Splitting in two or three?

Ever since last Sunday when a male priest did not appear to church to perform his duties at Sunday mass with the female parson the discussions have been going high. Did he do wrong or not?

The official stand-point of the Finnish Lutheran church is that if you work in the church, then you have to accept the views agreed upon policies, having female priests in the church being one of them or not performing marriages between people of the same sex. So there is going to be a full investigation in this matter and the culprit will have to face the reprimands.

One bishop interviewed on TV stated that “if your consciousness is against females to officiate in churches then maybe you should resign, form one church of your own splitting the church more officially than it is already divided today in just opinions. Divide the church in one with no female priests and the other one “mixed”.

Which I think is a good idea then everybody can feel at home in church as you can choose the church you attend to, if at all.

I also heard that one female priest some time ago blessed a lesbian couple after they got married, or "registered their partnership at the registrar’s office" as it is called here in Finland. This I do not know if they are going to investigate or not, but this is also something that is discussed, and it also divides the church in two. So maybe splitting the Lutheran church in three would be better?

I have always thought that female priests in a Christian church feels a bit odd, guess I have not got used to it yet, but in another religion it would be okay. ? I have never heard of a female rabbi, guru, or lama, not even a female Shinto priest.

Is there any other religion where there are females as priests?

More fishing

About 4000 people in Finland are retired early because of depression and most of them live in the northern parts of the country. And no wonder in this, as the winter up north goes on for months without the sun rising above the horizon, which I would get depressed about. In the same way as it does not set at all for months in the summer, living up there I would not be able to sleep at all. No wonder people get depressed, not having a normal routine of day with darkness to sleep and sunshine to wake up to. Gets all your daily routines mixed up.

Well, at least they can still fish on the ice up north; guess there will be no greater risk on the lakes there yet. This over-enthusiastic friend of my spouse’s that wants to go fishing next weekend to finish off the season, I just heard that he even bought himself a new set of winter underwear to use. According to the weather forecast it will not be as warm during the weekend as it has been earlier this week, but I guess he will not need his underwear with 10 degrees either.

Unless he is planning to go swimming, wearing his new, warm underwear?!?

Thank God there still is time for his wife to think some good excuse for him to have to go fishing, some family dinner or something, as you can not plan fishing looking at the dates, weather has to be taken into concern as well.

Just hope he doesn't come down with a major depression about this!

Breaking ice

A great controversy has been raised by the eastern neighbour when a nuclear icebreaker was tested in the Baltic Sea without the consent of neighbouring countries, what if anything would have gone wrong?

The same neighbour also has huge resources of gas and oil and of course wants to make money on them; they are planning to construct a gas pipeline on the bottom of the Baltic Sea passing close to several neighbouring countries all the way to Germany.

As the export of gas and oil through the Finnish gulf and the Baltic Sea is expanding, the concerns of polluting the sea and coastal areas should any accidents happen to tankers or the planned pipeline, and several countries are now trying to figure out what is going on.

Anyway, the sun is shining, and heat records have been broken in Finland. It has never been this warm before in the month of March, last record was from 1945 with a 16 degrees Celsius, and yesterday we had 17,5 degrees and the ices of the lakes are just melting away.

I can’t help thinking about it as a friend of my dear spouse announced at a dinner last weekend that he was going fishing on the ice next Saturday. Is this really Russian roulette the Finnish way?

Lost friendship

Friendship is a strange thing, it can stay strong if you work on it or you just leave it and it withers and dies.

There are different types of friendships, friends that you get along with your social status, they come with the family you were born in and who they used to socialize with. Very few friends are truly chosen by our selves and most of our friends come along with something else, there are classmates and friends you had in school, the ones you studied along with to get a profession and your colleagues, the ones you work with and your former colleagues.

Then there are the friends of your spouse, his fellow students, colleagues from work and the clubs you socialize in, the parents from your children’s school, your neighbours and so on.

I have moved around quite a lot during my life time, so my closest friends were the ones that normally lived the farthest away. They seemed to always live elsewhere than where I was living, but they always stayed closest to my heart. Meeting them has always been like just seeing them yesterday and catching up with news has been great fun.

