We will never forget, but I don't want to understand

Last Monday I changed the mode on my alarm clock from "radio" to "bird chitter".

During the course of the morning I unfollowed on Facebook every source that used to update me on breaking news.

When I walked to work, I deliberately looked away from the newspaper stands outside of the shops I passed.

All of these actions were grounded in the same basic motivation: enough is enough.

Though in reality, it isn't enough. It's just getting started.


It seems we've become a country of reluctant news junkies here in Norway. It's been nine months, but the memories of the horrors of the events on the 22nd of July last year are as strong as ever. We've been through stages of shock, sorrow and anger, and now it is - perhaps - the time for comprehension. At least I think that is the reason why even those of us who rather would close our eyes to the whole thing still feel obliged to pay some attention to the circus that started last week: the trial.

It's absurd, of course, to even try to comprehend the - in lack of a better word - evil that lies behind the killing of 77 people in two coordinated attacks. One bomb. Several hundred gun shots.

I'm not sure, though, that it is beneficial to comprehend too much. It lies in our nature, perhaps, to try to figure things out, to understand, to explain. But in reality, I don't want to have to spend my time or energy on this man. I don't even want to hate him - what purpose would that serve? Reading about what he says or has written makes me feel ill. His picture too. That face I don't even want to know, but which has been etched in so that I will never forget the pudgy, pale, wax-like skin; the narrow, close-set eyes; the much-talked-about post-surgery nose.  The other day I made the mistake of watching a video clip of him to hear his voice - and I found myself thinking it was feminine and cold and disgusting. Objectively speaking, I am sure he looks and sounds no worse than the next guy, but I cannot be objective. And it bothers me, immensely, that I don't want to be. I want to feel physically ill from looking at him or hearing his voice, and consequently, I am letting him affect me more than he deserves.

The focus on him - the terrorist whose name I don't even want to say or write - annoys me. Obviously it's difficult to avoid, the attack having been a one-man-job. I get how this character fascinates people. The combination of a delusional self-image and extremist political ideas, plus the will and ability to go through with his [insert ten minutes worth of thoughts to try to come up with an adjective that accurately describes this. "Gruesome", "cold-blooded" or "morbid" didn't quite do the trick] plan. As a mental case, he is doubtlessly interesting. But I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm a regular person wondering whether it's really necessary to spend so much time, ink and words on a man who already hurt us all so much.

Ironically, here I am spending both time, words and the electronic equivalent of ink on him.

In reality, though, what ought to be the focus isn't him, or his wacked ideology. Rather, his actions should be. He will be prosecuted for what he did, not what he believes in. It seems the media forgot this detail.

I have faith in the system. I trust that the court will pass a fair judgment, under the available laws. I trust that this will mean that he will never again set his foot outside a prison as a free man. And that will be that. Until then, I don't need the details. I don't want to spend more time than necessary on this. I don't want to give him that.

Write or Wrong?

Lately, I've been pondering moral issues.

As a historian I frequently come across difficult topics that can be tough to handle professionally. I wrote my thesis on the Middle East conflict. I now teach about World War One and Two. Constantly, I run into issues that are difficult - if not impossible - to handle without passing some kind of judgment. The dropping of the atomic bombs over Japan, for instance. So many factors to consider, making it a very complex moral question.

In my research and teaching, however, the solution is fairly simple. As a historian, you are not supposed to pass judgment. Personal opinions are less interesting than professional explanations and analysis of the issues of the past. Whether something is "right" or "wrong" isn't relevant. It may not always be easy to avoid having opinions, and it may not be easy to avoid voicing them, but at least it is a yardstick we can keep to.

This goes for academic writing, but not so much in other genres.

In fiction writing you will also frequently run into moral issues, and you have much less restraints in terms of what you can and cannot do. You don't have to keep to academic standards or give justice to any sources, unless you chose to, of course. You are free to portray any issue which ever way you want - as long as you are prepared to face the concequences.

Because - even if we as fiction writers have no formal obligation to avoid passing judgment or meddling with complex moral themes, we may still face repercussions. People will still have opinions about the subjects you address, and they will not hesitate to pass judgment on you as the author if they disagree with your position.

Nabokov's Lolita seems an apt example. In this case it is, perhaps, his lack of passing judgment that has caused the controversy - the narrator, a middle-aged man, attempts to justify his own sexual relationship with a twelve-year-old girl. Nabokov found his novel first rejected; and then after publishing, banned many places. Eventually, however, it has come to be considered a classic and a must-read.

Moral issues engage us. This is why it is difficult to convince students that they need to strip their academic papers from them. And this is why controversial books that deal with moral issues frequently are prainsed and banned, often simultaneously. As fiction writers, then, we should perhaps seek to deal with these issues rather than avoid them?

Into the Unknown

Say you're a teacher.

Say you're working with students.

Say you're a teacher for students and the class you're teaching is history.

Say that.

Assuming these are the premises, you may also assume the following: there is something specific you want to teach them. The class should have a curriculum, and given that it is history it probably has a specified topic and time frame. "The French Revolution, 1789-1799." "The Development of the Nuclear Bomb, 1939-1945." "Wars and Conflicts, 1900-today."

In addition, the specificness of which you presumably want to teach, is tied to the craft of your profession: the historian. Because it is a craft, a set of rules, certain points without which you will not be able to perform your work properly.

And then you have the Odd Bull (inside joke). The stray dog that breaks the rules, and plans to get away with it.

Granted, some do. Think Picasso.

But most don't.

And those who do, get away with it because they break the rules in a smart way. They break the right kind of rules.

The reason they can do that is that they know the rules. They know the craft. They have learned it, first, and then they derrive from it.

"Be precise!"

"Be specific!"

"Don't assume that the reader can follow you line of thought!"

"Never leave a quote hanging. Your interpretation of it, and your reasoning as to why it is important isn't obvious to the rest of us. If you cannot explain why the quote should be there, it shouldn't be there. If it doesn't express specifically something you cannot say just as well with your own words, you should say it with your own words."

I know the rules. I know the craft. At least I'm supposed to. What I know that I know, though, is this: I know that I don't follow the rules. Not now. Because I am not specific. I am not clear. You do not follow. My arguments are weak, my reasoning reasonless.

And the reason I can do this is not that I know the rules, but that I know that there are no rules. This is not my craft, after all; this is not a academic, history paper. This is a blog.

Say you're a teacher. Say you're working with students. Say your work as a teacher is making your head so full of analysis and rules and academic upholstery that you have no desire to make sense anymore. Say that.

