A bit chilly

It's been a while since I've blogged. I could say that while trying not to complain about the weather, I haven't been left with much else to say. However, the rain and sleet finally went over to snow a few days ago. We have about 6 inches of snow now, which is just fine with me. It's enough that everything is beautiful and white but not so much that it's really in the way. The roads are slick, but driving is still quite possible and the drifts are not enough to block the roads.

While it's not unusual that it snows here in November, it is unusual that the snow sticks for any length of time. It now seems obvious to everyone that we're in for a long and cold winter. According to US websites, they've been aware of the North Atlantic Oscillation (the same weather pattern we had which made for a rough winter last year) for a month already. I'm surprised that that didn't make the news here. Perhaps it would make the Swedish weather service look bad were anyone to mistrust them enough to look for a second opinion. Or perhaps it's news that Swedes just don't want to hear.

Electricity prices are sky high, so we're trying not to resort to the electric space heaters yet. The heat exchange system we installed a few years ago is dimensioned for having in-floor heating. Unfortunately our remodeling project has only come so long that we have this in two rooms. The rest of the house still has the old fashioned radiators, thus there is not enough heat to go around. Without supplemental heat, the heat exchanger keeps the house at about 15 C (59 F). Brrrrrrr! Thank goodness for the wood burning stove! At least it gets one end of the house nice and warm.

So why are electricity prices so high? Apparently water reserves are low in the major reservoirs because Sweden sold a lot of water based electricity to Norway over the summer. Norway of course has their own water power plants, but they were refilling their reserves so they'd have plenty for the winter. Sweden's not entirely dependent on water power; there are also some nuclear power plants. Last year, it was a big scandal that just in time for the hard winter, the plants were at only 50% output because they were down for maintenance. Did they learn anything from this? Apparently they learned that they can make a lot of money by jacking up the electricity prices when demand is high and the supply is low, because this year they are at only 40% output due to scheduled maintenance. Don't even suggest doing maintenance during the summer, because everyone's on vacation then. The worst thing about getting screwed by the power company is that it is government owned!

Österlen Lyser

In 2005 an idea was hatched for extending the tourist season around here. November is generally miserable in this part of the world, so that wasn't easy. It's cold and dark and wet. The fall colors are off the trees, but it's not cold enough for snow to stick. What they came up with is Österlen Lyser. Österlen is the name of the area; lyser means shines or glows. Pretty much every little town in the area comes up with their own way to light up the night during the first weekend in November. Some have performance artists or artwork or fire or light. In the little town of Lövestad, it has become tradition to launch Asian paper lanterns then parade around town with torches. In short, it's a pyromaniac's dream!

I was impressed that over a hundred people showed up in Lövestad where the event was organized by the town chamber of commerce. Besides the usual chamber of commerce people, there were a lot of families with kids and even some people from the old folks home. They've been doing this for a few years now, so they've gotten pretty good at it. There were lighting stations set up for those who didn't want to kneel on the ground, and there were plenty of people who could show you how to do it.

My husband sold lanterns, and I ran around taking pictures, but we felt perfectly comfortable letting our daughter roam around. People were more than happy to help her light her lanterns.

We were lucky that it had stopped raining and it wasn't very windy. A steady stream of lanterns floated over town.

Eventually the wind started picking up making it more difficult to launch the lanterns. If the wind blew the lantern on it's side before it the flame had warmed the air enough for it to take flight, the warm air would escape. There was also a chance that if could burn a hole in the paper lantern. If this happened, it wouldn't take flight. Some of these damaged lanterns hovered near ground level and got blown into trees. Amazingly enough, nothing caught fire.

When the lantern launching started winding down, torches were distributed, and people formed a parade through town.

They stopped at the new sculpture park where some fireworks were lit, then they proceeded through town.

The final destination was a barn where a mystery guitarist performed. The kids were intrigued and tried to peek and see who it was. Eventually the screen was removed, but it wasn't anyone I recognized.

By this point, it had been over an hour since I could feel my frozen feet, so I was glad to get home and have a bit bowl of homemade chili.

Dismayed by democracy

After a week of relatively mild but rainy weather, today is crisp and clear. I probably won't spend much time blogging before I go out for some manual labor.

