The Most Well-dressed Party Chairman?

In the Swedish daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, today Sunday 31 January, it is claimed that the most welldressed Swedish political party leader is the rightwing party, the Moderates, leader Fredrik Reinfeldt.

It is an amazing choice and this newspaper and its readers is haunted by a phenomena which is known as selective perception. If you are promoting an aggressive and biased political agenda, you simply pick an choose. You select all the nice parts and take away all the nasty or unpleasant ones.

For instance, if you are an arrogant bastard, you're described as someone who knows what he wants, while your opponent, that is obviously less arrogant, is described as not knowing what he or she wants or lacking the ability to express clear views of their own opinions.

Michel Foucault once presented this as a way of controlling the discourse, and if it is used frequently enough the goal is to miscredit your opponent so that nothing they do or say are really being noticed.

The person who has no real arguments or opinions of how to solve problems, even imaginary ones, annd furthermore dresses improperly is surely not worth listening to. But then again, arguments like that always threatens to fall back on those who use them, doesn't they?

Turning back to the actual clothing, it also tend to fall back on you, doesn't it? Fredrik Reinfeldt went to China annd succeeded to wear clothes that does not seem to express sensitivity for the dress code as such. Comparing the Prime Minister with his hosts reveals a slight discrepancy...

Most well-dressed political party leader? I wonder where they got that idea?

Sources: Svenska Dagbladet (2008) Reinfeldts klädsel en tydlig signal (12 april 2008); Wikiquote (2010).

Out of the Limelight

Once there was a politician who always had an opinion on everything. He didn't care if he didn't know a thing about the issues he addressed. He made a lot of changes and the most was for the worse. The state of things didn't improve. He was convinced that he did the right things himself, as he had a hunch that it was the right thing to do. Nobody else knew why... if he heard voices or what it was...

He missed one important thing though; he was not elected for post he held, but appointed by his party to a very important position. The voters didn't like what they saw and heard, so in the next election they put him out of office.

As this was a man without any particular qualities, nobody was particularly interested in employing him. The state of things got worse as he, in his days of office had managed to take away the possibility for uneducated and untalented people to actually get a job. Therefore he lived the rest of his days in an old abandoned house, drinking beer and chewing tobacco.

The people in the neighbourhood avoided him, because of his bodily odour. This experience made him bitter and vicious. He became mean to small children and rude to old people. Not that he had been that nice as a politician, but at least he didn't smell... maybe politicians are like fruit, best when they are fresh...

In the Search for a New Leadership

Swedish politics seems to be at a dead end. First we had Göran Persson and he was an arrogant and rather authoritative leader who used to get things done. Of course he bulldozerd down quite a lot of people in the process. Then we got Fredrik Reinfeldt, who looks like a sad dog and keep out of the media focus as much as possible. He leads a government who does not often engage in debate with the opposition. And when they do, they seem not knowing what they are talking about. The curious thing about this guy is that he is Prime Minister, but still acts as if he was the leader of the opposition. Is this good leadership?

Therefore something new is badly needed. The opposition leader Mona Sahlin does not expose much of the traditional male leadership style. Therefore she is questioned. People seem to expect some kind of Margret Thatcherist transformation on her behalf. What is wanted seems to be more government bashing, which Sahlin seems unwilling to deliver. The Swedish press seems to long for a new and dynamic leadership. That means a male and an Alfa Male, more potent. A lion among politicians.

And we have him here for you. We give you Ridfrek Pearson! A new leader, who present himself as an improved combination of Göran Persson and Fredrik Reinfeldt. He promises a new tough leadership. There will be no more mister Nice Guy. He promises to lift Sweden out of the engulfment of political quicksand and fungible rhetoric that it has been haunted by during the last decades. He will accomplish the impossible, if we would just let him. Stable growth, more money and law and order, we will have it all at the same time, BUT we will have to pay the prize: he will be given full authority and no criticism will be allowed during his first period in office.

He will lead a new political party: the Nice Authority Party. It will be authotitative, but nice! The police will stop the opposing elements in society, using their batons with a great smile on their lips...

