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Sweden is probably going to trade in a Christian holiday for a new national holiday. I approve, because I do not believe religious holidays should have state sanction, which makes this a small step in the right direction.
Meanwhile, one Swedish commune is taking a step in the wrong direction by proposing that, in addition to Protestant holidays, schools should also take days off for other religions, like Ramadan, the Orthodox Good Friday, and the Kurdish New Year, Newroz. While the intent may be admirable — to accommodate immigrants — the possibilities for unintended consequences are daunting. First off, Sigtuna commune is not suggesting that all ethnic groups be accommodated — only the fifteen most popular ones. Does the popularity of a religion then determine the legitimacy of its claim to a holiday? How is a government body going to decide and justify where the line is drawn? Will it find that there are not enough Jews locally to justify Hanukah as a holiday? Are strict Catholics going to be forced to take off two Good Fridays? Is Satanism or Scientology a religion?
I don’t think government, local or national, should concern itself with such issues, just as it should not concern itself with deciding what religious symbols students may wear. Give everyone X days, to use as they please. If many students and teachers at a particular school are Kurdish, then the school will simply have fewer classes on Newroz. The state should treat all religions fairly by ignoring all of them, rather than trying to accommodate all of them — which is impossible — or just some, which is unfair. Welcome to the multicultural Europe of the near future.Q: Tydligen ska Nationaldagen bli helgdag och Annandag Pingst tas bort. Är det bra att Nationaldagen blir helgdag? (Tycker du det är riktigt att man tar bort en annan? Är det för få helgdagar?)
A: Ja, men bara om vi tar bort en annan helgdag. Vi måste jobba mer, inte mindre!
Q: Vilken är den bästa helgdagen och varför?
A: För mig, även om jag är belgier, är bästa helgdagen amerikansk Thanksgiving i slutet på november. Det är icke-politisk, icke-religiös, populär, utan presenter, pro-familien — liten som Midsommar, min favorit svensk helgdag.
Q: Stefan, vad tycker du verkligen?
A: Tack för frågan: Det finns fyra sorter helgdag: Patriotiska, som Nationaldagen, religiösa, som Pingst, politiska, som Första Maj, och populära (eller säsongsbetonade) som Midsommar och Valborgsmässoafton. Av de här föredrar jag mest de populära, sedan de patriotiska, och minst de religiösa och politiska. Varför? Staten bör inte föredra en religion mer än en annan eller en politisk tilltro mer än en annan, därför att medborgare bör vara jämlika i statens ögon. Om vi ska ändra helgdagar, bör vi minska religiösa och politiska helgdagar, inte höja de.
Därför är det bra att vi kommer att ha en ny patriotisk helgdag istället av en religiös helgdag.
Därför, också, tycker jag inte om vad Sigtuna socialdemokraterna föreslog: inte bara ha lovdagar på skolor till protestantiska kyrkans högtider, men också, till exempel, till Ramadan, den ortodoxa kyrkans långfredag, och Newroz, det Kurdiskt nyåret. Jämlikhetsproblemet löses inte upp med att ha mer religiösa lovdagar, därför att Socialdemokraterna vill ha lovdagar bara för de 15 största etniska grupperna. För att ha jämlikhet, bör alla religioner i Sigtuna har deras lovdagar. Är det möjlig? Hur ska man bestämma var finns gränsen? Om det finns bara några Judiska familjer, far de inte har lov till Hanukah då? Om jag kände mig Scientologisk, fick jag inte har lov till L. Ron Hubbards födelsedag? Om jag är strikt Katolsk, ska jag vara tvungen att också har lov till ortodoxa kyrkans långfredag? Staten bör inte avgöra sån saker (och inte heller vilka religiösa symboler är acceptabel). Säkert inte nu att Sverige kommer att ha ännu mer invandrare.
Det är bättre att ge båda studenter och lärare X antal lovdagar, som de får använda hur de vill. Det gäller också för Protestanter, självklart, och för gudsförnekare. Så blir staten riktigt neutral på religiöst ärendet.
Yes I am recycling titles. You can read Apocalypse Nöw I, about surströmming, here.
