The Truth About Lucia

Christmastime in Sweden is a big deal, from what I can tell—possibly even more important than in the U.S., where political correctness has ushered in all sorts of weirdness about holiday equality (see Kwanzaa, Festivus). There are a lot of really strange holiday traditions here, which I plan to chronicle as they unfold in the next few weeks.

The first thing worth noting is the shattering of my innocence about Santa Lucia. Since I was a little girl, I've heard about the Santa Lucia tradition in Sweden, and it always seemed really sweet and uniquely European. I pictured rows of softly singing blond children walking through an ancient cathedral dressed all in white, with wreaths of candles on their heads. The saint after which the day was named must have been some Mother Theresa-like character who offered comfort to the poor and sick—especially if the poor and sick happened to be adorable blond children.

Well, today, I was walking down one of Stockholm's main shopping streets, and in a store window I saw a mannequin clad in white lingerie and a slinky white robe, with a wreath of candles on her head. Which for some reason seemed really shocking! Christmas is so plastic and commercial in the U.S. that no one blinks an eye at red and white fur "Santa" lingerie, or stupid Fredrick's of Hollywood elf costumes, but Lucia seemed too pure and virginal to me to be swinging around a stripper pole like that.

Mainly, it seems that Lucia's job is to make people fat. During the weeks around the her day, Swedes eat a lot of gingerbread cookies, which reportedly "make you kinder." Riiiight, and drinking glögg makes me smarter.

But wait, there's more. Lucia isn't just enacted by slutty mannequins and little girls in churches. There's a national Lucia, crowned during a pageant situation for besting her competitors with a combination of good looks and singing skills. Naturally, all the contestants have that perfectly airbrushed beauty queen appearance and make canned speeches about world peace and kittens, but they're also involved in charity work. The title is a big one—somewhat akin to being Miss USA—so they even have a PR team and a marketing tour. But there is an interesting element to all this: One of the top five candidates for 2008, Nicole Wångne (pictured above), happens to be a brown-skinned person (I think she's of South Asian or Indian decent, but she didn't mention her heritage in her bio). I'm so hoping she gets chosen. This could be the groundbreaking year when an black American is voted into the White House and a black Swede wears the White Dress!

So, who was this Saint Lucia who gets a day named after her? Well, she was a Sicilian girl who may or may not have traveled to Sweden several centuries ago. She gained sainthood thus: A man fell in love with her and asked her to marry him, but she didn't like him, so she said no. He became angry and threatened to set her on fire, so she prayed to God for fire-retardance. The jilted suitor set Lucia on fire and she didn't burn, so he stuck a knife in her throat instead. She then bled profuely and sang beautiful songs for three days before dying of brutal stab wounds. Also, she was known for being a kind person. The end!

And that, kiddies, is why we celebrate Lucia, the Queen of Light.

A Context-Free Gripe

You know what really bothers me? When a person establishes herself as an arbiter of good taste, gains a big client list, and then begins to paint every single one of her clients to look exactly the same. Let's pretend for a moment that this gripe has nothing at all to do with me or my work. I'm not going to name any Swedish names. Let's say I'm talking about Rachel Zoe. So Rachel Zoe had a fashion idea: She styled herself to be extremely thin with wild blond, bohemian hair, flowing dresses, large sunglasses, tangles of jewelry, oversized statement bags, and teetering heels. And then: Bang! Bang! Bang! Out roll Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie, Mischa Barton, Kate Hudson, and Keira Knightly, all looking like little Zoe clones.

Sure, a client pays for the benefit of Rachel Zoe's personal style, but the hope is that she will get to know the person or product or brand in question and tailor a stylish and unique identity that one can call one's own. The converse is pretty much the equivalent of a choreographer selling the same dance routine to two different ballet companies. It sounds ludicrous in the dance company context, doesn't it? Unheard of! Terrible! So why do we stand for assembly line sameness when it comes to style? It's lazy, uncreative and unscrupulous to apply the same formula to every client. This approach should destroy the reputation of such an arbiter of taste. But alas, somehow it never does.

Whole Bunch of Crazy

Okay, I'm behind on my Swedener reportage, so I'm going to give you several items all in a lump today.

1) First of all, I had a little adventure this weekend when I accidentally locked myself out of my apartment. At 1:30 in the morning. Oops! I went to a little cocktail party at my friend Jessika's house, followed by drinks at a bar, and when I got back to my place I found that the apartment code number that usually gets me into the building was disabled. I guess the landlord expects his tenants to turn into pumpkins at midnight. At any rate, because I always use the digital entry, I didn't have the key with me (who has time for such antiquities?) and I found myself shivering on the doorstep, sort of half-heartedly hoping one of my neighbors would also be coming home from a night out and let me in. But, no such luck. So I decided to go to the bed and breakfast down the street and get a room. Well, it's a very small hotel that actually just takes up one floor of an apartment building, and it was closed. I followed a guy into the building anyway, in the hopes of talking the nightwatchman into renting me a room, but the nightwatchmen was sleeping. So I stood there awkwardly in the lobby listening to people snore and trying to figure out what to do. Then I sat down in the hallway and continued trying to figure out what to do, and ended up falling asleep. Eventually, I woke up and called up Jessika, who was just coming home from the bar. (Thank god!) She was generous enough to invite me over and I have never, ever been so psyched to sleep on someone's couch. Except maybe the time that Christine rescued me in New York under almost exactly the same circumstances. When will I learn?

