Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Falling

by Staind



You
In your shell
Are you waiting for someone to rescue you
From yourself
Don't be disappointed when no one comes

Don't blame me you didn't get it

I already told you that falling is easy
It's getting back up that becomes the problem
Becomes the problem
If you don't believe you can find a way out
You've become the problem
Become the problem

You
All alone
Are you waiting for someone to make you whole?
Can't you see?
Aren't you tired of this dysfunctional routine?

Don't blame me you didn't get it

Falling is easy
It's getting back up that becomes the problem
Becomes the problem
And if you believe you can find a way out
Then you've solved the problem
You've solved your problem.

Monday, December 29, 2008

What whould you do if you turned into the opposite sex for a day?

What would you do if you turned in to the opposite sex for an entire day? I mean besides sexually related things.

I can only think of two, maybe three things:

* Negotiate for a larger salary

* Apply for a job/new job

* Change my name to "Anders" since it's a bigger chance of becoming a MD (VD) for a large company here in Sweden with that name

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Pittiplatsch to Tobi

I just learned that this is a pittiplatsch and my German friend Tobi just got one in one of his TWELVE Kinder eggs that he got for Christmas. Yes, he's an adult :-) Very cute pittiplatsch I must say.

Magalenha

by Sergio Mendes.
Ohh... I just stumbled upon this song on Last.fm. I am not sure where I have heard it before but it might have been when I trained capoeira, it has such a good rythm. This is the second capoeira related stumbling today. Went to a mobil store to get some help and one of the guys there looked familiar and it turned to be someone who I trained capoeira with.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Amnesty DOES make a difference!

If you want to know what Amnesty achieved 2008, read below. The text is addressed to activists and written by Larry Cox // Director of AI-USA

1. 1.5 million letters: online and hand written letters delivered to governments worldwide and Congress here at home.
2. 116 people protected from persecution and danger: from China to Turkey to Myanmar (Burma) to the United States, your letters worked! And helped free innocent human rights activists and political prisoners.
3. Death penalty executions averted: 18 stays or commutations worldwide (8 in the U.S., 2 in Texas). And tens of thousands of letters and numerous vigils for Troy Davis mean he’s still alive today, fighting for justice in the state of Georgia.
4. 500+ groups or individuals met face to face with lawmakers: Amnesty International supporters met with their Members of Congress on Darfur, Guantánamo and violence against women.
5. Guantánamo Bay replica cell tours the U.S.: Amnesty brought a two-ton, bright orange replica of a Guantánamo Bay cell to 11 cities, including both national political conventions. More than 12,000 people toured the cell, and 10-15 million either read about it in their local or national
newspaper or saw the cell on TV.
6. President-elect promises to close Guantánamo: since it opened, Amnesty has been on the frontlines pushing for its closure. This past year’s heightened campaigning helped support President-elect Obama’s decision to close Guantánamo.
7. Local groups make a big impact: Group #133 mobilized its annual "Get on the Bus" event. More than 1,200 activists traveled to Manhattan for a day of demonstrations at the U.N. missions of Sudan, Sri Lanka, Libya, Myanmar and India.
8. Pretty Bird Woman House: secures a shelter house in March 2008. We wrote letters to the town of McLaughlin, SD urging their assistance in opening the shelter. This follows the original hard-hitting research Amnesty conducted last year on violence against Native American and Alaska Native women.
9. Universal Declaration of Human Rights: for its 60th anniversary, Amnesty releases several videos online, including an exclusive music video track available on iTunes. Total viewership worldwide reached over 500,000.
10. Progress made on legislation: your in-person visits, together with all your letters, petitions and online actions meant that our Government Relations team had the backup and grassroots support needed to secure some important legislative victories:

- Growing number of Republicans and Democrats co-sponsored the International Violence Against Women Act
- Millions of dollars set aside for peacekeeping and humanitarian aid in Darfur.
- Habeas corpus gains affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court survived proposed rollbacks in Congress.
- Senate passed a resolution calling on the United Nations to stop the flow of weapons into Darfur by expanding the current arms embargo to all of Sudan.
- Progress made to include funding to stop violence against Native American and Alaska Native women in the 2009 appropriations bill
- Funding package to Mexico included important human rights safeguards ...

