Nordicway

December Blog

2009-11-26T20:49:00.000-08:00

This is the time of the year (I wrote in Swedish Press in August 1993) when we hear from many readers about happy summer visits with friends and relatives in Sweden. Generally the stories are about joyful memories, but every now and again the tales are tainted with a certain bitterness.

“I was staying in a hotel when I was over there so as not to be of any inconvenience to my relatives. Instead of inviting me home, ten of them came over to the hotel and had dinner on me”.

“When they visit us over here it’s I who has to take them out to a restaurant. When I visit them in Sweden it’s still I who have to pay when we go out”.

“When I visit my sister she is always complaining about how expensive everything is over there, making me feel guilty”.

“In Sweden there is a saying that guests and fish smell bad after three days. I try to live by that when I visit my friends and relatives in Sweden. But when they come over here, it’s somehow like the long trip gives them licence to stay as long as they like”.

“They said that they had only made local calls, not knowing that over here we get an itemized phone bill so I could see exactly how many calls they had made to Sweden”.

“When I stay with my brother or sister in Sweden I always make a point of contributing in any way I see possible. When they are here they are just out shopping for bargains to bring back to Sweden.”

The recurring theme in most of these unfortunate tales is the feeling that many Swedes believe that their North American relatives are better off than they are.

This is a myth with a history. To justify the hardship of emigration in the 19th century, many Swedes overstated their success in the new country when they wrote home. The stories about the rich relatives who had made it big in America were further inflated as they spread in the villages. In this way the eldest son who got the farm did not need to have a bad conscience and could instead expect largesse when the “rich” relatives paid a visit to the old homeland.

My personal peeve on this subject is that very few of my Swedish friends and relatives show any particular interest in my life over here. I have even discussed this with them and the explanation is most often that they find it hard to relate to it. Many of the people I know in Sweden still receive me like I have never been away. I guess I should take this as a compliment and it is probably a testimony of a strong relationship.

When all is said and done the most important thing is the contact and I am sure the small irritants that occur are soon forgotten.

November Blog

2009-10-31T15:43:00.000-07:00

There was a time when visitors to Sweden marveled at how clean it was everywhere. No cigarette butts or wrappers on the pavement and no garbage or abandoned cars out in nature. Sad to say this is no longer true.

Similarly when I was young there were no homeless people in Sweden, except for a vagrant or two who rejected the nice apartments they were offered by the social services, choosing to live a freer life instead. Now this has changed too, and in Stockholm I see people digging into garbage cans in search of cans and bottles.

Now besides this anecdotal evidence, I also have the statistics. There are between 3 100 and 3 200 homeless people in Stockholm. Almost a quarter of them are women.

In these tough economic times the Department for the Homeless in Stock-holm is dealing with 30 percent more clients, at a time when it is facing a million kronor cutback in its budget. It is a terrible dilemma says one of the social workers as the clients "have nothing, no money, no food, nowhere to live and hardly any clothes".

The concept of homelessness is no longer foreign to Swedes and this is evident in the psychological thriller Missing that we wrote about in SwedenNow the other month. The book is by Karin Alvtegen and the main character is a homeless woman by the name Sybilla in Stockholm.

"Born into a life of privilege, Sybilla has spent the past many years opting instead to live on the streets of Stockholm, cadging a bed, a bath, a meal, where she can. Her favorite technique - one she permits herself only as a special treat - plays out at the Grand Hotel, where with luck and persistence, she can usually charm a lonely visiting businessman into buying her a dinner and a room for the night."

This is a fascinating read where you follow the fate of a woman who has been sheltered by her anonymity but who suddenly becomes the most wanted person in Sweden after the businessman whom she has lured at the Grand Hotel is murdered.

Besides being full of suspense, Missing presents a very real-life picture, survival techniques and all, of a homeless person in the Swedish capital.

Have a nice November!

Anders

October Blog

2009-10-10T15:24:00.000-07:00

The October issue of Swedish Press is traditionally our car issue where we take a closer look at the new Volvo and Saab models. As far as I can remember both Volvo and Saab have also always advertised in this issue. This year things are different and it does not come as a big surprise, what with the turbulence in the automotive industry. Hopefully by next year there will be some clarity in the ownership of both the Swedish cars and we can look forward to having them back as advertisers. In the meantime there are exciting things happening at Saab and Volvo, the economic crisis not withstanding, that you can read about on page 13.

With declining advertising, we have space for more reader service. This month we bring you the new baking book by Swedish TV chef Leila Lindholm whom you can read about on page 37. We are also offering for sale my book God Jul, about Swedish Christmas as seen through old Christmas cards.

God Jul was first published by Bonniers in Stockholm in 1978, so I was both surprised and delighted when Skyhorse Publishing in New York asked for my permission to publish it in English. I was a bit concerned about the reproduction as the films for the original book are long gone in this age of digital printing. But the printers in China have done a masterful job of scanning in all the beautiful cards and I have not found any mistakes in the typesetting that was done in India.

God Jul has been the all-time "Christmas book" best-seller in Sweden, so I hope it will do well over here too. (I will personally dedicate a copy of it for you if you indicate this on your order).

The book came about by pure chance at a time when I was the art director of the Uppsala company Scandecor, that was the world's biggest purveyor of posters and photo walls as well as other graphic products. Scandecor also represented Hallmark Cards in the Nordic region. In its marketing for Hallmark products, Scandecor found that Swedes did not warm up to the American-style Christmas cards. I was asked to find Swedish motifs and by chance mentioned this at a dinner I was attending and instantly got two different tips of private collections of Christmas cards. Going through these collections, I was completely enamored by all the fantastic cards and decided to put the best ones in a book! It was gratifying to see that the thousands of Swedes who bought my book as well as the critics felt the same way.

Have a really nice October!

Anders

September Blog

2009-08-26T20:10:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you but I have not seen many exciting draws around in recent years - you know trips to Paris or Las Vegas that were just a grocery ballot away (no purchase necessary). There are plenty of sales, bargains and offers of all kinds, but nothing much to dream about.

And good draws make for great pipe dreams.

For one of the best in a long time check out the back cover this month. Imagine staying at one of the Leading Hotels of the World across from the Stockholm Royal Palace. You cannot find a finer hotel or a better location in Stockholm. You have the best of Sweden's capital within walking distance. Grand Hotel itself is a place of such grandeur and history that it warrants a special article later this fall.

Your dream also includes a stay in Iceland's capital where you will also be so close to everything that you will really get to know one of the most fascinating places in the Nordic region. Start planning!

The first draws I ever entered, as a kid in Sweden, were for a dog, and a Kalle Anka competition where the first prize was a trip to the newly started Disneyland. I remember that my greatest worry was what I would do with the dog while I was in California. This was a moot point as I did not win either prize.

In our draw you have a very real chance of winning because we have relatively few entries. So this is not like the big lotteries which after all are nothing more than "a tax on people who cannot do their math!" This is the real thing.

