Reflecting on the last days of 2013

The New Year named 2014 is underway and I am looking forward to it on this the second day of 2014. I have been engaging in serious reflection on one of the activities to which I devoted much time and thought in 2013, the reading of New York Times Editorials and OpEds followed by writing comments and replies to other commenters.

Those that engaged my attention most deeply were what I call the USA-Iran-Israel triangle, all articles that touch on American thought and practice as concerns racism and American concepts of "race", and renewable energy as seen in the USA in contrast with the Nordic countries.

My experience and reflecting on that experience led me to make two successive decisions. The first was to stop writing comments - completely. During the ensuing period, I studied comments in all the fields of major interest to me, reflected on what I had read, and made the second decision.

The second decision was to largely restrict myself to writing comments and replies concerning every article touching on racism and American concepts of "race". There are two basic reasons for doing that. The first is that my Verified friends and a few others cover areas such as the USA-Iran-Israel triangle so well that I can leave that exercise to them. The second is that the New York Times treatment of racism and the American concept of "race" - including use of "race" in American medical research - that someone has to take a critical view of that treatment.

I am only a lay person but as an American living in Sweden I have had unique opportunities to study the dramatically exceptional approach of America and Americans and to compare that with a very different approach in Sweden.

My friends among the Verifieds warn me that entering this area as a critic is to enter a minefield. I have known that for a very long time and recent experience in the New York Times most obscure blog shows that they - Verifieds - are right. All the more reason then to try to improve the comments I will make in that territory.

If you are curious about this recent experience, take the time to visit this blog and make sure first to study the text and the fine series of photographs. Then and only then, if you still have time, do a sample reading of the comments. URL to the blog in the fine print at the bottom.

I can only hope that somebody reads this and sends comments directly to my Gmail (appears at the left).

2014 awaits you, make the most of it. Larry

I have just discovered that I should explain what the following is: At the New York Times Lens Blog you can see a very interesting portrayal of the variety of human beings that in America are simply put in one box "black". If you look at the 18 images you will see, oddly enough, that not a single one is what my Somali friends call truly "black", for example an African from the Congo.

One Drop, but Many Views on Race - NYTimes.com BY MAURICE BERGER A series of portraits and an accompanying book argue that racial identity is not merely biological or genetic, but also a matter of context and even personal choice.
Or, copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://nyti.ms/1dhcc4d

Shukri Islow-Somali Story No 2 (No 1 at September 25)

Time for you to meet Shukri Islow who has just graduated from a university in Uganda with a bachelor's degree in International Relations and Diplomacy. Here she is getting her diploma, the most recent step in her extraordinary story, which only she can tell you.

I only show you this picture because at least here in Linköping my Somali friends whom I refer to as the Hijab Sisters do not want to be photographed. But that really is Shukri there.

Shukri was born in Mahaday 120 km north of Mogadishu. Somehow or other her parents found their way to Sweden which is where I am writing this. So part of Shukri's story is a story of going to school in a very cold country way up north.

She found me after I had written a comment in the Vermont Public Radio web pages describing a young Somali living in Burlington, Vermont, where I spend a month each year. This young Somali - last name Ahmed- had decided to show the world or at least Vermonters that a Somali could be a body builder. Somehow or other another Somali read that story and pretty soon I had three Somalis as Facebook Friends, two of them from Kismayo and living in America and the third, Shukri Islow going to University in Uganda.

Her Facebook is the place where she takes up the fight for women and girls in general and for Somali girls and young women in particular. After looking at her many entries today I have told her it is time for her to have her own blog.

Now a note about three Somali women who are well known to the world as maybe Shukri will someday be known. Edna Adan is a nurse who established a hospital in Hargeisa and Hawa Abdi is a doctor who did the same in Mogadishu. And now there is also Nadifa Mohamed, born in Hargeisa, educated at Oxfor, and author of a prize-winning novel The Orchard of Lost Souls.


I make contributions regularly to the two hospitals and have just sent a contribution to Edna Adan Hospital, which you can learn about at  http://www.ednahospital.org/

Here is Edna Adan Ismail who has improved the lives of countless young Somali women as Shukri herself wants to do. I only wish it had been possible to show that my contribution tonight was in the name of Shukri Islow but there is no place for that at Edna's web page.

So Shukri, congratulations from all of the Hijab Sisters at the Red Cross here in Linköping, one of whom, Muhiim, wrote to you via my Facebook yesterday. They all think you are amazing.

Lycka till
Larry

Vilka språk kan du-What languages?

What is the best question you can ask when you meet some new person/people who look interesting?

I may explain at the end what American sociologists say is the only question. I do not believe them for a minute, so here is my question, one I posed to an interesting gang I met at Saltholmen. Actually, one of the women beat me to posing the first question, so let's let her speak first.

Tror du på Jesus? Så sade Emelie. Bra fråga. Jag svarade att det är en stor fråga så jag skulle ställa en enklare fråga.

Do you believe in Jesus Christ. That is what Emelie said. Good question. I answered.

Now to that best question. First a little background. One of the neat things about living in Sweden is that there are about 8,000,000 people who sometimes believe that they are all the same. Some refer to them as Ethnic Swedes. What is neat about that is anybody who turns up using another body language is a good candidate for being somebody who is not an Ethnic Swede.

