The media are saturated with news of the terror attacks in Norway. How do you try to understand the motives behind such atrocities without promoting or giving an outlet to the propaganda of the terrorist?

And Yes I do think it's fitting to call him a terrorist. This was a terrorist attack, made with political purpose to terrorise people, with the aim of acheiving societal change. A man setting off a powerful bomb in the center of Oslo then drives an hour away to a little Island to execute teenagers in a political summer camp with cold blood. The terrorist might have been a right-wing extremist but he is a terrorist none the same. The reluctance of the world's media to aknowledge this fact is beyond me. Even authorities in Norway hesitated using the word as they said at first they could not say wether this was a "terrorist attack" or not. It was. And as far as we can see, there were no muslims involved, but a violent muslimhater (and womenhater for that matter) born and raised with Scandinavian values. Muslims are not synonymous with terrorism. And the insistance of the media  to blame muslims for violent attacks is not acceptable.

How do we discuss this rationally (it is impossible not to empathize with the Norwegian people, still in shock) without doing exactly what he expects us to, promote his ideals and beliefs?  

We want to understand how such a tragedy can happen, how it can be planned and executed by someone seemingly like us, living by society's rules without attracting specific attention to himself, planning for years to kill people and executing it right in front of our eyes or rather, right in front of our screens. (The teenagers twitted as they were under attack, asked through their facebook profiles not to be contacted on their phones as this would give away their hiding spots and the rumours took off as the shooting took place, although many of the first details to emerge on the internet turned out to be correct : "he is nordic, blonde, speaks norwegian", "a man in a police uniform is shooting us".  There were other stories such as the one about the workers' youth league (AUF, Arbeidaranes Ungdomsfylking) chairman being rushed off the Island by two bodyguards just as the shooting began that seem to have been incorrect). 

The images of the shooter in action are also terryfying and you find yourself asking the question "How can they capture a picture like this and not shoot down the gunman?" or "why did it take an hour from the call being made to police before they got on the Island and arrested him?". The police has said their helicopters are not equipped to transport personnel and a specific armed force was needed from Oslo so local police was asked to wait for their arrival. The air footage could be from observational helicopters, even news helicopters that might have been airborn due to the bomb explosion earlier that day. It just seems crazy that we could almost follow a massacre live on a screen and still not do anything about it. The manifest posted a few hours earlier online by the shooter where he explains his motives and details his planning is also peculiar. A 1500 page Manifest, with it seems some chapters copied entirely after the Unabomber of the "rational" behind this event seems a perfect way to make sure his beliefs are circulated. The Shooter (and I won't name him as I do not think he deserves to be remembered by name) sees his trial as a perfect platform to make his ideas known to the world (and hence his demand for an open trial) in the hope the world's media will glorify him.  And it is precisly what the terrorist has planned, for us to discuss his work and ultimately realize what is wrong with our society, through him, and the images he himself has chosen for this purpose, so he acheives some kind of recognition.

It is difficult to discuss the ideology (if there is any) behind a terror attack or reasons a person would act like this. Haukur Már Helgason has attempted to dissect some ideas reflected in the manifest on his blog "Bíddu aðeins". It is in Icelandic (maybe we can hope for an english translation soon), but it takes many paragraphs from the manifesto and discusses its ideas. It seems from this reading that the terrorist is extremely bothered by multiculturalism, modernity but mostly feminism. He has such hatred for women (disguised in some praise for those who look attractive enough to bear children of worthy men like himself) that more questions could be asked about his personal background, specifically about his upbringing and family connections. His father has lived in France for a long time and according to his own account has not spoken to his son since 1995. Precisely. The son has lived with his mother for a long time it seems (was he raised by a single mother?) and just recently moved out, he was 32 years old. He seems specifically bothered by his women friends that are promiscuous and concerned about the lack of respect white males in the Northern hemisphere receive from their female counterparts, especially in comparision to other cultures (still he thinks muslims and other cultures, along with the EU are distroying Europe). This hatred for muslims and women is not only extremist, it must be personal. (It is too early to speculate about the family dynamics and anything I say is guess work but I think there is something there that must have contributed to so much anger, frustration and the lack of recognition in one individual. Some want to blame the mother (how very Freudian of them) but could it be that some lack of affection, from either parent, could have ignited the spark to hating the world?)  

