May Day is a public holiday in Sweden, but on paper, I begin a new job today that requires less political activism on my part. I don’t have to stop blogging, but it will become more moderate. Not that I think anyone will miss my political rants, but still…
“I wish you would be more true to your demographic profile. Life is confusing enough.”
King Carl XVI Gustaf has changed the statutes and made it possible for members to resign and be replaced. It’s about time. If popes and kings can abdicate, it seems strange that members of a royal academy can’t.
In Homer’s Iliad, there are two scenes with bodies being desecrated. First there’s the Greek warrior Patroclus and then there’s the Trojan warrior Hector. I’ve always been baffled by the significance the story gives to the treatment of the corpses of fallen heroes, as opposed to the living. It’s common practice among all civilised armies to collect and bring home the bodies of their comrades, but it wasn’t until recently, when I saw a documentary about the militant Islamic terror group called the Islamic State, that I realised that the abuse of corpses is still very much part of modern warfare. I assume the purpose is to infuse fear, but doesn’t it rather show weakness and desperation?
Netta Barzilai is a worthy winner. Great show and memorisable chicken sound.
“The Israeli army repelled every attempted breach during Monday’s deadly clashes, but Hamas got world attention with bloodshed that made Israel look like the bad guy,” Judah Ari Gross of the Times of Israel writes.
The sad thing is that no one really cares about those who died, only about winning a war that cannot be won.
“The Scottish parliament has voted against Theresa May’s Brexit legislation by a large margin, putting the UK on the brink of a major constitutional dispute,” Severin Carrell of the Guardian writes.
Brexiteers want us to fear the EU breaking up, but it looks increasingly as it’s the UK that is about to split into pieces. I think we’ll soon see England and Wales by themselves, while Northern Ireland and Scotland seek a future as Europeans.
Meghan Markle makes royal history. To me she’ll always be Rachel Zane, though.
“A survivor of clerical sexual abuse has said Pope Francis told him that God had made him gay and loved him, in arguably the most strikingly accepting comments about homosexuality to be uttered by the leader of the Roman Catholic church,” Stephanie Kirchgaessner of the Guardian reports.
It gets better!
NASA says “reverse cowgirl” and “doggy style” are the same thing when gravity is absent.
A few days after American President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, a dozen people threw multiple burning objects at the synagogue in Sweden’s second largest city. Swedish xenophobia is not exclusively Swedish.
I’m in Los Angeles, and as everywhere in the United States, people are celebrating Memorial Day today. As someone from a country without recent war memories, it’s moving to hear about the scars that war has made in many American families.
In the New York Times, I read that yet another Russian journalist has been killed after criticising Putin. The really sad part is that Russia killing off critics is now so common that it’s less news.
Meanwhile, here in Los Angeles, the headlines are dominated by Roseanne Barr tweeting something racist, which has resulted in her being fired by ABC.
Russian journalist, Putin’s vocal critic Arkady Babchenko is alive and his reported assassination was a special operation by the Ukrainian security service. This is so stupid.