For some reason I've today became intrigued by the character of Carmen and the aria Habanera by Bizet. I can't even remember what originally prompted me to look up the music and the text, it was one of those small unmemorable whims with unexpected consequences. I knew little of the opera and the character it's named after, I simply had a vague idea that Carmen was widely considered a tragic heroine and the play a romantic love story. Now, after familiarising myself with the synopsis and listening to the opening aria copious times along with reading the lyrics and their translation, I can with confidence declare a negative on both counts.

If anything, Carmen is an anti heroine and the storyline is a morbid tale of dysfunctional affairs. Carmen herself is evil. Worse than that, she isn't even interestingly evil, but evil in a very crude and banal way. She is a user, who cares for nothing but herself and her gratification and amusement. In Carmen's world, she's not only allowed to do what she likes with other people, everything is centred around entertaining and amusing her. This leads to a very obvious conclusion that she is not the experienced femme fatale I'm sure I've seen her depicted as, but in fact a young immature girl. This is also supported by the fact that she behaves in an astoundingly stupid way and there is no way someone that stupid and that evil would live to a mature age. And indeed she doesn't, as at the end of the opera she gets killed.

Carmen is also not the “free spirit” she apparently likes to portray herself as. She is quite simply sociopathic. Despite of her declarations, she doesn't love, she only uses the word to get men to do what she wants. She probably doesn't even know what it really means.

She doesn't love Don José, she is intrigued by this new toy because it (and I use the pronoun advisedly) initially showed no interest in her. But once she gets her toy the novelty wears off at which point she quickly grows bored with it and promptly sets off to find a new toy. The fact that by the end of the opera Carmen is still together with Escamillo proves nothing, as it's completely in her character to stay fascinated longer with a dashing bull fighter surrounded by festivities and glamour than with a poor corporal who has lost his stature. Carmen is quite simply a horrible human being.

The interesting thing is that the opening aria lays this all out in the open. Presumably there would be no reason for anyone to mistake Carmen for a tragic love struck heroine who simply is too free to be tamed. First she rejects another man, who has shown interest in her, and does this in decidedly scornful and flippant terms and even taunts him for it. Then she in no uncertain terms states that she has taken a fancy to someone in essence because he has not fawned over her. The aria finishes with what obviously is Carmen in full on seduction mode, doing her best to win over Don José for no better reason than for the sport of it. That she has no actual interest in him is clearly shown in how she takes advantage of him to escape arrest, leaving him to be punished for her antics. And laughing on the way.

Now here in the script there comes a twist which I simply do not understand. Of course, I understand it from the dramatic point of view as without it there would be no story any more, but as a character development it absolutely boggles my mind. Don José goes and falls for this woman who caused his demotion and used him shamelessly. Either he is flagrantly stupid as well, or he has some very serious issues too. I suspect both. He seems incapable of dumping what any sane man or woman would quickly peg as an abusive personality, which is especially odd after Carmen turns on him and tries to chase him off. This leads me to think that our dear corporal is a glutton for punishment, but whether it's his or her punishment, remains unclear.

Having said all this, I believe it's time to mention that I in fact consider the main character in the opera a very clever creation indeed. There's something very modern about this incisive portrayal of sociopathic behaviour and to top this, it's dressed up in a very non-offensive garb so that it can be fed to less suspecting audiences as a Big Romance. I'm normally not a very big fan of the death of the author concept, but in this case of the author actually being long dead, I think I'll make an exception. Perhaps Bizet saw his story as a straightforward tragic romance, if that is the case and he constructed the opera as a genuine love story he himself was most definitely fucked up. But the true characters of Carmen and Don José leap out in such an obvious way to anyone paying attention, that I believe we can safely ditch authorial intent here and say that whatever Bizet meant to do, he ended up portraying severe dysfunction and fucked up behaviour, and doing it well. Whether he did it consciously or subconsciously hardly matters. The surprising thing is how many appear to take Carmen's words at face value, off the stage as well as on it.



Either Carmen is evil or just so completely ditzy that it's bordering on mentally deficient. Personally, I think the reading of her being evil is the one that's less offensive to the audience.

OR: What do pop songs have to do with neuropsychology?