Delusional Anagram Thursday

Delusional.

Ledusional.

Sudinoalle.

Unload isle.

Allies undo.

Ail nodules.

A duels loin.

Lone laid us.

Dial ole sun.

Use land oil.

Sun aloe lid.

El slain duo.

La nude silo.

An oil duel.

Denial soul.


(Now sing it to the tune of "Old MacDonald"...)

Alpha Reading

Dear Writer,

First of all, since I am a nice person, let me say that this is not all bad. It’s mostly bad, but not all of it. You employ an immaculate use of punctuation, even if you do seem to adhere to a foreign punctuation system rather than the British English one you attempt (and not with great success, I might add) to write within. Oh, well.

Your entry is too short. The request was, specifically, 1000-2000 words, and at a meager 267 you are clearly not quite there yet. Further, the length of the deadline you were given (which, I might remind you, was extended, twice, and you still failed to meet it yesterday) indicated that you spend considerable time on this. As it stands, it looks a whole lot like the text you provided was composed during a few delusional hours one Sunday afternoon.

If your 267 words had been brilliant words – or at least the order in which you put them had been brilliant – you might have gotten away with it. Sadly, this is not the case. An extended usage of “the”, “to” and – for some reason –“orchard”, diminishes the text further. Do you not own a Thesarus?

Further, the characters are bland and not at all fleshed out. The scandalous accusations your main character and narrator addresses the others with are not sufficiently founded in the plot (if there is such a thing as a plot in your – ahem – “story”). The ending seems pulled out of thin air, and whatever “foreshadowing” you were trying to employ did not hint at anything other than your poor writing skills.

It seems to me that you once wanted to be a writer, but you forgot why, and how. It looks as though you have wasted a lot of time writing other things – academic papers, perhaps? Your structure, language and incredulous use of footnotes indicates that you have forgotten what fiction is supposed to look like.

My soundest advice – apart from giving up writing altogether (but I suspect you’re too stubborn for that) – would be to take your text back to the drawing board (frankly, it never should have left it). There, you have to start over. Really. From the beginning. Find a purpose for your text, and transform it from a “text”, into the story you intended it to be.

I am a fan of sandwiches, even in criticism. Thus let me sandwich in another positive comment at the end. You clearly have a vivid imagination. Use it.

Sincerely,

Your Harshest Critic

The Weight of the World

As of late I've been carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. I know that I, as a historian, should be able to distance myself from the terrible things I read about. I should be able to treat it professionally, and without letting my own emotions or morality get in the way.

The problem isn't that I can't. The problem is that I won't.

World War Two. The largest conflict in human history. Unfathomably large numbers of people killed, wounded and abused. Unspeakable atrocities on all sides. If World War One was what lost us our innocense, World War Two certainly confirmed that there was no way back. The loss of civilian lives were not only collateral damage in this war; civillians were targets.

Reading about air raids, firebombings, Manchuria and - last but definitely not least - the atomic bombs, I feel obliged to remember that this is more than numbers and figures. It's about people. People who suffered. Who died.

And it's about people who made decisions.

Good people? Evil people? Somewhere-in-between people?

People we with time can laugh of, even if their decisions had extreme consequences.

Consequences I want to keep in mind, even if they make my days bleaker.

No one if neutral or objective in history. No one should be. Even if we need to understand more than one aspect; we're allowed (and, in my mind, bound), to have opinions and bias. You just need to be aware of it, and try not to let it affect your professional work too much.

If you want to carry the weight of the world too, you may watch the video below. It is long. But it should make you feel something. (And not just about atomic bombs, if you make it past the first ten minutes)

My sincerest appologies for forsaking "Writing Wednesday" for "Cruella pours her heart out (but still couldn't resist the photoshopped image of the 'big three'...)".

If not the end of the world, then what?

Last week, Leanne wrote an excellent post about dystopian literature (and you should all go read it, if you haven’t already). This week, however, I take advantage of the combination of our regular “Topical Tuesday” and the start of a brand new year. And not just any year. 2012. The year the Mayans either did or didn’t predict would be the end of the world.

("Did or didn’t", I suppose, is a rather vague description. Of course the Mayans either did or didn’t predict the end of the world. We all either do or don’t predict that on a daily basis. Just as you either did or didn’t get up from your bed this morning, you did or didn’t eat breakfast, and then you did or didn’t get abducted by aliens.

I’d wager, though, that there is a larger following of the theory that the Mayans did predict the end of the world, than it is one believing you got abducted by aliens after having swallowed your morning coffee.)

Now. Despite what the Mayans did or didn’t predict, and despite what we do or don’t interpret is as, I don’t much believe in the end of the world. I hope that 2012 will make a better year than movie. I’m not entirely sure how. But all the same, it is very unlikely it will end the world. 2012 – the movie didn’t end Hollywood, after all. There is still hope.

Hope, yes. But for what? “The world not coming to an end” is a pretty low standard for what we need to have as a minimum demand to make this a successful year. Let me show you an illustrative figure:

Assuming the modern interpretation of the Mayan prediction is correct, this figure shows that "Not the end of the world" is pretty far down on the scale where "utopia" serves as the other extreme from "the end of the world". 

Then we are free to fill in several other possible occurrences or events according to their degree of terribleness relative to the end of the world/utopia:

Yes. I'm aware that "Vesuv" is the Norwegian spelling of the volcano called Mount Vesuvius in English, and Monte Vesuvio in Italian. Blame my "End-of-the-world-terribleness-indicator"-maker. She appears to be Norwegian (and quite fond of chocolate). 

As you can see, there is quite a lot of bleakness that is considered less terrible than "not the end of the world". It is my claim that this is the state we all know and love as "dystopia":

The red circle should, clearly, extend all the way to "Not the end of the world", and perhaps close in a little tighter to "out of chocolate". Again, my  "End-of-the-world-terribleness-indicator"-maker  is Norwegian. Also, I hear, she's not a proper scientist.  

This state of red circle is what we all should fear, more so than our fear for the end of the world. If it ends, it ends. We're out. It is much more scary, in reality, to think of everything that is slightly less terrible than the end of the world. It's not just about chocolate or terrible movies, but also death, war, destruction. Awful things, that - all joking aside - actually will and can happen. Yes, there will be more wars, natural disasters and pointless human suffering. Yes, we might tumble into new financial crises. The Euro might fall. Wall Street might win. Or lose. The Middle East might show us further upheavals still. North Korea might explode, or implode, or plode in other frightful manners. We might actually run out of chocolate.  