Some friends I am sad to have lost contact with during the years, and some I could not care less about, life being an ever changing element and us having to adapt with it to all its’ changes. We sometimes loose what is essential in our relationships and it all becomes so material and the essence, or the soul, of the friendship is lost.

I am especially sad about one friendship gone sour, having been friends for over 25 years and been the closest you can get, sometimes even closer than my proper sister. It really hurts, and I do feel let down, I miss our friendship as it used to be. I ask myself if it ever was what I thought it was, if it all was pretending from the beginning. It is not that we have lost contact completely, it is not just worth the while anymore, just “hello, nice weather today” things that I do not care much for and just keeping in touch out of an old habit.

I need more substance to a friendship than that. Friendship is about caring and giving, about listening when needed to and just being there…

We have a saying in our family, and that is “better guests” and this goes for “better friends” as well, I have noticed.
The “better guests” are the ones you invite out of etiquette because you have to, because they expect you to invite them as you are frequently invited to their homes and they are most probable to stay out of contact when you really need a friend or something bad happens to you. Like loosing your job or becoming ill.

Your real friends might not have a fancy car, or have well paid job, but still they are your friends, you might have known them since your early childhood, or pre-school years and they know who you really are. They do not even see the façade you are trying to put up with your “social” friends. Life is so short, and our time is limited, and we waste most of it making it more hectic than it need to be, tending to forget the most important and precious things in our lives after our own well-being, our families and our friends…

Priest or not priest

The Finnish evangelical Lutheran church has been around for over 850 years and has today about 550 congregations with an average of 80% of the Finns belonging to the church even though not many still go to church regularly on Sundays.

Depending on how you read your bible there always are different ways to interpret things, are you reading what it says literally or are you reading between the lines in the Holy Bible. Another thing often forgotten is, from which language was your copy of the Bible translated from. Is it translated from one language to another and this done several times, then the right and original meaning has been distorted, and maybe is even completely lost.

Is God a he or a she as the word for God in Hebrew it is non-sexed and can mean either, Hebrew having been used to write the Old testament.

And in Greek, which most of the scrolls the gospels were written in, the original word for priest or officiator is also non-sexed and can be either. So if it says in the Bible “he” today, which was the intended meaning for the word used originally? Could it mean she as well?

Or “the woman shall be silent in the congregation”? Is this that one woman in particular or all women in general?
And we would even get a new meaning to each sentence letting the devil himself translate it to us!

Anyway, the first female priests were first ordained in the Finnish Lutheran church two decades ago and it has been a great controversial ever since with male priests protesting against along with members of the congregations. Last Sunday, that is yesterday, one male priest did not turn up to work in church, the one and only day they are obliged to work, Sunday, as he was to co-officiate holy mass together with the female parson.

According to my knowledge, there has been a petition passed around among the male priests in the church with 900 (?) signatures in protest against female priests in the Lutheran church. Are there even that many male priests in the church?

The church has until today officially tried to pretend that this is no problem and does not even exist, but maybe now they will have to take some kind of action, instead of just trying to smooth things over and pretend that everything is like it used to be, what you see is not there.

Or is it there? Can you see God?

Does God then exist?

What a waste

The electricity companies want to build more reservoirs up in northern Finland to regulate the water flow in some rivers.

The reason is that today at high rising waters and flooding occurring every spring at snow melting time, a third of the water is just let through without passing the power generators at the plants. That means that a third of the optimal electricity goes to a waste.

The building of reservoirs would also be good from the greenhouse effect’s point of view being a renewable, non-polluting energy source. But what would it do with the environment from the fish’s point of view? The salmons would no longer be able to swim to their origins somewhere up the rivers to breed and we would have no more salmon to eat, nor would the bears have any to eat either for that matter.

Another thing that worries me, if foreign companies begin to mine uranium in Finland they can according to law, dispose of their used nuclear waste in Finland. To my surprise uranium seems to be counted as a non-polluting energy source, but that must be only seen from the carbon oxide point of view. Things always seem to be left out of their real context, just taking in concern what is convenient to know and not all the facts, guess this is what statistics is all about.

