Viva Sophia!

Old and "new" Europe: I'm on the Tallink ferry, floating Wisconsin Dells/Vegas/cruise ship hotel, from Stockholm, Sweden to Tallinn, Estonia. In the casino/showroom there is a variety show that has the Swedish Henny Youngman without the laughs and a Bulgarian, new Europe, cover band that plays American rock and hopped up Latin numbers both in impeccable English and Spanish. The band is dressed in white and black, lead singer with no underwear, crooning to the hits like Vegas pros of old. They are enthusiastic, sincere and horribly entertaining. The Swedes, Estonians, sole American and Finns love them and dance all night with loads of gusto. At the "English" pub on the ship, the world is also littered with "Irish" ones run by multi-nationals, the Swedes, a sullen race who I have been told only open up under the influence of a 12-pack, are singing Karaoke to Swedish and American tunes with cynicism, irony and drunken debauchery. Both worlds celebrated the current dilemma of Europe, one defiant the other optimistically hoping that the new neo-liberal regime will lift all boats. The problem is, as Thomas Frank has tragically pointed out, we're not in Kansas anymore.

The Swedes are now experiencing something of a social crisis that has been compared to the alienation of US society in the 1970's, of which I was a participant. Middle class, there is no other-I exaggerate, Swedish youth now sport greasy shortish hair, t-shirts and jeans, ride skate boards and are now consumed by the "rebel" culture of glue, grass, graffiti, grunge and hip-hop. Their faith in and vision of Social Democracy seem to be shaken as the Yankee speed up, east and south Asian export boom and European integration challenge their very successful society. This became harshly apparent to me as the Swedes savagely parodied US pop music while with tongue in cheek sang Swedish oldies and newies as the Bulgarians blissfully rocked around the clock. Imagine the Bulgarians or the new North African Scandanavian immigrants at the pub, horrified at the decadence and vulgarity? The Swedes and other elders of Europe were surely the cultural predators, particularly of the underless one.

Europe is at a crossroads. The EU commission has dedicated itself to a contradictory mission of social and capital "harmonization." Meaning that at the same time that they advocate societies of a Social Democratic nature-long vacations, health, workers safety, education and training benefits guaranteed by the state, it also encourages the idea of competition between private and public enterprises that want to maximize profit and "efficiency." This project has run into a major snag as the main proponents of European integration, Germany and France, are now confronting opposition internally and elsewhere in Europe, particularly from trade unions, which has forced them to put the brakes on the service protocol put forward by the EU Commission. The so-called Social Democrat's Schroeder and Blair as well as "conservative" Jacques Chirac are running into a wall of opposition as the EU Commission puts out directives and goals that now say that the service sector of all EU members should now be in one market. Imagine what this means in a project supposedly dedicated to a Social Democratic Europe? This "free" market idea puts workers in countries like Latvia, where I am writing this from, where there is a relatively low wage and benefit package in competition with Swedish workers who enjoy a wage and benefit package rivaled by few. This exact issue has now come to a point with the Swedish workers now fighting the good fight over integration and globalization on the issue of a fellow EU member, Latvia, sending lower endowed (look for reference below) workers to Sweden for a construction contract. This has brought the contraction union with the toughest, roughest, baddest ass class struggle name of all time, BYGGNADS, into a general strike like fever to stop the lowering of their wages in the short term over this contract and the long term vision of a labor market whereby workers from countries with a lower wage and benefit package can work in any country in the Euro zone.

The choices are now very clear for workers of Europe and the rest of the world and they have to have to decide whether they are going to resist the lowering of their social wage or if they want to live the peasantist existence of the Baltic. Where do you want to live workers of Northern Italy, Germany, and Sweden? In the post-industrial slum of Milwaukee and Detroit where capital left without a peep from the working class and where now wages have fallen to Eastern European levels with little safety net or in Norway and Finland where you drink Vodka on break and when you knock up your old lady you both get time off to raise your child as a human being?

Hey (the incredibly formal and complex greeting in Swedish)

I am not used to traveling in the first world. Class and race are, not totaly, less apparent. I am commonly greeted as a Swede which is un-nerving given my total ignorance of the language. But of course every Swede I have talked to speaks English better than most Hoosiers. A few observations of Stockholm: super rich but not pretencous, advertizing is here and there but no where near the omnipresence of it in the US or Japan, there are places to wrap gifts for free in many stores, there's lots of space at bars and restaurants but people are willing to sit down next to strangers and chat, the new immigrants are a hot topic; they blame them for everything, if you are into talking with well read, well traveled, super model types this is not the place for you. Off to Tallinn, Estonia.

War Industry and Blowback

The US sells F-16's to Pakistan . The likelyhood of an anti-US government coming to power in Pakistan in so slight I don't see how this might be a problem?

Koalas Are Bitches

A must read from an eighth grader from Pittsburgh who has no use for endangered species.

Woody Allen Bashing

Here's a sure fire way of evaluating someone's film taste and independence: ask them if they like You Can Count On ME (see in Films Worth Watching to the right) or Woody Allen movies. Mention of Mr Konigsberg will usually illicit, "only his funny old movies" or "I hate him that, pedophile." Notice the latter statement has little to do with his films.