It was election time again in the US, and once again I find myself disappointed and dismayed: disappointed that it will now be even harder for President Obama to accomplish anything, and dismayed by the impatience of the American voters. President Obama failed to perform miracles, thus we can turn our backs on him and leave his hands tied. This article (American Public Gets Exactly What it Deserves) seems to sum it up nicely. Yes, I realize that the Onion is satire, and it's not true in a literal sense, but I do believe there is a lot of truth in it. We do want instant gratification. Show me the money, and do it now!

I am also dismayed, no downright shocked, that Californians would once again elect Jerry Brown as governor. He ran the state into a financial crisis the first time. How on earth could people believe he could dig the state out of one? On a more positive note, I'm encouraged that the city of Westminster (near where I grew up in California) has voted to lift the ban on fireworks.

Closer to home, I recently spoke with a friend who was running for city council. "How'd it go," I asked, of course. It's been weeks since the election, so they had finally figured out the results. "Both good and bad," was his reply. There are 49 seats on the city/county council (complete overkill for a county of only about 18,000 people, in my opinion) and he's a member of the traditionally dominant party, so one might expect him to have a chance.

So here's where democracy totally breaks down. In Sweden, one votes for a party. Within that party, candidates are listed in order, and one has the option of checking a box for an individual candidate. These checked boxes can move people up on the list, or that's at least what they're for in a theoretical sense. My friend was in the middle of the list, so he would have to pass some people up in order to make it into the city council for his party. Exactly how many spots his party would have on the council depended on their percentage of the total vote.

It turned out that once again, his party dominated and got quite a few seats. Within the party, he got the second most votes. I started congratulating him, for certainly that meant he would get seat number two, right? Wrong! It turned out he didn't get a seat at all. Apparently all the people who had seats in the previous term got to keep their seats. Only if one of them decided not to continue would a new person have a chance of getting in. It didn't matter at all if anyone had voted for these people in years! Needless to say, they're all old white men, and many of them don't do anything to contribute to the city council except for warming a chair and collecting a paycheck.

Meanwhile, all over the country on all different levels, unholy alliances are being forged in order to keep the newly elected right wing/anti-immigration Sweden Democrats out of power. I'll try to put this into a context that my American readers might relate to. Imagine a system where conservative republicans were on the right, ultra-liberal democrats were on the left, and there were 5 or more other parties in between. Now shift this entire scale so that moderate democrats are on the right, and communists are on the left. Now none of these 7 major parties gets enough votes to lead on its own, so they have traditionally divided themselves up so that 4 are on the right and 3 are on the left. While these parties can change alliances, it's not likely to happen. What happened this year was an eighth party with unpopular and politically incorrect ideas got voted into power not only on the national level but also in quite a few local districts. The election was close enough that neither the right or left alliance got a majority nationally or in a lot of districts, so this eighth party suddenly gets the swing vote. We don't know yet how this is going to work out on a national level. They'll probably have to try to negotiate new alliances for every issue that comes up. However, some local districts have solved this problem in a different way. The largest party on the right and the largest party on the left have formed an alliance and completely shut out all of the other parties. Needless to say, the other parties aren't too happy about this. The worst thing is, many of the people who voted to these two parties aren't too happy about it either. Clearly a lot of compromise will be needed in order for an alliance between conservative republicans and liberal democrats to be able to generate anything. Most likely, the result will be a whole lot of nothing.

Is the sky falling?

Not wanting to complain about the weather, which has actually been relatively nice if a bit cold, I haven't had that much to say. Keeping busy as usual, I guess.

My husband's been in China for the last week together with a friend. They went to the world's largest tool show.

My daughter had a friend sleep over for the first time last weekend, and it went surprisingly well. I suppose it helps that I pointed out to her that if she misbehaved, it would be a long time before she'd get to have a friend spend the night again. I was particularly impressed that as soon as the Disney movie they were watching ended at 8:15, they promptly got ready and went to bed. At 8:45 I pointed out to them that if they wanted me to think they were sleeping, they should at least whisper instead of laughing at full volume. It got quieter, and I was totally shocked that at 9:00 it was actually quiet for real. They slept until 7 AM.

On Sunday, none of her friends were available to play, so we ended up baking first blueberry muffins for breakfast then cupcakes for dessert. In between, we made a quick visit to friends who showed us some meteorites that they had collected.

