from the hip

The current Norwegian government is getting more and more attention for their promises, big words and subsequent lack of action. Perhaps they assume that words speak louder than action in today’s media society. However, this may turn out to be a dangerous and wrong assumption.

Bob Geldorf recently visited Norway, to speak at an international conference on trade and peace at the Oslo City Hall. According to Aftenposten, he “praised Norway’s intentions to fight poverty and control global warming, but respectfully suggested that Norway could start by changing some of its own policies at home.

Specifically, Geldorf zeroed in on Norwegian politicians’ tendency to portray the country as a champion of the environment and human rights, at the same time as they consciously block agricultural imports from poor countries and pollute the environment with their oil and gas industry.”

Geldorf is not the first one to note this discrepancy between words and action. I seriously doubt that he well be that last.

Today there was a big meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, about the bare breast (”Bara Bröst” in Swedish) movement. The topic is why naked female breasts provoke some people so much.

The Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet has an interview with one of the participants, feminist Nour El-Refai says that “I think people should let women’s breasts in peace. We women should be allowed to de-sexualize our breasts if we want to. We are not to blame for the sexualization of breasts. A de-sexualization of breasts would increase my freedom as a woman.”

Nour firmly believes that the bath house protests of the bare breast movement in Sweden represent a good approach for the movement, as they are visible manifestations that attract attention.

She says de-sexualization of breasts is important in order for the sexes to be able to act natural: “I do not get wet by watching the naked breasts of a man, so why should it be that way for men?”

The feminist movement in Scandinavia has been very successful in a large number of areas. Now a growing number of feminists, especially in Sweden and Denmark, want to fight for the right to behave as men do with respect to their bodies. They essentially want to be able to be topless wherever and whenever men are allowed to be topless. In public bath houses, at the beach, and similar places. They also want to be able to take off their shirts on the soccer field after a match, like the men do. And so on.

A short statement of their goals in English can be found on one of their blogs. Also, Washington Post has had an article about this movement. And here is a Wikipedia article (unfortunately in Swedish).

Swedish actress Izabella Scorupco is extremely upset. She played the movie “Sun Storm” (Solstorm), based on a crime novel by Asa Larsson, together with actor Mikael Persbrandt. The movie was first shown i Sweden in November 2007.

In the movie, Izabella Scorupco - elected as the most sexy woman in Sweden in a vote by Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet - has hot sex with Mikael Persbrandt on a kitchen table. A small part of this is shown in the movie.

On the newly released DVD, however, four and a half minutes of sex is included as background material - with the title “the sex scene”. The actress is upset because she had not been asked or informed about this in advance from the movie company.

When asked about this by Aftonbladet, the producer Lena Rehnberg says that the scene was included on the DVD because is was a “freaking good scene” (skitbra, in Swedish).

And that’s sufficient as a reason, I guess?

And now, of course, the sex scene is being distributed on the net. Which, I guess, is not likely to make Scorupco any less angry?