Jens Lekman and Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden
Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden signed for the campaign for Free Dawit and Jens Lekman, the Swedish indiestar played a song for people who have been affected of the hard right wing politics in Sweden.
Music are sure connected to politics.
Saturday 7:th of August the Sonisphere festival in Stockholm gather 47.000 hardrockfans and my son who wrote about in our Swedish blog.
I was happy to see the concert of Jens Lekman instead. It was great, maybe the best concert I seen this year. It was sold out and his fans sing to most of the songs and danced and clapped their hands. He has to come in again four times for more songs.
Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om music, hardrock, indie, concerts, video, Iron Maiden, Sonisphere, Jens Lekman
Why I love karate
I saw the new Karate Kid yesterday, the day for the Swedish Premiere for the remake of Karate Kid.
You know: the version with Jackie Chan in the role of the old kungfu-master and Jaden Smith (son of Will Smith) as the young adept.
The salon was filled and all shows that day were sold out. The people were all clapping their hands four times in the last part of the film.
One friend of mine refuse to see the film, because he loves the films with Pat Morita that much. I think he misses something, Jackie Chan is marvelous in the role of Mr Han.
I rembember when the first film of Karate Kid came. I was practising karate and was also a member in the Swedish national team. No, I was not one of the best ones, but I was anyhow practising with the team and was also a few times competing in the team. I was working at Expressen at that time. Expressen was then the biggest Swedish newspaper.
I made an interview with two young boys from a karateclub. We let them go with me for a preview of the film.
I rembember they said they liked the philosophy, but they would not call the martial art in the film as karate.
It is still the same: the martial art in the film is a sort of a very american sort of martial art.
But it doesn´t matter for me, I still get the same feeling: I love the philosophy of martial arts.
By the way: I love the view from China in the new Karate Kid – and I will save money until I can go there.
I postad my thought about the film in my Swedish blog Kulturbloggen too.
Chang Weng have also posted about Karate Kid 2010.
Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om Film, karate, kungfu, China, karatekid, Jackie Chan
Related articles:
IMDB om Karate Kid 2010, recension i SvD, recension i Expressen, recension i Dagens Nyheter, recension i SVT,, recension i Göteborgsposten.
Pupils will have to bear their mistake whole life through
A misstake while young and you´ll have to bear it your whole life.
The Liberal Party in Sweden (to be true: not so liberal, rather more right wing) has presented a legislative proposal that would enable truancy to be displayed in the grade reports of all school goers.
And believe it or nor: The Socialdemocrats agree.
How is it possible? Today The Socialdemocrats in Sweden launched a campaign about their vision of a sociaty there everyone has the possbilites to fulfill their dreams, even if you are from a not-rich background. A lot of bloggers oppose this and so do the trade union of teachers.
A child must have the right to come back again and should not bury their mistake whole life through.
The Liberal Party leader, who introduced a comparable system during his time as Stockholm education chief, is calling for truancy details to be included nationwide in the term reports of primary school pupils as well as the cumulative grade reports of high school pupils.
“It’s not acceptable for adults to come and go as they please in the workplace and the same should apply to pupils at school. Pupils should be present at classes; the level of truancy today is unacceptably high,” said Björklund at a Monday morning press conference
.
Swedish media articles about this:
Dagens Nyheter 1, Dagens Nyheter 2, Dagens Nyheter 3, Expressen, Aftonbladet and Svenska Dagbladet.
Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om school, politics, liberals, education, youth, socialdemocrats
“Dawit Isaak’s crime ‘too serious’ for trial”
Dawit Isaak’s crime ‘too serious’ for trial
A journalist originally from Eritrea but with Swedish citizenship, Isaak was arrested in September 2001 along with a dozen newspaper owners, editors and journalists accused of being Ethiopian spies.
“It was a conscious decision from the government not to hold a trial in this case. Anybody who is accused of a crime receives a trial in an Eritrean court. But this is a special case due to the serious nature of the crime,” presidential aide Yemana Gebrab told newspaper Aftonbladet during a visit to Stockholm.
Of course no one believes a word of what presidential aide Yemana Gebrab says.
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