Inspiration can come from strange sources. Some time ago, I was listening to a pop song I had heard many times before without paying that much attention to it. It is one of the less impressive tracks on an album by a well-known singer and though it is pleasant, the words grate me a tad and therefore I had mostly ignored them. The song is about how someone close to the singer/protagonist has died and how they now are in heaven watching over those left behind. Now, having lost in one way or another people close to me, or had major scares of that happening, I sympathise with the sentiment of wishing it weren't so, but I nevertheless admit that they are lost and gone forever. The fact that people still in this day and age insist on believing in an afterlife, when everything we know of living things and humans in particular in no way supports such an assumption -in fact it seems more unlikely the more one knows- is a continuous source of bafflement to me. I used to simply ascribe it to emotional unwillingness or inability to accept the loss and a need to be comforted by imagining the loved ones still existing somehow. In other words, basic, understandable, human weakness.


Still, the problem with that explanation is that such fantasies are so hugely commonplace across time and space and it would seem to me that if the case were just of emotional weakness, we would have seen more people rejecting the idea of afterlife as a silly, though comforting story. Incidentally, there have been cultures with no concept of afterlife. Apparently the ancient Jews thought that the dead simply cease to exist, that death is nothingness, rather a modern and enlightened view if you ask me, and one of the many things Christians had to ruin when they came along.


Anyway, I started thinking about the lyrics of this particular song and about the different versions of afterlife I know about and it seemed striking, how they seem to be based on a very simple idea of the dead continuing to exist in very similar ways to their earthly life. And then it hit me. What if the human brain isn't yet evolved enough to fully and consistently comprehend death? A big deal is often made about the idea that humans are the only animals who understand their own mortality, but what if that understanding isn't as fully developed as we think it is? Nobody would argue against such human mental capacities as language or empathy towards non-relatives being evolved traits,so doesn't it stand to reason that the ability to know death would be an evolved mental capacity as well? The ability to think in terms of the abstract is one of the qualities early hominids had to evolve in order for their decendants to eventually become blog-yielding, earring-wearing featherless pipeds, and the concept of being dead could be argued to be one of the most abstract of them all. If all the assumptions laid out here -and they are big ones- are correct, one could suggest that perhaps the second big reason for the popularity of afterlife fantasies is that the idea of death stretches the human ability for abstract thinking to it's limits, and that a significant part of the population still is incapable of really grasping the concept. If that is the case, it would stand to reason that there would be variation within populations as to how well people understand the idea and therefore how likely they would be to believe in afterlife. The fact that there have been entire cultures with no concept of afterlife doesn't really contradict this, because such cultures seem to be the exception to the rule much more so than one would expect, if the afterlife-no afterlife ideas started out on equal footing.



Now it's time for the mandatory disclaimer. I'm neither neurologist nor psychologist and I have no doubt that many people in both fields would gladly tear me a new one, had I the temerity to suggest I know their field better than they do, and rightly so. It is quite possible that there already is evidence which contradicts the idea I presented here, but I just don't know about it, what with not being a specialist in the fields and all that. However, I like thought games and I do believe this makes an interesting one. If nothing else, it has the benefit of shaking up the complacent idea many people have, of the present Homo Sapiens being the end of the line, unevolving, finished product, as it forces one to consider humans as creatures still not fully adapted to the things bestowed on them by good - or bad - fortune.

I almost forgot my promise of the morning pages. Well, no wonder really, since it's already afternoon. That, however, has absolutely nothing to do with my chosen title for today. When I picked up dancing, it really never occurred to me that it would end up as much more than a fun and healthy pastime, with the additional bonus of good leg muscle definition. Ah, to be young(er) and naïve again. Alas, the muscle definition didn't come alone and now I'm riddled with all sorts of things nobody bothered to tell me about beforehand.


First, there's the general obsessive behaviour. The lengths to which one will go for performance costumes seem to know no bounds. Plenty of free time is consumed by either listening to dance music or by watching dance videos on-line. Dance clothes, both practice and party, take up a lion's share of the wardrobe. If one didn't have a thing about shoes before, it soon develops. There can never be too many dance tunes. One becomes almost incapable of enjoying music without wanting to dance to it. And last but not least, priorities shift. Where before one might live by work-significant relationship-hobbies, the significant others soon find themselves firmly dropped to the third place. Sorry about it dear, but that's just the way the ball rolls.


