Ghost of indie bands past

You know how they say that we all turn into our parents sooner or later… And for all of us who have kids and have ever found ourselves yelling “SO THIS IS HOW YOU THANK ME FOR EVERYTHING I DO FOR YOU?!!!” and then banged our head against the kitchen counter with the realisation of where those words actually came from, it’s no surprise. But sometimes it just hits you extra hard…

One of my ‘aha’ moments came today, when I was browsing through a collection of so-called alternative music (alternative to what, as they say) from the early 90's. Everything you would expect was there: Nirvana, Offspring, Blur, Pearl Jam, Oasis… And of course Jane’s Addiction, whom I consider to be one of my great ‘coming of age’ bands… (Did you know, by the way, that iTunes classify them as something called ‘college rock’?)

"College, schmollege"

So far, so good (except for the inclusion of U2… U2??!). And I was listening away, nodding my head, remembering, smiling, reminiscing about this event or that party… Sometimes thinking that yes, this is classic, timeless stuff, and other times questioning my erstwhile sanity. (Does anyone remember Enigma? Does anyone remember trying to sing along to Age of Innocence? Does anyone remember me trying to sing along to Age of Innocence walking across campus, each arm linked with that of a girlfriend, on the way back from that makeshift club, if you remember, at the back of the Meadowpark Hotel?)

And that’s when it hit me: I feel sentimental! For the first time in my life, I’m not looking back at some phase or other of my life with condescending smiles, remembering the silly, naïve girl who was once me and all the stupid things she would get up to. For once, I am actually pining for that girl, and for what now masquerades as happy, carefree times with a classic 90's soundtrack. (But which were, of course, difficult times of identity crises and early 20's angst.) It knocked me for six, as we say, to realise how strong that feeling can be when it hits you in the pit of the stomach with full force.

And this is, of course, exactly what my mother must have felt, when she played those old Elvis or Tom Jones records (you were supposed to like one or the other, but just like her daughter she was never very good at taking sides). I used to smile at that, again condescendingly (that is something I am good at), wondering why she wouldn’t just move on. But I can see now that she had, and for all the yelling about ungrateful children she probably, just like me, would never have traded what she had for what she’d lost, even if she could.

But music is a powerful thing, and it can actually invoke feelings resembling grief: For the person you once were and will never be again, for the people whose lives you played a part in but will never see again (you know who you are) and for the dreams you harboured but never followed through (for better or worse). And this, I suppose, is when you start browsing the Friends Reunited site…

But I’m not going to, because I know that the arms I clung to rolling home through what is officially the prettiest campus in the UK are now pushing buggies, and that the giggling faces I used to meet over breakfast on a Sunday morning to 'dish the dirt' about the night before are now staring tiredly but happily across the table at a husband and two-point-four children. The vivacious but neurotic girls we were back then are gone for good, and I would rather wallow in nostalgia accompanied by the pseudo-folkish wailings of Enigma than come face to face with that reality. If I want to keep both worlds, I can, can’t I?

They don't come much prettier than this.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to move on to the mid-90’s and The Smashing Pumpkins… (You know who you are, too.)

Trust Sacks to deliver

Well, it was bound to happen. Something interesting enough for me to break the I’m-busy-working-on-a-very-important-project silence was sure to come along. While I don’t have a problem with leaving the well-balanced, sensible arguments to other people for a while, I have never been able to resist the lure of a clear-cut, hit-the-roof, I-can’t-believe-anyone-could-be-so-ridiculous story. So here it is.

I quote, from the website of the eminent Glenn Sacks, a columnist/commentator/talk radio host whose skills as a debater and rhetorician I have the utmost respect for but whose opinions I rarely share:

“A 25-year-old computer programmer has done what has long been thought impossible--he has united the pro-choice feminist left and the pro-life right. Matt Dubay of Saginaw, Michigan is the plaintiff in a new lawsuit in which he seeks to wipe out the child support payments he is obligated to make to an ex-girlfriend. He says he had made it clear to her that he didn’t want to be a father at this time, and that she got pregnant after she had repeatedly assured him that a physical condition rendered her sterile.“ (Read the full story here.)

Come to think of it, I’m sure I already heard about this back when the story first broke and was giggled at/playfully quasi-debated on the mainstream radio shows. I guess I just dismissed it as yet another oddball attempt to get back at the nasty old feminists who peddle the ridiculous notion that a man should actually be expected, by the time he becomes sexually active, to know how babies are made. But browsing Sacks’ website I came across the story again, and this time I was roped in.

So let’s look at what Glenn Sacks and his co-writer on the piece, Jeffrey M. Leving, are adding to the argument. The first bit comes as no surprise – it is a rehash of the old chestnut that women shouldn’t on the one hand ask for the same privileges as men while on the other hand trying to hang on to the few that were actually theirs to begin with. The Leving/Sacks view is that it’s deeply unfair that women should be able to choose whether or not to have the child they have conceived while men are denied this (in my book dubious) privilege.

Now, I’m not going to get bogged down in a playground level tug-of-war as to what is fair. It might come as a surprise to some, but the fact is that life isn’t fair. And in my world – listen carefully, those of you who thought you had feminism down pat – the sexes aren’t diametrically opposed, one of them is not in any given struggle the winner while the other is the loser. If you want to talk about fairness, you’d be better off thinking in terms of rich/poor, educated/uneducated, healthy/sick or any other power-defining combination you can think of. (All else being equal, it is possible to theorize about which sex has the most power in any given situation but as all else never is, the analysis has no practical purpose.)

What I will comment on, though, is this:

“One and a half million American women legally walk away from motherhood every year by adoption, abortion or abandonment, yet somehow nobody labels them 'deadbeats' or 'deserters.'"

Say what? I think a reality check may be called for. Do you have any idea what expectations society places on any woman who gives birth to a child, anno 2006? Can you even begin to imagine what scrutiny every mother is put under, what kinds of social controls are in effect and what the consequences are for any woman who will not, or cannot, conform to society’s definition of a Good Mother?

Clearly you don’t, so you’ll just have to take my word for it: There are way easier ways to get labeled a deadbeat or a deserter than to have your child adopted. Try putting him in daycare, for example, and go off to do frivolous, selfish things like earn a living. Even worse, try admitting that you didn’t even plonk your kid in an institution because you have to put food on the table, but simply because you enjoyed going to work much more than you did mopping up mashed bananas.

The suggestion that women can “legally walk away from motherhood” without being labeled everything under the sun is quite frankly laughable. How can you even begin to argue with a statement like that?

Maybe it’s better to simply move on:

“Yet if the mother decides she wants to keep the child, she can demand 18 (or in some states 21 or 23) years of child support from the father, and he has no choice in the matter.”

We’ll leave aside for the moment the obvious objection that the father does have a choice in the matter – it’s just that the choice has to be exercised at a somewhat earlier stage in the proceedings. Because again, this is only too likely to end up in another fairness debate, where I might be tempted to laugh exaggeratedly and shriek “HA! Women never had access to commitment-free sex! Try that on for size!” And that really wouldn’t benefit anyone.

