Niqab in school, muslim dressing

After a long quiet period has the Skolverket (Swedish schoolboard) come to a conclusion about the niqab in school (Swedish link).

I am astonished and ashamed about what they write: First of all they say it is okey to use it, and you are not, as a school, allowed to have a rule against it. (Of course, when you are not in school I do not care, use it or loose it. Not my buissness). According to Aftonbladet (Swedish link) the case that skolverket uses where not even evaluated by the Swedish court-system. They where to afraid for beeing called racists, and now the teachers have to say "No, you may not use niqab in my classroom"

Why am I rejecting it in school?
Well, as a teacher you need to meet the student and see that she understands and really have good contact with her. There are alse the governmental issue. As a teacher you are obliged to grade your students. How will you be able to make sure that the student in niqab, doing the test, is the right person? Having a femal "peeper" looking behind the niqab every lesson? That is a terrible thought.
To make my point even stronger. When I worked at Al Azharskolan, a muslim school, the headmaster said it was forbidden of the same reasons I wrote above. Why shall then we non-muslims at all discuss this issue? If the own people says it is wrong in school for the students (exept for a small extreme group).
Finally: If you use it during an experiment in chemistry it will make it more dangerous because you can not see as good as others when things happens.


Muslim dressing
What's this?
well that is clothes that muslim people wear. Nothing strange, mostly. The niqab is in the eyes of the west a way to supress the woman. (And as far as I know it is not mentioned in the quran at all)
M.I.A used a niqab in a posé whit a finger up high. on the blogg discussion some muslims said it is wrong to dress in muslim clothes if you are not a muslim. Why? I do not care about the religious beliefs and may dress as I want. (One answered if they think you have to be a rastafari to listen to Bob Marley. Good point. While anotherone posted this link, showing that muslims dress as they want and there are noone who shall tell them how to dress (not even other muslims). Right there!!! We are all free (exept for some million supressed women all over the world, often with different religions as a weapon to make noone dare to say stop

Moneyfree banks!

It's the first of April, not.
Yesterday I had to put some money on my account in the bank. That should not be a big problem, I thought!
While I live in south of Stockholm I went to the bank in the biggest shopping mall close to mine: Skärholmen. There I entered the bank. It was full. A lot of people who wanted to do their things, and a big note telling us that "This is a cash free bank. You can not insert money here", it said. Great information given, and no info where I could do it. I left and had to go to the center of Stockholm, there I walked 10 minutes until I came to another "Sparbank". There I could insert my money, and I asked where in the south of Stockholm it would be possible. On the "red line", the metro, you can not do it anywhere all the 45 minutes long metro-line. They have closed that choise. If you want to do this bank-issue you have to go app 50 minutes, or take a buss in wrong direction.

What's wrong with Sweden when the banks are not there for their costumers?
Don't they want my money?

This is a big joke, that I did not laugh at!

Argue on New Years Eve!

Year 2011 ended for me with an argue. Sooo great to do so, or?
Well, actually not, but I had no choise but to do it.

We were standing on a bridge full with people, waiting for the fireworks to start. In front of us where a big English hunk standing with a bomber jacket, togeter with his petite girlfriend. He heard the exited 12 years old children, and when the firework almost should start he looked at the children and said "stop pushing" ("Hey", I thought but didn't say anything, "does he really think that it is the tiny girl pushing him, and not the drunk crowd behind us?").

Closer to the start he looks behind again, smiles a fools smile and lifts his arm very demonstrative and holds it just in the hight of the childrens eyes, around his girl. They could see nothing...
I tapped my finger on his shoulder and asked very nice: "could you please take your arm down, the children can not see!".
He, maybe 15 cm taller than me and blown up arms stared with a hate-glace at me and screamed to me with a deep voice (silly voice when I think about it and we have joked a lot about it): "Maybe I want to hug my girlfriend".

"Hey, they are children", I said loud to him while he turned smiling away... when a lady (from Czechia) waved at me and said very nice: "Tell the children to come here, then they will see".
I sent the children to her and they stod on the first line with noone pushing them. I told her husband that he had a great wife with a good heart.

This could have been a nice ending on the story... but what about the hunk? And what about my lioness to "Reina" who loves her children?
We opened our bottle of sparkling wine. No glasses, so we had to drink from the bottle, but we drank and kissed and wished a happy new year. But I thought mi reina drank a little too fast... the bottle missed some... until she laughing told me she had shared it with the hunks lether jacket. Her revenge for him treating 12 years old children like idiots were destroying the jacket for him.

Are English men so bad? Well lets me judge by mention the first 3 men (22 years old) we spoke with in the bar late that night (early morning). They where from London and the Channel islands. Three great men well behavioring and very nice to speak with.

So the thing is that you shall never think a person is good or bad depending on where he or she is from. judge yourself on basis of what you see yourself. skin color, language or accent is not what counts, but whats inside.

Happy New Year.

Wikipedia soon closing down?

Once again wikipedia (and also youtube etc) are at risk for closing down due to some silly law... It is the SOPA-law that might harm a free internet.

Right now the different wikipedia-languages are discussing to close down for a while to show the US what might be the aftermatch for implementing this law. (But it seems like it will only be the English closing and maybe the rest showing there support by writing on a banner or something like that. What will happen in the different wiki's are something they decide and I can not check on everyone)

Some people might think it is right... "Just close every web-page that contains illegal things, (copywright)". Well is it so easy? In Sweden we have a law saying that if an author died for more than 70 years ago his/hers books are public domain and free to publish! Great, we have project Runeberg working hard to publish old litterature and newspapers from the nordic countries. Here is the problem: According to a law in the US are material like that protected for 95 years... making a lot of wikipedia articles and very much of project Runebergs material illegal in the US (country of freedom?)!!! For example the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf.
Sweden are then illegal and they will have to close webpages linking to these free online-sorces...

