Thursday, November 19, 2009

Over abundance-Try Thomas Friedman NYT

Back in early November I had the naive belief that I would actually compose something on at least one of the subjects I named there. And now as we approach American Thanksgiving - Even in Sweden - I can only admit to myself that I have composed nothing for this blog.

All the composing has gone in to following some significant discussions in the New York Times and Dagens Nyheter and in some cases commenting and even trying to draw conclusions about the distribution of opinions in comments.

Should you be so crazy as to try that, keep in mind that the comment world is a bottomless pit. I cite two articles mostly to use this "inlägg" as "dagboks inlägg" since I really would like to go further with both.

I Dagens Nyheter - kanske 16de november - kunde man läsa debattartikel om att 14 åringar inte fick gå på alkoholfri fest eftersom så skulle inte unga muslimska svenskar i Malmö göra. Jag återkommer med bättre käll hänvisning.

In the New York Times 18 November and excellent column by Thomas Friedman - What Do They Really Believe? Friedman has the most sane views I can find on the changes in thinking about energy sources and uses that could have changed the world and might still do so. I contributed the first comment on that column, but since I was doing so from Sweden before the NYT "comment checker" swings into action the first comment appeared for a time at the top of each listing of 12 or so comments and then disappeared. My comment was made at 4:14 Eastern Standard Time (USA) so I have learned not to enter comments in the NYT until later in the endlessly dark and rainy Swedish morning. The comment nevertheless survived in the listing of comments recommended by two or more readers. I think it is at level 10 readers recommended.

Nevertheless that single comment elicited a quick response from a reader in America who was in the process of contracting to have a ground-source heat pump system installed in his home in Pennsylvania. The near total absence of this technology in my part of the USA has troubled me, so my correspondent's two Emails so far have stimulated my determination to write about that subject.

But that requires research, careful composition, and time - in other words, not today.

Happy Thanksgiving - I will be celebrating that fine day on a little island on the Swedish west coast.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Islam i Sverige or Medical Care in the USA?

Det var länge sedan dvs it was long ago, more than one month, that I wrote something here. There is a good and sufficient reason: This is such an exciting time intellectually that just trying to keep up superficially demands time and energy. So this brief remark - read only by myself as usual - is to state what is so exciting. Then I can only hope that I manage to start writing here about each of the following, if only for my own satisfaction.

Health Care Reform Legislation in the United States - For someone who has had the best of medical care in both Sweden and the USA, even during a single year, the fierce debate about Health Care legislation in the United States has had a special attraction. To date I have been adding comments in the New York Times and in blogs in the USA maintained by bloggers who are ill informed about Sweden. One facet of the debate that became the focus of the an ill informed Harvard educated blogger is what she called the "failure to take race into consideration" in comparing infant mortality in the USA with the rate in EU countries. That leads to the second major subject.


The importance of "race", genetic difference, ethnicity, culture and of mixing different such.
This is a gigantic subject brought to the fore by the election of Barack Obama and then emphasized in the Health Care debate and now on the BBC in programs on the conceiving of children by parents of contrasting "race". (I will explain why "race" always appears in quotation marks once I write separate entries.

Who Speaks for Islam? I have written about this in various settings but in an effort to go further, I had to take a time out and read the book "Who Speaks for Islam?" which I have now done. Even this subject was discussed, wonder of wonders, on Sveriges Radio P1 today 8 October, thanks to a discussion being carried out on the BBC via Maajid Nawas.