July, 2010

The beginning of July has been incredibly hot, July 14 it was 37°C. In Zürich there are currently only two options to survive the heat. Either you go swimming in the lake or the river or you hide in an air conditioned public place. The two upper pictures are from Badi Mythenquai by the lake if you chose the first option and the last two pictures are at Sihlcity where yo can go for the second option, namely afternoon cinema. Sihlcity has a really big american style cinema palace where each toilet has its own little screen showing film trailers.

I'm not sure if it is the heat that has soften my brain so much that I couldn't make myself turn on the computer or if it is the World Cup in football (soccer) that anyway made it impossible for any real news to get through. For a person who is not the slightest interested in football it was easier just to shut down all external information and just worry about how to kill Spanish slugs (or killer snails as we call them in Sweden) and whether or not the dengue fever is really coming to Europe as a consequence of the global warming.

The thing currently dominating the news is the corruption scandals in France which is rather difficult to care about unless you are actually French. It is quite peculiar to see a country where people in general are so politically engaged that the politicians are so far away from the people (the "small people" as a particularly unpopular swede would have expressed it). But on the other hand, as the French goes on strike for about anything these days, what means are left when something really happens? That was by the way the most funny thing that happened during the World Cup, not even there the French could deny their true nature and the French national team went on strike during the competition. What other team in the world could ever have come up with such an idea?

June 16, 2010

In Höngg you can still get the feeling that you live in a little village even though it is indeed a part of the city.

A lot of good things have happened lately. I am not only talking about the incredibly unlikely event that happened today when Switzerland beat Spain in the FIFA world cup but also about some other things that is going on in the world. Among other things it looks as if Obama is going to use the disastrous oil spill to push through some harder, greener politics. In general it is not very well seen to exploit these kind of events for you political agenda but this time he is really right to do so.

The Swiss hostage in Libya, Max Göldi, was finally released this week! This poor guy who got stuck in a conflict between two countries that doesn't concern him at all and were held prisoner in various places in Libya for about two years is now back in Switzerland. It was an incredibly silly conflict to start with and it has taken so much diplomatic efforts and international collaborations to solve it. All because Khadaffi's son decided to beat up his personnel while in Geneva. Many political and economical concessions were necessary from the Swiss side to get Göldi free. In one sense it is really crazy to negotiate with a lunatic like Khadaffi but on the other hand I think it is great to live in a country where a citizens freedom is worth all this sacrifice. So even though this solution might have been a political failure it is at least a human victory.

In this conflict that Switzerland couldn't have done anything against Khadaffi if they didn't get help from the other European countries. Switzerland often like to see itself as being totally independent but it is just a tiny little country with very little to say in the big world. This time we will have to thank Spain (who we just beat in football), Germany (who we fight against to protect their tax-fraudsters) and Berslusconi (the closest thing there is to a democratically elected dictator).

In Sweden only one thing is covered in the media nowadays, the crown-princess wedding to a man of the people on Saturday. The celebrations have already started and just as in the fairy-tale they will last for days. Even though the Swedes can never really make up their minds about what they think of the monarchy we all wish them to live happily ever after.

June 9, 2010

Werdinsel, kreis 11, nice and peaceful in the morning and very crowded in the afternoon, especially by mothers with children as there is a nice pool for very small children to play in. Today it was 30°C warm but still only 17°C in the water.

June 2, 2010

Today it has been raining the whole day and I hardly left the house so here are two pictures from Saturday showing the street life at Kalanderplatz in the middle of the new built, industrial chic, shopping center Sihlcity.

On Monday Israel stopped a ship convoy going with food and medicine to Gaza in the most brutal way. The ships were boarded while still on international water by armed and masked troopers killing nine unarmed people. The people on board the ships were no terrorists or criminals but well respected people like doctors and politicians. A famous Swedish author, Henning Mankell, was there and also an Irish Nobel prize winner.

It is unbelievable how Israel doesn't give a damn about anyone but themselves. They totally take the law in there own hands and show no respect what so ever to human rights. This has been going on for so long against the Palestinians but we in the west have somehow continued shutting our eyes plagued with guilt for what happened to the Jews during the second world war. Now when they are treating Europeans the same way as they treat the Palestinians daily we can no longer pretend as if it is not happening or in any way justify their actions. It's really time to remove them from under the protective wings of the west and make them face international charges. We should shut them out from all international trading until they start complying to international law and human rights, just as we did against South Africa until they abolished apartheid.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is very complex and it is difficult to know who was originally right but to continuously violate human rights and to build protective walls and turning the Palestinian territories into ghettos is morally detestable and wrong. It is impossible to understand what the long term goal is for the Israeli. Nothing they do is going towards a stable and sustainable solution. You really have the impression that they just want to erase the Palestinians from the map. Even if the Israeli think that they are right in this conflict, how can they want to live like this? Every Muslim country in the world, even the moderate ones, hate their guts and soon also all the western countries. In every relation, if it is between two people or between countries, you sometimes have to take a step back from what you are convinced to be right and make a compromise that in the end will make your life easier and happier. You have to stop being so damn stubborn to make the world a better place.