Tidings in a remote garden far away

Ridfrek was bored as he sat on his swing swinging in the garden. It had been a while since he last heard the voice of the Wisperer. Ridfrek thought that the Wisperer and what he said was quite interesting, which was rather natural as nobody else ever spooke to Ridfrek. You could say that his sources of information was rather limited.

The problem with Ridfrek was that his access to others and his environment was confined to this particular garden. He never ever met anybody but this mysterious Wisperer and the visits of the Wisperer was scarce. This was not good for Ridefrek's intellectual development and certainly not for developing a critical and analythical mind. But as he was alone and had almost nobody to talk to, he didn't know about any alternatives. Ridfrek simply belivied in those things the Wisperer told him.

You could argue that the Wisperer developed into some kind of deity in Ridfrek's mind. Not that he knew anything about deities, but he thought that the Wisperer at least knew more than he did. What he didn't realize was the potoential of indoctrination that the Wisperer had by meeting no criticism whatever he wispered.

The Wisperer told Ridfrek that he was an individual - the only individual, and therefore quite unique.

"- Do you mean, said Ridfrek, that I am all alone?" But as usual he got no response. The wispering of the Wisperer was not a dialog, but a series of monologues. This meant that Ridfrek never got any answers on questions he had on the information provided by the Wisperer. If Ridfrek had had a critical thinking he would have put the obvious question to himself.

"- Is these wispers occurring outside of me, or are they just imaginations in my brain?" But as Ridfrek was unfamiliar with the concept of a brain and therefore had no idea of how such an entity operates, he never thought this interesting and intriguing thought. In fact, Ridfrek didn't even know that he was a gnome, as nobody had told him and explained the concept.

In his solitude Ridfrek developed his thoughts about individualism. If you could call them thoughts. He put the information together and developed a primitive model of how the garden probably worked and his place in it. He was often wrong though and then he got very angry and started hitting things in the garden. Therefore the animals and birds living in the garden tried to avoid Ridfrek as much as possible, resulting in him being even more lonely...

A Tale of Small Men and Their Minds

Once upon a time there was this little strange character and he was living his life in seclusion in a rather small and confined garden. The problem with this little guy was that he had no one to relate to and therefore his thoughts developed independently and still became quite ordinary and trivial. All because he was not that original in himself. Of course he didn't know this, sitting alone in his garden, only swinging in his swing with an inward smile occasionally on his lips.

Sometimes, though, he wasn't happy at all. He didn't know why. It was just a feeling that something was wrong, but he couldn't put his finger on it... So he went on thinking his thoughts on trivial things in the garden. The thoughts that were roaming through his under-stimulated brain concerned such things as how the leafs were lying on the ground, and that there probably was a way of arranging them in another and better order.

"- Maybe in straight lines!" he thought.

For a time that was okay, just to think about improvement. But as the days dragged on in the garden, he started to become bored just thinking about changing things. One of his, not so very unique, thoughts was that he didn't want to perform the practical side of this change, as that would take away parts of the quality time he spent swinging in his beloved swing.

"- Somebody else has to do the dirty work!" he thought. But he couldn't think of anyone as he was alone in the garden.

"- There has to be someone else !" he thought. "And I wonder where that character might be?"

And there he kept thinking his thoughts of trivia and accomplished noting, until suddenly one day he heard this strangest of voices.

"- Greetings Ridfrek!" the voice said as quiet as it was hardly possible to hear it at all.

"- Ridfrek, who is that? Who are you?"

"- Ridfrek is the name I just gave you! And I am known as the Wisperer!"

And so Ridfrek was not alone in the garden anymore. Not that this Wisperer existence came very often, but as Ridfrek was all alone he was thirsty for every availble form of company. And so the indoctrination of Ridfrek started.

New Computer Celebration

This is my first blogg with my new laptop. The old one just gave up. First it was the battery, then it was the sound card and finally the screen. That laptop was almost two years old. It was the last Dell computer I'll ever buy. Luckily it works good enough to strip it of all the files in it, but after that it's just junk.

Before that one I had a Compaq. It worked allright and is still usable, though it is far too slow and rather antique. What I am referring to is quality, something that obviously doesn't apply to the business idea of Dell.