In the 90s Swedish Press used to have some kind of a draw almost every year. Subscribers used to call to find out when the next one was going to be so that they could plan their renewals and gift-giving accordingly. I see that our last draw was in 2002, so it was really time for a new one, especially this year when we celebrate our 80th Anniversary. I hope each and every one of you will enter in the draw. I am sure you all know at least one other person who would enjoy the SwedishPress but does not have a subscription. Or perhaps you could subscribe to Scandinavian. Or you could do that and give a gift and renew your own subscription to add to your chances of winning a trip of a lifetime. And if you give away two gift subscriptions, we have an extra gift for you!

Have a nice September!

Anders

PS.

Please note that the October issue will be a bit later than usual because I am going to be in Sweden and Iceland during the next three weeks. If you want to follow my trip "Around Swedish America in 365 Days" you can now get a daily prompt from Twitter for "swedishpress" that will tell you where the virtual trip is each day. You can also follow us on the map at www.nordicway.com/tour.

August Blog

2009-07-28T23:45:00.000-07:00

Swedes love to travel but this summer many of them are staying at home. Quite a few have a second home in the countryside or the archipelago so they will be just fine, thank you. More Swedes than usual are also exploring new places in Sweden this year, like hiking in the National Parks (that we write about on pages 16-19). When asked why they are not traveling some say it is because of the environment, but the more common reason is the economy.

A lot more people in North America are also staying home or finding destinations closer to home. It can actually be quite nice to take a break without all the stress of travel, customs and other hassles on the road. Myself, I have done a lot of virtual travel lately when writing the daily installments of "Around Swedish America in 365 Days". The trip that you too can follow at www.nordicway.com/tour, is a neat way of finding out about new places without leaving home. It has been an adventure for me, with all the interesting Swedes on this continent and their amazing accomplishments.

I recently found out that the man behind the Indian motorcycle, that was the first motorcycle in America, was none other than the Swede Carl Hedström. The mechanical genius made the Indian into the world's most advanced and best-selling bike in 1907. He even set a new record, riding a mile on the Florida sands on one of his Indian machines in 1 minute and 3.2 seconds. He called it quits at a board meeting because of a disagreement over the company’s dubious practice of inflating its stock value and retired to his Connecticut estate at age 42 (see day 203).

When I saw old war movies I always wondered how they could shoot straight forward from a plane without damaging the propellers. Now I know that it was Gustaf Swebelius (Day 209), the son of a watchmaker in Vingåker, who solved the difficult problem of synchronizing machine gun fire with the airplane propeller, so that bullets could be fired between the blades.

In New Haven on Day 210 you can read about Oscar Mossberg who made a name for himself with the Mossberg rifles. Not to be confused with Frank Mossberg (Day 199) who invented an electric automobile before Henry Ford launched his internal combustion engine.

I had always wanted to do the Swedish-American trip by myself in a car. I might still do that, but for now I am quite content to do it on the internet using my laptop and basking in the sun on the patio.

Have a really nice August!

Anders

PS.

So many readers wanted to see Swedish Press in full color, that we have extended the offer of a free copy of the electronic edition of Swedish Press. All you need to do is email anders@nordicway.com with "free offer" in the subject line.

July Blog

2009-07-02T16:10:00.001-07:00

Let me start by assuring all readers that the paper edition of Swedish Press will not be scrapped. We are however making improvements to our electronic edition this year - our 80th year of publishing - with a hope that more readers will see this as a good alternative. And right now you can check this out for free.

Many of you will appreciate the full-color magazine that you get quicker and for less money and doing your bit for the environment at the same time. For overseas subscribers a switch makes even more sense as they can get Swedish Press quicker than the subscribers in the US and Canada, and with a saving of $40 on postage.

Just back from a magazine conference in Toronto, I am happy to report that it is not all gloom and doom in the publishing industry, unless you are a newspaper.

The largest newspapers in the United States have lost between a half and a third of their readership. Coupled with that, their advertising revenue has dropped by a third since 2005, and a further loss of 20 percent is expected this year. The result is that many newspapers, like the 150 year old Rocky Mountain News, are throwing in the towel. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ceased publishing and so will the San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Enquirer, Chicago Tribune and many others. The *Financial Times even published a death notice "in loving memory 1764-2009" for the whole American newspaper industry .

Sweden is not immune, and Metro, that has championed free newspapers all over the world, is consolidating its Swedish editions, concentrating primarily on Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö. Many experts now argue that the free papers will ultimately not have been more than a parenthesis in media history. Some of the same experts are also predicting the end of all printed papers and even books for that matter.

The problem for magazines is the drop in advertising revenues coupled with a rise in costs, especially for mailing. The postal services, suffering from falling revenues themselves, are hiking up the postage for publications since it is really only these (and bills) that they are dealing with today.

The Internet is being hailed as the savior, but most newspapers have given up on the idea of making money on their internet ventures, as it is only niched titles like the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times that have until now managed to charge for their news. But for magazines electronic editions may well be the way of the future. This makes a lot of sense when you consider that about 70% of the magazines you see for sale in the supermarket and stores are not sold. They are recycled or end up in landfills. So it makes a lot of sense for us at Swedish Press to maintain both a “paper” and a rich media “electronic” edition of the magazine.

Have a nice July

Anders

Let me know if you want to see “What is fast, green and in full color” (see offer on the left) and I will get you a first look at Swedish Press in full color! You will understand why I am so excited.

June Blog

2009-05-23T03:17:00.000-07:00

One of the strong memories I have from the time I was about ten years old or so is that of being kept up one night because of a very loud conversation going on in the neighbourhood on a warm summer night. Today that wakeful night is a good conversation piece, but I remember bitterly whining the following day about the one VERY loud voice and the constant clinking of glasses.

I grew up in one of the prettiest parts of Stockholm, across from Skansen, in the little town of Djurgården (that you can read more about on page 17). One of our closest neighbours was Nadeshta Nilsson, the owner of the nearby Gröna Lund, and she always hosted a dinner on her terrace for Jussi Björling after his annual concert. It was his powerful voice that had kept me awake all that night.

Living so close to Gröna Lund meant putting up with quite a bit of noise during the summer when the tivoli was open, most of it not from such an eminent source as Jussi Björling. However we were amply compensated as residents of Djurgårdsstaden had a free pass to Gröna Lund. This was a great privilege especially when stars like Paul Anka and Ray Charles were performing.

I spent quite a lot of time at Gröna Lund during the rest of the year also thanks to Nadeshta Nilsson's grandchildren, "the wild brothers Lindgren" who attended the same school as me.

Jussi Björling, who died before he was 50, was one of the world's foremost tenors. And according to the widow of Enrico Caruso "the only one worthy of wearing his mantle". Jussi toured Swedish America already as a young boy with his father and three brothers to perform under the "Bjoerling Male Choir" banner. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1938 and toured extensively and triumphantly in Europe and North America for the next 22 years. Jussi Björling's appearances at opera houses in New York, Chicago and San Francisco were eagerly awaited each season. But he also crisscrossed the country to perform in concerts and recitals as well as on radio and later television.

One of the places he sang to sellout audiences was Vancouver. Fans here are in for a treat this midsummer when the Scandinavian Centre presents the Tribute to Jussi Björling concert featuring local tenor Richard Tyce who will sing many of the classics that Jussi Björling became so famous for (see page 31).