All in all, though, these are worst-case scenarios. They might not happen at all. And if they do, they probably won't all happen at once. Thus, the chances are we'll still be stuck in the fuzzy area between dystopia and utopia. Everything isn't great, but it's not all bad either. The world hasn't ended. Hitler isn't back. There will be chocolate. 

If you're still not convinced, and you still believe the Mayans were right - ponder this: 

Procrastibaking In Practise

There is no escaping it - Christmas is approaching. Okay, I'll admit, it's not even approaching anymore - it's here!!! In just a few short days, the superstar of the holidays, the diva, is upon us. With all its stress, commercialism, tacky decorations, stressed out housewives and sugar-high children.

I find, though, that it is important to remember that there is a reason Christmas is the diva. There are some redeeming factors. Family gatherings, great food, the joy of - not just receiving, but - giving. Christmas is all about traditions, and it's important to find your own; traditions you are happy with, traditions that don't just stress you out, but also ensure that you can enjoy this time of year.

One such tradition, to me, is baking. Unfortunately, this year I won't have the time to do much of that. Thus, instead I will share with you a great recipe I've come across, so that maybe you can enjoy it, even if I can't:


Fruitcake recipe

Ingredients

1 cup water 
1 cup sugar 
4 large eggs 
2 cup dried fruit 
1 teaspoon baking soda 
1 teaspoon salt 
1 cup brown sugar 
lemon juice 
nuts 
1 gallon whiskey 

Instructions

Sample the whiskey to check for quality.

Take a large bowl. Check the whiskey again to be sure that it is of the highest quality.

Pour 1 level cup and drink. Repeat. Turn on the electric mixer; beat 1 cup butter in a large fluffy bowl.

Add 1 teaspoon sugar and beat again. Make sure the whiskey is still okay. Cry another tup. Turn off the mixer. Break two legs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.

Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers, pry it loose with a drewscriver. Sample the whiskey to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift 2 cups of salt. Or something. Who cares. Check the whiskey.

Now sift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table. Spoon. Of sugar or something. Whatever you can find.

Grease the oven. Turn the cake tin to 350 degrees. Don't forget to beat off the turner. Throw the bowl out of the window. Check the whiskey again.

Go to bed. Who the hell likes fruitcake anyway?

(Borrowed from http://homecooking.about.com/library/archive/bljoke1.htm)



Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays/Whatever Greeting Makes You Feel The Least Offended!

Mandsikjhfeuidfgyireifgsdfgwrgfwrifgi

I swear, the title of this post is extremely accurate. It reflects *exactly* what is going on in my head at the moment. What went on in my head yesterday, when I was supposed to post this. Topical Tuesday. I even had a topic (St. Lucy's Day), or exams (very topical for me, since I am going through them at the moment, albeit in a very different way than I've ever done before because I'm not taking them this year, but rather grading them... I swear, I'd rather take them!), or even the weather (we're having spring, I'm sure - all our lovely snow seems to be melting! Drat!)

But no. Before I had the chance to transfer my ideas to paper (or, more accurately, screen), they ended up in fhegiakfiutygihbhjgilwdjafgyg and *poof* I forgot the whole post. Until now. When I write it, it will still be up for an hour and a half before the next one (and much better one, I'm sure) ticks in. Not that it is a huge loss. I'm sure today's actual post will be much more thought-through and well-written than this one, not to mention the topic will not be lkhjefiudshfjkhfuiryifkdghfshdgfj.

In the meantime, though, let me muse a little over cbnsdjkghdgcsdcuhjasdgj:

Papers that need to be graded, need to be graded.

Jobs that need to be done, need to be done.

In English, you cannot write "they claims" and expect to get away with it. It are annoying!

Sometimes you have to make sacrifices. Sometimes they suck.

Friends are essential.

Suck it up!

Can you have your cake and eat it too? Won't we always try?

What's in a smile? When a person lights up when seeing you, should you draw hasty conclusions?

We want what we can't have, we hold on to what we don't need, and sometimes it's impossible to see the difference.

It doesn't matter what you believe in. Believe.

Yoga and boxing.

Wsdofhudgfiuweyjkcfjdyfuweudpqwuiryfwyfuvjgai.

Dilemmas

You know the drill. You *have* to pick one (and only one). All in good Friday Fun!


You've been out dancing all night. Before going to work, would you rather have a shower and wear the same clothes you wore; or not have a shower, but get to put on fresh clothes?

Pick one: no more hugs, or no more kisses?

Would you rather never be able to wear shoes, or never be able to take them off?

If you had to choose - blind or deaf?

You wake up one morning looking like Miss/Mr World. The only problem is you have to make a choice - either only you can see you as this while the rest of the world will see you as ugly; OR the rest of the world will see you as gorgeous, but you will see yourself in the mirror as ugly. Which one is it? (And yes, your "regular" looks are gone forever.)

This should be a piece of cake for any Twihards, but still.... You can either only ever read the Twilight series over and over again for the rest of your life; OR never pick up any book ever again.

Would you rather eat the food you absolutely don't like at least once every week for a year; or go without your favourite food at all for one year?

Your house is burning, and you only have the time to rescue one thing. Will it be the laptop with the ONLY copy of your nearly-finished novel; or will it be the album with the ONLY copies of your family photos?

Would you rather be stuck in a (literally) eternal line at customer services (but get actual help); OR be forced to always ask "Microsoft Help" on your computer whenever a problem arises?

And a classic at the end: Your partner is a mermaid/merman - would you have the top or bottom half be the fish-part...?

It's not just about reading; it's also about how you read

It's Reading Monday, and I got stuck in the old "but I haven't read any books this week"-dilemma, a frequent problem between me and this blog, I'm afraid. I have been reading, though. Just not what I'd normally want to write about in a Reading Monday post. But I guess it's time to make an exception.

Stuff about student rebellions.

It's for my job, you see. For the time being I'm a research assistant at my alma mater (I like that term. The University of Oslo really feels like family to me by now, even if "nourishing mother" may be stretching it too far...). I am - amazingly enough - doing the exact work I'm educated for. I'm pracising historianism. (Yes, it's a word. "Historianism" is what historians are doing when they contrary to what is common get a job relevant for their education. True story.) This is amazing because most of us end up doing work we're not educated for, but by default are qualified for anyway, because you also gain certains skills and mindsets through higher education, that makes you eligible for tasks a political scientist or sociologist or any number of other -ists could also do.

