the macnilssonmuren clan

These beautiful red haired people are my brother, sister and myself back in 1987. Can you be any more good looking? I stole the pic from my brothers blog just in case anyone here has missed it.

revolution now!

"Revolution is my only shepherd" - I so totally agree with that sweet old lady!! Or is it a sweet old hockey player in a flashers coat? I don't know and I don't really care. I support her/him anyway! The new neoliberal Swedish government will screw 75% of the Swedish population before they even manage to say "no thanks". The other 25% will walk happily singing to the bank even richer than before. Happy happy joy joy.

support

Maria and Clara came by and supported me in the fierce DJ battle. And no, Clara has not borrowed Marilyn Mansons goth contact lenses - it's a weird effect created by my cell phone camera.

linda vs dj ondska

Had a friendly DJ battle with Linda. I think we managed to play something of everything. We had fun anyway. Hope some of the guests liked it too.

saturday night at snotty's

I played at Snotty's last weekend. Had a great evening as usual.

malte 2.0

Malte is 2 years old now! There was a small party for him on Sunday the 19th eventhough the birtday was on the 20th. He got this beautiful accordion from one of his aunts. I think it was Stina. I'm sure mum and dad loves the music that comes from it.

naked ape - undo redo

Here's the new Naked Ape video! You know, the one that I missed the release party for. It's nice - zombies again! But were are Albion and Jonas?

husby vs harlem 1.2

A week ago my favourite neoliberal Per and his two neoliberal friends had a couple of beers and a nice debate inside the classy restaurant Carmen. At least that's how I want to remember it. I was pretty damn tired (and maybe a bit drunk too) and were probably shouting at them (I'm sorry Per!). I discussed (and they tried to get their views through when I had to breathe - damn this need for oxygen!) the suggested privatization of appartment houses in the million programme suburbs around Stockholm. Pers friends said that the privatization of appartment houses in Harlem, NY, had been a huge success and that it will be exactly the same in Husby and other old suburbs/ghettos in the Stockholm area. And I just can't agree with that. What about supply & demand? Is Harlem a part of Manhattan and is there a demand for private housing on Manhattan? Hell yes! Can you make a big profit? Sure as hell! Just as you can in Söder. Once a shabby working class area and now a paradise for yuppies and the upper middle class. Then let's take a look at Husby and other million program suburbs. Is there a demand for old appartments far away from central Stockholm in desperate need of serious renovation? Maybe. Can you make a profit? Probably not. Will you be able to lose a lot of money? Most probably! It would be interesting to know how much money the current owner, Stockholms Kommun, believe is needed to renovate these areas. What would a reasonable price be for these appartments? Maybe the tenants actually ought to get paid to take care of these old appartment houses? I can't get rid of the feeling that the new conservative/liberal coalition in Stockholm wants to find a way to avoid these huge future expenses by cheating a group of people who already are vulnerable. Many of the current tenants have a hard time understanding Swedish and getting permanent employments and therefore also any kind of decent bank loans. They take a huge risk if they decide to and manage to buy their appartments.

I'm not totally against private housing. Harlem and Söder were dumps before the privatization wave. But unfortunately the original tenants usually seems to be the ones who benefit the least from both systems. The huge public housing areas are often in decline and slowly turning into slums. If they are in attractive areas like Manhattan or central Stockholm there are a lot of money to be made from renovation and privatization. Unfortunately that often means that the original low income tenants can't afford to buy or rent these "new" renovated appartments - they have to move to the next dump instead. The only way to change this is to build many more appartments that are both affordable and in areas that are made attractive. Real city areas - not just sleeping cubes in faraway places. But that would also mean that the prices on many already existing appartments would fall. Something that many voters, in Stockholm at least, wouldn't like. They have invested a lot in their living. So I'm not sure how we will make that happen. I'm only sure that public housing is a part of the solution - not the problem.

Here's what Husby Unite thinks about it (Swedish only). I have to agree with their doubts.