Despite his enormous popularity across three continents, Jussi remained a humble and simple man. On one of his visits to Vancouver he beat the Swedish Cultural Society president in arm wrestling and the Swedish Press editor in a “fingerkrok” locked-fingers tug of war. And that was quite an achievement, wrote a humiliated Matt Lindfors in Swedish Press, because there were very few who had managed to beat him at his game.

Have a nice Midsummer!

Anders

PS. If you ever wanted to find your lost cousin, rent out your cottage in Sweden or make money on your children’s forgotten Brio wooden toys, Swedish Press offers you a free classified ad on page 32. It’s one of the ways we celebrate our 80th!

May Blog

2009-04-26T01:11:00.000-07:00

Have you heard the story about the hot dog vendor who had a son studying economics at the University of Uppsala?

One day this learned son came home and asked his father if he had heard about the bad times - the recession? No, the father did not know anything about this but now that he did, he would of course become more cautious and curtail his expenses. Every single purchase was closely scrutinized, and our korvgubbe even decided to make do with his old sign that had over time become a bit scruffy. And sure enough sales started dropping. With things looking like they did, the hot dog vendor stopped going out as much as he had done before.

And now he really understood how right his son had been about the bad times.

I found this story in an old editorial in Swedish Press from 1991 during another recession. It is reassuring to see that we did manage to ride that one out.

In the same vein Swedish Press, that was founded by some braves souls at the very worst of times, right at the beginning of the "dirty thirties," has, despite many close calls and near-collapses, managed to survive and is still going strong.

If we were to follow the advice of the most pessimistic of the ubiquitous pundits right now, we would be lying low and staying away from any extra expenses. But keeping to the Swedish Press tradition we are celebrating the publication’s 80th birthday this month with the "special supplement" (that you can keep as a memento by simply tearing out pages 3-16 and 29-42) and a fantastic party that you are all welcome to (see pages 8 and 39).

During times like we are now experiencing in North America and in Sweden, it is more important than ever to count our blessings. At Swedish Press we are especially grateful to the organizations, companies and institutions that are helping us to sponsor this jubilee, as well as to all readers who are joining in the celebration.

Because if it wasn’t for you, Swedish Press could so easily have gone the way of the more than 2 000 Swedish papers in North America that ceased publishing.

We don't need sons studying economics to tell us that times are bad. The important thing is that we handle the bad times in the most positive way.

Have a really nice May!

Anders

PS.

Go to www.nordicway.com if you want to have a look at a full colour and environmental Swedish Press (see page 2).

April Blog

2009-03-27T00:50:00.000-07:00

There are not many things that are as exciting as organizing a big party. (Those of you who have organized weddings may disagree). Swedish Press has had two great - still talked about - anniversary parties in the past, so now it is a real challenge to make the 80th jubilee party (see page 8) the one to top them all when it comes to exceptional entertainment, food and drink!

We are so lucky to get Magnus Martensson to entertain us before he takes off for bigger stages. This fall he is going on an extensive tour of the USA and Canada, that those in the know predict, will be the big break for this very talented and funny young entertainer (interviewed on page 20).

"I want to be there too," writes singersongwriter Michael Saxell (SwPr Sep08) from Ystad. He has booked his flight and will be a special treat with such Swedish favorites as När en Flicka Talar Skånska (When a girl speaks the Skania dialect) from the creator, who also has a colourful history on the Canadian music scene where he collaborated with Randy Bachman and others.

"Where can we stay?" asked some guests from Seattle so I contacted the closest hotel to the Scandinavian Centre. The luxurious Delta Burnaby Hotel and Conference Centre, that is part of the brand new Grand Villa Casino, opens at the end of the month of april, and our guests can stay there at a very special rate of $149.

The welcoming drink at the 60th and 70th anniversary parties were sparkling wines all the way from Sweden. This year you will enjoy a very special Swedish-American "champagne" from the Sjoeblom Winery in Napa Valley.

IT entrepreneur Michael Sjöblom produces a unique Cabernet Sauvignon sparkling wine under the strict laws of the French Methode Champenois, that connoisseurs are raving about.

These kinds of out-of the-ordinary details are not a breeze to bring together. For one anniversary, we had arranged to get a shipment of the Swedish Kroner sparkling wine through its US agent. On the morning of the party it had still not arrived. I called New York and was told that they had forgotten to ship the boxes and now it was too late!

With six hours to go, I got the telephone number to suppliers on the west coast who could possibly have bottles of Kroner. I located a warehouse in Los Angeles with three cases and a warehouse manager who personally drove the cases to the airport and made sure they were on the first available flight. The champagne was speeded through customs and arrived at the Swedish Hall literally minutes before the guests did.

Some people may ask why we bother to take on this big job of organizing a party. To that I say that Swedish Press deserves a great celebration. It has made it through all these years while over two thousand other Swedish American publications have folded.

We would love to see you all at the party but that is of course an impossibility. But perhaps you will honour the magazine with a greeting or best of all give Swedish Press the gift of a new subscriber on this its 80th year of publishing!

Have a nice April!

Anders

P.S.

As I am writing this, Erik Mara phones to tell me that in a Swedish Press from 1975 it says that the paper was started in 1927 - so we are two years late with the jubilee! My research found the very first issue in the fall of 1928, and you can read more in next month’s jubilee issue.

March Blog

2009-02-25T21:44:00.000-08:00

If you are following my virtual trip "Around Swedish America in 365 Days" (at nordicway.com) you know that I am virtually somewhere in Minneapolis right now. In reality I am hard at work in Vancouver getting this issue out to you.

I say this because there are still some readers who think that I am actually doing the trip in person. They would be surprised to know that when I wrote about the manhunt for the Mad Trapper of Rat River (on Day 22 of the trip) I was actually doing it from India (-see pages 16-19 and 23).

That is the beauty of modern telecommunications - that you can publish a magazine or on the web from absolutely anywhere in the world albeit, in my case, with a few technological problems that were quickly fixed by a more computer-savvy daughter.

Right now I am wondering if the virtual tour should make its way back to Vancouver on May 9 for the celebration of the 80th anniversary of Swedish Press. As you can see on page 8, we will celebrate this important jubilee with a commemorative issue and a banquet. We very much hope that you, dear Reader and Supporter, will join our guest of honour, Ingrid Iremark, Sweden's Ambassador to Canada, on this special occasion to pay tribute to Swedish Press. Welcome to the banquet! And if you would like to send a congratulatory note to the paper, please fill in the coupon on page 4.

This will be the third time your present editor is participating in a jubilee celebration and in all likelihood this will be the last. So we hope to see you there. We have some great memories from the last two celebrations and this one will be the one to top them all!

Most jubilees come and go as a matter of course. A celebration is just a way to remind us of the passing of time. In the case of Swedish Press there would be nothing to celebrate if the publication had not proved itself over and over again and managed to stay alive!

There have been over 2 000 Swedish publications in North America through the years. Now there are only 2 left. So a celebration is really in order.

Have a nice March!

