In Cuba: the bloggers are the only free voices
To blog in Cuba is to risk your safety, even then you dont blog about political issues.
The Swedish Union of Journalists has two websites and one newspaper. The paper – “Journalisten” – publish in the issue of May an interesting article about bloggers in Cuba.
It´s about Yoani Sánchez, the blogger of Generation Y.
Some facts about here from Wikipedia:
Yoani Maria Sánchez Cordero (born September 4, 1975 in Havana) is a Cuban philologist and blogger. She has achieved international fame and multiple international awards for her critical portrayal of life in Cuba under its current government.
In November 2009, US President, Barack Obama, wrote that her blog “provides the world a unique window into the realities of daily life in Cuba” and applauded her efforts to “empower fellow Cubans to express themselves through the use of technology.”Sánchez is best known for her blog, Generación Y (English: Generation Y), that despite censorship in Cuba, she is able to publish by e-mailing entries to friends outside the country, who then post them online.[7] The blog is translated and available in 17 languages. Time magazine listed her as one of the world’s 100 most influential persons in 2008, stating that “under the nose of a regime that has never tolerated dissent, Sánchez has practiced what paper-bound journalists in her country cannot; freedom of speech”.
Here four more bloggers from Cuba:
I wrote more about this in my Swedish blog (in Swedish).
Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om Cuba, freedomofspeech
Interview with Jack Bevan from Foals – with iphone
Two years ago I saw Foals playing in the festival Accelerator in Stockholm. I reported and blogged from the festival in my Swedish blog Kulturbloggen. Together with my friend the Photographer Anders interviewed the duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums. I think that was one of the first interviews we cooperated with musicians.
The Acceleratorfestival was the last so far and it was pretty good with band as Vampire Weekend, MGMT, Duffy, Band of Horses and Foals.
Foals new album will be released next week in Sweden. I saw it got real good preview in NME. I will write a preview next week too. On Thursday I interviewed the drummer in the band. That´s Jack Bevan.
It was an interview with telephone. Someone from Warner called me up and then he came. I sat there talking and listening with my iphone.
The questions I planned to ask I had written on my laptop. JS, who also writes in my blog had prepared the questions. I tried to write down the answers at the computer with my right hand while I had my iphone in my left hand.
No, it was not that easy to listen and understand everything. It was difficult to ask him repeat when I had not understood. I really do prefer to make interview live or with email.
Anyhow: I asked about how many hour per day he works with music.
Last year, when the band wrote the songs to the new album they sometimes worked 24 hours a day, he said.
Jack Bevan and Yannis Philippakis were originally in cult math rock band The Edmund Fitzgerald, which did not gain much media interest. The group was disbanded after they claimed that things had become “too serious” and they wanted to have more “fun making their music”.
It has happened a lot since then. Today the music is his work and he does it for his living. Since 2007 everyone in the band works fulltime with the music.
Of course I asked about the new album: Total Life Forever.
He said it was a sort of homecoming: A stamp from there they was now. After the first album “Antidotes” a lot changed and this new album was a way home from that. But even it if is a homecoming all songs but one is recorded in a studio abroad, in Gothenburg, in Sweden.
And well: I am from Sweden and brought up in Gothenburg. I am happy my hometown could be useful for this nice indieband.
Here is the result of the interview, in Swedish in my blog Kulturbloggen.
A dream came true: to see Jethro Tull live
It was a great day for my Sunday the 18:th.
Jethro Tull was here in Stockholm.
A band I heard a lot when I was teenager. I have a lot of memories from these years.
I rembember the band had a gig in Gothenburg, where I lived that time. I was a very shy person so I did not go for concert as a teenager. But I do it now, instead. A lot.
It was great to enjoy the music. Ian Anderson with the flute is like Pan from the Mozart, like a small devil.
I was there with a blogging friend, and he has taken the photo from the concert and had made a short film with shortcuts from songs from the concert.
Here the post I wrote about the concert in my Swedish blog.
