The racist-closet has been opened…

I am in chock about what I hear Swedes write about Sweden and what should be done differently over here these days. People say insane things like ‘we should not give money to foreign nations and areas of disaster, we should spend that money on Swedes instead’. Oh my God, does people even stop to think about what they say?

We’re so spoiled here in Sweden, we don’t stop to think about just how good our lives are. People complain about the politicians over here not caring about the needs of this nation. That’s pure bullshit; we’re so well off, we shouldn’t even compare our petty problems to nations and areas which really need our help.

Sure there are things we can improve, there’s always room for improvment in any country. But to make those improvments at the cost of our donations to other countries is nothing short of insane.

It feels like an incredible amount of people in Sweden just came out of the racist-closet. That’s scary. Racism freaks me out in a big way, it’s a very scary thing and for the first time in many many years, I fear for what might happen here. People seem to have lost their minds. Lost their empathy and their humanity as well.

Sweden has the opportunity to give financial support to other nations and that’s something to be proud of. We also have the opportunity to help people by giving them a new home here in Sweden and that too is something to be proud of and make sure it never changes.

My hope is that people start analyzing their thoughts in a critical way. It’s not ok to treat people like shit because they aren’t just like you. It’s not ok to think you’re better than someone else just because your family has been here in Sweden longer.

Racism is like cancer and you’d have to be pretty stupid to vote for cancer to rule politics…

The great outdoors

There are some places in the world I just HAVE to visit to feel I've lived my life as I please. I love taking walks (don't we all?) and some day it would be fun to get a little more out of it... Just look at the bench cut out right out of the mountain, perfect when you wanna stop and take some photos (or to stand on when the wood goes up in flames, or breaks...)
I'd love to walk there, no safety and nothing but a chain to hold on to... What a walk!

On the pics I see something that worries me... the path comes to an abrupt end! Ouch, hope one keeps an eye of where they're going.

Lollapalooza starts my tour of the US this summer!

I should be in bed, but I'm not. Not even close. I should dicipline myself, but why bother? I don't have time to be correct, I have time to be me.

Everything is quite... blah right now.
My mind is way off, it's in Chicago to be precise, and I am not. And that's confusing. I wanna wake up and eat breakfast at House of Pancakes, but is that happening? Nooo, and I wanna stroll in Grant Park, walk by the Harbour and chill...
But I'm kind of stuck.
Or as stuck as I let myself be, but I feel it would be stupid to take off and be superpoor somewhere, as I would have no income if I left right now.

But I'll be gone in August (perhaps a little longer), traveling in the US and perhaps Canada and Mexico while I'm in the neighbourhood, so to say. I need to escape this hellhole, or I'll go insane pretty soon. I'll start and finish in Chicago and whatever happens in between will be great. Whatever it is that happens. Just me and the camera. Just me and my life. New people, new places, new food and new none-routines. That's what I need. A little thing without routine and with absolutly no schedual except to catch the flight home X amount of weeks later...

Or not exactly hellhole... but I'm bored and I'm starting to feel a bit stuck. Like I've gotten a routine in life's everyday-tour that I don't like. I want more, I want better and I want fun.

I'm turning 28 this month and I feel like birthdays mean nothing anymore - so I decided to have a birthday party for the first time in years. Not that I have organized my place yet, but that's another 'eh, who cares?'. I'll serve alcohol and snacks, I doubt people will thinking about the lack of... plants? paintings? rugs? I don't know, but I doubt people would care. It's a party and it'll be superfun!!

In the news

What could possibly make a 47 year old man want to marry an 8 year old girl?
There are some things that I will never understand and never accept as anything else than repulsive. Children should be kept out of the problems of adults, not be forced to settle some debt with their own life as the prize. It's disgusting that judge Sheikh Habib Al-Habib didn't annul the marriage, and even worse that the mother of the girl was not allowed to represent her in court.
I don't think it's a defense to talk about culture in these cases either. To say that, is to say that there is no individual choice and that everybody in Saudi Arabia feels like marrying little girls are ok. People don't think it's ok. Not in Saudi Arabia and not anywhere else either.
This is about changing the law to protect children, no matter where they happen to be living. A child's situation must be taken into concern every time there is a legal issue involving children. Anyone has to be able to defend a child, if that person has a reason to think that the well being of that child is questioned.

