Juhannus
Finland gets ready to celebrate Midnight Summer Festival, which revolves around the longest day of the year. It's one of the few "pagan" festivities still left, with its spells and bonfires. It's the day when most couples in Finland choose to get married. For the others the tradition is to seek out a remote lake-side cabin, swim, go to sauna, get drunk and burn sausages by the fire. For a few weeks before people begin asking each other where they plan to spend their juhannus this year. It's better to invent something rather than say that you are staying in the city. All the roads get jammed with thousands of people trying to get away. The major news headlines deal with how many people died in traffic this year and how many drowned. Despite all the warnings and education, as many people drown during juhannus than do the rest of the year put together. Drunk people and water is a bad combination.

There is quite a lot of superstition and a form of witchcraft associated with juhannus. Not something that anybody takes seriously anymore, but long ago these couple of days, and especially tonight, were the times when to make certain kinds of "spells". I can only remember one off the top of my head: You need to gather seven different kinds of wildflowers and tonight when you go to sleep place them under the pillow. During the night you will then dream of the person you will marry.

Unfortunately I can never remember my dreams...
Posted 14:11

Politics
Finnish prime minister Anneli Jäätteenmäki has chosen to resign. Even the BBC reported about it. The whole "Iraq scandal" has been the staple fodder of the newspapers since my return, but frankly I haven't paid that much attention. The previous prime minister Lipponen may have talked with Bush and some memo about it may have leaked out, but I still fail to see the gravity of the situation. This is Finland we are talking about. Just what did we have to do with the situation in Iraq, I ask? Apparently the main problem stemmed from these words:

According to the document, "President Bush praised Finland as a good partner and thanked the Finnish Government for the stands it has taken on Iraq, and for joining the coalition."

The opposition then claimed that Lipponen had offered military aid to USA without first consulting the parliament. This was used as a political weapon in the elections, resulting in the opposition party gaining majority and one of their own being chosen as the new prime minister. Blah, blah, blah.

While information leaks are by no means a good thing, changes were going to happen regardless. Lipponen was prime minister for eight years already. Economy is going down, unemployment is increasing - just the circumstances when the people begin to listen to the opposition, telling all the things that the current government is doing wrong and how the opposition would make things right. Finland has three major parties which are constantly circulating in the seat of power. The Centre Party had been in the background long enough for the people to think that it could do what the Coalition Party and the Social Democrats have failed at.

Personally I am sad to see Finland's first female prime minister lose her position so quickly. The current government managed to be in power for little over 60 days only.
Posted 11:47

Add-on
Just as I finished writing the one below, I stumbled upon an article about a game based on Sep 11th. Nothing is sacred. But again, should it be? As the cliche goes, have they won otherwise?
Posted 18:10

One of the things I've read today
There's an article over at NY Times about a strict-muslim female comedian, who makes jokes about suicide bombers among others.

''If the comedy doesn't work out,'' she continues, ''I'm going to become a suicide bomber. I went to see my job counselor, and he said, 'Previous experience not required.'''

One of the things I am often wondering about is when and if comedy can go too far. Some people argue that there is no subject that cannot be made fun of, on the basis that humour has the ability to transfer even forbidden and hurtful things into something positive, that if we can laugh about it then it will cease to haunt us. I don't know if I'd still want to hear jokes about incest or disabilities for example though. Where do you draw the line though? If it's not okay to joke about invalids, why is it alright to make fun of blondes? If you take the stance that anything (jokes, books, movies etc) that offends a person, any person, should not be allowed, then pretty soon we're left with nothing. Why is it alright for black people to make jokes about black people, but a white person doing the same is soon labeled a racist? Should we all just learn to take things easier and learn to laugh about ourselves or is it wrong to become desensitized to everything? How long will it take from making jokes about greedy Jews to thinking that the Nazis were onto something after all? Too many times we are forced to simply laugh along, whether we find the joke offensive or actually funny. Well, there's a saying in finnish that goes along the lines of "laughter lengthens your life". That's something at least.
Posted 17:58

Finns
This to me describes perfectly yet another aspect of finnish mentality:

Since coming back I've kept my car in the old spot where it was before. In theory, you are expected to rent out a particular space and pay for it monthly, but nobody seemed to mind me keeping my car in that spot for free before, so... I've been using my car all the time and every time I've come back home, the spot's been free so I've parked in it as before. However this morning there was a note on the windshield that said "You've kept your car in my spot for a whole week! I have ordered a towtruck". Oh good grief. I can understand if he didn't want to say anything on the first day, perhaps thinking that I was some stupid visitor to the house and would soon depart, but how hard would it have been on the 2nd day to just place a note that said "This spot is mine". But oh no. I can picture him staring at my car for a whole week, every time cursing harder and harder to himself, yet not doing anything about it, up until to the point where he obviously thought I was taking his spot just to spite him and that he'd have to take "drastic" measures to get rid of me (surprising that he didn't threat with the police/landlord too...) Whereas had I known from the beginning that the spot was now rented to somebody else, I would have never used it.

If a neighbour is making a noise, a Finn will never ring their doorbell and ask them to keep it quiet. They won't even drop an anonymous note into the mailbox. Instead they'll suffer for a few weeks, pent-up all their anger and then go straight to the landlord demanding that the neighbour be evicted immediatelly. Such silly people.
Posted 20:45

Oh well
So much for my decision to update daily from now on. I have no excuses this time. I even got myself a cable modem the day I got back to Finland. Simple truth is that I weaned myself off computers and as somebody predicted to me, the internet just isn't as fun as it used to be. I have yet to gain back the magic. I wonder if anybody even bothers to visit here anymore. Doesn't really seem worth the effort. Maybe I will mend my ways. I have learned not to make any promises.
Posted 20:14

Catching up
It's extremely hard getting caught up with 7 months of stuff. Do you have any idea how many on-line comics I have to read? All of Dork Tower, PvP, Real Life, Get Fuzzy, Pearls before swine, Heart of the city etc etc. Oh, pity me ;)
Posted 21:09

New beginnings
Third day of being back to Finland and I am slowly adapting to life back here. I'm not really sure what to think. It'll probably take me a few days to sort out my thoughts and actually make a coherent entry out of them. I don't even know where to begin right now. Nonetheless, hopefully I'll get back on track with this whole blogging thing from now on though.
Posted 20:13