Anders

PS. You can read about singer Alice Babs' anniversary on page 30 and purchase her Jubilee Edition CDs with 28 newly discovered and previously unreleased tracks on page 36 (the back cover).

February Blog

2009-01-24T21:00:00.000-08:00

As late as in 1986 when I took over the Swedish Press, many visitors to the office, especially old-timers, would talk nostalgically about the mighty printing press, and the particular smell of the ink and the sound of the steady churning-out of fresh newspapers that they would encounter in the good old days.

That was how it was when 'Svenska Pressen' saw the light of day 80 years ago at Vancouver's Victory Square. The premises of Swedish Press have been shrinking ever since then and today the paper resides in a home office with steadily shrinking computers.

Ernie Poignant, who celebrates his 90th birthday on February 4, still has vivid memories of the early days of Svenska Pressen. In 1947 when he left his father's chicken farm in Matsqui and got his first job at Swedish Press, the paper was housed in its own building in central Vancouver with six employees and a huge printing press. Now that was a real newspaper. (For the 60th anniversary of Swedish Press in 1989, Ernie prepared a humoristic portable exhibit about the early days of the paper that is available for clubs and events).

After two years at Swedish Press, Ernie (who had failed his grade one English because he had grown up with only Swedish around him) was ready to move on, as a full-fledged compositor, to the Cariboo Observer and later on to the Maple Ridge Gazette.

"I still have most of my marbles," says Ernie. Since his retirement in 1983, he has been busier than ever presenting his "chalk talks" and cartoons for pre-schoolers, at shopping malls, Sunday schools, retirement homes and hospitals and more. During the Christmas season, he was in his usual place at the Burnaby Village looking as dapper as ever. Acollection of his cartoons has been published in the book People, Pencil and Paper.

"The cartoons are oddly touching, in their gentle wit and in the sheer exuberance of their drawing. I didn't laugh out once but I noticed, when I turned the last page, that I had been smiling all the way through all these kind and gentle works of a kind and gentle man," reads the introduction by Mark Hamilton, whom Ernie met at the Gazette.

I can't do much more than agree while I can only hope for a fraction of Ernie's vitality if I make it to the grand old age of 90. In the meantime here's wishing Ernie Poignant continued good health so that he can bring many more smiles to hearts young and old!

Have a nice February

Anders

PS. If you haven't yet done it, go to http://www.nordicway.com and see how we are faring on the Swedish Press trip "Around Swedish America in 365 days"! Also see page 4.

January Blog

2009-01-04T23:32:00.000-08:00

Ever since I took over as Editor of Swedish Press I have wanted to make a trip through Swedish America. There are so many places where Swedes settled and left markers of all kinds, from the base camp where the Viking's first landed at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland to Ann-Margret's handprints outside the Mann Chinese Theatre in West Hollywood. There are virtually thousands of Swedish landmarks worth visiting.

I have managed to visit quite a few of these through the years (and you can read about many of them at "Places" on our NordicWay.com web site). But during a jubilee year like 2009, when Swedish Press celebrates 80 years of publishing, it would have been great to actually get on the road and travel to many more Swedish landmarks. The idea was to get input from local experts and then drive across the continent in a car with a "Honk if you are Swedish" bumper sticker and try to meet with as many subscribers and locals as possible. I had even talked to Volvo about transportation and to local Swedophiles who had promised to guide and house me.

Then I had a reality check. I simply do not have the time to carry out this fun project, it will have to wait until I am retired.

So now we are on to the next best thing. Thanks to modern technology we are going to do a virtual "Around Swedish America in 365 Days" tour.

On January 1st the trip starts in the little town of Lund on the West Coast of Canada and then you

can follow it on our map across this great continent. Each day we will post a new dispatch about a place with something of Swedish interest at NordicWay.com. So I do hope you have access to a computer! This is going to be a trip of a lifetime and I invite all readers to point out places we simply must visit. Please write or email anders@nordicway.com and help us document Swedish America in a way nobody has ever done before. I think that this will be a great legacy of the only Swedish monthly in North America!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Anders

PS. There have been thousands of Swedish papers in North America through the years but only two are still publishing. So the 80th anniversary of Swedish Press is really worth celebrating. We are planning a Jubilee issue and several historic features. We are going to have a banquet in May and a subscriber draw for a trip to Sweden later in the year as well as other special offers. It is going to be an exciting year starting with the kick-off of our trip Around Swedish America in 365 Days on January 1st at NordicWay.com. Be there!

October Blog

2008-10-22T23:14:00.000-07:00

Reading regularly, as we do, a Swedish daily and a lot of other Nordic publications, we often find ourselves having a different take on world news than the people around us. There are so many important news stories that never seem to make it to the North American continent. Or the take is so different that you wonder if you are reading about the same thing. Recently I have understood that this is not just a perception. A group at the Sonoma State University in California monitor media in the US and each year document important stories that are not written up in the mainstream media. Most of the unreported stories in 2008 in www.projectcensored.org have been about the Iraq occupation. Unreported in the US corporate media is, how over one million Iraqis have met violent deaths resulting from the US led invasion, and a United Nations High Commission for Refugees study that has concluded that five million Iraqis have been displaced by violence in their country. The mainstream media also ignored a report by three hundred Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans about the brutal impact of the ongoing occupations. Neither did mainstream media report that $9 billion in US currency went missing when the United States Federal Reserve shipped $12 billion to Iraq at the beginning of the war. Also not reported in the US news is how the leaders of Canada, the US, and Mexico have been secretly meeting to expand the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to form a militarized tri-national Homeland Security force and how more than 23 000 representatives of US private industry are working with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to collect information on fellow Americans. Unreported news also includes the stories that the Justice Department believes it is legal for the president to secretly ignore previous executive orders anytime he wants to. Among the twenty-five most important uncovered news stories of 2007, selected by the more than 200 academics involved in the study, was one about the more than twenty-seven million slaves in existence in the world today, the radioactive materials from nuclear weapons production sites that are being dumped into public landfills in the US, and the FDA being complicit in allowing drug companies to make false, unsubstantiated, and misleading advertising claims.

