So what happens to you when you are dead...

It seems that these last weeks have been about religion belief and god. I talked to a couple of colleagues at work about this. One a believer, the other an ex-believer now militant atheist. Along this I read the excellent book by Gitta Sereny "Into That Darkness, From Mercy Killings to Mass Murder", about the governor of Treblinka extermination camp Franz Strandl. In this book Sereny also highlights some of the Vatican questionable actions.
As most of you will know I am most definitely an atheist, but that doesn’t mean that I don't try to understand religions or peoples need for answers or meaning in life.
On of the questions that I ask my self is what do you say to a person who has just lost a loved one? How do you justify it? How do you make them feel better? A lot of religions create a (I think false, but that’s my opinion) security for people, by stating that people are going to a better place and that you will see them again.
But what does one say from an atheist point of view, how do you create comfort without relying on better places, harps and so on?

I would love to hear your opinion. Here is mine:
The person that has just left you lives on in you and other people. Their influences, their actions, their words remain in the mind of the people that met with them.
Personally I try to listen to the learning and experiences of the people who are around me, both those who are alive and those who sadly has passed away. The one at the foremost of my mind when it comes to people who have since passed on is my maternal grandfather who died when I was 10.
His humble upbringing on a farm in Alsace, his experiences in the second WW, and his fight from under educated young man to sales director of the company he worked with most of his life, his generosity when it came to his grandchildren, his rather stubborn view on my mother’s upbringing. All this are both lessons that I should remember where I came from, that my family have been refugees (although for a short time), that there a good and bad ways to treat your children and etc.
In short that just the influence of him, of course one can argue that I pick and choose. But the fact remains that he inspires me and other people that he met. That some of the lessons he taught me, are in re-interpreted in my actions and therefore transmitted to others. He lives on in my actions.
So if you have recently lost someone, please take comfort in the fact that for some people the person you have just lost, meant something to them, taught them something. Even young children who tragically lose their life before it has even begun. Realise that, that child even in its short life time, probably inspired others to cherish their children even more, then before they passed on.
So what this mean to me? Well it means that I try to help the people that I come in contact with. That I make sure to smile as much as I can, all because I know that all that will remain of me when I go one day, is the memories of those moments.

P.S. Thank you Paolo Conte who always inspires and supplies the perfect music to write the above...

Europe must stand together....

Again my good american friends Dea and Masca have sent me an article from the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/opinion/13sat2.html?th&emc=th

And this my answer:

Yes absolutely true. But European unity is more likely then American authority. (Yes of course it had to rime)
I think this is a bit of short term thinking. Russians do have the power right now because of their resources, but in the long term this is another gain for the alternative energy block. Just as in the 70's when the oil producing countries kept putting prices up, the Europeans will put even more resources into becoming even more independent from Oil. This is some of the explanation that we are not as much in the shit right now as the US.

I love it when American media writes about how Europe must stand together. For the last 8 years yes Europe has shown weaknesses in the union, but they have also shown that they unlike the Bush administration try to play by the rule book.
I think it is fair to say that the state of democracy is in far better shape on the east side of the Atlantic, then in its modern day birth-place. Democracy is not easy as good old Churchill all made us aware of, and it does allow for criticism and divergent opinions.
My answer to this article, yes Europe has to stand together and find a way to negotiate with Russia (instead of heading over the Bering straight and going to war with them (right Mrs. Palin?)). In the meanwhile if America could sweep up the pieces of glass and fix the window that they smashed when they through out the rulebook on sovereign states and your right to invade them, us Europeans will take care of our business.

Please leave a comment - But mostly about Al Gore

So is this going to be Jan's contribution to a discussion on global warming...
Well I will have to disappoint and say no, not today, I haven't even seen an inconvenient truth (my mistake I know).
No what I want to launch on this page is the speculations on who Obama is going to choose as his potential Vice-president. Why do you ask? Well the other day I was watching Al Gore do a speech on the environment. Except it didn't sound like his usual ranting about the environment (admirable as it may be), this time he was launching a vision on how he thought the United States could pull itself out of the energy crisis. It involved a whole host of renewable solutions that especially my friends at Vestas will enjoy.
While watching this it hit me...Al Gore as Vice President? Before you say that this is ludicrous, let me present my points why...and then I'll shoot myself down afterwards...
Gore has the experience that Obama doesn’t.
Gore was the guy who actually won the presidency, but lost in court. A lot of Americans that I talk to find this incredibly shameful and may give Al some additional votes. (I can pretty much guarantee you that the districts that got cheated in Florida will turn up…)
Gore is from the south. Yes he did lose his own state in the elections, but I don’t see that many other Southern candidates. ( I think Edwards is too young and I think Richardson is too Mexican).
A lot of American’s miss Bill and when they can’t have his wife, maybe his VP will suffice…

