumably would assign to the "white" race.

In the 2010 United States Census he checked one "race box", the one named "black" but as you may know, he grew up with his mother and his maternal grandparents. How useful then is his self-described assignment of "race" in a medical context?

Clearly, among some members of the American medical establishment, information about human difference is regarded as important, but the question is: How scientific must that information be? I do not think "Black" is sufficient, and that is why I used Duke Ellington's terminology Black, Brown, and Beige as my title. The Duke wanted to make the point when he composed B, B, and B that the American people who were called "Negro" or "Blacks" in the highly racist America he grew up in were really a much more diverse people than the designatin "Black" allowed. .

All thoughts welcome! My afterthought is this. I know where the parents of each of my friends were born, but I would love to see the family tree of Ann Morning, given that she writes that her ancestors have three different geographic origins and one named ethnic origin.

To place myself and each of my friends in a "race" box is for me the most absurd kind of thinking I can imagine. I am just me. Iman is Iman - beyond category. Each person is important for their many qualities. When will people in America, especially sociologists, begin to accept that?

Revision 5 September 2011

Soon to be revived

2011-07-03T17:07:00.000+02:00

Here in Burlington, Vermont (and for 10 days in Westport, Massachusetts) there is too much to do to even consider blogging. But back in the empty squares (torg) of Linköping, Sweden, there will be plenty of time, so stay tuned.

Tomorrow is the 4th of July which will begin with a 5 km race in South Hero, Vermont. The dynamic duo Annika and Larry will be there at the beginning but not together at the finish.

New YorkTimes Friedman 23 Feb Now or Never

2011-02-23T19:07:00.000+01:00

Thomas Friedman returns to a familiar subject today, a return based on the fact that in the early morning crude oil was up to $95 bbl and as I write this I heard $105 bbl.

His subject. Increase gasoline tax 5 cents a month (I think that was his scale). I support but added in my comment (here tomorrow 24th) that in New England where 50% of all space heating is oil heat (NPR data) it is feasible right now to be installing Ground Source Geothermal everywhere. Why? See my November 24 post and an earlier one in July 2010.

So simple, so feasible. But what is the new governor of Vermont talking about in terms of Energy Policy? Approving a few wind turbines on Lowell Mountain.

With that as an energy policy there is no hope.

Race in the New York Times

2011-02-14T13:14:00.000+01:00

I recently experienced ICD 9 s 431 which in Swedish is AC-LEDSLUXATION meaning that my right collarbone flew over the acromion process after a fall on Swedish ice. Result for my blogging is left index finger typing and thus brevity.

I must in any case call attention to two New York Times series Race Remixed by Susan Saulny and today’s set of six statements in the Times series Room for debate 13 february both easily found at NYT OnLine.

Read the comments to learn that we are many who find the US Census Department’s “race boxes” to be absurd. You can see that at least two of us even in Sweden think this way.

And now on the 14^th of February after reading the Room for Debate essays can I say to Dilsa Demirbag-Sten, Saki Madone, and Per Bauhn “Nu förstår jag varför Saki skrev sin fina essä “Sluta särbehandla” och D D-S och PB “Till frihetens försvar”.

Take a look even at janlotvall.wordpress.com February 11 “Race” and terms such as “African-American” – are they racist?

He and think these are worth discussion? How about you?

Styrsö, Sweden patientstugan

2010-11-23T15:29:00.019+01:00

Ground source geothermal

or Why do Americans love oil burners?

Today’s entry arises because I began my dark winter day here in Sweden at 6 AM by reading the New York Times Editorial on Energy. At the point in the editorial where it was time for the NYT writer to use the obligatory words “renewable energy” the writer followed with the only two kinds the Times is acquainted with – solar and wind.

I have submitted 7 Letters to the NYT Editors asking if they just might insert Ground-source geothermal (GSG), and have written the same in every comment that the NYT has dutifully accepted – probably 15 to date.

So here, once again as on July 23d, a primer on GSG. But first a question. Why do Americans still love oil and natural gas furnaces? I lived for 40 years with oil burners in America and I never saw one I liked. The only kind word I can say about them is that unlike the natural gas furnaces in Brighton, New York where I then lived they at least the oil burners did not explode and destroy houses. Small praise.

The NTT's much loved solar and wind are just fine in their place but they do not work 24/7 and they are all too visible for some folks and even too loud (wind turbines) for others. Compare those situations with what you see here in several not very dramatic images. (Images may not all be here in first post, later!)

When you see this sign (here on Nov 11) you will know you are close

Apelgatan 7 silent heat exchanger

Lets’s start at Apelgatan 7, where I live. It has been snowing hard all day but thanks to this little white box, it is warm here in my living room and there is a plentiful supply of hot water for showers or the like. The little box is a completely silent Heat Exchanger (HE). A few kilometers from here a state of the art Municipal Waste Incinerator burns the trash and supplementary fuel to heat water that flows through a pipe to my heat exchanger 24/7. Imagine! That little box about 3 feet high replaced a gigantic oil tank and an all too large and loud oil burner.

Why wouldn’t you choose the white box in an instant, if you had a choice?

Beats me.

Invisible borehole

Now let’s go next door to Apelgatan 9 or at least to the front yard as it looked this morning. Apelgatan 9 is heated by Ground Source Geothermal (Bergvärme in Swedish). The heat comes from a 120 meter deep drill hole next to the flag pole. Sorry, nothing to see there. As I said, invisible renewable is better. Inside Apelgatan 9 there is also a heat exchanger, more nearly refrigerator size than mine, but still clean and white and working 24/7.

So can some American please stand up and tell me why he or she would prefer to have an oil or natural gas burner rather than one of those white boxes.

You may think that Americans do not know that GSG and Municipal Waste Incineration systems have so much to offer. True, for the majority and especially for the NYT. Yet there is a ray of light as may be seen at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont.

Consider this building Perry Hall Large, recently renovated, and heated (now) and cooled (then in July) by GSG.

Perry Hall heated and cooled by what you see below - GSG

If you look very carefully on either side of the walkway you will see two well heads. Here is one of them close up. Ground water comes up through this well.

Well head

Heat exchanger

This water passes through this heat exchanger (to the right) in the basement, and is returned to the ground through the other well. Simple, right? Works 24/7 right? And as close to invisible as you can get without being completely invisible.

Imagine the oil burner system this heat exchanger replaced. Why would you want that?

The State of Vermont is using this technology in Bennington and some day maybe Vermonters will decide that it is time to change. Maybe even you will consider it is time to change. Here’s hoping.

And as the song from my long-ago childhood told us

"The weather outside is frightful, but the fire inside's delightful,

so since there's no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow."

Even if the "fire" is without flame!

Corren, Linköping och Burlington, Vermont -Till min förvåning

2010-08-14T18:05:00.013+02:00

Preface for you who do not read Swedish. This post was triggered by an Email from a Swedish musician in the group Vindra (find them on MySpace etc) who was replying to a Letter to the Editor of Corren, the local newspaper here in Linköping, Sweden. That Letter refers readers to my blog where, they are told, they can learn about the music scene in Burlington, Vermont.

Välkommna, Ni som kanske har läst Corren i dag 14/8 2010. Först tack till fotografen Ola Axman som tog en fotograf av en ensam människa med laptop (kunde varit mig) som sitter ensam vid ett av Linköpings tomma torg.

Nu eftersom jag just upptäckt till min förvåning att Corren publicerat insändare som jag skickade för kanske 3 veckor sedan, ville jag skapa post utan att vänta. Ni kan se bilder av Linköping i min post 7/8 och av Burlingtons musik scen med det senaste The 4th of July (Independence Day) och andra om Ni klickar på Older Posts.

Church Street (till höger) är världens bästa gågata. Färgrik, tusentals gående från tidigt på morgonen till sent på kvällen. Restauranger som Red Square här erbjuder Live Music för alla, inte bara för kunderna.

Från den ena änden av Church Street till den andra finns gatumusiker som visat Church Street Committee vad de är för musiker och vad de kan.

Här två tjejer (nedan till höger) som spelar dragspel och gitarr och sjunger med mycket bra harmoni. (Mina äldre inlägg visar ett litet urval av andra sorters musiker.)

Men det finns även rappare som den här killen till höger

Och till slut för i dag en bild av en Burlington Breakdance Group som gör breakdance till musik som får hela publiken att klappa för att uppmuntra dessa "wild and crazy" dansare.


Varje dag, flera gånger, det bästa som finns

Det var Burlington, Vermont under ett par timmar på

The 4th of July

Magda's aria - So ends kammarmusik festivalen

2010-08-07T20:44:00.005+02:00

Outside Styrsö kyrkan on the First Day of August in the Year of Our Lord 2010 the scene is serene leading perhaps to thoughts of Elegy in A Country Church Yard.

Within the church, the full orchestra has gathered to carry us and Susanna through to the end of these three evenings of sheer delight.

Here a small sample of orchestra and soloist on this concluding evening.

We who filled the church this last evening need just one more song, the encore or "extra nummer" from soloist and orchestra. Our applause and foot stamping - a Swedish custom - brings results and Susanna explains to us that she is going to sing an aria that we perhaps have not heard so often, "åtminstone inte på Styrsö"

The aria is "Chi il bel sogno di Doretto"
"Who can interpret Doretta's dream?" and it is Magda (Susanna) who tells those around her that in the dream Doretta remembers a student who kissed her and, in this remembrance, Doretta realizes that "love is the key to happiness". The music alone opens the floodgates for many listeners, and now, "Even On Styrsö" we know Magda's aria. Act 1 of the opera, La Rondine, ends with Magda disguised and leaving alone, perhaps hoping to find true love now that she is in disguise.

Here is our Styrsö Magda, alone and waiting for the true love that Doretta's dream holds before her. And, yes, this is a fairy tale, so our Magda's true love soon appears to the left on the steps.

Our Styrsö Magda then spreads her wings taking flight - like the swallow (Forse, como la rondine) that fortune teller Prunier has told her she can become - and she is last seen high over the island where all this magic - hers and others - has taken place.