September Blog

2008-09-23T20:34:00.000-07:00

I am not much of a sportsman. I do a bit of downhill skiing during the winter, if I get around to it. Right now I am trying to fit in a bit of jogging into my schedule after being challenged to take part in the local Sun Run for the first time last spring, and making a commitment to join next year and achieve a better result. And I don't play golf even though it has become almost obligatory among my peers. Above all, I am completely uninterested in watching any sports and I was, as usual, fascinated by all my friends who followed the Olympics religiously. Maybe this is genetic but then again my grandfather was actually an Olympian, and a gold medalist to boot. He was part of the Swedish military equestrian team, which won the gold medal at the Stockholm Summer Olympics in 1912. My morfar also competed in the individual horse jumping, completing the course without felling any hinder. He could very well have won a medal in this race also had it not been for a leather strap in his new saddle breaking and grazing against every top bar, resulting in a disqualification. (The rumor in Stockholm was that my hot-tempered grandfather then rushed up to the office of Palmgrens, that is still Sweden's foremost saddle maker, and flogged the owner with his whip for selling him something defective). I have sometimes joked with my friends that if there was a competition in something like croquet at the Olympics I might be game. Imagine my surprise when I recently found out that croquet was actually played at the Paris Olympic Games in 1900. The only competitors were French so France won all the medals. This was also the first Olympic event where women took part, but this did likely not sit well with the spectators. There was only one fan watching the women’s events and that was an Englishman who had travelled up from Nice especially for the occasion. As for other unusual Olympic sports, there have been competitions in softball, Glima wrestling and Tug of War, which was actually an integral part of the Ancient Olympics as well as the Summer Olympics between 1900 and 1920. The most successful eight-man team was the British Bobbies that was a given on the podium. Sweden did not have a national team, but at the Stockholm Olympics in 1912 the local police quickly assembled a team (right) and became the surprise winner. All this got me looking into discontinued Olympic sports and there are some real gems here. There was Live Pigeon Shooting (1900, with 300 pigeons shot), Motor-boating (1908), Rope Climb (1986, 1904, 1906, 1924, 1932), Swimming Obstacle Race (1900, competitors had to climb over a pole and scramble over or under some boats on a 200 meter course right in the River Seine) and Jeau de Paume (1908, like squash but using your hand instead of a racquet). Bring these competitions back and add some other quirky ones and even I will become a fan.

August Blog

2008-08-21T21:12:00.000-07:00

Don't believe everything you see on the internet and be skeptical about the e-mail forwards you get! Recently I got an one from a reader with the subject "Who owns this place??? An American billionaire? A Saudi Prince? Louis XIV of France?". What followed were pictures of an opulent palace identified as that of Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe (that you can find on YouTube). Once you have cooled down after the outrage and incredulence (and hopefully before you start forwarding the e-mail to everybody on your list) you take a closer look to verify the authenticity of the pictures. Having been in Africa, I was struck by something very un-African about the palace in the pictures. There is none of the imperfection and there are no glaring blemishes that you get used to seeing at all levels (like the hook for the clothesline in my bathroom at the Hilton Hotel in Nairobi, that I had to take a picture of because it was upside down and hence could never ever have been used for hanging wash with during the thirty years the hotel had been in existence). Back on the internet I found not only several sites containing the pictures of Robert Mugabe's alleged mansion, but also many others with a lot of insight that to me pointed to the pictures being fake. The alleged mansion does not have the blue Chinese pagoda-style roof that shows up on the authentic aerial photographs of the actual mansion. And the aerial photographs have no signs of the opulent outdoor swim-ming pool in the alleged mansion photos. The two buildings are simply not one and the same. Bloggers also note that one of the bedrooms looks a lot like a hotel suite with a kitchenette at the far end of the room. One room has a sign with Arabic text, likely something from the koran, while Mugabe is a Catholic. Another blogger recalls that he has seen the pictures linked to other African leaders in the past. It is all good reading but you cannot be sure about the accuracy of the information. As I was doing research on this month’s Pågen CompanyFile I ran into a site (lukpac.org/~handmade/patio/misc/pogen.html) that argues that Frank Zappa is singing about Pågens Tosca cookies in the song Florentine Pogens that begins with the line: "She was the daughter of a wealthy Florentine Pogen, ‘Read 'em & weep’ was her adjustable slogan". There is more than a page about this Swedish connection that I think must be a joke, but who knows. There is however a true Swedish connection. When Zappa and his Mothers of In-vention played in Stockholm in 1968 he met a girl backstage who told him that her brother was a big fan, but had not been allowed to come to the concert by the parents. "But then we'll go and visit him," said Zappa and out they drove to the family's apartment in the suburb of Hägersten. The boy was woken up by the bearded musician with the words "Hi, I'm Frank Zappa". The legendary musician then stayed up all night talking politics with the parents. (And perhaps they had Pågens cookies?) This pre-internet story is true and has been confirmed by several of the tour’s arrangers. Have a nice September Anders PS. Do not even believe all the emails from nordicway.com as that address has been hi-jacked and used for all kinds of spam.

July Blog

2008-07-24T21:34:00.000-07:00

During the last two weeks we have had no cause for complaint about the weather. It has been glorious - sunny, not excruciatingly hot, and above all, not a drop of rain. But before this latest spell of good weather, it was another story. After a dismal winter and a pathetic spring, we were really looking forward to a turnaround in June. But no, we had to accept that we were experiencing global cooling in our part of the world and June was quickly nicknamed "Juneary" by the locals. On the positive side we have had something to talk about and I have been able to indulge in my pet peeve - the unreliable weather forecasts. It infuriates me that they have such a low level of accuracy. One of my retirement projects is going to be the monitoring of the weather forecasts to de-termine how dependable they are. Going by my casual observations in Vancouver I have concluded that the forecasts are wrong about half of the time. This makes me wonder if taxpayers could not save a lot of money by Environment Canada getting rid of some of its 6 000 employees and using a dice for predictions instead. I know that it is clearly much harder to predict weather patterns along the coast, but I find it annoying that the weather reporters never admit their mistakes. Instead they surf over their short-comings with their Hawaiian shirts and evasive glib. I don't know if the situation is any better in Sweden, where the last winter was the warmest ever, or at least since 1756 when temperatures started being recorded. But it is refreshing to see that the weather service, SMHI, at least apologizes for their misses in the Annual Report. Further-more SMHI has just installed a supercomputer that has six times the power of its previous one. During each 24-hour period, four meteorological computations will project the land weather and two computations will project weather at sea. I have never before seen as detailed weather maps. There are even forecasts that can calculate how much wind power a specific wind mill can be expected to produce during the next few days. Back in Vancouver, the bad weather and the lousy forecasts have filled a void in dinner conversations what with real estate prices stalling and putting a damper on Vancouver's No 1 conversation topic!

June Blog

2008-06-18T21:00:00.001-07:00

The Olympic Games in Stockholm, in 1912, were the first to fulfill Baron Pierre de Coubertin's original idea. For the first time since the modern Games had started in 1896, all continents were represented at the games with the 2 504 athletes competing in the same stadium. The ultimate dream of the founder of the Olympics was that it would not be “the winning, it's the taking part and competing well that counts". Only amateurs were to be allowed and there was not to be any political involvement. I myself feel it is important to make a distinction between the competition and the inauguration. While the competitions should be all about sportsmanship and nothing else, the inauguration of an Olympic Game is in essence all about politics. It is a spectacle to showcase the host country at its best. A boycott of the inauguration is now being widely discussed as one way of protesting China's human rights abuses. A Dagens Nyheter sports columnist suggests that the athletes should even be spared from parading in this charade and it should instead be the Swedish IOC board members Gunilla Lindberg, Pernilla Wiberg and Arne Ljungqvist walking around with the Swedish flag by themselves. This will surely not happen but I promise this discussion will come up again before the Russian Winter Olympics in 2014. I think the Dalai Lama has the right idea. He does not want to stop the games, but to allow legitimate protests. The United States and some 60 other countries boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980 to protest the invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviets and their allies did the same with the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. The only ones who suffered were the athletes. The International Olympic Committee has been very upset about the protests along the Torch Relay this year. It should, however, be noted that the Torch Relay was not part of the original Coubertin idea, but a much later clever public relation gimmick by the Nazis for the Berlin Olympics in 1936. It is essentially a political spectacle just like the inauguration and should as such be open for protests. If there is something that the IOC should be upset about, it has to be the fact that China has not honored its human rights commitments. Just like the Nazis never fulfilled their promise to allow German Jews to compete in their games, something that the IOC also chose to ignore. On the whole the International Olympic Committee does not have much of a track record when it comes to ideals (as detailed in Sverker Lindström's Det stora sveket. Den olympiska rörelsen i diktaturens tjänst.) and the Olympics have essentially become all about money. Today many of the athletes are amateurs just by name while sportsmanship continues to take a beating as ever more sophisticated performance enhancement substances evolve. Baron Pierre de Coubertin is probably turning in his grave in Geneva, while his heart, that was buried separately in a monument near the ruins of ancient Olympia, is breaking to pieces.

