Happy birthday, rachelmanija !

...and whenever I say that I shock people. This post is triggered partly by reading Wikström's Sonjas godhet (The Goodness of Sonja), but contains ideas I have been mulling over for a while.

We live in a time which, in the industrialised Western world, seems to lack happiness, and where this is rather unfathomable. With few exceptions, we can feed ( Read more... )

I don't generally read news which seem to appeal to the vulture in the audience, but for some reason, I have been reading about the Foster family in the UK. I'm not sure what it is about it I find compelling - I am clinging to the hope that it is not whatever makes people gawk at traffic accidents. For those who have managed to avoid the news, it ( Read more... )

I have always been rather happy with the Swedish judiciary system, but lately I begin to wonder if our lawyers watch too many TV series from the US; they are beginning to adopt an attitude I find appalling. This is, predictably, especially true in rape cases, but it seems to be spreading. In a recent high-profile case, the defense lawyer said (to ( Read more... )

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I have now returned from two conferences and looked at my garden in some confusion. During the two weeks I was gone, the soapwort and the musk mallow came into bloom, and the garden is now a riot of white and pink, with the occasional yellow (rue, St. John's wort) and blue (cornflower) sticking up among it. Today I skipped most of the weeding and ( Read more... )

Recently, I have seen a lot of defenses for eating whatever we like best. Spanish tomatoes may have flown up here, but they are still more environmental-friendly because they are grown outdoors, not in hothouses (especially those grown in winter, one assumes). British consumers are, according to my local newspaper, advised to eat New Zealand lamb ( Read more... )

Just a short note to say I'm touring New Zealand; if I don't respond to things it's due to lack of internet connection...

I read this horrifying story: http://kenyonfarrow.com/2008/03/03/southwest-airlines-%e2%80%98the-souls-of-white-folk%e2%80%99/ and was then further horrified by the responses. Short summary: Asian-American woman complains about being harassed and physically assaulted by a white man on a plane, is then treated as the perpetrator, not the victim. The ( Read more... )

An interviewer talking about my classes asked me today what I felt was the greatest threat my students would have to face in their working life, and I said 'Global warming.' I think that was perhaps not the entirely expected response.

The debate on global warming is not improving even though it is now generally admitted that we are heating up the ( Read more... )