Slavery - facing where the peculiar institution began

 Before I begin I am going to point out that I have studied on my own and at University American racial history and slavery. Currently I am working my way through slave narratives from America which is very interesting and thought provoking but difficult to read. So I am aware of the history and will try my best to be sensitive towards it. I realize that my thoughts
So here are my thoughts in bullet points

-The history of Southern slavery makes my blood boil - it pulls my heart apart reading about it. It is history that needs to be faced. It breaks my heart that this could have happened and that slavery was the "benevolent institution". I have always been proud of the fact that there are no events like that in my countries history. Except, the things is that slavery began with us here in Europe. here in Scandinavia. The vikings began the "peculiar institution" many hundred years ago when they stole people, sold them to the highest bidder and they became chattels, property, something to be owned and badly treated. While the Vikings stole Caucasian people, mostly Irish and from the British Isles and this happened more than a thousand years ago and slavery stopped around the year 1000, it is history we tend to ignore over here. But that does not change the fact that it is with us that slavery began, the roots of the problem can be traced back here to the North. And in later centuries it moved to Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal and other countries. Tey took up what we had started and continued it. And slavery did not disappear here in the North. The Danish held slaves in the Virgin Islands for a very long time.

So I can go on and on about how Americans need to face their history of slavery when the truth is that here in Europe we certainly have not. We refuse to deal with our history of slavery and that is not okay. We need to deal with it but I am afraid we never will. Like little children we think that if we close our eyes to the problem it'll disappear. Except it won't.

So I can say that slavery has not been in my country's history for centuries but it is with us that it began. Which is not any better.

Infertility and adoption

I am in no way the best blogger, although I happen to be prolific at my TV show blog. But somehow I feel like I should say something, anything to both gather my thoughts and make sense of the things around me. And spinning in my head right now and so many times is the topic of adoption. I am very much into children´s right and advocacy and the matters of children remain very dear to my heart.

I also happen to be pretty much infertile.

It´s the honest truth. I am diagnosed with a syndrome called PCOS or polycystic ovary syndrome which is one of the leading causes of infertility in women. I am not completely infertile. I do have a chance of getting pregnant but that chance is remote and I will require additional medical help in order to facilitate a pregnancy. However I am well aware of the risk and possible bad outcomes of invasive procedures such as IVF that are meant to help with pregnancies. The cost is also unimaginable. I have thought this through well and long and I know I am not willing to put myself through the trouble of having invasive medical procedures all to get pregnant. If anything were to wrong or the fetus were to die/the pregnancy wouldn´t work out I know in my heart I wouldn´t be able to handle it. I know that those kind of procedures are often successful but I am not willing to try them. I am simply such a weakling that I can´t imagine doing something like that to myself, get my hopes up and start dreaming only to have them crushed because the pregnancy won´t work out. It might happen over and over again. And that is something I am not willing to try or to go through. I am certain of that.

That´s why I have started to look into adoption as a serious option for myself later in the future if I ever wish to become a mother. I am not even certain I want to be a mother. But if I one day do, I am going to adopt. My child will not be biologically related to me but will come from another family. It´ll be the child of another person that I will bring up. And that does not bother me one bit. I am happy that I might one day get the chance to raise a child of another ethnic origin and race. I am happy that I might get the chance to have an open adoption where my child will have relations both with it´s adoptive family and with it´s family of origin. I am happy that I might one day get the chance to discover and come to love another country and culture and try my best to teach my child about it´s birth culture and origins and cultivate respect for it. I am happy that I might one day get to experience the challenges and joys of adoption.

I am not naive when it comes to the matter of adoption. I have done substantial research on it on all sides of the matter. I have studied/looked into attachment, ethical matters in adoption, open adoption vs. closed, the special challenges of international adoption, institutional care and it´s effects on children, identity issues that arise with adoption and the grief process and the reactions of the birth family to adoptions. I enter this with my eyes wide open and am constantly educating myself on it.

I intend to share my thoughts on adoption and it´s issues in more depth over the next days. There is so much to say and ponder and so much I want to share my thoughts on.

Romney´s strange foreign policy

As someone that is NOT an American (Scandinavian) but still has a huge interest in the USA election, what concerns me about this election is the way which Mitt Romney seems to spend most of his campaign time and ads on critisising Obama and pointing out his faults but is very unclear on his own policies and how he himself intends to change things.  Whatever information is out there about his policies is very muddled and confusing. And it concerns me, as a European, that his foreign policy is very unclear.

He has the slogan "American age" and has clarified his policy towards several countries (which was still confusing) but he has absolutely no policy whatsoever when it comes to Europe or Africa according to his website. Two entire continents! I am concerned that if he becomes president, whatever positive relationships USA has established with European countries (Obama has been very successful in this regard as he is hugely popular over here) will deteriorate/turn negative because Romney won´t be able to handle things well enough.