Göran Svensson looks over his shoulder as he pilots his chopper low over Vietnam's dense forest canopy. Beside him, his buddy mans the machine gun, strafing intermittently out the open cabin at nothing in particular, just like in the movies. "It's the perfect shoot-em up," Göran says too loudly, on account of his headphones. He should be paying more attention to his flying — his helicopter catches some branches and lurches for the ground. He survives; but his buddy does not.Read the rest of my article on computer gaming in Sweden on Sweden.se, minus the above first paragraph, which was edited out on account that Swedes do not revel in violence (or maybe they are better helicopter pilots than that?). Writing this article was a lot of fun, but my style may have suffered a bit as it is a uniformly positive piece, devoid of the cynical turns of phrase which I know and love. (Also, links were removed from the text and grouped together at the bottom of the piece — it feels odd to have written someting online without links in obvious places). Feel free to point out mistakes I made and clarifications you might have.
Ten seconds later, after suffering a time penalty, they're back in the game. Göran, a twenty-something engineering student, is sitting to attention before a ...
The Sixth in an occasional series.
Ten: Predatory seating
Nine: Culinary relativism
Eight: Preëmptive planning
Seven: Premature mastication
Six: Irrational discalceation
Five: Radiotjänst i Kiruna AB
So, Radiotjänst, let me get this straight: If I own, rent, borrow, find, inherit or assemble one or more televisions in my household, I must pay you $20 a month in protection money. If I do not pay you, you are authorised by the state to inspect my home to verify that it does not contain devices capable of receiving television signals. And you tell me all this with a severed horse's head lovely postcard, inviting me to come clean before, any day now, you send in the goons. And you are doing this for my own (cultural) goodAs your FAQ helpfully points out, such devices include TVs, video players with tuning capabilities, computers with TV tuners built in, video cameras with tuners, and DVD recorders..
Are you mad?
Before your impending visit, let me enumerate some ethical and pragmatic difficulties I have with your existence.
First off, I don't actually mind paying for a service that I did not ask for and rarely use. My taxes go towards such services all the time — for example, plowing Kiruna streets. By all means, then, use money from income tax I've paid to encourage television viewing among small children and to shield me from ads in movies I don't watch. It's a price I'm willing to pay for living in a modern society. However, stop pretending you are only asking for money from consumers of Swedish public radio and television, and that this makes your actions equitable. You are doing nothing of the sort. You are asking for money from possessors of television receivers, which is a stupid criteria for public television consumption, let alone public radio consumption.
Maybe it made sense once, in the 1950s, when only the richest Swedes had televisions, and there was nothing else they could do with them but watch what the airwaves providedWas there a radio license then as well?. These days, televisions are used to watch cable television, videos, DVDs, satellite broadcasts, to play video games and, in my case, to monitor video editing efforts on my Mac.
At this point, Radiotjänst, you might be tempted to retort that almost everybody who has a television uses it to watch Swedish public broadcasting at one point. If you make that point, however, you should also admit that almost every household has a television, in which case we should pay for the programming out of state coffers, much like how Swedish universities are fully subsidized by taxesIn fact, far fewer Swedes attend university than possess televisions. And opera, which is also subsidized by tax money, has a minuscule audience compared to public radio and television.. This, at least, is a sound policy, debatable on political grounds alone.
Unfortunately, such a setup would render your "services" superfluous and save us all a lot of money. I can therefore understand, Radiotjänst, why you insist on a user-pays policy. But let me at least suggest proper user-pays setups, in order of increasing fairness: Pay per television and radio (as a tax at time of purchase). Pay per man-hours spent using these devices. Pay per man-hours spent consuming public broadcasting on these devices. Pay per man-hours spent enjoying public broadcasting (with refunds for the Eurovision Song Contest). Now that would be fair, though unenforcable.
At least that's better than unfair and unenforcable, which, it turns out, is the policy you have currently in place. I've actually checked up on your enforcement actions with friends — all those in attendance at a dinner party last night have at one time been paid a visit by your operatives, and you'll be chagrined to hear that we shared successful tactics for evading your attempts at intrusion. It turns out that you do not in fact have the authority to enter our homes. (A pity, that. I was working up some real righteous indignation.) Instead, when you knock on our doors, you tend to crane your neck as you talk to us in search for that tell-tale television glow behind us. All I need to do, it turns out, is assure you, officer, that I do not have a television, and no, you may not come in. It will be my pleasure.
