Nordicway

February Blog

2012-01-27T21:44:00.000-08:00

We had not planned it that way, but this month’s Swedish Press has turned into somewhat of a theme issue on successful immigrants in Sweden. It started with an interview with Somali-born Abbe Ibrahim who was the king of Stockholm nightlife as the head of the trendy Cafe Opera night club. An inspiring conversation with him (most of which you can read on page 20) led to an in-depth research and article about the richest or most successful immigrants in Sweden (on page 17) and what they have done to achieve that.

And then as an example we take a look at what one refugee from Lebanon has achieved at Ur&Penn (on page 23), the company that once propelled the Persson family of H&M fame to becoming one of Sweden's absolutely richest families.

My interest in the fate of immigrants was given a further boost by the Last Word in the November issue entitled "My grandfather was an economic refugee" (that you can read in English on the SweMail site http://members.shaw.ca/swemail). In the article Swedish journalist Annika Lindquist visited the house in Manhattan where her grandfather had lived as an immigrant to the United States. She went on to reflect on why so many Swedes, who were proud of the emigrants in their families, were so negative to immigrants to their country.

We have a similar phenomenom in North America, where we are all basically immigrants, but always tend to think of those that come after us as "the immigrant problem". Just like Swedes talk condescendingly about "juggar" (people from ex Yugo-slavia) and Somalis, North Americans talk about Mexicans and Muslims.

There seems to be somewhat of a discrepancy between emigration having a positive connotation but not immigration. They are just the different sides of the same coin.

At a time when most Swedish immigrants in North America are so well established that newer arrivals just think of themselves as ‘global citizens’, we also tend to forget how looked down upon our ancestors were over here when the great wave of Swedish emigration descended on the continent. We were the "dumb Swedes" then. That should perhaps make us more understanding of the struggle of those who came after us.

Have a really nice February

Anders

PS. If you are reading the electronic issue of Swedish Press the link to the LastWord article refrenced above is just a click away. That is one of the great advantages of the less expensive all-color electronic edition of Swedish Press.

January Blog

2012-01-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

Pelle Forshed och Stefan Thungren’s skickligt tecknade Stockholmsnatt i Svenska Dagbladet har säkert höjt hip-faktorn och kanske sänkt åldern bland tidningsläsarna - så att de känner igen sig i serien om trendiga 30-åringar i huvudstaden.

Just back from a short holiday in Sweden, I can attest to the scene in the cartoon above playing out in many homes across the country. The parents are watching the Christmas television special Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul while the children couldn’t care less.

The quirky tradition, that each year sees millions of Swedes hunkering down in front of their television sets at 3 pm sharp on December 24, is unique in the world.

Where else would a Disney program from 1958, with mostly antiquated film clips of Mickey Mouse, Snowwhite, Lady and the Tramp, Mowgli and Baloo, Robin Hood, Ferdinand the Bull and of course Donald Duck, Sweden's Kalle Anka, be an integral part of a national Christmas celebration.

I hadn't celebrated Christmas in Sweden for almost thirty years, and had only seen the Kalle Anka programme once during this time when the Silicon Vikings sent me a bootleg. So settling down in front of the television with much-loved relatives in a cozy cottage in Dalarna, I was thrilled to find everything in the Disney parade to be the same, with the exception of a couple of new clips as SVT is obliged to include something from a current Disney production. Bengt Feldreich still sings the Jiminy Cricket "Wishing upon a star", but the narration of the program is done by a current Christmas host. I missed the Chip and Dale clip, but loved Kalle Anka as an ornithologist trying to photograph the demented Araucan Bird.

When I was growing up in Stockholm, going to a Disney movie program at the Sture cinema on Birger Jarlsgatan was part of the Christmas holidays. So you can imagine what a thrill it was when we got a one-hour programme of favorites on our black-and-white television set for free in 1960! This was at a time when we only had one public service channel that did not run any animation features and that had a general disdain for the kind of commercialism that Disney represented.

There has been an outcry every time SVT has tried to scrap the program. But being the most watched television programme in Sweden (except for Melodifestivalen and certain sport cliff hangers) it remains a keeper.

That is, until the next generation takes over.

December Blog

2011-11-30T22:18:00.000-08:00

Sweden is one of the few places in the world where a real (dressed up) walking talking Santa comes to your home on Christmas Eve to drop off a sack of gifts (as you can read in the LastWord). Tomte myths still persist and folklorist Bengt af Klintberg (interviewed in the current Scandinavian Press) told me the true story of a relative of his who always put out a bowl of porridge for the farm's tomte each Christmas Eve. One year the porridge was left untouched and shortly after that the farm burnt down.

The basis of all the myths about the tomte will once again be vigorously discussed in Swedish media in the days leading up to Christmas. I don’t have a favourite theory myself. But it is a different matter when it comes to trolls. After seeing the film Beowulf and Grendel a few years back, I believe that they were Neanderthals. The Icelandic Canadian director Sturla Gunnarsson does not portray Grendel as an evil monster, but rather as someone "that has spawned off the same evolutionary tree who happens to be a little bit bigger and who lives down the valley". In North America Neanderthals tie in with the Sasquatch myth and they are a perfect fit for the trolls in Scandinavia.

In Swedish folklore trolls have cattle and make a living from farming so, although they are culturally and physically different from us, they live a similar life to ours but in a parallel dimension. In some early fairy tales by Elsa Beskow (who we write about on page 17), trolls are depicted as an aboriginal race of hunters and gatherers who are fleeing the encroaching human civilization.

The Neanderthal theory is not completely new. Although some folklorists argue that the troll is entirely a figment of our imagination, there are others who believe that trolls emanate from tales from the time of the Neanderthals (that overlapped with Homo Sapiens for 30 000 to 50 000 years). Researchers at Uppsala university have recently proved that there was much more interaction and also sexual interaction between humans and Neanderthals than previously thought. There are genetic similarities and we may even have inherited some of our immune system genes from them.

Could the tomte fit in with the troll theory? In Iceland it is not a tomte but the 13 yule lads who bring gifts at Christmas time. Both scary and kind, they are clearly descendants of trolls and have not adopted the persona of Santa Claus, something that the tomte in Sweden has gradually morphed into during the last century.

May you get a visit from the tomte and may he be generous this year.

Anders

November Blog

2011-10-30T17:31:00.000-07:00

Economics is not an exact science. This is the one thing that is clear during these times of economic upheaval. There are no rules and the so-called experts sound more and more like hollow weathermen in denial.

Indeed Christopher Sims and Thomas Sargent, who won this year’s Nobel Prize for Economics, have no easy answers on how Europe should solve its debt crisis, neither do they have a magic bullet for solving the U.S. economy’s woes.

The economics prize, officially called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was not part of the original group of awards set out in the dynamite tycoon's 1895 will.

The prize was established by the Bank of Sweden in 1968 in celebration of its 300th anniversary. The Nobel Foundation receives a fee from the Riksbank to administer the prize and include it on the Nobelprize.org site. The economics prize is the only non-Nobel prize to be awarded with the same pomp and circumstance as the regular Nobel prizes. And one can really ask why?

Alfred Nobel (page16) was an inventor, chemist, engineer and above all realist. He dabbled in philosophy and literature and held surprisingly radical political views. He hated lawyers and joked that "humbug" was the second biggest industry of his age.

I don’t think that Alfred Nobel would have been delighted to know that an economics prize is handed out in his name. As a scientist he wanted there to be prizes in physics, chemistry and medicine, while the prizes in literature and peace are a reflection of his philosophical and idealistic sides. Economics does not quite fit in.

Alfred Nobel’s great-grandnephew, the civil rights lawyer Peter Nobel, has, on behalf of his family, objected to the prize being associated with the Nobel Prizes.

In his speech at the 1974 Nobel Banquet, even the winner Friedrich Hayek stated that if he had been consulted on the establishment of a Nobel Prize in economics he would "have decidedly advised against it” primarily because "the Nobel Prize confers on an individual an authority which in economics no man ought to possess... This does not matter in the natural sciences. Here the influence exercised by an individual is chiefly an influence on his fellow experts; and they will soon cut him down to size if he exceeds his competence. But the influence of the economist that mainly matters is an influence over laymen: politicians, journalists, civil servants and the public generally."

After other controversies the economics prize was redefined in 1995 as a prize in social science, open also to political scientists, psychologists, and sociology researchers.

I feel that it is now time for the Nobel Foundation to cut the economics prize lose, before it damages the Nobel Prize itself.

October Blog

2011-10-14T00:13:00.000-07:00

Fall is upon us and soon Sweden will become a dark place where kids in many parts of the country will go to school in the dark and not be back home until after the sun has set.

The long days of barbecues and socializing outdoors are over for a while and it is time to hunker down for the dark season with plans of spending cozy evenings at home, or partaking of all the cultural activities that restart after the summer hiatus.

Swedes are used to the seasonal change and even look forward to fall but for people from abroad, the dark season in Sweden can feel very inhospitable.

So I was very happy to read about Scan-dinavia's first Global Expat Centre (Oden-gatan 62, globalexpatpartners.com) that has opened in Stockholm and provides all sorts of support to make the stay of diplomats and business people, and above all their spouses, much more pleasant.

Between 12 and 20 percent of all international assignments fail and this is largely due to partner dissatisfaction. The "Stock-holm Model", developed by a Dutch spouse with an HR background, could go a long way to alleviate this problem.

The four pillars of Claudia de Leeuw's programme are Integration and Cultural Awareness, Language Training, Spouse Support and Social Network. When I read about the activities, that range from Parent and Toddler to Adult Cooking Classes, an International Breakfast Club and Happy Hours Mingling, it strikes me that this is a little like what we are doing in all our Swedish American organizations. Just like the Expat Centre we offer activities and “a place to go to”.

The Expat Centre is non-profit and run primarily by volunteers. It is sponsored by the embassies, a lot of companies and the Stockholm Business Region Development that wants to make the capital of Sweden a more attractive place for foreign workers.

A full membership for a family costs SEK 10 000 and this includes individual language courses and all activities.

The high fees, although mostly paid by employers, are a good reminder of how in-expensive Swedish American organizations and facilities are for us “cultural expats”!

Greta Garbo.

2011-09-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

When Selma Lagerlöf wrote Gösta Berlings Saga she set it in her beloved province of Värmland and in particular at the Rottneros manor, that she calls Ekeby in the book. We write about Rottneros and its beautiful park in the September issue of Swedish Press and as we are not your typical magazine, we also help you to connect with Gösta Berlings Saga. If you select "September'11" in our "MustHave" section you will find the story both in Swedish and English and an easy way to order it. We have also posted the film version of the story that made Greta Garbo a star. It used to be that Sweden's "Gone With the Wind" was required reading and most Swedes had read it, but Gösta Berling's Saga is now being forgotten. Do read the romantic story of the good-looking but de-frocked clergyman who was taken in by the Majoress of Ekeby to live with her twelve aging cavaliers and then "in a turn of events that bear the devil's stamp" given one year's run of the estate. Or you can see the movie with Greta Garbo as Gösta Berling's love interest. Greta Garbo liked her privacy, but she did slip in to Swendsens on Manhattan for some Swedish goodies and one of the servers told me that she read Swedish Press there. We never got an interview with the elusive star, but in 2005 we interviewed her nephew Scott Reisfeld and you can even read that interview on several Greta Garbo sites including "Hommage an Greta Garbo" : http://www.greta-garbo.de/com/Greta-Garbos-great-nephew-Derek-Reisfields.html

September Blog

2011-08-28T12:43:00.001-07:00

Are you too old to be on Facebook if you are 82? No, I am not talking about myself, not yet. What I have been mulling about during the last few months is if it is time for 82-year-old Swedish Press to embrace social media. Should we be taking this step into the future or should we accept that you simply cannot teach old dogs to sit?

I think about all the steps into the future we have taken, albeit kicking and screaming, during the 25 years I have been the publisher and editor of this magazine. I remember our old typesetter and Headliner, and the first KayPro computer.

Then it was onto the first of many Apple computers. How revolutionary that was!

But we still had to get PMTs done of all the pictures and do the whole layout on a sheet big enough for 4 pages. These sheets we then had to hand over physically to the printer.

Today it is all done on the computers and electronically uploaded for the printer. We also have an active website and our electronic editions are becoming increasingly popular. We actually even twittered every day during the virtual trip "Around Swedish America in 548 Days".

But we have never been on Facebook, LikedIn or any of the other social media.

And that is not okay according to the speakers at a magazine conference I attended in June, because visitors on the web are abandoning the traditional sites in favor of social media.

I have never joined Facebook myself but I can see that Swedish Press has to be there. This is, however, all new to us and we are now hoping for help from our readers to steer us right!

By the time you are reading this issue of Swedish Press we will be on Facebook, so please check us out, “share” and tell your friends about Swedish Press and let us know if you "like" it, because we need every friend we can get!

It is going to be fun to meet you readers on Facebook and we hope you will share your love of Sweden in the features that we plan to include on our page. You can share your Swedish pictures, sightings of famous Swedes, favorite Swedish places and above all your opinions. Facebook will be the place we meet for quick information, while www.nordicway.com will remain the place for background and all the "hard" information. Other social media will follow so in this way many more people interested in Sweden will see that we exist.

Swedish Press exists for its readers, so let us know on Facebook that you are there!

Have a nice September!

Anders

August Blog

2011-08-14T18:34:00.001-07:00

Since the 1960s Sweden has been widely admired not only for its “third way” of dealing with the economy and social issues but also for its design and high quality innovative products. This is something that naturally comes and goes in waves.

There have been times when Sweden’s star has fallen and other times, like the present, when Sweden is attracting a great deal of attention for its thriving economy and general well-being.

"Sweden’s 5.5 percent growth rate last year was stronger than any other developed nation in Europe and beat the 2.8 percent expansion in the United States" wrote the Washington Post almost reluctantly about "Sweden, the rock star of the recovery."

This is just one of the myriad of accolades Sweden is getting from around the world.

There are, however, detractors and the one causing the biggest stir now is Tyler Brulé, who has for many years been one of the biggest fans of Sweden. The Financial Times columnist, editor-in-chief of Monocle and founder of the Wallpaper magazine has been an influential promoter of Swedish design and, through his magazines, made Swedish fashion, food, art and architecture hip around the world. Tyler Brûlé who has also had a summer house on his own island in the Stockholm archipelago for many years became an outspoken advocate of the Swedish way of life.

Now he has changed his tune.

“Swedish goods and services used to be a refreshing constant in my daily life but somehow they’ve vanished – no cars, no telecommunications, no media, no hotels, no airlines," he writes. "H&M and Ikea might continue their global assault (along with the odd crime author), waving a small blue and yellow flag, but increasingly Sweden Inc seems a little less potent”.

“Ten years ago it was a pleasure to board an aircraft belonging to Scandinavian Airlines. But I flew on SAS a couple of times this week and was more saddened than shocked by the experience. And I wondered if the SAS brand would be around this time next year".

I flew SAS this week myself and was surprised when I was asked to pay 20 kronor for a cup of tea. (In fact I apparently looked so chocked that the stewardess told me that it was fine if I did not pay anything this time, as I obviously did not know that they had had to start charging for everything except water on European routes).

Apart from this I really have no complaints either about SAS or Sweden.

Wherever I went during the last few weeks there was a general feeling of well-being. All the closure “Stängt för semester” signs on stores and even restaurants exude a sense of confidence and security.

There are naturally some negative aspects but I will leave them for another time.

Have a nice August

Anders

July Blog

2011-07-02T18:45:00.001-07:00

By the time you are reading this piece I should be in Tuscany to attend the wedding of my goddaughter. Just like me, she loves Italy and has through the years built up a strong relationship with the country.

My own relationship with Italy started when I was about two years old. My father who was a freshly graduated architect had been awarded a travel grant to study the Mediterranean architecture and it was de-cided that he would have the Swedish Institute in Rome as a base and my mother and I were to go with him.