It's interesting, though, because even if I'm educated for this, I still feel a little lost.

It's like this. My field of expertise within "my field", is quite limited. If you ask me about "US peace initiatives in the Arab-Israeli conflict between 1956 and 1967" I'm on my home turf, and I will be able to give you a fairly detailed account. If you ask me questions about "the Middle East" or "American foreign policy", I'm still in my hometown, but I don't know my way around in every single street. If you ask me questions about "history in general", I'm not necessarily all that more knowledgable than the average person. We may still be located in my part of the world, but I'm still pretty much a tourist.

Since the topic of my current work isn't at all closely related to my own research topic, then, it feels a lot like I'm a tourist, trying to find my way in a whole new city. The only reason I don't get completely lost is that by now I have a certain idea how to explore new parts of the world. (Yes, I'm still in the same analogy...)

Through my education I've been taught to read with a critical eye. I've been trained to look for bias, to check references, and yes - I do read the footnotes. In addition there is a little "something" extra - a fingerspitzengefühl for history I've developed along the way. It takes a little longer because the topic is new to me. If I read a book about the Middle East I usually know a lot about it just from looking at the title, the author, or the bibliography. With this new topic I'm working on, I usually need to also read the introduction, look at a few chapters, and google the author. It takes longer. But I'm getting there.

I used to think that my field (or if you will, "my part of the world") - history "in general" - was fairly straight forward, and that anyone could do it if they set their mind to it. Anyone - or at least most people - can do it, but you do need those skills to do it properly.

I guess I've developed a new respect for my own profession through this job. For what it has done to the way I read.

This is me being lazy (and yet delusional)

A History of (My) Reading

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good mind, must be in want of a good book to read. 

I try to read, I really do. Or at least I really try to think I try to read. I go to the library, for instance, and I walk down the aisles there, smelling the books, thinking that the sheer amount of pages and sentences and paragraphs in that place is pure heaven. I even borrow some books, occasionally. Renew them repeatedly, hoping that I’ll get around to open them. Return them, unread, slightly past the final due date.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and this book is the sun!

I used to be an avid reader. I learned to read at an early age, and from then on I devoured books like other kids devoured – whatever they devoured. Computer games? Stuff like that. I used to turn the light back on after my parents went to bed, and read into the wee hours. I used to fall asleep mid-book, dreaming up new storylines that frequently were better than the ones I found on the pages. My family used to make jokes that I might as well read the phone book, as it seemed not to matter to me what it was I read. They don’t print the phone book anymore, which is good for the environment, but bad for friendly jokes to taunt children who read a lot.

One Book to rule them all, One Book to find them, One Book to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

University was a major turning point. The sheer amount of non-fiction I was supposed to read put a strain of the amount of fiction I managed to read. Besides, the attraction of relaxing with a good book after having read course material all day was limited. Instead I did… What did I do? I didn’t have a TV. I didn’t have internet for the first year. I must have spent time with actual flesh-and-blood friends, or some other such weird activity. Plus I think I visited my parents a lot. I even kept my job – in the local bookshop – in my hometown that entire year. I remember that my recommendations got outdated, though. I never read anything new, just kept using the same old favourites over and over. Regular customers probably re-read a lot of books that year.

It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because I have to read this book.

Genre-wise there was also a shift. I almost became a book snob. I had gone from children’s books to young adult to whatever adult books I could get my hands on, with a small lapse back into children’s and YA once I was old enough to actually read the adult books. But then I started thinking about quality. Quality as defined by others. I had a Nobel Literature Prize phase. It was short. Then I had a Booker Prize phase. It lasted a little longer. I read classics; new, inventive works; and bestsellers only if they were given some award or other.

All animals are equal. But some animals read more books than others.

It didn’t last. My dry spell for fiction during that first year of university was also a setback for my snobbishness. I needed lighter reads, less complexity, to put me back on track. These days I don’t consider the genre so much. If I like the look and feel of the book, if the back cover description is appealing to me, if the book has an “x-factor” that makes me want to read it, I will. Or rather, I will plan to. I buy it, or borrow it from the library. Put it in the TBR-pile, physically or on Goodreads. And there it stays, along with hundreds of other books I once planned to read. I never lose faith, though, in my future ability to catch up with every book I once wanted to read. Just you wait and see!

Why is a raven like a reading-desk? 

All quotes in this post are from the first drafts of the famous books they were later to become. True story. 

Write Like Picasso, Wrong Like Picasso

You all know Picasso, right? Stupid question. Assuming that every person in the world has heard of at least five painters (which isn’t necessarily the case, I know),Picasso is probably going to be one of them. The reason he is so famous is because of his inventiveness within his genre. Take one quick look at anyone of his famous paintings, and you immediately know who the painter is. The geometric shapes, the misplaced human limbs, the almost childlike absurdity to it all.

Here’s something that is perhaps more surprising than any of the information offered in the paragraph above: I’m not all that fond of Picasso’s famous paintings. I used to really dislike them, actually. Mostly because they were not “pretty”. And because they looked like something I could make myself.

This is where I was wrong.

When I was eighteen I took an extra year of French in school – not because I loved learning the language, per se, but because I really didn’t want to take the alternative course (which was “Law”, and I hated the teacher). Also, I imagined that I would go to Paris and live there someday (which in theory still might happen,but certainly not because I speak the language, because I don’t, anymore).

As a result of the extra year of French in high school, though, I had the chance to visit Paris that spring. We were four students, free of any commitments, sent thereto learn how to speak French (which we did, sort of, at least temporarily). We met some great people, saw some great sights, and my desire for living in Paris didn’t diminish. One of the things we did was to visit the Picasso museum. I wasn’t overly thrilled, but I tagged along.

I am glad I did.

The visit to that museum taught me something about rules, and how to break them.

How simple, and yet efficient - with a few lines in black ink, Picasso portrayed an action scene

Let there be no doubt, Picasso was a great artist. The tour around that museum showed the progress of Picasso as an artist, and I was forced to rethink my view of him. From simple sketches as life-like as anything you can capture with your iPhone, through blue and rose periods, to cubism and the experimental stuff we all know. Picasso knew all the rules, and because he did, he could break them. That is what makes him special. I couldn’t have done that. I couldn’t have painted even the really simple works of his. They too demand skill.