These acts were for the terrorist not "plesant but necessary". I think it is a little bit too easy to say that- many want to change the political system but would never go to such lenghth as to shoot another person, or 70 other persons, young teenagers, down to 13-14 year old to make a point. Many would set a questionmark to killing children, and I am not saying it is better to kill adults or to make a bomb explode in a busy city center but to plan an attack on a tiny Island, where noone can escape, where teenagers are holding a summercamp, teenagers that many come from political families and could be argued are too young to have formed any political views for themselves, attacking them by dressing up as a police officer and then play on the trust people have to authorities, luring them from hiding just to shoot them multiple times is more than sick. It requires someone that has so much hatred and thirst for blood that there can not be anything political about it. Trying to dress it up with political ideology, even an ideology full of hatred towards people that are different from yourself (Women, people of other cultures or religions or even opinions) is not being intelligent. It's denying to see what you really are. You are not a visionary. You are not opening the eyes of anybody towards those ideas of yours. Your mission has failed and you are a nobody.

We should make sure not to give too much attention to the terrorist and instead hail the survivors and honor the memory of the fallen.

In the words of a surviving member of the AUF:

 ”Om én mann kan vise så mye hat, tenk hvor mye kjærlighet vi alle kan vise sammen.” 
("If one man can show so much hate, think how much love we can show all together.")

Apparently there is alot of confusion in the world about the definition of rape. Rape would be a non-consensual sexual act (whether the word "no" has been said or not - you always need the consent of the other person) It is not ok to have sex with someone who is asleep/ has been drugged/ is in a coma/has had too much to drink to be able to fight back/ says no or simply does not say yes. I always have a hard time understanding why some people want to have sex with unconscious or unwilling people but that is just me. And since im a woman, Im clearly not objective.

Obviously, the case of Dominique Strass-Kahn, former head of the international Monetary Fund (IMF) and once possible presidential candidate in France is on my mind. And from the media coverage and discussions around it, Im not the only one.  Dominique, often referred to as DSK, has been charged of several serious criminal acts, amongst them rape, towards a maid in a luxury hotel in New York. He was apprehended by police moments before a plane he was on took off to France.The first time he met a judge he was denied bail on grounds that he might flee the United States but has now been released to an appartement somewhere in New york, while his case is pending. He is due to in court again in june. His defence team did a good job,  paid over 6 million dollars, and made some guarantees so the second judge would release him (he has a guard outside his door so he remains inside and an ancle bracelet so his whereabouts can be monitored). A position possible because of who he is, "Jean" or unemployed "Johnny" does not have access to this kind of luxury. Now DSK could finally be reunited with his wife who finds this horrible and is convinced her husband is victim of a plot to take him down and that ultimately he will be found innocent (nevermind that his defence says this act was consensual between him and the maid, just before he headed out to lunch with his daughter)

The case is interesting for many reasons. The reaction to it has been very different between countries and cultures. In France, people had a hard time understanding how a man of this posture could do something so risky (but not horrible, as not many did identify with the victim). In a country where politicians are seen as "higher beings", they often get away with things that would not be accepted if it happened elsewhere. But what got me hooked in my media search was that I was always waiting for some uproar. Someone to stand up and say : "hey, this is not normal behaviour and we should talk about why it is happening". Unfortunately it took a long time but hopefully a change is to come. A feminist movement has raised some questions but I feel they do not go far enough. Why is it that in France, forcing someone to have sex with you, when you are a man, when you are a politician, when you have power is not immediately seen as a crime? Why would the public rather believe this is a political plot to crash his presidential hopes? Why is it so hard to believe that a man know for his "sexual appetite" would derail? Why won't they just open their eyes and see that a culture that condones violence against women will make events like thishappen more often because the attacker thinks he will get away with it. And in many cases he does. It happens every day. Daughters are burned with Acid, nieces are killed, wives are strangled, strangers, acquintances, colleagues are raped and we do not talk about it. There are about 75.000 rapes a year in France. Less than 10% lead to a conviction of the rapist. That is not an acceptable number.