PS: How's the job satisfaction? Kiruna getting you down?
Here's what I was up to over the weekend: Readying Swedish Research News, a new site that syndicates news about discoveries and innovations made by researchers at Swedish universities.
It's something of an experiment, and its continued existence will depend on whether it is useful to, and hence used by, a community of readers. The experiment involves trying to find better ways of collecting and then disseminating existing information, so that it has more impact.
Swedish universities tend to put news of their research successes on their own individual websites — always in Swedish, sometimes in English. Until recently, there was no central repository of Swedish research news in English, making it difficult for non-Swedish speakers to keep tabs on the fruits of Swedish research. A few months ago, with the help of the Swedish Research Council, Study in Sweden began carrying aggregated items on its site.
But the content management system behind Study in Sweden is not blog-savvy. And the news items do not get pride of place, as the site's focus lies elsewhere. What is lacking are the features that make such news accessible to readers: RSS and Atom newsfeeds, the ability to automatically ping other sites, categorization, and commentingCheck out how the Americans aggregate their research news. Research news in Swedish is available here, but it too lacks newsfeeds..
You can find all these features on Swedish Research News. Now, every time Study in Sweden receives a new item from the Swedish Research Council, it will be edited and posted to both sites. Basically, Swedish Research News is an attempt to bring the link-generosity at the heart of the blogging mindset into an institutional setting via a back-door. If it works, over time the site will become more official-lookingOne caveat: The news is often written by the researchers themselves, and hence is a bit press releasy, and usually has been translated from Swedish with varying degrees of success. Eventually, it is hoped more time will be spent polishing the prose..
So go and have a look at the site. Then, please provide feedback. In addition, consider forwarding news of this site to people who might enjoy reading it or be in a position to contribute to it. Currently, news is heavily tilted towards the sciences. Research news from humanities faculties is very welcome, however.
Ideally, one day, universities will submit their own stories directly to this site for vetting, editing and publication. But that will only happen if Swedish Research News turns out to be of use. Meanwhile, help get the word out.
May 3 was the deadline for declaring one's taxes in Sweden. As I am far more efficient under deadline, I left everything until the last minute. It turns out I gave myself far too much time — paying taxes in Sweden is the easiest thing in the world.
How easy? A few weeks ago, a piece of paper arrived in the mail. It's a 1-page tax-return form... already filled out with my consolidated salary from last year. You can amend it (or not), sign it and give it back, and you've done your taxes. But you can do even less: You can text-message your approval, or amend it online, using your on-line banking security codes. And today, Skatteverket, the tax agency, already had statistics [Swedish] for us: Over a million Swedes filed electronically (out of almost 9 million Swedes; no word yet on how many filed in total), of which 87,189 did so via SMS.
As the tax agency headquarters are in my neighborhood, I decided to deliver my papers by hand. Skatteverket is open until midnight on tax day, and I headed for it in the gloam of a foggy, humid evening. Huge slotted boxes outside the office were being stuffed by 1-page returns — no envelopes, no attachments; it was a bit like voting. Meanwhile, friendly Skatteverket workers had fanned out along the approach routes, collecting returns from people on their way to declaring. One worker even stood in the middle of Götgatan as drivers opened their windows and gave her their paperwork.
It was an impressive, efficient performance. When it comes to tax collection, big government clearly is best.
Yesterday, the amount of comment spam here and on MemeFirst quite simply got ridiculous. Barely 9 months after getting (and blogging) a first instance, and despite in the meantime removing every possible incentive to posting such spam, volume started growing exponentially as automated spam delivery mechanisms exploiting Movable Type's standard commenting scripts got more sophisticated. Over the past month, the use of randomly generated emails and rotating IP addresses has allowed spammers to easily circumvent MT's built-in defences at a rapid clip.