My parents’ decision to take me along to post-war Italy, “where you could not even get hold of fresh milk” did not sit well with my grandparents. But my parents persisted and not only did I survive “the ordeal”, I have some of my earliest and best memories from this time.

My father was also consulted on Villa San Michele (see page 17) that the Swedish state had received as a gift from Queen Victoria's physician Axel Munthe. And that is how I got to spend part of my pre-school childhood on the island of Capri.

Among the few Swedish kids on the island were Staffan De Mistura (in this month's interview) and his brother Peter. Their mother and Italian father had come to Capri to prospect for water, a resource that would possibly be considered even more valuable than oil for an island which gets its water either through collection of rainwater or from the nearby island of Ischia from where it is transported over by boat. The Marquis De Mistura had brought drilling equipment from Alfa Laval in Sweden, but he never found any water.

In the picture above (that I got from a cousin in Sweden last year), we children are on our way to classes in the monastery right behind the main piazza in Capri that nowadays is crammed with tourists.

Staffan, who was the clever one, is wearing a black uniform with a red ribbon because he was in a higher class than me, even though I was a year older. Peter and I had white uniforms with blue ribbons and we had little pockets in the front where we could put the sugar candies that we bought from the nuns before class.

On the back of the post card that one of the rowing photographers had snapped of us, my mother writes that we had just seen a man walking around with a leopard on a leach. I still remember that, because the big cat, that did not have a muzzle, was always trying to lunge at the meat carcasses that hung outside the butcher shops.

In those days Capri was a gathering ground for everybody from Somerset Maug-ham to Esther Williams. I still remember seeing the very fat King Farouk of Egypt who had fled to Capri on his huge sailboat.

But I don't remember much from school, except that for exercise the whole class had to walk back and forth along the corridors for what seemed like hours.

Have a really nice July!

Anders

June Blog

2011-06-06T23:39:00.001-07:00

I did not do an all-nighter nor did I get into the whole tea and scones thing, but I was one of the two billion or so people around the world who caught some of the highlights of the royal wedding in London, and I found it to be a very pleasant romantic interlude in the midst of all the dismal news pouring in during a cold and rainy spring.

My ears perked up when one of the commentators remarked that there had been much more pomp and circumstance at Crown Princess Victoria and Daniel Westling's wedding in Stockholm last year. So it is rather sad that the Swedish royal wedding was hardly mentioned in international media. And the reason for this was that the three major world news agencies decided to boycott the event.

The exclusive broadcasting rights for the wedding in the Storkyrkan cathedral were granted by the Royal Court to the public-service Sveriges Television, SVT because it is commercial free. Yet this same state-financed public service broadcaster demanded such a high fee for its footage, that AFP, AP and Reuters had to decline and all three agencies decided subsequently not to cover the event in any format, including text and stills pictures.

SVT claimed that it was charging "standard" fees, but the news organizations argued that a news event of historical importance should not be treated in the same way as a sports or entertainment event. Furthermore the charge fees "largely surpassed the market price". In a last-minute attempt to cover the event the three agencies even e-mailed the royal Court as well as the Prime Minister of Sweden citing freedom of the press and complaining about "the increasingly commercialized" use of events. But it was to no avail.

After the wedding MediaPilot estimated the publicity value of the royal wedding to be SEK 2.7 billion, with almost half of the coverage being in German periodicals and news sites. MediaPilot did not measure the value from broadcast media neither did it estimate the value had all the 45 accredited television broadcasters and 700 foreign journalists been given more access to the event.

As the Brits demonstrated, a royal wedding is a huge public relations event in which everybody in the country pulls for the common good. It is embarrassing for Sweden when a state-financed public broadcaster doesn't do its part.

I myself am still mad at SVT for not allowing the Scandinavian Center in Vancouver to re-broadcast its Olympic coverage. Why could it not have shown the same level of generosity as the public broadcasters in Norway and Finland did with their coverage?

Have a really nice June

Anders

PS. "We were very lucky with the weather. Sunny blue skies and warm," writes Kathryn Hallsten (above) who won the Swedish Press trip for two with Icelandair to Sweden and Iceland with the added bonus of a stay at Grand Hotel in Stockholm. "We biked the National Park trail, walked around Gamla Stan and Djurgården and toured the city on a boat. Iceland was fascinating...Glaciers, waterfalls and geysers...unbelievable wilderness and interesting geology...Lots of fish and striking Scandinavian art and architecture. I just wanted to thank you and let you know that we had a phenomenal experience in Stockholm and Iceland."

May Blog

2011-05-01T00:27:00.000-07:00

One of the best Swedish characteristic is honesty. Sweden always ranks among the highest in the world on the anti-corruption scale. When you shake hands on a deal it stands. You know that you can always trust your Swedish friends.

Even at the Swedish Press one of our strongest selling points is trust. Subscribers know that they can trust us with their credit card numbers or that we will not overcharge them for products or pass their e-mail addresses on to other marketeers.

Dealing, as we do, mostly with "Scandinavians" and Nordic-related companies, we also know that we can rely on our advertisers and it is very rare that a person or a company has reneged on a payment without an explicable cause.

A case in point is Solhem, the poetical name of the lovely "Swedish Home for the Aged" on Staten Island, that had been a long-time advertiser. Purchased by the United Swedish Societies of New York in 1912, it was a really nice and well-managed resthome for some forty mostly Swedish guests. However a few years ago Solhem ran into financial difficulties and our invoices remained unpaid or when they were paid the checks bounced. Eventually the Home was put into receivership and we wrote off the debt.

Then a few years later we were told that the facilities on Staten Island were sold and the board wanted to settle all old bills. There was that Swedish honesty at play again.

It took a while but eventually we were contacted by a lawyer in New York who had been put in charge of taking care of old business. I was informed that all the documentation, including copies of unpaid invoices, that the lawyer had in his possession was not sufficient to release the funds owed to us. In other words he did not trust me or the Swedish Press. I had to go and sign a document in the presence of a US Consul. No other consul would do (I happen to be the Honorary Consul of Sweden), neither could this be done in front of a regular notary.

I could not help feeling that my honesty had been violated not to mention the time and money involved to get the payment that the board of Solhem had made such an honest effort to settle.

It was also so sad to see an old Swedish American institution go. For almost a hundred years, the Solhem Swedish resthome on Staten Island was a lovely oasis just a ferry trip away from the bustling metropolis of New York. The original historic building, that was a wedding gift for the daughter of Commodore Vanderbuilt, housed the social rooms and a beautiful dining room. I wrote in the Swedish Press after one of my visits there that "you could not find a nicer place to retire in".

Have a nice May

Anders

April Blog

2011-03-31T22:57:00.000-07:00

For many years the Canadian government bought advertising space to impart important information to readers of Swedish Press. There was an understanding that ethnic publications were an important tool in reaching all sectors of the population.

During the last few years Swedes have been shut out, only because Swedish Press is printed in a magazine format rather than as a tabloid or a semi-tab.

Swedish Press started out as a broadsheet in 1929, but switched to a magazine format in 1986 to raise the quality of the publication and to prepare it for computerization. For a long time the bureaucrats did not mind the change as the frequency and content remained the same, but suddenly the 8"x11" format stopped us from being eligible for government advertising!

Similarly Swedish Press does not receive any advertising from the province of Ontario because the magazine is not printed there! The fact that Swedish Press is the only way to reach Swedish Canadians in Ontario does not seem to matter.

If information is important enough to im-part to all citizens, this should be done in the best and most fair way possible and the format and where in the country it is printed should not be considerations.

The issue of format is in general a form of discrimination against Canadians of Euro-pean origin as their publications are often magazines. I am acutely aware that the Swe-dish community, like many other European communities, is small compared to the various Asian communities and hence easily ignored on the political scene. It is only natural that the Asian communities, primarily the Chinese and the East Indian, are heavily targeted by political parties and, above all, commercial advertisers such as banks, immigration lawyers, car salesmen and realtors. But shouldn’t you expect a degree of fairness from the government?

On top of this, the Government of Canada spends only $800 000 on ads in the ethnic media (with 3 million readers a day), compared to about $100 million in the general media, which does not sound reasonable for a country that professes to be multicultural.

March Blog

2011-02-27T08:13:00.000-08:00

As the editor of Swedish Press I may be forgiven for being partial to most things Swedish. It's my job to give you Sweden "warts and all" but I know that I tend to expand on the positive side because I think that there is a lot this continent could learn from little Sweden.

On a personal level I am impressed by things like the solidly built houses, the high level of workmanship, the efficient banking system, the postal service, and the recycling systems among other things.

Until now I have also been very partial to the service I have got from my insurance company in Sweden compared to insurance companies here (like when Swedish Press had a break-in) but I am not so sure about this anymore.

We have had two break-ins in our little cottage in Östergötland. The first was fifteen years ago and the thieves got away with all my Karl Johan armchairs and other odds and ends. The insurance company was very helpful and paid us the full replacement value for the stolen goods. In fact the following summer when we realized that there were some Karl Johan stools that were also missing, the insurance company swiftly settled that claim too.

I always talked about this "positive" Swedish insurance story when I heard stories about how some North American companies behaved. I myself had a company tell me to either double my premiums or die before the age of 69 if I wanted to maintain my life insurance at the agreed upon level!

Back in Sweden we had another much more devastating break-in in our cottage in April. This time the thieves must have had a lot of time as they had expertly gone through absolutely everything and taken anything of value. They had even managed to find all our hiding places. Many things, like miniatures of my mother, had a primarily nostalgic value, but there was a lot of very valuable stuff that we had not brought with us to Canada. You just don’t risk shipping valuable glass and porcelain.

After getting expert appraisals of the most important objects we realized that we had been underinsured. The value of all that we had lost was double the amount we were insured for. Resigning ourselves to the loss, we presented our claim to the insurance company only to find out that it would pay out only 50 percent of the amount we were insured for, citing as a reason that we had been underinsured.

I take full responsibility for this. Living abroad, I have been out of touch with the Swedish antiques market and hence not updated the insurance accordingly. At the same time I feel that the insurance company should at least compensate me up to the value I am insured for minus the deductible. I get furious when I think of all the years that I have dutifully paid the hefty premiums only to be rewarded in this way. I think I could even make a case for coming out ahead if I had saved on the premiums all these years.

I guess the lesson here is that insurance companies ultimately put their owners and employees ahead of those they are supposed to give protection to. So be warned!

Have a nice March

Anders

February Blog

2011-02-07T20:27:00.000-08:00

An ad in Systembolagets campaign with the headline "We Swedes invented the smartest way in the world to sell alcohol. (Perhaps because we needed it more than others.)"

I dislike monopolies out of principle, but there is one monopoly I really like. In my opinion the Swedish Systembolaget wine and spirits monopoly is a great institution that I hope will prevail in some form, even though the European Union would love to crush it. In response to the nagging from Brussels, Systemet has launched an advertising campaign touting the virtues of the Swedish way of dealing with alcohol.

It wasn't the politicians who created the Swedish alcohol distribution monopoly, it was the miners. The mining authorities in the city of Falun formed the world's first alcohol dispensing monopoly in 1850 to reduce accidents in the mine. By getting rid of the private profit motive they could stem the consumption which then was four times what it is today. Gradually more cities adopted the idea and in 1955 all the local mono-polies were rolled into one - Systembolaget.

Many countries have experimented with alcohol retail monopolies including the United States that, in 1930, realized it was a bad idea to forbid consumption in view of the prevailing attitude towards alcohol.

The billionaire John D Rockefeller sponsored a gigantic study to find the best way to sell alcohol and the answer was the "Swedish method". To this day many US states and Canadian provinces maintain alcohol monopolies.

In Sweden a new study details the probable effects of closing down the alcohol monopoly. According to experts, if strong beer, wine and alcohol would be freely available in all grocery stores, consumption would rise by 30 percent. This would lead to 16 million more sick days and 1 600 alcohol-related deaths. Not to speak of about 14 000 more cases of common assault.

There are no special offers in the boring Systembolaget stores that often dispense their wares across old-fashioned counters. The choice is limited, but the prices are the same wherever you go and you can rely on the value of what they sell. Being the world’s biggest buyer of wine, Systemet often offers great wines at very reasonable prices.

In the olden days British wine merchants used to take the ferry to Göteborg to buy up the grand brands like Lafite Rothschild, because of the relatively low prices for more expensive wines at Systemet stores.

Systembolaget buyers were the first to discover Australian and Chilean wines and they regularly buy some of the best wines from entire regions in Italy, France and Spain.

Have a nice February

Anders

PS. When we write about an interesting book or CD in scandinavian and Swedish Press, many readers contact us to find out where they can buy it. In response to this we are introducing a new service, together with Amazon, making it possible for you to conveniently buy most products we write about at “MustHave” in our www.nordicway.com "Market".

January Blog

2011-01-01T14:28:00.000-08:00

Just as we are gearing up for Christmas and looking forward to some peace and quiet during the last days of 2010, two terrorist bombs explode in central Stockholm. As you can read in our "First Page News" (on page 9), a mass casualty incident was luckily averted, albeit narrowly, with the only loss of life being that of the perpetrator.

In 2004 Osama Bin Laden, in a video broadcast on al-Jazeera, explained why Sweden would not be an al-Qaeda target. According to some experts there has not been a change in this state of affairs, and the explosions on Drottninggatan may have been the work of a lone jihadist. We will in all likelihood never get the full story behind the first terrorism attack in the history of Sweden.

What we are left with is a feeling of disbelief, outrage and, above all, insecurity. My daughter works just around the corner from where the explosions went off. If you have been in Stockholm you are sure to have been at this spot. Things like this are just not supposed to happen in the city I grew up in.

This is a brutal reminder that Sweden is now both a participant and a target in the war against terrorism. The country, that prides itself as a fair and generous champion of the third world, has truly lost its innocence.

Domestically Swedes, with their open democracy, have to tackle the issue of how to guard civil liberties while meeting 21st century security threats. This is especially problematic in light of the profound changes in the country’s demographics that have put new strains on the tradition for consensual, enlightened politics. The issue of home-grown terrorism must be tackled head-on without any political correctness. An open debate on issues such as this is vital if Sweden is to remain the open, democratic and secure society we all have such great love and admiration for.

Happy New Year

Anders

PS. Every month in 2011 we will bring you a portrait of a famous Swedish birthday boy or girl. We start with August Strindberg (on page 16) and invite your comments. For those of you who keep all magazines we provide an Index to 2010 (on page 4). Check out everything we covered and let us know if you think we are on the right track. Your feedback is very important to us!

December Blog

2010-12-05T23:47:00.000-08:00

In an interview about his Swedish best-seller "Hundraåringen Som Klev Ut Genom Fönstret och Försvann" (The Hundred-year Old Who Stepped Out Through the Window and Disappeared, see page 30) Jonas Jonasson noted that his main character reminded him of the carefree and disrespectful Pippi Longstocking. Having just seen The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, the third film in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, I thought of another person who reminded me of Pippi Longstocking - the antisocial and fiercely independent Lisbeth Salander.

If you are one of the millions and millions who have read any or all of Stieg Larsson's three best-selling crime novels, you know what I am talking about. Lisbeth Salander, the heroine of Larsson's award-winning Millennium Trilogy, is a 24-year-old pierced goth with a dragoon tattoo. With her martial arts prowess and photographic memory, the brilliant hacker, with a stern moral conscience, has become a strong symbol of this century of the woman. The fact that she also has all the money in the world, compensates, just like in the real world, for her lack of social graces. Her misogynistic looks not withstanding, she is a hero of many young adult women - their Pippi Longstocking.

Astrid Lindgren’s fictional character, with her carrot-colored hair in braids that stick out, and one brown and one black stocking, had the same rebellious look as Lisbeth Salander when the 9-year old made an appearance in 1945. Just like Lisbeth, Pippi drinks a lot of coffee, has lots of money and is so strong that she can easily manhandle the two policemen who come to take her to "a home".

