Lady Lawyers

The following takes place in a British accent:

- Look at this! Don't you think you have died and gone to heaven?

- Yes, it's marvelous, isn't it.

- That Johnstone girl, is she of mixed race?

- Um.

- Oh, are you not supposed to say mixed race any more? Well then what are you supposed to say?

-Um.... (long pause) Well, I don't think you're supposed to say anything, really...

Not an entirely strange conversation. I've heard many worse. However, considering the circumstances this one is frightening. These were two well dressed men, way past 40, at a conference in Reykjavik today. The name of the conference was Women, Power and The Law, with keynote speaker Cherie Booth (Tony Blair's wife).
The heaven the men were referring to was the number of blonde female law students in front of them and "That Johnstone girl" is a Doctor of Law...
Meanwhile I managed to get a huge ink stain on my pants and was the only one in the auditorium wearing sneakers. I'm surprised I didn't spill my coffee or burp really loudly. Yeah, I'm a lady!

Super Size Me part 2

When McDonald's opened in Moscow in 1990, I was happy. Not that I was in Moscow. Unlike the three sisters, I've never been to Moscow.
I have been to St. Petersburg which I promise to elaborate on at a later point, it involves toilets, tree-hugging and the police.
Anyway, I was happy because it was democracy in motion, democracy via capitalism - sure, but still a symbol of fighting oppression. Also, all the images of food culture in Moscow until then were of people standing on line for hours for food. Now - at last!- they could line up inside McDonald's like the rest of us.
At the time, no average Russian could afford Mickey D's, but that's beside the point. The world was changing and walls were being knocked down all over the place. Fabulous Freedom!

Food has changed more in the past 50 years, than in all of history up until that point. That is the way food is grown (going from largely single family farmers and their workers to industrial sized super farms), genetically modified, preserved, hormone induced, mutant and so forth. McDonald's is by no means the biggest culprit in this scenario. But they are leading the way.

I do think there is some validity to the law suits that inspired the movie. Yes, we are ultimately entirely responsible for what we eat, what we are stuffing into us. But the corporations, that we kindly give our money to in lieu of their feeding us, must be held accountable for problems that may arise from the use of their products. If they spend x-amount of money on getting kids hooked on their product, they are indeed liable for it being a safe and sound product.
When I was in Lithuania a couple of years ago, I noticed that everybody smoked, everywhere. I saw kids as young as 8 or 9 smoking. Cigarettes were cheaper than water. In fact they were being handed out for free. I'm not a huge anti-smoking person, I don't really want it in bars and restaurants, but I don't get vehement about it. That got to me, but how long ago is it since the same kind of cigarette promoting was going on in Western Europe and the US?

Provided fast food goes the same way, how fat will the Muscovites be in the year 2020?
It isn't like tobacco, because tobacco you can definately chose to live without. It is worse, because we have to eat.

Super Size Me part 1 & Marcie part 2

Finally!
The documentary Super Size Me opens in Reykjavik tonight, kicking off the American Independent Film Festival.

I had already written a whole long thing about fast food and politics, about body image and politics and all sorts of really deep and meaningful stuff, when my friend Marcie called.
Yeah, The Marcie.
She had just been assigned to interview Morgan Spurlock, the creator/director/eater of Super Size Me.
Thus I scrapped the original blog and can merely say:
ENVY

Am too tired to write and will

...simply tell you to check this out. Oh, and this.
Don't worry, it isn't anything dirty.
Unless you are a republican, in which case it is downright degenerate and you should not check it out.

Marcie

My friend Marcie complained that I had not mentioned her in my blog. My rule is not to mention anyone by name, mostly to avoid lawsuits.
But Marcie gave me her permission. Well, it was more like she threatened me and she is quite a bit taller and younger than me. Basically I am not sure I could wrestle her to the ground. Otherwise she is a perfectly likeable person. Really.
She is one of the few volunteers, apart from my husband, to have moved to Iceland. Iceland has a really strict immigration policy for people who love the country- or one of its citizens. Unless you were born within the EU or EFTA of course. You must have X-amount of money, a job or other means to support yourself. If you intend to marry any Icelandic person and still stay in the country you must be over 24 years of age.
However, if you are really poor and prepared to leave your family and country in order to take jobs Icelanders refuse at minimum wage, there is no problem. An Icelandic company can apply for visas for their workforce and basically import people at will. Often the employer will hold on to the papers as the visa is issued in the name of the company.
I find this interesting.
Think about it, the word Iceland, does it sound inviting? Apart from a decent healthcare system and semi decent public school system, there aren't that many people who grow up thinking of it as El Dorado.
There is 285 000 of us, surely we can afford to welcome people?
Another friend of mine, who shall remain unnamed, had various problems with immigration. She speaks the language, is college educated and worked hard in order to stay. But to no avail.
Yet another friend, a Registered Nurse who had worked as such in Iceland for three years, left after immigration officials told her she had not taken the proper Icelandic classes. However, if you call them to get a list of what Icelandic classes they consider qualified, they don't have any criteria.
And now my friend Marcie is leaving, having not even bothered to apply for a work visa. Why should she? It's not like we are going out of our way to make her feel welcome. She is highly educated and would be a tremendous asset to any country. I wish she weren't leaving, she might intimidate me but I like her all the same.

More than a third of the population

...of Iceland took to the streets of Reykjavik Culture Night - about 100 000 people. According to the Chief of Police it was probably the highest number of people to have congregated in Iceland, ever.
Wow.
We saw amazing fire works, lots of public drunkenness and behavior that leads me to believe that we will see a sudden rise in births around May 20th, 2005.