I recently heard a scathing review of Woody Allen's latest on Fresh Air by David Edelstein . Never have I heard such venom towards a film maker, one of the greats, or artist. You would think he was reviewing a D.W.Griffith film or should I say Fatty Arbuckle?!

Woody Allen wears his intellect and emotions, and private life on his sleeve in film, not publicly. For this bravery his art is treated as a degenerate (Jewish?). In his forty or so films he has made some misogynist, boring and awful films. But he has also made films that changed film- Annie Hall/Manhattan, make you pee in your pants from laughter-Sleeper/Love and Death, challenge your views of morality and family-Crimes and Misdemeanors/Hannah and Her Sisters. He makes lots of films and some of them are clunkers but for this does he deserve the scorn that even high school students can parrot without even seeing any of his films? I think not.

I.F. Stone asked for some good WA films from the last 15 years. Here are my choices:

Sweet and Lowdown
Everyone Says I Love You
Shadows and Fog
Crimes and Misdemeanors

BBC Reporter Advocates Not Shooting Civilians In Kenya: Good!

Biased BBC report advocates not shooting civilians. Left wing bias exposed!

Urgent Action Needed

Death squads have threatened a major human rights activist, bishop and journalist. These guys rarely make idle threats. The Guatemalan Human Rights Commision is requesting a number of actions. Go to the GHRC website for suggestions and information.

New Feature: Get Your War On

Thanks to Ted for a brilliant comic, Get Your War On , now a feature to your right on this blog.

PHD For Principals Truly Means Piled Higher and Deeper

Columbia Teacher College has a new study out on the PhD in education. Failing grade would be generous for the "rigors" of the "doctorate" that pricipals and administrators get. This is no surprise to any teacher that has spent more than five minutes in a school. Administrators tend to be money chasers of average ability, I'm being kind.

The Neo-Con Dream?

Juan Cole on the democracy "wave" in the aftermath of the invasion.

Bummer, Bobby Short Dead

I will never forget the scene of Dianne Wiest and Woody Allen in Hannah and Her Sisters at the Carlyle Hotel listening to Bobby Short as Wiest's character dabbles with the white stuff. She then takes him to a Strokes like band and Woody is looking for ear plugs and grimacing and skirming as was Wiest during Bobby Short. The scene and movie were so New York.

Oh Happy Day!

Nothing could make me more happy than two new articles from Russell Jacoby (see above)and Daniel Lazare. Well, I can think of a few things.

The New New McCarthyism and Its Causes

Russell Jacoby on the cry baby sore winner right wing on campus and their original snob/rat William F Buckley. I have read Russell Jacoby's, The End of Utopia, worth the price of admission.

"Conservatives seem little interested in exploring the political orientation of engineering professors or biogeneticists. The more important the field, in terms of money, resources and political clout, the less conservatives seem exercised by it. At many universities the medical and science buildings, to say nothing of the business faculties or the sports complexes, tower over the humanities. I teach at UCLA. The history professors are housed in cramped quarters of a decaying Modernist structure. Our classiest facility is a conference room that could pass as generic space in any downtown motel. The English professors inhabit what appears to be an aging elementary school outfitted with minuscule offices. A hop away is a different world. The UCLA Anderson School of Management boasts its own spanking-new buildings, plush seminar rooms, spacious lecture halls with luxurious seats, an "executive dining room" and--gold in California--reserved parking facilities. Conservatives seem unconcerned about the political orientation of the business professors. Shouldn't half be Democrats and at least a few be Trotskyists?"

Sugar Free Yogurt

Another communist plot? Yogurt leads to less tooth decay!

Opiate of the masses

Thomas Frank is right. With this kind of diversion as well as booze and TV we don't have a chance.

Gimme Pennebaker

Watched Gimme Shelter last night and was transfixed. The "documentary" follows, sometimes-there are lots of flash backs/flash forwards, the Stones 1969 tour and the ill-fated Altamon free concert of 300,000 4 months after Woodstock. It's incredible. I've been to lot's of outdoor concerts and seen some violence at them. This film truly gives one the feel. I can't wait to show parts of it to my students. I remember wathing it in HIGH School, if you know what I mean.

Coalition of the Willing?

The 4th largest contingent of troops occupying Iraq will leave at the beginning of next year says Italian plutocrat Berlusconi. Italy now joins the Netherlands, Ukraine, and Poland in announcing their intent to leave Iraq within the year.

Against the LIES!

Vatican issues fatwa against the LIES of the insidious Da Vinci Code.

Fake News

I don't think the Bushies are the only propogandists to ever do this but they do seem to have brought it to a new level in our country.

"The White House is infiltrating local news broadcasts with taxpayer-funded covert propaganda. At least 20 federal agencies have produced and distributed fake news stories touting Bush administration policies. Last Friday, the Bush administration told government agencies to keep on producing the bogus broadcasts -- even after Congress' Government Accountability Office declared these "video news releases" to be illegal."

Take action on fake news.

Suicide Bombers