So what is countering my arguments? I talked it over with my friends Caroline and Gene who are what I would call my Washington insiders (don’t know if they would agree).
They argued that being VP is too restrictive for Al and that he will rather be an envoy instead of be the head of a global organisation. Gene and Caroline have met Al, so they know him a lot better than I do, but what if Obama actually did the same as Bush did (oh my good please no…I can hear you thinking, but bear with me)?
So what the ape boy do that we can use. Well he has (or was forced to, I think more likely) let the Vice president have an influential role in his administration.
No one can deny that Dick has been among the most powerful VP’s in the history of the presidency.
Could Obama do the same? I mean the mess that the future American president face is daunting and extra experienced hands may be a good thing to have.

So what do you think Al as Obama’s pal…

P.S. Elke’s friend Reinhard told me that people who I know were actually reading my blog. I had no idea. Actually I have no idea who visits my site. So if you enjoy it and come by often or just once, please leave a little note as it motivates me a lot…

Deteriation of the European Middle Class?

I recently read an article that I got from a friend in the US (thank you Masca).

This is my response to it:

Well I guess that the simplistic answer would be thank you America…

So what do I think?

Well I think we are dealing with several factors.

1. All of the countries described in the article are countries that have failed to create a flexible and a higher educated workforce. If you look at what happened in the grandparents generation, most of that generation gained access to education and new work possibilities. And then the governments thought they had solved the problem, until former third world countries (read southeast asia) caught up with the level of education. On top of that those countries aren’t bogged down by rules such as the 35 hour work week and the impossibility of firing people (France and Germany). These factors have created none flexible workforces who are forced to stay in jobs that are disappearing or that they are not productive in (read they are bored…) My personal opinion is that Germany would have dealt with it had they not had to integrate Eastern Germany and carry the burden of the European union on their shoulders. In Frances case, it’s a blend of belief that they have the right system (some would call it arrogance) and that the top of the country really don’t give a shit. The Italian leaders? They really think that Italy can survive on selling the Italian way of life. And of they don’t give a katso either . I don’t know about Spain, but I think they are suffering because ironically their economy has now gotten so strong that the wages in Spain have gone up so they are losing their status of being the low cost production site of Europe. In short all of these countries need to relax labor laws, while at the same time providing social security and free education (yes the bill is steep). Or just wait it out till Chinese wages catch up with European one (which will take much shorter time then you think).

2. People have gotten used to other standards, the middle class now has 2 cars? (see article) What happened to people pilling on the bus, or driving your spouse to work and so on. Beyond this there is all the other stuff a normal family should have, television in every room, each child there own room and so fourth. Yes cost of fuel has gone up, but that’s because demand has gone up. Cost of food, is now, thanks to bio diesel, linked to fuel cost, which leads us back to the two cars. Second generation bio diesel is still far away, so I guess we will have to do it the Brazilian way and rely on the sugar (which is making all of us fat any way (which again raises fuel costs), so lets BURN it.

3. Thankfully people are generally eating better, more diverse and they want to eat things out of season, strawberries in January? This also increases the costs.

But yes going into Iraq has basicly hit the whole western world, so thank you George and please do sprint to the finish. I’ll give you a prize if you quit before July….

Where are the issues?