Swedish Press June 2008 Issue

2008-05-20T07:17:00.000-07:00

The Olympic Games in Stockholm, in 1912, were the first to fulfill Baron Pierre de Coubertin's original idea. For the first time since the modern Games had started in 1896, all continents were represented at the games with the 2 504 athletes competing in the same stadium.

The ultimate dream of the founder of the Olympics was that it would not be “the winning, it's the taking part and competing well that counts". Only amateurs were to be allowed and there was not to be any political involvement.

I myself feel it is important to make a distinction between the competition and the inauguration. While the competitions should be all about sportsmanship and nothing else, the inauguration of an Olym- pic Game is in essence all about politics. It is a spectacle to showcase the host country at its best. A boycott of the inauguration is now being widely discussed as one way of protesting China's human rights abuses. A Dagens Nyheter sports columnist suggests that the athletes should even be spared from parading in this charade and it should instead be the Swedish IOC board members Gunilla Lindberg, Pernilla Wiberg and Arne Ljungqvist walking around with the Swedish flag by themselves. This will surely not happen but I promise this discussion will come up again before the Russian Winter Olympics in 2014.

I think the Dalai Lama has the right idea. He does not want to stop the games, but to allow legitimate protests. The United States and some 60 other countries boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980 to protest the invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviets and their allies did the same with the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. The only ones who suffered were the athletes.

The International Olympic Committee has been very upset about the protests along the Torch Relay this year. It should, however, be noted that the Torch Relay was not part of the original Coubertin idea, but a much later clever public relation gimmick by the Nazis for the Berlin Olympics in 1936. It is essentially a political spectacle just like the inauguration and should as such be open for protests.

If there is something that the IOC should be upset about, it has to be the fact that China has not honored its human rights commitments. Just like the Nazis never fulfilled their promise to allow German Jews to compete in their games, something that the IOC also chose to ignore. On the whole the International Olympic Committee does not have much of a track record when it comes to ideals (as detailed in Sverker Lindström's Det stora sveket. Den olympiska rörelsen i diktaturens tjänst.) and the Olympics have essentially become all about money. Today many of the athletes are amateurs just by name while sportsmanship continues to take a beating as ever more sophisticated performance enhancement substances evolve.

Baron Pierre de Coubertin is probably turning in his grave in Geneva, while his heart, that was buried separately in a monument near the ruins of ancient Olympia, is breaking to pieces.

Swedish Press May 2008 Issue

2008-04-22T22:42:00.000-07:00

In the May'08 issue of Swedish Press you can read Canadian Bob Cox’s thoughtful and fun LastWord about his Swedish Culture Shock.

When the Vikings wanted to tell us something, they had to do it in stone. In this issue we also tell you about these messages in the form of runes and about a runestone safari in Sweden. True fans will go to great lengths to check out runes and there are many discoveries to be made.

In the hills of Colombia in South America there are many stone monuments that date back to centuries before the Spanish conquest of the New World. A few of them look very much like the prehistoric representatives of the God Thor that have been found in Iceland. One of the stone monuments is especially interesting because its headdress features what appears to be runic inscriptions. Skeptics have suggested that the runes could have been carved by modern Scandinavian tourists, but it is unlikely as they are evident on the photographs of the monument from as early as 1863. Similar Viking graffiti has been found on the stone lions in Venice and here it has been verified as authentic carvings by Vikings.

Just like it took many centuries to prove without any doubt that the Vikings reached the American continent, it could take a long time to produce the ultimate proof that the Vikings actually also reached Mexico and Columbia in South America, a thesis launched by several scholars.

According to the Sagas, Ari Marson and his eleven ships never reached Greenland because they were blown off course, but they reached a land where they were "much respected" by the inhabitants.

The Swedish-born Mexican researcher, Gustavo Nelin feels that the description of the "god" Quetzalcoatl, who is said to have appeared around the year 1000, as a middle-aged white man, with long red hair and a grizzled beard, sounds very much like what Ari Marson must have looked like.

Add to that that he is sometimes depicted wearing a sort of medieval clothing favored by the Norse, that he taught the inhabitants to use metal and argued against human sacrifice and it sounds just like a Chris-tianized Norseman. The word Quetzalcoatl means "flying serpent" and that is just what the Vikings called their ships.

Some of the First Nations people in the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Colum-bia are blue-eyed and fair-haired as are the Mandan Indians in Minnesota. Both people have legends similar to the Columbians, of Viking-like white men with beards arriving on their shores and settling down.

Thor Heyerdahl in the book No Boun-daries claims that the Vinlanders lived pri-mitively and left few traces of their existence behind them. Nevertheless Heyerdahl was a true believer of a wider presence of Vikings in North America and he even came to the defence of the much questioned Vinland Map, and such “Norse” artifacts as the Kensington runestone and the mysterious stone tower in Newport R.I..

I have not taken a stand on this issue. But I continue to find the subject truly fascinating and am constantly on the search for more evidence.

Have a nice May!

Anders

April issue of Swedish Press

2008-04-01T16:23:00.000-07:00

One of the inspiring things about this job are the interviews. Some are lots of fun to do, others are more challenging. This month’s interview in Swedish Press was something I had been looking forward to for a while because Jan Guillou is such an iconic figure in Sweden. Controversial as he is, there are few Swedes who do not pay attention to what he has to say. And he had more to say then we had space for.

One of the things I asked Jan Guillou about was the difficulty he had had getting a U.S. visa. He told me about the last time he was on US soil.

“My wife and I were going for Christmas to Tahiti. Only the Air France plane that left from Paris had to go down in Los Angeles for fuel and we thought that was no problem, but not any longer, now everybody had to go through passport control. And I was arrested there.”

Guillou was taken into a troubleshooting room where there were already about 30 “Arab-looking” men waiting for their turn. He was desperate to get back on the plane to his wife, so he did something he “would feel ashamed about later”.

“I walked up to these guys and I said this must be a mistake because as you can see I am a white man. Those were not of course the words I used. Instead of white man, I said Scandinavian citizen. They started to deal with me before the others. They checked the computers again and said I had to be expelled. It was all very polite and we came to the conclusion that the best thing was to expel me on the Air France plane. Because the alternative would be to empty a whole 747 and identify my luggage.”