2) I have become absolutely addicted to Läkerol. For those of you who aren't familiar, Läkerol is a brand of very strong licorice-flavored breath "mint." Luckily they're sugar free and almost calorie free, or I would have a serious problem. I've been going through multiple boxes per week—I just can't get enough of that stringent licorice taste. Hopefully it's just a phase, but I guess it's better than doing daily shots of Sambuca, right?

3) After more than a month's hiatus, I decided to resume my Swedish lessons with a new teacher. I don't think I've touched on this in my blog, but my former teacher was really, really strange. No need to go into detail but the guy is a depressed Swede who hates Sweden, speaks English with a bizarrely affected Louisiana accent, and loves Tila Tequila. Plus he never actually spoke Swedish to me and cleaved closely to a mind-numbing text book. All of which added up to a situation where I came to sort of dread my weekly lessons.

Well, the new teacher is a pretty and fashionable young woman with a sunny disposition, and she ONLY speaks to me in Swedish, which is kind of key if I'm going to learn anything. I feel very embarrassed and uncharacteristically shy aboout speaking Swedish, because I'm pretty bad at it, and I hate being bad at things. But she is really nice and encouraging.

So yesterday we spent the lesson reading the daily news, in which I learned about a crazy guy who burst into a Stockholm church on Sunday armed with an ax and a can of gasoline; a famous but as-yet unnamed Swedish actor who beat the shit out of his sambo over the weekend; and of course the most important news of the week—the marriage of 60-year-old Microsoft billionaire and space tourist Charles Simonyi to 28-year-old Swedish socialite Lisa Persdotter.

The latter story would normally just be the usual, somewhat icky tale of an enterprising and nubile hottie snagging a rich old dude —except Lisa Persdotter's not that pretty. Ha! What I really mean to say is, except for the fact that Simonyi's most recent pre-Persdotter relationship was with none other than multimedia publishing, worldwide merchandizing, TV star/DIY queen Martha Stewart. For 15 years. Ouch. I think it would be foolish to say "poor Martha," because she's doing very well, thank you very much, but I hate hearing about men who leave successful, mature and complex women for younger, simpler arm candy (see photo above).

4) Now let's end on a light note. Yesterday Niklas sent me a hilarious video of a German Ikea commercial that was banned, for some reason. Maybe because it paints Swedes in such an unflattering light? At any rate, it's a really funny satire of a rural Midsummer celebration. It's the thick of winter here right now, but I'm wishing I could be here in July—if my friends threw a Midsummer party with a quarter of this much awesomeness I'd be set for life. I love the people just pouring jugs of moonshine and buckets of dead fish andomly all over the table. Varsågod:

Vinter Vunderland

That there is a photo of the soccer field-cum-ice rink near my apartment, at 3 pm today. The days are cold and the nights are long this time of year, which translates to lots of bundling up, with everyone under the age of 14 sporting snow pants and either skates or a sled. There's also a lot of nesting going on. Windows everywhere are lit with candles, and conversations with my friends suggest I'm not the only person who has suddenly morphed into a 60-year-old lady, drinking copious amounts of herbal tea, reading paperbacks in the bathtub, and going to bed at 9 pm. Sheesh. If it makes me sound any cooler, I've also been downloading lots of music and doing kettlebell workouts in my living room. No, that didn't make me sound any cooler.

At any rate, the forecast calls for continuing snowfall through Wednesday, which is kind of exciting. Maybe I'll be able to cross-country ski to work this week!

A popular Swedish pasttime—well, among outdoorsy folk, at least—is going on longish-distance skating outings on the frozen rivers and coastal waters. There's not enough ice for that yet, and I'm not nearly good enough at skating, but it seems like something I'll have to try at least once. I guess I could practice with the little kids on the ice rink pictured above. I need to buy a new pair of running shoes this week, so while I'm at the sports store I'll price out ice skates and, um, a helmet, knee pads and butt padding of some sort? I'm pretty much guaranteed to break myself if I attempt this sport without full Mighty Ducks body armor. Wish me luck!

Mom and Dad's Sweden Sweep

When Rebecca came to visit back in September, I didn't really know my way around Stockholm yet, so I basically threw a guidebook at her and told her to make herself at home. Well, partly because Rebecca spent her time in Stockholm just chilling out and partly because I gave her no guidance, she had a bit of a lame time here. I'm not so much for staying out late partying these days (guess I'm getting old), but I really am capable of putting together a fine travel itinerary if I just put my mind to it. After all, who was the brains behind the wedding party train this summer? Ahem.