Footnote: I tried to enter the YouTube URL that would take you to Leontyne Price's version of Magda's aria but blogspot would not let me do that. You can find it and other versions.

.

Kammarmusik 31 juli Lennie mm

2010-08-06T21:20:00.000+02:00

What I love to hear

Here in the video clip you see my good friend, Lennie, who, like I, landed in Sweden as a result of marrying "en göteborska". He gets to start this clip laying out one of the themes for you to hear. After awhile, konsermästaren Josef is given his place in the sun playing this theme - and then, what I love most is Lennie taking off in rush and, at the right moment, known only to the others, they come in and we are off on the chase. So since this is all very personal and my chance to thank people, "tack Eva", I have been endlessly happy that Lennie is on this side of the Atlantic.

And here, to my surprise (uploading and placement are two blog processes that have minds of their own, so although my good intentions were that Susanna and violinist (Josef, I think) would appear at the end, here they are in the middle.Click and you shall see - and hear!

Here yet another gem, violinist Ingrid with the Keith Jarrett of classical piano, Terése, directing at the piano. (A footnote that is inserted here because I do not think blogger allows for footnote - If I have named someone incorrectly, if you wish to correct or delete anything I have written or shown, just let me know at lwlundgren@gmail.com and I will correct - edit - the post.

So all you wonderful people out there, I hope you were as happy on this Friday evening as Ingrid and Terése were when you showed them what you thought of their performance. I am having, as usual on Friday night, a ball!

Bara på Styrsö-Only in Styrsö kyrkan

2010-08-04T19:52:00.003+02:00

Som sagt tidigare, efter Burlington, Vermont, saknade Linköping något. Live music perhaps. Yet a solution was at hand. Go west "young man", go west to västkusten Göteborg och vidare ut till Anns ö, Styrsö. There all one had to do on Friday evening to solve the music withdrawal problem was to take a walk.

The first song I learned in Swedish when in Oulu Finland in 1968 was Vi skall gå hand i hand, genom skogen du och jag (We will go hand in hand, through the forest you and I), and here is the forest called Arbores skog (a "lund" actually from which you learn the meaning of the first part of my last name, Lundgren). But I digress.

At the end of the trail, we have "gotten to the church on time" where we open the iron gate and enter Styrsö kyrkan under the 1752 telling us that the church is more than 250 years old.

Well inside, we are welcomed by Minister Agneta with the same words "...Ni är varmt välkommna..." with which she has welcomed her flock - and more - during the preceding eight years and this time to Styrsö kammar musik dagar 30, 31juli och 1 augusti 2010.

Here in this first post you see small samples of what Prästen Agneta, herself a trained vocalist, has brought to us Only in Sweden, Only in Styrsö kyrkan, with the support of who knows how many others. Fråga inte mig.

Terés and Johan

Charlotte

All I can do here is show you what you have missed. For the most part you must use your imagination to hear the music, all of it at the highest level, making every moment a Magic Moment (an LWL - that's me - coinage)

And to close this first effort, only a picture of soloist Susanna Andersson

Det skulle ha blivit video här men jag kunde inte upload. ADDED 5 AUGUST - I WAS ABLE TO DOWNLOAD VIDEO TO MY FACEBOOK SO IF YOU ARE A FACEBOOK FRIEND YOU CAN LOOK THERE. OR SEND ME EMAIL AND I WILL LINK YOU TO THAT VIDEO IN WHICH SHE IS SINGING PUCCINIS Oh mio babbino caro.

Eat your heart out, her singing of this well known song was gorgeous and since she is looking in Sture's direction I am reminded as always of an American Standard, They're writing songs of love, but not for me, she's singing songs of love but not for me. Jag återkommer. Just a simple country boy.

To be continued, förhoppningsviss

Med ett stort tack till Ann på Styrsö, kvinnan som bodde alldeles ensam i ett ensamt hus på en öde ö

Even in Burlington, Vermont

2010-07-23T13:10:00.002+02:00

Three or four summers ago –long ago to put it simply-I sat up on Mount Philo in Charlotte, Vermont and looked out over this scene. Lake Champlain and beyond that out of sight the Adirondack Mountains of New York State and directly below me many large and expensive homes on broad expanses of grass

A beautiful view, every day, but I had other thoughts arising from the fact that I live in Sweden where the word “bergvaerme” (geothermal energy from bedrock) is a household word. Why so? Because in a country of 9 million people there are to date 370,000 geothermal energy systems in use. "Only in Sweden", I thought.

My next thought was: “I’ll bet that all of these expensive homes are heated by oil or natural gas.” Why so, if the USA is in such great need of freeing itself from fossil fuel dependence.?

I wrote a letter to the Burlington Free Press (BFP) and sent Emails to five University of Vermont Professors. My suggestion that geothermal might be an alternative was ridiculed in the BFP. No professor answered my Email. Geothermal? “Never in Vermont” apparently

In my city in Sweden, Linkoeping, the oil burner is practically extinct. My home, like most, is heated by hot water piped from a high-tech municipal waste incinerator. My neighbor’s home, like many others is heated by closed-loop geothermal.

Now these many years later there are small signs of hope blowing in the wind – no wind turbines below Mount Philo, you may have noted. The most visible sign of hope came from an initiative taken by the Senator from Vermont, the honorable Bernie Sanders who held a forum in 2010 where geothermal was mentioned for the first time. But talk is not action.

And then, in this the summer of 2010, I found two signs of actions taken.

The first I discovered – thanks to my UVM daughter number one – was the well hidden existence of a geothermal system at the Vermont Vietnam Memorial on Route I-89 just after you enter Vermont from New Hampshire. Here it is. Have you been there?

If you have I will bet you never knew that the beautiful building is cooled and heated by geothermal energy. No oil, no wind turbine, no chimney, no smoke - a geothermal system is invisible. You won’t learn much about geothermal there, but maybe that can change. “Never in Sweden” a welcoming rest place with free coffee, I might add.

But now, July 2010, Eureka. I visited Champlain College in Burlington and found a professor to whom I posed this question: “Do you know where the geothermal project is. He (Name to be added if I can find his card) said, yes, follow me, after a short walk he pointed to this building, Perry Hall, soon to be the new Admissions Office complete with brand new geothermal system. Nice place. Cool in the both the geothermal sense and the vernacular.

Today I close by showing you the two essential elements of a geothermal system used here (open-loop system is the term). More another day.

In looking at these two small elements you will realize, I hope, why geothermal goes unnoticed and unremarked. On the left, the source well, with the bottom deep in the bedrock below the site. Cool water is pumped up from this well and into the heat exchanger and heat pump system in the basement of Perry Hall.

On the right, the return well through which the slightly warmer water is returned to the bedrock.

Water in, water out. More another day. It works. In Perry Hall, at least, the oil burner is extinct. And in signing off, thanks to Michel George of Champlain College who in good time will tell you the whole story at the Champlain College web site. And if any UVM Professor reads this, Why not "Even at UVM"?

Footnote added 24 July 2010 The Champlain College web site has a complete photo album on Perry Hall but no photos of the geothermal system. Therefore the two above can serve as a complement and soon additional photos in a new post on the system inside. The URL is:

http://www.champlain.edu/News-and-Events/News/Perry-Hall-June-2010.html

2010-07-17T13:38:00.003+02:00

On July 14th , if you read New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s column Seduction, Slavery and Sex, you were quickly be led to not one but two Only in Sweden phenomena of interest to columnist Kristof.

His opening line? “Against all odds, this year’s publishing sensation is a trio of thrillers by a dead Swede relating tangentially to human trafficking and sexual abuse. ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ series tops the best-seller lists (in the USA)”

You do not know what and who he is referring to?

Here is some help. Walk into your nearest Borders Bookstore and here is what you may see (what I saw in June in Borders in Burlington, Vermont). THE TRIO!

And, if you have not met the heroine of the novels and the films then here she is, Lisbeth Salander in the (Swedish) films, Noomi Rapace as actress and Swedish citizen.

He continues by noting that “ A trio of best-selling Swedish novels, along with legislation, are shining a light on human trafficking and prostitution”. He neglects to mention that trafficking in Sweden was first put in the spotlight by the Lucas Moodyson (also Swedish citizen) film Lilja 4-ever. But what about the legislation?

The legislation to which he calls our attention is the “sexkoepslagen” The law dealing with payment for sexual services. Since he realizes that few women who have been trafficked have the resources and the will to deal with abusers as Lisbeth Salander does, he recommends that legislators in the USA and elsewhere consider adopting the Swedish law as a step toward decreasing trafficking.

Many of the 162 readers agree with him and express in their comments their strong support for taking such action. As one of the 162, and as far as I can tell the only one writing from Sweden, I support his goal but suggest that much more careful examination of the effects of the law are needed before taking such action.
The law says that it is a criminal offense to pay for sexual services. This in contrast with an older view that it is a criminal offense to sell such services. The law has been in effect since 1999. The question is the same as with all well intentioned laws – has it significantly decreased prostitution or more specifically trafficking? Kristof says that it has but cites no sources.

A counter view is widely held, one that says that the law simply motivated sellers and buyers to move even more quickly from the street to the internet. I cannot provide sources at this writing providing data, but I take this opportunity to call attention to a serious study of the larger subject, prostitution in Sweden, a study that undoubtedly bears upon the law against the selling of sex and on trafficking.

First the study, then a closing note on a current court case.

The study is a Ph.D. dissertation with title (in translation from the Swedish) “Is sex work? Swedish and German Prostitution Politics Since the 1970s.” The author is German-born Susanne Dodillet who now holds a Ph. D. from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden after successfully defending her dissertation in 2009.

As I understand from the extensive coverage of her dissertation, she is convinced that her research shows that the German policy of legalizing prostitution is the better approach to dealing with both trafficking and the abuse of women who sell sexual services.

(She has kindly provided me with an eBook of her dissertation, which is some 600 plus pages long, so I eventually can correct the simple assertion above.) Since her dissertation is in Swedish, anyone interested in learning more must turn to possible future publications in the peer reviewed English language literature or contact her directly.