Second thing everyone very conveniently forgot to mention, was the way a Wholesome Hobby such as this is really an endless money hole. If there isn't equipment to fix, acquire or replace, there are intensive courses, competition trips and all sorts of communal efforts to pour money into. And it NEVER stops! Ever! So far I haven't had to have my credit card confiscated, but who knows how long such mental discipline lasts.


And yes, then there's the public embarrassment. True, practices don't take place in public, but unfortunately, what happens at practice does not stay at practice. The body starts to exhibit compulsive, spastic movements with the hint of a good tune in the air and at times even without one. One stops at traffic lights in a dance posture or flails one's arms about in a library without realising there may be spectators. Any portable music players are especially hazardous in this respect, as they not only provide the music, they block out other noises thereby creating the illusion there's nobody else around. Luckily, most people don't stare. At least not enough to be noticed.


Still, I'm not even considering quitting. I suppose I am a lost case.

(ed. notice: this is written in Finnish, since the person who got the idea going in my head doesn't read English, and it's sort of in dedication to her)


Minä en ole ikinä ymmärtänyt karkkilakkoja. Tai suklaa- sokeri- pulla- mitä muita tahansa “muutenvaanlakkoja”. En siis nyt puhu siitä, että joku lakkaa syömästä sokeria, hiivaleivonnaisia tai kiivejä huomattuaan, että hänelle tulee näistä paha olo, vaan siitä, että lakataan syömästä tai tekemästä jotain pelkästään lopettamisen itsensä vuoksi. Tietenkin, jos asianomaiselta itseltään kysytään, saadaan vastaukseksi “se on epäterveellistä”, tai “se on lihottavaa” tai “se on pahaksi”. Tämä on näennäisesti rationaalinen selitys, mutta kuten vanha ystävämme Spock sanoisi, epälooginen. Aniharvat näistä lakkojen kohteista nimittäin ovat järkevin tavoin ja järkevissä määrissä käytettyinä merkittävästi vahingollisia. Toisin kuin valistajat ja muut pelottelijat haluaisivat ihmisten uskovan, yksi karkkiaskillinen silloin tällöin ei tuhoa hampaita, satsi kotipullaa ei lihota possuksi, eikä satunnainen kiinteän ihmissuhteen ulkopuolella harrastettu seksi tee ihmisestä ikuisesti moraalitonta ja sitoutumiskyvytöntä ihmisrauniota. Sen sijaan kaikki edellämainitut tuovat iloa, mielihyvää ja nautintoa, mitkä ainakin allekirjoittaneen mielestä ovat huomattavasti elämänlaatua parantavia asioita. Liiallisuuteen vietynä mikään asia ei tietenkään ole hyväksi, itse asiassa liiallisuuteen vietynä nautinnollisten asioiden nautinnollisuus usein alkaa selkeästi vähentyä, mutta liiallisuuden torjuminen luopumalla jostain asiasta täysin, on suurinpiirtein yhtä järjellistä kuin korviensa tukkiminen kokonaan jottei joutuisi vahingossa kuulemaan typeryyksiä.* Useimmat ihmiset ovat täysin kykeneväisiä rajoittamaan kyseiset asiat järkeviin mittasuhteisiin, mutta jostain syystä monet heistä katsovat aiheelliseksi olla sen sijaan kokonaan ilman. Ja tätä minä en ole koskaan ymmärtänyt. Kun jostain asiasta kieltäytyminen ei enää palvele käytännön tarkoitusta, sen syyksi tulee kieltäytyminen itse ja kyse onkin luopumisesta luopumisen vuoksi. Näin tekevät ihmiset kieltävät itseltään jotain nautinnollista, saamatta siitä mitään konkreettista hyötyä. Ainut mahdollinen selitys on, että he uskovat itsekieltäymyksen sinänsä olevan hyödyllistä tai nautinnollista.