The photo below shows how the screen looks nowadays on my Dell laptop, while the photo above shows how it is supposed to look when a concerned Garden Gnome Guides contemplates over a coal energy plant.

Furthermore, I can say it is quite tricky to work in Photoshop using a screen in this condition. So Dell is out Acer is in...

Mongolian Throat Singing

Mongolian throat singer drinkning vodka in a ger, close to Kharchoriin, Mongolia.

Surprised I read an article in today's Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish Daily News) and find out that one cultural tradition acknowledged by the United Nation's UNESCO is Mongolian throat singing as a Chinese cultural tradition. I can almost hear what my Mongolian friends would say about that.

Of course Mongolian throat singing does not only occur in the Mongolian Republic, but also in Tuv (in Russia, formerly annexed during the Soviet era) and in Inner Mongolia ( a province of the People's Republic of China). You could always discuss if it is the practice of the tradition in itself that is important to have as a cultural tradition internationally acknowledged or if it should be attached to a specific country.

Nevertheless Mongolians are extremely proud of their cultural heritage, of which the throat singning is an important part. Here below is a translation of the text of what Mongolians call a long song:

"... with wide open landscape

with beautiful long song

with horse fiddle sound

it's native land of Mongolia

with pearly white gers

with five precious treasures

with five kinds of livestock

it's the steppe of Mongolia."

Note: I am not quite sure if the Buryat people, in Russia, north of Mongolia, by the Baykhal Lake, practice throat singing. But it is possible.

Post New Year Trauma 2010

The New Year 2010 started in the largest and worst gnome hang-over ever. There has been news silence for almost three days and we have to re-collect the tidings from New Years Eve in order to re-construct the events. We use a variant of the Foucauldian archeological method (which stipulates that by examening the garbage from a restaurant you can re-construct the events of last night), but as we have no access to the premises we have to constrict ourselves to the alley in the back of the Gnomeline Studio.

Appearently the staff and guests at Gnomevision did not like that Gnomeline seemingly had more interesting guests and was throwing a better party. They started plotting and in the midst of the night they decided to attack the Gnomeline Studio. The attack was sudden and the party at Gnomeline was not prepared for an attack, but slightly off guard as everybody was partying. Nobody had thought about hiring professional security gnomes, when the ordinary staff was indisposed.

Of course it all started when Professor Anthrax, the old brute, walked into the Gnomline Studio and teared down a camera and severly hit a studio-gnome. Professor Svinhufvud reacted instantly and attacked Anthrax, aggresively using a spade and a hammer. At this moment Associate Professor Duodenum attacked Svinhufvud from behind, using a baseball bat he stole from the Bat-Biker Gnome, whoo was lying unconscious on the studio floor.

In a matter of minutes it was impossible to see anything, you just saw a see of blueish and redish gnome hats, moving from one side to the other... and you heard strange sounds... How do we now this? I must admit... we cheated... we found a mobile phone in a dustbin outside the studio and it had a three minutes recording. The garbage proved to be inconclusive evidence in this particular case. But I must point out that without this method we would not have found the phone...

Napoleon Bonaparte once described the battles of his age as something you could plan in advance, but after the fighting started it became impossible to see anything thanks to the gun-powder smoke. You just had to wish for the best. Napoleon, though, always used to dispatch a messenger to Paris before the battle was finished, which told the French people that their First Consule already won the battle. It seemed to have worked quite good until the battle of Waterloo.

This premature reporting of winning the battle of the Gnomeline Studio is not an option here it seems. For more then three days we heard nothing. Ah wait... one rumour has come to our attention. It seems like somebody did a Mike Tyson on Assistant Professor Puke Womit. It is said that afterwards the ear was stolen... The whole story is strange and debated all over the place. Gnomes and dwarves don't like to loose bodyparts, which can be used in malign practices of evil existences. Tomorrow we will return with more updated news... Until then, as they say in Mongolia, Bayartai...

Note: In the same dustbin we strangely enough found a CD-recording and on it was Smoke Gets In Your Eyes with the Flat Gnomes. We can't make anything intelligble out it and conclude the event as purely randome...