Pictures from Sweden

It’s been five months already that I am in sunny Sweden, as you all know, and I’ve got plenty of impressions.

There was one thing that stroke my eye immediately – of course it was a lot of man-like women on the streets. I mean it, I’m not kidding – the percentage is extremely high in Sweden. And, besides, Swedes use the light version of their flag pretty often – two stripes, blue at the top, and yellow at the bottom. It reminds you of something, doesn’t it?

I saw couple of incredibly striking episodes – I wish I had a photo camera there! One of them was like that. A bus is driving a Stockholm street. A plain bus, of a blue colour, with two sections. Nothing special at the first sight. BUT! There’s an odour around it. And the odour is bloody familiar, but a little rare – you don’t smell it often, especially in Scandinavia. It reminds me of something, but what exactly it reminds is covered with a mist… And the bus turns to another street, and I read on the left side of it: “works on the ethanol”! And the smell – you won’t believe me – the smell of wash, a usual potato wash, of which the home-brew vodka is made at the end!

Another impressive episode. Guess, what is the maximum number of policemen I’ve seen in Sweden at a time? No, it’s not one, or two, but five! Where was it? At the building of Migrationsverket –migration ministry of Sweden. What did these 5 policemen do there, you’ll going to ask. It’s simple: there was around 50 guys from Ethiopia, yelling that Swedes had to acknowledge Ethiopia the country where military operations are now. After that the Ethiopians will get the favourable procedure of becoming the resident of Sweden. Well, that was interesting!

One more episode is a bit intimate. One can buy condoms in Sweden only in the drug stores! And those drug stores, I should say, work even worse than Systembolaget (it’s where the buzz is): many of them are closed on Saturdays, and even on weekdays they work from 10 to 8 – that’s all! All in all, you can get drunk without thinking what day is it today – you just go to the nearest pub, but as for the condoms there’s a real mess! You always have to remember the schedule. One seems to work on Saturdays till 6 but is closed on Sundays, but another maybe works till 4, but is opened on Sundays… Horrible!

So I finish my post on this great atmosphere. Good luck and be healthy!

Sesond oldest profession

I read a lot – don’t know if it’s noticeable or not. And besides, as you probably all know, I am far form my native Kharkov, and even not in Ukraine right now. So, I have to read even more – just to be posted on what is happening in homeland, what’s news my relatives, friends and girlfriends have. Hence, I have to look through, perceive and read a huge number of web-sites, articles and journals. As the result, I’ve got some thoughts that I want to share with you.

It is an enormous number of information in the world right now. I don’t even mean that the scientists find out, discover, refute and prove something in breathtaking volume – not at all. I mean just news, just something that is happening in the world and around you. After all, with the help of the Internet, newspapers and TV one can learn anything – even about how much the average human make sex, and how many hang-gliders the army of Abkhazia has. The development of communication means at all, and internet in particular, drastic price-reduction of the communication services rouse that flow up to colossal size. There is so much information, and it has become so easily available, that people say about the information, but not the knowledge, that rules the world.

Thus, it is not the information as such, but the way it’s combined, presented and interpreted is important. In other words, the comclusions that a reader or an audience has learnt are crucial. In the middle of the 20^th century journalists and philosophers were talking about as much impartial journalism, as it is possible, but now it is completely senseless – it’s impossible to imagine the information flows without their processing.

One quite banal conclusion can be made: the role of a journalist increases multifold in modern journalism, journalist has a great social responsibility in society, journalist has to be ethical, good and honest, etc. But I won’t make this post in a flow of commonplace stuff, but make a completely other argument: the role of a READER increases multifold in modern journalism. The reasons are following.

As I’ve mentioned above, modern journalism has to bring to grass (and already does) the conclusions and opinions, but not jus a bare information. Besides, in the journalists’ arsenal there is a large number of ways to manipulate the reader’s opinion – starting with the word consequence in headline, and ending with the way the article is illustrated. That’s why the author of the article or TV-show is significant without internet. There’s something that changed radically for the reader – and that is the access to information. One matter is when you’ve got only a “Pravda” newspaper every Friday, (that never lies), and quite another – when you’ve got a PC with the broadband internet, a TV with a hundred channels and five journals by subscription.

So, the reader has a great power in the modern journalism. Because of the great accessibility of different information sources, and because the reader can change these sources without any problem, the reader chooses HIMSELF what to read, what opinion to hear and with whom to argue. That is why the long-suffering reader doesn’t depend on how much was the author paid for the content of the article, or if the author of the plot is sincere or not. The reader simply switches the web-site or the channel if he sees or hears nonsense. That’s why it is now that the journalists HAVE to be honest, and to reflect just their opinion, but not the opinion of the big boss, the editor or the communist party.