Noh, itsekieltäymyksen hyödyllisyys on vanha, sitkeä ja harmillisen laajalle levinnyt ajatus. Jo muinaiset kreikkalaiset -tai ainakin osa heistä- uskoivat lihallisten nautintojen pahuuteen ja niistä kieltäytymisen autuuteen. Katolinen kirkko luostareineen on tässä kunnostautunut myös, samoin buddhalaiset, mutta ehkä ensimmäinen palkinto itsekurituksen jalossa kilvassa pitänee kuitenkin ojentaa protestanteille, noille kaikkea maallista iloa vastaan ehtymättömällä innolla taistelleille mustatakkisille urhoille. Muuta selitystä en tälle hyödyllisen itsekieltäymyksen itsepäiselle sinnittelylle nykypäivään asti en keksi, kuin erinäisten uskontojen sitkeän propagandan. Jean Calvin, kirottu olkoon sinun nimesi. Mitä tämän hyötymotiivin järjellisyyteen tulee, suurin mahdollinen hyöty on varmastikin onnellinen elämä, enkä parhaalla tahdollanikaan keksi, mitä logiikkaa on yrityksessä saavuttaa onnellinen elämä kieltäytymällä nautintoa, mielihyvää ja jopa onnea tuottavista asioista.

Entä sitten nautinto? Minkälainen ihminen saa nautintoa siitä, että ei salli itselleen mielihyvää? Kuka nauttii oman ruumiinsa kurittamisesta kieltämällä siltä sen halut? Oletettavasti ihminen, joka on vakuuttunut sellaisten tekojen hyveellisyydestä, mutta riittäisikö pelkkä hyveellisyys motiiviksi, ellei mukana olisi aimo annos syyllisyyttä nautinnoista? Jos miellyttävien asioiden tekeminen aiheuttaa syyllisyyttä, joka on yhtä suuri tai jopa suurempi kuin asian aiheuttama nautinto, voi nautinnon kieltäminen itseltään johtaakin suurempaan nautintoon. Loogista, kieltämättä, mutta myös monimutkaista ja epätervettä. Selkeämpää olisi hankkiutua eroon nautintojen yhteydessä koetusta syyllisyydestä, silloin ei tarvitsisi enää taistella syyllisyyttä vastaan ja koettaa korvata luonnollista mielihyvää hyveellisyyden tunteilla. Tämä olisi myös kestävämpi ratkaisu, sillä kun turhat syyllisyydentunteet on kerran heittänyt laidan yli, ne pysyvät poissa, kun taas itsekieltäymys on elinikäinen taistelu omia haluja vastaan. Ja uskokaa pois, ne oman ruumiin ärsyttävät, lihalliset halut ovat sata kertaa syvemmälle juurtuneita, kuin opitut käsitykset hyveellisyydestä. Omien halujensa salliminen itselleen on pohjimmiltaan itsensä hyväksymistä, mikä loppujen lopuksi antaa pysyvämmän sisäisen rauhan, kuin hyveet ikinä. Ja jottei kukaan kuvittelisi tämän johtavan täyteen hillittömyyteen, huomautan vielä, että hyväksytyt halut tyydyttyvät paljon vähemmällä ja vaivaavat paljon vähemmän, kuin itseltä kielletyt kiusaukset.


* Tosin rehellisyyden nimissä myönnettäköön, että jälkimmäinen temppu houkuttelee allekirjoittanutta toisinaan kovastikin.

So I'm in the middle of this thing called a master's thesis. Nothing new there, as a matter of fact it's becoming a depressingly old thing. And a master's thesis involves, among other things, quite a bit of writing. Now this time around the delays aren't really my fault, instead I can for once blame technology for them, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm no stranger to writer's block. Due to some cruel twist of my psychopathology, writing is both one of the easiest and the most intimidating things for me, and though I may have plenty of ideas, the prospect of writing them out is about as terrifying as scaling a vertical cliff face downwards. Without ropes. When it's raining oil.

All right, so that was a slight exaggeration, the point is that it's scary.

I've heard it before that one should just make a practice of writing a page or two every day, regardless of the quality, just to get the text going. I've always been slightly apprehensive about that, first because it sounds like a gimmick, and second because I feel most of that would be such utter shite that I couldn't bear to even look at it and what would be the point of producing utter shite. Then this morning I happened upon a videoblogger who's had the same problem, that he has ideas but starting to turn them into messages has been like staring down the hole in 300, trying to will himself to jump in (his metaphor, I thought the film sucked, apart from the bit that there were swords, spears and muscular men in short skirts). And what he said about that idea of “the morning pages” actually made sense to me. He said that the point is not really to produce text, but rather to get past that inner sensor that says it's going to be utter shite and you really ought to get something better out. So it's still a gimmick, but it's a gimmick to fool the mind, and I'm very familiar with those (see the reference to psychopathology). I think that really has been my main problem with writing (among other things), that since I have some inkling as to what I consider good text, I'm extremely critical and demanding of my own texts and absolutely terrified people will look at them and see them to be the utter shite I fear them to be. Now, curiously, I have absolutely no problems writing long letters. As a matter of fact I consider myself to be a rather eloquent letter-writer (well, at least by modern standards anyhow). With private correspondence I'm absolutely happy to yammer on, but as soon as there's a chance the text will be public, or if I'm trying to make a point, I freeze.