Instead, I’d like to comment on the way the statement seems to imply that the biggest, most desperately unfortunate situation anyone could ever end up in after fathering a child – a CHILD! – is to have their budget restricted for the next 18 years. Hello?

So yes, I totally agree – let’s scrap this ridiculously harsh penalty, which really has no place in modern society. Instead, I suggest that when a man becomes a father, he is forced to actually take care of his offspring. (A revolutionary thought, I know.)

Instead of wearing his poor wrist out writing monthly checks, let him stay up all night, every night, feeding and comforting a hungry/sleepless/sick/playful child, and then go to work the next day. (Margaret Thatcher got a whole four hours?!) Let him do without sleep night after night after night after night, until he is begging for someone to take the kid off his hands for triple the support money. (No one will, of course.) Then let him come down with flu and lie on the couch with a 200 degree temperature, completely alone, realizing that he is unable to stand up yet knowing that he is going to have to do just that and get on with changing diapers.

Let him plan, shop for and cook three healthy meals a day, every single day of the week, every week of the year (including important game dates). Let him clean, do the laundry, remember to buy diapers and schedule play dates and dash from workplace to daycare to home and back again in an endless cycle. Once the child starts sleeping better, let him instead spend his nights baking cupcakes for the school bake sale and changing the sheets on wet beds.

Let him, wherever he goes, be met by frowns suggesting that no matter how he runs, he is always, always letting someone down, most of all his child. Let him be unable to sleep for whatever portion of the night is left for worrying in equal parts about a) whether he will lose his job due to domestic commitments, b) whether his kid will end up on Jerry Springer because he was less than a 100 percent committed dad, and c) whether he will ever date again for the next 18 years. And let him be publicly stoned to death if he ever – EVER! – suggests to a living soul that having responsibility for young children might not be all it’s cracked up to be.

How about that? It sounds like a much better deal to me. Even in this day and age, unmarried women and single mothers are being blamed for most of society’s evils, and if they are going to be accused of being conniving bloodsuckers, they might as well get something more out of it than a pitiful child support check.

Sadly, of course, both Messrs. Sacks/Leving and myself are missing the most important point in the whole argument. In fact, it sounds like almost everyone is missing it. The point is that it doesn’t matter what lies the woman told the man when they were about to have sex. It doesn’t matter what choice the woman later exercised, and what say the man would have wanted to have but didn’t get. It doesn’t matter what the man thinks about being given the choice only between fatherhood light (child support) or full-fat fatherhood (sleepless nights) but not being allowed to opt out of it altogether.

The only thing that really matters is the fact that once the child is born, whatever actions and conflicts may have preceeded the birth, the relationship between the mother and father no longer takes center stage. What’s important from that point on, and what the law should be concerning itself with, is the relationship between the child and each of its parents. Whoever is to blame for the parents’ gigantic screw-up, it sure isn’t the child, and so the law should be aiming at protecting him or her from having to bear the consequences. (Wouldn’t you just love to grow up to read about how your dad made news headlines out of how badly he didn’t want you?)

Less academically put:

You have a kid. Deal with it.

PS. I would like it to be noted that I am hereby making a prediction, so that I can come back to this topic in 15 years time and say I “told you so”. I predict that by the time Mr Dubay’s child is in high school, Mr Dubay will have changed his mind about not wanting to be a father. At this point, the toughest part of parenting has already been dealt with by someone else, and Mr Dubay will be pushing 40 and may even have gained some maturity along the way. The mother, as always, will put her child’s good before her own outrage at the preposterous suggestion that Mr Dubay should get to finally play Dad, so she will let him, and all will live very confused ever after.

PPS. To stave off any comments along the lines of “get yourself a good man and you won’t have to be a feminist”, I should perhaps mention that I am married to a good man – a great man, in fact. He was born at the dawn of the 1960s in an industrial town in northern England, so God forbid he should ever call himself a feminist. But let’s just say that he has never been in any doubt as to where his children came from, what his responsibilities are and that Jackie Mason was absolutely right when he stated “the more sleep, the greater the schmuck”.

I am pleased to report that our stay at The Broadmoor (as in the hotel, not the high-security psychiatric hospital) was every bit as delightful as one might have expected. The resort is a true gem, and quite unlike anything I have experienced. It’s true that even when taking advantage of one of their special deals, it is still pricey – but worth every penny. I don’t know about you, but I will happily trade long plane journeys to exotic locations for a vacation closer to home if it leaves room in the budget for some of life’s little luxuries.

Excuses for absence

Well, I know there are actually people out there who read this blog, and hence may be disappointed/relieved to find that I haven’t published any new posts for a while. Let me assure you that things will pick up again, but maybe not for a little while.

I am currently involved in a very inspiring project which is taking up pretty much all of my oodles and oodles of spare time (ha, ha) and in order to give this project my very best (which is what it deserves) I have had to put the blog on the back burner.

I am sure that when you are presented with the fruits of my labour – which you will be – you’ll agree that it was worth it. Even if the world will temporarily have to live without important insights about, say, the benefits of Emeril Lagasse over Rachael Ray (the former cooks for pleasure and gets so turned on by it the audience blushes, while the latter darts about the kitchen trying to please a seemingly endless stream of visitors) or the pros and cons of school report cards for 5-year-olds (“progressing well in all academic areas but needs frequent reminders to be respectful of others and to follow classroom rules” – jeez! I’m 35, and still need frequent reminders of those same things!)

In order to avoid the situation where you stop checking in altogether, I might just have to publish occasional mysterious comments about how the Big Project is going, or quiz-like questions such as “please explain, in no more than 2000 words, the identity of No 6 along with his societal and personal significance”.

What I do definitely promise is that I will keep you posted – eventually.

PS. For some reason, I have been plagued recently by an inexplicable longing for damp, British B&B's with creaking beds, G&T's by the fire and mornings so cold the only remote chance of warming up again is to fill up with the carb-and-cholesterol overload called a full English breakfast. In order to combat this irrational wish for death-by-floral-wallpaper, a long weekend has been booked at what is supposedly one of the best hotels this side of the Rockies. (They had a special deal for the spring break - I'll be sure to report back to you whether they kept the five star staff on for the week or replaced them with something more suitable for the pretentious wannabe crowd.)

Wear green responsibly

It’s the middle of March, America is awash with all things green and the fact that St Patrick’s Day is still a whole week away doesn’t matter because now we are actually experiencing St Patrick’s Day Season! (Not "St Patrick’s Season", which would be linguistically acceptable if still conceptually dodgy.) I say. What is one to make of this, then?

Well, you could consider it to be little more than an innocent way of brightening what would otherwise be a pretty dull time of year, in between Christmas and summer fun (who cares about Easter?). But that wouldn’t really be conducive to any great debate, and as great debate is what life is all about, let’s instead look for the dark side. Is there one, and if so, what is it?