There is big money in uranium, coal, gas and oil for the suppliers of them, no wonder they are lobbying for the use of the to car manufacturers for example and work against development and innovations on alternative energy sources.

I just heard that they have found a planet 20 light years distance away outside our own solar system where it seems like probable that life could exist. The planet is believed to be very similar to our own planet earth, and that kind of feels good, maybe there is a chance for the human life to continue even after this planet has been exploited to the limits for our selfish purposes.

Double wages

Imagine, today it is the 50^th anniversary of the European Union and celebrations will be held tonight in the German capital Berlin, as Germany is presiding the EU as chairman until end of June. According to the latest Gallup’s done in Finland, only 25% of the population want the EU to have more say in their affairs and the same trend seems to be the same in most of the 27 member countries.

Anyway, here in Finland the elections are still not done, discussion about what went wrong? Who is to form a coalition government with who seem to go on and on, and endlessly written about and broadcasted in the Media.

One thing is sure though, the members of the Finnish parliament who also have seats in their home city councils at the same time, they have done well. Two well paid jobs and only half done job possible as you can not be in two places at the same time. And does this apply to the EU as well? Is it possible to hold two jobs, one in the home country’s parliament or government and hold one job in the EU council as well, get double wages even though you can not be in two places at the same time? No wonder nothing gets done and we get no value for what we are paying.

Smoking

The Estonian president just recently paid a visit to Finland before the elections last week and was interviewed in TV about what is going on in Estonia. The Estonians have had a big controversy in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, about the statue of a Soviet soldier.

Some Estonians want it to be demolished and some want to keep it as a reminder of what once was, even the neighbouring country that once used to be the Soviet Union had their say. As a symbol of the oppression during the occupation by their eastern neighbour I can understand the demands of the destruction of the statue, but like president of Estonia said in his interview; “the free will and choice people now can act out is big enough as proof of freedom and no demolishing of a statue can add to that. There free democratic elections in Estonia today, there exist no murdering of journalists or poisonings of other people disagreeing to the government like in elsewhere”.

Well, here in Finland there also are democratic elections and freedom if speech and the Finnish parliament just got 84 women elected out of a total of 200 representatives, wonder if that will change anything?

Anyway, smoking is going to be prohibited in restaurants here in Finland from June 1st, with the risk of fines to the restaurant if they allow people to smoke on their premises.

Most of the restaurants in this country seem to be going smokeless, as almost no applications for the two year transition period have been handed in. Applications for the transition period have to be handed in to the municipality in good time, by latest May, and only 10 restaurants in Helsinki and 5 in Tampere have done this so far.

So now Finland is joining the other European countries gone smokeless in restaurants like Sweden, Ireland and Italy, to mention some and Germany will follow soon suit as well.

So watch where you are smoking when visiting Europe next time!

Fishing

From today on the fines you get abroad in another EU country can be collected from you when back in Finland, as well as a foreigner getting fined in Finland have to pay when back in their home country. The most fines written here in Finland are for traffic violations, well, what happens then if driving too fast and according to Finnish law the police should take your driving license from you, you being a foreigner?

At the same time there are discussions here in Finland about limiting the license of some people such as the elderly or people with some conditions to drive. Depending on your condition and where you live you could be limited to driving only day time, or just around your near home surroundings like you have to wear glasses if you sight is poorly. And with the drivers licenses getting smaller and smaller, how are you even going to see what you are allowed to do or not, if you have poor memory being elderly?!?

Anyway, the spring seems to really be on its’ way now, the weather getting warmer all the time. There is a lake I can see parts from our kitchen window, and all winter there have been sitting people on the ice fishing. They first drill a hole through the ice and then they sit there for hours and hours and try to catch some fish.

Well, with this weather keeping up it is going to be the last chances this winter to do any fishing on the ice. They have lots of ice fishing competitions, and they even have an annual contest between the Finnish and the Swedish, and this winter it was the 8th time this competition was held. I mean sitting freezing on the ice waiting for the fish to be lured to bite?!?

Sleet and rain

The most interesting and reported news lately have been the parliamentary elections that were held yesterday.