Both Pippi and Lisbeth have their run-ins with social services because of their complicated family situations. Pippi has no mother and her absent father is a king on a South Sea island. Lisbeth’s mum is in an institution while her criminal father, who has been absent during a large part of her life, wants to get rid of her. Lisbeth was bullied at school while Pippi was sure to have been bullied if she had not ditched school altogether after her first day in class.

Lisbeth's side-kick Mikael Blomkvist shares the surname of another of Astrid Lindgren's children's book characters, Mästerdetektiven Kalle Blomkvist (lead detective Kalle Blomkvist). There is another reference to Pippi Longstocking with Lisbeth Salander using Pippi Longstocking’s house Villa Villekulla as a cover name.

As I am writing this, I come across some material about Stieg Larsson and lo and behold I see that he has stated in interviews with an old colleague and his publisher that he was fascinated with the idea of a grown up Pippi Longstocking, "a dysfunctional girl, probably with attention deficit disorder who would have had a hard time finding a regular place in society but would nonetheless take a firm hand in directing her own destiny", and that he used those characteristics to create Lisbeth Salander.

All I can say is hats off to Stieg Larsson for giving the women of the world another memorable Swedish role model.

God Jul

Anders

November Blog

2010-10-31T00:05:00.000-07:00

In November 2006 the Filipino sailor Jesus Sumook saved the life of a man who had been overcome by carbon monoxide poisoning in the cargo hold of a ship docked in the Swedish port of Helsingborg. Hearing about this heroic act, the Swedish Carnegie Foundation wanted to pay tribute to Sumook but it took some time to locate him as he travels around the world on the M/V Saga Tucano.

However when the ship was loading in the port of Vancouver in the beginning of October, I, as the Consul of Sweden, was able to present Jesus Sumook with a Diploma, a gold watch and a sum of money from the Foundation. This was one of the most fun and rewarding consular duties during the last few years. It felt good to give recognition to somebody who thought he was just doing what anybody would have done. I am not so sure about that.

Sumook’s heroic act took place when M/V Saga Spray was unloading wood pellets from British Columbia. A worker collecting the pellets left behind by the scoops down in the hold lay unconscious having been over-come by carbon monoxide. When the emergency alarm sounded, Sumook grabbed a breathing apparatus and descended three floors down into the hold. First he administered CPR on the man and then gave him his mask so that the gasping stevedore would not breathe in the deadly carbon monoxide.

The two men then shared the mask’s oxygen until emergency personnel after some time could help them up from the cargo hold. Several of the people involved in the rescue operation were poisoned by the carbon monoxide and six were admitted to hospital. One dockworker did not make it.

The Swedish Carnegie Hero Fund (carnegiestiftelsen.se) was established in the beginning of 1911 after the American industrialist Andrew Carnegie, born in Scotland, wrote a letter to the King of Sweden with an offer of $230 000 to establish the fund. According to the by-laws of the fund its main purpose is "to give awards to persons who voluntarily or otherwise beyond what may be deemed to be their duty, have, by some gallant action in the peaceful walks of life risked their lives in order to save human lives in the territory of Sweden and on Swedish ships."

Andrew Carnegie’s life philosophy was that the first third of one’s life should be devoted to learning, the second to making money and the third to giving it away "as it was shameful to die wealthy". One of the world's richest men, Carnegie donated almost three thousand libraries in the United States alone.

The world would a better place if we had more people like Jesus Sumook and Andrew Carnegie in it.

Have a nice November

Anders

October Blog

2010-09-30T23:13:00.001-07:00

"A lot of IKEA products are not so cheap," said a parking attendant to me when he figured out that I was Swedish. (Was it the car I was driving or could it possibly be my accent that gave me away?)

I thought of his remark when I was at IKEA recently. Having just had a huge plate of meatballs for $5.99 and having picked up a LACK side table for two dollars more, I had to wonder what he was talking about. On the contrary you have to wonder how it is possible to buy the material, make the table, paint it, transport it from the country where it is manufactured to a central warehouse and from there to a store, make a profit at all stages of the process, and then charge only $7.99 for a piece of brand new furniture. I wonder what IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad, who reportedly could work out the cost of manufacturing a table by just looking at it, would have to say about this?

Another thing I can’t get my head around is the inconsistency in some IKEA prices. For instance the HELMER drawer unit on casters costs only $49.99 in Canada. With six drawers, this is a lot of beautifully powder-coated steel. Compare this with the IKEA 365+ BRASA pendant lamp, at $59.99, that is also made out of powder-coated steel, but probably only requiring a single punch to get it into shape. The “really radical” lamp has been given remarkable prominence in the IKEA catalogue with its “function and quality of material” emphasized and with statements like “sometimes you need to stay basic to stand out”, but I cannot see why it should cost more than a substantial piece of furniture.

I talked with some IKEA people about this and they explained that the main reason for the difference in price is that “the lamp has to go through CSA approvals, testing, and the cost of parts of the lamp are greater than the drawer unit."

My guess would be that both HELMER and BRASA are made at a really inexpensive factory in China but that it is a higher margin and the commission to the Swedish designers A Nilsson, H Preutz and T Eliasson that makes BRASA that much more expensive. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Have a nice October

Anders

September Blog

2010-09-08T23:45:00.000-07:00

I have received my election papers from Sweden now. Have you?

I hope all readers who have Swedish citizenship will vote in the general election. The election authorities in Sweden have some 130 000 Swedish citizens with foreign addresses on their register. All these citizens but even those who are not registered have the opportunity to vote at embassies and consulates or send in their votes by mail so that they are counted in the September 19 election.

Sadly, only 29 percent of registered voters abroad cast their vote in the last election, as compared to 82 percent participation in Sweden itself. Furthermore the 125 000 registered Swedes were only a fraction of the estimated half a million Swedes living abroad (according to the organization Svenskar i Världen) so in fact voter participation among this group was in all likelihood an embarrassing single digit figure.

If you live in Sweden you are constantly reminded of the election and you are well informed about the voting process. When it comes to Swedes living abroad, it is only the registered voters who receive the pertinent voting information. Swedish Press is attempting to keep you informed, but we have not been getting much help from the election authorities in Sweden. You would think that reminding Swedes of their right to vote in the only Swedish monthly in North America would be a non-brainer, but no. (I contacted the embassies and the Swedish Election Authority without getting any response. When I finally got hold of a bureaucrat in Sweden over the phone I was told that the authorities had no mandate to advertise the election abroad.)

When I first came to North America it was during the Social Democratic reign in Sweden. During election time I was told that the dearth of information about the elections here could be attributed to the Social Democrats not expecting much support from Swedes abroad. If that was true the Alliance should be more interested in getting in the votes from abroad.

General elections are at the heart of democracy and a low voter participation is an indication that it is not working. In Sweden there have been discussions about lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 years to establish a voting pattern early in life and in that way increase future voter participation. In all likelihood this will not happen until voter participation drops even further.

I hope you will find all the information about the election in this issue useful and if you are a Swedish citizen, make use of your democratic right and make your voice heard in this exciting election.

Have a nice September

Anders

August Blog

2010-08-10T23:01:00.000-07:00

After more than a year hopping around the continent, I finally ended my trip "Around Swedish America in 548 Days" on July 2. At lunch time, I arrived at Victory Square in Vancouver where Swedish Press saw the light of day 82 years ago. You can read about all the places of Swedish interest on nordicway.com

This trip was of course “virtual”, even though my original dream had been a real road trip.

So for now I am following the Mongol Rally on the internet (http://mongolrally10.theadventurists.com). Starting from England, Spain and Italy at the end of July, the rally finishes, around four weeks and a whole heap of adventure later, in Mongolia. GPS is not allowed and the vehicle used for the trip must be a minimum of ten years old and for extra challenge have only a tiny 1.2 liter engine. Speed is not the object and all participants who make it to the Mongolian capitol of Ulan Bator have to donate their cars to an aid organization.

The 10 000 mile rally is organized by The Adventurists to make "the world a less boring place". There were six teams in the first "festival of slow" in 2004. Three years later the Mongol Rally sold out in 22 seconds with 200 teams participating. This year’s participants include my cousin's son, Mats Horn and his three friends from Sweden (http://swedentomongolia.com). They are travelling in a Mercedes ambulance from 1999 that, with a 2.4 liter engine, had to receive special permission. The Swedes bought the car for SEK 25 000, and they each invested SEK 20 000 for gas, supplies and visas for some of the 14 countries they are going to cross. As participants they also have to raise money for charity and you can help them at http://justgiving.com/swedentomongolia1. Last year’s rally raised more than $300,000.

What a great adventure! I can't help thinking of August Larson from Sweden who went to Mongolia as a missionary in 1892 and became a titled hero. You can read about Duke Larson of Mongolia, who turned up in Silverhill in Alabama, on day 433 of my trip around Swedish America!

Have a nice August

Anders

July Blog

2010-07-03T22:47:00.000-07:00

When people hear that we have just come back from Sweden they immediately assume that we were there for the royal wedding. But in fact the focal point for this Swedish visit was to fix up our summer house after a break-in. We had a break-in 15 years ago and at that time the thieves took all our antique armchairs. This time they really wiped us out of almost everything of sentimental or monetary value.

One of the items that was stolen was a painting of the Vasaorden royal sloop (appraised at 2 kronor when I inherited it in 1975) that played a major role at the royal wedding this year. It was on this quite stunning rowing barge that Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel crossed the inner harbour of Stockholm at the end of the cortege that took them around the central parts of the city after the wedding ceremony.

Vasaorden is a beautiful Gustavian sloop in white and blue with lots of gold that was originally designed and built in 1774 on royal command by "the father of naval architecture", Fredrik Henrik Chapman.

The present vessel is a 1920s replica of the original. Used only for special state occasions in the waters surrounding Stockholm, it has had royalty like Queen Elizabeth of England and Queen Juliana of Holland on board. It is now being moved to the Stockholm Naval Museum where it will be on show before it goes into storage in an old torpedo boat shed at Djurgården until it is time for the next state occasion.

I have a special interest in the Vasaorden because it was my grandfather who commanded her when Queen Victoria was buried in 1930 and when Princess Ingrid married the Danish Crown Prince Frederik in 1935. My grandfather also wrote the instructions on how to control and maneuver Vasaorden under the pull of her 18 naval oarsmen. Very much in the spotlight on state occasions, often with a royal party on board, Vasaorden has to be handled very carefully so that she does not carry too much way, with a fair wind and perhaps a current, and pass the pontoon or if the oars are tossed too soon, fail to reach it.

Judging from the footage from the wedding, the royal couple seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the mini cruise on board the Vasaorden. As they were welcomed on board the commander of Vasaorden even had a little private bouquet of yellow and blue flowers for the bride. I am sure that I will eventually find some souvenir picture of Victoria and Daniel on Vasaorden to put where my old painting was stolen.

June Blog

2010-05-29T15:18:00.001-07:00

This current issue of Swedish Press really illustrates the many advantages of electronics.

For the first time you are not only going to be able to read this month's interview with Carl Johan De Geer, but also listen to it in the electronic issue of Swedish Press.

This means that subscribers to the electronic Swedish Press get a considerable amount of "bonus" material, as a certain amount of an interview gets cut in the edited and printed version. (However as with all things electronic, this launch comes with a cautionary note - we have not yet been able to check out the audiofile in action and can only hope there will be no glitches.)

One thing that we know works beautifully is the SweMail service that is taken care of by a dedicated group of volunteers who translate the Swedish parts of Swedish Press. (All you have to do to get this free service is to send your e-mail address to anders@nordicway.com or go to the site at http://members.shaw.ca/swemail1). As both the interview and the Last Word this month are in Swedish, it is a good time to join the growing number of SweMail fans. Were it not for the Internet and the voluntary spirit of the SweMail translators, Swedish Press would not be able to offer this unique service.

On pages 17-19 you can read about my pet project "Around Swedish America in 548 Days" that I could not have brought to fruition without the Internet. There is just so much material that it would require a 500+ page book to fit it all in. Furthermore with the Internet you can easily locate the places of interest on the Google map making this trip so much more fun. This is in fact the most complete documentation of what is Swedish in the United States and Canada and it is free. I hope you will all check this trip out at nordicway.com!

What excites me most about the electronic issue of Swedish Press is that the whole magazine is in color. We would of course love to print in full color, but that would have meant economic ruin for this historic publication. But now we are able to offer this electronically and at a lower cost to boot ($25 compared to $29 for the mailed magazine). Plus if you switch to the electronic version you are helping to save trees.

Furthermore the price difference between the electronic version and the print version of Swedish Press is unfortunately soon going to be somewhat bigger as postage and production costs have gone up so much that we will have to raise the subscription price of the printed magazine for the first time since 2001.

I myself love the feel of the paper, even the smell of print when we get a fresh copy. My generation will never be able to completely abandon our love for books, magazines and newspapers. So you have my assurance that we are not going to get rid of the paper edition of Swedish Press.

Have a really nice June

Anders

May Blog

2010-04-26T23:03:00.000-07:00

On Good Friday we had dinner with friends in Säljemar, just north of Gävle. Sitting in their glassed-in verandah overlooking the still frozen Baltic Sea in the hazy light of dusk, we could not have asked for a more picture-perfect setting.

Suddenly our host pointed out to the ice and we all turned to look.

"It's a wolf," I cried. The big and squarish animal that was walking across the ice along the horizon could not have been anything else. We were not all in agreement about what we had seen. There were more people around the table who believed what we had seen was a fox. But this animal was too big and did not seem to have the nimbleness of a fox.

It all happened so quickly that we unfortunately had no time to take a closer look at the animal through binoculars.

There are more wolves in Sweden now than there have been for almost a hundred years. 27 wolves or about ten percent of the population was culled in the winter in the first (sanctioned) wolf-hunt in more than fifty years (SwPress Mar10).

Wolves have been spotted in the south of Sweden, in Stockholm suburbs and on the ice close to where we were near Gävle. Three wolves were recently killed by a train in Dalarna. The police even followed one lone wolf that crossed right through the center of Stockholm one night.

Still it is a privilege to actually see one.

April Blog

2010-04-08T22:44:00.000-07:00

Just got a letter from TV3 in Sweden asking me if I could recommend some Swedish women in North America for the popular Swedish Hollywood Wives series. I have never seen it, but have, of course, heard lots about it. The docu-show, that is now in its third season (SwPr Oct09), has, above all, really exposed the difference in values between Sweden and Beverly Hills.

The outspoken Swedish wife of crooner Paul Anka created a big controversy when she listed the number of people working in her household and talked about the advantages of "the service-minded US society" compared to Sweden where people “come home and sulk and have to clean and iron".

"Swedish dads are tragic with all their diaper-changing and equality nonsense ... Sexually it is the woman's responsibility to ensure that the man is satisfied, if she does not then she only has herself to blame if he is unfaithful," were some of the other words of wisdom from Anna Anka, who has since been separated from her husband.

This kind of political incorrectness did not go over well with Swedes but the ensuing debate rendered the television programme even more publicity.

Meter Film & Television, that produces Svenska Hollywoodfruar, now wants to find "thrilling and inspiring women with strong personalities" beyond Hollywood. They want to "widen their scope".

I can come up with a lot of admirable Swedish women in North America with "that get go spirit", that the producers are looking for, and who "grab opportunities and are willing to share”. But when I take a look at the current crop I wonder if my candidates would make it, as the programme is so clearly just looking for rich, beautiful and glamorous women.

I just don’t know any women who have two identical Rolls Royces (in case one needs to go for repairs), live next door to Kiefer Sutherland and Al Pacino or in a mansion that seats 500 at dinner, have their drinks mixed by Bill Clinton and sing snaps songs with Prince Charles.