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Why do YOU care?

You know what strikes me every time it happens? All the people that doesn't seem to understand why I care for any others than myself or the people closest to me. As if it ever would be ok to talk shit about "them" just because they don't consider me to be "one of them", whoever that might be. Why do I have to be "one of them" to want and being able to care and ask the tough questions for?

Saturday, December 20, 2008

A wish. A promise. A lesson.

If I only could make people understand how much I wish I did NOT care so much about certain things, how much easier life would be for me and those people who makes me feel so bad. Sometimes it almost feels like a curse to care because the more I care, the worse people can make me feel (especially if I have a very personal relationship to them). Some years ago I made a promise to myself that I have kept and intend to keep. It's awful be ashamed of myself and not being able to respect myself.

This evening I was in a situation where I had to take a stand and say that enough was enough. I got up from the dinner table and said that the other person had crossed the line and I had to go home and here I am. So now everyone who was there feels bad for different reasons, but at least I am don't feel ashamed for what I did, said or felt. It sucks.

A lesson is learned, the lesson about another side of a person I know. I wish I didn't know.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Something that someone said

...about this Natasha. I think it was her my friend was talking about. I remember that day.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Painted It Black

by The Rolling Stones. I really like this sound. The simplicity of the guitar. It also makes me think of Quentin Tarantino.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Red Dragon

Raised with scary movies (my mom and I spent long nights watching movies), Red Dragon (where Anthony Hopkins also acts as Dr Hannibal Lector) is a movie that suits me very well. It's well made, good actors and a good story. Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes, Harvey Keitel and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

I like tattoos even though one that covers half the body is too much for my taste, but, the one Ralph Fiennes has here looks really good (it goes all the way down onto his legs).

Carolina

Hehe...just an ego song, if there is such a thing. Too bad people don't express these kind of things, at least not in this country.

Light show

First I worked for Amnesty at this place, then I got to enjoy the music, the company and as you see, the light show!






Having fun?

There is a saying in Swedish, "slå klackarna i taket", "kicking the heels in the ceiling" which means that to party and have fun. I'm pretty sure that the owner of these shoes had a lot of fun :-)

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Taking people for granted?

Is that the answer to why some people don't want or can't say nice things to others? I just don't get it. How hard can it be? Or is it that some simply don't have opinions about people who are close to them? This while others who have no "reason" of thinking and saying certain things obviously have no problem expressing nice things. Why do the "wrong" people always say the right things and vice versa? Well, thank you people who aren't that inhibited. I appreciate it.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Awful things in North Korea

From an Amnesty discussion. Awful information :-(

"Alla vet säkert att Nordkorea är ett tämligen förfärligt land men det finns inte särskilt mycket fakta om hur det egentligen är. Bland annat brukar det påstås att upp emot 1 miljon människor dog i hungersnöd 1995 - 98.

Senaste numret av The Economist redovisar dock en rapport Peterson Institute for International Economy där man intervjuat 1 300 nordkoreaner som flytt landet, i stort sett allihop till Kina. Den ger en extremt obehaglig bild. 23 % av männen och 37 % av kvinnorna säger att de förlorat minst en familjemedlem till svält. Mer än en fjärdedel säger att de blivit arresterad och av de som suttit i fångläger (ungefär en tiondel av de intervjuade) säger 90 % att de bevittnat hur mefångar svälts, 60 % säger att de sett medfångar misshandlas eller torteras till döds och 27 % att de bevittnat avrättningar.