Now DSK, a high-profile person, considered so civilized by his entourage (his defence even uses the word "honorable" repeatedly) is charged with terrible crimes. YES they are terrible and to be charged, there must be some evidence. Police normally does not go on such a hunt with a simple "he said, she said" scenario. If that was the case, rape victims would not be so terrified to report them and much more rapists would be convicted.

The case has still to go to court so it would be unfair to say that DSK is a rapist. But regardless, this case has triggered a long due debate about men behaving like chauvinistic pigs in the French workplace and women accepting whatever comes at them. Believe me, I've been there and it was time people talked about it openly.

More: Will this case change the behaviour of powerful men? article from Bloomberg

So enemy number 1 of the last 10 years was pronounced dead by the American President this morning/last night. Osama Bin Laden reportedly killed in an attack by "a small american team" in Pakistan, just a few kilometers from Islamabad. The leader of Al qaida had been hiding in a multimillion dollar compound and had been located a few months ago according to US intelligence. Like with everything else, we will have to take them at their word.

The Americans will undoubtely have to show the world some proof at some point (whether DNA results, pictures of the body or anything else) as they have done in previous deaths of prominent terrorists. I am still surprised it hasn't come out yet, maybe to keep the story running a little bit longer? To avoid the pictures being disrespectful and risking to angry followers that would like to get revenge? I would like to know. It is amazing that journalists are taking the words of a politician at face value without anybody asking for some piece of evidence. Conspiracy theories of course will never be totally silenced (Why was his body buried at sea, why order the attack now, is he really dead, Did they really kill him etc). But what if they are mistaken? It can happen to anybody. Not likely though.

A huge media  story that took over the internet pretty quickly. Apparently a neighbor twitted live as the assault took place and later realise he would be known forever "as the guy who liveblogged about the Osama raid without knowing it". But not everybody seems to have understood the news correctly or even known who this "usama guy" was. On Facebook, alot of people first thought Obama was dead (and got disappointed (!)), many were furious their reality tv show got cancelled for the "breaking news"  and others mixed everything together, either calling Osama Bin Laden a "nigger" or President Obama a muslim. The world out there is much more confused than I thought. 

Celebrations, jubilium, euphoria. Strong words to describe the killing of a man clearly hated by so many. Like this was some kind of an ending. Finally 9/11 has been avenged. Never mind that the "mastermind" was not the only one behind the attacks in the US or that he had probably little to do with today's international terrorism threats. This was much more symbolic than anything else. And Campaign material. It wont be the last we will hear of  it.

10 years already since this all started. This might have been an embarrassing decade for the American superpower but at least they won the battle of the mind. This was a pretty good PR campaign. Osama Bin Laden (written Oussama Ben Laden in French (?)so very tricky when working for a bilingual tv station), after Saddam, Hitler and Stalin was Satan. Who will be next?

Pretty drawings. copyright: sjoesjo in the Netherlands

After a wonderful week of vacation, sun, olives, family time and "nice" ambiance it was back to work. To have those shiny moments still in mind and keep the dream living, I surfed some design blogs. That always cheers you up!

*Since I love what my friends recommend I often start from studioakkeri as Tinna has a good eye for fresh and childfriendly things, being herself a mother of two.

*Then there is simply no competition- scandinavian home design will always be number one - check out From Scandinavia with Love.

*Third and not least - for cool and innovative things-Cool Hunter.

Not only are they talking about pretty things- but the blogs themselves are also so easy to read - true eye candy.

And it is not possible to talk design without mentioning the great work Vík Prjónsdóttir is doing.

when you cant draw or design, just let others do the work, lay back and enjoy the ride!