So, let us consider this the beginning of my morning pages. I need to come to the library to work every day anyhow, so I might as well start it by ungroggying my mind with low quality, pointless writing. I used to think I shouldn't do that, since that would take time away from the thesis, but let's face it, if this gets my mind and typing going, it's a lot better for the thesis than sitting here fiddling with the table of contents and the references and all that stuff, without actually writing anything new.

Hell, nobody's reading this blog anyhow.

Though this time an electronical one and purely one-sided, for which I'm immensely grateful.

There's this person I know from recreational circles, who went to New Zealand to become a missionary. Until then she seemed one of those unassumingly religious people who "are in faith" as we say here but don't really make a huge deal about it, but her communications before her departure and her destination itself began to raise red flags with me. Now before she left she had asked in an email for anyone who wanted to receive her periodical update emails to reply to her. I sensed there might be some less than palatable material heading my way so I declined to reply, thinking the matter closed. However, it now seems that not only was the promise of no emails empty, I was perfectly right about their palatability.

The latest email contained a paragraph which was really nothing short of proselytising. It started off innocuously enough with her gushing sappily about pains she carries in her heart, but beforelong morphed into a full-blown sermon of "oughts" and "musts". The gist of the whole thing was an ancient and worn-out trope. Everyone of us is hurt, wounded and damaged, we carry them along with us and we want to avenge the wrongs, avoid new pain and so on. This makes all bitter and hard and eats our lives up and the solution to this is to turn to Jesus/God for his forgiveness. In the process we should forgive those who have caused us pain and give up thoughts of revenge, this being the only way to get over the pain and to be happy.

Perhaps my biggest gripe with this trope is that it assumes pain, damages and wounds along with coldness and hardness to be unequivocally bad things. It claims that pain is dangerous not just as itself, but because it hardens and embitters a person. And more to the point, it claims that hardness, coldness and bitterness to be bad, bad, BAD things a person must get rid of, otherwise there will be no true happiness for them. Ever. And even if they think they're happy, they're wrong.
Pain and bad life experiences are naturally difficult things to deal with, but claiming there is only one right way of getting over them is nothing short of arrogant. It's a sign of incredible hubris to claim one has the single right answer to life. It ignores and negates all the other experiences, feelings and coping mechanisms, imposing one blue print for all of humanity.

I'm the first one to admit to being damaged and wounded. I am also the first one to admit to it making me harder and colder and even bitter on some counts. However, I absolutely refuse to see that as a bad thing. I have owned my pain. It is part of me, part of what has made me what I am today. Sure I sometimes wish tose wounds and pain didn't exist, but they are to a large extent what has made me strong.

Another claim is that I can't truly be free as long as I hold on to these things, that they somehow keep me in captivity and limit me. Perhaps that were true, if indeed I allowed them to control my entire being, but I don't. My coldness and hardness are just as much part of me as love and caring. I will embrace them as parts of me and I will accept myself as whole.
The idea is that I somehow am in the need of an outside forgiveness and a sense of being precious to something outside myself. Hardly. I am precious to myself as I am and that's all I need. I am free not because someone else has forgiven me some perceived sins or because I give blanket forgiveness to those who hurt me, but because I have forgiven myself, or rather I am free because I have let go of the very idea that I need forgiveness.
I am free because in embracing fully all that I am -including the past pain and the present hardness-, I allow myself to be free.

And my second big problem with the sentiment exuding from the email is that it leaves absolutely no space for alternative ways or being, for alternative realities in both personal and cultural dimensions. And this is why I have a serious problem with missionary work in general. This example from the personal level illustrates perfectly the attitudes behind missionary work, which boil down to there being a single right solution for all humankind, in personal life and in cultural life and that these people know what it is and hold the keys to it. It's if not the, at least very close to the ultimate in hubris and pure cultural imperialism, albeit with good intentions. And we all know which road is paved with those, don't we.



