Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Month: May 2017

Picking a fight

14.05.2017 /

Some of you are simply itching to get into a red-hot quarrel because you need somebody on whom to take out your matrimonial or economic malaise. So who will it be? The Jews? The Arabs? The blacks? No of course not. That would be politically incorrect.

The nice thing about Trump is that you can blame him for all sorts of things. However, you can’t blame him for US poverty, because it’s been around for ever. The US suffers the second greatest relative income poverty in the OECD, surpassed only by apartheid Israel. And the statistics for child poverty are no better, according to Washington Post.

Now you can’t really blame that on Trump, can you? So if you really are itching to break somebody’s bones, you only have two options: You can root for invasion of some Middle Eastern country or you can blame the Russians. At any rate, you need a new Cold War to keep your blood boiling on rainy days.

Mind you, Russians are poor too, very poor. In fact, poverty is considerably greater there than in the US, even if Russians are much better off than when Putin came to power. No wonder they love him! But the poor are very poor, and the middle class is relatively small and shrinking.

The richest 10% of Russians own 87% of all the country’s wealth, according to a Swiss report (compared with 76% in the US and 66% in China). The rest of the country’s 138 million population have to make do with the remaining 13%. I would say that’s a pretty disgusting figure. Indeed, filthy-rich Russian tourists meet raised eyebrows wherever they go: Surely, people can only grow that rich by crooked means; certainly not by honest work.

Nevertheless, there is absolutely no need to blame the Russians for all the hanky panky going on in the world. Please note, for instance, that the code for the ransomware that recently crippled UK hospitals, Spanish Telecom and for that matter much of Russia had initially been developed by NSA.

What do you think NSA was going to do with the thing, huh?

The little prince

13.05.2017 /

Walking my dog along a track in the woods, I came upon an unexpected couple. Or should I say, they unexpectedly found themselves there, having evidently come down a path from a residential area, without realising they would be engulfed by forest and surrounded by great big, dark and dismal fir trees.

So when I came upon them, they were just standing uncertainly where the paths meet, a little boy and someone who might have been his much older brother. My dog, who believes she owns the area, strode over to inspect them.

Inconsiderate of me, of course, to let her do so, seeing as the two were foreigners, and foreigners tend to be afraid of dogs, even of my cheerful little fox terrier. My thoughts were elsewhere, and by the time I noticed that the elder boy had tensed in a protective position almost surrounding his ward, it was really too late to call back the dog: She was already sniffing at the little one. He, on the other hand, stood his ground, neither stretching out his hand to touch her, as little boys usually do, nor squirming.

By the time I had reached the group, the dog had lost interest and trotted on, but the little boy’s gaze followed her. I stopped in my tracks, struck by what I was seeing: a small boy, maybe five years old, with a yellow knitted cap, a green quilted jacket and a small violin case dangling from a strap around his neck, who had braved, straight and tall (small though he might be), an unknown animal that was as tall as he. “Is that a violin?” I demanded, and the elder boy started to mutter a reply, but the little one needed no-one to speak for him and countered with a question of his own:

– Why did that dog approach me?

– Because it likes children, I replied, adding respectfully, – do you not like dogs?

– I do, but, – followed by a moment’s hesitation, – not bad dogs.

I hastened to assure him that my dog was anything but “bad”, and he breathed a sigh of relief, revealing in spite of himself that he had been afraid.

– Is he very strong? he wanted to know. – He’s much stronger than I, is he not?

I found myself so much in awe of this majestic little child that I actually stuttered when trying to explain that in some ways, perhaps, yes, in others probably not. “And in any case, it’s a she, not a he, a girl dog.”

– Ah, a girl dog. In that case, Mahmoud and I shall have no trouble dealing with her. Mahmoud and I are strong.

I looked questioningly at the elder boy, “Mahmoud?” “No, that’s his best friend,” said the other with a proud and tender smile.

I felt I should not let the little prince’s male chauvinism go ungainsaid: “Maybe strength isn’t what you need most. Maybe wisdom …” but the little prince was pursuing his own mournful train of thought:

– In our house we have neither dogs nor kitties.

– Well, I started to comfort him, – to have a dog, you need lots of time, and you who go to school don’t have that.

I think this was the first time he looked at me. At any rate this was the first time I noticed how brown and dreadfully serious his eyes were.

– I don’t go to school. I attend nursery school.

The whole tone of this conversation struck me as somewhat otherworldly and I tried to make eye contact with the elder boy. He could have been 15. Lanky and pale, with a soft, long, wavy lock falling over his forehead, he had dark-rimmed glasses over a smiling, slightly shy face, and was now speaking on the phone in a foreign language. His voice was unexpectedly deep and soft for such a young man.

The little prince also glanced at him, understanding the foreign language, and informed me proudly: – I have a father, though. And with him I can speak Kurdish.

I respectfully took my leave, almost tempted to wonder whether I had been speaking to a reincarnation of Cyrus the Great.