That was just an example to show how harmfull this new law might be for the world. The government in the US are the multinational companies little pet doing everything they say to get a small piece of the money-cookie. We in the rest of the world can't stop it, but I hope the thinking people in the US will do something and not just let the brainwash proceed (why am I not surprised THAT link to an article on wikipedia is dealing with matters in the United States?).

Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

This is the last assignment for me while studying English.

Once upon a time long long ago I read a book after listening to my older brother who said it was a great book. He said it was a trilogy in four parts. Impossible, I thought, but it was true! And that's the way this book works.

When I had to read a book now I thought: “Why not read that book again, but in English, it is always better to read in the original language”. (Of course I have read a lot of other English books lately, mostly by Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum, but now I had to read for the class)

First short about his language, before I proceeds with the subject I have chosen: Critics of the society.

Language

The author Douglas Adams had got magic fingers when he tapped on his computer, unfortunately he died before he wrote the last book “and another thing...”, which is the sixth part (Eion Colfer wrote it as a 30 years celebration of the first part).

He uses the laws of physics and the words different meanings so that you sometimes feel lost in a jungle of misunderstandings. One of my favorite quote is “the (space)ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't”.

Even the babelfish is an invention of Mr Adams which has been used in a lot of places, for example yahoo's translation tool Babel Fish.

Critics of the society

God

Religion is alway a nice subject to talk about, because everyone have something to say about it.

First of all, in the begining of the book he wrote about "a man nailed to a tree just because he wanted everyone to be polite to each other" (not a quote). It says a lot about how we humans are. Cruel and without logic.

Talking about logic we'll se how he kills God! "I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." (chapter six) Just a logical proof and God ceases to exist.

Capitalism

Much of the critisism is hidden in peculiar was, like the money transactions "Many solutions were suggested for this problem (depressed people), but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy." He's got a very good point there, in the introduction to the book. The moving of green papers have killed many and made even more suffer a lot. 

Bureaucrazy

In the third chapter of the first book the Vogons (space creatures) tells the humans that their planet are going to be destroyed, and that the plans have been out in the public for 50 years (in the center of the galaxy), so no use to complain. It is so obvious that the ordinary people have no chance against the bureaucrats when it comes to complain. There are even more places in the book about this, but I will let you read those passages by your self.

Why read this book?

That's a good question! The book is very strange and I know that a lot of people, especially non-nature science-people, have a hard time with it. If you are going to be an engineer you must have read it. It is a classics!

Demonstration i Israel

I wrote about Christians and Muslims. Well lets say something about the jews too, to make it fare.

In August 2011 someone published a video on youtube showing a demonstration. There a brave teenager from the US talks. He says he is a Jew, and he is aganist the treatment of the Palestinians. He speaks a lot, but he forgot one thing:
He was in Israel saying it!
Smart move? Depends on what he wanted. No matter what, the police did not like what he said and started to provoke him. It looked a lot like the picture from Chile in my article "take photos get gas" where the chilean police did outrages things, or "Memoria Viva! May we never forget!" where an officer shoots a woman with a tear gas gun.

The Israelian police beats him up, so that he tries to get away, which means harder grips-The police got what they wanted, a chance to hit him. It did not help to be a jew in Israel, if you are what they would call a "Self-hating jew". That kind of jew is not looked well upon in Israel.

But back to the topic. It is not about Palestine, I think, but about police brutality. Where is the thin line between the good police protecting us against crimes and when the police comittes crimes? As long as they get protection from the government it doesn't matter. We will always see this. Does that mean we shall let it pass? No, we have to talk about it, show our opinions about it and help those who are treated bad by the cops. Give them support in all countries (but not by threatening the police by saying "kill the cop"... that "justifies" their actions.)

Why write on Wikipedia

This article was first just intended to be used private as a help for me when I had an oral test in English. My subject was "Why write on Wikipedia". My teacher liked the subject, and after the test I promised him that I would publish it on my blog. I do not get any mark on this article, but I publish it with a purpose: To get more people into the wikipedia-writing.

Why write on Wikipedia

Link to a "Wiki-love"-picture (to not violate the copywright)

Wikipedia is a great encyclopedia containing a lot more than an ordinary encyclopedia. It has over 400 000 articles in the Swedish part (3.800.000 in English speaking wikipedia).

Some people complain and says they sometimes may see things not correct. That might be so, and the answer to them is often from the people writing on wiki: “Well, why do you not correct it? But do not forget to add valid sources-unless it is something misspelled”

By working like that the English speaking Wikipedia has got a rate of mistakes in the articles just slightly more than British encyclopedia, but with the difference that Wikipedia is more up to date and has a whole more of small subject articles.

How do I know this?

I am an administrator on the Swedish Wikipedia. That is an honor title, but gives me also some extra tools to help Wikipedia become better. You may get it by your way of contribute and if you gain the community's respect.

I started by testing how it worked. I thought it was easy to contribute, but it was first when I started to study medicine I noticed it's potentials. By reading on the Swedish Wikipedia about the different issues I had to learn I got a pretty good knowledge, after that I read the English article. I could have stopped there, but knowing my way of learning I translated the English article, by looking at it's sources and use them to make the Swedish article better. This improved my English, I learned the subject, and my colleges know they could trust the articles I had contributed to.

My purpose by telling you this is to try to make more people to start writing about their favorite subjects so that Wikipedia will get even better.

Another purpose is to make more people be aware who makes the job. It is not a company or a government whom you dislike and wants to destroy. It is ordinary people, like you and me, writing with love for education, freedom of speech. They know that a lot of the subjects would be banned in a dictatorship. On Wikipedia the dictators can't erase. It is a project for democracy.