Less people used their right to vote than in the last elections four years ago, only an average of 67% voted. No real changes, the current prime minister continues in office with the conservative party having gained seats in the house of parliament and negotiations about cooperation by the party of the prime minister is probable in the next few days to come begin.

One strange thing though, how can a representative who already has been elected into parliament last time, getting second most votes in the home county still loose? What is the wrong with this? Who are people voting for if not for someone to represent them and most votes should get you to represent that area of the country that voted for you, or not?

And quite many celebrities were voted into the house of parliament again, so that seems to be one way to advance in politics in this country. Get a gold medal in the Olympics and get elected into the Finnish parliament.

Anyway, now the lovely mild spring weather changed back to the normal sleet and rain. No sunshine in sight. This is so depressing!

Spring is here!

Amazing, this thing with the changes of the year. Today is the spring equinox and the night is as long as the day, and tomorrow the days will already be longer than the nights. Which means this is spring, no matter what the weather says!

And we are now closer to summer than before, it feels just like yesterday it was nearing Christmas with the nights just getting longer and darker, and the light is returning. I am glad I do not live in the region with daylight around the clock; I need some darkness to be able to sleep. I have been up there, where the sun never sets in the summer and I did not get too much sleep, and all the mosquitoes biting you when fishing in the sunset that goes on for hours, and the itching after their bites that does not end, not even when you scratch yourself until you bleed…

Anyway, on Sunday we are changing our clocks to summer savings time here in Finland, which normally means that everybody has an excuse to be late. Twice a year it works and you are sort of “allowed to be late”, the two days when the time is changed one hour forward, like on Sunday and in the autumn when it is changed back to “normal” or winter time again. That day you can sleep an extra hour, sad it always is on a Sunday. So I always avoid having anything on these days as much as possible, as it always goes wrong in one way or another.

Bubbly water

There are delicious pastries called “bebe” here in Finland that I have grown very fond of. They consist of sweet pie pastry filled with a butter cream and topped with a frosting of sugar. Yummy.

Anyway, these bebes they make, they are normally oval shaped about 3 cms x 7 cms but you can also find them in a tiny round mini variety, about “two bites big” and you buy them by their weight, instead of the bigger bebes that you pay per pastry. Well, getting these tiny bebes for my birthday celebration has become some what of a tradition now and I did enjoy them yesterday, but the Sibelius champagne we bought yesterday is no champagne as they said on TV when advertising for its’ release last year.

So I am sorry, last year, I did not know what I was talking about, telling you that Sibelius is champagne and not only music. My apologies…Sibelius is not champagne, it is just a vin mousseaux or sparkling wine, and it is not even French, it is made in Germany. Thus it is no champagne at all!

It was not something to remember to buy more than once, and listening to Sibelius music can in no way improve having any of this bubbly water together with it. So great the disappointment.

I think I am going back to having Elysée instead on my birthday, and this white currant wine does not even try to pretend to be champagne, just unpretentious Finnish sparkling berry wine. Not quite the ordinary plonk either, you just have to know what to have together with it.

Serious cooking

My normal morning routine consist of checking out the latest the news in the morning and also to watch morning TV and check out what they have come up with for an idea of what to cook for dinner today in the Ruokala section, which would be about translated to “Diner” in English.

They send this program every weekday morning and I have been following their cookery on and off for some years now, and I am quite surprised some mornings of what goes on.
By the way, it was in this program that the different party leaders were cooking in, that I mentioned about earlier when talking about campaigning for the elections.

Anyway, I think it is good there is a show like this, giving people new ideas on what to cook for dinner, how to make dishes in new styles and easier ways though their standards in the show has come down greatly since last summer when two of the chefs quit. Anyway, some mornings my tea is at danger coming up the wrong way that is coming out through my nose!

My idea of ideas of food and cooking is inherited from my parents, my father a great chef and restaurateur in his time, and my mother also from the same trade. Nothing beats hygiene, washing your hands, keeping your hair tied up, sharp knives and proper clothing to not injure yourself. Well, imagine my surprise one morning when one of the female chefs was cooking in morning TV, in a very low-cut pink t-shirt risking showing “it all”, not to mention the hazards of burning her boobs!