One of my rituals when I take a plane is going to the news stand and pick up Newsweek and if I'm in for a long flight the Economist. On my latest flight I dug into a Newsweek report on the Obama - Hillary battle that included a ten page collection of articles written by women on who they supported and why. It was interesting reading, some of the accounts being very personal tales of overcoming the same obstacles that both candidates have faced on their way to the forefront of the democrat party elections. When I finished reading I sat back and realised that not one of the articles had mentioned what the political programs of either of the candidates were. It was all about race, sex and experience. I started looking at other reports from the campaign and the trend was the same.
So why does this trouble me?
I understand that this election represents a breakthrough in womens possibilities as states"men" and that a minority candidate generates hope for the many in the minority communities. But I think that this categorisation of people and being for an against them because of their sex or race is at the heart of the problem.
The fixation on who the people are, instead of what their policies will be, reduces the electoral process to the election of caricatures.
If anybody thinks that this is a very American tendency, I can tell you that having followed the preseidential elections in Paris the trend was much the same between mr. Sarkozy and mme. Royale.
I wonder why journalists are satisfied to reduce their articles and stories to these caricatures. Is it easier to write about, are we the public so none discriminative or is it because the politicians have so little to say these days, that the only meat on the story are these caricatures?

THIS COUNTRY IS THE MOST DISFUNCTIONAL PLACE I HAVE EVER LIVED IN

Sorry for this rather angry title, but this is how I feel right now. I've recently moved to the UK and I have to say I am less then impressed. NOTHING works here, businesses cheat you, public transport is a joke, everything takes for ever and if anything needs to get done you have to be the biggest asshole around. Not my idea of a great place.
If you need examples: It took BT 1 and half month to activate a telephone line, something that they charge 120 pounds to do, it has taken our stupid landlord the same time to give us a key that he promised (actually we still haven't recieved it), it cost me 1/3 of a ticket to Copenhagen, to take the crap trains that are always late from Reading to London. It takes the bus 1 hour to go 15 km in the morning. Roads are clogged after 7.30 in the morning. The building quality is a joke, with the wind coming through the windows like they were open, and isolation is about as good as it would be in a shanty town in Johannesburg. JESUS, please give me one thing that works in this symbol of capitalism...
I need it now....cause I really am a positive person....

The idea...that has turned into a lie...

Well those of you who know me personally will know that I'm pretty blunt especially on my view of the countries where I have lived. I guess having lived in different countries has given me an opportunity to take a look from the inside and the outside.

One of the things that I have found that the three countries I have lived in have in common, is that all three of them are controled are influenced by a great lie about themselves.

Don't be mistaken it's not the same lie. The three countries, the USA, France and Denmark all have their own lie.

The lies interest me because they seem to permiatel the mainstream media, politicians and the population. I'm not sure in what direction that the three influence each other (as in most models the arrows probably have two arrowhead and all point to each other...), but I sit and watch the news, I hear the politicians and "common" man speak, and they all seem to believe in this lie or at least they are refrain from talking about

it.

What interest me about the lie is that when I think of the lie of the countries is that if they faced them I feel that they would be much better of if they faced them and accepted them as fact.

I will be honest, I hope that you will help me develop, by discussing and challenging my view on these lies.

I hope to have presented my views on the three countries I have lived in, before I move to yet another country (the United Kingdom) at the end of november...

Time to get back to the blog

Well the thesis is handed in and now there are no longer any excuses to not write. So again I hope in the next weeks to start making this blog live again...
To be continued

I'm an atheist

I am an atheist. I have been since the day when I was 5 and I asked my mother who Cain and Abel married? If it was thier sister that would probably explain some of the more insane people in this world. Bref...What has always haunted me about religion is the fact that most of them boil down to a unquestionable truth. This means that relgions perpetuate the notion that some things are not be asked about, cause they simply are. The lack of ability or legitimacy to ask questions about certain things has left it's horrible mark far beyond the church door or the philosophical excistential discussion. Unquestionability has led to such terrors as the Nazi regime, Culutral Revolution in China, Slavery and just halting the forward progress of humanity in general be it in science, philiosphy or worst of all free thought.I try to the best of my ability to not opress my opinions on others, however I never shy away from a discussion about religion, discussion is not opression, questioning is not opression, telling me that you will pray for my salvation is. (Save your prayers for someone else, they won't do me any good)To those that say that relgion is needed to create the basis for our society I can only say that many of the ten commandments are very much based in logic. Do not kill thy neighbor, if everybody did this no wars and hey nobody really wants to die unless...you are thinking of something that might come after death...I don't ask you to change you views because of my arguement, I only ask you to do the hardest of things, to question the very foundation on which you are raised and what you believe in. I ask myself and others for an argument that explains the existance of god. I have still to hear one that holds water and dosen't build on an unquestionable thruth.