And here are some other voices about Harlem and privatization:
Village Voice
Slate

dead tired... again...

This is how you look after two days working 12 hours a day. I don't like that. I want to have a 12 hour work week. Not work day.

another long day in årsta

This is Valla Torg in Årsta. I'm waiting for the train to Gullmarsplan so I can change to the train to Slussen and there, once again, change train so I can come home to Fiskis. No fun. I had been to one more of these quite interesting education days for all of us hippies working in schools and in youth recreation centres all over Stockholm. We listened to Peter from Kairos Future. And that's Kairos, not Cairo. He had a lot to say about what wealthy middle class kids are interested in and what they will be interested in. Perfect for me who works in central Stockholm. Maybe a bit less interesting if you work in Husby, Rinkeby or Akalla.

in fear we trust

All's fair in love and war
Francis Edward Smedley

Because of the war in Iraq and the so called War on Terror both people to the left (new times indeed) and to the right (war is not peace - hang him) are discussing what's okay in a war and what's not. Often this debate targets what happend in Abu Ghraib and the death sentence against Saddam Hussein. Personally I find it very hard to support torture and the death penalty. Aren't those methods that Hitler, Stalin, Mao and the Axis of Evil supports? Shouldn't all of us who are living in modern democracies be against such barbaric practices? Why would people even want to torture anyone? I can only see a few reasons for the use of torture:
1 - you enjoy torturing people
2 - it makes you feel powerful and that you're in control
3 - to spread fear and to force people to subjection
4 - to gain knowledge about secret operations
5- to punish people you fear or hate
The US and their supporters usually refer to alternative 4, to gain knowledge, as the most important reason for them to use torture. But I believe that both alternative 3 and 5 are just as true. Maybe also alternative 2 - especially for low ranking military personel who are stuck in a hostile and chaotic environment. The strange thing is that when the US say that they have to use Torture Lite to gather important information they hide the fact that "torture is as likely to yield false information as it is to yield the truth". You would have to torture an awful lot of prisoners to gain enough material to find any patterns beyond lies made by those prisoners to protect themselves or lies given because they believe that's what his/her torturer wants to hear. Is that what all those secret prisons are for? Then what's the difference between us and Stalin or Saddam himself? We say that we defend democracy, liberty and human values - but is this really the way to do that? Torture? Executions? Oppression? Violence? Earlier this year a study made by the University College London suggested that "irrational decisions (are) driven by emotions.
"It has long been assumed in classical theories of economics that people act entirely rationally when taking decisions. However, it has increasingly become recognized that humans often act irrationally, as a consequence of biasing influences. For example, people are strongly and consistently affected by the way in which a question is presented. An operation that has 40 per cent probability of success seems more appealing than one that has a 60 per cent chance of failure."
I can't get away from the feeling that this not only clouds our judgement in economic issues but also in political. That would make both the Vietnam war and the War on Terror much easier to understand.

Now maybe some of you wonder why that manga dude is in the picture above? Bush and that famous Abu Ghraib picture must be pretty obvious. But who is that manga character? His name is Light Yagami, the main character in the manga/anime Death Note. He is an A student that one day find a book called "Death Note" outside his school. If he writes the name of a person in this book that person will die soon after. Light starts to kill off loads of "bad guys" to rid the world of evil. But at the same time he changes. He wants to become a god. To rule the whole world. He pretends to do good but is actually only motivated by his own hunger for personal power. Soon people who are not criminals starts to get killed by him just because he wants to protect his personal interests. It's a great anime. I really recommend it. And what does it have to do with George W Bush and the War on Terror? I don't know really...

the dark side

Sometimes weird things happens. People change. One second they look like friendly modern professionals and the next something strange and evil look back at you. Just like in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

the journey home

We met the legendary punkrocker Ola a.k.a. Gomer Explensch at the Liljeholmen station and he offered us some beer. Nice. Once upon a time he played in Kai Martin & STICK! and nowadays he has his own punk record label here in Fiskis. On the train to Fiskis we met Hassan and had an interesting discussion about the difference between Shia and Sunni islam and the current situation in Iraq. Ola coined the now classic slogan: USA out of USA!

dizzy

Me and Per unlocked this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it was another dimension - a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. We were moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. We had just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.

party!