I can’t even remember what she was cooking, but I would have taken more care of my “goodies” and avoided getting any splashes of hot anything on them!

No this is not the way it is to be done, if you are showing example of how it is to be done, then do show how you are supposed to dress for avoiding greater mishaps.

They do not seem to take their cooking seriously.

Bad hair day

I have long wondered what a “bad hair” day is. I mean, my hair still does what it wants to no matter what I try to do with it. Have tried it all, shampoos, conditioners, hair mousses, gels and sprays, curling tongs and flattening irons, once I have done my hair and go outdoors my hair still falls out of the shape it was forced into and looks just the same as it did before. Only thing is to keep it tied up in a pony-tail or done up with pins, then it stays. Does this mean I do not have any bad hair days, or does it mean that I have them always?

Anyway, right now is not the time to go strolling in nice sunny spring weather in town here in Finland if you want to be left alone. Try crossing any square in town and you’ll get harassed by several campaign workers and even by some candidates running for the parliament trying to push some paper in your hand, chatting you up asking if you are going to vote. Well, no use telling anyone anything about not being able to vote as a foreigner, as the next one will jump on you as soon you leave the first one behind. So if you are going out now for a lone walk in the sun, get your darkest sunglasses on and turn the volume up on your mp3-player with your favourite music. And try avoiding town squares.

Sponsoring

New Finnish companies have become sponsors to F1 racing teams, quite surprisingly a energy drink manufacturer, hardly known but locally in Turku here in Finland, but known in the US. They are going to sponsor Renault and a brewery and manufacturer of soda-drinks also has an energy drink they want to make more known sponsoring Williams. Maybe another Finnish energy-drink can sponsor Ferrari? How much energy can the world need to drink or this what is going to replace the cigarette advertising that is going to be banned, at least in the EU.

Maybe some of the Finnish paper manufacturers could become sponsors too. And Nokia, or is Nokia already sponsoring any of the teams? At least they do manufacture tyres.

Campaigning for Parliament

The new ad for the union is not as controversial as the other ones, this one is just a man crying with a woman consoling him with saying: ”It is okay, you can vote, you can vote on anyone you like. No need to cry. Just vote”

Well, guess this is not a better ad to raise the partaking in the elections, maybe if the political parties and the candidates just kept their promises instead of talking “it” like mentioned in the book I mentioned about last week.

About 29%, of the Finnish citizens who are eligible to vote, that is about 1 million people, voted in advance. The voting in advance ended yesterday and so no one can now vote except on the polling stations on Election Day on Sunday. Yesterday was also the last full gathering at the Parliament before the elections and the campaigning is now becoming even more frantic. Now we see ads for the candidates in every break on TV as well as seeing them in various programs expressing their opinions, that is if you are big and known enough to be taken seriously and the so called “election peace” no more exist, that means that the campaigning by the different candidates and parties can continue until the very end of the voting.

There are quite a few immigrant candidates eligible for the parliament to choose from as well and it will be interesting to see if Finland is ready for having non-Finnish born members of parliament yet, in these elections.

The husband of current justice minister was just found out to have paid for some ad done by an advertising agency without a receipt in the last elections. That is paying no taxes and of course without her consent.

You see, the finances for running for election has to be recorded and verified officially and be on display for everybody to see and somebody did some digging as it hit the news.

Another candidate was last week involved in road accident that killed one person, claiming he has no recollection whatsoever of what happened. No matter what happened, it must be hard to continue like “the show must go on” after such a thing happening to you.

Making paper

A Finnish paper company was again in the headlines in South America about a fortnight ago, this time in Brazil where a forest plantation was occupied by friendly landowners rallying to express their opinions about the exploitation of the Amazon forest, and in the meantime nothing has lately been heard about any rallies in Argentina.

But the entire forest industry is in the headlines here in Finland.

Last year the forest industry made the record best results ever even with the long strike of paper mill industry workers during last summer. Now the forest industry employer’s organisation think that outsourcing timber yard operations is too slow and they want more of it, and in the meantime the paper workers’ union does not agree to any outsourcing at all.