The goal of this post is in principle to note that Kristof and readers seem to have an overly optimistic view of the beneficial effects of the Swedish sex law. In my experience, especially before I moved to Sweden in 1996, I all too often held such optimistic views about human behavior in Sweden.

There is at this time a case that went to trial on July 5th in Sundsvall, Sweden, that is already shaping renewed discussion of the sex for pay law. A man has been held for managing the sale of sexual services provided by five women for at least 400 men, all via the internet. Here are 400 men each of whom potentially could have been charged under the law but who, of course, were not. What conclusions might be drawn about the effectiveness of the law from this case? We shall see.

Yes, Only in Sweden finns the Magnum Gold Ice Cream Bar

2010-07-09T19:57:00.004+02:00

If you have read the last two or three, you understand the theme. Some things happen Only in Sweden, others Never, things such as the masterful playing of fine music on the street.

Men eftersom det är fredag kväll på den dagen då man ropar högt TGIF tänker jag visa alla något som bidrar till ett fint firande av TGIF, något som finns Only in Sweden.

The object of my affection, which contributes so much to celebrating TGIF is called Magnum Gold, created just for the Summer of 2010. So look at the picture, and, if you happen to be on the - in this case - wrong side of the Atlantic, eat your heart out.

Or better yet, contact the manufacturer and open a franchise in the US of A.

Here it is, with its more ordinary partner, whose name I have never mastered. And now that Friday the 23d has passed, I can reveal to you what is inside these packages. It is true that svenskheten (Swedishness, a beloved concept in the debate section of newspapers) really requires the consumption of large amounts of alcohol on Friday night.

But since I am Swedish in name only, my excess is in the consumption of the two forms of ice cream shown in the pics to the right. In the Hokanson, Jaederqvist, and Lundgren families who emigrated to America in the 1870s, svenskeheten was synonymous with being absolutist, which means the total avoidance of alcohol. Thus every Sunday was celebrated at my great aunt Hokanson's house by indulging in the consumption of 10 different kinds of ice cream. I keep that tradition alive, but only on Fridays.

Linköping 8 juli - tystnaden och tomheten

2010-07-08T23:54:00.001+02:00

Jag antar att du som kan läsa svenska har tittat på föregående post (Church Street 4th of July) från Burlington, Vermont. Om du inte gjort det föreslår jag att du först titta på dem. Bilderna visar vad man upplever där sju dagar i veckan fast med nya musiker - för att inte prata om Break Dancers - varje dag. Jag kommer att visa Break Dancers i en ny post inom dem närmaste dagarna. Jag tillbringade 3 veckor i Burlington.

Tillbaka i staden Linköping där jag bor i Sverige gick jag direkt till Centrum för att se vilka som spelar där.

Två bilder tagna på samma dagstid som dem i Burlington talar sitt eget språk, därför behöver jag inte skriva mer.

Gyllentorget kl. 16.10 8 juli 2010 - Linköping, Sverige

Trädgårdstorget kl. 16.00 8 juli 2010 Linköping, Sverige

Church Street - "Doing" on the 4th of July

2010-07-05T04:10:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I wrote that what I want to do is show what people are doing on Church Street and who is there on Church Street. Here is a moment on time on the 4th of July, a moment lasting long enough for me to move from one point to another. More slowly than normal, I might add, thanks to a protesting thigh muscle damaged in the Clarence Demar Memorial 5 km race in South Hero earlier in the day - 8:30 AM to be exact.

So let's get down on Church Street, seen from Brueggers Bagels at a rare instant of pedestrian free pavement. To my left at that moment was a very fine guitarist (Eric LaFave) playing his own music entirely for his own pleasure - and ours. A bit further along the street we are in another musical world, that of Johan Sebastian Bach played from memory by a very young violinist.

Eric LaFave suggested that I also wander up or down Church Street to find an accordion player he thought well of. Up around Borders Books I found a fine accordion player although apparently not the one he had in mind.

Here is a "For the 4th of July All American Accordion Player with Ten Gallon Hat". Having just finished a rousing Stars and Stripes Forever complete with the closing piccolo line she moved on to Irving Berlin, Dancing Cheek to Cheek. A song like that from the American Songbook does not leave people unmoved, as you see here from a dancing duo who had no truck with that "Cheek to Cheek" approach.

I myself would rather have been dancing than photographing but photographing gave me the chance to close by showing you two of the many attentive listeners and watchers.

Only a small figure here in the background, a woman who came to the USA from Cambodia via Vietnam twenty years earlier, finding herself on the 4th of July in Burlington with a very small child as attentive as anyone else at this end of Church Street.

Here she is, small child born in the USA!

Closing notes. Anyone who is shown here and wishes to have his or her picture removed let me know. LWLundgren@gmail.com

And, as you can see, I am not yet conversant with formatting within blogspot. The layout I see as I write isnot the layout I will see in Preview and therefore not in the posted form. So bear with me, I can only improve "eller?" .

Doing and being

2010-07-03T23:33:00.000+02:00

As you may have figured out, I am photographing life in Burlington as seen on the street and in the parks. You cannot have figured out that back in Linkoeping, Sweden I will do the same thing at the same times daytime and early evening in Linkoepings corresponding public places.

There are two or three things on my mind, as you may also have figured out. Here are two.

What's happening?

What is going on out there? What are people doing on a Friday and Saturday in a small city in America?
Who's there?
Who are the people out there? Bystanders, watchers, performers - people

Here are samples. Then I am on my way back. No time to be hanging out creating blog posts but a sample might be worthwhile.

Here is Sid, 14 years old. Playing Miles Davis Four, for example.

Here is a face, on paper. The original will be revealed tomorrow, perhaps.

And to close this off for the afternoon, here is a face and a bass.

American faces, American music - Only fitting given that it is the 4th of July tomorrow. I will celebrate early since the Clarence Demar Memorial Race takes place in South Hero at 8 AM.

Stay tuned.

2010-07-03T03:40:00.000+02:00

July 2d - Let Me Count the Ways Continued.

In the beginning of July 2, I found Michel George of Champlain College in a transformed ice house on Battery Street. More about that another day. On leaving the Ice House, I was faced with this question- What's your passion?

I won't transcribe what I wrote but the words are the skeleton of a text on counting the ways.

Friday night on Church Street defies description. Images not yet edited will tell part of the story sometime. They will help to tell the story answering the question "What is the central experience that life in the USA, at least Church Street USA, offers that is an alternative definition of American Exceptionalism?" Not to worry, no pedagogy tonight.

Here you simply see the place to which I retreat when sensory overload threatens. Muddy Waters Coffee House on a Friday night at about 8 PM - three people, one of them in the middle with Sicilian background supplemented by St. George backup, who asked the simple question, "What pictures have you been taking?" The answer will begin tomorrow.

For the present, just wish yourself to be in this picture and say to the man in the middle "Small dark here."

Let Me Count the Ways

2010-07-01T21:44:00.001+02:00

I promised on the 19th of June to start writing and now on July 1 I understand that I will have to go into retirement to write everything that I want to tell the world (my one blog reader, if that). The Sufi "mystic" Rumi wrote in Farsi (Persian) that there are a hundred ways to pray, and English speaking poets have taken the liberty to express that as "There are a hundred ways to kiss the earth."

In a sense, they are one and the same statement as I hope you can see from my annual homage to my mountain, Camels Hump Mountain in Vermont. The picture was taken today at the summit but the wind was blowing so hard and the rain was driving horizontally that I only had one chance and had to take shelter a bit lower down.

That is one of the ways I love Vermont or being in Vermont.

Another way I love Vermont is that in Burlington, Vermont, I am given endless opportunities to enjoy environments like this one, Speeder Earls Coffee on Pine Street. Never in Sweden, sadly.

And here at Speeder Earls I take chances and occasionally ask a question as I did just now - no picture. A woman was engaged in discussion with two young women with magnificent corn rows (there may be a more accurate name but that is the best I can do) who looked as if they might have African roots in the sense that they, unlike the standard African-American, were born there. I asked and I was rewarded. The three were discussing something planned - perhaps - by the Vermont Multicultural Alliance for Democracy. My question always is - What languages do you speak? Here part of the answer was French, Swahili, English, and ?. Now you, my lonely reader can place them in the country to which NPR has devoted much of its day, the country freed from King Leopold Fifty years ago. They are not (yet) in the picture.

So let us hope the pictures appear here, then I must leave. But stay tuned!

Never On Line

2010-06-19T15:17:00.000+02:00

I'm in the USA now and enjoying every minute of it. I have promised various people that I will start writing again here but not quite yet. I am on the Massachusetts coast - with luck there will be a pic or two here to prove that - with one new family member arriving each day. So with so much to talk about, serious blog entries will have to wait. Perhaps if I list what I want to write about I will force myself to act.
1) Enjoyable experiences without exception at each medical caregiver I visit. (Since I benefit from the USAs "Socialized medicine" called Medicaid, I make the most of the chance to check up on everything while I am here, all at no cost.)

2)The well known friendliness of all kinds of people, something that is experienced most dramatically before, during, and after each 5 km race I take part in. So far Day of Portugal last Sunday and tomorrow, the 21st Father's Day Race in Fairhaven, Massachusetts.

3)My endless unsuccessful efforts to get the New York Times to accept and publish a letter from me in which I use Sweden as a guide for Barack Obama's Clean Energy Policy, which so far is only a phrase.

So let's see if I can sign off with a picture of my beloved Horseneck Beach. There is what I see as I walk from the dunes to the beach. And perhaps there is even me in my traditional stance - celebrating!

Time to talk about Energy, Swedish style

2010-05-05T08:47:00.001+02:00

Added 18:07 Swedish time - At the bottom of this post is the URL to the comment on the Friedman article in the New York Times to which I refer.

On the other side of the Atlantic the two major news items of the day - 5 May 2010 - are about the BP oil-rig failure in the Gulf of Mexico and the capture of the Pakistani-American said to have admitted being the "Times Square (almost) Bomber."