Some people would point out that St Patrick’s is just another excuse for cynical merchants to change their displays from red and heart-shaped to green and shamrock-shaped and thus persuade us to spend more money on rubbish. They would be partly right, but personally I don’t see this as a big problem. It’s free enterprise, and in my view there are worse things to profit from in a free market economy than green wigs and oddly shaped cookie cutters.

Or you might complain about the American penchant for overkill. Over here, St Patrick’s Day celebrations have to be just that little bit bigger, better and more than anywhere else (such as, say, in Ireland). When you know many Irish people (defined here as people actually from Ireland) who do very little on St Patrick’s Day except take a half day off work in order to get to the pub just that little bit sooner, it inevitably strikes you as a touch silly. Everyone everywhere is getting involved with what is really a fairly marginal celebration, albeit very cleverly marketed on a global scale by the Irish government. Even my 3-year old has been asked to wear green clothes to pre-school and bring with her, if possible, some “Irish paraphernalia”. (“Like what? A bomb?” the husband quipped, tastefully.)

This, too, I can live with. Americans have a wonderful ability to make anything a darn good party, and who am I to begrudge them? We miserly Europeans may not catch on so quickly, but that’s our problem. In the name of celebration, I will cheerfully dress my children in green and provide shamrock shaped sandwiches – heck, after a couple of pints of Guinness (please don’t call it “the black stuff”) I will even fake an Irish accent if it makes you happy.

Far juicier, then, is the religious and political symbolism inherent in the St Patrick’s Day concept. Only a few months ago the papers were filled with heated arguments as to whether Christmas should really be called Christmas or whether this could be perceived as offensive by non-Christians. I am surprised, to say the least, by the apparent lack of corresponding public debate on the political correctness of St Patrick’s Day.

Is it to be accepted without question that the symbolism of the catholic faith floods the nation and attempts to engulf everyone, including defenseless children? And are we to deny that in connection with Ireland and all things Irish, the act of promoting this particular faith over any other comes with connotations that easily extend into the political arena?

Sometimes I cynically suspect that many Americans suffer from the same misconceptions about Ireland and the Irish conflict as do Swedes, which is essentially that a) all real Irish people are catholic, b) if you are Irish and protestant, you may as well be English and c) the English are evil oppressors of a poor and underprivileged Irish population, inside and outside of Ireland.

This simplistic view has very little to do with reality but is, and always has been, shrewdly promoted by people with their own agenda. And who are those people? Well, for fear of being accused of slander, I wouldn’t like to say. It’s not really my fault that involuntary associations come into my mind, such as AOH-Noraid-IRA. Is it?

This photograph is unrelated to the contents of the blog.

Boyd emergency contraception bill passed – thank you!

A bill that champion Rep. Betty Boyd, D-Lakewood, has tried to get through House four (!) times, was finally passed on Monday and will allow pharmacists (those who don’t carry some inherent objection to doing their job, that is) to prescribe so called morning after pills, without a doctor’s approval. In what the Denver Post describes as “an unprecedented shift of power from doctors”, sanity finally prevailed over patriarchy.

To illustrate what Boyd has been up against (and if it wasn’t for the relentless insistence of women like her, where would we be?) I will quote Rep. Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs: “This is going to be used quite frequently by sexually active women --- If we allow it to be used with impunity, without strong doctoral oversight, I think we’re going to see an increase in sexually transmitted diseases”.

God help me. This is just the kind of comment that makes it really hard for me to stay calm and refrain from juvenile food-throwing. Would Mr Schultheis perhaps like to come to my house for a glass of wine and a little chat on women’s sexuality?

OK, just to recap, in case you haven’t spent the last few years thinking about women and sex. (What are you – the Gruffalo?!)

Medical science has come up with a solution to the problem of discovering too late that your contraception of choice didn’t work as intended. (Or that you indeed forgot to use contraception in the first place – a mistake that automatically qualifies you, too, for a little chat at my house.) This solution is called the morning after pill, and if you don’t know what that is, you have been living on a different planet for the last ten years and I’m not even going to bother.

So what do we do with this ground-breaking discovery? Well, we could make it available to women who request it. We could let these women use their own judgement to assess whether it would be morally appropriate to prevent an unwanted pregnancy (yes – prevent, which is what we are talking about here, not terminate like some people suggest). Women can even vote nowadays, you know!

Trouble is, if we do that, aren’t we going to get a whole load of floosies going around jumping into bed with anything that moves and contracting all manner of diseases? Well, of course we are! We all know that women have no brains, and don’t give a sh*t whether they contract STD – all that matters to women is that they don’t get some kid around their neck that might prevent them from pursuing their immoral lifestyle. So if we put at their disposal – WITHOUT DOCTORAL OVERSIGHT – a tool to prevent unwanted pregnancy, what is there to stop them?

And the men? Whaddyamean? This doesn’t have anything to do with men! (Well, unless they are dressed in white coats and able to exercise oversight.) Men? They just stick it in wherever they can, how do you expect them to think about stuff like babies or syphilis? Forget it – here we are at the most rotten core of patriarchy: women’s sexuality. Even in 2006, the mere mention of it is enough to make some people shudder. How could we possibly let women take control of their own sexuality? God knows what might happen!

And maybe it is to God that Mr Schulteis should turn, because I would like to know what this doctoral oversight that he is hoping for is supposed to entail, exactly. Will you bear with me for a moment, Sir, while we go back to basics?

Boy meets girl. Boy wants to have sex with girl. Girl says yes. Girl wakes up next morning with big headache and growing anxiety. Girl realises pregnancy may occur and wishes to use morning after pill. Now what?

Well, in my world, she goes to Walgreens to buy it (and any pharmacist who refuses to sell it will be history, serving latte at Starbucks). In Mr Schulteis’ world she goes to the doctor for some “oversight”. In STD terms, the difference is what, exactly? She either contracted something from that guy or she didn’t, right? No amount of doctoral oversight is going to change an event that already happened.

Or perhaps what Mr Schulteis is saying is that if we reverse back to when the irresponsible little good-for-nothing wanted to get this little tramp into bed, she would have had the following conversation with herself:

- Mmm, yeah, he’s pretty fly, but what are we going to do about protection? I don’t want to get pregnant or nothin’. But hang on a minute… There’s that pill, right? So if I mess up tonight I can just go get something to make sure I don’t get pregnant? Right on, let’s GO!!

Sorry, Mr Schulteis, but perhaps it’s time for that chat now? The door is open, come right in.

1700 tracks and nothing to play

I have to admit I succumbed and bought the Arctic Monkeys album, Whatever You Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. I cringe at the thought, because – call me a snob if you will - they are just too popular. The album is selling like there’s no tomorrow, the band is swimming in awards and their US tour (starting March 13th in San Francisco) is sold out. This is the kind of resumé that would normally make me run a mile in the opposite direction.