So we will now see what it develops to this time, maybe there won’t be any forest industry in Finland in a couple of years as the foreign owners of the paper mills get fed up with the strikes and demands for more money, close the plants and move their business else where to tax-havens and cheaper labouring countries…

And I better stock up with toilet paper now before there is strike a on again.

Big talks, no results

The first EU summit for this year was spent discussing the possible cutbacks of carbon oxide emissions and the pollution of the environment.

Every member country is to reduce their emissions best they can and to switch their energy consumption of today such as coal (which is quite inexpensive and even more if you happened to have own resources of it) and oil to a 20% coming from non-polluting and environmentally friendly energy sources until the year 2020 as the goal.

Finland being one of the 4 member countries in the EU already today having reached that goal with 25% of the energy coming from alternative, renewable and non-polluting energy sources such as wind-power and water-power was unhappy with having to make even more cutbacks at the same time with other newer member countries of the EU having not yet reached the same standards, security and consciousness in environmental matters and are desperately doing anything boosting their industry to improve their economy and they are not at all concerned about their green house emissions. So now every member country will have their own, special agenda to follow in the future.

So here we are again, big talks and no visible results. Again.
Should not we all, every human being, be concerned about our own lives? And do our best about this global problem?
Why is so difficult to get people to understand that we have to do something about it right now, as tomorrow is too late! If we all die here on planet earth there is no use of the money anyway!

Bullshit

Bullshit would in Finnish be translated to “horseshit” and a book named “Bullshit” was just released here in Finland.

The book hit the market just in time now before the parliamentary elections. The book goes quite in detail on about the art of talking bullshit and according to the author you can practise it getting better at it and become fluent in talking bullshit.

According to the interview with the author of this book especially many “good looking men” dressed in smart in suits, white collars and neckties do make good use of talking bullshit right now just before the balloting for the parliament.

And of course it would be good for any politician in any country to practice to keep talking without saying anything in as many words as possible. One part of what they are saying is probably the truth but among it are whitewashed things, some pulling wool over people’s eyes and the rest of their talk is itself, that is, pure bullshit.

Tailored results?

The Finnish airline Finnair last year suffered from a strike of cabin personnel, which caused distress to their customers and a huge setback in their results. Last year there was also a nuclear warning on their planes to Moscow when they had to search for a nuclear hazard on a couple of their planes. We still have to keep in mind that the radiation we are exposed to in an airplane in the air still is much higher than being on the ground.

You also have to re-check in your baggage as the airlines nowadays do not want to pay the costs for handling other airlines luggage to keep their own costs down when passengers change flights. If you are flying with Finnair and you are transferring to a flight that is not a Finnair flight or the company you are flying with is not a member of the One World Alliance you have to claim your luggage at the airport you are changing flights at and re-check it for the transferring airline to handle.

Finnair is presently to greatest part owned by the Finnish government and they have a say in handling the business but the company also has foreign shareholders and the Finns have been accused of hostility against foreigners as they have not announced any new board members to represent the new part-owners.

With a 22% owned by foreigners, the size of their ownership should at least allow one new member on the board. So now if the foreigners do not get anyone on the board they are selling their shares, which could mean even more trouble for Finnair.

With the prices of airline tickets getting cheaper with two bargain-airlines disappearing from the competition in Finland, Finnair still managed to make a loss last year. Finnair still seems to be doing rather even if they reported a loss last year as they have ordered 15 new planes for an amount of 15 billion Euros, if I recall it correctly, to be added to their fleet of planes for the increased demand on flights to the Far East and China.

Well having myself studied the noble art of accounting I know how to tailor the figures into suiting your own purposes and made to look something else than they really are.

Genetics and heredity

I just found out that genetics is not as easy as has been thought earlier. It is not just the genes we inherit from our ancestors that decide how we look and are, the genes are also affected by other things by our surroundings and can be either switched on or off, and depending on from which parent you inherit them from they can affect you in different ways. Like for instance a defect genome inherited from your maternal side gives you a different disease than the same exactly in the same way defect genome inherited from your paternal side. Wow!