Myself, I was waiting for MT 3.0's upgraded comment filtering technology. In the meantime, MT-Blacklist, a plug-in that filters URLs for proscribed content, has made it harder for spam to make it through, though not impossible, especially if the sites being promoted by spam use conventional words in their URLs. And, though spammers now have to continuously change the content of their spam, they can still usually get away with bombarding a large number of blogs before they all update their blacklist or the blacklist clearinghouse gets updated. In that sense, MT-Blacklist also chases after a moving target, much like banning IP addresses is ineffective against a spammer continuously changing her IP address.
But last night, as my list of recent comments swelled with the labor of the dregs of humanity, I was willing to settle for something quick and dirty to solve the specific problem of automated spamming engines afflicting my blog. This is what I came up with — and it only takes two minutes to install.
The idea was to personalize my blog's comment submission process so that a spammer needs to either post spam in person or else manually tweak his comment submission engine so that it works specifically for my blog. Basically, it becomes as annoying for him to post spam as it is for me to remove it. With the burden shared in this way, I'm guessing the spammer won't bother with my blog, as I care a hell of a lot more about it than he does. And if a spammer visits my site, examines my comment submission process and manually tweaks his engine, I simply alter my process. I feel their pain, and it feels good.
The hack involves requiring a human mind to complete a simple instruction, such as "type the letter 'A' in this textbox" or "Type the third letter of this sentence in the textbox," before MT accepts the accompanying comment. Here's how:
In your cgi-bin folder, navigate to and edit the file cgi-bin/lib/MT/App/Comments.pm. Do a search for the following piece of code:
if (!$q->param('text')) {Replace this with:
return $app->handle_error($app->translate("Comment text is required."));
}
if (!$q->param('text')) {Save and close. Now go to the templates screen in your Movable Type user interface, and make sure that all templates that allow you to submit comments have the following HTML snippet added to the comment submission form (I placed mine just above the comment textbox):
return $app->handle_error($app->translate("Comment text is required."));
}
## my addition
unless ($q->param('spam') eq 'A') {
return $app->handle_error($app->translate("Type the anti-spam text exactly as shown."));
}
## my addition
<label for="spam">Today's anti-spam measures are brought to you by the letter "A". Please type it here:</label> <input id="spam" name="spam" />In standard builds of MT the templates you want to alter are: Individual Entry Archive, Comment Listing Template, Comment Preview Template and Comment Error Template.
What happens now is that when a comment is submitted, MT checks that the accompanying question is answered correctly; if it is, the comment is accepted. The question is asked in the HTML, the answer is found in the Comments.pm code I addedAdvanced MT users: It's actually a lot simpler to put that HTML snippet into a template module and to refer to the module wherever a template contains a comment submission form. This way, when it is time to change the question/answer pair, you only need to alter the HTML in one spot. More about MT modules here..
Of course, a spammer can still visit my blog, determine the required answer for the anti-spam question, and then program his submission engine accordingly. But the catch is that he has to do this manually every time I change the question/answer pair. You can alter the question/answer pair whenever you want: in Comments.pm, just replace the 'A' in the above example with whatever letter, number or word you want, as long as it is inside single quotes; and also make sure the question in the HTML snippet leads unambiguously to that answer.
The reason this is not a plug-in is because I don't know Perl. I guessed-and-pasted this out of desperation, but it works like a charm. If I knew Perl I would probably build a library of question/answer pairs that I can rotate at will. And, additionally, if you are willing to forgo having comment submissions on the static Individual Entry Archive template in favor of using only the pop-up comment templates, which render MT tags on the fly, you could build a system that automatically rotates the question/answer pairs every X hours or days, overlapping successive pairs so that commenters on the crux of an changeover are not abandoned.
The more that people personalize their comment submission forms, the less spammers can exploit the standard MT comment submission process.
I have seen the future, and it is taller than me. On the occasion, it was also drunker — the occasion being Walpurgis, the location being Karolinska Institute, the medical university where students traditionally ring in spring with a concert fueled by cheap beerEverywhere else in Sweden, this is the night to build a big bonfire with last year's IKEA furniture, in order to make room for this year's models. Not so with Stockholm students, who are far too jaded for such blatantly participatory pursuits..