So, my mom and dad (pretend that's them at left) are coming to town next week, and this time around I may have flipped out in the opposite direction of Rebecca's visit by creating the Swedish Experience Extraordinaire. They literally have an hour-by-hour game plan for their entire week (with built-in free time, natch). Massage appointments? Booked. Julbord rezziess at the Grand Hotel? Yup! Archipelago tour? Ja vist. Museums, shopping, Skansen, herring, cocktails, holiday fairs, Gamla Stan, changing of the guard? Chhhhhhhhheck.

Now what I want to know is, who's next on the Capital of Scandinavia tour? Your time is running out! Rhonda? Heather? Anyone... Bueller?

Branded

I'm exhausted this evening after a whirlwind few days at work. We're heavily into both the brand project and the Web site project now, and the meetings and decision-making process are getting really interesting. I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to talk about the Bonnier brand on this blog, so I'll skip revealing any details of the strategy, but I will say this: The more we dig into the facts of the company history, the values we stand for, and the direction we're heading for the future, the more I can honestly say that I feel really good about working for an organization I believe in. Everyone who has approached this project from the outside (consultants, Web design people, our creative agency) has in some way commented that they expected us to be a boring, stodgy old publishing company and were really amazed to discover how progressive and interesting Bonnier is.

I know it's incredibly corny to be cheerleading about my workplace, but just take off your cynical hipster hats there for a second, cool kids, and hear me out.

One of the most meaningful things about this gig for me has been the fact that my specific circumstance (being a random employee in the U.S. who got plucked out of a magazine to work directly with the head honchos in Stockholm) is a direct validation of one of our key brand values. We like to say we care deeply about entrepreneurship and opinionated individuals, how we're not hierarchical and how good ideas can come from anywhere in the company. Lots of companies say things like that, but I feel like I'm living proof that that's true at this one. For instance, today, I sat for three hours in a meeting with two of the top people at Bonnier and a couple of guys from one of the best brand consultancies in the world, and we hammered out the foundation of our new corporate brand strategy. According to my resume, I had no business being in that room, but I got invited because somebody liked my ideas. Believe me when I say I could have been anyone—I guarantee that if Lollo the receptionist had expressed a solid branding idea, she could have joined in, too, and I think that's pretty damned inspiring.

I spent the rest of the day putting together a PowerPoint of the concept and rough designs for our new Web site, which Niklas and I will present in a meeting with Bonnier's management group tomorrow. Fingers crossed that they like our ideas... We think they're very strong, but if these six key people don't agree, it could be back to the drawing board.

Rah! Rah!

Chasing the Sun to Arabia

Hello! Sorry I kind of dropped off for a few days there... I forgot to tell you I was going to Dubai to visit my grade-school friend Rhonda, who lives there with her husband Kai and daughter Zuzu. To anyone in the U.S., a "quick jaunt" to the United Arab Emirates probably sounds insane, but when it's wintertime in northern Europe, the Middle East is actually one of the most convenient destinations for a warm-weather getaway. I figured I was far more likely to make the five-hour trip to Dubai from Europe than I would be to travel there from Santa Fe, New Mexico. And it's such a strange and interesting place in the world right now.

Unless you can stay with a friend, like I did, or you've got paid accommodations through a work assignment, Dubai is prohibitively pricey to visit. The luxury beach hotels offer a world-class setting for relaxation, but many of them run $5,000 or so per night for an average room! Completely psycho. Rhonda and I decided to buy a day pass to one of the private beaches on Saturday, so we got a taste of the high-roller experience (thatched-roof beach cabanas and full food and beverage service) at a fraction of the price. That was an awesome day, and it turned out to be the highlight of my trip. The Gulf water is wave-free and perfectly clear, so you can see schools of little fish swarming around your feet all the way up to the edge of the sea. There are no breakers at all, and the water is so salty and still that you can just float on your back for ages.

Plus, the beach scene is extremely entertaining. You can't help but gawk at the lanky Russian supermodels and curvy Arabian princess-types hanging on the arms of paunchy, hairy oilmen twice their age. At night, the beaches become open-air nightclubs featuring live bands and drive-in-style movies, and a walk past the Burj Dubai (the famed sail-shaped building pictured above) ends at a marina where some of the most valuable yachts in the world languish until someone decides to take them for a spin.

All that was impressive, yes. And so were the fantastic dinners we had at two of the superpremium restaurants popping up across Dubai like mushrooms (We went to "The Address" and "Zuma," in case you're interested). But beyond the flash, there isn't a whole lot to Dubai.

Okay, that was a grossly oversimplified statement. There's SO MUCH going on in Dubai in terms of development, and the clashing cultures of new expats from a hundred different countries. Perhaps you're familiar with the oft-cited statistic that Dubai is home to 35 percent of the world's construction cranes. Seriously, my impression was that the city is comprised of a vast series of interlocking construction sites dotted with high-rise buildings, seven-star hotels (their claim, not mine), mansions, and malls. And in between the shiny glass and steel structures and intricate networks of highway, all you see is sand, for miles around.