I wrote this comment on the www.ted.com site. I encourage you to visit it as it is absolutely amazing. The comment I wrote was in the comments section to a speach by Richard Dawkins that I can only say you should see, believer or non-believer http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/113. I would love to have a comment about this if you feel like giving me a piece of your mind...thanks

Leaving it to the politicians...

Politicians are corrupt. Nobody believes in the political system. Democracy has failed. I even read on a blog a question raised on if France shouldn't go back to a monarchy. There are alot of discussions that can be raised on just those statements, but there is one element that strikes me in all of them. And that is the lack of responsibilty of the electorate.

One of the things that I most often hear here in France and it is a sentiment that I share, is how inbreed the political system seems to be. This of course has to do with that most of them went to the same schools and have been in the system for a very long time and well that not's healthy, but thats not my point.

My point is how much the population accepts this and although they complain about it, they accept it. Before anybody tells me that I'm overly critical of the french, let me say that the french are not alone at this.

It seems to me that the general electorate has forgotten their responsibility of not only voting, but participating in the everyday debat of politics and seeking an interest in the world that surrounds them.

I often hear that low particpation is the fault of visionless politicians and that the electorate has gotten bored and disenchanted with politics.

Although politicians and a corrupt system can seem to hamper a democratic process in the end the blame falls on the people. When politicians do not live up the expectations you elect new ones. And when the current politicans in France seem to continously mis-use the system it time to elect people who are not a part of this caste of upper french society and it's time to get rid of proffesional politicians.

This process is not a game show where people should win because they smile the right way, because they have the right sex, but because they want to do something.

People need to understand that power dosen't belong to the people, it belongs to the people that show up...So show up and start speaking...

In the famous words of Edmund Burke:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".

I have a boss...

...and if you like to get a different view on things (and you read French) you should go to his site http://www.charlesgancel.com/ .
I just spent a couple of days with him in Saudi Arabia and they were spent wondering where all the women were, were we could have a night cap and discussing just about everything. We went over the upcoming presidential elections, the differences in immigration policies of Denmark and France, our first loves and which books that have meant something to us in our lives. Returning home and having visited his site; I realized how much I had missed writing my blog. As he says in his blog, writing a blog encourages you to follow the news, think of what is happening around you and the thing that is most interesting to me the sharing of views and opinion.

I'll try in the future to give my view on global/local political events, not too prove that they are right, but to encourage you my dear reader to help me develop my thoughts by letting them reflect in yours.

I hope you will follow in the future...


Happy New Year

Sunday evening in Paris

I took this at place de la Concorde...more will follow on my adventures in Paris. It's almost winter and 6 o'clock...I love my new city...

I wish...

I wish you could sit on my bike with me, that you could see the last rays of the scandinavian summer sun, the Copenhagen lakes that we pass over the bridge, that I could feel you shake from the cold of the breeze, that I can sense the warmth of your neck, I wish you could hear Paulo Conte sing to the night sky, that you could smell sweet scent of the summer flowers blossoming, I wish you could see me smiling when I imagin all this...

(Picture will follow if the weather allows it tomorrow)

Being cultural

Well I have finally booked the music for the wedding...which still has no date and more importantly dosen't have a bride...
But before you take me for a complete gay wedding planner I should probably start from the Beginning. On the 4th of april my good friend PJ told me that his friend Jeroen was coming to Denmark and since my parents had left me the car I told him that I could go get him at the airport. So on the 5th PJ, Jeroen and I sat at my favorite cafe in Copenhagen (Europa, mainly cause they have the best coffe, best service and Le Monde) and Jeroen offered me to go to a concert that was being held by some friends of his. Turns out that his friends in the Belcea Quartet not only is an amazing string quartet, but they were also opening the classical music season at Tivoli's concert hal, which is a one of the mayor venues in Copenhagen. So we went to the concert where they played Hayden (who is always a bit sleepy for me), Britten who I had never heard before but which I loved and Mozart who is always a favorite. After the concert we went to the backstage and met them. They were all really hungry and since all the restaurants had closed in Tivoli, I proposed that we go to the Thai Restaurant that I work in. I called and they kept the kitchen op for 30 min. more then usual. I have never seen people so happy to eat a proper meal. Afterwards PJ, Jeroen, Corinna Belcea, a friend of Corinnas and I went out for drinks. After having been the butler for them Corinna told me that they didn't know how to thank me so I told them that they could play at my wedding if I ever found a women crazy enough to marry me. So she agreed to play, so well thats one thing out of the way...
Check out the Belcea Quartet should you have the possibility http://www.amcmusic.com/eng/artisti_scheda.php?aId=11... but you will probably see them at my wedding too...