My choices are different and would probably not cause the same level of "royal Swedish envy," which perhaps is the secret behind the success of Svenska Hollywoodfruar.

March Blog

2010-03-06T21:02:00.000-08:00

Among the old unread magazines that tend to pile up in our home, I found an issue of the women’s magazine Amelia from 1996. Leafing through it, I came upon a most unusual ode to the Swedish man by Miss Sweden 1993 Johanna Lind.

“Boring, emancipated and honest Swedish men are clearly the best in the world.” Ms Lind has a particular fondness for the middle-aged Swedish man who, she feels, has been unfairly singled out by society as the butt of jokes and even bullying.

“He is constantly being told that he is plump, boring and totally unable to give compliments” while in reality he is quite unique with his “square honesty and lack of pretense”. She even feels that there should be a Swedish Man’s Day (like Father’s Day) that should be celebrated each year with gifts in the form of underwear, cake in bed and free entrance to dances.

According to Johanna Lind, “Swedish men don’t brag about their riches. Instead they pretend to be poorer than they are and let members of the opposite sex pay for their own drinks. They want to be appreciated for their inner qualities and not for what they have in the bank.”

It was Ms Lind’s year out in the big world, after she was crowned Miss Sweden, that awoke her appreciation for the Swedish man. The men she met in New York were always flaunting their wealth, leading her on with lofty promises and smart tricks. Playboy types would invite her to go on vacations in Acapulco and elsewhere while her agent suggested that a sexual relationship with him wouldn’t be a bad thing for a rising star.

Johanna Lind is by no means suggesting that Swedish men will not, after just a few rounds on the dance floor, make a sexual proposal. “But their straightforwardness is an advantage,” she says, because then you can tell them off right away. And often they are relieved because they are actually on the lookout for “a down-to-earth girl who likes to take walks in the woods and potter in the cottage”.

Johanna Lind feels that Swedish women should plain and simply show more appreciation for their men and has put together this maintenance list for their care:

Don’t order your men around, ask him nicely for help.
Leave him alone sometimes. Let him sit and read the paper for an hour in the washroom, without knocking on the door. 3. Show him appreciation more often.
Don’t ever accuse him of being boring.
Don’t make heavy demands on him. Men do not notice that the cactus needs watering or that the bedroom floor is covered with old socks.
Don’t go to family counseling, listen instead to the texts of Swedish pop songs that point out what is important in life, things like we must live for each other…

She is in essence describing the middle-aged engineer type you would find on the dance floor of the central hotel in a provincial city in the 90s. Much has changed since then especially in the bigger cities and among the younger generations, and the differences between American and Swedish men may not be as significant any longer.

But there are bits and pieces in this reflection that certainly hold true to this day.

Unless she is pulling our legs.

February Blog

2010-01-28T15:47:00.000-08:00

Here in Vancouver we are now counting the days to the Winter Olympics. In fact the entire province of British Columbia, as well as the rest of Canada, is gearing up for the games with mounting excitement, partly thanks to a torch relay that is touching neighbourhoods all over the country.

Everywhere you go in Vancouver the talk is all about the expensive tickets people have managed to get or, more often than not, been unsuccessful at getting. There is a lot of talk about people getting exorbitant rents for their houses but then there are just as many people still hoping to make some money on that extra bedroom. Vancouverites worry about commuting during the games while parking restrictions are already in force within an ever-growing perimeter around the venues.

In Whistler the skiing has been fantastic with the added bonus of shorter line-ups as the usual crowd has kept away during this Olympic year, something that was expected judging from the experience of former Olympic hosts.

In the February issue of Swedish Press you can read about a local cross country legend (page 27), the Swedish Olympic team (24-25), how the King and Queen will be received by the Swedish community (15) and an interview with Gunilla Lindberg of the IOC (20-21). We will report on the Swedish medals in the next issue!

With all this talk of the Olympics I thought of my maternal grandfather. Turning to the worldwide web, I was thrilled to find out that Henrik Horn af Åminne, with his horse Omen, really took gold as part of the Swedish equestrian team in the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm.

In those days the competition was only open to male military officers on active duty. Today the equestrian competition comprises dressage, cross-country and show jumping, but during grandfather’s time there was also a long distance ride (55K in 4 hours) and a steeplechase course.

My grandfather also competed in the individual event and he was leading after the first three trials. But during the show jumping competition one of the straps of his brand new saddle from Palmgrens (the Hermès of Sweden) broke and although he cleared all the jumps, the strap touched so many that he only came in as number 16. Instead of being close to gold, my grandfather finished as number ten individually.

There was a story circulating in Stockholm that grandfather, who was both a rather choleric military man and a count - used to getting his way - was so upset that he went straight to Palmgrens and, with his riding crop, gave the owner a good flogging for selling him a defect saddle.

January Blog

2010-01-11T13:55:00.000-08:00

Through the years we have written extensively about Raoul Wallenberg in the swedish Press magazine. The Swedish hero, who saved tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest during World War II, was taken into "protective custody" by the Soviet Union on January 17, 1945 and was never to be heard of again. In the February issue we bring you a revealing article by Josh Prager about the inefficiency of the Swedish government to come to Raoul Wallenberg’s aid, and the toll this tradgedy took on his family.

The story of Raoul Wallenberg is somewhat special to me as there have been family associations through the generations. My paternal grandfather started his career as an officer in the Swedish navy the same year as Raoul Wallenberg’s father. The two became good friends and so did their wives and I still have photos of the two couples sailing in the Stockholm archipelago.

Raoul Wallenberg’s father died of cancer before Raoul was born. His mother Maj later married Fredrik von Dardel with whom she had two children, Guy and Nina. When Guy started a company in Sweden my grandfather was one of the board members.

The von Dardels rented an apartment in a building that my maternal grandmother owned on Strandvägen in Stockholm. My mother lived there too, and when a Hunga-rian Jewish friend wrote to her asking for help, my mother wrote to Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest. I still remember the two letters he wrote back because of the German censorship stamps all over them.

Unfortunately the letters have disappeared, but I know that Raoul Wallenberg saved my mother's friend and her whole family.

A few years ago when I visited Raoul Wallenberg’s half-sister Nina Lagergren, to interview her (SwPr Dec01) the first thing she did was to bring out a family album and show pictures of me as a six-year-old playing with her daughter Nan (who is now married to the former Secre-tary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan). As my parents are long dead I did not know that our families had been close, but my conversation with Nina Lagergren brought back memories. I remembered her children’s play-house and even a long discussion at their breakfast table about whether one should crack or cut a boiled egg open.

It really is a small world in Stockholm.

If you happen to be in Vancouver on Raoul Wallenberg Day January 17, please join us at the Jewish Community Center where the Chair of “The International Commission of Inquiry into the Fate and Whereabouts of Raoul Wallenberg”, Irwin Cotler will speak of the Swedish hero's fate.

December Blog

2009-11-26T20:49:00.000-08:00

This is the time of the year (I wrote in Swedish Press in August 1993) when we hear from many readers about happy summer visits with friends and relatives in Sweden. Generally the stories are about joyful memories, but every now and again the tales are tainted with a certain bitterness.

“I was staying in a hotel when I was over there so as not to be of any inconvenience to my relatives. Instead of inviting me home, ten of them came over to the hotel and had dinner on me”.

“When they visit us over here it’s I who has to take them out to a restaurant. When I visit them in Sweden it’s still I who have to pay when we go out”.

“When I visit my sister she is always complaining about how expensive everything is over there, making me feel guilty”.

“In Sweden there is a saying that guests and fish smell bad after three days. I try to live by that when I visit my friends and relatives in Sweden. But when they come over here, it’s somehow like the long trip gives them licence to stay as long as they like”.

“They said that they had only made local calls, not knowing that over here we get an itemized phone bill so I could see exactly how many calls they had made to Sweden”.

“When I stay with my brother or sister in Sweden I always make a point of contributing in any way I see possible. When they are here they are just out shopping for bargains to bring back to Sweden.”

The recurring theme in most of these unfortunate tales is the feeling that many Swedes believe that their North American relatives are better off than they are.

This is a myth with a history. To justify the hardship of emigration in the 19th century, many Swedes overstated their success in the new country when they wrote home. The stories about the rich relatives who had made it big in America were further inflated as they spread in the villages. In this way the eldest son who got the farm did not need to have a bad conscience and could instead expect largesse when the “rich” relatives paid a visit to the old homeland.

My personal peeve on this subject is that very few of my Swedish friends and relatives show any particular interest in my life over here. I have even discussed this with them and the explanation is most often that they find it hard to relate to it. Many of the people I know in Sweden still receive me like I have never been away. I guess I should take this as a compliment and it is probably a testimony of a strong relationship.

When all is said and done the most important thing is the contact and I am sure the small irritants that occur are soon forgotten.

November Blog

2009-10-31T15:43:00.000-07:00

There was a time when visitors to Sweden marveled at how clean it was everywhere. No cigarette butts or wrappers on the pavement and no garbage or abandoned cars out in nature. Sad to say this is no longer true.

Similarly when I was young there were no homeless people in Sweden, except for a vagrant or two who rejected the nice apartments they were offered by the social services, choosing to live a freer life instead. Now this has changed too, and in Stockholm I see people digging into garbage cans in search of cans and bottles.

Now besides this anecdotal evidence, I also have the statistics. There are between 3 100 and 3 200 homeless people in Stockholm. Almost a quarter of them are women.

In these tough economic times the Department for the Homeless in Stock-holm is dealing with 30 percent more clients, at a time when it is facing a million kronor cutback in its budget. It is a terrible dilemma says one of the social workers as the clients "have nothing, no money, no food, nowhere to live and hardly any clothes".

The concept of homelessness is no longer foreign to Swedes and this is evident in the psychological thriller Missing that we wrote about in SwedenNow the other month. The book is by Karin Alvtegen and the main character is a homeless woman by the name Sybilla in Stockholm.

"Born into a life of privilege, Sybilla has spent the past many years opting instead to live on the streets of Stockholm, cadging a bed, a bath, a meal, where she can. Her favorite technique - one she permits herself only as a special treat - plays out at the Grand Hotel, where with luck and persistence, she can usually charm a lonely visiting businessman into buying her a dinner and a room for the night."

This is a fascinating read where you follow the fate of a woman who has been sheltered by her anonymity but who suddenly becomes the most wanted person in Sweden after the businessman whom she has lured at the Grand Hotel is murdered.

Besides being full of suspense, Missing presents a very real-life picture, survival techniques and all, of a homeless person in the Swedish capital.

Have a nice November!

Anders

October Blog

2009-10-10T15:24:00.000-07:00

The October issue of Swedish Press is traditionally our car issue where we take a closer look at the new Volvo and Saab models. As far as I can remember both Volvo and Saab have also always advertised in this issue. This year things are different and it does not come as a big surprise, what with the turbulence in the automotive industry. Hopefully by next year there will be some clarity in the ownership of both the Swedish cars and we can look forward to having them back as advertisers. In the meantime there are exciting things happening at Saab and Volvo, the economic crisis not withstanding, that you can read about on page 13.

With declining advertising, we have space for more reader service. This month we bring you the new baking book by Swedish TV chef Leila Lindholm whom you can read about on page 37. We are also offering for sale my book God Jul, about Swedish Christmas as seen through old Christmas cards.

God Jul was first published by Bonniers in Stockholm in 1978, so I was both surprised and delighted when Skyhorse Publishing in New York asked for my permission to publish it in English. I was a bit concerned about the reproduction as the films for the original book are long gone in this age of digital printing. But the printers in China have done a masterful job of scanning in all the beautiful cards and I have not found any mistakes in the typesetting that was done in India.

God Jul has been the all-time "Christmas book" best-seller in Sweden, so I hope it will do well over here too. (I will personally dedicate a copy of it for you if you indicate this on your order).

The book came about by pure chance at a time when I was the art director of the Uppsala company Scandecor, that was the world's biggest purveyor of posters and photo walls as well as other graphic products. Scandecor also represented Hallmark Cards in the Nordic region. In its marketing for Hallmark products, Scandecor found that Swedes did not warm up to the American-style Christmas cards. I was asked to find Swedish motifs and by chance mentioned this at a dinner I was attending and instantly got two different tips of private collections of Christmas cards. Going through these collections, I was completely enamored by all the fantastic cards and decided to put the best ones in a book! It was gratifying to see that the thousands of Swedes who bought my book as well as the critics felt the same way.

Have a really nice October!

Anders

September Blog

2009-08-26T20:10:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you but I have not seen many exciting draws around in recent years - you know trips to Paris or Las Vegas that were just a grocery ballot away (no purchase necessary). There are plenty of sales, bargains and offers of all kinds, but nothing much to dream about.

And good draws make for great pipe dreams.

For one of the best in a long time check out the back cover this month. Imagine staying at one of the Leading Hotels of the World across from the Stockholm Royal Palace. You cannot find a finer hotel or a better location in Stockholm. You have the best of Sweden's capital within walking distance. Grand Hotel itself is a place of such grandeur and history that it warrants a special article later this fall.

Your dream also includes a stay in Iceland's capital where you will also be so close to everything that you will really get to know one of the most fascinating places in the Nordic region. Start planning!

The first draws I ever entered, as a kid in Sweden, were for a dog, and a Kalle Anka competition where the first prize was a trip to the newly started Disneyland. I remember that my greatest worry was what I would do with the dog while I was in California. This was a moot point as I did not win either prize.

In our draw you have a very real chance of winning because we have relatively few entries. So this is not like the big lotteries which after all are nothing more than "a tax on people who cannot do their math!" This is the real thing.

In the 90s Swedish Press used to have some kind of a draw almost every year. Subscribers used to call to find out when the next one was going to be so that they could plan their renewals and gift-giving accordingly. I see that our last draw was in 2002, so it was really time for a new one, especially this year when we celebrate our 80th Anniversary. I hope each and every one of you will enter in the draw. I am sure you all know at least one other person who would enjoy the SwedishPress but does not have a subscription. Or perhaps you could subscribe to Scandinavian. Or you could do that and give a gift and renew your own subscription to add to your chances of winning a trip of a lifetime. And if you give away two gift subscriptions, we have an extra gift for you!

Have a nice September!

Anders

PS.

Please note that the October issue will be a bit later than usual because I am going to be in Sweden and Iceland during the next three weeks. If you want to follow my trip "Around Swedish America in 365 Days" you can now get a daily prompt from Twitter for "swedishpress" that will tell you where the virtual trip is each day. You can also follow us on the map at www.nordicway.com/tour.

August Blog

2009-07-28T23:45:00.000-07:00

Swedes love to travel but this summer many of them are staying at home. Quite a few have a second home in the countryside or the archipelago so they will be just fine, thank you. More Swedes than usual are also exploring new places in Sweden this year, like hiking in the National Parks (that we write about on pages 16-19). When asked why they are not traveling some say it is because of the environment, but the more common reason is the economy.

A lot more people in North America are also staying home or finding destinations closer to home. It can actually be quite nice to take a break without all the stress of travel, customs and other hassles on the road. Myself, I have done a lot of virtual travel lately when writing the daily installments of "Around Swedish America in 365 Days". The trip that you too can follow at www.nordicway.com/tour, is a neat way of finding out about new places without leaving home. It has been an adventure for me, with all the interesting Swedes on this continent and their amazing accomplishments.

I recently found out that the man behind the Indian motorcycle, that was the first motorcycle in America, was none other than the Swede Carl Hedström. The mechanical genius made the Indian into the world's most advanced and best-selling bike in 1907. He even set a new record, riding a mile on the Florida sands on one of his Indian machines in 1 minute and 3.2 seconds. He called it quits at a board meeting because of a disagreement over the company’s dubious practice of inflating its stock value and retired to his Connecticut estate at age 42 (see day 203).

When I saw old war movies I always wondered how they could shoot straight forward from a plane without damaging the propellers. Now I know that it was Gustaf Swebelius (Day 209), the son of a watchmaker in Vingåker, who solved the difficult problem of synchronizing machine gun fire with the airplane propeller, so that bullets could be fired between the blades.