Party night! Dante turned 37. We're all getting super old... what has happend? We can't even trust time anymore. But who cares... we have fun anyway.

the new police station

They say that the police has opened a new office here in Fiskis. But it looks pretty closed to me. They have even sealed it off with one of those plastic bands they like to use at crime scenes. Impressive.

security camera

Sometimes I find it interesting to watch the security cameras... Maybe something will happen...

november sun

So it's november now and the sun does hardly manage to rise above the horizon...

mr aryan gene pool 2006

Damn, can a dude look more scandinavian than this? Maybe it's time for me to put my genes up for sale on eBay? Or maybe I should go to Hollywood or Hong Kong and play evil european criminals?

It would not be difficult, Mein Führer. Nuclear reactors could... I'm sorry, Mr. President... nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely.

freeze!

No use to pretend anything else anymore... the winter is here... it's freezing cold and the days end almost before they start...

snow!

I think these pics were taken the day after the snowstorm. Not really that impressive. But there's snow at least.

hearts of darkness

Why? Why can't anyone release the brilliant documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse on DVD? I found a lousy VHS rip on Pirate Bay - but even that was a great movie experience. To be able to watch a great movie maker like Francis Coppola and his team of actors, cinematographers, designers, writers and producers totally go mad in the Philippino jungle while making Apocalypse Now is among the most interesting, weird, disturbing and emotional I've ever seen on a TV-screen or on my laptop. It totally blows away all the Reality TV shows that's been shown the last decade. Could this be the ultimate Reality TV show? Send a huge group of interesting and talented people out in the jungle somewhere with millions of dollars, helicopters, guns, boats and drugs, loads of drugs, and document what happens. I would definitely watch a show like that. That's one of the reasons I downloaded Hearts of Darkness! But why do I have to become a criminal to be able to watch this epic documentary? I already have Apocalypse Now and Apocalypse Now: Redux on DVD. Why can't I buy Hearts of Darkness anywhere?

I end this with two great Francis Ford Coppola quotes from the movie:

My movie is not about Vietnam... my movie is Vietnam.

There were too many of us, we had access to too much equipment, too much money, and little by little we went insane.

naked ape

Since I missed - what I'm sure was the event of the year - Naked Apes release of their new video at Bar Berlin Sthlm last Thursday I repent my self by publishing their first one, Fashion Freak, here on my blog. Watch it - it's great!

snow storm

This autumns first snow storm arrived today. When I write this (ten in the evening) there's a lot more snow outside than there's in the picture.

skeet shooting

We also went for some skeet shooting. This is my colleague Lisa shooting at the clay disc. Super hard to hit but I enjoyed shooting at stuff.

the ljusterö ferry

This is the ferry to Ljusterö. I'm on my way to two days of team building and psychological profiling. Great stuff! I'm now a proud owner of my very own FIRO-B chart/profile. It says that I'm both flexible, curious, rational and competitive. I also like to experiment with different ways to act in different situations. And I'm friendly too! Sounds pretty good. It also sounds a bit like my horoscope.

"You were born with the Sun in Taurus and the Moon in Capricorn. Because both signs are of the earthly element, you are very practical, a good planner, and clear about your purposes. Internally, you are given to self-evaluation and judgment. You are extremely ambitious and have a secret desire for a prominent position in either politics or finance."

Could that be a coincidence? Do psychiatrists and astrologers have something in common? I wonder...

fiskis forest

If you're lucky there's at least a couple of hours of sunshine. But it starts to feel like it's dark 23 out of 24 hours each day.

autumn leaves

You can never take too many idyllic nature pics in and around Fiskis. Nature rules here. I used my mobile phone camera for these.