Thank you Vienna

Morten invited me to the CEMS alumni board meeting in Vienna, so I had no other choice then to say yes. The prolonged weekend was a blast, probably one of the best weekends of my life. Every day was a new experience and Vienna is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. So after a weekend of ballroom danceing, some serious coffee and cocktail drinking, beautiful cars and even more beautiful women. I want to thank my austrian crew for making this weekend amazing. Special thanks to Stefan and Sandra for letting me stay in their appartment (and finally getting some sleep) and to Hannes and shopping fairy Asia for letting me snore in Hannes sisters bed (IT WAS WITHOUT THE SISITER IN IT!!!). To end on a cliché I will say "I'll be back!!!"

Thank you 2005, now for something completly different

So it's january 4th, I have recovered from what was a fantastic New Years eve and now just a little note about 2005. When I look back 2005 has been a year of friendship. I have had the pleasure of meeting alot of new people, re-discover or rather encounter alot of old friends and spend even more time with friends that are a part of my life everyday be it face to face or on msn, skype or mails. Among the highlights have been winterbathing with mr. Morten (picture is from 30th December 2005), skiing with Stephan and Sandra in Austria (thank you for bringing the non german speaking frenchy with you and your family), meeting with the HK people for Ellens birthday, re-seeing my old friend Corum at his wedding with Kristin in New York once again thank you so much for iniviting me it was magical, going to the beach with Kanva, Soeren and the whole extended libary family, meeting the new CEMS people in CBS thanks especially to Nick, Pam and Alle for bringing me along to experience things with you, and a special thanks to Tammy for flying up from Rotterdam for my birthday (I'm still in awe), thanks also to the whole crew in Bergen and especially to my fellow trouble makers and late stayers in Bergen Aki, Kasper (where are those lesbian waiters when you need one) and to Stine my personal guide in Bergen. Also it was great to see people in Warsaw man I love the whole CEMS thing, and finally to the already mentioned NY party with the boys, Ane and Kanva (who actually shouldn't be mentioned besides the boys) and their friends for a great time...
So I hope to see you all in 2006 again and that it brings us all more friends, love and hapiness.

Thanks everybody for being there for me... Jan

Smiles from above

They fall from the sky smiling. They dance in the light, making what is invisible reality. They kiss my cheeks with wet cold kisses, but I can’t help smiling. They are childish and bring an innocence and playfulness to a world that lacks both.
If they are lucky the ground is cold when they lay down and they linger for a little longer covering the ground in a soft blanket.
Snow is childish and powerful in the most happy way one could imagine. It makes streets into playgrounds and hills into slides. It provides a free toy for building bearded men and invisible angels. It becomes a weapon in a war where no one is killed and where laughter is heard.
I love snow it makes everything quiet it makes the everyday magical.
I love snow…

My first short story.

Berlin : 1935

It’s in the eyes of the people that you see it. They stare, they flicker and they look away. They are always on alert; they go from face to face without ever looking into the eyes looking back. I do it; they do it, always looking for a threat always feeling the danger. Whenever you move in public people are looking over there shoulders, you can feel it, the questions. Where is he from? Why is he dark? Is he a threat? What do his parents do? Why is he here?

The insecurity and the stigmatisation has been growing these last couple of years. In the beginning with sporadically violence, then more and more, until it became legitimate. Using fear as a horse pulling their cart, The Party began to rise.