For the Arctic Monkeys, though, I have to make an exception. This, of course, is a Sheffield band, writing songs about Sheffield life in Sheffield language. The lyrics, found behind fascinating titles such as “Perhaps Vampires Is A Bit Strong But...” and “You Probably Couldn't See For The Lights But You Were Staring Straight At Me”, are really what makes the Arctic Monkeys. The music is good (sort of) too, but let’s face it, there isn’t anything very original there. Anybody who has experienced Sheffield life as a young person (or as an old person who likes to walk in young people’s shoes) cannot help but smile in recognition at these lyrics. Laugh out loud in recognition, even.

Heaven knows what anyone who has not experienced Sheffield life, or even life in the UK, makes of this stuff. They clearly make something of it, and either I underestimate them or they don’t really care too much about the lyrics.

Take these lines, for example, from The Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured:

Ask if we can have six in
If not we'll have to have two
Well you're coming up at our end aren't you
So I'll get one with you
Oh, won't he let us have six in
Especially not with the food
He could have just told us no though
He didn't have to be rude
---
Drunken plots hatched to jump it, ask around are ya sure?
Went for it but the red light was showing
And the red light indicates doors are secured

Now, I can’t really assess how much sense these lines would make to you if you were from, let’s say, Portland, Oregon. To me, they make perfect sense – so much so that I find myself inadvertently grinning as I recall numerous journeys home in a Sheffield taxi after a drunken night out.

Of course, there is nothing special about what the people in this song are experiencing – the same thing takes place every Friday and Saturday night in every town in every country in the Western world. A group of six intoxicated friends try to hail a cab and find the driver rudely announcing that he won’t accept such a large group, especially not as they have brought some food with them. (In other words, the taxi driver just thinks that they are drunk, messy and more trouble than it’s worth.) The group splits up and gets into two cabs. In one of them, the drunken passengers decide to do what English people would describe as a “runner” – jumping out of the cab and escaping without paying. Unfortunately for them (but fortunately for the driver) they discover the little red light that indicates that the doors are locked (usually intended to prevent people from falling out of the cab).

In other words, nothing special. Just ordinary, universal, drunk people’s antics. But described in such a poetic way, these scenes paint a picture that conveys a lot more about life in the north of England than the story itself. Not with quite the brilliance of John Cooper Clarke ("you know you're in the wrong hotel when a fight breaks out in the minibar") – yet, but who knows what the future might hold. And like I said, I really didn’t think anyone outside of Sheffield, or at the very least the UK, would get this. But clearly they do, and snobbery or no snobbery, on balance this is really a good thing as it ensures that we will hear more from these guys in the future. Provided, of course, they don’t change their perspective due to their newfound fame. Actually, a recent interview suggests they already have, and make no secret about it. Can’t say I’m surprised.

Anyway, as I was putting the Arctic Monkeys album on my iPod, I noticed that the little bar at the bottom of iTunes said “1733 tracks, 4.1 days, 6.79 GB”. Amazing! Music works exactly like clothes! It doesn’t matter one bit how much of it you have, you still can’t ever find anything half decent. My iPod actually claims that I could, if I wanted to, listen to it for over 4 days without hearing the same tune twice. If the iPod was interested in what I had to say, I would tell it that out of these 4 days and the 12 or so made up by CDs not yet transferred to the iPod, I struggle to find two hours of good music to listen to.

I was what you might call an early adopter of the iPod, which in plain English means that I didn’t get one of the natty G4 versions that other people, such as my husband, did. Instead I got a machine that looks less cool, weighs more and has a much shorter battery life. On the other hand, the simple fact that I did get my iPod at a time when it was still unusual and brought out the wow in people means that I have grown incredibly attached to it. I still feel as though owning an iPod makes me special. I still want to believe that when people see those white headphones (which by the way are the best in-ear headphones ever) they think “oooh, there goes a woman who not only has plenty of dough but knows how to spend it”. (And I am, of course, still concerned about those news reports that came out a few years ago saying that white headphones shouldn’t be worn when going out as they might attract muggers. Diamond ring? Designer handbag? No, baby, it’s your headphones that give it away!)

Anyway, the question is, what now? Do you continue to schlep this white brick wherever you go, because if you ever did get a sudden urge to listen to, say, Karma Chameleon by The Culture Club, you could? Or do you let the iPod stay in the living room (where it is still very functional) and get yourself a little Flash stick for the gym? My husband is travelling to Europe tomorrow and just came to ask me (as CTO of our household) if I would be awfully kind and put a small selection of his favourite music on our son’s 256 MB stick, so that he didn’t have to go through the trouble of carrying his iPod. To be honest, this got me a little scared. Has the iPod run its course? Is it time for it to retire? A frightening but sadly relevant thought.

I’m so glad I have important issues to worry about, so that I don’t have to be weighed down by petty stuff!

A feminist heroine, gone

Today, we say goodbye to yet another feminist who paved the way for all of us. (Although, like many of her contemporaries, she must have been horrified to witness the anti-feminist movement flare up again towards the end of her life.)

Betty Friedan died at home in Washington on Saturday, February 4th – her 85th birthday. The most important item on her feminist resumé was almost certainly the 1963 book “The Feminine Mystique”, in which she helped explain to the world that the notion of a woman’s main purpose in life being that of a wife and mother was not some law of nature, but simply a big, fat lie created by society.

I am eternally thankful to Friedan for having had the courage to speak out on these issues at a time when this was revolutionary and must have involved great personal risk. Her life and work are to be celebrated, and I rejoice in the fact that the world was blessed with this brilliant, clear-headed lady. At the same time, I am saddened – deeply, deeply saddened – by the ease with which the 21st century is turning its back on the efforts by Friedan and her kinsfolk.

The idea that women are somehow, by the very same “mystique” that Friedan spoke of, predestined to put their roles as wives and mothers before any others is rampant in today’s Western society. While in Friedan’s day, tradition was considered sufficient as a reason, today’s argument in a world of crumbling traditions is biology. Hormones, nervous systems, inherited “instincts” or all of the above and more are quoted as mumbo-jumbo “reasons” for women’s lasting legacy as home makers first and wage earners second.

Why? Why?!! I struggle to find an answer. While I, in true Generation X fashion, manage to stay aloof and blasé about many upsetting things, this is one of the horrible stains on our society that I can but hang my head and cry about. Having once myself been a victim of the myth of femininity, it is all the more poignant to me that for each step forward Friedan and her contemporaries took, we have taken a considerable step back.

Let’s just feel confident that Betty Friedan – also the founder and first president of the National Organization for Women in 1966 – knew in her heart that the work for which she helped lay the foundation will continue. There are enough of us out there, and we will never give up.

Morals, my *rse

As anyone who knows me will tell you, getting annoyed is one of my favourite activities. I find getting annoyed a cleansing experience – a bit like having a good cry. (Provided the annoyance or crying is not about something that really matters to you, of course, in which case the experience is not so much cleansing as downright uncomfortable.)