I imagine that Dubai feels to its vast community of foreign workers a lot like California did during the gold rush of 1849. Except, at least according to one snarky Brit I met who works in business development, the Emirati fast money has pretty much dried up, and the prospecting days are over. In other words, if you're not already there, you're not getting there cheaply anymore. What keeps people pouring into Dubai is not the bootstrapping spirit of the Wild West, it's the generous tax breaks bestowed by the benevolent dictatorship of Sheikh Mohammed.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. The chaotic energy of a half-built city, the thrill of owning property in a place where home values can double quarterly... I totally get why people move there. Rhonda and her husband have a special affection for the Middle East (Rhonda is Egyptian and Kai went to college in Cairo), so they're drawn to the place for personal as well as financial reasons. But I personally don't think I could do it.

I have a couple of Swedish friends who asked me to report back about Dubai because they might consider moving there. And maybe I'd be like-minded if my long-term strategy involved choosing between Arabian sunshine and gray Scandinavia. But I already have a house in the New Mexico desert, and I like that desert a lot. I like living in a place with a couple hundred years of history, where the streets curve weirdly and change names randomly instead of following the strict lines of a brand-new grid. I like that Santa Fe's buildings bleed organically from a city center out into the mountains. And I know that it's crazy for me to be comparing the two places, but once you're in Dubai, it just feels like a very Westernized desert town. Most of the time I felt like I was in Las Vegas, Nevada, Scottsdale, Arizona or a drier Houston, Texas.

It's kind of alarming to me how Dubai's infrastructure is popping up haphazardly all at once in many different parts of town, without any real city planning. The place isn't walkable—it takes a twenty-minute drive to get anywhere, and you never really get the satisfaction of a true downtown, of being "where the action is." And it also alarms me that the vulgar money-slinging culture reminds me so much of my own country. Part of the reason Dubai didn't feel all that exotic to me is that I'm quite familiar with that culture of conspicuous consumption, gaz-guzzling luxury SUVs traveling 25 miles back and forth across town several times each day, and flashy Vegas-style megaresorts.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to sound ungrateful for my trip. I had a really great weekend hanging with my friends—lots of quality time, great conversation, some luxurious experiences and a gentle introduction to the craziness of the Middle East. And it will be fascinating to see what happens to Dubai in the next ten years. Can the city just keep on metastasizing at its current rate? Will the sheikh eventually start levying taxes? (There are no taxes at all right now: no property tax, no income tax and no sales tax.) Is it going to be sustainable for Dubai to run on desalinated sea water over the long term? (That's what the city runs on right now, but a liter of clean Dubai water is the most expensive to produce in world.) Will the population stabilize into a harmonious racial rainbow? Or disperse into clusters of monocultural "little Indias" and "Chinatowns"?

Once upon a time, America was considered the great melting pot—in hindsight, a strange concept for a country with a history steeped in racism. But I think the real smelting is going on right now in Dubai. Whether or not it's a place I'd like to live, I'll definitely be keeping an eye on the city's development... and hopefully heading back again to hang with Rhonda, Kai and little Zuzu.

Here's an album from the adventure:

"Secretary" Bill Richardson?

Let's put Sweden on hold for a moment, and talk about American politics (again). Right now, the media is placing bets on Obama's cabinet choices. NYTimes.com even has a cool interactive tool that lets you compare your choices with those of other readers.

I'm excited about the prospect of Santa Fe hometown hero Bill Richardson being one of the top candidates for Secretary of State. But I also have reservations, because I realize that my excitement stems mostly from familiarity with the guy. (I even know his horse personally.) I've been living in New Mexico off and on for more than a decade, and I met Mr. Richardson on several occasions while I was writing for the Santa Fe Reporter. (I met his horse while working at the ranch where he's stabled.) Richardson is a damn nice guy. Bowl-you-over charming. But I also remember the debacle of the hard drives that went missing from Los Alamos, and how much flak Richardson took on Capitol Hill for his administration's slow and bungled reaction. (No one who lives in New Mexico was really surprised, by the way—it is the land of manana.)

And I didn't know, but just found out, that Richardson interviewed Monica Lewinsky for a U.N. post as the sex scandal was unfolding, possibly as a favor to his buddy Bill Clinton.

But putting these political stumbles aside, in my opinion, Richardson has been a pretty great governor, initiating projects like the New Mexico tax rebate for filmmakers, Spaceport America and the Railrunner train from Albuquerque to Santa Fe— all designed, and so far successfully implemented, in an effort to stimulate the state's formerly sagging economy.