In the beginning no one paid attention to them, The Party. They were seen as a joke, as a minority, people that couldn’t be taken seriously. Their members where the kind that would hang out in places where smoke hung from the ceiling, where beer was served and traditional out of date music played. They would be the kind that when you met them, you would ignore them, smile and say that they were crazy.
But slowly people started listening to them. “The country is in danger”, “the national culture is being destroyed”, “this foreign religion is taking over the world”, ”one day the country as we know it will cease to exist”. People started listening to them, the newspapers started bringing stories on how crime was rising and The Party responded. They had the answer. The problem was the people that were different. It was the this group that caused the corruption of society, the degeneration of the nations values and that was the threat to Christian faith.
The leaders of the country started to get scared of their power and started to agree with them, started stating that we should be put in special camps away from everything. The Party only grew stronger, became only more popular.
The Party claimed that it represented the common people, that they were the voice against the elite, that their movement was democratic, that they were the only true defenders of the nation and of our country’s culture. One day the Party was elected to parliament and after the following election The Party controlled that government and now had the final say.

I could have cared less, but one day the Party put me on a list saying I was different, that I was not like the others. I have lived here almost all my life, suddenly I was different, I was a threat?
The party has written that we on the list are a cancer, that we are too many, that the insecurity is our fault, that we are the biggest threat to their way of life, that we will take everything.
They won’t let some of us build buildings of worship and some of the most extreme members of “their” society, destroy cemeteries. Although the action is condemned, the feeling of hate continues to rise. They redicule how some of us dress, our culture and our beliefs.
They say that our women are oppressed and that our men are incompetent and don’t do anything else then gather money and leach off the government.
So the government with the support of The Party targets our businesses, create special laws to keep us from bringing more of our kind to the country and the government decide were we should live.
The newspapers have started to bring caricatures of us and of the god that some of us worship. They do this under the protection of freedom of speech. It’s true they have that right and they should have it, but I’m not sure they understand the message that its sends throughout the community. Those who agree with the drawings hate us even more and those who are ridiculed feel even more marginalised, even more hated.
They claim that we don’t want to be a part of their society and that we seek to undermine it and take control of the democratic institutions and enrich ourselves.

The result is increased focus on us. Every time one of us commits a crime you hear about it in the media. When one of our leaders is caught in a scandal The Party uses it to spread more fear and more hate. So the insecurity grows. We fear them and they fear us.

The growing hate, the quivering insecurity, the focus on differences instead of what makes us the human race, is the blanket that covers the inability of the general population and its leaders to see history repeating itself.
It’s only ironic that in order to leave this reality behind me for a while, I travel to the city where what we are ignoring and forgetting met its end for the first time. Hopefully people will wake up before the atrocities of yesterday, become the reality of today.

I better catch that flight to Berlin at 19.35.
Please leave a comment I want to make this better...

Man I"m getting pissed...

Apparently now we have to defend democracy with religious means, what the hell is going on... Jürgen Habermas and our pope has gone out and written on how relgion can lead us back to finding the right values, I don't think that relgion is the answer but I do agree that we need to come back to some better values. So what makes me lose my cap, well when they start to say that religion can be the answer to defending democracy...
Why is the political trend moving towards the further integration of religion and goverment. We have a reborn christian in the whitehouse, we have a european constitution where people start contemplating including a phrase of how the EU is based on christian values and an ungoing discusion that democracy is a christian invention that people of Islamic fate can't understand. WHY ARE WE MOVING BACKWARDS!!! If history shows anything its that when relgion and poilitics are mixed people tend to die. When we start defining goverment from a secular perspective, then we destroy the inclusive idea of democracy. In defining goverment within a specific religion, people who don't believe in god or who follow a different faith become marginalised, something that is completely against the fundementals of democracy. Can we please stop this bad cocktail of mixing religion and goverment. And can we please hear something about values of solidarity and values from other people then these religious or nationalistic groups who keep shouting so loud.

Its a gray, gray day

Its been gray outside today, I can't remember it being so dark the whole day, but I guess this is Denmark so I shouldn't really be surprised...And then the first snow started falling, its not staying in the ground but the little snow flakes are trikeling down. Think I'm gonna put on my sailor coat fold up the collar around my ears and take a walk with a small cigar in my mouth.
Have a great weekend...