The BP oil-rig failure has given at least some of the "Drill baby, drill" (for oil that is) enthusiasts cause for pause. Arnold S. (the one in California) has proclaimed "Not here, not now, never." Sarah Palin has not been heard from as far as I know.

This has led me to try to find a few free minutes to begin again my small-scale campaign to find someone in The Green Mountain State (Vermont), my home-away-from-home who is truly knowledgeable about what is called here in Sweden "bergvärme" and in the USA by some as ground-source heat.

I have sent a Letter to the Editor of the New York Times (always an exercise in futility), inquiries to the Burlington Free Press (only residents may have their letters published), and even to Senator Bernie Sanders who at least seems to know what geothermal energy means.

In today's New York Times OnLine I have already read Tom Friedman's plea for serious energy policy och till min förvåning see that already the Times had approved 32 comments. (Usually no comments get approved until around 7 AM Eastern Time). I have submitted mine. Let's see what happens. (Added 18:07 - The Times readers liked my comment)

Stay tuned

URL to my comment on the Friedman article recommended by 31 of the 109 and selected by the site.

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/opinion/05friedman.html

Marja, Afghanistan Reality

2010-02-21T11:15:00.000+01:00

Yes, three weeks have gone by since I could report on something completely enjoyable. Since writing that entry I have listened to many of the tracks on Live at the Black Door and have ordered Tony Whedon's book from Amazon. These pleasant interludes are always played against a darker background, the daily reports of an America that seems more and more dysfunctional at home, yet fully willing to wage war half a world away.

Therefore I enter my comment just submitted to the New York Times "At War" section - NYT must approve every entry so if you were to go to the NYT OnLine and then to At War (today a box shows down on the right hand side on the first web page) you might not see my comment. I enter it here to tell anyone who might read this that that person would be well advised to go to the NPR URL further down the page and listen to one of the few people I would trust to report from Afghanistan, NPRs Soray Sahaddi Nelson who speaks Farsi and Dari and is therefore far better qualified than most to know what is going on there.

Submitted as Comment to the NYT At War
The At War entries are essential reading and should be given Front Page position. This particular entry originally titled Who Are We Fighting in Marja (still the title seen on the first web page) now corrected to Who Is Fighting in Marja is important and, of course, leads many commentators to raise the question “Why Are American Military Fighting in Marja?”

I recommend that you who are reading Who is Fighting in Marja and my entry here go ASAP to the following URL

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123898317

where you will be taken to both the transcript and the podcast of the gifted and brave Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson of NPR who reports in this podcast from her position as embedded reporter in Marja. You will hear her report on the death of a young Navajo American not long after the picture of him was taken that appears in this story.

Then you will hear something expressed by her that Barack Obama should have considered before he, Nobel Peace Prize winner, decided to become the War President in Afghanistan. Sarhaddi Nelson first corrects one military estimate that it will take 30 days “to clear” this area, stating that the estimates she heard from military officials were 60 to 90 days.

Then, much more important, she addresses the question “What exactly does ‘cleared’ mean?” She says that the supposedly cleared area is still occupied by IEDs in the ground – a few feet away – and by people – call them what you will – who are shooting from scattered locations within the cleared area. Call it \"cleared\" if you will but consider carefully what that might mean.

In short, what happens the day the military leave? I asked my Iraqi friends and my lone Afghani friend on Friday what they think. The Afghani said – leave now. Many others said that Barack Obama, who first gave them some hope, should never have made the decision to send the 30,000 even though it might well have meant he would be only a one-term president. I agree.

Larry Lundgren only-neverinsweden.blogspot.com

Linkoeping Sweden - US citizen, however.

Sound of Surprise(s)

2010-02-01T22:40:00.006+01:00

Whitney Balliett, long the jazz critic for The New Yorker, once, long ago, wrote a book The Sound of Surprise. That phrase SoS is never far from the surface in my memory because it so well captured what jazz has meant to me – there is always a surprise waiting just around the corner precisely when you thought the corner would not be taken by surprise.

So this is about a series of surprises that have captured me Body and Soul these last 72 hours. (Also at the surface of my memory are a thousand song titles, with lyrics to match – no chord progressions sad to say, so why not recycle them, titles and lyrics?)

"It’s Three O’clock in the Morning” on January 30th, and I am sleeping but in which state of sleep I do not know. Sounds are pouring in, however, sounds from Vermont Public Radio (VPR) OnLine, sounds that were first, when I was falling asleep those of All Things Considered.

A few minutes later consciousness began to take over, opened up by jazz from somewhere by somebody – the first of the surprises – and then, the second surprise superimposed on the first, a poetic voice - soloing. Now, briefly, short-term memory took over to remind me that I had read at VPR OnLine that a jazz and poetry group, PoJazz, would be performing live at VPR’s studio in Burlington, Vermont. All that a recently sleeping brain could take in at the time was impressions, mostly impressions of wonder and a question: "How was it possible for this to be happening – northern Vermont is not NYC but it sounded that way.

A few hours later – maybe 5 or so – my morning story began by opening George Thomas page at VPR to get a glimpse of the sources of my surprises. A few hours later – 7:30 AM Vermont time/13:30 Swedish time, I was composing an Email to Tony Whedon, trombonist and poet and leader of the group PoJazz. Then that Email was on its way across the Atlantic that my grandparents (some of them) and my great grandparents (some of them) had crossed a century and then-some ago.

Exactly one hour later there in my Gmail was the most delightful reply anyone could ever ask for – from Tony Whedon in little Johnson, Vermont, starting his day with words of surprise and coincidence. What surprise, what coincidence? How had he been starting his day?

Let him speak: “I’d been listening to Monika Zetterlund singing “Waltz for Debbie” with Bill Evans…it’s just beautiful”

Well Monika Zetterlund is, of course, the Swedish jazz singer who became a soulmate to Bill Evans. Coincidence right from the world of Paul Auster - Tony Wehdon gets the first Email in his life from Sweden while he is listening to Monika.

So lets let her (in Swedish) and Bill Evans (universal piano language)help you to understand how Tony Whedon started his day by hearing a voice from where I was writing (Sweden) with a piano “voice” from where I used to live (the US of A), two voices brought together here thanks to YouTube.

I have been able to embed the polished in-performance version, but the rehearsal version is blocked from embedding. (It is 23.00 here in Linköping and I have just come home from orchestra and am listening to the rehearsal version at the bottom of the post. I suggest you go down and copy the URL at the bottom of this post and just get lost listening and watching - if this does not speak to you, nothing will. But it will.)

Here is the URL to the both beautiful and touching session where Bill Evans and bassist Eddie Gomez are in the foreground and Monica Zetterlund is taking in what she hears before telling them OK "nu kör vi". I started by writing that jazz is about surprise but here you can see and hear that it is also about listening - so don't miss it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tp-nbchmHU&feature=player_embedded

Vi är bara - eller först och främst - människor/individer

2010-01-25T06:41:00.000+01:00

Klockan är bara 6:23 på en mörk - what else is new - måndag morgon i det långa landet och jag har just läst en sådan fascinerande blandning av mejl och Facebook från 6 INDIVIDER att jag skriver några meningar medan jag väntar ringa en av mina döttrar. Jag skriver i fall Wide kollar bloggen innan jag hinner skriver något seriös.

Wide vi kan ej kommunicera via inlännings blogg som heter inlanning i html världen eftersom hon är på väg till Bangladesh och sannolikt har inte tid att kolla vad vi skriver där. Men jag gick tillbaka till boken Who Speaks for Islam och sedan till motsvarande OnLine bok som handlar om muslimer i USA för att se om forskarna vid Gallup Institute USA hade förklarat var gränsen gick när de valde "muslimer" som skulle intervjuas.

Så långt jag kan se har de inte förklarat men ett par intressanta fakta dök upp. I USA är muslimer genomsnittligt bättre utbildade än den genomsnittliga amerikansk medborgare. Det var nummer 1. Nummer två, de har högre inkomst än "the average". Never in Sweden, det är jag säker på.

Varför skulle du eller jag eller någon bry sig om någon är 100% muslim (kristen, jude osv) ellet 25% eller vad? Jag skall fråga mina vänner. Men jag vet att inom vissa kretser - judiska och islamiska - får man inte lämna den religionen man är född i. Jag googlade lite efter "apostasy" och man snabbt hittar seriösa artiklar som visar vilket stort ämne det är.

För mig borde var och en läsa On Identity av Amin Malouuf och försöker leva som han lever. That's all for now.

jag anger min alternativa epost adress temporärt Lawrence.Lundgren@tele2.se

Allt om muslimer i det långa landet

2010-01-15T21:31:00.000+01:00

TGIF så bara ett litet inlägg för att hänvisa en tänkbar läsare till en som vet "Allt om muslimer i det långa landet".
http://inlanning.blogspot.com. Jag upptäckte hennes blogg då jag läste om 10 muslimer i Svenska Dagbladet. Hon har en fot i tre olika länder (kanske fler) och det innebär att hon har tre fötter. Länderna är Pakistan, Sverige, och Kanada.

Det pågår i Sverige just nu en sorts debatt om Who Speaks for Islam (jag skriver titeln till den bok som hittills finns bara på engelska). I Sverige verkar det som om olika regeringar lyssnar bara på självutvalda representanter som Dilsa Demirbag-Sten döpt i debatt artikeln i DN 10/1 Skäggiga män (jag fixar bättre senare). Dokumentär filmaren Evin Rubar erbjöd en suverän film som gav fyra sådana chansen att "put their feet in their mouths" (vet inte vad uttrycket heter på svenska. Men SVT tagit bort.

Sådana som bloggaren inlanning (som är muslim) och jag som inte är muslim vill försöka förklara för den stora gruppen som anser att muslimer är en homogen grupp att de har fel. Det är poängen med boken Who Speaks for Islam: What One Billion Muslims Think. Boken publicerades i USA där det finns många muslimer som talar ut som inte tänker som dem skäggiga gubbarna. Och inlanning kan säkert berätta eftersom hon är kanadensare att det finns kvinnor i Kanada som tänker fritt om Islam - fråga henne.