Valgpoteter

03.05.2017 /

I førvalgstider er det ikke måte på hva de ulike partiene lover for å få flest mulig velgere på kroken. Kontantstøtten er et eksempel, et resultat av tidligere valgløfter, og med den har våre myndigheter vært, og er enda, mer enn alminnelig spandable – vel og merke på vår, skattebetalernes, bekostning – og det jeg lurer på, er hvorfor nettopp kontantstøtte?

Er det på grunn av smårollingene? Ikke tale om! Ikke på noe tidspunkt i livet vil smårollinger ha det bedre i offentlighetens varetekt enn i alderen 1-3 år. Om jeg var Kristelig folkeparti og ønsket å forsvare barn som individer og “familien” som institusjon, ville jeg ha ivret for noe ganske annet.

Hva Kristelig folkeparti mener om saken, er forresten nokså underordnet, siden et så lite parti aldri kunne ha fått innvilget et såpass ekstravagant tilbud til velgerne uten mer eller mindre implisitt støtte fra de store partiene. Noe skjuler seg bak den retoriske ulla, og jeg lurer på hva det er.

Ikke en gang Høyres mantra om valgfrihet – i dette tilfellet kvinners rett til å velge om de vil eller vil ikke ut i arbeidslivet – kan forklare en så dyr post. Selv Høyre er jo tross alt ikke tilhenger av at unge menn skal få et slikt valg. Kan de da forsvare at unge kvinner skal få det? Javel, det er jobbigt å oppdra et barn, men det er også jobbigt å være parasitt. Det er ikke bare bare å ha råd til beholde mobilnett-, spotify- og netflixabonnement; en parasitt må være både kreativ og flittig.

Alle barn av arbeidende foreldre har rett til barnehageplass. Rett nok betaler foreldrene for hver plass – og den er ikke billig – men er den likevel dyr for skattebetalerne? Kan det hende at kontantstøtten er billigere enn det ville vært om alle arbeidet? Jeg er ikke særlig begeistret for den forklaringen fordi de som arbeider betaler ikke bare for barnehageplassen: de betaler også skatt.

Kronargumentet mot kontantstøtten har vært at den har holdt utenlandske mødre hjemme. Men det siste pelshvalen hørte da den svømte langs Norges lange kyst var at kontantstøtten var et tiltak mot fattigdom. Det het: “Mange utenlandske kvinner får jo ikke jobb!” Er  kontantstøtten til syvende og sist bare et forsøk på å kamuflere uvilje mot å lære opp og ansette utenlandske kvinner?

Så må en heller ikke glemme at uten kontantstøtten ville Kristelig folkeparti vært enda mindre enn det er. Jeg vil hevde at det er i de store partienes interesse å holde småpartiene i live, slik at de har noen å drive hestehandel med og kan holde seg i salen fram til målstreken.

Lureri er alltid irriterende. I dette tilfelle er det spesielt irriterende fordi det faktisk finnes faglige grunner til å påkoste lønn til hjemmeværende foreldre for en periode når barna er i alderen 8 til 16 år. En mors eller fars dedikerte støtte i denne perioden kan gjøre underverker. Det er grunn til tro at det vil kunne forhindre en del unge fra å falle av lasset (d.v.s fra å bli arbeidsudyktige). Hvor mye dette ville bety samfunnsøkonomisk har jeg riktignok ingen forutsetning for å mene noe om.

Hvorfor i alle verden er det ingen av partiene som ivrer for kontantstøtte i opptil 3 av de årene! Det mangler da vitterligen ikke på bekymrede velgere som ville takke for et sabbatsår når poden begynner å oppføre seg underlig.

Arbeidende foreldre mangler ofte tid og overskudd til å lytte til og forstå sine poder, som i mange tilfeller har det direkte vondt. For de fleste av oss er det periodisk smertefullt å være menneske, men i et normalt livsløp, er det langt mest smertefullt å være ungdom. Uansett hvor godt sementert familien er, uansett hvor trygge og gode relasjonene er, er ungdomstiden vanskelig. Flertallet av oss kommer oss gjennom den noenlunde helskinnet, men mange utvikler uheldige strategier.

Jeg mener at en ungdom krever langt mer oppmerksomhet fra foreldrene enn han eller hun gjerne får. Ofte er den unge ikke interessert i oppmerksomhet – avviser den regelrett. Når det skjer, har tilbudet om oppmerksomhet kommet sent, kanskje for sent. De aller fleste barn er takknemlige for støtte hvis de får den i tide, og de vil ty til den når de møter tunge dilemmaer eller opplever konflikter.

Dette forutsetter selvfølgelig at støtten gis på en adekvat måte.

Noe som bringer meg til punkt 2, som jeg riktignok aldri bebudet, men som altså er: Det bør tilbys kurs (ev. over internett) til alle foreldre, med tittel “Hva sier barnet ditt?”

 

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