On Tuesday morning, my daughter showed me a "meteorite" that she'd found at school. At first I was very skeptical, expecting an ordinary rock with a dose of imagination. Then I realized that the rock was unusually heavy, and magnets stuck to it. What were the odds of a child finding a meteorite in the grass at school? About the same as getting struck by lightning, I figured. It was much more likely that a meteorite had found its way into her pocket when we were at our friend's house, and that thought made me sick to my stomach.

When I picked her up from school, I explained to her my views on the situation and gave her several opportunities to take back her story, but she stuck to it. We called our friends and they agreed to take a look at it the next day (and check if anything was missing.)

It turns out that the stone really did look like a meteorite, but not one of our friends' meteorites. They did some tests on it and determined that it was some iron slag, perhaps as much as 2000 years old but not from outer space. I guess we'll have to find an archeologist to show it to, but best of all, I'm so relieved to find out that my daughter was telling the truth after all. I feel pretty bad for not trusting her, and I hope that doesn't leave her scarred for life.

Fall has fallen

The weekend of the election was the last of the "summer" weather. After that, somebody threw a switch and the temperatures dropped from around 18 C/64 F to 12 C/54 F pretty much over night. (OK, summer ended for me already when we came home from California at the beginning of August because I really don't consider 18 C/64 F to be summer weather, but I'm spoiled.) I awoke Monday morning to fall colors and fog. Since then, I've been freezing. However, I did hold out until October before breaking down and putting on my long underwear or starting a fire in the fireplace.

Last Saturday, we were invited to a party on an old London bus. It was hilarious watching people come out of their houses to stare and even take pictures as the enormous double decked bus bounced and lurched its way through the narrow streets of residential neighborhoods picking up other guests. The kids thought this was loads of fun. The traffic that was eventually stuck behind us was probably less than thrilled.

The bus was eventually parked beside a lake and the bus driver got a ride home. The bus wasn't heated, so we were all bundled up. The kids ran around and played, and the adults settled in at the dining table upstairs. From there, we had a nice view of the lake, the sunset, and the enormous flock of birds or bats that circled the lake after sunset. We had each brought our own food and beverages, but there was plenty of sharing going on. Several people, including our host, brought crayfish. That was good for my husband, because I never cook those stinky little bugs. I brought s'mores brownies. Yum!

Unfortunately, every time somebody moved around on the bus (which was pretty much continuously considering the kids were downstairs), the whole bus swayed a little. As people drank more, they would make the bus rock on purpose too. For me, this was just enough that I was on the verge of being motion sick the whole time. I wasn't sick enough that I wanted to go sit outside by myself in the dark, but it was enough that I wasn't having that much fun. I took some Dramamine, and I think that made me a bit sleepy. I would occasionally close my eyes and go into the "sleep through the turbulence" mode that has pretty much become instinctive for me. I know this is really rude, but I couldn't help it. I was pretty embarrassed.

The kids were begging to go home by the time they finally called the driver to come take us back to town, and it was midnight by the time we got home. I know that's really not late, but I was mighty glad to get home.

Election Drama

It turns out that the "racist" party got 330,000 votes which is more than either the Christian Democrats or the Leftists (two of the seven established parties.) The thing is that even with the multi-party system, it really comes down to the ruling coalition and the opposition coalition, and they are expected to always vote together. It would appear that everyone's very obedient and votes according to their party and their party's alliance. While one may vote for individuals within the party, the individuals do not behave as individuals, so I and doubtful how much it matters.

Anyway, it would appear that neither the moderate alliance nor the socialist alliance has the majority, and the racist party is given the extremely powerful position of the swing vote. Or they would be, but all of the other parties have refused to cooperate with them. The winning Moderate party is embarrassing themselves by trying to court the Green party, who are in turn laughing at them.

I won't go into a lot of detail here, so for more background information here's articles from CNN and Fox News.

What bugs me is that everyone is so caught up with distancing themselves from the evil racists, that they may be overlooking the more important stuff. First of all, I don't think it's really a matter of racism; at least for most people, I think they're capable of looking beyond skin color. It may be more of a cultural racism based on religion or a general xenophobia, but I suspect it's more than that. What I really think it is, is a backlash after years of being unable to even discuss the issues of immigration and integration. If anyone even dared to suggest that integration policies were ineffective or that immigration policies should be changed, they were automatically labeled racists and shunned by all. In the meanwhile, ever increasing numbers of immigrants were pouring into ghettos where they had little or no reason to learn the Swedish language or culture, unemployment was rampant, and crime was on the rise. In the rest of Sweden, tough economic times and cuts in welfare and social services effected everyone. I would be more surprised if people weren't resentful.

