The Case of the Horseshoe Crab

Finally, after waiting almost five years I managed to eat the infamous Horseshoe Crab. To my understanding it is the last remaining of it type of species. A relique from ancient times millions of years ago.

I ordered the Horseshoe Crab from a somewhat sceptic waitress. She looked deep into my eyes and asked:

- Are you really sure you want this? It is very spicy?

- Oh yes, I really want this dish. Actually I've been waiting a long time for it!

The waitress went away, and I must admit that I felt very excited as we waited for this culinaric sensation to be served. My dear wife who is a little bit more reluctant towards strange culinaric sensations choose another dish.

At last, waiting for about 40 minutes the Seahorse Restaurant on Koh Samet, Thailand, had the long awaited dish served. The Horseshoe Crab came in lying on its back filled with spices and a lot of stuff that was difficult identify.

Then the consumption of the Horsehoe Crab started. It was spicy alright. Hard-core chili and coriander. The Horsehoe Crab itself consisted of small circular quinoa-like balls, sometimes within some meatlike stuff. Despite the spices, this delicacy turned out to be a dissappointment, for more than one reason. First, it was rather tasteless. Second, the following night I spent in the lavatory. Third, It felt funny for three days after. My conclusion is that this was my one and only Horseshoe Crab.

Not that I hold it against the restaurant, but I should have noticed that Horseshoe Crabs are a sort of showcase for these restaurants, rarely bought and consumed.

Therefore there is a high possibility that the Horseshoe Crab investigated here, had been lying around for a couple of days or so. Ergo: My own fault.

Relaxing on Koh Samet

Since a couple of days I and my wife have been experiencing the nice and warm weather on the island of Koh Samet, Thailand. As we left Arlanda, Sweden, we experienced minus 13 degrees and a freezing blizzard. We were using our last strength as we managed to got to Terminal 5 and up and away to some hours later land in Bangkok, Thailand.

To us it seems like a miracle to exchange this horrible excuse for a weather against warmth and sunshine and nice food like fried rice and prawns, or a very nice and spicy Som Tam. Also we seen a lot of exotic birds, like 7 or 8 Hornbills and a lot of what seems to be some kind of Oriole or Beostare. I'll be back on that one later.

Later in the week I plan to eat rare and ancient Horseshoe Crab. Exciting...

Ridfrek Comes Out of the Garden

One day Ridfrek had had it. The Wisperer had been goin' on for days about the world outside the garden and finally Ridfrek got fed up and opened the gate and curiously peeped out on the world outside. It was huge... it was in fact enormous... Ridfrek got frightened and cloosed the gate fast. Immediately he heard the wispering voice of the Wisperer:

"- That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Ridfrek peered out again. Suddenly somebody was standing in front of him. The stranger standing in front of him had a similar hat as he had. The stranger also had a beard and the clothing seemed similar to Ridfrek's.

"- Who are you?" Ridfrek asked after a long silence...

"- Who am I? You seriously claim that you don't know my name?" said the stranger.

Ridfrek was puzzled. The stranger actually answered a question with another question. Ridfrek was unaccustomed with this, cause all he knew was his often pointless conversations with the Wisperer. The Wisperer who never answered anything directly and always spoke in riddles. After a while Ridfrek had managed to formulate another question.

"- Yes, that what I asked you! Who are you?" he said emphatically.

"- Who am I? Outrageous, the man is an imbecile!" the stranger concluded and turned arround and went away. Ridfrek didn't understand anything at first. But after a while he realised that he had had his first encounter with another person and it somehow had failed. He had almost made contact...

The Garden and Beyond

One day the Wisperer told Ridfrek that there was a world beyond the Garden. Ridfrek was very surprised as the thought had never occurred to him. He lived in the illusion that the universe was the Garden and nothing more. The new information was very tough to dissolve and Ridfrek had to consider it for weeks, even months. Of course, it is a tough one; You live in the illusion that your life is lived in a confined space, when suddenly someone tells you that there is more... much more! Ridfrek got totally lost, he couldn't even imagine the universe outside the Garden. In the end the Wisperer got fed up with Ridfrek and his indecisiveness.
"- Ridfrek, the Wisperer wispered, you have to go outside the Garden in order to find out what it's like there. You cannot imagine or speculate upon something which you have no experience of. It's pointless!"
Ridfrek was puzzled. How should he act? The Wisperer got fed up once again and told to try and look beyond the fence which was incirceling the Garden. Ridfrek had never thought of that, cause he had thought that the stuff he could see beyond the Garden was just like the things you see in a theater, like a sid-scene or some kind of front. Not that he knew what that was, but that's how he perceived it. There seemed to be many options of what to do, but as Ridfrek had a conservative mind, he disliked change and tried to avoid it as long as possible.

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...