I got in under cover of accompanying Jenny and Maria, who technically aren't students either, but who at least can plausibly pretend to be. Once in, they were pretty quickly the center of attention of a pack of male students from Idrottshögskolan, Sweden's sports universityWhat could they possibly be teaching there? Steroid research? Post-graduate swimming? The physics of the hockey puck?.
This group made Eurotrash look like Lady Liberty. They wore soccer jerseys, no doubt an homage to Beckham, but a majority of them also wore one or more
Further burnishing the eurotrash credentials of the night was the band, Lambretta, a semi-famous (so I am told) Swedish thrash-pop act that sounds exactly like Transvision Vamp back in 1989.
Watching them, however, was more of a challenge than concerts used to be. Over the years, my 6 foot 2 frame had afforded me some prime views — in 1992, for example, attending a Guns and Roses concert in Sevilla was like standing in a crowd of smoky midgets. But tonight, perhaps half the room was taller than me. (The New Yorker recently explained why.) If it is important in Sweden that you not stand out, I think I am going to do extremely well here.
The fifth in an occasional series.
Ten: Predatory seating
Nine: Culinary relativism
Eight: Preëmptive planning
Seven: Premature masticationSix: Irrational discalceation.
This one really baffles me. If you've never been here you might think I'm exaggerating, but trust me, it's a law of Swedish nature: Swedes will not enter anyone's home until they've taken off their shoes.
I cannot figure out why. During my first few months here, in the autumn of 2002, I wandered about many a friend's apartment, shod and oblivious to the silent anguish I was causing them as they followed me around in their socks, too polite to enforce the terms of use of their hardwood floors.
Then, in the winter, I too started taking off my heavy boots, caked in snow, as I got home. But this made sense — my boots were dirty. Come spring, however, there was no sign of this habit letting up among locals. Shoes came off indoors, even when it was sunny and dry outside and not a speck of dirt sullied new sneakersNow that I've experimented with unshod home life, I can tell you I don't like it. Cooking without shoes makes me feel vulnerable. Likewise when I wash up the dishes. I feel like I use up socks too rapidly. I stub my toes. I can't just go outside on a whim..
I've considered and subsequently discarded various theories as to what might explain this behavior. It cannot be that Swedes do not want to cause a ruckus with downstairs neighbors: Joachim and Elise have no-one living below them; and people who live in detached houses discalceate too. Is it a bizarre sock fetish? No, because many actually switch to slippers when they get home. Are Stockholm streets particularly prone to wayward dogpoop? On the contrary, they are completely devoid of gunk, slime, and the garbage juice that often finds its way onto New York pavements. Could it be that they are so enamored of their hardwood floors that they don't wan't to "use them up?" That would be a very curious departure from an otherwise vigorous culture of consumption: Swedes don't encase the cushions of their IKEA furniture in plastic, for example, and they do actually use their espresso machines. Like I said, I'm baffled.
I now suspect it is a deep psychosis. Last weekend, when Christine, my Swedish teacher, came by for lessons on a dry and sunny day, I told her there was really no need to take off her shoes. She look so unhappy. "But it feels so wrong!" she said finally, staring at the floor she'd have to violate. She took her shoes off.
Is there a role for civil disobedience in a democracy? Tough question, especially when you have to answer in Swedish. In short, I think there is. Most improvements to functioning democracies have come to us via civil disobedience campaigns: universal suffrage, civil rights, the end of apartheid...
That said, the difference between civil disobedience and criminality is that the former has to have a moral aim and use non-violent means. And that's hard to pull off, actually.Så många fel förra gången! Jag är förvånad att ni förstådd vad jag ville säger. Men den här veckan kan jag mycket bättre svenska så det kommer at bli mycket lättare för oss alla.
Vad viktiga frågor vi har denna gång på fredagsfyran… Det är inte så lätt vara ironisk omkring sån filosofisk debatt.
Behövs civil olydnad/utomparlamentariska aktioner som ett komplement till demokratin? Vet du några exempel på “bra” aktioner?
