Daily Loaf

Sturm und Drang.

Wednesday was fun. Work hasn't been quite as taxing these last few days, much less calls coming in and mostly from abroad, which means I get to exercise my German quite a bit. I forgot the keys to the car I've been driving lately (my sister's VW Golf) in Helsinki, and now that I'd gotten hold of the spare keys, I had to go to Ylivieska to drive the car back here.

Emir Kusturica, Serbian godsend to cinematography, has voiced his opinion that anything with gypsies in it instantly becomes energised, jazzed up, more alive. At the train station I run into to this roma guy in what I would expect were his late 30's. He was very very obviously drunk, but not too drunk to be able to converse intelligibly. I would have been in intensive care had I had the 2 bottles of vodka he claimed to have consumed before attacking his then half-empty bottle of Koskenkorva.

We chatted for a while about how Pomarfin shoes have really bad soles and you should take them to a shoemaker and add another layer of glue or something - which to me made no sense, I mean, why are you going to tear a sole open to add another layer of something to prevent it from tearing itself open? - and how the guy who owns the company that makes the concrete beams they're using to replace the old wooden ones under rail tracks must be filthy rich, 'cause they have like a gazillion of them already laid down and and billions more are coming.

His interest shifted to the young couple that was sitting beside him, so moved on to take a few nice pictures of the station area that had obviously seen better days.

• Behind the station platforms there's a lumber yard and a sawmill.


• Numbers hanging in the air. Decadent but charming.


• Who wants Pendolinos when you can travel on cute little two-wagon trains like this.


• After entertaining us with half-remembered Finnish tangos throughout the journey, Roma guy hooked up with Cute Young Guys.

I grabbed a meal at King Burger, the cheaply named but not cheap local hamburger joint. It had pineapple and was edible. I was left pining for some ice-cream, so I headed to Iso Kärkkäinen, the Ylivieska version of the Tuuri Brother's redneck Stockmann, because I knew they had a Spice Ice. Sales Guy was very obviously very cruisy, but most likely straight. Remind me to rant about metrosexuals one of these days. My spycam also managed to capture this inside shot of the mall-like department store. Eat that, you guard thugs!

On my way back I see this smallish sign with the touristy symbol and "Burial site of Soviet soldiers" written on it. A quick high-speed U-turn later I'm at T-intersection with no further signalling. I drive around and end up at a cell phone mast (how typically Finnish is that), but just as I'm about to give up hope a young girl walks down the road with her cat. Too spooky for me. She tells me it's not a joke, that I just have to go down this tiny forest path for a few hundred meters and it's right around the corner. Why of course, how stupid of me.

• At the end of the path you come to a gate.


• You open the gate. You see a mound.


• Next to the mound there is a tombstone with writing in cyrillic letters.

"Na etom kladiyze pohoroneno 92 russkiyh voennoplenniyh" - "At this cemetary are buried 92 Russian prisoners of war" (translation credits to Aki, he got a lubenter approbatur in Russian). Come again? PoW's, here, hundreds of miles from the border? No nice explanatory plaques anywhere, no tourist guide, no soda booth. Googled it every which way, but so far I've drawn a blank.

Fast forward 24 hours, I'm alone at the office and out of nowhere a storm breaks out. We've had massive clouds that have entailed bad bad things for several days now, but so far it hadn't rained a drop here. Nature had it's way at fixing the situation when the most torrential rain I've ever seen in Finland poured over us. It was an awesome sight, frightening but at the same time very beautiful. For almost half an hour it was raining and shining all at once. Things got really freaky when a worker of ours who is also a voluntary firefighter called me telling firealarms had gone off at our other factory - just a few minutes after I'd seen a lightning strike about 300 meters from me, in the very direction of the factory.

The pressure of the rain was such that I saw and heard car alarms going off, and as I rushed to the factory site and had to get out of the car to unlock the gates, I was instantly soaked to the bone. Fortunately, it was water that had triggered the sensors, not fire or smoke.