And we got two extra tickets – a man from Holland found me through my Swedish blog. He had two tickets but could not come to Sweden because the Icalandic ash that stop the fligths.
So my husband and a friend of his also went to the Concert.
Well, as expected: the best song in the Concert was Aqualong.
By the way: the official site of Jethro Tull.
Leaving of Vaclav Havel in a theathre in Stockholm
“Leaving” is a new play of Vaclav Havel, which is his frist play in over twenty years.
It is a tragicomedic play with an extra existential dimension, because the voice of the author takes part in the play as a voice from above, commenting the scenes and how to write and how to play the roles.
Yesterday was the opening night for the play in Sweden at Stockholms stadsteater. The Stockholm Stadsteater does not have any English part of the site. To bad. I saw the play yesterday together with a friend of mine, who has been in the former Czechoslovakia, before it was divided in two nations.
As always on the opening nights there is a lot of famous people there, for exampel Mona Sahlin was there. She is leader for the biggest Swedish opposition party: The Socialdemocrats, an probably the coming Primeminister after the election in September 2010.
I have written about the play in my Swedish blog.
Facts about Vaclav Havel fromWikipedia:
Václav Havel (Czech pronunciation: [?va?tslaf ??av?l] ( listen)) (born 5 October 1936 in Czechoslovakia) is a Czech playwright, essayist, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993–2003). He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally. He has received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, the Order of Canada, and the Ambassador of Conscience Award. He was also voted 4th in Prospect Magazine’s 2005 global poll of the world’s top 100 intellectuals. He is a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism.
Beginning in the 1960s, his work turned to focus on the politics of Czechoslovakia. After the Prague Spring, he became increasingly active. In 1977, his involvement with the human rights manifesto Charter 77 brought him international fame as the leader of the opposition in Czechoslovakia; it also led to his imprisonment. The 1989 “Velvet Revolution” launched Havel into the presidency. In this role he led Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic to multi-party democracy. His thirteen years in office saw radical change in his nation, including its split with Slovakia, which Havel opposed, its accession into NATO and start of the negotiations for membership in the European Union, which was attained in 2004.
Facts about the play in Wikipedia:
Leaving (Czech – Odcházení) is a 2007 tragicomedic play by Václav Havel. Although Havel has had an extensive career as a playwright, Leaving is his first play in over twenty years. The play premiered at Archa Theatre in Prague on May 22, 2008. The play is composed of five acts and requires eleven men, six women, and one voice..
Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om theatre, politics, Vaclav Havel
The heart of Gothenburg will be Chinese
Chinese car maker Zhejiang Geely Holding has signed a deal to buy Sweden’s Volvo Cars from US auto maker Ford.
That´s the biggest of all news in Sweden today.
The Swedish newspapers report that the Chinese Geely will pay 13 billions Swedish crowns for Volvo ($1.8bn (£1.2bn).
Volvo is seated in Gothenburg, the second biggest city in Sweden and located in the westcoast of Sweden. I am brougt up there, although I do live in Stockholm now.
It is a strange feeling inside me now.
The heart of Gothenburg will be own of a Chinese company.
When I was very young Volvo was the place to apply for work at. A lot of my friends worked there.
The world has changed since then.
I do love the globalisation and what the brings to us. But it still feels strange that Volvo is a Chinese company from today.
It has nothing with being afraid of strangers to do. I know the world is a global world and that Chinese people are humans. It is a good thing to have connections with each other.
I dont like the loss of human rights in China. But I do hope the more the Chinese people communicate with people around the world the stronger will the desire for democrace rise.
More about the businett at BBC:
The Chinese car maker Geely has signed a deal to buy Volvo from US car giant Ford for $1.8bn (£1.2bn).
The agreement, which was first announced in December, is the biggest overseas purchase by a Chinese car manufacturer.
…
Analysts view the deal as a good one for Volvo, which has struggled to grow sales and has not made a profit since 2005.
More about Volvo and Geely in The Local.
Related articles in Swedish: Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet and
Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om China, economy, human rights
