from the hip

Paris Hilton is in Copenhagen today and for a few more days. She is apparently promoting her line of products (bags produced in her name by PH Europe, to be sold in more than 80 countries worldwide) at some fashion event in Copenhagen. She is together with Benji Madden, her rocker boyfriend.

And Copenhagen seems to love her. She creates chaos, says the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet. Especially the media are wild. They are all full of pictures and articles about Paris Hilton, and the TV-stations have shows going where Paris Hilton says “I love Copenhagen” (I think that is about all she has said, so far), and where spectators are interviewed about why and how much they love Paris Hilton.

It is all slightly insane. I mean, so far she hasn’t done anything, and hardly said anything?

I wonder: Will the city remain standing if she shows up tomorrow without her undies?

Some time ago, after the election in Zimbabwe, I wrote that anything could happen there. And a lot has happened. Terror with beatings, arrests, and police raids of the oppositions’ headquarters, and so on. And alongside that, everything is slowed down and postponed. Elected results took ages to make official, then recounts took even more time, and so on.

Robert Mugabe has turned into a despot. He is very bad for the country, as we all know. But he is also very, very smart. He ignores the UN. He knows he can use the forces of government to slowly wear the opposition down. He knows he can terrorize voters and make many of them either vote for him or at least not vote. He knows guns are stronger than pens, and that he controls the guns.

By conducting the coup d’état in slow motion and surrounding parts of what he is doing with clouds of legalese, he also know that he is making it difficult for the rest of the world to react in the only way that matters to him – by military intervention. There have already been boycotts. I don’t think he cares too much, one way or the other, about a new one. Protests? Sure, and so what?

It is hard to see how a military intervention can be justified. And it is hard to see who would want to do it and finance it. But at the same time, seeing the Western world sitting there, watching, doing nothing, taking the role of the voyeur, also feels wrong. Human rights are being ignored, people’s votes are being ignored, freedom of speech is suppressed, ordinary people in Zimbabwe suffer and the sea of poverty widens.

It is an ugly picture for the moment. It may get even worse.

See also:

• Zimbabwe’s opposition leader to leave Dutch protection
• Mugabes dager er talte
• Zimbabwe: More beatings, more abductions
• Zimbabwe: Military intervention could be justified
• FN ber Mugabe avlyse valget
• Mandela: Vil ikke kritisere Mugabe

Many things may be said about Italy’s Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi (71), and, indeed, much has been said. But one thing is for sure: He likes beautiful women! An apppreciation of beauty he shares with most of his countrymen, I am sure (and a few others, as well).

Now he has appointed the very beautiful, conservative and talented Mara Carfagna (32) as his minister for equality. But not only that - at a dinner party he also said that if he had been single, he would have like to marry her. That’s a slightly unusual way for a prime minister to speak of his ministers, I would say. And, clearly also a statement his wife was not to pleased with, and made quite a lot of noise about.

Beautiful Mara Carfagna has a future, like most people. She has been a TV-hostess and a top-less model. And now she is, I would think, the most beautiful minister in any government in OECD. That really has to count for something in Italy?!?

And there is no rule anywhere stating that ministers of equality must be ugly, is there?

Mara Carfagna……Italy’s next Minister for something or other.

Rightwingers and ex-model in Italian cabinet

The case about Josef Fritzl, the Austrian that kidnapped his own daughter and kept her in a small underground apartment, behind seven locked doors, for 24 years while he abused her both sexually and in other ways, represents, to me, evil in a pure, undiluted form. Not only bad, evil acts, but systematic, organized evil.

As the full extent of his actions has been revealed - the torment to which he exposed his daughter for almost a quarter of a century, raping her and fathering her seven children in that little cave - I have become more and more perplexed. How can this be? How is such behavior possible in our time and age? How can a man become such a monster? And at a more practical level - how could a thing like this go on in a civilized, well-regulated society for 24 years?

A man claiming to be protecting his family, but obviously also a man who knew this his style of protection was more than a little at odds with socially accepted forms of protection. While his lawyer may be able to see good things in Fitzl, I really do not.

We are starting to learn a little bit about his past. It sheds considerable light on the question of how he became the monster. It offers, possibly, at least the beginnings of a seemingly plausible psychological explanation for his monstrous crimes. The Independent writes:

In an interview, the sister of Fritzl’s wife, Rosemarie, a woman identified as 56-year-old Christine R said that Fritzl had been brought up by a single mother with an explosive temper who resorted to violence to control her child.