Jag tror att vi vill bara säga till var och en - försök hitta två muslimer som du kan prata med och bara försöka lyssna på dem och hoppas att dem kan lyssna på dig. Bara fråga dem - vad är några viktiga delar av ditt identitet?

Try it? Now TGIF som betyder Thank God Its Friday which translates into - enjoy yourself as I am writing this at 21.28 in Sweden where det är fortfarande skäggiga gubbar som media, regeringar (pluralis), och tidningar anser Speak for Islam. Om du säger så till mig säger jag tillbaka, Genenoni, genenoni!

Have a good one!

Alone and Mindful in Sweden - Abraham's Children

2010-01-03T10:15:00.004+01:00

My reflections Alone and Mindful in Linköping, Sweden just as the Oak Tree in my Facebook Photo Album was Alone and Mindful on New Year’s Day 2010.

In Rochester, New York the families closest to me/us were either all Jewish or were families with either a Jewish husband or wife. I/we had the chance to get to experience the extraordinary range in some of these families – Orthodox to Reform to Secular – and something about their traditions and customs. One of them, our neighbor Nathan, born in Poland had fled from the Nazis and in Iraqi Kurdistan had had his life saved by Kurds who made it possible for him and his family to continue to India and eventually to Rochester, New York to become our neighbor.

In Linköping, Sweden the families closest to me have their roots in Iraqi Kurdistan and in African Eritrea. Some are Christian, some are Muslim. As I got to know these families I often commented that their family gatherings reminded me most of my Jewish friends in Rochester.

One of the great gifts given to me as a result of moving to Sweden was the chance to work at the Red Cross helping and being helped by people of all faiths and no faiths who have fled war and persecution to find refuge in Sweden. One of them, Ala B., is an Arab from Jerusalem who has been one of my windows into that world.

My message is very simple. We are first and foremost human beings (människor) who by the accident of our birth were brought up in an environment that was shaped in part by Judaism, Islam, or Christianity. All of us are in that sense the Children of Abraham (see Bono project in New York Times today 3 January 2009). None of us is better than the other because of that. Each of us is perhaps better at doing something we have learned to do thus far in life. We can use my good friend Sonia as example – she sings a lot better than any of the rest of us – and in more languages than you can imagine. She sings so well, not because of her religion or "nationality" but because she has worked so hard.

So read the excerpts from this story published in the New York Times on New Year’s Eve. Then just ask yourself – please, snälla – can I take a little step to try to understand someone who is different from me and then see if by getting to know them what human qualities we have in common. And if that someone needs help I might give, can I give it?

Marya in wheelchair (born a Palestinian Muslim) and Orel (born an Israeli Jew)

(Neighbors and close friends - in Alyn Hospital in Jerusalem)

Marya, her 6-year-old brother, Momen, and their father, Hamdi Aman all are in Alyn Hospital in Jerusalem as patients

Orel and his mother Angela Elizarov, á surgical nurse, share a room in the same hospital. Angela’s husband, Avrel, works with children, and comes as often as possible to the hospital. The couple came to Israel from Azerbaijan

All quotations from NYT story - see NYT 31 December 2009

“Friendship often starts with proximity, but Orel and Marya, both 8, have been thrust together in a way few elsewhere have. Their playground is a hospital corridor. He (Orel) is an Israeli Jew severely wounded by a Hamas rocket. She (Marya) is a Palestinian Muslim from Gaza paralyzed by an Israeli missile. Someone forgot to tell them that they are enemies.”

“When Orel arrived here a year ago, he could not hear, see, talk or walk. Now he does them all haltingly. Half his brain is gone--- Marya’s spinal cord was broken at the neck and she can move only her head. Smart, sunny and strong-willed, she moves her wheelchair by pushing a button with her chin”
“In a way, a friendship between two wounded children from opposing backgrounds is not that surprising. Neither understands the prolonged fight over land and identity that so divides people here. They are kids. They play.”

“But for those who have spent time in their presence at Alyn Hospital in Jerusalem, it is almost more powerful to observe their parents, who do understand. They have developed a kinship that defies national struggle.”

Angela Elizarov (Orel’s mother): “The wounds of our children, their pain, our pain, have connected us,” …“Does it matter that he is from Gaza and I am from Beersheba, that he is an Arab and I am a Jew? It has no meaning to me. He sees my child and I see his child.”

Hamdi Aman (Marya’s father): “(He) is asked how he can live among the people whose army destroyed his family. ‘I have never felt there was a difference among people — Jews, Muslims, Christians — we are all human beings,’ he says. “I worked in Israel for years and so did my father. We know that it is not about what you are but who you are. And that is what I have taught my children.”

My (LL) final comment. These people are human beyond belief. They are role models functioning at the “angelic” level that few of us perhaps can approach. But each can try to move in that direction – one step at a time.

Larry
Linköping, Sweden early Sunday morning the 3 of January 2009.

New year's eve-Nyårs afton med Fela

2009-12-31T11:23:00.005+01:00

It is New Year’s Eve day here in an astonishingly frost-covered Sweden. The news that I have already sampled early in the Swedish darkness offers a little hope – The Opposition in Iran (see Nima Dervish blog Nordic Dervish if you want to follow that) – and lots of political darkness – an almost successful bombing of Northwest 253, the collapse of the State of New York, bombings in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen to name a few.

In a hurry - go to the URLs all the way down. Carpe diem!

Yet there is lots of good life among the people of the world, and I take this opportunity to introduce you to Fela Kuti – a Nigerian musician and opponent of corrupt government – and to his music and dance. The Off Broadway musical “Fela” has moved to Broadway and in so doing will introduce a Nigerian force for good to anyone who starts with the very short clip I link here. I will certainly add more later today, the 31st, and, who knows, maybe I will celebrate New Year’s Eve vicariously by dancing to Fela’s music here in little Linköping since it is not my luck to be in New York City where the Fela-musical band (Antibas) will be playing at the Knitting Factory – sold out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGdWt5LmFsU

Vem vet, jag kan tänka mig lägga till lite svenska senare. Men eftersom inte en enda levande människa har tittat på (åtminstone kommenterat) min blogg blir min skrivning bara ”träna skriva på svenska”

Nope not more Swedish but Fela URLs. Try one. Different sides of Fela with the Ginger Baker video - words fail me. Bara kolla!

It’s New Year’s Eve already here in Sweden. Wherever you are, maybe Australia, maybe NYC, maybe Brazil I hope you are dancing!

And in this strange time when one young Nigerian was trying to bring a plane down, it is also time to see another Nigerian live and then get yourself to New York City to see Fela, the Broadway musical.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU39XGxS9MY&feature=related
Nigeria African Music Legends

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPIZBcb6hQI&NR=1
U Be Thief – video 2 min Fela sings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-SQH94Pifc
Fela live 1971 video made by Cream drummer Ginger Baker. The real thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hWSk-Gxikk&feature=related
Confusion break bone – with text – the political Fela Kuti

Slaget om muslimerna - Never in DN

2009-12-17T21:53:00.000+01:00

Dagens Nyheter did not find Evin Rubar's documentary Slaget om muslimerna worth commenting on except belatedly by a seriously confused John Croneman. Therefore I submitted the text below as my first try at Letter to the Editor (insändare). DN was not interested so I might as well put it "in print" here. Have composed and sent "insändare nr. 2". But if you should read this and kan svenska gå to Nordic Dervish blog since he writes full time about these matters and is good.

Never in Sweden/Aldrig i Sverige, åtminstone i DN kommer man att kunna läsa en seriös diskussion om årets viktigaste dokumentär film, Evin Rubars Slaget om muslimerna- se på SVTs Play TV.

Titeln till den nya boken ”Who Speaks for Islam” ställer den frågan som Evin Rubar besvarar i svenskt sammanhang. I boken – en miljard muslimer talar. I Sverige ger Evin Rubar plåts åt fyra män som talar klarspråk. Dilsa Demirbag-Sten beskriver dessa i sin kommentar om programmet i Expressen: ”Politiker vill gärna föra ’dialog’ med företrädare som säger sig representera stora grupper. Medierna har hjälpt till genom att ständigt vända sig till ’muslimska företrädare’ som nästan alltid är ortodoxt troende.” Och män, själv klart.

Du, läsaren kan inte läsa om dessa män i DN men du kan lyssna på dem för att höra att den ena eller den andra inte delar sådana värderingar som den att jämlikheten mellan män och kvinnor är princip nummer ett. Så långt jag vet kan du inte heller läsa om intellektuella muslimska kvinnor i Kanada och USA (ofta professorer) som anser att varje religion måste utvecklas i kapp med världens utveckling.

En sådan kvinna är Irshad Manji (från Kanada) som det gläder mig att säga finns på SVTs Existens (program 5 av 10 – inget om det i DN tror jag). Irshad Manji ”Speaks for Islam” på ett helt annat sätt än Sveriges självutvalda men med något gemensamt med Nalin Pekgul och Dilsa Demirbag-Sten. I programmet säger reporter Magnus Selstam Jonsson att aldrig i Sverige/Never in Sweden kan du hitta någon som är villig att prata om Irshad Manji. I stället bara gå in på hennes webbsida och beställa utan kostnad hennes bok i det språk du bäst behärska.

Jag ser fram emot, år 2010, en hel DN kultur del ägnat åt en jämförelse av vem som talar för Islam i Sverige jämfört med i Kanada och USA.

Who Speaks for Islam - Short version

2009-12-10T10:11:00.000+01:00

Who Speaks for Islam is the title of a new book by Dalia Mogahed and John Esposito based on a world-wide survey of muslims. I want to keep the book and the title upfront while I do my research for a longer entry. The book presents data to show what I know from everyday experience - people who say they are Muslims have so many different views about the nature of Islam and their relation to it that one must endlessly question - to whom should a government listen if they want to address a policy matter that may concern muslims? In Sweden one only need look at Evin Rubar's recent documentary Slaget om muslimer (will check the exact title)to see the sorry state of who the government listens to who "is speaking for Islam". Things seem much better in the USA and Canada - from my point of view but certainly not from the men who "speak for Islam" in the Rubin documentary, that is with the exception of the Danish muslim around whom the program is built.