So it depends on not only the genomes we inherit, the environment and the lives of our ancestors also decide how we are to be and look.

No wonder the variations among humans are large and there is nobody like the unique you, as the variations and combinations still are innumerable with 30.000 genes. And the scientist were worried for a while when they found out that we “only” have about 30.000 genes as some plants can have 60.000.

Well, this certainly calls for some tea, or maybe coffee to improve my health?!?

Parliamentary elections

The election ad about voting done by the union I mentioned earlier, with this rich, callous businessman gluttonously eating expensive delicacies in overwhelming and “tacky” luxury speaking out his contempt of the workers’ rights, got withdrawn from the TV because of the reactions it caused among some of the parties running for the Parliamentary elections. I thought it was a bit too rich, and so apparently did others too as it is said to be an attack against the Parliamentary spokesman and the President.

Now I am thrilled to see what ad they come up with next, as there are rumours about a new ad being in the making...

Anyway, here in Finland the elections are not as aggressive as in other countries, quite mellow stuff really, nobody digging up dirt of the candidates, just an ex-girlfriend of the Prime minister getting her “true” story of their love-affair published in a book, which I doubt will make any change to anyone’s opinions of the Prime minister anyway.

Quite a few of the candidates have their own Blog on-line where you can read about their opinions on various subjects if interested, and some have been cooking in the morning TV and also quite a few of them released a book just in time for some publicity before their campaigning began.

Guess no big change will be anyway after these elections either, the participants only whitewash their statements before, tell nice stories people want to hear and then they forget about their promises after getting elected.

Poor chicken

Well, it will be thrilling to see if the bird flu comes to visit this year or not, at least there is no hysteria about it as there was last year with spring arriving. The pharmacies have not as yet run out of influenza vaccine as they did last year when people stocked up with it at home.

And no big alerts in the near vicinity of Finland as yet.

Anyway, so now the poultry is to be kept confined indoors from march 1st until the migrant birds have arrived, so guess there will be no free range eggs to make omelettes of until later in the summer, just plain old-fashioned fish-tasting eggs to eat. Poor chicken, no digging outdoors for food on the ground and poor me, any tasty omelettes or Sunday roast chicken.

Political statement?

The up run to the Finnish Parliamentary elections are progressing towards the voting on March 18th and the advertising outdoors is now allowed with posters of the politicians showing up all over town.

TV has been full of various talks between different party members and also discussions about some of the advertising on the TV accentuating the differences between the employers and their employees it goes like a “big boss” in tacky and over-done luxury with no concern to as what things cost, biting in the middle of a big smoked whole salmon saying things like “well you’ll never get this anyway” showing around his wealthy but overdone surroundings continuing with “but you can still vote, not that it will do any difference anyway”.

This kind of advertising is a bit rich for my taste, but then I am not voting anyway as I am not even allowed to as a foreign citizen. Well, if you do not vote you can not make a change and in a democratic nation this is the only way to have your say. Now the headquarters for the Parliamentary elections of the Social democratic Party was broken into and all their computers were stolen.

Is this maybe a political statement of some kind as a reaction to some advertising or just a plain coincidence?

Sex is business

Today a sentence was for the first time ever announced in Finland on a large scale sex business and several men got custodian sentences. Their sentences were even more severe than they had been after their first ruling before their appeal to the higher court.

If I have not got it completely wrong, this is the case where a foreign mentally handicapped woman last year was found confined to perform sexual duties to men in an apartment in the capital area of Helsinki, among several other confined women also forced to sell themselves not even receiving fair pay for their performances.

I have always wondered about illegal immigration and the business that has always been in it. Single and whole families willingly paying huge amounts of money to be smuggled abroad from their native countries in hope of a better life in the western world just ending up exploited as slave-labour.

Or in the worst case with little babies and under age children kidnapped and forced to have sex with adults. How could you even ask for their own consent as they are not old enough to understand what it is about, not to mention if your own parents are doing it?

Yes, you are supposed to love your children, and you are supposed to love each other, but not quite in this way!

Where is the world going to? Where is the common sense?
Has it always been like this but we never just heard about it like now with the media of today?