I’m pleased to say that there isn’t exactly a world shortage of essentially unimportant issues for me to get annoyed about. Some of them have the added benefit of providing several sources of irritation at once. To my delight, in this week’s issue of The Yellow Scene, I found something just like that.

Here’s the beef. An employee of a local branch of Walgreens, the US drugstore and pharmacy giant, cites his “moral objection” to the use of emergency contraceptives (so called morning after pills) as a reason to refuse – with Walgreens’ blessing – to fill prescriptions for such products.

This is not a new issue, of course. The Walgreens employee in question is not the only pharmacist with a “moral objection” to doing his or her job. The predicament this puts patients in – especially in the case of emergency contraceptives – has sparked some debate in the US. As explained by this article in The Washington Post, there are pharmacists out there willing to go even further in their quest to hamper people’s legal rights to obtain prescribed medicines. On the other hand, there are also employers willing to stand up for those rights where Walgreens won’t.

Because, according to Walgreens spokesperson Michael Polzin (source here) “pharmacists can remove themselves from filling prescriptions that they have moral objections to. But we require them to either have another pharmacist at that store fill it, or, if another pharmacist is not on duty, contact store management, and the store manager will make arrangements for that prescription to be filled at another pharmacy before the patient leaves the store. The intent of Walgreen’s policy is to make sure that a patient doesn’t leave the store wondering where the prescription can get filled”.

Oh, well, that’s alright, then. Or is it? No, I don’t think it’s alright, and that’s the first of several sources of annoyance here. Walgreens is (in part) a pharmacy. In fact, it’s one of the biggest in the United States. Walgreens dominates the retail market for drugs and by its very presence makes it difficult for other pharmacies to survive - other pharmacies that may well have a different view of its customers’ importance. Walgreens makes enormous profits each year, and a considerable share of these profits are generated by filling doctors’ prescriptions. Amongst the prescriptions that Walgreens fills, and thus uses to line its shareholders’ pockets, are prescriptions for contraceptives.

What Mr Polzin is effectively saying here is that Walgreens relationship with its customers is one-sided. If Walgreens wants to do what it’s there for, it will. But if it doesn’t, then it won’t. It’ll simply tell the customer standing in one of its stores holding a valid prescription for a product stocked right there in that store to take her prescription elsewhere. Hey, they’ll even tell her where to take it, so she won’t be leaving the store “wondering”. Well, I sure hope I’ll never find myself in the position of having to take the morning after pill, but if I did, I might just be left wondering why I ever bought anything from Walgreens in the first place.

So this is my first gripe – that a giant corporation can be so arrogant towards its customers and get away with it. Why aren’t people in uproar, deserting Walgreens in hoards? Why don’t people have “moral objections” to handing over their hard earned cash to someone with so little respect for the people on whom they rely for their survival?

Well, I’d say it is because quite frankly, we’re not talking about customers in the usual sense. Not customers like you and me - dignified, upstanding citizens. No - we’re talking about some tramp who should have thought before she got herself into a mess! In other words, a customer you can afford to offend without taking any great risk. Far more risky, then, to offend the other side – the pro life lobby and its fringe supporters.

My second gripe lies with the “moral objection” itself, in other words with the individual who refuses to fill prescriptions on the grounds that he or she does not agree with the use of the prescribed drugs. In this context, I should first of all point out that I don’t have a problem with people objecting to the use of emergency contraceptives, contraceptives of any other kind, or any pharmaceutical products whatsoever. If I was given the opportunity to sit down to a mutually respectful discussion about it, I might be fairly vocal about the fact that I don’t share these opinions, but that is not the point here.

The point here is that we’re talking about people who have gladly accepted jobs as dispensing pharmacists. People who, just like Walgreens but on a scaled down level, have no problem with making money from selling drugs to people. As long as they’re not just any old drugs, but drugs that the individual in question personally approves of. As long as they can choose not to do their job, should the “wrong” customer happen to stop by.

Never mind that all the drugs we are talking about are legal. Never mind that licensed doctors have written the prescriptions. Never mind that the drugs in question are sitting right here, behind the counter in the store. And never mind that the wages that the employee happily accepts from the employer have come from revenue generated, in part, by the sale of these same drugs. Never mind any of those things. They aren’t important enough to persuade the holier-than-thou employee to reconsider his or her decision to work for the pharmacy in the first place. All you need to do to stay on that moral high horse is to turn your nose up at a prescription handed to you by one desperate, unfortunate woman whose individual actions you disapprove of. Well, give yourselves a pat on the back - that’s right big, hard and clever, as we say back home.

My third gripe – and I think it will be my last one for tonight although I’m sure I could think of more if I tried – is how toothless the law is on this matter. In fact, in some states, the law seems more concerned with protecting pharmacists’ right to keep their jobs and their moral high ground than with preserving the rights of Americans to obtain the prescription drugs they are entitled to. Taken to extreme, what this means is that what people may take and when they may take it is not decided by those authorities responsible for authorizing the prescription and sale of certain drugs, nor by the doctors licensed to prescribe those drugs. It is decided by the moral tyrants who defy the democratic process by which these decisions were made, and will do what they can to obstruct the rights of other citizens. And this, quite frankly, makes me more than a little annoyed. It makes me downright angry.

Groundhog Day

If the groundhog sees his shadow
On this special day
It will frighten him back to his burrow
And that’s where he will stay
Six more weeks of winter…they say!

Well, I didn’t see the groundhog come out (Did anyone? Where does he actually live?). But as it was sunny here today with very few clouds, I guess that when he did pop out of his burrow, he would have seen his shadow. So another six weeks of winter it is, then. Which doesn’t seem so strange, really, as we are only at the beginning of February. In fact, if we ONLY get another six weeks of winter, I will be delighted.

And what I’d like to know is: Why, when the groundhog comes out again in six weeks, does he then NOT get frightened by his shadow? What did he learn in those six weeks about the nature of shadows, that he didn’t know before? And why doesn’t he remember his shadowistics from year to year?

I don’t suppose I’ll ever get any answers to these question, and my prospects for an early springtime will continue to be guided blindly by this confused little dude. It added an interesting aspect to the day, though – but why didn’t Google put a groundhog on its logo?

Baby Loves Disco… But Mommy Thinks It Sucks!

If there is one major contribution that Generation X has made to the history of parenting, it has to be the way we have introduced and firmly established as gospel the idea that whatever Mom and Dad want to do, Baby can do too. Not to mention Toddler, Pre-schooler, Kindergartener and Tween. In fact, the older Junior gets, the greater the opportunities for bringing him along to some grown-up fun disguised as “family oriented activities”. I guess the idea is that by the time he is a teenager the gap will have closed and the parents, feet planted firmly in Neverland soil, will instead be able to join their children in some adolescent fun.