The level of comment discussion following Swedish articles and the documentary film seem to be at an extremely low level, at least compared with the level of comment discussion in the New York Times every day.

Stay tuned!

Black In The Age of Obama - Part 2

2009-12-06T10:07:00.000+01:00

Something strange happens to my submissions to the New York Times so I submitted a new text as comment to Charles Blow's column in the NYT on December 5th - Black in the Age of Obama. I am making it my blog post for Sunday morning here in Sweden because every such submission by me refers to the comparison of Infant Mortality statistics in Sweden (best or 2d best in the world) with those in the USA (30th in the world.)

Comment submitted to the NYT
December 6 2009
10:01 am Swedish Time

Sad to say, I must agree completely with the final lines in Charles Blow’s excellent column: \"The Age of Obama, so far at least, seems less about Obama as a black community game-changer than as a White House gamesman.\"

The most recent example is the president’s decision to turn his energies from the passage of universal health care, which would provide major benefit to both disadvantaged blacks and whites, to concentrate on expanding an unwinnable war whose costs can only worsen the situation of black America.

The Obama gamesman chooses to make human and financial commitments in Afghanistan that are most satisfying to the Republican Party that actively opposes the one Obama initiative that clearly is a black community game changer - universal health care.

One need only look at infant mortality in the black community – see CDC publication reported on in the Times – to see where game change is needed. The US is ranked 30th concerning infant mortality in that publication and a major contributor to that low ranking is premature births among black mothers. The potential for “Black game change” has been shown in one county in Wisconsin (also reported in the Times) where infant mortality in the black population has been reduced to the same low level as in the white - an indication that the difference is not so much genetic as it is societal. That level is close to the level in Sweden which is best or second best in the world as concerns this health statistic.

Universal pre-natal care in America is a Game Change that will ensure that fewer black babies die, something that one assumes would be welcomed by all, even Right-to-Lifers. Expansion of the war in Afghanistan can only be negative for Black America. But universal medical care will perhaps not insure many more votes from black Americans in a future election, but war in Afghanistan may well insure more votes from white America.

It was the worst of times.

Larry Lundgren – Linkoeping SWEDEN – only-neverinsweden.blogspot.com for more on this subject.

2009-12-05T15:32:00.000+01:00

You can read it in the times (NYT)
Jag har kopierat här mitt inlägg i dagens (5/12 eller 12/5 om du är Amerikan) New York Times opinion article by Charles Blow. Eftersom jag läser NYT OnLine jag får alltid vara först att lägga in inlägg eftersom jag lever på svensk tid. Texten nedan är bara en kommentar till en artikel men jag vill se till att något finns och hoppas att jag skriva mer senare.

Barack Obama had two chances to do something for "blacks" (I explain the quotation marks below). 1) He could have concentrated all his energy on seeing to it that new health policy is passed that provides for universal health care. 2)To do this he could have decided that "winning" in Afghanistan will cost more in deaths incurred, souls (US military and Afghanis)destroyed, and deficit exploded than his announced decision is worth.
On the medical front one need only look at infant mortality in "blacks" (presumably mostly African Americans)and the dramatic exception in one county in Wisconsin (reported in the Times)to see how important universal medical care - here specifically during pregnancy - is for the black population. On the war front one need only consider the financial cost that George W. Bush never wanted to meet via increased taxes and that his successor is likely to find impossible.
Why "blacks" in quotation marks? I write from Sweden as retired American citizen where for a striking percentage of "ethnic Swedes" blacks are ALL who do not have the skin color of an ethnic Swede. I commend Charles Blow in a sense for using the simple term black since the use of this term includes, for example, the Somali immigrants (Bantu clan) in Burlington, Vermont. Furthermore, use of the simple term black emphasizes that it is not genetics (except as determines skin color) but rather skin color alone. Note, however, that according to the Times African Americans are not willing to accept Somali immigrants as African Americans because the Somalis are muslims.

Finally, let it be known that many of my Somali, Iranian, Iraqi, Kurdish friends here in Sweden who had hope with the election of Barack Obama now ask me daily - Why does the USA always continue warring? And many - yesterday Somalis - said one by one "I am disappointed in Barack Obama". So am I. (De frågade mig då jag var på Rödakorset här i Linköping).

Things I Should be Writing About

2009-12-01T20:19:00.001+01:00

I have no time these days to write the things I should be writing about, but I want to post a note about my good intentions. Today was a free-for-all discussion at Rödakorset since there was an extreme lack of students needing help and an extreme richness of bright strikingly individualistic conversationalists - yes, even in Sweden - who provided an abundance of riches. Things to think, research, and even write about.

Some of these things had in one way or another to do with identity so I will just write some reminders in the form of (rhetorical ?) questions:

Where does your nationality rank in the list of identifiers that would tell us something about you?

Why did so many "ethnic Swedes 2alive during World War II wish to identify with and support the idea that they were part of some kind of Aryan "master race" and support Adolf Hitler?

Vad menas med "Hon är svensk"?

And last a rough quotation from an interview I heard yesterday on Sverige's radio and then some questions. In both Swedish and English. "Jo, jag är sekuliserad muslim och jag har 100 procent svenska värderingar, jag är precis som vilken svensk tjej som helst." Yes, I am a secularised Muslim and I have 100 percent Swedish values, I am exactly like any other Swedish young woman.

Questions arising from the above:
Vad menas med svenska värderingar. What did she/you mean by Swedish values?
Vad menas när en tjej (detta exempel) säger jag är precis som vilken svensk tjej...? What does a young woman (this example) mean when she says she is just like any other ("ethnic") Swedish young woman?

Varför skulle hon säga sådana saker? Why would she say these things?
Tror du att hon vet vad hon säger? Do you believe she knows what she is saying?

Not me! Önskar att jag kunde kontakta henne och fråga. Reportern bodde ha ställt någon fråga men det gjorde hon inte. Not good.

Over abundance-Try Thomas Friedman NYT

2009-11-19T08:57:00.000+01:00

Back in early November I had the naive belief that I would actually compose something on at least one of the subjects I named there. And now as we approach American Thanksgiving - Even in Sweden - I can only admit to myself that I have composed nothing for this blog.

All the composing has gone in to following some significant discussions in the New York Times and Dagens Nyheter and in some cases commenting and even trying to draw conclusions about the distribution of opinions in comments.

Should you be so crazy as to try that, keep in mind that the comment world is a bottomless pit. I cite two articles mostly to use this "inlägg" as "dagboks inlägg" since I really would like to go further with both.

I Dagens Nyheter - kanske 16de november - kunde man läsa debattartikel om att 14 åringar inte fick gå på alkoholfri fest eftersom så skulle inte unga muslimska svenskar i Malmö göra. Jag återkommer med bättre käll hänvisning.

In the New York Times 18 November and excellent column by Thomas Friedman - What Do They Really Believe? Friedman has the most sane views I can find on the changes in thinking about energy sources and uses that could have changed the world and might still do so. I contributed the first comment on that column, but since I was doing so from Sweden before the NYT "comment checker" swings into action the first comment appeared for a time at the top of each listing of 12 or so comments and then disappeared. My comment was made at 4:14 Eastern Standard Time (USA) so I have learned not to enter comments in the NYT until later in the endlessly dark and rainy Swedish morning. The comment nevertheless survived in the listing of comments recommended by two or more readers. I think it is at level 10 readers recommended.

Nevertheless that single comment elicited a quick response from a reader in America who was in the process of contracting to have a ground-source heat pump system installed in his home in Pennsylvania. The near total absence of this technology in my part of the USA has troubled me, so my correspondent's two Emails so far have stimulated my determination to write about that subject.

But that requires research, careful composition, and time - in other words, not today.

Happy Thanksgiving - I will be celebrating that fine day on a little island on the Swedish west coast.

Islam i Sverige or Medical Care in the USA?

2009-11-08T11:43:00.004+01:00

Det var länge sedan dvs it was long ago, more than one month, that I wrote something here. There is a good and sufficient reason: This is such an exciting time intellectually that just trying to keep up superficially demands time and energy. So this brief remark - read only by myself as usual - is to state what is so exciting. Then I can only hope that I manage to start writing here about each of the following, if only for my own satisfaction.

Health Care Reform Legislation in the United States - For someone who has had the best of medical care in both Sweden and the USA, even during a single year, the fierce debate about Health Care legislation in the United States has had a special attraction. To date I have been adding comments in the New York Times and in blogs in the USA maintained by bloggers who are ill informed about Sweden. One facet of the debate that became the focus of the an ill informed Harvard educated blogger is what she called the "failure to take race into consideration" in comparing infant mortality in the USA with the rate in EU countries. That leads to the second major subject.

The importance of "race", genetic difference, ethnicity, culture and of mixing different such. This is a gigantic subject brought to the fore by the election of Barack Obama and then emphasized in the Health Care debate and now on the BBC in programs on the conceiving of children by parents of contrasting "race". (I will explain why "race" always appears in quotation marks once I write separate entries.

Who Speaks for Islam? I have written about this in various settings but in an effort to go further, I had to take a time out and read the book "Who Speaks for Islam?" which I have now done. Even this subject was discussed, wonder of wonders, on Sveriges Radio P1 today 8 October, thanks to a discussion being carried out on the BBC via Maajid Nawas.

To the Gang of Seven-Vad jag vill ha

2009-10-04T20:40:00.003+02:00

Litteraturmanifestdebatten (LMD) tar aldrig slut. I DN 3/10 skriver Moa Matthis ”Man blir inte klokare av att läsa litterära manifest men det är spännande att se författare reflektera över sitt yrke; vad och hur det bör göras, och kanske mest intressant, för vem?” Matthis skriver också ”Höstens LMD har inte handlat så mycket om läsarna och det är kanske klokt…”

Men jag, som en av ”läsarna” accepterar inte den tanken.