The captain is free, cheerios to that, but why is ransom ever paid?
Every time someone pays the ransom for a kidnapped person, especially in such an infected situation like the piracy along Somalian coastline, they give a boost to the pirates, that it is a sure way of getting money.
There are other methods to fighting for the freedom of a kidnapped person. Rewarding the kidnapper with cash is hardly a way to show that the method of earning a buck is wrong.
The methods I'm thinking of is more along the line of using military personnel to get some fear into the pirates. Free the hostage at a higher price, perhaps, but who would continue to kidnap people if all they got out of it were a crew with gunshot holes to the head?
If you wanna win, you have to be more of a bad ass than your enemy.
The reason I even mention violence as an option is not that I'm bloodthirsty, cause I'm anything but that. The reason is that I think the situation is very infected and I think negotiations are a lost cause at this point.
If the path of riches is continued, I think the situation will get worse, to the point of companies not daring to have their ships sent on that rout any longer. Is that really the result we want?

Does borders feed fear and breed war?

You see them everywhere, borders.
They come in all shapes and purposes, but have one thing in common no matter where you
find them - to define us and them, what's yours and what's not.

To devide the world with pencilsharp lines, is to limit the mind and the body. There are
no such lines, they don't exist. We can build all the walls we may desire, there will be
no line between us. Nothing but air to unifi us in all time, for as long as we will exist.

Dividing power while sitting around a table, these politicians have through history
defined the world in their weird minds and forced the population to accept the side they
happen to live on. Families separated for years, sometimes generations. As it is not a natural
state of the human mind, there has taken much violence to keep these borders real on the planet.
Much blood, too.

Curiosity has turned in to suspicion, as friends turned in to enemies.

But what are borders? What good do they do? Do they make you feel safer? Does the us-and-them
mentality work on you? Do you buy their speeches about enemies and safety?
Or does borders feed fear and breed war?
In modern time, no country is isolated, no market of trade just local.
We interact in many ways and I dare to say that everybody (except the really recluse
loners and tribes) knows people from almost every continent. Most people understand more
than one language.
It is natural to explore and travel. To see new places is a right we take for granted. We feed
our soul and our mental healthiness with new impressions and views of life. We understand
culture and climate, we take part in global ideas and thrive here on the Internet, where
we really don't have a passport to define us. Your nationality fades in to a formal detail,
your mother-tongue becomes irrelevant. We are all the same, even more so than in reality.
We are showered with photos from all corners of the globe and one thing I never see are borders.
As the people are internationalized, why not the political way of acting too?

What ever good borders might once have brought, I don't see a real use for them anymore. They
bring grief and violence, which we have enough of anyway. There is no us-and-them. It doesn't exist!
Borders split ideas and divide greatness in to confusion.
We can try and justify borders by sitting on our lazy butts and say how much we do together these
days, but that's really just because we were born blindfolded. Nations are a joke, there's nothing
natural about it.
But if we keep evolving our tribes on Earth as we have been so far, I have every reason to be
positive. We formed small tribes and then villages, that became groups of villages as pacts of
trade and peace came about. Roads shaped the look of the lands and soon we had metropolitan
cities. Power-hungry rulers wanted more, and war became a frequent fact of politics. Show me
yours and I'll show you mine. Soon they all lost too many men in their armies and they had to
figure a way to live side by side. Voila! The pencil sharp lines where born.
But as we grow both in experience and in dreams, we have steadily become more interactive,
more understanding and more of our natural curiosity comes to the surface. So if we keep
evolving, we will soon be too great to be kept inside politicians borders.