The same thing goes for writing. There will always be a set of “rules” you’re supposed to know about before you can allow yourself to not use them. Certain no-no’s when you write can be allowed if you are aware of why you’re breaking them, and the purpose it serves. Like broken sentences. If you have an abundance of them, it is just annoying. But if you have one here and one there, it might actually work. Some people are even so aware of the rules that they are allowed to break them ALL the time. For instance, José Saramago. Or Irvine Welsh. They are so familiar with the rules that it practically looks as though they aren’t aware there are rules at all! Not unlike Picasso.

Facebook's New Face

"Facebook is like one of those people who keeps getting plastic surgery to 'look better' but gets the 'WTF just happened' reaction instead" ~ @Evil_Dumbledore

You think you hate the new Facebook update? It’s messy, and difficult to navigate, and not to mention – it’s driving you up the wall that all your Facebook friends hate it and are complaining loudly about it in YOUR feed?

Well, you’re wrong. You don’t hate it yet. But you might once you read this.

Let’s face(book) it – Facebook has been watching us for a long time. They know what you like – or what the target group they think you belong in like – just take a look at the ads in your sidebar. If you’re divorced they’ll advertize dating agencies. If you’re a woman, they’ll advertize menstrual aids or hairspray. And if you’re old they’ll advertize gravestones. Or something.

Despite this we’ve been led to believe for a while now that at least you have reasonable control over what you share on Facebook. Well, friends, that is what has *really* changed this time around.

Remember in the past, when you could post something on your friend Brad’s wall about your other friend, Jennifer, and then be fairly sure Jennifer would never find out,because she and Brad weren’t friends, and she thus did not have access to his wall? (A theory that nevertheless was not foolproof, because a) Jennifer and Brad could become friends, and then she could go back and read it; or b) Jennifer could have other friends (better friends than you) who were also friends with Brad, and thus told her; or c)some internet SNAFU or other could reveal your indiscretion.)

Still. Now you’ll have to be very very very careful with what you write about the Jennifers out there on the walls of the Brads. Because it now is “easier to control what you share”, meaning it’s a whole lot easier to share more than what you intended.

Say Brad is friends with Angelina, that neither Jennifer nor I know. Well. Whenever Brad comments on Angelina’s photos, her status, writes on her wall or does anything else related to her that isn’t any of my business, I am now being informed about it through the “ticker”. The ticker – the feed within the feed (go take a look in your top right corner if you haven’t already seen it) – reveals all your (and others’) secrets unless you’re being careful. The regular feed has in reality become obsolete – or at least nothing like we used to know it. It is now disorganized, split in “top stories” and recent (but without the old option of manually shifting between the two), and it is Facebook that determines what constitutes a top story (with some limited options of feedback from you, through categorizing people in various groups. I’ll get back to that in a bit). So, your old feed now shows only things Facebook thinks you’ll find interesting, while the new ticker shows this and everything else.

And by “everything else” I mean everything. Because if Angelina or Brad don’t take careful steps to control who they share whatever information they are posting to each other with, it’s wide open for anyone to read. For instance, Brad could post a comment on Angelina’s photo. That automatically gives me access to the photo and all the comments on it, unless Angelina has specifically restricted access to her photos to anyone but her friends. Brad, poor sod, has no say in the matter. (By the way, if you're worried, there's an excellent article about this that can be found here, explaining how you can restrict who sees what when.)

This isn’t new, though, it’s been there for a while. But, now this also applies to other things. If Angelina posts a status update, say, mentioning that she is hanging out with her new boyfriend, Brad, and her new boyfriend, Brad, answers with a ♥, then I can see this, and report back to, say, Jennifer. (Not that it is any of Angelina’s business,anyway, to write something like that unless she is prepared for the world to know, but whatever.)

Thus, in a way, Facebook has made it easier to stalk others.

However, it has also limited our stalking options. First of all, you can control a lot easier who sees what if you’re careful. Whenever you share something, whether it is a picture, a status update or a link, you can choose whether you want it to be public (note: public means public. Ergo even people who are not your friends can see it), for friends of friends (which is a silly option, really, since it’s basically the same as public), for your friends only, for certain friends (you can target some people specifically, or exclude others specifically), or maybe just yourself (but what’s the point in that?). It takes a little more awareness in the moment of posting, but it is easier to control that those pictures of you in the frat party don’t befall the eyes of your mother (why would anyone want their mother as their Facebook friend anyway?).

Secondly,by making the newsfeed all wonky, the restrictions on who you actually are realistically able to follow up on limits itself. If you’re a compulsive Facebook-user (like yours truly), this might be a problem, because you really do want to know what every single one of your 789 “friends” are up to at any given point. The ticker is useful in this respect, but since it’s so tiny and still a little meh to navigate, it’s not likely to be where you spend your days scrolling down to know the latest on every person you know.

The key to effective Facebook stalking post the 9/21-change, then, is to categorize your peeps. You may not like putting people into boxes, but Facebook wants you to.There’s a box for people you know well (close friends), a box for people you know not-so-well (acquaintances), and there are generated boxes automatically for people you went to school with or work with. You can freely choose to add or remove people from these boxes, but be aware of one thing: they might get notified. The last few days you may have gotten some strange requests to confirm that you indeed worked on the set of “Interview with a vampire” in 1994. It’s not Facebook getting smarter, suddenly being able to read your mind (or, maybe it is. It seems to steal brainwaves from its users, actually), but people you know who worked with you that put you into one of those boxes. And all of a sudden, Facebook knows your resume, even if you never shared it.

You can also make your own lists, but before you create your “hunks I stalk on Facebook”-list, be a little careful. Remember the previous paragraph, where people got notified of when they were being put in a list? Yeah… So far this doesn’t apply to custom lists. So far.

In the end, Facebook hasn’t changed. Yes, our privacy has been further compromised, but then again, the change is more that we are now aware of it being compromised. The trick is, as it always has been, to share on Facebook only what you are comfortable sharing with everyone in the world. In theory, every picture, every quote,every everything you post on Facebook, is public. If you don’t want everyone to know about it, it probably isn’t a great idea to post it in the first place.

Topical Tuesday: The United Nations' International Day of Peace

Tomorrow is a special holiday. I hope some of you have heard about it, but I suspect many have not. It’s the International Peace Day. It’s funny, really, that it’s a relatively unknown date for most of us, while in reality it should be the most important of all. They make cards for Groundhog Day, after all, but I have yet to see one for the day in celebration of world peace.

Anyway. I wrote about this last year, and if you want an inspirational tale about how the UN peace day originated in the ideas of one man, you should go read that post. Here, though, I’d like to talk a little about the concept of peace.