The Gang of Seven fick plats i DN till att publicera Manifest 1 (656 ord) och ytterliggare en chans att publicera Appendix (763 ord) som varken gjorde mig klokare (som Matthis) eller fångad av reflektioner över författarnas yrke (till skillnad från Matthis).

Vad jag fick lära mig av dessa ungefär 1400 ord kan förkortas till: ”Vi är och förblir Story Tellers. Vi anklagar kritiker, förlag, och författare som inte tänker som vi – kanske även professorer för att ”…de alla har drivit den unga svenska prosen allt längre ut i en periferi…” Vi anklagar även ”Alarmerande många läsare (som) har i dag vänt ryggen åt den unga svenska prosan…”

Med andra ord det är vi alla som måste bära ansvaret för att samtliga sju ”unga” inte blivit lästa till den graden de önskar. Ni sju visade oss att Ni var arga mot alla men det hjälper inte.

Matthis ville påminna oss om att giganterna - Eliot, Joyce, Stein, och Hemingway - var ”ytterst världsliga i sitt manövrerande på marknaden” och ville bli lästa. Så ville The Gang of Seven (Axmacher till Wolff) som betraktar sig som representanter för ”den unga svenska prosan.” bli lästa.

Men allt som de kunde komma med var ”Vi skall skriva.” Men goda föresatser räcker inte, som min mor lärde mig – The road to hell is paved with good intentions.. Mina förslag, delvis till dem ”unga”, delvis till tidningar och universitet, som jag lägger fram - om Ni sju skulle vilja nå mig – är:

1) Skriv noveller och romaner, 2) Skapa en ”Unga svenska prosans” webbsajt där alla 7 med flera finns, 3) Använd webbsidan för att göra det lätt för mig att få smaka av vad Ni skrivit, 4) Fråga tidningar som DN om det är så läservänligt att ägna 4 hela sidor (3/10 t ex) åt två franska författare – en levande, Claire Castillon, en död, Simone de Beauvoir - om det finns nya böcker av unga svenska författare som förtjänar 250 ord var. 5) Kom ihåg att det kommer nya böcker från alla världens horn varenda dag och att jag som läsare får fiska på Amazon och Google och AdLibris där det finns - varje gång jag tittar - böcker som lockar – nyligen Monika Fagerholms Glitterscenen (från Finland) – och köper.

Och en sista kommentar – synd att det svenska universitetet inte har någon Liberal Arts tradition (jfr Yale, Harvard, Brown mm) som innebär att varje student får chansen att läsa litteratur samtidigt som de läser psykologi, kemi, eller annat och inte bara det utan också att varje universitet anställer författare som hinner undervisa och skriva och blir kända. Joyce Carol Oates är en sådan.

Litteraturmanifestdebatt-DN har glömt läsarna

2009-10-03T21:39:00.002+02:00

Jag har bidragit många kommentarer under manifestdebattens lopp i DN och har tänkt att det var konstigt att ingen har skrivit om läsarna. I dag 3/10 har Moa Matthis gjort det i sin krönika men tyvärr kan man inte läsa krönikan OnLine. Man kan läsa recensioner av Björk, Danius, och Börtz och jag har därför lämnat en kommentar under Danius recension för att lova att jag skall skriva här i morgon bitti 4/10 om läsarna. But not tonight, which hardly matters since only I read this blogg! (se tidigare post 12/9 mm) Note added 4 October 2009 kl. 12.30: I have composed a document for Dagens Nyheter and sent that to them. Later today I will draw from that document to put my thoughts out here in my lonely blog.

Vem skall representera muslimer i Sverige

2009-09-24T09:56:00.002+02:00

Dilsa Demirbag-Sten som kom till Sverige från Kurdistan (läs hennes bok Stamtavlor) skriver i dag i DN (24/9) en debatt artikel som är garanterad att stimulera debatt om två viktiga frågor. Man förstår av bilden i vilken man ser bara två ögon som tillhör en kvinna som annars är gömd bakom niqabs svarta tyg att artikeln delvis handlar om debatten om en lärare får klä ut sig på det sättet - i Sverige. Men Dilsa ställer en viktigare eller mer omfattande fråga - vem skall representera Sveriges diversa muslimer i diskussioner med regeringen? Hon nämner några som har tagit an sig rollen och frågar - hur blev de utvalde? Det är viktigt att regeringen, kanske först och främst Nyamko Sabuni besvarar Dilsas frågor, men lika viktigt att de muslimer som jag känner hör av sig.

Naturligtvis blir jag nyfiken om att veta om likadana frågor har framförts i USA men kan ej minnas att jag har sett motsvarande i New York Times som jag läser "cover to cover" varenda dag.

I will be back in English if I find anything from the USA and will pose the questions to a sample of my many muslim friends in Sweden.

It's Not About Race - 150 Words for the New York Times

2009-09-18T21:05:00.003+02:00

First English, then Swedish (19 September 2009 - have added a link to Charles Blow-NYT-Read it!)http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/09/19/opinion/19blow.html#bozoanchor
As recent posts show, I have been trying to keep up with the Manifest debate in Sweden. But there is a much more important debate going on in the USA. Today (18 September, David Brooks expressed in the New York Times some important thoughts that the Times editors seem unable to grasp. Therefore I have written the 145 words below and sent to the Times. The limitation to no more than 150 words is excellent, too bad Never in Sweden. Try it sometime.
Som mina senaste inlägg har visat, jag har försökt hinna i kapp med allt som publiceras om Manifest debatten i Sverige. Men, det pågår en mycket viktigare debatt i USA. Idag, 18 september, har David Brooks publicerat i The New York Times väsentliga tankar som NYT redaktörer inte fattar. Jag har skrivit och skickat 145 ord till the Times. Restriktionen - mindre än 150 ord är utmarkt, tyvärr Never in Sweden. Prova!

David Brooks has it right (9/18). It is time to stop thinking in James Watson terms (10/2007): The “African genome” does not offer the intellectual potential of the “Watson-group genome”. Since the Times has never, to my knowledge, revealed the name of the President’s “race” I suggest the Time’s writers adopt the following alternative.
's
Analyze in each Times article the statements of those who dislike, distrust, even hate and excoriate Barack Obama in terms of the expressed basis for these expressions. Doing so will reveal the abysmal ignorance of these critics as concerns Marxism, Hitler, socialism, medical care in Europe and Canada, and more. The thoughts expressed by my President arise not from that place in his genome that assigned a brown or beige skin color (Duke Ellington’s terms) but rather from his life history, his education, and his intellect. It’s Not About Race!

2009-09-12T09:55:00.004+02:00

Morning in Sweden - I suggest that hidden behind the manifests that The Swedish authors who I am calling The Gang of 7 published in DN is their simple wish to be loved by Swedish critics. Then maybe they will be read by Swedish readers. One of my hypotheses about them was that they would like to be read as much as Philip Roth or Claire Messud is read. My hypothesis was confirmed in one case at least, and that led me to enter the Swedish text below in Dagens Nyheter rather early this morning, the 12th of September.

Har följt debatten om The Gang of 7 och haft svårt att förstå varför de skrivit sina 10 + 10 löften i DN. I dag läser jag: ”…vi redan nu…börjat arbeta efter de tio löften..” Aha! Nu kan jag LL se fram emot att läsa den första romanen skriven av 7 samarbetande författare, lite som en vetenskaplig artikel i NEJM. För att försöka förstå dessa 7 har jag googlat alla och nu hittat nyckeln: Högström i Expressen 18/9 2007 ”De tre bästa romaner jag läst det senaste året är Claire Messuds The emperor’s children, Philip Roths Everyman och Ian McEwans On Chesnil beach. Ingen av dem skulle vara tänkbar på svenska…” Parad exempel av vad jag kallar för Never in Sweden fenomen (se min blogg)! Liknar också vad Jonas Thente skrivit i sin blogg om Pynchons Inherent Vice: ”… hur kommer det sig att ingen svensk författare lyckas kombinera samhällsanalys med smart och konsekvent burlesk?” Mitt förslag till gänget: Skriv på engelska men akta Er för Herr Engdahl DN 2/1 2008.” Green Card anyone?

http://www.dn.se/dnbok/manifest-for-ett-nytt-litterart-decennium-appendix-1.951029

Författare mot författare

2009-09-11T15:00:00.004+02:00

Författare mot författare – varför?
Lördag 22/ 9 2009 kunde man se i Kultur delen av Dagens Nyheter (DN) en bild av sju unga svenska författare som hade skrivit Manifest för ett nytt litterärt decennium. De ville visa att de var arga fast mot vem är den återstående frågan. Där fanns dessa tre rubriker: 1) Det realistiskt förankrade berättandet har ¬annekterats av kriminal- och chick-lit-romanen, 2) Gränsen mellan den fiktiva och den själv¬biografiska prosan har suddats ut. 3) Det renodlade berättandet med konstnärliga anspråk har av såväl författare som kritiker nästan helt satts på undantag.

I manifestet nedan använde de ”The Editorial We” (Jag vet inte om uttrycket används på svenska) för att berätta vad och hur vi sju tänker skriva i framtiden. Det var 10 stycken ”Vi punkter” och här ett exempel från tvåan. Vi vill skriva romaner som utan konstnärliga eftergifter vill nå ut till största möjliga ¬läsekrets

Efter att jag hade gått igenom hela 10 punkter ett par gånger tänkte jag först ”Only in Sweden” skulle ett gäng författare ta i anspråk att lägga fram ett sådant manifest. Jag gav uttryck till detta påstående först i en kommentar i DN om en artikel eller om Jonas Thentes blogg – kanske båda.