In New Haven on Day 210 you can read about Oscar Mossberg who made a name for himself with the Mossberg rifles. Not to be confused with Frank Mossberg (Day 199) who invented an electric automobile before Henry Ford launched his internal combustion engine.

I had always wanted to do the Swedish-American trip by myself in a car. I might still do that, but for now I am quite content to do it on the internet using my laptop and basking in the sun on the patio.

Have a really nice August!

Anders

PS.

So many readers wanted to see Swedish Press in full color, that we have extended the offer of a free copy of the electronic edition of Swedish Press. All you need to do is email anders@nordicway.com with "free offer" in the subject line.

July Blog

2009-07-02T16:10:00.001-07:00

Let me start by assuring all readers that the paper edition of Swedish Press will not be scrapped. We are however making improvements to our electronic edition this year - our 80th year of publishing - with a hope that more readers will see this as a good alternative. And right now you can check this out for free.

Many of you will appreciate the full-color magazine that you get quicker and for less money and doing your bit for the environment at the same time. For overseas subscribers a switch makes even more sense as they can get Swedish Press quicker than the subscribers in the US and Canada, and with a saving of $40 on postage.

Just back from a magazine conference in Toronto, I am happy to report that it is not all gloom and doom in the publishing industry, unless you are a newspaper.

The largest newspapers in the United States have lost between a half and a third of their readership. Coupled with that, their advertising revenue has dropped by a third since 2005, and a further loss of 20 percent is expected this year. The result is that many newspapers, like the 150 year old Rocky Mountain News, are throwing in the towel. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ceased publishing and so will the San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Enquirer, Chicago Tribune and many others. The *Financial Times even published a death notice "in loving memory 1764-2009" for the whole American newspaper industry .

Sweden is not immune, and Metro, that has championed free newspapers all over the world, is consolidating its Swedish editions, concentrating primarily on Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö. Many experts now argue that the free papers will ultimately not have been more than a parenthesis in media history. Some of the same experts are also predicting the end of all printed papers and even books for that matter.

The problem for magazines is the drop in advertising revenues coupled with a rise in costs, especially for mailing. The postal services, suffering from falling revenues themselves, are hiking up the postage for publications since it is really only these (and bills) that they are dealing with today.

The Internet is being hailed as the savior, but most newspapers have given up on the idea of making money on their internet ventures, as it is only niched titles like the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times that have until now managed to charge for their news. But for magazines electronic editions may well be the way of the future. This makes a lot of sense when you consider that about 70% of the magazines you see for sale in the supermarket and stores are not sold. They are recycled or end up in landfills. So it makes a lot of sense for us at Swedish Press to maintain both a “paper” and a rich media “electronic” edition of the magazine.

Have a nice July

Anders

Let me know if you want to see “What is fast, green and in full color” (see offer on the left) and I will get you a first look at Swedish Press in full color! You will understand why I am so excited.

June Blog

2009-05-23T03:17:00.000-07:00

One of the strong memories I have from the time I was about ten years old or so is that of being kept up one night because of a very loud conversation going on in the neighbourhood on a warm summer night. Today that wakeful night is a good conversation piece, but I remember bitterly whining the following day about the one VERY loud voice and the constant clinking of glasses.

I grew up in one of the prettiest parts of Stockholm, across from Skansen, in the little town of Djurgården (that you can read more about on page 17). One of our closest neighbours was Nadeshta Nilsson, the owner of the nearby Gröna Lund, and she always hosted a dinner on her terrace for Jussi Björling after his annual concert. It was his powerful voice that had kept me awake all that night.

Living so close to Gröna Lund meant putting up with quite a bit of noise during the summer when the tivoli was open, most of it not from such an eminent source as Jussi Björling. However we were amply compensated as residents of Djurgårdsstaden had a free pass to Gröna Lund. This was a great privilege especially when stars like Paul Anka and Ray Charles were performing.

I spent quite a lot of time at Gröna Lund during the rest of the year also thanks to Nadeshta Nilsson's grandchildren, "the wild brothers Lindgren" who attended the same school as me.

Jussi Björling, who died before he was 50, was one of the world's foremost tenors. And according to the widow of Enrico Caruso "the only one worthy of wearing his mantle". Jussi toured Swedish America already as a young boy with his father and three brothers to perform under the "Bjoerling Male Choir" banner. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1938 and toured extensively and triumphantly in Europe and North America for the next 22 years. Jussi Björling's appearances at opera houses in New York, Chicago and San Francisco were eagerly awaited each season. But he also crisscrossed the country to perform in concerts and recitals as well as on radio and later television.

One of the places he sang to sellout audiences was Vancouver. Fans here are in for a treat this midsummer when the Scandinavian Centre presents the Tribute to Jussi Björling concert featuring local tenor Richard Tyce who will sing many of the classics that Jussi Björling became so famous for (see page 31).

Despite his enormous popularity across three continents, Jussi remained a humble and simple man. On one of his visits to Vancouver he beat the Swedish Cultural Society president in arm wrestling and the Swedish Press editor in a “fingerkrok” locked-fingers tug of war. And that was quite an achievement, wrote a humiliated Matt Lindfors in Swedish Press, because there were very few who had managed to beat him at his game.

Have a nice Midsummer!

Anders

PS. If you ever wanted to find your lost cousin, rent out your cottage in Sweden or make money on your children’s forgotten Brio wooden toys, Swedish Press offers you a free classified ad on page 32. It’s one of the ways we celebrate our 80th!

May Blog

2009-04-26T01:11:00.000-07:00

Have you heard the story about the hot dog vendor who had a son studying economics at the University of Uppsala?

One day this learned son came home and asked his father if he had heard about the bad times - the recession? No, the father did not know anything about this but now that he did, he would of course become more cautious and curtail his expenses. Every single purchase was closely scrutinized, and our korvgubbe even decided to make do with his old sign that had over time become a bit scruffy. And sure enough sales started dropping. With things looking like they did, the hot dog vendor stopped going out as much as he had done before.

And now he really understood how right his son had been about the bad times.

I found this story in an old editorial in Swedish Press from 1991 during another recession. It is reassuring to see that we did manage to ride that one out.

In the same vein Swedish Press, that was founded by some braves souls at the very worst of times, right at the beginning of the "dirty thirties," has, despite many close calls and near-collapses, managed to survive and is still going strong.

If we were to follow the advice of the most pessimistic of the ubiquitous pundits right now, we would be lying low and staying away from any extra expenses. But keeping to the Swedish Press tradition we are celebrating the publication’s 80th birthday this month with the "special supplement" (that you can keep as a memento by simply tearing out pages 3-16 and 29-42) and a fantastic party that you are all welcome to (see pages 8 and 39).

During times like we are now experiencing in North America and in Sweden, it is more important than ever to count our blessings. At Swedish Press we are especially grateful to the organizations, companies and institutions that are helping us to sponsor this jubilee, as well as to all readers who are joining in the celebration.

Because if it wasn’t for you, Swedish Press could so easily have gone the way of the more than 2 000 Swedish papers in North America that ceased publishing.

We don't need sons studying economics to tell us that times are bad. The important thing is that we handle the bad times in the most positive way.

Have a really nice May!

Anders

PS.

Go to www.nordicway.com if you want to have a look at a full colour and environmental Swedish Press (see page 2).

April Blog

2009-03-27T00:50:00.000-07:00

There are not many things that are as exciting as organizing a big party. (Those of you who have organized weddings may disagree). Swedish Press has had two great - still talked about - anniversary parties in the past, so now it is a real challenge to make the 80th jubilee party (see page 8) the one to top them all when it comes to exceptional entertainment, food and drink!

We are so lucky to get Magnus Martensson to entertain us before he takes off for bigger stages. This fall he is going on an extensive tour of the USA and Canada, that those in the know predict, will be the big break for this very talented and funny young entertainer (interviewed on page 20).

"I want to be there too," writes singersongwriter Michael Saxell (SwPr Sep08) from Ystad. He has booked his flight and will be a special treat with such Swedish favorites as När en Flicka Talar Skånska (When a girl speaks the Skania dialect) from the creator, who also has a colourful history on the Canadian music scene where he collaborated with Randy Bachman and others.

"Where can we stay?" asked some guests from Seattle so I contacted the closest hotel to the Scandinavian Centre. The luxurious Delta Burnaby Hotel and Conference Centre, that is part of the brand new Grand Villa Casino, opens at the end of the month of april, and our guests can stay there at a very special rate of $149.

The welcoming drink at the 60th and 70th anniversary parties were sparkling wines all the way from Sweden. This year you will enjoy a very special Swedish-American "champagne" from the Sjoeblom Winery in Napa Valley.

IT entrepreneur Michael Sjöblom produces a unique Cabernet Sauvignon sparkling wine under the strict laws of the French Methode Champenois, that connoisseurs are raving about.

These kinds of out-of the-ordinary details are not a breeze to bring together. For one anniversary, we had arranged to get a shipment of the Swedish Kroner sparkling wine through its US agent. On the morning of the party it had still not arrived. I called New York and was told that they had forgotten to ship the boxes and now it was too late!

With six hours to go, I got the telephone number to suppliers on the west coast who could possibly have bottles of Kroner. I located a warehouse in Los Angeles with three cases and a warehouse manager who personally drove the cases to the airport and made sure they were on the first available flight. The champagne was speeded through customs and arrived at the Swedish Hall literally minutes before the guests did.

Some people may ask why we bother to take on this big job of organizing a party. To that I say that Swedish Press deserves a great celebration. It has made it through all these years while over two thousand other Swedish American publications have folded.

We would love to see you all at the party but that is of course an impossibility. But perhaps you will honour the magazine with a greeting or best of all give Swedish Press the gift of a new subscriber on this its 80th year of publishing!

Have a nice April!

Anders

P.S.

As I am writing this, Erik Mara phones to tell me that in a Swedish Press from 1975 it says that the paper was started in 1927 - so we are two years late with the jubilee! My research found the very first issue in the fall of 1928, and you can read more in next month’s jubilee issue.

March Blog

2009-02-25T21:44:00.000-08:00

If you are following my virtual trip "Around Swedish America in 365 Days" (at nordicway.com) you know that I am virtually somewhere in Minneapolis right now. In reality I am hard at work in Vancouver getting this issue out to you.

I say this because there are still some readers who think that I am actually doing the trip in person. They would be surprised to know that when I wrote about the manhunt for the Mad Trapper of Rat River (on Day 22 of the trip) I was actually doing it from India (-see pages 16-19 and 23).

That is the beauty of modern telecommunications - that you can publish a magazine or on the web from absolutely anywhere in the world albeit, in my case, with a few technological problems that were quickly fixed by a more computer-savvy daughter.

Right now I am wondering if the virtual tour should make its way back to Vancouver on May 9 for the celebration of the 80th anniversary of Swedish Press. As you can see on page 8, we will celebrate this important jubilee with a commemorative issue and a banquet. We very much hope that you, dear Reader and Supporter, will join our guest of honour, Ingrid Iremark, Sweden's Ambassador to Canada, on this special occasion to pay tribute to Swedish Press. Welcome to the banquet! And if you would like to send a congratulatory note to the paper, please fill in the coupon on page 4.

This will be the third time your present editor is participating in a jubilee celebration and in all likelihood this will be the last. So we hope to see you there. We have some great memories from the last two celebrations and this one will be the one to top them all!

Most jubilees come and go as a matter of course. A celebration is just a way to remind us of the passing of time. In the case of Swedish Press there would be nothing to celebrate if the publication had not proved itself over and over again and managed to stay alive!

There have been over 2 000 Swedish publications in North America through the years. Now there are only 2 left. So a celebration is really in order.

Have a nice March!

Anders

PS. You can read about singer Alice Babs' anniversary on page 30 and purchase her Jubilee Edition CDs with 28 newly discovered and previously unreleased tracks on page 36 (the back cover).

February Blog

2009-01-24T21:00:00.000-08:00

As late as in 1986 when I took over the Swedish Press, many visitors to the office, especially old-timers, would talk nostalgically about the mighty printing press, and the particular smell of the ink and the sound of the steady churning-out of fresh newspapers that they would encounter in the good old days.

That was how it was when 'Svenska Pressen' saw the light of day 80 years ago at Vancouver's Victory Square. The premises of Swedish Press have been shrinking ever since then and today the paper resides in a home office with steadily shrinking computers.

Ernie Poignant, who celebrates his 90th birthday on February 4, still has vivid memories of the early days of Svenska Pressen. In 1947 when he left his father's chicken farm in Matsqui and got his first job at Swedish Press, the paper was housed in its own building in central Vancouver with six employees and a huge printing press. Now that was a real newspaper. (For the 60th anniversary of Swedish Press in 1989, Ernie prepared a humoristic portable exhibit about the early days of the paper that is available for clubs and events).

After two years at Swedish Press, Ernie (who had failed his grade one English because he had grown up with only Swedish around him) was ready to move on, as a full-fledged compositor, to the Cariboo Observer and later on to the Maple Ridge Gazette.

"I still have most of my marbles," says Ernie. Since his retirement in 1983, he has been busier than ever presenting his "chalk talks" and cartoons for pre-schoolers, at shopping malls, Sunday schools, retirement homes and hospitals and more. During the Christmas season, he was in his usual place at the Burnaby Village looking as dapper as ever. Acollection of his cartoons has been published in the book People, Pencil and Paper.

"The cartoons are oddly touching, in their gentle wit and in the sheer exuberance of their drawing. I didn't laugh out once but I noticed, when I turned the last page, that I had been smiling all the way through all these kind and gentle works of a kind and gentle man," reads the introduction by Mark Hamilton, whom Ernie met at the Gazette.

I can't do much more than agree while I can only hope for a fraction of Ernie's vitality if I make it to the grand old age of 90. In the meantime here's wishing Ernie Poignant continued good health so that he can bring many more smiles to hearts young and old!

Have a nice February

Anders

PS. If you haven't yet done it, go to http://www.nordicway.com and see how we are faring on the Swedish Press trip "Around Swedish America in 365 days"! Also see page 4.

January Blog

2009-01-04T23:32:00.000-08:00

Ever since I took over as Editor of Swedish Press I have wanted to make a trip through Swedish America. There are so many places where Swedes settled and left markers of all kinds, from the base camp where the Viking's first landed at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland to Ann-Margret's handprints outside the Mann Chinese Theatre in West Hollywood. There are virtually thousands of Swedish landmarks worth visiting.

I have managed to visit quite a few of these through the years (and you can read about many of them at "Places" on our NordicWay.com web site). But during a jubilee year like 2009, when Swedish Press celebrates 80 years of publishing, it would have been great to actually get on the road and travel to many more Swedish landmarks. The idea was to get input from local experts and then drive across the continent in a car with a "Honk if you are Swedish" bumper sticker and try to meet with as many subscribers and locals as possible. I had even talked to Volvo about transportation and to local Swedophiles who had promised to guide and house me.

Then I had a reality check. I simply do not have the time to carry out this fun project, it will have to wait until I am retired.

So now we are on to the next best thing. Thanks to modern technology we are going to do a virtual "Around Swedish America in 365 Days" tour.

On January 1st the trip starts in the little town of Lund on the West Coast of Canada and then you

can follow it on our map across this great continent. Each day we will post a new dispatch about a place with something of Swedish interest at NordicWay.com. So I do hope you have access to a computer! This is going to be a trip of a lifetime and I invite all readers to point out places we simply must visit. Please write or email anders@nordicway.com and help us document Swedish America in a way nobody has ever done before. I think that this will be a great legacy of the only Swedish monthly in North America!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Anders

PS. There have been thousands of Swedish papers in North America through the years but only two are still publishing. So the 80th anniversary of Swedish Press is really worth celebrating. We are planning a Jubilee issue and several historic features. We are going to have a banquet in May and a subscriber draw for a trip to Sweden later in the year as well as other special offers. It is going to be an exciting year starting with the kick-off of our trip Around Swedish America in 365 Days on January 1st at NordicWay.com. Be there!