On his way home, Guillou was back in the same room, and this time it was serious. “I said last time we found a brilliant solution and let’s do the same thing but they said it was different this time as we were going to cross over US territory. Eventually we worked out the same solution.”

When the movie Evil, based on his book, was selected among the five finalists for the Academy Awards in Hollywood, it took Guillou two and a half weeks to get a visa, but by then the director of the film had given Guillou’s invitation to his own wife.

Jan Guillou believes that his visa troubles are the fault of the Swedish secret police who “have forwarded information that does not have to be true, but it is enough with a suspicion”. His espionage conviction from 1973 was taken off the Swedish criminal register after 25 years. Then there is his position on 9-11. Guillou walked out from the Göteborg Book Fair in 2002 in the midst of the three minutes of silence that had been proclaimed throughout Europe to honour the victims of the attacks. Defending his protest in an article in Aftonbladet, Guillou wrote "the U.S. is the great mass murderer of our time. Only the wars against Vietnam and its nearby countries claimed four million lives. Without any minute of silence in Sweden".

He also rejected the notion that the attacks were "an attack on us all" countering that the attacks were only "an attack on U.S. imperialism."The last question that I always end all my interviews with is “What have I forgotten to ask?” This is because everybody has a story they want to tell and sometimes they have not had the chance to do that in the course of the questions we put to them. This is how Jan Guillou answered my last question:

“I never never remember any interview. I have a delete button in my head. When I hang up this telephone I will have forgotten this conversation. This is no disrespect for my fellow journalists. Not at all. On the contrary my principle is that I have never been asked any of these questions before, it is being asked for the first time and I can put myself in a condition that I really believe this. That comes from being interviewed all the time.”

I found this refreshing and, indeed, I did feel that this person, who is regarded as a bit arrogant and as having a huge superiority complex, showed a great deal of respect throughout the long interview that we unfortunately had to cut down quite considerably. Among other bits, we had to cut down some of Jan Guillou’s controversial political views, like his criticism of Israel and the war on terrorism.

So do read the interview in the April issue of Swedish Press!

Swedish Press March 2008

2008-02-26T05:31:00.000-08:00

I just found out that the actress and author Eva Dahlbeck has passed away in February. She had been on my list of future interviews ever since I took over Swedish Press. I was sure her fascinating life would make for a good story, and furthermore I had a personal interest in her as she was my father's cousin. It is sad that the interview never materialized.

Eva Dahlbeck (born 1920 in Saltsjö-Duvnäs on the outskirts of Stock-holm) was a smart blond, and one of Sweden's most popular and successful actresses in the 40s and 50s. Ingmar Bergman described her as his "battleship of femininity" and cast her in many strong female roles where he could also utilize her playful streak. She often co-starred with Gunnar Björnstrand like in Waiting Women (1952) where their scenes are played out largely in a lift stuck between floors, during which time they achieve new insight into their marital difficulties. Their playful teamwork has been compared to that of Katherine Hepburn and Gary Grant.

In its eulogy Washington Post writes: "Ms. Dahlbeck might be best remembered for ‘Smiles of a Summer Night’ (1955 - and you can see a scene on YouTube), which has endeared itself to generations of filmgoers for its delicate comic touches and delirious romanticism. The film helped launch Bergman's international reputation. Ms. Dahlbeck played a central role as a stage actress of advancing years who manipulates her two pompous lovers, a lawyer (Gunnar Björnstrand) and a military officer (Jarl Kulle)."

In 1962 Eva Dahlbeck starred as William Holden’s wife in the espionage thriller The Counterfeit Traitor. She got the Eugene O'Neill Award for her theatre work and shared a Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival with Ingrid Thulin, Bibi An-dersson and Barbro Hiort af Ornäs for So Close to Life (1958), a bleak Bergman drama.

Eva Dahlbeck retired from acting in the 1970s to concentrate on writing. She wrote poetry, plays and more than a dozen novels. She admitted that one of the characters in a novel was based on Ingmar Bergman, who "has an erotic relationship with everything around him - with nature, people, things, indeed with everything that happens. It may appear as if he is involved in some universal act of love that is sometimes fruitful and sometimes destructive.”

She also wrote the gruesome screenplay to Arne Mattsson's film The Yngsjö Murder (1966), based on a novel about incest and murder.

Eva Dahlbeck was married to the dashing pilot and commander Sven Lampell who organized the Red Cross aid flights to Biafra during the war in Nigeria. She moved with him to Geneva when he was appointed a Red Cross Chief Delegate.

On one of my latest visits to Stockholm I managed to get hold of the Lampells’ phone number and called them in Hässelby Villastad. Sven Lampell explained that Eva was suffering from Alzheimer's and an interview was out of the question. Eva did come to the phone and she sounded fine, but her last words "Anders, it's too late" still ring in my ears.

In this issue we bring you an interview with Björn Bayley who was one of the first people we interviewed (in November 1986). He now joins the small and exclusive club consisting of Max von Sydow, Ann-Sofie von Otter and Olle Wästberg who have been interviewed twice in Swedish Press.

February Issue

2008-01-24T06:01:00.001-08:00

I have never called in to a talk show on radio but the other day as I was listening to the car radio on my way to a meeting I was quite tempted to get in on a discussion on CBC on whether children would become more productive if they got to start school an hour later. No, I don’t have an opinion on this particular issue but something else related to productivity at school. And I never called in to add my two-cents worth so I will use this forum for my rant instead. When talking about making kids more productive at school, a very important element to consider, in my opinion, has got to be nutrition. And a sure way to ensure that kids have enough energy to get them through school is to provide a nutritious meal at school. Both the United States and Sweden have national lunch programs in public schools to ensure that students get a proper meal that gives them enough energy to tackle their afternoon classes. In Canada some private and certain public schools do provide cooked lunches, and some even have breakfast programs, but at the majority of schools children bring their lunches from home. By all accounts a typical lunch consists of a sandwich, a sweet drink, (very often carbonated), fruit and a treat. Or in some cases students are given money to buy a lunch. Many parents are really creative about the lunches to ensure that their kids don’t chuck everything but the treat, but it is not so easy to come up with something that is nutritious, yummy and keeps fresh. I can quite understand why so many egg salad sandwiches, that have been sitting unrefrigerated, end up in the garbage bin. Studies have shown that a kid, or indeed an adult, is more alert and efficient if he or she has had a real lunch. It is not rocket science. An investment in nutritious lunches gives a good return. So why doesn’t schools and employers provide them? Many Canadian friends are astonished when I tell them about the balanced lunches, that every kids got at school when I was growing up in Sweden. The school lunches to be served the following week were posted in the local papers so that parents could plan dinners at home accordingly. Similarly when I started working, there was a beautiful cafeteria where a free lunch was served every day (not to speak of an indoor pool, sauna, billiard room and more). Workplaces that did not have their own facilities provided lunch coupons for their employees to have a proper lunch at a nearby restaurant. Sadly things have also changed in Sweden. Some municipalities have introduced fees for school lunches and there are widespread complaints about the poor quality of the food in some areas. Subsidized lunches at work are also no longer the rule because of changes in tax regulations. But that does not change my belief in a good meal for all in the middle of the day.