You see, I’ve forced myself to spend some time contemplating this the last few years. I’ve written papers about peace – or rather, the lack of peace. The Middle East is positively a smorgasbord for the latter. It depends, though, on how you define peace. Is it lack of war? If so, what is war? A technical definition – more than 1000 people killed in a conflict – isn’t always sufficient to cover the human aspect. I think most of us would agree that a conflict killing 999 people is also a war, and that the number of people killed isn’t necessarily what makes the situations in Libya or Afghanistan or Iraq wars.

Peace can also be considered the lack of other vital things, such as food, human rights, or safety. But again it’s difficult to draw the lines. Is the ongoing famine in Somalia a war? Not really. But decades of wars and conflicts and lack of a proper authority in the country are important causes for the disaster. And the flow of refugees, trying to escape the barren lands to find food, is a potential new source of conflict. Horrible stories of people being shot to death at attempts of crossing military check points to seek help are showing what a complex and terrible situation this really is. The soldiers, often from various clans in the malfunctioning state, are there to oversee the distribution of emergency aid. Instead, many of them kill or rape the very people they are supposed to help. Definitely not peace, even if it’s also not war.

This week – today, even – world leaders are gathering in New York to hold a high-level meeting in the United Nations. One of the major topics is the possible membership of a Palestinian state. As mentioned, the Middle East has seen many wars the past century, and the Israel/Palestine conflict is at the very heart of the problem. Sadly, there appears to be no solution in immediate sight, and even the case for membership for Palestine is slim, if not non-existent. Still, the fact that the Palestinian authority is now trying to use the United Nations – an organization created to preserve peace – as a means to reach the goal of establishment of a Palestinian state is in itself a positive sign, in my opinion. Also, the focus on the economy of such a state, necessary reforms and the creation of institutions is perhaps a more constructive and realistic approach than the chance of achieving recognition ever was. Principles are important, but sometimes actions speak louder than words. Hopefully a two-state solution where Palestine has been consolidated into an actual, functioning state can help provide some stability and structure also for the peace process. At least we’re allowed to hope.

Many of my thoughts about peace are coloured by the “official” Norwegian attitude, which among other things is coloured by the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in Oslo each autumn. Last year, an outspoken human rights activist from China won the award. Former laureates include other human rights and democracy-activists, environmentalist,and people working for poverty reduction. In addition to the more traditional concept of peace, these new areas contribute to an understanding that peace is more than just lack of war. In my master’s thesis I concluded that during the period 1956 to 1967 there were few (if any) attempts by the United States to perform tradition peace initiatives. There were, however, a number of initiatives directed at specific conflict areas, such as refugees, to try to limit the tension in the overall conflict. Already in the 1950s and 60s, then,there was an acknowledgement that peace is more than just lack of war. In the21^st century, this should not be controversial at all.

Thus I wish the world leaders the best of luck in their attempts to work towards peace, whether it is in the Middle East, in other troublesome regions, or in a more general “world peace” perspective. They will not be able to fix it today, tomorrow, or next week. But hopefully the steps taken today, tomorrow, next week and for the years to come, will be steps in the right direction. We should never give up hope. And we should always celebrate the international peace day.

Summer summary

It’s been a strange summer. Weather-wise, it’s been crappy. Any Norwegian will tell you so. Then again, any Norwegian would tell you that any summer, pretty much, and for the most part we are right. We do have a lot of weather in this country, and most of it isn’t of the nice kind. But even if we’d had a warm, sunny summer (not that we did, mind you), we wouldn’t call it a nice summer. We forget easily, in this country. And one rainy day easily translates to “three weeks straight”. If the weather is one of your main conversation topics (and in Norway, it definitely is), it is, after all, much more interesting to speak of bad weather than sunshine.

But I’m not here to talk about the weather.

The summer has been especially strange for me, I guess. I went from a busy life in Tokyo to the slow-as-ever sleepy small town life in Norway. I went from an exciting, interesting and challenging job where I felt I made a difference, to unemployment and application writing. From feeling useful to completely useless. From being a social butterfly to spending most my time on Facebook (which is not the same thing, no matter how you try to justify it for yourself). I went from having too many plans to handle, to having none at all. As of now, I have vacation for the rest of my life – in theory, at least.

But I’m not here to talk about my unemployment.

Norway in general had a strange summer. On July 22^nd the unthinkable happened. Terrorism. In Norway. 77 people brutally slaughtered down, by one man and his hate. A hate that took us all by surprise, and that we’ve been struggling to understand ever since. Maybe we’re not supposed to understand; maybe we don’t even want to. The debate that surfaced after this ranged from “we need to analyze his manifest to make sure others like him cannot go unnoticed” to “we need to give his ideas less attention to avoid copycats”. Principles of freedom of speech have been discussed. We all agree we need to protect this right, now more than ever, but there are different opinions and interpretations what this right should entail. How much can we allow? How far should anonymous online debates be allowed to go before the danger signals flare?

What made the strongest impression on me in the middle of this, however, wasn’t the stories of the horrors at Utøya. Not the controversy about whether someone like this culprit (whose name I don’t like mentioning, despite Harry Potteresque wisdom of not letting him become another “You-Know-Who”) could have been stopped, and what measures would be an appropriate punishment (nothing, clearly. Nothing is appropriate. So we have to stick to the options already provided in our laws).

No, none of that. What made the strongest impression was how people came together after this. How it suddenly didn’t matter where you were from, what you did, how much money you made. We were all one. We stood by one another and acted a little nicer, spread a little love. The rose sea, spreading across the country. In Oslo there are still roses everywhere, a sad and yet encouraging reminder of what happened. Terrorism and hate was met with democracy and love.

But I’m definitely not here to talk about terrorism.

In current events it’s been a summer mercifully free of cucumbers. (An old expression in Norway – “cucumber news” was when the newspapers during the summer did not have anything real to report on, so they wrote about the cucumber prices.) I suppose there were some cucumbers with the e.coli breakout in Europe early this summer. But apart from that we’ve had nice, proper news. Prime ministers have left their jobs (the Japanese, for instance. Today, in fact, after months of anticipation. In Norway we’re happy because the new guy’s name creates possibilities for puns just as the old one’s did. From “Yes, we Kan” [but he couldn’t] to “Hva nå da, Noda?” [that last one doesn’t make sense in English. Sorry, guys. But knowing Japan, I’m sure there’ll be a new guy with a punnier name within a year]).