But Richardson's diplomacy skills are the real reason he's in contention for the Secretary of State appointment. No one could argue against Richardson's remarkable negotiation skills. I was working at the Reporter in 2003 when the Bush administration had one of its first standoffs with North Korea. Bush's people didn't feel like talking to the Koreans, but Richardson did, so he personally invited them to come to Santa Fe and have a chat about their nuclear policy. And they did! Crisis averted, no red button pushed. Go Bill!

Slate described some of Richardson's other victories in this passage from a 2000 article:

Clinton passed over Richardson for the Cabinet in 1992, but the president and the congressman, each recognizing a kindred spirit, became fast friends. Soon Clinton deputized Richardson to act as an unofficial U.S. negotiator with thugs and monsters. In the mid-'90s, Richardson freed a U.S. helicopter pilot downed over North Korea, a pair of Americans who inadvertently crossed into Iraq, an American jailed in Bangladesh, and three aid workers held hostage in Sudan, among others. He was dispatched to butter up Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, Haiti's military dictators, and Burma's tyrants.

Richardson courted the despots with the same rumpled, hail-fellow-well-met manner that won him friends at home. He played up his friendship with the president, flattered the hostage-holders, listened to them graciously, ate their food, told self-deprecating jokes, and cajoled them with promises of good press and American sympathy. He was magic. Sudanese rebel Kerubino Kwanyin Bol was intransigent till Richardson asked to visit Kerubino's child, who was dying of measles. That request melted the warlord, who dropped his ransom demand from $2.5 million to a few jeeps and some rice. Richardson's missions won him three Nobel Peace Prize nominations.

Did you catch that? Three Nobel Peace Prize nominations. Sheesh. So, I guess despite the couple of weird incidents cited above, my overall impression is that Richardson's diplomatic skills could be a great boon to the Obama administration (I get chills typing that phrase). Plus—a Hispanic guy and a black guy leading the nation! Um, you learned from the Lewinsky thing, right Mr. Richardson?

Where My Grrreens At?

Last night I was lamenting to my husband how hard it is to find leafy green vegetables in Stockholm. This seems odd to me, since Sweden has the perfect weather for growing kale, chard, mustard greens and collards practically all year round. So why can't I find them in my local grocery stores? All I find is the usual stuff: tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, broccoli, lettuce... usually flown in from somewhere far away.

"Um, honey, you're in a different country," John reminded me. Riiiiight, that. The thing is it just seems so strange given how healthy the culture is here, but vegetables in general seem to be a bit of an afterthought (the main attractions are definitely meat, potatoes and bread), and I've never seen cooked greens on any menu, anywhere. I prefer to pile my plate with veggies and try to make the meat the side dish. And I love greens so much that I actually crave them. Back in my bachelorette days in New York, I would sometimes saute a big heap of kale with lemon, olive oil and parmesan and eat just that for dinner.

If I can't find greens in the supermarket, surely some farmer's market must have them. The hippies around here must eat greens, right? So far I haven't found such a market, but a little online research this evening revealed that there is in fact at least one—I just missed it in the busy season and it won't open up again until Christmastime. It's at the main plaza in Södermalm, called Medborgarplatsen. And another place to scout might be Asian groceries. I'll try to check out the shops in "Chinatown" tomorrow.

Stockholmers, help me out here. Any ideas where I might find some greens? See how delicious they look in the photo? I bet you're hungry for some, too. At this point I'll go anywhere in the city. But please don't say Hötorget. I'm not craving mushrooms and knockoff handbags.

What's New In Sweden

I've gotten a few phone calls and emails from friends lately who would like me to cut through the surface-level accounts of Swedish culture for a moment and say something personal on this blog. "Yes, yes, but how are you REALLY doing?" my concerned friends keep asking. I think they all think I must be going mad with the short days, the gray weather and the long distance to John.

Well, there are ups and downs, of course. There have been a few days that have been hard. I felt a bit adrift after returning to Sweden after my honeymoon, like "what the hell am I doing here?" But honestly, cross my heart, overall I'm doing quite well. I miss John a lot, but being apart seems to have strengthened our relationship. There's not the anxiety that usually accompanies long-distance relationships because, well, we're married. It's not like we can just up and decide not to be together. It sounds a little silly, but the fact that we're married makes us both feel secure, and the fact that we're apart makes us feel independent. We're glad it's not for any longer than what's already arranged, but we're dealing with it just fine.

And the weather in Stockholm is not such a big deal, either. It's sort of romantic, actually. It's misty and mysterious, and with the sun setting at around 3 pm, you have this strange sense that there's an extremely vibrant nightlife in the city, even though what's really happening is that people are going about their usual day life in the dark.

Plus, I've made some really nice friends here. I keep hearing about how hard it is to break through and really get to know Swedes, but maybe I lucked out because I had an "in" with friends of friends from the get-go. Or maybe Swedes just like to think of themselves as distant and reserved. I think that's definitely the feeling you get when you encounter strangers around town. But one-on-one, just about every single person I've met has been warm and hospitable.