“Josef grew up without a father. His mother raised him with her fists,” Mrs R said. “She used to beat him black and blue almost every day. Something must have been broken in him because of that. He was unable to feel any kind of sympathy for other people. He humiliated my sister for most of her life.”

He grew up being systematically subjected to and controlled by violence. But even so, the case still makes me perplex. The reason is that Josef F. at the same time was so much more than a monster, in other settings, with other people. He was evil incarnate, but also a smiling, respected, and somewhat successful businessman who amassed a fortune of 4 million dollars or so.

Over the years, more than 100 people have rented rooms and apartments from him. Seemingly without having much of a clue as to what went on. Apart from one person, that is, who has admitted to knowing about sexual abuse. But he was scared of Josef F. and did not dare to report it to anyone. Also, it has become known that Josef’s brother had a key to the basement.

Lately, after the case has become public, we have also seen a number of old, unsolved crimes resurfacing. An unsolved murder, several unsolved rapes. So far, the ties to Josef F. are speculative. But it would not, I guess, be very surprising if they turned out to be real. According to Der Spiegel, he raped his own daughter in front of her his and her children. So why should anything be a surprise?

So there was Josef F. the beast, and there was Josef F. the family man, and Josef F. the businessman. Possibly Josef F. the murderer and rapist. The multiple faces of Josef F. And the smiling face with the evil behind.

The little we know about his background, so far, may perhaps begin to explain, partly at least, the monster. However, explaining how the monster could coexist, seemingly with easy, with the other faces of Josef Fritzl, is a bigger challenge.

More about this case:

The Independent: The Making of a Monster

No need to be surprised when a house of horrors turns up on a quiet provincial street

Josef Fritz in the news

New York Times: Austria Stunned by Case of Imprisoned Woman

Painting a portait of Austrian incest suspect Josef Fritzl

Guardian (UK): How many more of our missing are stuck in some underground prison? (Expert view)

‘Every little thing she did, her father would hit her’

The Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard has created a piece entitled “Margaux Hemingway”. In Norwegian newspapers it is more often referred to as “the vagina arm”.

(more…)

The minister of justice in Norway has proposed criminalizing the purchase of sexual services. The law proposes imposing fines and up to six months in jail for anyone convicted of paying a prostitute for sex. The law is in line with a “Sex Purchase Law” passed by neighboring Sweden in 1999, which has been the subject of intense interest in Europe and elsewhere.

Justice Minister Knut Storberget said in presenting the proposed law: “People are not a commodity and criminalizing the purchase of sex would make it less attractive for human traffickers to look to Norway.”

I am not sure I like the law. I don’t really know how smart it is to criminalize people for buying sex. But at least that part of the law I respect. The part I have strong objections to, is the part that says that the law should apply to Norwegians visiting other countries as well. This is strange as a legal principle.

I mean, if a Norwegian drive a car at 160 km/hour on a German highway, this is legal in Germany but illegal in Norway. But people do not get punished for it when they return home to Norway. Same for smoking cannabis in Amsterdam. And so on. But now the government proposes that when a Norwegian does something in a foreign country that is legal in that country, he is to be punished when he returns home?

And, in addition to the very strange legal principle involved, there is also the almost impossible situation with respect to implementation. Are Dutch policemen supposed to look out for Norwegians buying sex, when that purchase is legal in the Netherlands? And the same in other countries, of course.

So, seems to me, the only people who will be punished for this are the ones admitting to have done it - some honest guys - and people who are informed about by friends that can’t be trusted or enemies, and then some few others more or less randomly.

To me it seems strange and not very smart to put in place a law that punishes the honest and rewards informers. Is that how the socialist government in Norway wants Norway to become?

Naomi Campbell is wickedly beautiful, extremely sexy, moves like a gazelle, has had a marvelous career as a model, but what a temper the lady has! One of the top babes of all times, and one of the wildest ones as well.

As the picture shows, she is quite a looker. But she has had several unfortunate tantrums over the years, some of which have brought her into contact with the legal system. The last one, on Heathrow, is said to involve some spitting. On a police officer. Previously there’s been throwing of a cell phone, some beating, some pretty verbal stuff, and such.

The last episode I can sympathize with. Many of us, and I count myself as one, have been angry, outraged, and harassed at airports around the world. By arrogant, not so service minded airport or airline employees and security guards. At least a dozen times I have been at my wits end and so angry I have wanted to hit somebody or something. But doing it is different, though.

The part I do not understand about this, is when she later has claimed that she was arrested because she is black. That part I do not believe. Spitting on a policeman would get anybody arrested, is my thinking. But I may be wrong.