October Blog

2008-10-22T23:14:00.000-07:00

Reading regularly, as we do, a Swedish daily and a lot of other Nordic publications, we often find ourselves having a different take on world news than the people around us. There are so many important news stories that never seem to make it to the North American continent. Or the take is so different that you wonder if you are reading about the same thing. Recently I have understood that this is not just a perception. A group at the Sonoma State University in California monitor media in the US and each year document important stories that are not written up in the mainstream media. Most of the unreported stories in 2008 in www.projectcensored.org have been about the Iraq occupation. Unreported in the US corporate media is, how over one million Iraqis have met violent deaths resulting from the US led invasion, and a United Nations High Commission for Refugees study that has concluded that five million Iraqis have been displaced by violence in their country. The mainstream media also ignored a report by three hundred Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans about the brutal impact of the ongoing occupations. Neither did mainstream media report that $9 billion in US currency went missing when the United States Federal Reserve shipped $12 billion to Iraq at the beginning of the war. Also not reported in the US news is how the leaders of Canada, the US, and Mexico have been secretly meeting to expand the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to form a militarized tri-national Homeland Security force and how more than 23 000 representatives of US private industry are working with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to collect information on fellow Americans. Unreported news also includes the stories that the Justice Department believes it is legal for the president to secretly ignore previous executive orders anytime he wants to. Among the twenty-five most important uncovered news stories of 2007, selected by the more than 200 academics involved in the study, was one about the more than twenty-seven million slaves in existence in the world today, the radioactive materials from nuclear weapons production sites that are being dumped into public landfills in the US, and the FDA being complicit in allowing drug companies to make false, unsubstantiated, and misleading advertising claims.

September Blog

2008-09-23T20:34:00.000-07:00

I am not much of a sportsman. I do a bit of downhill skiing during the winter, if I get around to it. Right now I am trying to fit in a bit of jogging into my schedule after being challenged to take part in the local Sun Run for the first time last spring, and making a commitment to join next year and achieve a better result. And I don't play golf even though it has become almost obligatory among my peers. Above all, I am completely uninterested in watching any sports and I was, as usual, fascinated by all my friends who followed the Olympics religiously. Maybe this is genetic but then again my grandfather was actually an Olympian, and a gold medalist to boot. He was part of the Swedish military equestrian team, which won the gold medal at the Stockholm Summer Olympics in 1912. My morfar also competed in the individual horse jumping, completing the course without felling any hinder. He could very well have won a medal in this race also had it not been for a leather strap in his new saddle breaking and grazing against every top bar, resulting in a disqualification. (The rumor in Stockholm was that my hot-tempered grandfather then rushed up to the office of Palmgrens, that is still Sweden's foremost saddle maker, and flogged the owner with his whip for selling him something defective). I have sometimes joked with my friends that if there was a competition in something like croquet at the Olympics I might be game. Imagine my surprise when I recently found out that croquet was actually played at the Paris Olympic Games in 1900. The only competitors were French so France won all the medals. This was also the first Olympic event where women took part, but this did likely not sit well with the spectators. There was only one fan watching the women’s events and that was an Englishman who had travelled up from Nice especially for the occasion. As for other unusual Olympic sports, there have been competitions in softball, Glima wrestling and Tug of War, which was actually an integral part of the Ancient Olympics as well as the Summer Olympics between 1900 and 1920. The most successful eight-man team was the British Bobbies that was a given on the podium. Sweden did not have a national team, but at the Stockholm Olympics in 1912 the local police quickly assembled a team (right) and became the surprise winner. All this got me looking into discontinued Olympic sports and there are some real gems here. There was Live Pigeon Shooting (1900, with 300 pigeons shot), Motor-boating (1908), Rope Climb (1986, 1904, 1906, 1924, 1932), Swimming Obstacle Race (1900, competitors had to climb over a pole and scramble over or under some boats on a 200 meter course right in the River Seine) and Jeau de Paume (1908, like squash but using your hand instead of a racquet). Bring these competitions back and add some other quirky ones and even I will become a fan.

August Blog

2008-08-21T21:12:00.000-07:00

Don't believe everything you see on the internet and be skeptical about the e-mail forwards you get! Recently I got an one from a reader with the subject "Who owns this place??? An American billionaire? A Saudi Prince? Louis XIV of France?". What followed were pictures of an opulent palace identified as that of Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe (that you can find on YouTube). Once you have cooled down after the outrage and incredulence (and hopefully before you start forwarding the e-mail to everybody on your list) you take a closer look to verify the authenticity of the pictures. Having been in Africa, I was struck by something very un-African about the palace in the pictures. There is none of the imperfection and there are no glaring blemishes that you get used to seeing at all levels (like the hook for the clothesline in my bathroom at the Hilton Hotel in Nairobi, that I had to take a picture of because it was upside down and hence could never ever have been used for hanging wash with during the thirty years the hotel had been in existence). Back on the internet I found not only several sites containing the pictures of Robert Mugabe's alleged mansion, but also many others with a lot of insight that to me pointed to the pictures being fake. The alleged mansion does not have the blue Chinese pagoda-style roof that shows up on the authentic aerial photographs of the actual mansion. And the aerial photographs have no signs of the opulent outdoor swim-ming pool in the alleged mansion photos. The two buildings are simply not one and the same. Bloggers also note that one of the bedrooms looks a lot like a hotel suite with a kitchenette at the far end of the room. One room has a sign with Arabic text, likely something from the koran, while Mugabe is a Catholic. Another blogger recalls that he has seen the pictures linked to other African leaders in the past. It is all good reading but you cannot be sure about the accuracy of the information. As I was doing research on this month’s Pågen CompanyFile I ran into a site (lukpac.org/~handmade/patio/misc/pogen.html) that argues that Frank Zappa is singing about Pågens Tosca cookies in the song Florentine Pogens that begins with the line: "She was the daughter of a wealthy Florentine Pogen, ‘Read 'em & weep’ was her adjustable slogan". There is more than a page about this Swedish connection that I think must be a joke, but who knows. There is however a true Swedish connection. When Zappa and his Mothers of In-vention played in Stockholm in 1968 he met a girl backstage who told him that her brother was a big fan, but had not been allowed to come to the concert by the parents. "But then we'll go and visit him," said Zappa and out they drove to the family's apartment in the suburb of Hägersten. The boy was woken up by the bearded musician with the words "Hi, I'm Frank Zappa". The legendary musician then stayed up all night talking politics with the parents. (And perhaps they had Pågens cookies?) This pre-internet story is true and has been confirmed by several of the tour’s arrangers. Have a nice September Anders PS. Do not even believe all the emails from nordicway.com as that address has been hi-jacked and used for all kinds of spam.

July Blog

2008-07-24T21:34:00.000-07:00

During the last two weeks we have had no cause for complaint about the weather. It has been glorious - sunny, not excruciatingly hot, and above all, not a drop of rain. But before this latest spell of good weather, it was another story. After a dismal winter and a pathetic spring, we were really looking forward to a turnaround in June. But no, we had to accept that we were experiencing global cooling in our part of the world and June was quickly nicknamed "Juneary" by the locals. On the positive side we have had something to talk about and I have been able to indulge in my pet peeve - the unreliable weather forecasts. It infuriates me that they have such a low level of accuracy. One of my retirement projects is going to be the monitoring of the weather forecasts to de-termine how dependable they are. Going by my casual observations in Vancouver I have concluded that the forecasts are wrong about half of the time. This makes me wonder if taxpayers could not save a lot of money by Environment Canada getting rid of some of its 6 000 employees and using a dice for predictions instead. I know that it is clearly much harder to predict weather patterns along the coast, but I find it annoying that the weather reporters never admit their mistakes. Instead they surf over their short-comings with their Hawaiian shirts and evasive glib. I don't know if the situation is any better in Sweden, where the last winter was the warmest ever, or at least since 1756 when temperatures started being recorded. But it is refreshing to see that the weather service, SMHI, at least apologizes for their misses in the Annual Report. Further-more SMHI has just installed a supercomputer that has six times the power of its previous one. During each 24-hour period, four meteorological computations will project the land weather and two computations will project weather at sea. I have never before seen as detailed weather maps. There are even forecasts that can calculate how much wind power a specific wind mill can be expected to produce during the next few days. Back in Vancouver, the bad weather and the lousy forecasts have filled a void in dinner conversations what with real estate prices stalling and putting a damper on Vancouver's No 1 conversation topic!

June Blog

2008-06-18T21:00:00.001-07:00

The Olympic Games in Stockholm, in 1912, were the first to fulfill Baron Pierre de Coubertin's original idea. For the first time since the modern Games had started in 1896, all continents were represented at the games with the 2 504 athletes competing in the same stadium. The ultimate dream of the founder of the Olympics was that it would not be “the winning, it's the taking part and competing well that counts". Only amateurs were to be allowed and there was not to be any political involvement. I myself feel it is important to make a distinction between the competition and the inauguration. While the competitions should be all about sportsmanship and nothing else, the inauguration of an Olympic Game is in essence all about politics. It is a spectacle to showcase the host country at its best. A boycott of the inauguration is now being widely discussed as one way of protesting China's human rights abuses. A Dagens Nyheter sports columnist suggests that the athletes should even be spared from parading in this charade and it should instead be the Swedish IOC board members Gunilla Lindberg, Pernilla Wiberg and Arne Ljungqvist walking around with the Swedish flag by themselves. This will surely not happen but I promise this discussion will come up again before the Russian Winter Olympics in 2014. I think the Dalai Lama has the right idea. He does not want to stop the games, but to allow legitimate protests. The United States and some 60 other countries boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980 to protest the invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviets and their allies did the same with the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. The only ones who suffered were the athletes. The International Olympic Committee has been very upset about the protests along the Torch Relay this year. It should, however, be noted that the Torch Relay was not part of the original Coubertin idea, but a much later clever public relation gimmick by the Nazis for the Berlin Olympics in 1936. It is essentially a political spectacle just like the inauguration and should as such be open for protests. If there is something that the IOC should be upset about, it has to be the fact that China has not honored its human rights commitments. Just like the Nazis never fulfilled their promise to allow German Jews to compete in their games, something that the IOC also chose to ignore. On the whole the International Olympic Committee does not have much of a track record when it comes to ideals (as detailed in Sverker Lindström's Det stora sveket. Den olympiska rörelsen i diktaturens tjänst.) and the Olympics have essentially become all about money. Today many of the athletes are amateurs just by name while sportsmanship continues to take a beating as ever more sophisticated performance enhancement substances evolve. Baron Pierre de Coubertin is probably turning in his grave in Geneva, while his heart, that was buried separately in a monument near the ruins of ancient Olympia, is breaking to pieces.

Swedish Press June 2008 Issue

2008-05-20T07:17:00.000-07:00

The Olympic Games in Stockholm, in 1912, were the first to fulfill Baron Pierre de Coubertin's original idea. For the first time since the modern Games had started in 1896, all continents were represented at the games with the 2 504 athletes competing in the same stadium.

The ultimate dream of the founder of the Olympics was that it would not be “the winning, it's the taking part and competing well that counts". Only amateurs were to be allowed and there was not to be any political involvement.

I myself feel it is important to make a distinction between the competition and the inauguration. While the competitions should be all about sportsmanship and nothing else, the inauguration of an Olym- pic Game is in essence all about politics. It is a spectacle to showcase the host country at its best. A boycott of the inauguration is now being widely discussed as one way of protesting China's human rights abuses. A Dagens Nyheter sports columnist suggests that the athletes should even be spared from parading in this charade and it should instead be the Swedish IOC board members Gunilla Lindberg, Pernilla Wiberg and Arne Ljungqvist walking around with the Swedish flag by themselves. This will surely not happen but I promise this discussion will come up again before the Russian Winter Olympics in 2014.

I think the Dalai Lama has the right idea. He does not want to stop the games, but to allow legitimate protests. The United States and some 60 other countries boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980 to protest the invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviets and their allies did the same with the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. The only ones who suffered were the athletes.

The International Olympic Committee has been very upset about the protests along the Torch Relay this year. It should, however, be noted that the Torch Relay was not part of the original Coubertin idea, but a much later clever public relation gimmick by the Nazis for the Berlin Olympics in 1936. It is essentially a political spectacle just like the inauguration and should as such be open for protests.

If there is something that the IOC should be upset about, it has to be the fact that China has not honored its human rights commitments. Just like the Nazis never fulfilled their promise to allow German Jews to compete in their games, something that the IOC also chose to ignore. On the whole the International Olympic Committee does not have much of a track record when it comes to ideals (as detailed in Sverker Lindström's Det stora sveket. Den olympiska rörelsen i diktaturens tjänst.) and the Olympics have essentially become all about money. Today many of the athletes are amateurs just by name while sportsmanship continues to take a beating as ever more sophisticated performance enhancement substances evolve.

Baron Pierre de Coubertin is probably turning in his grave in Geneva, while his heart, that was buried separately in a monument near the ruins of ancient Olympia, is breaking to pieces.

Swedish Press May 2008 Issue

2008-04-22T22:42:00.000-07:00

In the May'08 issue of Swedish Press you can read Canadian Bob Cox’s thoughtful and fun LastWord about his Swedish Culture Shock.

When the Vikings wanted to tell us something, they had to do it in stone. In this issue we also tell you about these messages in the form of runes and about a runestone safari in Sweden. True fans will go to great lengths to check out runes and there are many discoveries to be made.

In the hills of Colombia in South America there are many stone monuments that date back to centuries before the Spanish conquest of the New World. A few of them look very much like the prehistoric representatives of the God Thor that have been found in Iceland. One of the stone monuments is especially interesting because its headdress features what appears to be runic inscriptions. Skeptics have suggested that the runes could have been carved by modern Scandinavian tourists, but it is unlikely as they are evident on the photographs of the monument from as early as 1863. Similar Viking graffiti has been found on the stone lions in Venice and here it has been verified as authentic carvings by Vikings.

Just like it took many centuries to prove without any doubt that the Vikings reached the American continent, it could take a long time to produce the ultimate proof that the Vikings actually also reached Mexico and Columbia in South America, a thesis launched by several scholars.

According to the Sagas, Ari Marson and his eleven ships never reached Greenland because they were blown off course, but they reached a land where they were "much respected" by the inhabitants.

The Swedish-born Mexican researcher, Gustavo Nelin feels that the description of the "god" Quetzalcoatl, who is said to have appeared around the year 1000, as a middle-aged white man, with long red hair and a grizzled beard, sounds very much like what Ari Marson must have looked like.

Add to that that he is sometimes depicted wearing a sort of medieval clothing favored by the Norse, that he taught the inhabitants to use metal and argued against human sacrifice and it sounds just like a Chris-tianized Norseman. The word Quetzalcoatl means "flying serpent" and that is just what the Vikings called their ships.

Some of the First Nations people in the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Colum-bia are blue-eyed and fair-haired as are the Mandan Indians in Minnesota. Both people have legends similar to the Columbians, of Viking-like white men with beards arriving on their shores and settling down.

Thor Heyerdahl in the book No Boun-daries claims that the Vinlanders lived pri-mitively and left few traces of their existence behind them. Nevertheless Heyerdahl was a true believer of a wider presence of Vikings in North America and he even came to the defence of the much questioned Vinland Map, and such “Norse” artifacts as the Kensington runestone and the mysterious stone tower in Newport R.I..

I have not taken a stand on this issue. But I continue to find the subject truly fascinating and am constantly on the search for more evidence.

Have a nice May!