And through all of this, I can't help thinking if neglecting to omit my address from her emails isn't in fact done on purpose. We have had a couple of short discussions about faith and I'm absolutely sure she knows roughly where I stand. And part of me wonders if she in fact is attempting to proselytise to me, an act which I would find personally disrespectful and offensive.

She probably isn't though. But I'm a suspicious, untrusting hard-arse who's perfectly comfortable entertaining the worst case scenario along with the best one.

Today is going to be just meager commentary on certain interesting news items with no real snark directed at the paper itself. I know, disappointing, isn't it. But even I must rest sometimes.

The latest fad with regard to future development of the town seems to be floating houses, planned on the mouth of the river running through the town. Both the planned areas seem to be meant for the more wealthy folk, which appaears to be the case with most new developments. Fancy buildings put up with loads of money, just waiting for all those IT- equivalents for 80's yuppies. Nobody seems interested in building affordable housing, but then there isn't as much profit in it, is there. Meanwhile, a researcher proclaims that the temporary-job society that has received so much press, doesn't in fact exist, that it was all just a statistical illusion. And at the same time, food prices are predicted to go up drastically. Someone has calculated that the price of feeding a family of four will go up €3000 in two years, not a small sum if you're not particularly wealthy.

So we have the rising of prices which will hit the poorest the hardest, more expensive housing planned for the wealthy upper rung, and an expert effectively nullifying the experience of countless of people trying hard to land a job they could stay at. So the poor get poorer and the rich get richer while an expert tells the poor they aren't really getting that much poorer after all.

In domestic politics an amusing parallel has arisen. A National Coalition (right wing) politician is calling for citizens to rat out the current prime minister to the constitutional section of the parliament for lying. According to her, a person who has been known to lie is not suitable to be a prime minister and she's calling for a moral audit of sorts to be performed on him. Her main point is that if he lied about such a small thing as where he met his ex, there's no telling who else he has lied to or who else he will lie to. And the whole thing reminds me eerily about that little witchhunt machinated by the Republicans in the US a few years back. Luckily the right wing here lacks sufficient unity of wingnuttery to bring something like that about. So far. Personally I'm of the opinion that if someone manages to show me a politician who has never lied I'll give up my wordly life and join a convent for surely the end will be nigh.


Random observation: If the Venezuelan president was branded dictatorial last week in a proper article, then this time it was the right wingers who're getting the short straw of apparent language bias. In an item concerning the Spanish election the headline boldly states that the right wing disrupted the election, whereas in the article itself the disruption amounts to them attempting to give out leaflets in the election rooms. Factually the headline was correct, but the connotations it aroused were something more serious than what the right wingers actually did.

Interestingly enough there seems to be an influx of articles on Japanese-influenced popular and/or youth culture in the newspaper right now. First they claimed adults don't get manga and now they have interviewed a couple of girls about cosplay. I couldn't help noticing that both of them gave as their motivation a fascination for the strange and the exotic. I have to wonder how the targets of such thoughts would feel about it, since exoticism does often veer uncomfortably close to a freak show. The middle-aged spinster in me desperately wants to label this as a youthful fad, while the culture critic finds the practice of importing a foreign cultural concept as it is into an environment where it's completely uprooted, similarly problematic to the phenomenon of Ye Olde Pubbe. For what sort of authenticity can there be when an alien feature is propped up in a situation where it can have no real roots?
Of course this coming from a person who has taken a strong liking to Japanese clothing themself. I would point out in my defence though, that I do remain aware of the alien nature of what I'm importing and am not even attempting to claim any kind of authenticity. Rather I'm taking a cultural feature I like and accommodating it to suit my own surroundings. I will always remain a western person in a western context who just happens to wear Japanese clothing and I feel any attempt on my part to import the culture authentically is not only doomed to fail, but also dangerously close to a false claim of ownership.

Due to technical difficulties elaborated below (or above... this world of online text is so confusing) I missed two days of e-newspapers and therefore had only my notes to work on. I decided to construct one post on the 6th and 7th day from the remains of the two separate posts. Since I had no access to the original articles anymore, the post is necessarily more about general musings than this specific publication.