January Issue

2008-01-24T05:57:00.000-08:00

The War Against the Bath Tub. Never heard of it? Then you may also be unaware of the War Against the Potato and the War Against the Street, writes Kristian Karlsson in the Swedish magazine NEO. The journalist notes the vast amount of resources allocated to the war against terrorism, despite the fact that to date terrorism has killed an average of only 200 people each year, while between 300 and 400 Americans die each year in their bath tubs, 640 fatally choke on food and 6 000 are run over when they try to cross the street. Kristian Karlsson does not want to down-play the threat of terrorism, but questions the measures used in, and the cost of, the war against it. Clearly tongue-in cheek, he argues that wars against the bathtub, the potato and the street would be far more cost-effective, while the war on terrorism is a bit of an overkill. But historically this has been the norm and there are many examples of “overkill” in the face of a threat, whether real or perceived. During the Cold War people in Sweden were put in alert mode by measures like the brochure entitled If The War Comes that made the monthly test of the air-raid alarm, sound really sinister. Almost 70 000 air-raid shelters were built all over Sweden, 7 000 of them in Stockholm, in preparation for a potential nuclear attack from the “east”. Most of the shelters were incorporated in residential buildings, but there is also a huge one at Slussen, and a gigantic one in Vita Bergen, that was to serve as the command centre for the civilian defence in case of war. Plans detailing the location of the closest air-raid shelter as well as the exact location in the country that citizens were to be evacuated to, were posted at the entrance of each residential building by the civil defence authority. The threat of war was taken more seriously by some than by others. My grandfather, who was a retired military man, decided that it was a good idea to have a residence in the small village up north, where the residents in his area were to be evacuated, all ready for himself and his wife. Since a son of his was likely to be conscripted, my grandfather also included a daughter-in-law and her young children in his plans. He proceeded to put in a classified ad in Östersunds Tidning that read "Commander Neumüller with two wives and three children would like to rent three rooms in case of evacuation ...". The ad was an instant success in the satirical paper Grönköpings Veckoblad that noted the two wives. My grandfather never got the funny part. Anyway, after my coffee-loving grandfather’s death we also found more than a hundred bottles filled with coffee beans stored away in his cellar. Overkill? As for all those shelters, most of them are today used for parking and storage. No new shelters have been built since the early 1990s, and should the strategic situation change, it is believed that there would be a time period of up to ten years to construct enough additional shelters to protect the bigger population of today.

December Issue

2007-12-04T08:16:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe it but, yes, Christmas is soon upon us and it is once again time for candles, decorations, parties, trees, wide-eyed children, gifts galore, great food and...lutfisk.

What is lutfisk, some of you may ask. Many people who know what it is, wonder how this poor man’s fare from the olden days has managed to survive and get a headlining role at the Christmas table.

Lutfisk - literally lye fish - has its origins in the period of fasting in pre-reformation times. It is cod that is dried and then boiled until it tastes of hardly anything at all. If it wasn’t for a faint smell of fish and a subtle fish flavour, it could pass off as anything at all.

Some people love lutfisk. I eat it when I have to and I actually enjoy the accompanying white sauce, the mustard sauce, the green peas and whatever else this culinary tradition dictates, but I find it hard to understand that the bland dish can be defended from a culinary point of view. or as author John Anderson put it in a Swedish Press interview: “Scandinavian recipes are handed down from mother to daughter, through the generations, for no apparent reason at all.”

This is how Roger Welsch, a professor of English, described his lutfisk encounters in a Norwegian-American home (in the World & I, December 1987):

“I had begun to realize that for the single most important meal of the year for this family, they were about to eat something they not only didn’t like, but actually found disgusting. And they offered invitations to share this horrible food only to those who were born or explicitly accepted into the family circle.”

As Welsch is also an anthropologist, he could not but help reason that “the lutfisk had nothing to do with nutrition, taste, convenience, or expense; the lutfisk meal was a recharging of cultural batteries, a single moment in the year when the family remembered its past, its humble past.

Whether lutfisk tasted good or not, whatever the inconvenience of obtaining, preparing, and eating the stuff, it had an almost religious importance far exceeding all other considerations.

Even more important than the lutfisk itself was the ritual that surrounded it. That is, it was not simply that it was lutfisk every year, it was lutfisk every year. Whatever other changes there were in the family be-tween Christmases - death, birth, marriage, divorce, prosperity, economic collapse, or alienation - there was one thing that could be counted on - lutfisk, a food that stood as so distinctive a landmark in the annual regimen that it could never be mistaken for any other meal of the year, could never be eaten casually.”

July Issue

2007-07-11T14:32:00.000-07:00

Just back from a quick visit to Sweden, I am filled with many spontaneous observations as well as one small insight. First for my observations. The Stockholm summer streets are teeming with pretty girls and all of them are not blond. Beautiful girls in Sweden now come in all colours and ethnic backgrounds. For the first time in many years, I did not see any anti-immigrant graffiti. Yes I did see some overweight people but obesity is still not as commonplace in Sweden as it is in North America. Wherever you go you see signs of wealth and well-being. You see it in the form of solid investments in infrastructure. Whether it is new housing or highway tunnels, everything is done with quality. You never see tilted signs or broken fences like you do here. What you do see, however, is more garbage in the streets so Stockholm is slowly losing its reputation as a clean city. You also get a feeling of how well Swedes are doing when you visit their homes. Everybody seemed to be renovating, some for what seemed to be the second or the third time. And their kitchens and bathrooms are much snazzier than what we are getting when we order the more expensive "European" alternatives. What fascinated me most about all the renovations was that they were being carried out primarily by builders, plumbers, electricians and handymen from Poland. Everybody seemed to have an inside track to Poles who charge substantially less than Swedes, even those charging "under the table". The black and grey markets are booming according to a recent report from economists at the Riksbanken central bank. As much as 67% of cash transactions can no longer be accounted for and that means that these illegal or semi-legal sectors have increased their share of Sweden's Gross National Product from 3.8 to 6.5 percent. There have been small pockets of Poles working in Sweden during the last twenty years or so, but now they seem to have become the preferred builders everywhere. The Poles work part of the year in Sweden and then go back for lengthy vacations with their families in Poland. And ironically there they renovate their houses with the help of the even less expensive Rumanians, who have now also started making their way to Sweden. Sweden is not the only country where Polish handymen have made a name for themselves. In France dashing young Polish plumbers almost have a cult status and this has given a boost to French tourism in Poland. This is not quite how it is in Sweden. Here you hear people compare "their Poles" at dinners (like serfs were compared in another century?) Everybody has a Pole story, like the couple who moved into an apartment that had been renovated by a team of Poles, only to find out that the apartment had also served as housing for a big group of Poles whose parties had become famous throughout the building. Recently the Swedish labor movement managed to stop a construction company from employing Poles for a large housing project in Vaxholm. Public opinion was on the side of the Poles who would have done the same job for SEK 39.90 an hour compared to the union rate of SEK 137. Have a nice July Anders