Erik H"

Batteries can be ugly

This is what WILL happen with the batteries.... hihi

"Betyget blir fyra kalkoner med guldkant."
/Nils-Petter Sundgren

Friday, December 05, 2008

SMASH

by Offspring. An energy injection.



Head over heels I've fit in before,
now, I don't want to do it no more.
I've held it all in with blood on my face,
built it up man so bad you can taste.

I don't slag no one,
I don't even judge.
Don't give a shit cause I'm not gonna budge.
I just want to be who I want to be,
Guess that's hard for others to see.

I'm not a trendy asshole.
I do what I want,
I do what I feel like.
I'm not a trendy asshole.
I don't give a fuck if it's good enough for you.
Cause I'm alive.

Smash is the way you feel all alone,
like an outcast you're out on your own.
Smash is the way you deal with your life,
like an outcast you're smashing your strife.

Head over heels I've fit in before,
now, I don't want to do it no more.
I just want to be who I want to be,
guess that's hard for the others to see.

I am alive.

Mexico - from different sides of the "border"

Isn't great when two people who love each other finally can live together? Two good friends of mine in Mexico just decided to move and move in with each other and it just makes me happy for them. They deserve it and I hope the job issue will work out.

Isn't it a bit strange how different people can perceive others? The perseption of Mexico and Mexicans is different for me as a Swede than it is for the Mexico experienced me. For the latter one, Mexico is a country with real people, some having quite normal lives, dealing with every day life, fighting, loving etc. For the first one, it is a country from which so many flee from because they are poor and don't see a future in their own country. People who die trying crossing the border or people passing the border over and over before they get kicked out again. Or, Mexico is a place the bad guys flee to to escape getting caught.

This is because media doesn't give us anything else here.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Highlander

Highlander, I must admit it was one of my favorite movies when I was little. I still like the movie although the series aren't as good as it was when it came. BUT, the intro has a good song. What i like about Highlander is them striving for mortality, not immortality. More thoughts on the subject eternal life here.

There is not a single reason to do it

"Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases, unconditionally. To end the death penalty is to abandon a destructive, diversionary and divisive public policy that is not consistent with widely held values. It not only runs the risk of irrevocable error, it is also costly, to the public purse as well as in social and psychological terms.

It has not been proved to have a special deterrent effect. It tends to be applied in a discriminatory way, on grounds of race and class. It denies the possibility of reconciliation and rehabilitation. It promotes simplistic responses to complex human problems, rather than pursuing explanations that could inform positive strategies.

It prolongs the suffering of the murder victim's family, and extends that suffering to the loved ones of the condemned prisoner. It diverts resources that could be better used to work against violent crime and assist those affected by it. It is a symptom of a culture of violence, not a solution to it. It is an affront to human dignity. It should be abolished."

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

White is the most colourful colour

INVANDRARNA

En kommer hit för att fly från nöden
En kommer hit för att undgå döden
En kommer hit av terror tvungen
En kommer hit för att gifta sig med kungen

Dom är tyskar, iranier, greker, och turkar
mest är dem snälla, andra är skurkar
en del är ärliga, andra skumma
en del genier, andra är dumma
Mest är dem fredliga, andra vill slåss
Med andra ord: Dem är som oss!
Med fel och brister, tuffa och mjuka
Fast inte lika avundsjuka...

Vissa är färgade, andra är arier
Som köper sin bruna färg i solarier
vissa är svarta, andra gula
vissa är vackra, andra fula.
Men fast dem ibland av annan färg é
Är dem precis som vi i Sverige

Och när dem vill jobba här är tacket
"ni får inte jobba än för facket"

En del är båtfolk från Vietnam
som inte kan sjunga " We Shall Overcome"
och inte kan "rulla di rulla " som vi
Och dom blir sällan fulla som vi
en del har andra gudar än vi.
En del söker lugnet i stället för bråket
det enda vi svenskar kan bättre är språket
det sägs att vi stammar från Adam & Eva
Som inte var svenskar - men ja må dem leva.

Bosse Parnevik