-------
It's that wondrous time of the year again when all over the media little stories of shoes, clothes, bags, hairdos and sunglasses start cropping up. Oh hold on, scratch that. That actually happens all through the year. The relentless bombardment by fashion and style is punctuated merely by moves from one season to another, each naturally requiring a new and improved look. In the newspaper universe the style section seems to be its own curious genre; not really news yet deemed necessary. A concession of sorts to the entertainment business.
The multitude of colour terms reminiscent of a Tikkurila* selection are only one example of the distinct language of style sections. In that world hems will become shorter, men's hair is now tidy and neat (or not), things are out, in, forgotten, all the rage, so last season, elegant, trendy, charming, cute and what have you. It's a strange world of now, where the past is despised and the future non-existent. The style experts or writers are always very certain and very adamant. This is what happens now, this is what one must do at this particular time, or else. Indeed, else what? Lest one perform the ultimate social gaffe of breaking the current colour scheme or wearing the wrong length dress. All the while furiously name-dropping, in order to make sure that the consumer has not only the right look, but the right label as well.
And this is what it's all about, isn't it. Pick any style section in any publication and it will not differ much from mere glorified advertising. In an age where humans and citizens are re-educated into consumers, honest ordinary advertisements aren't enough to keep the populace busy acquiring new things to be tossed away. Articles imitating the pursuit of objectivity (hopefully) present in actual news are routine venues for product placement. It is an interesting contrast when one occasionally sees an item on conservation of natural resources and another one on the latest demands of fashion in the very same publication. Irony certainly is alive and well.
What made these particular articles interesting was what appeared almost a mandatory disclaimer at the end of one of them. Loosely translated it went as follows: "Luckily nobody demands a slavish obedience to the trends, they are just fun to play with in addition to one's own style. What looks good, can never be completely out of style." As if the writer was purposefully attempting to disarm such loudmouths as yours truly. Disregarding that such loudmouths can practically never be completely disarmed, it is an interesting tactic, one I have not much seen the few times I've actually ventured into the world of fashion magazines. But perhaps it succeeds in what it was intended to do, for the entire piece seems to have an air of a sort of self-conscious fluffiness. Like the style journalism itself in this particular case was aware and perhaps even slightly embarrassed by its own lack of levity.
I of course, would prefer such writing to be embarrassed by itself. In my world the style sections would be replaced with a recurring "what's cool and weird in science" section. Who am I kidding, in my world almost ANYTHING could replace the style section and it would be an improvement.


P.S. The news of Nokia getting a giant deal in China was on the website twice. One after the other.
Also, in the item about bats and poisonous tin. Two photos with the identical caption.
Tsk tsk. Sloppy.

Btw, this same poisonous tin is what was found in copious quantities outside the dockyards in Naantali and now it seems it's more than capable of finding its way into land animals. Perhaps drawing some links between separate items would be in order here. Just suggesting.


*A well known paint-making company here in Finland. If not Finnish, please insert a brand name specific to your locality in its place.

So here's the thing. I was already one day late on my coverage of the LNGI series. Now, I had the required articles all open on my browser and was just about to catch up and finish two days worth of commentary when I made the fatal mistake of searhing for a restaurant online. Thanks to some swanky site graphics, my browser froze and I lost all the articles I had saved up. No, I had not saved them on my computer. There were loads and I thought it would've been too much trouble. And since midnight came about just moments after this, I not only lost the day I was behind, I lost the current day as well. Yes yes, I'm sure all the articles are in the archives somewhere, but I'll be damned if I can remember enough of them to dig them up. Not to mention the fact that the archive function in the said e-newspaper is rather buggered lacking in functionality, or at least it was the last time I made a futile attempt to retrieve a specific item. I have not yet decided whether I'll write one of the posts I had in works out anyway based on my notes, or whether I'll just skip two days and make up for it next week.
Anyway, due to this cock-up unfortunate accident the LNGI series will not be a strict chronology.
Oh well, worse things happen at sea you know. Spilled milk and all that.

Volvo will no longer be making busses in Tampere and will "negotiate" with its workers in Turku, over 9000 people considered the stuff on the telly sufficiently crappy to give up their licences all together in february, the rumors that Aker Yards will be chopped up like a day-old carcass intensify, Clinton beat Obama (why does it always sound like his first name to me?)in two states and contrary to expectations is thus not yet out of the race, an Argentinian footballer playing in Barcelona was injured (oh woe), the modern art museum in Espoo got it's hands on some loaned Monets, lonely kids seek help and the school shootings in Jokela have prompted some serious reevaluation of school security. That's what's important today, according to the TS.

