söndag 31 mars 2013

These hopelessly backwards United States of America



America is so hopelessly backwards and reactionary compared with the rest of so called civilized world, that it sometimes gives me a feeling of hopeless depression (although not the clinical version). The lack of caring for fellow human beings has resulted in totally unacceptable gaps in income, money having an incredible level of influence in politics, millions and millions of people without adequate (or any) access to healthcare, a Supreme Court that says corporations are people and money is free speech, education being hopelessly unequal, depending on where you live, an extremely inadequate safety net, an extreme level of gun violence that will never decrease as long as the NRA (read: gun manufacturing and gun seller lobby) has a totally undeserved level of influence, ignorant religious theories are given equal standing with science, etc., etc., etc.
But maybe there is hope after all. Until 1967, marriages like mine and my wife’s were illegal in many states, African-Americans of my generation still remember separate drinking fountains and many, many other inequalities and atrocities. We now have an African-American president, although a far too conservative one for my taste. Gays will soon have full and equal rights. More and more people understand that the fairy tale from a couple of thousand years ago is just that, a fairy tale. So maybe this country will eventually join the modern day world of rationality and logic. But boy is it going slowly!

onsdag 6 mars 2013

Snö!




Femton cm tung nysnö. Stängda skolor. Antagligen tunnt med folk på jobbet i dag.