Anders

April issue of Swedish Press

2008-04-01T16:23:00.000-07:00

One of the inspiring things about this job are the interviews. Some are lots of fun to do, others are more challenging. This month’s interview in Swedish Press was something I had been looking forward to for a while because Jan Guillou is such an iconic figure in Sweden. Controversial as he is, there are few Swedes who do not pay attention to what he has to say. And he had more to say then we had space for.

One of the things I asked Jan Guillou about was the difficulty he had had getting a U.S. visa. He told me about the last time he was on US soil.

“My wife and I were going for Christmas to Tahiti. Only the Air France plane that left from Paris had to go down in Los Angeles for fuel and we thought that was no problem, but not any longer, now everybody had to go through passport control. And I was arrested there.”

Guillou was taken into a troubleshooting room where there were already about 30 “Arab-looking” men waiting for their turn. He was desperate to get back on the plane to his wife, so he did something he “would feel ashamed about later”.

“I walked up to these guys and I said this must be a mistake because as you can see I am a white man. Those were not of course the words I used. Instead of white man, I said Scandinavian citizen. They started to deal with me before the others. They checked the computers again and said I had to be expelled. It was all very polite and we came to the conclusion that the best thing was to expel me on the Air France plane. Because the alternative would be to empty a whole 747 and identify my luggage.”

On his way home, Guillou was back in the same room, and this time it was serious. “I said last time we found a brilliant solution and let’s do the same thing but they said it was different this time as we were going to cross over US territory. Eventually we worked out the same solution.”

When the movie Evil, based on his book, was selected among the five finalists for the Academy Awards in Hollywood, it took Guillou two and a half weeks to get a visa, but by then the director of the film had given Guillou’s invitation to his own wife.

Jan Guillou believes that his visa troubles are the fault of the Swedish secret police who “have forwarded information that does not have to be true, but it is enough with a suspicion”. His espionage conviction from 1973 was taken off the Swedish criminal register after 25 years. Then there is his position on 9-11. Guillou walked out from the Göteborg Book Fair in 2002 in the midst of the three minutes of silence that had been proclaimed throughout Europe to honour the victims of the attacks. Defending his protest in an article in Aftonbladet, Guillou wrote "the U.S. is the great mass murderer of our time. Only the wars against Vietnam and its nearby countries claimed four million lives. Without any minute of silence in Sweden".

He also rejected the notion that the attacks were "an attack on us all" countering that the attacks were only "an attack on U.S. imperialism."The last question that I always end all my interviews with is “What have I forgotten to ask?” This is because everybody has a story they want to tell and sometimes they have not had the chance to do that in the course of the questions we put to them. This is how Jan Guillou answered my last question:

“I never never remember any interview. I have a delete button in my head. When I hang up this telephone I will have forgotten this conversation. This is no disrespect for my fellow journalists. Not at all. On the contrary my principle is that I have never been asked any of these questions before, it is being asked for the first time and I can put myself in a condition that I really believe this. That comes from being interviewed all the time.”

I found this refreshing and, indeed, I did feel that this person, who is regarded as a bit arrogant and as having a huge superiority complex, showed a great deal of respect throughout the long interview that we unfortunately had to cut down quite considerably. Among other bits, we had to cut down some of Jan Guillou’s controversial political views, like his criticism of Israel and the war on terrorism.

So do read the interview in the April issue of Swedish Press!

Swedish Press March 2008

2008-02-26T05:31:00.000-08:00

I just found out that the actress and author Eva Dahlbeck has passed away in February. She had been on my list of future interviews ever since I took over Swedish Press. I was sure her fascinating life would make for a good story, and furthermore I had a personal interest in her as she was my father's cousin. It is sad that the interview never materialized.

Eva Dahlbeck (born 1920 in Saltsjö-Duvnäs on the outskirts of Stock-holm) was a smart blond, and one of Sweden's most popular and successful actresses in the 40s and 50s. Ingmar Bergman described her as his "battleship of femininity" and cast her in many strong female roles where he could also utilize her playful streak. She often co-starred with Gunnar Björnstrand like in Waiting Women (1952) where their scenes are played out largely in a lift stuck between floors, during which time they achieve new insight into their marital difficulties. Their playful teamwork has been compared to that of Katherine Hepburn and Gary Grant.

In its eulogy Washington Post writes: "Ms. Dahlbeck might be best remembered for ‘Smiles of a Summer Night’ (1955 - and you can see a scene on YouTube), which has endeared itself to generations of filmgoers for its delicate comic touches and delirious romanticism. The film helped launch Bergman's international reputation. Ms. Dahlbeck played a central role as a stage actress of advancing years who manipulates her two pompous lovers, a lawyer (Gunnar Björnstrand) and a military officer (Jarl Kulle)."

In 1962 Eva Dahlbeck starred as William Holden’s wife in the espionage thriller The Counterfeit Traitor. She got the Eugene O'Neill Award for her theatre work and shared a Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival with Ingrid Thulin, Bibi An-dersson and Barbro Hiort af Ornäs for So Close to Life (1958), a bleak Bergman drama.

Eva Dahlbeck retired from acting in the 1970s to concentrate on writing. She wrote poetry, plays and more than a dozen novels. She admitted that one of the characters in a novel was based on Ingmar Bergman, who "has an erotic relationship with everything around him - with nature, people, things, indeed with everything that happens. It may appear as if he is involved in some universal act of love that is sometimes fruitful and sometimes destructive.”

She also wrote the gruesome screenplay to Arne Mattsson's film The Yngsjö Murder (1966), based on a novel about incest and murder.

Eva Dahlbeck was married to the dashing pilot and commander Sven Lampell who organized the Red Cross aid flights to Biafra during the war in Nigeria. She moved with him to Geneva when he was appointed a Red Cross Chief Delegate.

On one of my latest visits to Stockholm I managed to get hold of the Lampells’ phone number and called them in Hässelby Villastad. Sven Lampell explained that Eva was suffering from Alzheimer's and an interview was out of the question. Eva did come to the phone and she sounded fine, but her last words "Anders, it's too late" still ring in my ears.

In this issue we bring you an interview with Björn Bayley who was one of the first people we interviewed (in November 1986). He now joins the small and exclusive club consisting of Max von Sydow, Ann-Sofie von Otter and Olle Wästberg who have been interviewed twice in Swedish Press.

February Issue

2008-01-24T06:01:00.001-08:00

I have never called in to a talk show on radio but the other day as I was listening to the car radio on my way to a meeting I was quite tempted to get in on a discussion on CBC on whether children would become more productive if they got to start school an hour later. No, I don’t have an opinion on this particular issue but something else related to productivity at school. And I never called in to add my two-cents worth so I will use this forum for my rant instead. When talking about making kids more productive at school, a very important element to consider, in my opinion, has got to be nutrition. And a sure way to ensure that kids have enough energy to get them through school is to provide a nutritious meal at school. Both the United States and Sweden have national lunch programs in public schools to ensure that students get a proper meal that gives them enough energy to tackle their afternoon classes. In Canada some private and certain public schools do provide cooked lunches, and some even have breakfast programs, but at the majority of schools children bring their lunches from home. By all accounts a typical lunch consists of a sandwich, a sweet drink, (very often carbonated), fruit and a treat. Or in some cases students are given money to buy a lunch. Many parents are really creative about the lunches to ensure that their kids don’t chuck everything but the treat, but it is not so easy to come up with something that is nutritious, yummy and keeps fresh. I can quite understand why so many egg salad sandwiches, that have been sitting unrefrigerated, end up in the garbage bin. Studies have shown that a kid, or indeed an adult, is more alert and efficient if he or she has had a real lunch. It is not rocket science. An investment in nutritious lunches gives a good return. So why doesn’t schools and employers provide them? Many Canadian friends are astonished when I tell them about the balanced lunches, that every kids got at school when I was growing up in Sweden. The school lunches to be served the following week were posted in the local papers so that parents could plan dinners at home accordingly. Similarly when I started working, there was a beautiful cafeteria where a free lunch was served every day (not to speak of an indoor pool, sauna, billiard room and more). Workplaces that did not have their own facilities provided lunch coupons for their employees to have a proper lunch at a nearby restaurant. Sadly things have also changed in Sweden. Some municipalities have introduced fees for school lunches and there are widespread complaints about the poor quality of the food in some areas. Subsidized lunches at work are also no longer the rule because of changes in tax regulations. But that does not change my belief in a good meal for all in the middle of the day.

January Issue

2008-01-24T05:57:00.000-08:00

The War Against the Bath Tub. Never heard of it? Then you may also be unaware of the War Against the Potato and the War Against the Street, writes Kristian Karlsson in the Swedish magazine NEO. The journalist notes the vast amount of resources allocated to the war against terrorism, despite the fact that to date terrorism has killed an average of only 200 people each year, while between 300 and 400 Americans die each year in their bath tubs, 640 fatally choke on food and 6 000 are run over when they try to cross the street. Kristian Karlsson does not want to down-play the threat of terrorism, but questions the measures used in, and the cost of, the war against it. Clearly tongue-in cheek, he argues that wars against the bathtub, the potato and the street would be far more cost-effective, while the war on terrorism is a bit of an overkill. But historically this has been the norm and there are many examples of “overkill” in the face of a threat, whether real or perceived. During the Cold War people in Sweden were put in alert mode by measures like the brochure entitled If The War Comes that made the monthly test of the air-raid alarm, sound really sinister. Almost 70 000 air-raid shelters were built all over Sweden, 7 000 of them in Stockholm, in preparation for a potential nuclear attack from the “east”. Most of the shelters were incorporated in residential buildings, but there is also a huge one at Slussen, and a gigantic one in Vita Bergen, that was to serve as the command centre for the civilian defence in case of war. Plans detailing the location of the closest air-raid shelter as well as the exact location in the country that citizens were to be evacuated to, were posted at the entrance of each residential building by the civil defence authority. The threat of war was taken more seriously by some than by others. My grandfather, who was a retired military man, decided that it was a good idea to have a residence in the small village up north, where the residents in his area were to be evacuated, all ready for himself and his wife. Since a son of his was likely to be conscripted, my grandfather also included a daughter-in-law and her young children in his plans. He proceeded to put in a classified ad in Östersunds Tidning that read "Commander Neumüller with two wives and three children would like to rent three rooms in case of evacuation ...". The ad was an instant success in the satirical paper Grönköpings Veckoblad that noted the two wives. My grandfather never got the funny part. Anyway, after my coffee-loving grandfather’s death we also found more than a hundred bottles filled with coffee beans stored away in his cellar. Overkill? As for all those shelters, most of them are today used for parking and storage. No new shelters have been built since the early 1990s, and should the strategic situation change, it is believed that there would be a time period of up to ten years to construct enough additional shelters to protect the bigger population of today.

December Issue

2007-12-04T08:16:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe it but, yes, Christmas is soon upon us and it is once again time for candles, decorations, parties, trees, wide-eyed children, gifts galore, great food and...lutfisk.

What is lutfisk, some of you may ask. Many people who know what it is, wonder how this poor man’s fare from the olden days has managed to survive and get a headlining role at the Christmas table.

Lutfisk - literally lye fish - has its origins in the period of fasting in pre-reformation times. It is cod that is dried and then boiled until it tastes of hardly anything at all. If it wasn’t for a faint smell of fish and a subtle fish flavour, it could pass off as anything at all.

Some people love lutfisk. I eat it when I have to and I actually enjoy the accompanying white sauce, the mustard sauce, the green peas and whatever else this culinary tradition dictates, but I find it hard to understand that the bland dish can be defended from a culinary point of view. or as author John Anderson put it in a Swedish Press interview: “Scandinavian recipes are handed down from mother to daughter, through the generations, for no apparent reason at all.”

This is how Roger Welsch, a professor of English, described his lutfisk encounters in a Norwegian-American home (in the World & I, December 1987):

“I had begun to realize that for the single most important meal of the year for this family, they were about to eat something they not only didn’t like, but actually found disgusting. And they offered invitations to share this horrible food only to those who were born or explicitly accepted into the family circle.”

As Welsch is also an anthropologist, he could not but help reason that “the lutfisk had nothing to do with nutrition, taste, convenience, or expense; the lutfisk meal was a recharging of cultural batteries, a single moment in the year when the family remembered its past, its humble past.

Whether lutfisk tasted good or not, whatever the inconvenience of obtaining, preparing, and eating the stuff, it had an almost religious importance far exceeding all other considerations.

Even more important than the lutfisk itself was the ritual that surrounded it. That is, it was not simply that it was lutfisk every year, it was lutfisk every year. Whatever other changes there were in the family be-tween Christmases - death, birth, marriage, divorce, prosperity, economic collapse, or alienation - there was one thing that could be counted on - lutfisk, a food that stood as so distinctive a landmark in the annual regimen that it could never be mistaken for any other meal of the year, could never be eaten casually.”

July Issue

2007-07-11T14:32:00.000-07:00

Just back from a quick visit to Sweden, I am filled with many spontaneous observations as well as one small insight. First for my observations. The Stockholm summer streets are teeming with pretty girls and all of them are not blond. Beautiful girls in Sweden now come in all colours and ethnic backgrounds. For the first time in many years, I did not see any anti-immigrant graffiti. Yes I did see some overweight people but obesity is still not as commonplace in Sweden as it is in North America. Wherever you go you see signs of wealth and well-being. You see it in the form of solid investments in infrastructure. Whether it is new housing or highway tunnels, everything is done with quality. You never see tilted signs or broken fences like you do here. What you do see, however, is more garbage in the streets so Stockholm is slowly losing its reputation as a clean city. You also get a feeling of how well Swedes are doing when you visit their homes. Everybody seemed to be renovating, some for what seemed to be the second or the third time. And their kitchens and bathrooms are much snazzier than what we are getting when we order the more expensive "European" alternatives. What fascinated me most about all the renovations was that they were being carried out primarily by builders, plumbers, electricians and handymen from Poland. Everybody seemed to have an inside track to Poles who charge substantially less than Swedes, even those charging "under the table". The black and grey markets are booming according to a recent report from economists at the Riksbanken central bank. As much as 67% of cash transactions can no longer be accounted for and that means that these illegal or semi-legal sectors have increased their share of Sweden's Gross National Product from 3.8 to 6.5 percent. There have been small pockets of Poles working in Sweden during the last twenty years or so, but now they seem to have become the preferred builders everywhere. The Poles work part of the year in Sweden and then go back for lengthy vacations with their families in Poland. And ironically there they renovate their houses with the help of the even less expensive Rumanians, who have now also started making their way to Sweden. Sweden is not the only country where Polish handymen have made a name for themselves. In France dashing young Polish plumbers almost have a cult status and this has given a boost to French tourism in Poland. This is not quite how it is in Sweden. Here you hear people compare "their Poles" at dinners (like serfs were compared in another century?) Everybody has a Pole story, like the couple who moved into an apartment that had been renovated by a team of Poles, only to find out that the apartment had also served as housing for a big group of Poles whose parties had become famous throughout the building. Recently the Swedish labor movement managed to stop a construction company from employing Poles for a large housing project in Vaxholm. Public opinion was on the side of the Poles who would have done the same job for SEK 39.90 an hour compared to the union rate of SEK 137. Have a nice July Anders