In addition the Strauss-Kahn (he couldn’t either) case made nice headlines all summer, Libya and Syria (oh, who am I kidding – the Middle East in general) still ensure that trees are being chopped down to produce paper, and most recently, of course, a little lady called Irene got loads of attention (all jokes aside, hope you’re all safe).

But I’m not here to talk about current events either (and still not the weather).

What am I here to talk about, then?

Frankly, I’m not too sure. I meant to say something meaningful about blogging. Blogging on this blog, specifically. If you think it’s been kind of quiet here lately, you’re absolutely right. If you think that’s caused by irreconcilable differences within the group, you’re absolutely wrong. If you think it’s caused by a slight tendency of burn-out and summer business, you’re closer to the target.

We’ve been blogging approximately five days a week for a little over a year now (we even missed our own bloggiversary, that’s how preoccupied we’ve been!). We’re eight individuals, trying to coordinate across despite living in different countries, time zones, continents. We have different schedules, backgrounds, different ideas about blogging. In a way, I think our diversity is what makes the mix interesting. But it also makes it challenging.

Thus no one complained when a summer vacation was suggested. A vacation that allowed us to take a much-needed break from blogging. In order to not leave the blog hanging over the summer, however (no telling what crazy shenanigans it might have gotten into then), we decided to post once a week. Thus, this summer have seen fewer posts at the BB&B blog, but I think the posts that my dear colleagues put up were more than top quality wise.

Maybe that is why I had such reservations about my own post… What in the world could I write about that would be equally interesting as the previous posts? Trust me, the sleepy small town life doesn’t provide interesting blog fodder…

My solution was to post about our blog schedule. To explain why we took a break, and when we will return to normalcy. But (you thought I was gonna write “I am not here to talk about…” didn’t you?) even if I wanted to be here to talk about that, it is easier said than done.

You see, we haven’t made up our mind! Every now and then, we make some (smallish) changes here on the blog. Like setting up alternative schedules when we tire of our old topics. This is a golden opportunity for doing just that. So, the debate is going in the Burrow. What will we do now?

But I’m not here to reveal any secrets…  

Who-do-I-want-them-to-think-I-am-Friday?

"Hello, this is Cruella!"

"Hi, you're speaking with Cruella."

"This is Cruella - what can I help you with?"

I was rehearsing how to answer the phone the other day. I had also printed out and read a pile of documents, made sure I had a working pen (and an extra one should it suddenly stop working anyway), a glass of water, and a notepad - just in case. I had called friends, coworkers, contacts - everyone and anyone I thought might be useful for me in preparing for a situation many dread: a job interview.

I haven't had many interviews. Most of my jobs I got on a "knowing someone who knows someone"-basis. My current job had an interview - via the phone, since the distance was somewhat far from Oslo to Tokyo for an actual face-to-face meeting. The one I had the other day was also over the phone - for the very same reason. Only now it was the distance Tokyo-Oslo that complicated the process.

The point of a job interview is fairly simple: the employer wants to find out whether you are the right person for the job. Depending on the job, this usually means assessing your qualifications and skills, but also you as a person. Will you fit into the workplace? Will the rest of the team like working with you?

Thus it is important not to take the frequently first asked question - "Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?" - too lightly. I had a coworker test my reaction to this question before the interview, and after giggling, "uhm"-ing and answering plain rubbish, I finally managed to pull together a semi-coherent string of words that explained exactly what he had asked, "a little bit".

I wasn't entirely prepared, though, when during the actual interview my potential employer wanted me to elaborate . He didn't accept my attempt to jump fairly quickly from "me"-mode to "work"-mode, he wanted to hear me explain more about my background (and possibly he also wanted to test my reaction to being forced to go off manuscript on a question every interviewee surely has memorized their lines for.

I think I pulled it off - in fact - I have it on good authority that I made a good impression (not to suggest that this means I got the job - don't know that yet, actually). But it struck me that it was an interesting study in my own wishes and hopes for the kind of person I'd like others to think I am. (I am not saying that this isn't also the person I *am* am. But there are certain sides you are more keen on promoting than others, right?)

When they asked me what I like to do in my spare time, for instance, I found myself deliberately avoiding one thing that might actually have been a benefit rather than a disadvantage. I didn't tell them that I like to write. Writing is actually one of the main skills required for the job. Of course I can refer to my writing in a professional capacity, through both studies and my current job, and that is more relevant anyway. But adding that extra touch - that I am passionate about the written word - might have put me even higher in the qualification pile (and I need all the help I can get there, since they originally wanted someone with background in finance/economics).

Still, I wasn't willing to do it. Partly because I also see problems with this "passion" - the written word can be dangerous, and a blog, for instance, can be an excellent channel for spreading things that have no business being spread. I wouldn't want them to even consider the possibility that I might take the advantage of that.

More importantly, however, my writing is highly personal. I hope to one day have something to share with the world, but until then, the fact that I like to write is exclusive information to only a handful of people (and, you know, anyone with an internet connection who could then be reading this...).

For the rest of them, however, I prefer to have some control over who they think I am.

Hypocritical much?

I'm well aware that Japan and the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami is out of international news by now. It's been long replaced with other stories, such as Libya, Syria, other countries that end with -ia, and politicians tweeting their wieners. If covered at all, chances are that what you hear from Japan has the word "Fukushima" in it, since that seems to be the preferable way news desks worldwide see the potential for scaring people into buying papers.

That might sound cynical, but I've been monitoring foreign coverage of Japan lately, and it's not encouraging. If you have spotted Japan in the news recently, there's a good chance you think the entire country is a wasteland. If you haven't, though, there is an equally good chance you think everything is back to normal.

Neither is particularly close to the truth.

First of all, there are areas where the tsunami left entire societies in pieces, many of which are still not rebuilt, some of which it will take years to fix. Many of the people - those who survived - previously living in these societies, have not been able to return yet. Some are still living in shelters - high schools and sports centers and whatnot - while others have moved to temporary housing of the slightly more permanent kind. But even here there are problems. Some of these houses do not have tap water, or if they do, it might not be drinkable. Some of them are located far away from shops and other facilities, which is unfortunate since many of the residents are elderly and/or without cars (a substantial number of cars were washed away or destroyed in the disaster).

Then there is Fukushima. It is still very much a topic - both because it is ongoing, even though the reports of new developments are few and less spectacular now than they were in the beginning. But there remain unanswered questions. How much radiation was actually released, and can we trust the measuring now? What sort of impact does this, and the still heightened levels surrounding the defunct power plant, have on the people living there, the food produced close by, or the fish in the surrounding sea?