The last time a xenophobic party held seats in parliament in the 1990's, 70 % of Swedes felt immigration was a problem. This year, the number was only 40%. ONLY! Had the others really changed their minds, or had they learned to keep quiet? And what does it say about the state of democracy when an opinion held by 40% can't even be discussed? Perhaps the established parties should consider themselves fortunate that the unmentionable got less than 6% of the seats in parliament.

Democracy in action?

Today is election day in Sweden. Since I had time, I voted yesterday. One thing I'll say in favor of the Swedish election system: it's very convenient. About a month before the election, you get your voter ID in the mail. You don't need to register to vote; if you're eligible you get one. Just don't lose it! With the ID, you could vote by mail, or you could go by one of the designated early voting places, or you could bring it to the polls on election day. There are 3 early voting places in the county, and one of them just happens to be the local post office/lottery ticket outlet/florist that I drive by every day.

For a country that prides itself on being democratic, high-tech and environmentally friendly, I find it odd that the process of voting is none of these. To vote, you stick a little piece of paper in an envelope. We only get to vote for 3 things: city/county council, the regional governing body (Skåne in this case), and the national congress. There are seven major political parties and several more minor and local ones. For each of the three election categories, each party gets a pile of little pieces of paper with their candidates on them. To cut down on the confusion, these are color coded: white, yellow, and blue. Before the election, almost all of the political parties send a few sets of these pieces of paper along with their propaganda to each household. You can bring them when you vote, or you can take them at the poll or early voting location. There are racks of these papers out in the open, so everyone can see which party's papers you take. If you want some semblance of privacy, you could take one of each then throw out the unused ones, but that's a lot of wasted paper! For added amusement, rival political parties like to accuse each other of throwing out their papers.

You then take your little pieces of paper to a tiny triangular desk behind a screen, and stuff one of each color into an envelope. If you wish to vote for a specific person within the party, you may check their name on the list on the little piece of paper, and that moves that name to the top of the list. The number of votes a party gets determines the number of seats they get, and they take the those people in order from the list. There are no primary elections to sort out the candidates, so this isn't so good if you don't like the people on the top of the list. Do you risk trying to elect an individual who you do like in a party that otherwise doesn't impress, or do you play it safe? Of course, this isn't usually much of a problem since I haven't actually heard of most of the people on these lists. We don't actually get to vote for important posts like the prime minister. We vote for the party, and the party chooses the leader.

I was thinking about how Sweden could get away with such a low-tech system with envelopes, and I realized it's because people only get to vote for three positions. Even though there are 49 councilmen for the local city/county council, we only get to vote for one. And one at the state/regional level, and done regional representative at the national level. We do not vote for sheriff, or attorney general, or controller, or school boards, or judges, or even dog catcher. In some ways, that's kind of a relief not to have to care about such, but I suppose the result of that is the incredibly rigid bureaucracy.

I find that I actually miss all the referendums and propositions. We don't get to vote on the issues at all. We're supposed to select a person or party to represent us, yet we often have no idea what they stand for when it comes to the specific issues. At the national level, the party leaders have debates, but we don't get to hear what the people that we actually could vote for think. Everything is very ideological with a phenomenal lace of concrete solutions. This becomes even more frustrating at the local level where even the ideologies seem to break down. At the local level, at least I know what the issues are, which is more than I could say for the regional level.

I've noticed some other things about democracy in Sweden that I find rather alarming. First of all, you can't be conservative without everyone calling you a racist. The worst thing is that the parties that come closest to being conservative actually are racist (or at least openly anti-islam). But just because their opinion makes some people angry, it appalls me that they aren't allowed to voice it. TV and radio stations censored or pulled their ads. Even mailmen refused to deliver their ads. Left wing parties organize protests to shout down anything that they try to say in pubic. They refer to these parties as anti-democratic, yet it seems to me that the reaction to them is what's anti-democratic.