April Issue

2007-04-02T09:49:00.000-07:00

There is a fun new Swedish book out that takes a nostalgic look at our recent past. Endangered Species (Utrotningshotat, Bokförlaget Max Ström) lists 50 items like typewriters, "thick" televisions and ashtrays that are disappearing. Johan Tell also includes fax machines, sugar bowls, hotel keys, overhead projectors, tape recorders and telephone booths in his book. With a perhaps more Swedish perspective he also includes wall-to-wall carpeting, top sheets, cinemas, venetian blinds, land-based phones, garbage chutes, telephone books and air travel tickets on the endangered list. The book is bound with a cover in velour, another thing that is on the way out. It is fun to see things you loved in their modernity but that have not been on the radar screen recently. The book also gives a perspective on the things we now surround ourselves with and regard as absolutely essential. Many of these contraptions "that you could not live without" will eventually disappear. I can still remember the old-fashioned records and what a difference "singles" and other 45 rpm records made, before the high fidelity LP records (33 rpm) made them obsolete. Then came the joy of recording your favorites from the radio with a cassette deck until the advent of the CD. At last we were going to get music of, until then, unheard of quality that would remain the world standard in eternity! What did we know - then came MP3 and then the iPod. What next? It's the same thing with videos, cameras and computers. The moment you purchase them they are already becoming dated if not obsolete. Several Swedish museums are now collecting some of these “modern” things to be able to give our history back to us one day. From a Swedish Press horizon I remember what a difference just the fax machine made. You no longer had to rely on the snail mail when you were in the middle of a deadline. Now we only get nuisance faxes and wonder if we should get rid of the fax machine and just use email. When we took over the Swedish Press it had what was thought of as a state-of-the-art IBM typesetter which really was a glorified typewriter with a one line memory so that it could create straight margins. We also used a wonderful old machine that, with an input of photographic solutions and the turning of discs with different fonts, created the headlines in different sizes. The texts, the headlines and the photographs and illustrations were then waxed by a machine and attached to a layout sheet that was brought to the printer. Today everything is done on computers and emailed to the printer that could be located anywhere on the continent. The first scanner we bought cost $3 500. Today you can get a much more advanced one for less than $100. In the 1970's after I had written a book on the world's most expensive antiques (Gårdagens Rariteter, Rabén & Sjögren) I turned it around and wrote a book on Future Antiques (Morgondagens Antikviteter, Rabén & Sjögren) that looked at things that would eventually become antiques. Many Swedish papers reviewed my book, but the funniest comment came from the satirical paper Grönköpings Veckoblad. In a fake news story their eternal criminal Hildor Peterzohn was taken to court for advertising "future antiques" and then only delivering empty milk cartoons and worthless packaging material to the high-paying respondents. In his defence, Mr. Peterzohn referred to my book and the judge decided to stay the charges for fifty years so that one could indeed see if Peterzohn's claims were correct. Today you do have to pay a fortune for an original tetra pak milk cartoon! Have a really nice April and Happy Easter! Anders

2007-02-26T08:34:00.000-08:00

Sometimes an item in the Swedish Press leads to a lot of letters and phone calls from readers. One such item was the interview with Sweden's foremost living inventor Håkan Lans (April 2005). And the issues that were brought up did not have anything to do with Lans’s inventions, but with his legal battles in the United States. There was evidently a set up to rob this Swede of one of his major inventions, and despite a brave fight put up by Håkan Lans and his supporters in Sweden, it appears that the perpetrators are getting away with it. Håkan Lans is the inventor of both the computer mouse and the computer color graphics as well as the GP&C position system that, in the future, will make air, maritime and all other methods of travel securer, because unlike GPS, it does not only show you your position, it also shows you the position of everybody else in your vicinity, hence making radar redundant. Håkan Lans’s troubles started when he was contacted by some US lawyers offering to help protect his GP&C system from any infringement. Lans was not interested but the persistent lawyers then offered to help him with his Colour Graphic system, against 33 percent of the takings. In short order they collected $20 million from Japanese companies that were using Lans’s invention without paying a license. In 1997 the lawyers proceeded to sue eleven US computer companies for the same thing, but they sued in Håkan Lans's company name rather than in his own name. The cases were subsequently thrown out on this technicality and Lans was ordered to not only pay the court costs of the infringing companies, but also the fees of his own incompetent attorneys - an estimated sum of SEK 100 million! "The sum total of the attorney fees has so far not been specified, but it was big and widely exceeded Lans's pecuniary paying ability. In a settlement proposal for the payment issue - from the defendants - the patent for the position indication system was therefore, although implicitly, suggested as payment! Lans was urged by his own lawyer to accept this proposal," writes a Swedish legal expert in an essay where he discusses three hypotheses about the judgement. "The first one is that the judgement was correct and in due order - that justice has been done. The second is that the judgement was a result of a lack of attorney skill, a shortfall in the process. The third hypothesis is that the judgement was a planned miscarriage of justice. The conclusion of the reasoning is that the miscarriage of justice hypothesis is much more likely than the other ones." All of the infringing computer companies have now withdrawn their claims for compensation, except Dell and Gateway, but Lans's own US lawyers are still demanding between SEK 10 to 20 million. He has sued them, but in October the Federal Court rejected his appeal of the court case that went so terribly wrong (just a week after the hearing rather than the three months that is the norm in similar cases, almost like it was a foregone conclusion). Interestingly, none of the North American media took up the case or even seemed to mind. Every computer has Håkan Lans's patented colour graphic system, but now manufacturers will get away without paying a license. Even worse, the legal process has delayed the worldwide implementation of the GP&C system (to the delight of the radar industry) that could prevent collisions resulting in a loss of life, and allow for a much safer and denser air traffic.

February issue

2007-02-04T15:32:00.000-08:00

Sweden had nothing close to a white Christmas, and the Baltic icebreakers were hanging around idle. Then came the devastating January storms that had already played havoc in the rest of Europe where people now are bracing themselves for another summer heat wave like the one that killed thousands in Britain and France a couple of summers ago. The Nordic countries, in the meantime, are worrying about a new ice age. The North American west coast was hit by a bad mixture of cold and wind that took out 3 000 trees in Vancouver's Stanley Park, and punctured the gigantic inflated roof of the B.C. Place Stadium, to the measured glee of eastern Canada that was enjoying balmy golf weather While the rising temperatures on the West Coast have been welcomed by the burgeoning wine industry in Oregon, Washington State and British Columbia, in California, a rise of another 4ûC in temperature will, according to some experts, mean the end of wine production in Napa Valley. Even the continent of Africa experienced unheard of rain and flash floods that wiped out bridges and roads, while, in an ironic twist, not adding anything to the diminishing water flow in the Niger or the Nile or the ever-lowering water table. The only good thing to come out of this havoc is that Òclimate changeÓ has now become front page news. There are, however, still many politicians and certain media that seem to be in denial and any connection to global warming seems to be taboo in many circles. You have to wonder why. As early as in 2005 various academies of science in 11 countries, including the U.S., in a joint statement declared that "the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action". Just like the tobacco companies "manufactured uncertainty" for years about the link between smoking and cancer, the oil lobby is successfully holding off any regulations by maintaining that global warming is unproven. Witness President BushÕs statement that "restrictions on greenhouse gases will destroy the U.S. economy". With whacky weather now on our door-step, one can only hope that statements like these are seen for what they are and that this year brings a more sober look at what we are doing to our planet. Have a nice February! Anders PS. Swedish Press has helped start a campaign for a Canadian stamp honouring Raoul Wallenberg at a recent Raoul Wallenberg Day in Vancouver. The Swedish diplomat saved as many as 100,000 people condemned to certain death by the Nazis during World War II. Raoul Wallenberg disappeared on January 17, 1945, in Hungary and was subsequently imprisoned in the Soviet Union. An honorary citizen of Canada, USA and Israel, he would have celebrated his 95th birthday this year. Sweden, Israel, USA and many other countries already have stamps in his honour, so now it is CanadaÕs turn. You too can help by writing to the Stamp Advisory Committee of Canada Post Corporation, 2701 Riverside Drive, Suite NO420, Ottawa ON K1A 0B1 asking for a Wallenberg stamp!

November issue

2006-10-31T08:39:00.000-08:00

Was it Steinbeck or was it Hemingway? Or was it actually neither of the two? Won-dering what I am talking about? Read on for a mini scoop. Every year around Lucia, Swedish newspapers tell the story of how the Swedish Lucia once managed to scare a Nobel Laureate in Literature out of his wits. And each year there is speculation on which literary giant it was and whether the story is at all true. All Nobel Prize winners stay at Stock-holm?s Grand Hotel (that you can read about on page 30). As the prize ceremony takes place on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel?s death, the winners also get to experience the Lucia celebration that takes place on December 13. Many of them have no idea what Lucia is all about so they are taken by surprise when they are woken up by young voices singing Santa Lucia and white-clad maidens serving them coffee and buns. The memory of Lucia with candles in her hair is probably one of the most exotic memories they bring home with them from Sweden. But for one Nobel Laureate in 1930, the Lucia experience, exotic as it may have been, was less than pleasant. The Ameri-can author Sinclair Lewis was a heavy drinker and he had reportedly also suffered from bouts of delirium. Nobody knows exactly what went through his mind when he was woken up on a dark morning by a white-clad blonde with candles in her hair and the sounds of a melancholic song about driving out the darkness in the world with light (it was lucky he did not understand the words). What we do know is that Lewis panicked big time. He screamed out loud and hid his head under the blankets as Lucia and her attendants made a quick retreat. It was really embarrassing, said my mother. She was the Lucia. Fluent in English, German and French, she was at that time the secretary to Mr Segerstr娬e, the legendary head of Grand Hotel. As my mother was also pretty, she was the natural choice for Grand Hotel?s Lucia for several years in a row. I still have autographed copies of books by Pearl S Buck, Eugene O?Neill and John Gals-worthy that she received from the authors. But there is nothing in that collection from Sinclair Lewis. Whenever the story about the author who was scared by the Lucia is told in Swedish papers it is connected to either Ernest Hem-ingway (1954) or John Steinbeck (1962). But now you know that it took place already in 1930.

October issue

2006-09-29T12:25:00.000-07:00

During my latest weekly phone call to my daughter in Sweden, she casually mentioned that she was going to take a couple of days off work to go to Lisbon with some friends for an extended weekend. Why? “Well I have never been there,” she said. A few months ago the same group of girls took off for Barcelona. It is something that strikes me every time I go to Sweden - the young people there are really well-travelled.

I am amazed at the number of Swedish kids we bumped into in, for example, Cochin, India, that we finally made it to just a couple of years. Australian kids also seemed to be everywhere we went.

On the other hand you don't see that many North American young people around. Kids here don't seem to travel that much. One of the reasons for this is the perhaps the longer distance and higher cost of going to another country. In Europe there is Ryanair, the no-frills airline, that at times offers flights from what it calls Stockholm (Skavsta, 100 kilometers away) to London Stanstead for as little as $20. In North America discount airlines don't seem to fare very well.

Of course it is not necessary for North American kids to travel to another country. There is so much to explore on this vast continent. But I wonder how many young people do that. I once ran into a young architect here in Vancouver who had never been to Seattle, a three-hour car trip away.When I came of age in Sweden, travel was relatively expensive and crossing the Atlantic was a big deal, but all young people tried to make it to Copenhagen that gave you a glimpse of the continent.

From an educational point of view there are great benefits to visiting different countries. I was reading about a recent survey in which 11 percent of young citizens of the U.S. were unable to point to their own country on a map. The location of the Pacific Ocean was a mystery to 29 percent, Japan to 58 percent, France to 65 percent and the United Kingdom to 69 percent.

"Geographic illiteracy impacts our well-being, our relationships with other nations and the environment, and isolates us from the world," says National Geographic President John Fahey.

I think one of the problems for American kids is that the world is not considered a safe place. Ironically though, the few North American kids you see in Europe, often happen to be girls. Could that be because the boys have other priorities like getting their first set of wheels? Or is this another case of girls getting ahead of boys?

September Issue

2006-09-07T01:09:00.000-07:00

And how long have you lived in this country? I was asked by a Swede whom I had just met at a party in Stockholm a few years back. I was quite taken aback by the question, asking myself if it was my German-sounding surname or that I had acquired somewhat of an accent in my Swedish that prompted such a question. But the guy was just making conversation and considering that almost 15 percent of the population of Sweden has an immigrant background, there was a fair chance that I could also have my origins in another country.

With such a large immigrant population, it is no surprise that related issues are such a hot topic in Swedish media. Immigration is of course not a new phenomenon in Sweden. Through the centuries groups of immigrants from different parts of Europe have made their home in Sweden. What is new is the sheer volume of the influx of recent years as well as the very varied backgrounds of the recent immigrants, many of them coming from distant lands that most Swedes had not even heard of not too long ago.

At the time my great great grandfather came to Stockholm from Austria to start a brewery, immigrants were quickly assimilated. Today integration has become a real nemeses for Sweden, something that is very descriptively laid out in the (for Swedish Press rather expensive) in-depth article we bring you this month, that better than anything else we have seen describes the situation right now. It is well worth reading (and you find it at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/magazine/05muslims.html?ex=1296795600&en=722dbb00a718b0f9&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)!

There is one thing that I disagree with in Christopher Caldwell’s Islam on the Outskirts of the Welfare State and that is his statement that “no one expects the Social Democrats to be chased from power any time soon.” This could well happen on September 17 and you can read about the run-up to the nail-biter election on page 9.

Even though I have lived away from Sweden for 24 years now, I will of course never regard myself as anything other than a full-blown Swede. It is a different matter here where, after all these years, I still feel like an immigrant, however well assimilated I am. I think I am like many Swedes I have encountered in North America who are well integrated in the society here but who still tightly hold on to their ancestry. I have even met many descendants of the first major emigration wave to North America a hundred years ago - when Sweden lost a full fifth of its population - who are still fiercely proud Swedes even though they do not speak a word of the language and have never set foot in the country.

Have a nice September

Anders

2006-08-18T10:04:00.000-07:00

The news from the Middle East is so depressing that I would prefer not to follow it at all. So many thoughts come to mind as I see the events unfold. One of them is that no-one is lily-white when it comes to war. There are naturally two sides to this story, just as with anything else. What are regarded as terrorists by one side are hailed as freedom fighters by the other. This was also the way things were when the state of Israel was in its infancy. The Stern Gang that assassinated Folke Berna-dotte was described as a group of terrorists by Swedes, but to Israelis they were fighting for their country's right to exist. In May 1948, Bernadotte was appointed United Nation mediator in Palestine. He succeeded in achieving a truce in the first Israeli-Arab war. On 17 September 1948, a few days before his second plan for a political solution was to be presented to the UN, the Swedish Count was killed. Bernadotte’s assassination is documented in Kati Marton's book A Death in Jerusa-lem (1994). He was shot together with his deputy the French colonel, Andre Serot. According to the Stern Gang, Bernadotte had to be eliminated "because he disturbed our national ambitions". The Israeli government declared that it was "adapting rigorous and energetic measures to bring the assassins to justice to eradicate this evil". But this has never happened. According to the Israeli paper Yediot Ahronot, that has investigated this historical event, Captain Moshe Hillman, who was Bernadotte's Israeli coordinating officer, witnessed the murder. He did inform his superior, Major Moshe Dayan, about what had taken place but was told to "take no notice...we have not seen anything and we have not heard anything." Yeshoshua Cohen who held the gun be-came a good friend of "the nestor of the Israeli state", David Ben Gurion. The lea-der of the Stern Gang who issued the order to kill the Swede was Yitshak Shamir who later became Prime Minister of Israel. As President of the Swedish Red Cross, Folke Bernadotte, a father of two, had a few years earlier liberated some 30 000 prisoners from Nazi death camps in Germany. About 11 000 of them were Jews. It is also interesting to note that it was Folke Bernadotte who was originally chosen for the mission to rescue the Jews in Budapest but he was unable to get a visa from Germany to transfer to Hungary. Hence it was left to Raoul Wallenberg to carry out this monumental task. We have not come very far in these al-most 60 years. We have still not learnt that violence does not lead to peace. Only ne-gotiations do. Our thoughts go out to the innocent people on both sides of this conflict who have to endure so much suffering. Have a nice August Anders Neumuller, Editor PS. Many people have wondered why Folke Bernadotte's name is not among the Swedish gentiles honored with a plaque for saving Jews at the US Holocaust Me-morial Museum in Washington DC. When Folke Bernadotte’s godson, the Swedish King, was going to visit the Museum in 1995, the Museum promised to correct this, but as far as I know it has never happened.