After yet another false fire alarm I got an update from our worker: it had been a busy day.

The plot thickens.

Reuters are reporting that CPA, the Coalition Provisional Authority, de facto ruler of Iraq, has just invited bids for the construction of a mobile phone network in Iraq. Many subdeveloped countries have skipped the costly construction of landlines and jumped directly to wireless networks. Such a plan would make perfect sense for Iraq, too. Free flow of information apparently has the same positive correlation with democracy than economic development.

I wish I had noticed this before the news broke. US Congressman Darrell Issa (R), of California, has demanded, in March, no less, the Coalition discard bids offering GSM technology, in favour of Qualcomm's CDMA.

Hello!

Every single neighbouring country uses GSM, and while it would be dandy for US companies' workers doing reconstruction in Iraq to be able to bring their own cell phones, after the 2 year contracts expire Iraq would be left with an obsolete network that was inferior to GSM to begin with, soon to be replaced by a newer generation.

What Reuters fail to report, but the intrepid reporters of theBeeb don't, is that the US Military already operates an existing mini-network in Baghdad, left over from the previous era.

Tomorrow, a webortage on a mysterious voyage to the unknown, plus lightning, diluvium, and fire. Stay tuned.

Free trade, free speech.

Give me the former, and I'll show you the latter.

One of my favourite observations from the field of development economics is the one relating economic development and democratic development. There's a strong correlation between the levels of economic development and democracy in a given nation. In particular, highly developed economies tend to very rarely shift towards more authoritarian regimes, whereas poor economies with democratic governments tend often to have political breakdowns.

Now, I know it's impossible to conclusively determine causality from a correlation between levels of either form of development, but the fact that shifts in economic development tend to bring about pressure towards democratization (as seen and happened in e.g. South Korea) on the one hand, and how poor economies inevitably tend to spiral towards some form of dictatorship (pick a sub-Saharan nation) on the other, is for me reason enough to believe it is through economic development and economic development only that we will ever see a global community free of dictators.

So far, economic development particularly in Africa has been lackluster, to say the least. East Asia has grown tremendously since WW2 and democratic movements swell by the day in those countries that aren't yet on a clearly set democratic path. My focus, however, turns towards South America - as it so often woefully does. Today over lunch I read a column in Kaleva, an Oulu-based daily (and the Truth up here), on how the "future of the Left will be decided in the Americas". More specifically, while the United States travels more firmly on its right-wing path, Argentina and Brazil have both recently elected left-wing presidents.

The jury is still out on Nestor Kirchner, but Luis Inacio da Silva, aka Lula has already surprised all of his critics, including myself, with policies that seemingly combine right-wing fiscal moderation and left-wing social responsibility. The Fome Zero project in particular has widespread support from all levels of society, as well as international praise. Detail: they cancelled deals with Swedish better-known-for-their-cars manufacturer SAAB of purchasing Jas Gripen jet fighters, to partially finance the programme.

Attempting to eliminate hunger locally (instead of depending on foreign aid) is all good and well, but the real solution lies with the more developed nations, particularly the United States, Canada, and countries of the European Union. No amount of development aid could ever compare to the effects that could be brought about by the elimination of two malaises common to all first-world nations: tariff barriers on foodstuffs and agricultural subsidies.

The former shifts the supply curve for agricultural products originating in 3rd world countries (on a given closed market) upwards, increasing price and decreasing demanded quantities, while the latter acts to shift the - not just local but global - supply curve down, increasing production (with consequent mountains of butter and lakes of milk) while simultaneously dumping prices of products coming from developed nations so that farmers from less developed markets cannot compete with them in terms of price, let alone quality. A good example of how more government is, well, more government.

Returning to Brazil, then; President Lula caused a small row at Tony Blair's Progressive Governance summit, when he criticised developed nations of selfishness and went ahead to say: "If there's one thing that I admire about the United States it's that first they think of themselves, secondly they think of themselves and in third place they think of themselves. Should they have any time left, they'll think a little of themselves once more."