In my years at the Red Cross in Linköping, I heard all the usual questions people ask a new arrival. I finally decided I needed a better question. Here it is:

Vilka språk kan du/Ni? What languages do you speak (or know)?

So after Emilie asked me about Jesus I decided to pose a question to three girls who were sitting on a bench at the edge of the water. I asked them in Swedish and here is what I got back.

Svenska, engelska, portugisiska.

I am going to stop here, this is just a first draft. If somebody answers with those three, how do you react?

Let me know. I will be back.

I just got out to Styrsö and I have to get to work. A Ph.D. Thesis awaits for review.

This One's For Martha

The United States has just shown how easy it is to stand on the brink of becoming a failed nation and many of us living abroad have followed this sorrowful sequence of events, written comments in the New York Times, and have wondered is there any hope.

Yesterday afternoon, October 16th, I sought solace in the same way I always do, by running to my trees and then stopping to let them talk to me through reflection and by encouraging reflection. By the strangest of coincidences, I came home from Götakanalen and there in my Gmail was mail from Martha in California, a reader of NYT comments who then escaped from them by turning to my blog and to a post A Walk in the Park (based on a NYT article). She, like I, cannot live without "our trees" and, for me, even better, the reflections of trees. (Lisa, master of the reflected image, this is for you also).

Want to feel better? Find yourself some trees like these and talk with them.

l will later add the blog link to an earlier visit to Götakanalen. Someday my blog will have such improvements. Right now back to work - translating a medical questionnaire from Swedish to English. This was my fika paus. PS you have to double click on at least the 2d image to see all 3 trees. PS 2 trying different image sizes for the blog but in the end double click to see best.

Blog post that introduces Götakanalen was way back in September (25) 2011. Sorry but I do not have a system that can take you directly there. You have to go through older posts. Someday? Maybe.
Added 2013-10-18

Triangulation-Iran, USA, Israel

If you were to read the New York Times (both Times Wire and the published OnLine edition) 24 h a day as I do you would learn the USA stands on the brink of financial catastrophe thanks to the Tea Party brinkmanship. You would also see that every day there are blogs, OpEd articles, Editorials and more expressing very asymmetrical views on the three nation triangle, Iran, USA, Israel.

The two subjects really overlap since in Iran, many of us see the Ayatollah holding his subjects hostage, and in the USA we see the Tea Party holding the President hostage.

Keeping up with these two subjects takes considerable time and composing comments on both takes even more time, especially since this has to be done while remembering that the NYT reviewers work on US Eastern Time, not Central European Time.

I am assembling all of my comments so I do not have time to add more Somali Stories just now. Tomorrow I will be at the Red Cross and once again I will try to persuade one of the gang there to tell me a story. Here's hoping. Stay tuned.

Larry

Somali Stories

On September 24, 2013 the New York Times published an article by James Ferguson, author of an important book about Somalia. The first sentence told us the sorrowful tale about a young Somali-American who grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This young man had gone to Somalia to join al Shabab and there he blew himself up. The Times article is: The West Need Not Fear  Its Young Muslims @ http://nyti.ms/1fei0ke

The article led New York Times readers including me to submit 100s of comments, most of them about Somalis and/or muslims. In my comment I name some of my Somali friends. I think the world should know about some of these friends and I cannot wait any longer to begin trying to tell their stories. (They are either not ready to tell them or they do not have time.) I do not have so much time either since I always have manuscripts to review and translations to begin (for Swedish medical researchers) but I can begin by introducing you to one Somali friend in America. There will be more.


I begin very simply. We are in Winooski, Vermont in June 2013. If you happen to be there some time stop in at Banadir Market-Halal Meat and tell Abdi that Larry sent you.

I only see Abdi once a year when I am in Burlington, Vermont and we do not have much time to talk but little by little I am learning his story. The only part I am telling you here and now - 7:54 AM in Linköping, Sweden - is that he shows what an individual who is determined to "make it" and is willing and able to work extremely hard can accomplish.

He created his own store Banadir Market where the people who live here can buy various kinds of food that are, let's say, a part of their identity. If one part of that identity is that they are muslim, then they can visit Abdi to purchase meat that is "halal", the equivalent of Jewish "kosher". I mention this comparison because I lived for forty years in Brighton, New York where kosher foods were readily available.

Now I have to start working. A little later I will add the URL to the New York Times story and to my comment.

I hope you will comment here or send me an Email.

Larry

Barack Obama On The Brink

Barack Obama is on the brink of implementing the most fateful decision of his presidency. He has decided to rain rockets down on Syria but awaits a vote in the US Congress.

I have been raining comments down on the NYT Comment Reviewers for the past several days and today 3 September have submitted three such, all on this article

Debating the Case for Force 

by the New York Times Editorial Board.

http://nyti.ms/17vKvEb

The short URLs are obtained by requesting the Times to Email the article to yourself.

Although the first was submitted last night (US Eastern time), September 2 none have been accepted as yet.

Other important Times articles published in the print edition today, September 3, are not set up to take comments so I have referred to them in the comments submitted.

If one or more comments are accepted I will write more.