Två eller max tre enkla frågor här i fall någon läser denna: 1) Hur kommer det sig att dessa sju tagit den vägen? 2) Om jag har rätt att ett motsvarande gäng i USA/Nordamerika aldrig skulle göra så, varför gör man så i Sverige?, 3) What’s the point? Här menar jag att hittills har alla bra romaner blivit skrivna av individer. Skall var och en av dessa sju följa hela manifestet då han eller hon påbörjar The Great New Swedish Novel? Eller tänker de skriva som kommité?

Jag återkommer på svenska och engelska snarast möjligt med mina hypoteser.

Only in Sweden - Case Study 1 - What Swedish Authors Do

2009-09-02T23:35:00.004+02:00

At the end of August seven Swedish authors published a “Manifest” in the pages of Sweden’s New York Times AKA Dagens Nyheter (DN) about the rules that they say Swedish authors of fiction should follow in the future. This started a debate, which continues in DN and in the blogosphere. The entire phenomenon is definitely an Only in Sweden phenomenon.

I enter this note in case someone actually reads the comment I just entered (2 August) in DN and looks here in my blog for a promised expansion of the thoughts expressed in the 684 character ”kommentar” in DN.

But in the event some American reads these few sentences I will ask if you might name 5 American authors of fiction and then answer the following question: What is the probability that these five would spend time writing a manifest stating rules that American authors should follow in the future when each author plans his or her next novel? That’s what the Swedish authors did-Only in Sweden, Never in America. Why? Stay tuned.

Never in Sweden:-Case Study 1

2009-08-29T13:19:00.002+02:00

Never In Sweden – Our first case study: The time has come to introduce my readers (actually, there are none) to my first “Never In Sweden” case study. On August 22, the Swedish book reviewer Jonas Thente reviewed Thomas Pynchon’s newest novel Inherent Vice and continued commenting in his blog. Thente’s opening lines in the blog had not directly to do with this novel but rather with the hypothesis that “Never in Sweden” could one find a Swedish author who could bring off what this American author had succeeded in doing.
Thente’s words in my translation (see www.dn.se for the original): “There are disadvantages associated with reading novels like Thomas Pynchon’s most recent, Inherent Vice. In any case if one lives and works in Sweden. Why is it that no Swedish author can manage to combine societal analysis with such sharp and consistent burlesque? The Swedish “cottage” (a reference to a Swedish concept – folkhemmet) feels all too confining to me after (reading) a novel such as Pynchon’s – or those by so many other international authors.”
You, the American or Brit who reads this might well conclude that such an incident is, as the Brits say, “a one off” event, of little interest and implying nothing. Not so within an “Only In Sweden” context since the Swedish literary establishment with self-designated leader former Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy (Nobel Prize in Literature) Horace Engdahl will very likely – if privately – remove the name Thente from his list of acceptable reviewers. Given Engdahl’s contempt for American authors, for Thente to have the temerity to suggest that an American author deserves the attention of the Swedish reader, who unlike the American, has no interest in fiction written under the influence of mass culture, is a cardinal sin.
By an odd twist of fate, Thente has during the same week landed in the middle of the kind of literary (?) debate that is an “Only in Sweden” phenomenon. To that I will return if as few as one single angry Swede visits my blog. In that case, you will learn more about Horace E., även på svenska.

2009-08-16T20:07:00.004+02:00

Sunday night in Sweden and it is time to give you a first sample of my friends who belong to "dem" (see previous post). Saturday night was the wedding party of my friend Sipel and her husband Jamil, born in that part of Kurdistan that lies within present-day Iraq. These parties are part of what makes living in Sweden possible, a magnificent combination of friendship, music, and dance all at the highest level without the need for stimulants - you choose.

Such parties including this one often start at 18.00 and continue until 02:00 the next morning. From the get-go, the central feature is the music and the dance. Here, in this first post, I offer a sample of the most basic form this takes. Except for the time it took to film this, I get high - or in a continuous state of "highness" - from being part of this "trance dance". There is a continuous infusion of energy both from the responses of all in the ring and especially from those with whom you, as individual, are linked, and from the music itself which is driving and poly-rhythmic (not Swedish dance-band music, jag lovar dig).

There are plenty of variations within this basic form but here you see it as a sort of Kurdish Dance 101.

So let's see if a link can bring this up. Remember I am in week one and so far nobody actually has looked at this blog. Men jag har tålamod.

Du är inte svensk-You are not a Swede

2009-08-13T20:15:00.004+02:00

Long ago in Göteborg, I sat next to a woman on the trolley to Saltholmen. She started talking to me and I replied. And then, suddenly, she looked at me, deeply shocked, and said with emphasis “Du är inte svensk!” I already knew that since I had come fairly recently from the US of A. So why the shock? If you are an ethnic Swede (etnisk svensk) I will give you two clues. Since three fourths of my grandparents were ethnic Swedes who emigrated to the USA, then my appearance might reflect that history. And, since I learned Swedish late in life, jag talar svenska med amerikansk brytning.

In any case in my 13 years in Sweden I have learned that this distinction – vi och dem – where “vi” (we) are the ethnic Swedes (see Svante Pääbos genetic studies) and “dem” (them) is everybody else – is extremely important.

Why just the other day Sveriges Radio P3 (young) woman talked briefly with a caller speaking perfect Swedish who said “I was born in Indonesia but was adopted by a Swedish couple and came to Sweden as an infant. And what did the P3 woman say? You guessed it, she said “Du är inte svensk.”

The Swedish National Encyclopedia definition of svensk is.- first in NE’s English dictionary simply noun - Swede and then in its Swedish dictionary translated Noun - person from Sweden. Our P3 woman clearly does not agree with this definition and has a different way of classifying people, at least as long as she is in Sweden.

So lets look at two pictures of the same drummer - taken by me June 2009 while listening to Turkish music. Picture our P3 woman looking at this person live in Göteborg. Then for contrast, picture her on vacation in the USA where she looks at the drummer. She studies his face closeup. How does she think when in Göteborg? I leave the answer to you. Now, how might she respond if her American friend said to her, “What do you think, Kerstin, is he American?”

That’s all for now. What do you think? How do you think?

2009-08-12T21:17:00.004+02:00

The excerpts from Professor Allan Pred's obituary are presented in order to illustrate the benefits of having multiple roots, of being able, apparently, to merge what some see as separate identities into a single more powerful one (See On Identity, Amin Maalouuf on this subject). With those roots and a powerful intellect, Professor Pred was able to see what even intellectual ethnic Swedes seemed to have so much trouble seeing, let alone acknowledging. I also present these excerpts because my very interest in the subject he treats so deeply has its roots in a somewhat similar history. Thanks to a Swedish wife and a bilingual daughter, I, like Pred, was able to move to Sweden upon retirement from the University of Rochester and thus to experience a single Swedish city, Linköping, full time. The effect on me was identical with the effect on Pred. My thoughts follow his, but they find the expression for which I was looking in his profound contributions in print.

Allan Pred was born in the Bronx in 1936. His father was a high school French language teacher, his mother a housewife and musician. Both of his grandparents had been Jewish immigrants from Poland. A child of the late Depression, he rarely looked back to New York after his departure for Antioch College in 1953. His new horizons were out in the Midwest and later across the Atlantic to Europe – what became a life-long love affair with Sweden. He first visited the country while a graduate student at Chicago, drawn, in part, by the theoretical and scientific innovations of Swedish geographers … When he met his wife of 44 years, Hjördis, in San Francisco in 1962 the die was cast. They lived between Berkeley and Sweden on a yearly basis, raising bi-lingual children. In the 1980s, they bought a summer home in Sörmland, Sweden…

Inevitably he turned to contemporary Swedish life and to what he took to be the deafening silence surrounding the question of race and racism. In two powerful and controversial books – his stunning excoriation of cultural racism, memorably entitled Even in Sweden: Racisms, Racialized Spaces, and the Popular Geographical Imagination (2000) and The Past is Not Dead: Facts, Fictions and Enduring Racial Stereotypes (2004) – Pred courageously exposed a deep vein of pain and shame…

Excerpted from http://geography.berkeley.edu/PeopleHistory/faculty/AllanPred_InMemoriam

2009-08-09T22:01:00.000+02:00

The phrase Only-Never In Sweden has its origins in the title of a book by the late Professor Alan Pred - Even In Sweden published by the University of California Press in 2000. What is it that occurs Even In Sweden? The sub (or super) title of Professor Pred's book makes that clear: Racisms, Racialized Spaces and the Popular Geographical Imagination.

Professor Pred and I first arrived in Sweden from our east coast (me) and west coast (him) locations at about the same time - 1990-1991. We both brought with us the soon to be discovered curious notion that Sweden was, unlike other countries, a place where all were accepted, all were equal whatever their color, background, or history. It is now difficult to trace the origins of this curious faith, but anecdotally I can report that I had read of black American jazz musicians who reported that in Sweden or Denmark they had been received as equals and not subject to the treatment all too often given them in the United States.

I went back to the USA in 1992, puzzled by my discoveries that Sweden was not at all as I had believed. Once I returned in 1996 to stay for good, I, like Professor Pred, learned day by day how wrong we had been about what it meant to be "different" in Sweden. Anyone who takes up residence in a new country becomes an amateur sociologist, one who learns a little bit about elements of the new societies and may even go beyond that to try to understand that new society.

Yet one could feel quite alone because the Swedish self image was and perhaps is that we are the best in the world, seen from the moral and ethical point of view. Feeling quite alone, it was an extraordinary experience to discover one day in 2004, that an American Intellectual (not a designation liked in Sweden) had studied in depth the phenomena that I observed daily on a personal level in the small university town of Linköping.

The next step to be taken is to draw on the obituary of the late Professor Pred and to sample his paraphrases of Gunnar Myrdal's statements about America and race.

Only/Never/Even in Sweden

2009-07-31T21:43:00.000+02:00

Only-NeverInSweden - The phrase grew out of a book Even in Sweden that caught my attention a few years back after I became the first in the family to emigrate in the reverse direction - from the USA to Sweden/Sverige. I will be back with more about that book but leave anyone who reads this with a question What only/never/even occurs in Sweden? The context is "by comparison with your favorite or least favorite part of the USA."