I'm starting to search for the person who will fill my position here when I go back to the States, and I'm surprised to find that I'm already a little nostalgic! I feel like I'm leaving soon and I'm going to miss this place and these people. Stockholm moves a whole lot slower than New York. The pace is more like Santa Fe, with the same emphasis on quality of life, relaxing and spending time in the outdoors. For me, that's the most surreal thing. I'm in a city, but it's so... chill. Apart from the Swedish obsession with punctuality, that is. I guess it's chill if you just prepare to be at a place with the right amount of time to get there in a leisurely fashion. I haven't mastered that art yet, but I'm getting better.

I'm hoping we get some snow around here soon. It's been icy a few times, but the sea hasn't frozen over yet. I really want to try skating or cross-country skiing while I'm here. People go on long, er, hikes over the frozen waterways and it would be fun to check that out. Niklas says he doesn't do that because he's afraid he'll fall through thin ice and die. Which gives me pause. But Fresh and Sweaty has an outdoors program and I doubt they'd let the inevitable duckling queue of middle-aged skaters fall into the sub-zero water. So maybe I'll go with them.

But anyway, the point of all this is: I'm fine. Really. Better than fine! I'm going to enjoy my time in Sweden and then return to a politically changed country that feels entirely new, and that's pretty awesome.

Doing Good, Lazily

Fundraising for good causes is one of my not-so-secret passions—a "side job" I do because I think anyone who can help others should. Although I hate cold-calling people for business reasons, I am perfectly happy to heckle my friends, relatives and even perfect strangers into giving a few bucks to the Heifer Foundation, the Leukemia Society, The Hunger Site, UNICEF, Kiva.org, 826 Valencia, or whatever my preferred charity of the moment might be. The theme is almost always "children": poor children, children with cancer, children who need food, children who live in places ravaged by natural disaster, etc. Well, today I discovered a new worthy cause, and an interesting vehicle for giving.

(See my strategy? I rope you in making you think you're gonna read about Swedish hotties, and then I feed you do-gooder stuff.)

Today at work, I was interviewing a high-level executive in one of Bonnier's book divisions, and he told me about the imminent release of J.K. Rowling's new book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard. The interesting thing about this book (apart from the fact that it stems from a very meta book-within-book story in the seventh edition of Harry Potter), is that Rowling has pledged to give 100% of the royalties of this book to her charity for children in Eastern European orphanages. Beedle the Bard launches worldwide on December 4th, and you're likely to hear more about this charity in the media shitstorm that will inevitably follow, which is a good thing. But you can say you saw it here first.

Rowling's charity is called the Children's High Level Group (lousy name, I know), and the purpose is to improve living conditions for the thousands of children who are institutionalized in Eastern Europe because their parents are too poor to care for them, or they're orphaned, or disabled, or disowned because they're descendants of the wrong ethnic minority. The places where these kids live, often from infancy, are terribly understaffed and underfunded, and many of the children develop serious mental issues (often leading to drug dependency, victimization in the human trafficking industry and suicide) because they don't have regular exposure to human touch. And on top of all that, they're typically subject to bullying and violence from other children scrabbling for scarce resources.

J.K. Rowling cofounded the Children's High Level Group (that's her in the photo with the baby, above) with the goal of lobbying for EU regulations and funding for these institutions, as well as directly providing material resources, education programs and emotional support for the kids.

I did a little research about the charity as background for the story I'm writing, and I found that one of the ways you can support CHLG is through a cool click-donating search engine called Everyclick. I'm a big fan of the clicks-for-charity fundraising system. It's so smart, and everybody wins. Basically, the idea is that a site sells ads—usually the charity site itself, plus maybe your own blog, Facebook profile, etc—but instead of taking the advertising revenue as profit, the organization gives it to a good cause.

Depending upon the size of the site, this can amount to millions of dollars of charity money, paid for by advertisers who would have been shelling out anyway. As a Web user, all you have to do is click. Since advertising prices are dependent upon traffic (the pay-per-click model), you are effectively the link that brings the money from the advertiser and puts it in the charity's pocket.

So, Everyclick took the concept a bit further by creating a whole search engine with targeted ads for funding charities. To use it, you sign up and replace your normal search engine with the Everyclick engine (I'm using Firefox as my browser, so I just switched the search toolbar to run on Everyclick—and I can easily toggle back to Google any time). Every time you use the search engine, your clicks generate a few pennies for the charity of your choice. Great idea, huh!

There are just two tiny incoveniences involved: 1) All the charities are UK-based, because Everyclick is a UK site, and the currency appears in pounds. No biggie, though. 2) I started using it today and I feel nice and helpful, but the user interface isn't as slick as I'm used to. It seems to be finding what I need, but for hardcore research I'm afraid I'm going to have to keep relying on our friends in Mountain View. Anyway, if you feel like doing something good today, with very little effort, check out Everyclick.