Naomi Campbell has previously been taking anger management classes. They didn’t to all that much good, it would seem. Maybe it’s back to school for Naomi now?

There is still considerable uncertainty concerning the results from the election in Zimbabwe. To my knowledge, official resultats have still not been released.

However, the Danish newspaper Politiken cites two prominent members of Mugabe’s ruling party (names withheld), who give the following results:

Tsvangirai’s MDC: 48.3%
Mugabe’s ZANU-PF: 43%

According to Politiken, there will be a new election within three weeks. However, New York Times writes that there are negotiations about Mugabe’s retirement under way:

Negotiations May Lead to Mugabe’s Exit in Zimbabwe

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

HARARE, Zimbabwe — The opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is in talks with advisers to President Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe, amid signs that some of those close to Mr. Mugabe may encourage him to resign, a Western diplomat and a prominent Zimbabwe political analyst said Tuesday. The negotiations about a possible transfer of power away from Mr. Mugabe began after he apparently concluded that a runoff election would be demeaning, a diplomat said.

The Times, BBC-News, and Dagbladet also bring reports about negotiations. This is what Times writes:

Intensive diplomatic efforts were under way tonight to secure a face-saving exit for Robert Mugabe after 28 years as President of Zimbabwe.

His closest cohorts informed him last night that he had failed to win an outright victory in the country’s weekend presidential poll.

Despite tampering with the results from the countrywide elections, the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission was set to announce that the main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, had taken 48 per cent of the vote, against 42 per cent for the 84-year-old incumbent.

So, in conclusion, there is considerable uncertainty, but strong indications that Mugabe has lost. Whether he will retire in a peaceful manner or not is still not clear. According to BBC-News a deal is “close”.

Among the few very certain things in this world, is the fact that Mugabe has been a disaster for Zimbabwe. Fraud, corrupsion and poltical terror have been a fact of live for people in Zimbabwe for many years.

A land rich on resources and fairly well off at the time of independence have been reduced to one of the poorest countries in the world. Its GDP per capita have fallen with more than 80% since independence.

Now there may be a light in the tunnel, despite the fact that the desperate Robert Mugabe recruited dead voters (The Times) to rig the election.

According to The Guardian, the opposition claims that they have won the election in the country:

Zimbabwe’s opposition party claimed an overwhelming victory against President Robert Mugabe in yesterday’s presidential election, saying that the flow of results showed its candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, had ‘massacred’ the ruling Zanu-PF party.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) defied a government ban on pre-empting the official announcement of the election results and released the count from polling stations that showed Tsvangirai beating the man who has ruled Zimbabwe for 28 years, even in the president’s home territory of Mashonaland.

‘We’ve won this election,’ said Tendai Biti, the MDC’s secretary-general. ‘The results coming in show that in our traditional strongholds we are massacring them. In Mugabe’s traditional strongholds they are doing very badly. There is no way Mugabe can claim victory unless it is through fraud. He has lost this election.’

The government’s electoral commission has yet to release the counts formally. But the MDC said that declarations posted at polling stations across Zimbabwe last night, and gathered from its agents observing the counts, showed Tsvangirai ahead of Mugabe in every province where results were available. The most dramatic gap was in Mashonaland West, where the MDC candidate had 88 per cent of the vote to the president’s 12 per cent.

However, it is still too early to say. And even if the opposition should win, the likelihood of a peaceful transition of power is probably very, very small. The most likely outcome is that Mugabe will cling to power and a civil war will ensue.

In my opinion, that is.

PS: The election results are not forthcoming. Election observers now fears that this means that Mugabe is yet again doctoring the results. Journalists have not so far been able to ascertain when the results will be made public.
PS2: Read about some of the local election results from The Independent.

Some good readings about the election in Zimbabwe:

The Independent - Mugabe: the writing’s on the wall, Opposition leaders go into hiding as poll result is delayed
New York Times: Zimbabwe Opposition Insists Mugabe Lost
The Guardian: Zimbabwe opposition fears vote-rigging, Secret Mugabe meeting ponders military move or fixed result
Information (Danmark - in Danish): Dødt løb efter valg i Zimbabwe

I am European, so I view the following images as both beautiful and as art. But the line between the two is sometimes hard to draw. Especially as some pornographic pictures may also at the same time be beautiful. I guess?

So what to you think? First, Gisele Bündchen:

Next, Jenny Kapitan:

Finally, Lauren Hutton:

So? Which is what? Or are they all - what?