Egentligen, ja. De flesta förbättringar i våra demokratier kom efter en fas av civil olydnad: rösträtt för kvinnor, rösträtt för svarta (i USA), oberoende för Indien, motstånd till apartheid i Sydafrika…
Problemet är hur vi ska skilja mellan civil olydnad och ren kriminalitet. Civil olydnad bör ha en moralisk bas, och bör vara ovåldsam (? Non-violent). Det är fortfarande möjligt att jag inte kommer överens med idéer, till exempel de av anti-globalister (som inte förstår att de kämpar för fattighet i tredje världen) men om de protesterar fredligt – avspärrar en G7 möte genom att sitta på vägen, till exempel – är det helt okej med mig. Vad jag håller inte med, självklart, är "reclaim the streets"-stil vandalismen som vi hade på Stureplan förre år.
Är vandalism mot privat egendom våld? Javisst, det är ekonomisk våld mot människor. Även om du anser att egendom är orättvis, kan du inte förneka att förstöra saker skadar människor. Personligen anser jag att egendom är en social tankeskapelse, men vilket är ett nödvändigt begrepp till en stabil modern civilisation.
Är vandalismen mot reklamer civil olydnad? Nej, det är bara intolerant. Reklam är också en form av yttrandefrihet. Om du håller inte med, får du protestera, eller köpa ditt eget reklam.
Vid vilket (om något) tillfälle skulle du själv kunna tänkas delta i en dylik aktion?
Mot officiella diskriminering mot invandrare, mot länkar mellan staten och kyrka, mot protektionism.
Har du själv varit civilt olydig?
Nej, bara kriminell. Det är svårt att vara civilt olydig.
The fourth in an occasional series.
Ten: Predatory seating
Nine: Culinary relativism
Eight: Preëmptive planningSeven: Premature mastication.
For some time, it has been apparent to me that the media here are pushing brunch as the new cool thing for Stockholmers to do on weekends. Newspapers, city guides, television and radio have all decided that if it's good enough for the Sex and the City cast, this should be the next big cultural import from New York. But there is an element of willful obliviousness involved: Swedes invented brunch generations ago, and in fact brunch every weekday, when they take an hour off from work for food. At 11.30 am.
Stockholmers might think they are eating lunch then, but they'd be wrong. Food consumed at 11.30 am can be wonderful, but it is not lunch. Lunch is what the Italians have at 1.30 pm. It's what the Spanish have between 2 and 5 pm. That said, the Swedish weekday brunch is a lovely ritual — all the restaurants cater to it, friends meet in the old town to catch up and swap gossip, mamma-ledig ("mommy-free") mothers on their year-long leave from work cart their offspring in SUV-sized buggies to meet admiring pals, and officemates can flirt without really calling it a date. In fact, Swedish brunch fulfills all the same social functions as the New York version, with the added benefit that you get to do it during office hours.
So, to clarify, I don't hate the brunching tradition as such, but I do bemoan its misclassification as lunch, and one additional opportunity cost: The resultant temporal shift of all mealtimes. Swedes are constantly hungry ahead of the rest of Europe — their eating habits are, in fact, synchronized with those of Iraqis. Walk home from work shortly after 5 pm and you will see Stockholmers sitting at restaurant tables, ordering. The tail end of a three-martini lunch, perhaps? No, the start of middag, which they believe is dinner.
Clearly, dinner is not served at 5 pm. This is obvious to all foreigners. For example, Ayse and Cemo, who are visiting from Istanbul on a baby-goods shopping spree this weekend, were asked by Joachim, a Swede, what time they'd like to meet for dinner tonight. They said 8:30 pm. Joachim nearly gargled his café latte. He had 6 pm in mind. Because it was Saturday.
Stockholmers, stop being so defensive about your bizarre eating habits; stop trying to shoehorn your meals into accepted global norms, and celebrate your otherness! I suggest trying to export the 5 pm meal to New York as something sophisticated and maybe even a touch decadent, as in "look how early I can get off work." New York restaurants would take to it in an instant: they could always use an extra sitting. If Carrie and the girls had another season on HBO, they'd definitely be meeting for lunner, or maybe they'd call it dinch.