In addition, there is a political crisis in the country. The Prime Minister is sitting on a bit of a catapult seat (the details of which you can find in a rant from yours truly, here). While it seems to me that the Japanese population isn't particularly happy about changing the head of the government right in the middle of a crisis, the members of the parliament seem intent to do so. Further, the political crisis might have direct influence on the general crisis, since passing of laws and bills (such as the reconstruction budgets, for instance) requires political agreement.

And let's not forget the economic crisis while we're at it. The disaster sent Japan into its first trade deficit for more than a decade. That alone isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the fact that exports have gone down - more or less the only thing that was pulling the already sluggish Japanese economy - is not good. However, by now a lot of the production in Japan is nearing its pre-crisis level. That opens for exports again, and thus there might be light at the end of the tunnel. But Japan already faced tremendous economic challenges before the crisis, and so far it's looking like the impact of the crisis has been all bad (without even the small benefit of inflation, as some economists hoped for).

Apart from this, however, most of Japan is functioning as usual. It's not dangerous to travel here - unless you insist on going to the no-go zone around the Fukushima-power plant... Same goes for food produced in Japan - I don't worry about that anymore. I trust that the tests the authorities in cooperation with international organizations such as WHO perform are as good as they can get, and that the food here probably will not kill me anymore than food produced elsewhere would (e.coli in Europe, anyone?). And despite all the bad things I said about the Japanese economy in the previous paragraph, I do think it's safe and wise to invest here again. The tsunami did not wash away the Japanese innovative spirit. They *will* recover, and foreign investments will be much needed (and probably much rewarded, with time).

As for quakes? Yes, there is still the occasional aftershock, but by now they are mostly down to the pre-disaster levels. Japan has always been, and will always be, a seismically active country. Those of us who have spent some time here know this, and by now I'm not even as edgy about them as I was. I had the following conversation with a friend from back home the other day:

"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, my cold is getting better..."
"I meant the earthquake..."
"Earthquake? Oh, you mean the 6,7 we had this morning? Yeah, didn't feel it. Don't think it did any damage. No biggie."

So that's not so much an issue anymore.

What IS an issue, though, is the energy supply, and what will happen with it during summer.

You probably knew that the Fukushima plants are now closed (or as closed as they get, since they are still struggling to cool them down). But did you also know that a good 30 others of Japan's total 54 reactors are closed for the time being? Due to interruptions of regular security checks after 3/11, many plants were shut down as a safety measure. Japan has relied quite heavily on nuclear power, and thus this is putting a severe strain on the energy supply. During the summer, when the sweltering heat makes living and working without air-conditioning seem almost impossible, it is feared that the country will face blackouts. This coincides with industries trying their best to make up for lost production by running the assembly lines at top speed. And at a time when fossil fuels are running at an all-time high cost precisely due to the incidents in Japan, and those in the Middle East.

Japan is trying. The Prime Minister - from his catapult seat - is promoting renewable energies. It's a good cause, and an important one if Japan is to find economically and environmentally affordable energy sources in the future. But "future" is a keyword here. You cannot exchange nuclear for solar, geothermic, wind and hydro power overnight. The time frame Prime Minister Kan has set is "20% by early 2020s". It's commendable, ambitious and perhaps even possible. But it doesn't solve the problem right now, this summer.

People living here are also trying to save energy. They turn off their AC, or at least set the temperatures higher. In order to make this more feasible, the "Super Cool Biz" campaign  (a intensification of the regular "Cool Biz", where people are encouraged to loosen [or remove] their ties and jackets to better cope with the summer temperatures) is running. I haven't seen many Hawaii-shirts in Tokyo streets yet, but who knows - perhaps this will be the end of the traditional Japanese salaryman "uniform" - black suit, white shirts and ties?

It's difficult, though. Have you tried working in an office environment where the temperatures rise above 25, 30, 35 degrees (celcius)? It doesn't really matter if your shirt is white or Hawaiian, I can assure you. And the same ting goes for my house. Lately I've been sleeping poorly, waking up every hour or so, guiltily letting the AC run for a few minutes. I can't open the window - since the mosquitoes here seem intent to eat me alive - and it wouldn't do me much good anyway with the still hot night air flowing in with the bugs. It's not comfortable, and it's not healthy. And this is just the start. Summer in Tokyo is hot and humid, and June is nowhere near as bad as July or August. The worst is yet to come. Some claim that the nuclear lobby - a considerable force in this country - are keeping a low profile until the worst commotion has settled down. Then, when summer sets in for real, they might remind people how one again can afford using cooling systems. It might be a conspiracy strategy, but it really sounds quite effective...

The Ministry for Economy, Trade and Industry is saying that it is safe to turn the nuclear reactors closed due to the security check interruptions back on. Prime Minister Kan admits that a (near) future without nuclear power in Japan is hard to imagine. The population, I don't know... As often is the case here, they generally don't speak up much. We've had some demonstrations, but we're talking a few hundred people. Out of 127 million. The newspaper Asahi Shimbun recently published an interesting survey, however. 74 percent said that they supported a gradual termination of nuclear power. I think this is probably the closest to the truth you get. Japanese people are pragmatic. They understand that shutting down all reactors tomorrow is impossible. But they also don't want another Fukushima.

Personally I see a lot of problems with nuclear power plants. If it were up to me, we'd have nothing of them. We'd go all the way for renewable energy (and when I say renewable, I mean that, and not pseudo-renewable as nuclear is, since it leaves HUGE infrastructural and logistic problems once the reactors are too old. They will continue to demand attention [and potentially costs] for centuries or millennia after they stop producing values). I'd like solar panels on every rooftop, windmills, and every other environmentally friendly energy form there is to dominate the market.

But for now it is an illusion. Maybe Japan will manage 20 by 2020. In the meantime, however, it's difficult not feeling like a hypocrite. I don't want them to turn the reactors back on, but I also don't want to live through the summer feeling like a raisin-zombie. I'll be leaving mid-July, so probably I'm not even going to see the worst of it. Which makes me an even bigger hypocrite.

But there you go. The world works as it always does. We all want too much. I want my cake, and I want to eat it too. And since I will leave the cake soon (stretching the metaphor here now, I know...), I feel that my nibbling at its edges won't make that big a difference. I'm good at turning off the light when I'm not in the room, after all... But of course it does, if we all think that way. Thus, I can only hope for Japan's sake that the rest of the people living here are not as big hypocrites as I am...