Celso Amorim, former Brazilian ambassador to London and current Foreign Minister quickly proceeded to clean up the mess by saying the President was, no kidding, "misinterpreted". He naturally meant Brazil should act more like the United States. Oh?

I have a feeling he was thinking more of what he later spoke of in Madrid, how wealthier countries preach open markets and don't offer anything in return. While the WTO has been active in ruling over disputes between more developed nations, it has precious little jurisdiction over matters that matter.

Increases in levels of global trade have always been associated with periods of growth. The global economy needs a jumpstart now. More free trade could deliver where other measures are failing.

heat make me crazy

I'm referring to Ernie's post in June about the Berkeley heat wave. In an office without A/C, I'm chugging down water like a baby elephant, and more often than not my thought wanders off from actual work.

That's enough of a reason for me not to post anything sensible and coherent today, so I'll just show you a few pics from yesterday's divinely refreshing visit to the Hautaperä flood control reservoir, a few kilometers from downtown.

Mind the lack of thumbnails. I only picked the ones I thought were worth your viewing, anyway.

• Stone and flora bathing in sunlight.
  
• Ripples on the surface.
  
• Water creeping up the rock.
  
• Soft ligth filtering through the foliage.
  
• Here Goes The Sun (would make a nice desktop background.)
  

Also, not being able to work very efficiently hasn't bothered me too much, since I've been distracted by a Brazilian photoblog. Unaesthetically inclined straight men needn't apply.

Helsinki, metropolis?

Coming back to Helsinki after an uninterrupted month outside Ring III, especially when arriving by train, was a pleasant shock. Walking through the halls of the Central Railway Station made me, for the first time in my life, think of Helsinki as a multiethnic city! In fact, I'm still giggling sotto voce when I think of my first reactions after stepping out of the 23.30 Pendolino from Oulu. My eyes must've been glowing with joy, I remember feeling slightly dizzy - although that can be partly attributed to gorgeous Airborne Ranger Guy who was sitting within my view for the better part of the journey - and very, very happy, now that I was home again.

A shower and a hairdo later I was at dtm, where I met Heikki and his new bf. Jaakko again all too well predicted my tardiness, and Hakkis showed up a tad later with Reima, a new acquaintance to me. A gay night, altogether, but paling in comparison with Saturday evening, which Jaakko, Heikki, Nooh, Matti, Eila and I started queerishly promptly at 15.00 with wok, wine, and "community" movies: Sorority Boys, The Broken Hearts Club, Priscilla and, a reprise from last year's De Coteau festival, Voodoo Academy! Fans of Huntley Ritter may join his Yahoo! Group. Seriously. I did.

Some of us continued to the usual place, where plenty of fun was to be had and friends were met and chatted with. I remember dancing with Janne and A-P to all the embarassing hits from the time I was in Upper Elementary, like Ace of Base's 'All That She Wants' and Aikakone's 'Odota'. Whenever they're around I always end up doing things that should be permanently erased from my dance vocabulary.

Sunday's Trinity was even more solid entertainment than usual. Too bad I had to wake up at 4.00 the next morning. The city was serene but full of rubbish after the Tuska festival.

So that's the place I'm now calling a home. Compared to Osaka's 4,6% or Tokyo's 3,1%, we're pretty much on par with our 4,2% (1999, Fennica.net) - but Japan isn't exactly known for , but compared to 9,7% in the US, or 9,0% in Germany, we have a long way to go yet. Haapajärvi stands tall at 0,4. As long as we manage to steer clear of ethnicity-related violence, I think southern parts of Finland might develop a pretty decent atmosphere of multiculturalism. My biggest fear: that Finnish media will go the way of others in whipping up fear of Islam to such heights that violence might become an acceptable option for us as well.

Freaky details of the day: Airborne Ranger Guy was on the same train back up North. In the same wagon. Across the aisle. The corporation I work for makes the metallic frames for his diving / extreme sports watch.