In lesser important news, the shipyards in Naantali have spilled copious amounts of poisonous compounds in to the sea. No action will of course be taken agains the shipyards as they have done nothing illegal.
Domestic appliances are becoming less and less safe and the threat of violence in hospitals is becoming ever more prevalent.

Apparently adults just don't get anime, manga or other Japanese follies. Some very old money is being auctioned in Helsinki (Take heed euro coin collectors! Act now and your descendants 600 years from now might make a fortune!) and a Spanish breeder of fighting bulls has decided to clone his best bull (please, no anxious masculinity jokes, let's not sink that low quite yet).

The Russians seem to think President Halonen has excelled in the field of culture and mutual understanding between people enough to merit an award. Perhaps it was that -ahem- interesting portrait a few years back featuring her and a thermos.
Note to prospective art thiefs:if you steal fine art, the chances of getting a good price for your efforts might decrease a bit if you damage the said fine art. Luckily the people working for the Oslo museum have managed to fix the two paintings these cretins stole in a rather unarsenean manner.

The one opinion piece not apparently sponsored by the paper is equally yawn-worthy to the one published yesterday. This time it's written by a bunch of semi-local National Coalition politicians (righters) who true to their chosen careers succeed in prattling on considerably without actually saying much. It's always comforting to know that the elected officials are competent in the essential skills of their profession.

The economy section seems to promise growth in one article while it forebodes an impending downturn in another and asserts the inevitability of all production running off to East Asia in the third. There seems to be a tendency in the mainstream media to treat financial news as the be-all and end-all, yet those news remain the ones that appear the most distant and detached from the everyday life. Surely there's something amiss when such literally life and death topics as clean water, clean air and clean food take the back seat to how long it takes to fill an order for diesel engines to Africa. Not to mention that there typically is not even a hint of criticism or commentary on the status quo present in the reporting. The phrase ivory tower would come to mind, if it wasn't for the elephants being so endangered.

It's delightful to see that the reporting on the democratic presidential candidates in the US has not gone the same misogynistic and generally reactionary way it has done in the nation itself. That having said, whoever it was who wrote that there's plenty of choice in the said presidential election either was kidding or delusional. I'm verging on the former since the example they picked was someone whose biggest success in the previous elections was 114 votes in one state.
It's also heartening to see The Great Ally to the West Saudi Arabia mentioned in a less than savoury light concerning its human rights situation. Even if the example picked was that of a married couple forced to divorce, rather than the continuous violations the Saudi government continues to rain on the human rights of Saudi women. Though I suppose that is understandable, after all in this case a man was hurt as well. That makes it that much more important, doesn't it?

I am not qualified to comment on the sports section. Apart from it not mentioning cricket. Cricket should always be mentioned in a sports section. Cricket and competitive dancing.

Meanwhile in the rest of the world:
There's a new twist in the saga of the Flores-hobbit, an intriguing mystery worthy of any newspaper's time and effort. In general TS could use a bit more emphasis on the sciences and humanities and their respective discoveries. It's all very well to tell what's happening but that's essentially old news as history keeps repeating itself. But new learning? Now that's groundbreaking.
Very interestingly, an anti-Iran move has been dropped. As the whole Iran and nuclear power controversy has potential to explode into yet another full blown US machinated war, very likely destabilising the world even further, it seems an unfortunate oversight not to cover this topic.
Not one word covers the complicated and tragic violence in Africa, a situation which surely could yield at least one story once in a while.

One of the reasons I was originally turned off by this newspaper was it's noticeable air of provinciality. It seems a publication very content to focus on the immediate surroundings and local politics, which leaves someone like me who prefers to get a larger picture of things rather unsatisfied. I especially find the coverage on foreign, science and societal topics lacking and that leaves me to look for other sources. Perhaps a publication of this size doesn't even have the resources and capabilities for better coverage on the said topics, who knows. But the chosen strategy is definitely costing it some readers, as I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling this way.


P.S.
Curiously, some of the articles seem to be the same ones that were online already yesterday. It would seem an odd practice indeed for a newspaper to republish old news on its pages, even if the said pages were online. If they're running low on space fillers I might suggest dwelling into the abovementioned neglected topics. On the other hand, perhaps they just feel those particular stories were of such pressing importance that they absolutely had to be republished.