Candy, I Can't Let You Go

This evening's edition of Artificial Swedener will be part blog post, part confessional. You see, I've been following a diet lately—the idea is to eat like a hunter-gatherer—but tonight I discovered Swedish candy and fell off the wagon, hard.

We'll get back to the candy in a moment, but first, a little biological anthropology (my major in college, don'tcha know). It sounds counterintuitive, but hunter-gatherer peoples typically have a much better nutritional profile than those of us who eat a post-agricultural diet. The diseases of Western civilization (heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, namely) are completely absent in communities that don't have regular access to cereal grains, dairy products, alcohol, and processed foods. But then again, ice cream, Twinkies and beer goggles are also absent. Lame!

So anyway, the diet plan (the "Paleo Diet for Athletes") says to avoid all grains, sweeteners, alcohol, dairy and fermented foods. I actually like eating the Paleo way... except when I don't. You're really only supposed to eat vegetables, meat and fruit—plus occasional exceptions after heavy sports-training, and one meal each week where you can eat whatever you want. (A pound of candy, perhaps?)

Since moving to Sweden in August, I've been walking past sweets shops probably nine or 10 times each day—they are on practically every street corner. And the bins of multicolored confections never really appealed before. But tonight the scales fell off my eyes and I suddenly realized that I have my own money, no grown-ups to tell me "no," and I'm living in a Willy Wonka wonderland of sugary delights! Woohoo! So I went to one of these candy convenience stores and put one of nearly every little doodad in a bag. There are bunches of different kinds of licorice in cute shapes, but much like the earwax and vomit candies in Harry Potter, you have to be careful or you might end up with a disgusting salty one that tastes like a practical joke.

There are also gazillions of different kinds of gummies, and these fluffy, marshmallowish candies unfortunately called "scum goodies" (skumgodis). There's chocolate ones with crispies on them or nougat inside, sour ones in bright pastel colors, hard ones shaped like fried eggs, butterscotch foamy ones, white ones with caramel and on and on and on. You don't often see candies like this in the U.S., although I bet these are what my grandmother means when she talks about "penny candy." Nowadays, your sugary sweets are all branded up and sold individually in familiar little packages—there's no mystery left in the candy-selection process. Unless you count the Forrest Gump-style revelation of boxed chocolates.

Well, anyway, I can't remember the last time I ate like 20 candies in a single sitting. I think I was about eight. Eating a pile of candy is pretty much the diametric opposite of the Paleo Diet, but it feels good to be a kid once in a while. And there's always tomorrow to try and be virtuous again.

Yes, We Did!

I'm coming down off a sleep-deprivation high after staying up all night on November 4th, watching the U.S. election results roll in, and then hosting a breakfast yesterday morning as Obama was named president-elect. First, I went to the very fun and huge Democrats Abroad party at a downtown hotel (that's my friend Tanja and me, having a pariotic moment at the party). Then, at 6 am Stockholm time, nine of my Swedish friends were munching pancakes at my apartment, huddled around the little TV set as our hero gave his historic speech.

Truly amazing, that's all I can say. (Well, I could say a lot more, but there's plenty of Obama coverage on every newspaper and TV station around the world, so I'll refrain.) But, wow, going to work was hard for me yesterday. I powered through, fueled by sugar-free Red Bulls and a renewed hope in the future of democracy. And then I went to a work dinner at a surreally sceney Stockholm media hotspot, after which I awoke in the middle of the night in a panic because I dreamt that "something bad" had happened to Obama.

So today I have a spooky pair of hollows under my eyes, and wow, it was hard going to work. But I powered through, fueled by sugar-free Red Bulls and a renewed hope in the future of democracy. Sheesh. Here's hoping election day doesn't turn into Groundhog Day.

The World Votes

As I mentioned in my last election-related post, I've been paying close attention to the international coverage of the election, and the global community's opinions of the candidates. Well, yesterday a pretty great piece came out in Dagens Nyheter, Sweden's most prestigious daily newspaper, showing how McCain and Obama performed in opinion polls taken in countries around the world. As my mom pointed out in a telephone conversation last night, at the end of the day these polls don't make a damn bit of difference, because the international community isn't voting, but still. It's interesting stuff. The results I'm about to cite were compiled from research done on November 1 by the BBC, the Economist, Gallup, Reader's Digest and Synovate Global Opinion Panels.

Polling was done in: the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Paraguay, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, France, Germany, England, Italy, Poland, Turkey, Russia, Georgia, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Botswana, Burundi, Rwanda, Madagascar, Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, the Philippines, Loas, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Palestine, Singapore, Bangladesh, China, Pakistan and Australia.That's a pretty comprehensive view of the world.

So, without further ado, drumroll, please.... The compiled results from all the countries listed above:

49% for Obama, 12% for McCain, and 39% undecided.

Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa showed overwhelming support for Obama, with country-by-country results in the 70% range. Interestingly, the countries where McCain garnered the most support were Georgia, the Philippines, Laos and Cambodia. I think the Georgians support him because of that anti-Russia comment he made during the second debates: "When I hear the name Putin, three letters come to mind: K. G. B!"