Well, now to a completely different matter. I heard the official song for the World Cup 2010 in South Africa on the radio the other day and it is sung by Shakira. I really love Shakira and the song is not bad but I can't for the world understand why a Colombian artist is selected to represent South Africa? When I tried to find an official reason by googling I didn't find one but at least the South Africans seems to be quite upset about it as well and also a blogger that had some other concerns about the song.

May 27, 2010

Yesterday, (yes, I'm one day late with the blog) I didn't really leave home so all you will get is the view from our balcony over the Uetliberg and our little gardener watering the tomatoes that I tried to plant.

What happened in the world? Good question, actually quite much even though most thing seems to be about the saving of the euro and the oil leak. The oil has now reached the beaches of Louisiana but some good news that came today is that BP has now managed to at least temporary stop the leak. However, even if they will completely stop the oil flow unimaginable damage has already been done.

I'm not much into important subjects this week so let's talk about the Eurovision Song contest. Living in Switzerland and reading the Swedish papers can really make you laugh sometimes. In Sweden this competition gains so much attention and everyone is involved in which contribution we should send to compete. There are actually a large number of competitions all over the country and people call in to vote for which song should represent Sweden. This year we were even flying in Dolph Lundgren from Hollywood to present the show. In Switzerland I have no idea how the best song is selected as I haven't heard about it at all. When I googled it I found out that it is a song in french this time, 'Il pleut de l'or' which is probably a better choice than Swiss German if you want to go to the finals. Of course I had to check out what the song was like and I found a video from the live performance in the second half final. Please note that all you see is Swedish flags in the audience. When googling I also found that Switzerland hasn't won the competition since 1956 so this might be a reason why they find it so uninteresting here but you would still need to do a profound ethnological study to understand why the swedes care so much.

May 19, 2010

Ober-Letten. We are impatiently waiting for the summer to come so that Letten will be full of happy people again.

Feminism and standing up for women rights is very unfashionable nowadays and often give people bad associations and classifying women who strive for equality as man-haters. However, this doesn't mean that we are anywhere close to a reasonable level of equality. The biggest lawsuit ever against the discrimination of women in the U.S. was won this week against the huge Swiss pharma company Novartis. Twelve female ex-employees will receive 3.3 million dollars in compensation damages for having been denied promotions, having lower pay and unjust treatment during pregnancy. In addition to that Novartis also received a 250 million dollar fine, this high amount is computed on the basis of the revenue of the company so that it will be a sufficient discouragement. This will hopefully send out a clear message to all large companies to impose strict policies on fair treatment of their employees.

As Novartis is Swiss this will hopefully also have an impact in this country. The laws in Switzerland are good in protecting women but it is really important to make sure that they are followed and to take legal action when they are not. Personally, I have been very fortunate in my own situation but I would like to transmit my strong encouragement to the wife of a friend who is now in a legal battle here in Switzerland after having been mobbed by her boss (female boss!) from the first day of her announced pregnancy and then being fired one day before giving birth. Even though it is always difficult to prove mobbing it is clearly against Swiss law to fire women during their pregnancy and maternity leave so she will definitely win this. However, it is not difficult to imagine the mental pain and distress she must have gone through in the process. We should all be grateful that there are women standing up and taking these difficult battles, the benefits of their struggle will come back to all of us.

May 5, 2010

A rainy day in Zürich but in this period of the year even the rainy days are nice and the trees are so green that you almost feel as if you were in a tropical forest. These pictures however are taken at Bellevue on my way for my second attempt to become Swiss. At least this time I could leave with a long list of papers to fill in so I'm slowly approaching the goal.

Since about two weeks a huge ecological disaster is taking place in the gulf of Mexico. An oil platform belonging to BP caught fire, sunk and oil is now being pumped out in masses into the gulf. BP is alone responsible for the disaster and is now spending $6 million a day for the attempts to repair the leakage and clean up the water and the beaches. They estimate that this could continue for about 3 months before it is over. This has an enormous impact on the environment and the fauna of the region and it is really sad to see it all destroyed even though one might see some justice in that it actually happens in the region with the hugest oil consumption in the world. Apparently this is not even the worst occasion of oil spill in history, when googling oil spill you will find innumerably really bad cases and many of them in the US. One could imagine that the Americans would learn from the consequences of these accidents and put more effort into developing alternative energy but they are so amazingly stubborn in refusing to face the reality that it doesn't seem to influence them at all.

Here in Switzerland we seem however to get more and more inspired by the wild west. Last week a police officer shot a french car thief during a chase in the canton of Vaud. I am not at all defending stealing cars but to go so far as to shot anyone unless it is self-defense is a very dangerous direction to go. Violence is only feeding violence. A strong example of this was when Swiss TV went to the french suburb from which the car thief came and interviewed some local kids. Apparently it is a quite common phenomenon to go to Switzerland for the weekend to steal cars as there are more expensive cars here than in France. When the reporters asked whether the kids thought that people would be discouraged to go now the kids answered that no, the only difference was that now they had to make sure that they would go armed.