The trouble is, Generation X:ers are really a bunch of accidental, verging on reluctant parents. A significant proportion of us have waited until our thirties to have kids – heck, a whole load of us are still waiting! And as we weren’t exactly the most selfless, flexible generation to start with, thirty plus years of instant gratification has got to lead to some serious conflict when, as the venerable Dr Huxtable might say, these people move in. You know, these people who are responsible for the fact that you can no longer enjoy the Sunday paper over a leisurely brunch followed by some retail therapy. The ones that force you to get up at 5.30 like an old person and blow your personal spending budget to pieces. The ones that make your plans to take a sabbatical and escape to Tibet for a few months’ quiet contemplation seem, well, more like a joke than a feasible idea.

Cue a novel concept: Let’s just keep going, post-baby, doing everything we used to enjoy pre-baby. How, exactly? Well, it’s obvious! We’ll just mask everything as family friendly activities, designed to make well-rounded individuals out of our children. We’ll pretend it’s just a coincidence that these activities also happen to match our hobbies – besides, everyone knows that kids love joining in with adult pursuits. Anything we don't really enjoy doing with our children, but feel as though we ought to, can be given the opposite treatment. These things we will pass off as fulfilling, discover-the-child-inside-you style adult activities and kid ourselves that we’re enjoying them.

Thus, we kill two birds with one stone: Firstly, we meet the requirement drummed into us by the glossy parenting magazines, namely that there should be no such thing as “their stuff” and “our stuff” but just one, big, happy family enjoying life together. Secondly, we manage to allow, to the greatest extent possible, the thrill-seeking, fun-loving Generation X show to go on.

So, what to do? You name it, baby. Wanna go skiing? There’s a crèche for the infant and ski school for the three-year-old. Wanna travel the world? Pack plenty of disposable everythings and buy Claire and Lucille Tristram’s “Have Kid, Will Travel” from Amazon. Wanna enjoy a meal at a restaurant and some adult conversation? Take them to Chuck E. Cheese’s and put up with the crappy food. Want to enjoy decent grub at a good restaurant? Take them to a good restaurant, goddammit! If the restaurant objects, tell the papers and they’ll get subjected to the same treatment as Dan “indoor voices” McCauley.

But the best of all really has to be this: Wanna go clubbing? Take them to Baby Loves Disco! I’ve seen some weird things in my day, but this really takes the biscuit. For those of you who would rather not partake of the organizers' website, this is essentially what Baby Loves Disco is: A “disco” (this means a club, I suppose, in funky, retro language) currently available in NYC, Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Boulder, where “toddlers, pre-schoolers and parents looking for a break from the routine playground circuit let loose for some post naptime, pre-dinner fun”. In the organizers’ own words: “Make no mistake, this is NOT the Mickey Mouse club, and Barney is Banned. Baby loves disco is an afternoon dance party featuring real music spun and mixed by real djs blending classic disco tunes From the 70s, & 80s guaranteed to get those little booties moving and grooving.”

In short, you take your kids to this place where dreadful music mixes with “bubble machines, baskets of instruments, a chill-out room (with tents, books and puzzles), diaper changing stations, a full spread of healthy snacks (provided by Whole Foods) and dancing, LOTS of dancing”. Heather Murphy, a professional dancer (“and professional mom”!!) who started the whole thing wanted no less than “to create an alternative to the pre-packaged world of entertainment for young kids”. No kidding? And Baby Loves Disco would be what, exactly?

Anyway, you won’t be seeing me in one of these places anytime soon. Apologies to Murphy, “whose lifestyle --- was changed when she gave birth to her 2 year old son Max”. My lifestyle has changed, too, and as a consequence of that, my kids’ first “disco” will be of the school variety - anything else they can go to when they’re old enough to drive themselves there.

Call me old fashioned, but last time I looked, clubbing involved one or more of the following: music so loud you’d struggle to hold a conversation, alcohol or some other intoxicating substance, sweaty adults letting their hair down and with it, all semblance of responsibility, and hot babes to chat up (or, should this be inappropriate given your circumstances, to ogle). A good night clubbing would generally include all of the above.

So, which of these disco-defining factors would one likely encounter at a Baby Loves Disco party? Unbearably loud music? Ha! Think of all those infants and their sensitive ears - someone could get sued. Booze? Ha! Ha! Ha! Sweaty adults? Possibly, but ones in the process of letting responsibility ride with the wind? Hardly. Hot babes? Well, yeah, but even though parenthood is now (thanks to Gen X) officially sexy, no one ever intended that to be taken literally. I don’t know about you, but while I certainly consider myself one hot mama, there’s hardly a time I feel less sexy than when in full view of my kids.

In other words, when you look at what a Baby Loves Disco party really is, what you are left with is precisely what you would normally expect when you invite parents and children for some “post nap, pre dinner fun”: a dimly lit room full of shrieking, hyperactive children bouncing around to a dreadful 70s collection picked up from the nearest gas station. I don’t need to pay ten bucks a head for that – I can do it right here, at home. (Though if I ever do attempt something so preposterous, could someone please shoot me?)

No, I’m sorry – a Generation X:er I may be, but I just don’t buy it. When it comes to parenting, I’d rather do it like my parents did. I love my kids to bits – to suggest I might not because I don’t feel like sharing every moment of my life with them would be ridiculous. I keep them warm and safe, provide them with nutritious meals and snacks six times a day, take them swimming, to ice skating classes and on holidays abroad, I read to them and help them with their homework. I think that all in all, they get a pretty good deal.

But there are some things I simply prefer to do on my own, sans kids. The list includes but is not limited to: going to the gym (no “KidZone” for me, thanks – I’ll wait ‘til they’re in bed), shaking my booty at the disc-oh (someone’s gotta keep the babysitting brigade in employment), backpacking (won’t be doing much of that for the next fifteen years), fine dining (where’s that babysitter’s number again?) and sleep (children who are sick or reeling from nightmares excepted, a “family bed” mine is not). Just about the only Generation X style thing I’ll do with my kids is take them to music festivals – though I view that as them doing something for me, as a kind of payback for all the times they’ve dragged me to Hell on Earth, a.k.a. the playground.

PS. Could someone please tell James Blunt to put his sweater back on and go inside? Why do people buy into this stuff? Please tell me that this isn’t happening.

PPS. Opening lines of Simon And Garfunkel’s Leaves That Are Green:

“I was twenty-one years when I wrote this song.
I’m twenty-two now but I won’t be for long”

Opening lines of Billy Bragg’s New England:

“I was twenty-one years when I wrote this song.
I’m twenty-two now but I won’t be for long”

Bet you didn’t know that! Two songs, born out of the same two lines, one mediocre and one a musical classic. But which is which?

PPPS. Just so you know: When moving abroad, homesickness will strike you approximately two months after arrival, or the first time you listen to Fifteen Years by The Levellers. Unless you move to Sweden, in which case homesickness will strike you on the first night. (This paragraph may well be deleted when I let the Swedish posse loose on my blog, so if you’re lucky enough to be reading it, savour the moment.)

