Swedes (not) in America

From June 2 - 10, there will be one less Swede in America. None other than The Swede in America's Sister will be joining her Swedish brother for a week of Scandinavian adventure. The trip will inevitably include a second (first for some) pilgrimage to Sweden.

Ben's Swedes
(left to right: Sister Swede (Rachel), Swede in America (Ben), Mother Swede (Vicki), not picutured: O'Father (irish)

Byfesten

It's that time of year again... < fill in the blank >-fest. Every city has one. In Watertown: Riverfest. Sonderborg: Byfesten.
I'm pretty sure there is a worldwide formula that cities purchase which summons a convoy of carnies to roll into town from their carny villages. The carnies set up their carny tent village, and people flock to throw their money at them. The interesting population of the city finally shows its face and the question is answered, "so theres the other 10,000 people that live here." It's these 10,000 helpless folks that make the entire carny system work. Steps to make the system work:

1. Find people with children, preferably four or more children
   
2. Offer cheep Chinese crap for a seemingly simple task (often of physical merit)
   2a. display one huge stuffed animal for girlfriend to see
   
3. Deep fry every food item you offer
4. Never stay in the same town for more than three days
5. Stay away from cities with more than 25,000 people
   

Human Popsicles

Sweden is considering allowing freeze-drying as a new method to bury the dead instead of traditional burials and cremations:

The freeze-drying method offers an environmentally friendly burial transforming corpses into organic compost. Traditional burials and cremations hurt the environment by polluting air and water, as a corpse buried in a coffin will take many years to decompose completely.

Under the new method, the corpse is taken to a temperature of minus 196 degrees Celsius in a liquid nitrogen bath and the body is broken down into a rough powder through mechanical vibrations.

The remains are then dehydrated and cleared of any metal, reducing a body weighing 75 kilograms (165 pounds) in life to 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of pink-beige powder, plus the remains of the coffin.

The key point here... the company has applied for patents in 35 countries.

Little Mermaid statue defaced — again

The Copenhagen Post is reporting that once again, Denmark hippies retaliated in the government takeover of their "Freetown Christiana." The city is demolishing old buildings in the district to make room for a new government subsidized housing project, which has upset the squatters that have been living there for free since the government abandoned the old military barracks in 1971.

Whilst I'm as hippie as the next guy, these "non-violent" protests have gotten a bit out of hand. They have culminated into large gatherings where protesters start big fires and throw Molotov cocktails at police. That being said, I'm totally okay with painting the joke of a statue that is the Little Mermaid though... I hope I'm not brought in for questioning for saying that.

Sweden's Response to Football Brawls

In response to Kristin's experiences with football in Chile, I bring this article from Sweden. We take our football seriously here:

Mass brawl at Swedish girls' football match

A row between a parent and a referee at a girls' football match escalated into a brawl on Sunday.

The match, between two teams of 14-year-old girls, was being played at Möllevallen in Skurup. An exchange of words between the father of one of the players and the referee ended with the ref whacking a ball at the spectator.

"That's one version. The referee's version is that the parent threatened him with a corner flag," said Stellan Andersson.

The father went and got into his car while the referee called for reinforcements. Shortly afterwards, several cars full of people - including the referee's father - arrived.

Accoring to unconfirmed witness reports, they are said to have circled the father's car and tried to smash in the windows.

The father managed to drive away from the scene but two cars set off in pursuit.

"We went down there with four units. The atmosphere was very threatening at first. Nobody has been arrested but the matter has been reported.