Also what irks me is the fact that Romney keeps on talking about an American Age where America will lead the free world and be a superpower. It seems to me that he has forgotten that Europe is just as capable of leading the free world as America and that Europeans consider it a huge offense when Americans seem to think of themselves as superior and more able to lead the world. Europe is built on cooperation between nations and currently no one is aiming for that leadership card. Europeans are afraid that if Romney becomes president, his apparent desire for USA to lead the world  will mean that he won´t to look to Europe as an ally and a venue for cooperation for a better world.

Obama has a lot of faults and is not the perfect president but he has managed to establish very positive relationships with European countries and that is something we want to continue over here. Obama is very popular over here (All Scandinavians are huge Obama cheerleaders)  as he seems to have a more balanced world view that previous USA presidents haven´t had (such as Bush) and he is someone that is willing to cooperate with other nations. And that is very important to us.

Hopefully someone can clarify Romney´s foreign policy for me but from where I stand, Obama would make a better president than Romney and I know that most of Europe agrees with me.

Best Christian song

Just so we´re clear - I am a Christian, nuff said :) I´m going to rant about Christian contemporary music today.
I love old fashion classical praise music - all of it. I get goose bumps whenever I sing, listen or play classical Christian pieces. I just love the purity and glory of the music. I feel like I am really praising God with that kind of music. I have tried in some sort of new age frenzy to listen to contemporary Christian but have discovered that it´s NOT my cup of tea. It´s loud, obnoxious, overly complicated, very long, boring lyrics and often really badly sung.

I recently visited a new church which uses contemporary praise music (my own church is traditionalist) and honestly, I could not focus on God because I was too busy wincing in my seat because the music was so bad and the singers couldn´t carry a tune (as a classically trained musician, I can carry a tune). It was not fun and the praise was lost because the music was so loud and nobody really knew what was going on. I really wanted to bust out some Bach pieces but alas did not (in hindsight I should have done so, it´d have saved my ears a lot of pain).

So I´ve been racking my brain and I realized that there is essentially one song I love which is Christian contemporary.It´s "Give me your eyes" by Brandon Heath. I can listen to it a 100 times, I know it pretty much by heart and I use the lyrics as a personal prayer. So it´s not al bad :)

Michelle Bachman

 I am not interested in politics in general but just like any good citizen I follow the news in the world. And in the news right now there is the preparation for choosing presidential candidates in America. I watched the election in 2008 closely and was thrilled that Obama was elected. I am a supporter of Obama, and personally, I think he´s one of the better presidents to have ruled the USA. But others beg to differ and that´s fine. 

So I´m watching the choosing of a presidential candidate with great interest. Sarah Palin provided hours of entertainment in 2008 with her comments and opinions and speeches. I am NOT a fan of Palin, but I like to believe that despite not agreeing with most her her opinions,  if she´d have made it into office she would have done wonders for the special needs community, because of her son Tryg having DS. But in the end, Obama was a far better choice. 

And now, we have an exaggerated version of Palin in Michelle Bachman. The woman´s opinions in homosexuality, "de-homosexualising" people, stating that wife should be submissive to their husbands, that abortion should be made illegal and what not are enough to make my head spin. If she becomes president, America is in for a downfall. Homosexuality is accepted in most progressive societies today and over here in Scandinavia, homosexuality is pretty much respected as an alternative lifestyle, just as normal as heterosexuality. Having a president that hates homosexuality will lead to strained relationships with other countries and less respect for America and set back the fight of the LGBT community back decades and endanger LGBT people themselves. Making abortions illegal will lead to a whole lot of new social problems which include more cases of abuse, FAS and FASD and substance abuse and how it affects people, lives of young pregnant girls in danger, added strain on the oh so fabulous foster system and what not. And teaching women that they should be "submissive" to their husbands sends the fight for the rights of women back decades.

So I am praying that Bachmann will NOT become president.

And the strange thing is - Bachmann states that wifes should be submissive to their husbands, but if she becomes president, she´ll be one of the most powerful women on the planet and a hell lot more powerful than her husband. If you ask me, that´s not the definition of submissive.

What a public schooler knows

I am a long suffering public schooler - I have been public schooled since the age of 2 and am currently attending university. That makes me a pretty lousy Christian, with a low IQ, sinful and destined to lead a life unpleasing towards God.

Never mind the fact that I

-Speak 6 languages, 2 fluently, 3 well and 1 classical and can successfully read a few others
- Play 2 instruments and have been actively involved in music since infancy
-Juggled high-school and music conservatory simultaneously and graduated with honors with a very high average grade
- Drink alcohol very moderately and only on rare occasions
- Dress modestly at all times, t-shirt/tank tops always just beneath collar bone, don´t show any chest, skirts/dresses are knee length, I never flaunt my body
-Have studied history intensively for many years and covered in depth, Greeks, Romans,  Ancient, Medieval and contemporary European AND American history
- Covered science in depth and studied physics, chemistry, zoology and biology of the human body
-Studied English in high-school in the same way native English speakers do and even did university level English
- Am a successful University student

But because I am a PS...those hthings they don´t really count do they?