Biggest AHA! so far this year
(or Never too old to find out who you really are)

Something amazing happened to me today. Today, aged 34, I found out that there is actually a name for my most basic philosophy, for that thing I base everything else on and that has really been the whole foundation of my views on everything for the last… well, 15 years?

Not only am I not alone (which I never really thought I was anyway – I’m not that conceited), but the next time my husband rolls his eyes and says “oh, here we go again… stuuuuudent” I can reply that while it may all be over his head, there is actually an –ism for what I am talking about. Some of whose supporters I am almost certain are not university students with a close resemblance to Neil from The Young Ones swigging red wine one some dorm floor.

So how about getting to the point? What is the name, and what is it all about? Well, here we go, it’s called… drum roll… SOLIPSISM! Who’s familiar with that? If you are, you might want to take a look in the mirror to make sure your hair didn’t suddenly grow longer. And you might be better off not admitting if you know me in real life, because if you do, you really should have told me about this a long time ago.

Anyway, congratulations if you knew about this and if you didn’t, it’s time you stopped laughing at me. I’m a solipsist and I’m proud!

So what exactly is the definition of solipsism? Well, here is Merriam Webster’s version:

“a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing”

Still not sure? Have some more from Encyclopaedia Britannica:

“the extreme form of subjective idealism that denies that the human mind has any valid ground for believing in the existence of anything but itself”

Still about as clear as mud? OK, let’s see.

Those of you who know me: It’s that thing, you know, where I say that nothing really exists unless there is someone there to perceive it. Remember? The chair in the next room that you’re sure was there a minute ago but that isn’t actually there right now because we are all in this room? That’s the one. That’s solipsism.

Those of you who don’t know me: Let me tell you a story about a chair. It’s in the room next to the one I’m in now, except I can’t see it, hear it, taste it, smell it or feel it. Which essentially means that it doesn’t exist, because to whom does it exist when there’s no-one there?

Yeah, blah, blah, blah (which, coincidentally, is what my 5-year-old has taken to answering me every time I open my mouth – I am sure he is really 15 and I just didn’t notice him growing). But you get my drift – and you’ve all heard it before even if, like me, you didn’t know there was a name for it.

I will leave you now with a thought provoking question. What about my other important theory, which you have all also heard before and quite possibly sneered at as another sign that I really should go get a life?

It's the one that says that really, we have no evidence that we wake up every morning as the same people we were yesterday. What’s to say that we aren’t just a new person with what we believe to be "memories" imprinted on our brain? What’s to say, even, that there is such a thing as time and that we are not just reliving the same moment again and again a la Groundhog Day? Or that rather than actually reliving it, we have just the one moment, once?

The question is, does that theory have a name, too, that I don’t know about? Or does it fall under the solipsism umbrella? Answers on a postcard, please.

Of great literature and opulent flower arrangements

It is amazing how much one can learn about a country and its people by browsing in bookstores. On the face of it, our local Borders looks pretty much like an English bookstore. (It doesn’t look anything like a Swedish bookstore, but that’s mainly because there’s something odd about all Swedish stores that sets them apart from stores in any other country. When I figure out what that something is, I will let you know.)

Anyway, back to Borders. You will find all the usual sections – Art, Literature, History, Reference, Local Interest and so on. Just as you would expect. But look closer, and you will discover some interesting differences. For example, the section entitled Romance (as in romantic fiction, Mills and Boon, that sort of thing) takes up an entire aisle in Borders. To Mystery, they have dedicated a whopping eight shelves, or four aisles. Metaphysics of all things has almost a whole wall to itself, and as for Bible Studies – well, you can probably imagine.

Other surprisingly important subjects seem to be: Calendars (yes, I know it’s January, but I didn’t notice much difference in September), gift books (those tiny little things with only a handful of words on each page, entitled things like Ode To Girlfriends or Congratulations On Your Divorce (Why You’re Better Off Without Him), and all manner of self-help books (OK, so that one doesn’t surprise me).

Moreover, throughout all subjects, one can sense the wonderfully refreshing American attitude to money. I really do think it’s refreshing – and most of all, it’s honest. We Europeans lie constantly about money – about how much or little of it we have, about whether we want more of it, and about what we are prepared to do (or have already done) to get it. In the US, it is perfectly acceptable to discuss openly the fact that we all want money, some of us have more of it than others but we all wish we had more than we do and few people would turn down a legal opportunity to make some. (Marginally more people would turn down an illegal one.)

So wherever you go in Borders, it’s hard to avoid the topic of money. Metaphysics: How To Get Rich Using Astral Projection (so that’s what metaphysics is for – I always wondered). Cooking: How To Bake Cookies Good Enough To Sell. History: 19th Century Millionaires Tell Their Stories. And so on.

So did I succumb? Of course I did. Along with a yummy selection of Gloria Steinem, Nancy Friday, Thomas L. Friedman and Franz Kafka, I also came away with The Millionaire Mind by Thomas J. Stanley. Well, you never know. It’s worth a try at least, before one has to resort to astral projection.

After Borders, it was time for Michaels. For the uninitiated, Michaels is a craft store, which technically means that it should stock things like polystyrene balls and cones (to make, say, a decorative ice cream), paints, embroidery supplies, unfinished wooden boxes and stuff like that. Which it does. But at least half of the store’s surface area is taken up not with craft supplies but with plastic flowers, and other related decorative items.

And what a wonderful, irresistible orgy of plastic flowers it is! Now, I have to stress that not all of them are plastic, nor are all of them flowers. To name but a few, there are silk flowers, paper flowers, dried flowers, synthetic greenery in all imaginable materials and sizes, bamboo sticks, bizarre, curly grasses, straight grasses, branches with berries, branches without berries, synthetic weeds, garlands, pine cones, seashells, pebbles… And of course an array of accessories to complete your arrangement: Vases, bowls, styrofoam, decorative sand…

I could spend hours and hours in this wonderful jungle of everlasting, pseudo-natural beauty. Come to think of it, I probably did. Since I had already spent most of my pocket money in the bookstore, I had to keep a firm hold of myself, but watch this space – there is definitely a risk that my new home in time will turn into a plastic flower showroom.

So what’s your stance on plastic flowers? (I know, they’re really silk, but plastic just sounds so delightfully kitsch.) My dear husband predictably regards them as the naffest, most impossibly tasteless objects anyone could choose to display. He would probably rather keep the house void of decorative objects than fill it with synthetic ones. (Come to think of it, he would rather keep the house void of decorative objects period, but what does he know.)

When we first arrived in America, ready to set up a new home, friends and family back home wanted to know my thoughts on American interior design. Is it over the top, imposing and ornate, they asked, because that is the stereotypical picture we Europeans have of it. Well, I had to reply, like most stereotypes it isn’t completely untrue. There is certainly a lot of wall to wall carpeting in the US, plenty of heavy, dark wood furniture and traditional, frilly window coverings.