Finally, I'd like to draw your attention to this nifty polling site I just found, iftheworldcouldvote.com. It was started by two guys in Iceland, and at the time I wrote this, they had collected nearly 763,000 votes from 212 countries. Click on the link above to see the results for yourself.

Baby Name Conundrum

I just heard a really strange story that must say something—although I'm not sure what, exactly—about both "Swedishness" and what it's like to live in a social democracy.

Apparently, in Sweden, you're given 3 months to decide your baby's name and formally submit the name to the Swedish government so the child can be issued an ID number. And, apparently, it's quite common for people not to be able to decide what that name should be until the last minute.

Now, to me, this is really crazy. Besides knowing the sex in advance, my American friends with kids have often paid for the latest 3-D scans so they can see exactly what the face looks like and they feel like they really "know" the baby before it's even born. They typically start calling the kid by its chosen name during the 6th or 7th month of pregnancy, and they certainly write something on the birth certificate on the day the baby is born.

Niklas told me he and his wife took several months to decide their little boy's name: Elton. Until the decision was made, they referred to him as "little brother." And my colleague Maria changed her baby's name several times before finally settling on the name that slid under the three-month deadline. But what happens if you haven't decided a name when the buzzer goes off?

Well, the Swedish government chooses for you. And you're not allowed to officially change your name in Sweden, so that's the name the kid will have on his papers forever.

We found this out firsthand when a colleague (who in this case shall remain nameless) let the three-month deadline slide by without choosing a name, and received an official letter informing her that the child's first name would be her maiden name. So, if I were that baby, for instance, my name would have been McCleary Miller instead of Megan Miller. Well, before the mother got a chance to do anything about it, her father—the kid's grandfather—who, by the way wasn't asked for any proof of identity, so he could have been anyone, called up the government office and said, "For 5 generations, the first-born males in my family have always been called Georg, so this baby's name must be changed to Georg."

I guess the grandfather kicked up such a fuss that they decided to humor him and changed the name! So that is the name now set in stone, and the mother lost her opportunity to have any input into the decision. Wacky, right?

International Election Mania

I really, really wish I could be in the U.S. this coming Tuesday for election night—obviously it's going to be a historic evening, as we can see from the record numbers of Americans already heading to the polls for the early voting available in 40 states. But since I'm going to be here in Stockhom, I've decided to throw an "election breakfast" for my Swedish friends so we can watch the tail end of the news coverage and toast (or console each other) with mimosas when we find out who wins.

Some of my friends in the U.S. have been surprised when I've told them how very interested Europeans are in our election. Many Swedes are following it as closely as Americans: it's all over the TV and newspapers and passionate followers in my circle of contacts include Jonas Bonnier's 16-year-old son, who pulled all-nighters watching each of the debates (they aired here at 3 am), and several of my coworkers who are morbidly fascinated by Sarah Palin.

What was really amazing, however, was experiencing first-hand how passionate people are about this election in Asia. While in Bali, we saw TV election coverage from the BBC, CNN International, Al Jazeera, and the networks in Indonesia and Hong Kong. Just walking down the beach in little fishing villages or talking to taxi drivers, Balinese people would ask where we're from, and when we told them we're American, they'd say "Obama!"

Since moving to Sweden I've gotten a deep sense of exactly how important the U.S. is to the rest of the world. Our country really does lead in economics, foreign policy (gulp—sorry, world), and pop culture. And the rest of the people around the globe don't have the opportunity to vote for our president—they just get stuck with whomever we choose. The whole world used to love America, but over the past eight years, they've begun to see us as a bully and a rogue element. We haven't been making decisions that benefit the global community, which means we've been abusing our position and power, and consequently losing them—not to mention the goodwill and respect that are always crucial to leadership. But now that everyone has seen how a U.S. market slide can cause all the other global markets to fall like dominoes, the international community desperately wants us to pull it together and get back on top again.

If Obama wins this election, the U.S. will be making a historic shift from a right-leaning government to a left-leaning one, which reminds me of the drawings of a giant pendulum that Mr. Fleming, my 10th-grade history teacher, used to make on his blackboard. Whether we were talking about the Whigs versus the Tories in the English Parliament or the Jacobins being ousted by the people's party during the French Revolution, he always wanted us to keep the larger historical context in mind: when any government swings too far to the right or left, political and economic forces always move it back in the opposite direction.

I was born during the Carter administration, so I've seen two Democratic presidents and two Republicans so far (both from the same family, which is really weird). For most of my life, the parties have cleaved to a pretty moderate path. But now that the disastrous results of the Bush administration's ultra-hawkish foreign policy and severely deregulated economic policy are fully being felt by the people, the historical pendulum just might be positioned for a swing.

Whatever happens on November 4th, I'll be in my tiny apartment filled with pancake-munching Swedes, anxiously watching as the last results roll in.