But you know what? After 35 years of European, blonde-wooded, monochrome, glass-and-brushed-steel minimalism, I like that! I have graduated, moved on to the next level. “Plush” is no longer a profanity to me, and I find the most appealing interiors the ones that are comfortable and soothing to the eye. And if that means opulent arrangements of synthetic flowers and wooden fruit, well, then I’m OK with that.

After this mammoth shopping spree, yours truly was struck down with the mother of all headaches. No, it’s nothing to do with the heavy weight of blatant consumerism on my shoulders – it’s the weather up here, the pressure changes can be really vicious. Or maybe it’s that strep throat that’s been lurking in the family. So after feeding the animals, supervising their homework and handing them over to their other keeper, I retired to bed. From where I deliver this report, before moving on to the interestingly entitled The Mommy Myth – The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women by Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels. More on that is sure to follow!

Blogsistential questions

OK, so today might be the day to give some actual thought to this newborn blog. Who is it for? Who is it by? What is its purpose?

I have to admit, I am a bit of a blog sceptic. I mean, people - especially Americans - have always journaled. (On my recent arrival in the US, I was amazed to find that “journal” is actually a verb.) But in the past, there was a distinction between mad ramblings for one’s own pleasure and literary works fit for consumption by the general public.

There used to be a person with some knowledge of what works in literature - an editor - who could make the literary equivalent of NME’s garage-band-that-should-have-stayed-in-the-garage-with-the-engine-running comment about early performances by The Clash.

But wait a minute, I hear you say. Editors make mistakes, right? Reviewers make mistakes. NME’s reviewer made a HUGE mistake about The Clash. So? I say. The Clash kept going, didn’t they? And before long, the laugh was on the NME, wasn’t it? (Isn’t it always?)

And this is exactly my point. Good art is unstoppable – sooner or later, it will find its way into our consciousness. The same goes for literature. If someone is a good enough writer, and writes about things that interest people, their material will eventually get past the editors and into the public arena.

The trouble is, with self-publishing at an all-time high through e-books, blogging, online print services and what have you, so much junk is filling the information space that I wonder whether we are becoming immune and suddenly unable to distinguish the good from the bad. A bit like the more-fonts-than-sense evolution in desktop publishing. Or the Eccentric capitalization Trend on everything From street signs to Restaurant menus. We become so used to it we begin to think it must be OK.

With this in mind, does the world really need another blog? Who is interested in listening to my rants about this, that and the other? And what could I rant about and have a hope of at least making the tiniest positive impact on the information flow? (Not about The Clash, my children or Linda Hirshman, judging from the contents of the blog of every Tom, Dick and Harr(iet), anyway.)

Well, it looks like I didn’t answer the questions I set out to, but I haven’t given up. Watch this space!

I spoke too soon!

I have just been greeted over my morning coffee by a little voice declaring: "It's sowie, it's sowie!", and sure enough, it is. Thanks for that, weather gods. The weather people really don't have a clue—the weather forecast had just been changed to show no snow for the rest of the week.

The little voice has gone to watch Dora the Explorer. She has almost no knowledge of Swedish—the second language actually spoken in this family—but she will soon be fluent in Spanish. It's time to get going, though I would give a lot to crawl back under the covers on this sowie day... More later.

Linda Hirshman, I love you!

Q: Who is Hirshman, and what did she do to make me love her?
A: She stood up and spoke the truth – finally – about families, careers and the so called “work-life balance”.

Read the truth here

Clearly, crisply and eloquently, she told the world what it already ought to know but is doing it’s best to forget: The glass ceiling is still firmly in place, but it isn’t located in the workplace. It is located right here, at home.

The “work-life balance” (How I hate that term! As if work was not a part of life–the purpose of life, even!), Hirshman says, is just another term for keeping women out of positions of power. “I wonder what their concept of balance would be if they weren’t dragging around the full weight of the household. This isn’t about balance. It’s because they need more time to do tasks that are unjustly handed to them, or that they hand themselves because they believe in the gender ideology as much as their husbands do”
(Source: The Guardian, Saturday January 14, 2006)

Precisely! Isn’t this just what I have said all along? How infuriating it is to read endless accounts of the new “yummy mummy” trend, which apparently inspires young, educated mothers to ditch their careers (or, as they like to kid themselves, put them on the “back burner”). This new trend is put forward as evidence that a leopard never changes its spots, feminism was just a fad—when the pressure’s on, all women really want to do is make jam and take toddlers to Gymboree™ classes. Men can draw a sigh of relief–the free housekeeper is back and believe it or not, she is grateful for the opportunity to finally take off that power suit and go back to doing the school run in jam stained yoga pants.

No bloody wonder women can’t hack it! They may have been put on an equal footing with men in the workplace, but no-one ever did anything to remove their responsibilities in the home! Now, they are expected to hold down two jobs, and for years, they were supposed to be proud to be doing it, too! (Remember Superwoman?)

Anyway, Linda Hirshman is here and this time the world will listen. Not because there is anything magical about Hirshman–how many people had even heard her name before this highly publicised u-turn? No, the world will listen because the snowball is rolling, and it’s rolling fast. The word is out there, and in today’s world, when something is out there, it really is out there. No-one can get away, whether you agree or not. But can anyone disagree? Let me know if you do!

Thank you, Linda. Mwoa! Mwoa!

PS. It didn't snow! The weather is as unpredictable as ever, and I wish I could feel as upset about global warming as I should do.

Well, what to talk about in this very first of my blog posts..?

Maybe I should start with what I have learnt today, which is the following:

1. Napa Valley Chenin Blanc is not the same dry, crisp wine as Chenin Blanc in the rest of the world. It is more like a sickly sweet dessert wine. Don’t buy it.

2. You can go ice skating after 20 years of absence from the ice and still know (kind of) how to do it. I guess it’s like riding a bike, driving a car, and… well – what else?

3. Children want to believe in magic. At what precise point in development does the shift occur whereby we become people who desperately do NOT want to believe, even in the face of evidence?

4. It is still winter, and we will be getting some snow tomorrow evening.

5. Two people can look back at something that happened to both of them and remember it as if it were two different events. When it’s someone you still talk to and can compare notes with, that’s one thing. But how many people I don’t know anymore appear in my memories as doing and saying things that as far as they are concerned have nothing to do with reality?

6. Yul Brunner was born in Vladivostok in 1915 and died in New York in 1985. Ordinarily, no disrespect to Brunner, I would forget this fact as quickly as I learnt it, but now it’s in my blog I will never forget.

7. Someone in Slovenia has the only currently available pirate/bootleg copy of the Joe Strummer documentary Let’s Rock Again on ebay, but does not accept PayPal and prefers “well concelled cash”.

I think that’s enough knowledge accumulated for one day – I will return to the treacle posing as wine and wait for some more insights before posting again.


(c) Jan Stenmark 2005

Test post

Yeah... This is nothing more exciting than a test post.