natursyn.dk

I would like to promote a youtube video of the Christmas carol, Silent Night, arranged and played by Claus D Jensen showing pictures from my photo album “Night“. You can read more about Claus’ work on his blog.

Merry Christmas!

Last night I witnessed how people in Santa Cruz celebrated the historic election of an African-American as president of the United States. Thousands of people gathered in the streets, cheering, smiling and dancing after Barack Obama had held his speech in Chicago. It was very touching to watch.

Santa Cruz is among the most liberal counties in the US as 78 % of the voters cast their ballot for Obama. In the entire state of California 76 % of the 18-to-29-year-old supported him. In comparison only 36 % of young voters supported Obama in Alaska, my former state.

In spite of the enormous task ahead for Americans to make their country a place of equal opportunity, I find comfort and hope in the words that Obama spoke last night quoting from Lincoln: ‘Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.’ May this also be the opportunity to set a new path for taking better care of this planet.

The complete transcript of his speech can be found here.

I also took a video of downtown Santa Cruz yesterday.

Godt nytår (Danish)- Xin nian yu kuai (Mandarin) – Gutes Neues Jahr (German) – S Novym Godom (Russian) – Feliz Año Nuevo (Spanish).

I found this post card of “God Bless America” on top of a urinal the other day. It caught my attention because it seemed like an odd place to find this powerful symbol of American patriotism. Afterwards, I got curious about the origin of the anthem “God Bless America”. It was written by Irving Berlin in 1918 while serving the US army in New York. The words ” Stand beside her, and guide her, thru the night with a light from above” seem more appropriate than ever in these times of great tensions and conflicts.

“God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.”

The other day I passed these guys who where rallying for war. Their signs said “Give War a Chance”, “Osama Loves Peaceniks – Remember 9-11″ and “The Liberal Media & Peaceniks Give Aid to the Enemy!!”

What happened to the slogans “Make Love Not War” or “Give PEACE a Chance”??

I saw this on Onion News Network and had a good laugh.

It is not only in Alaska where oil runs the economy. In fact, oil is so important that wars constantly are fought over it. Antonia Juhasz, author of the book The Bu$h Agenda: Invading the World – One Economy at a Time, argues that the latest war lead by the United States, the war in Iraq, was fought to gain increased access to Iraq’s oil.

Tonight I went to a talk by Antonia Juhasz where she explained the “oil time-line” driving the war, and how the Bush administration has fundamentally transformed Iraq’s economy, locking in sweeping advantages to its corporate allies. According to a proposal by the Iraqi government, less that one-third of the known oil fields will  stay nationalized and benefit the people. The remaining oil fields will be open to foreign cooperate control with little benefit for the people.  And big money is involved since Iraq holds the 2nd largest oil reserve in the world.

I think that it is very sad that the war in Iraq was initiated under false pretenses. The primary reason for the war was never about creating freedom and democracy for the Iraqi people. It was naively assumed that people who had lived without democracy under an unscrupulous dictator for more than a generation suddenly would know how to run a country as soon as they were freed. Instead, primitive religious and tribal feelings were unleashed on a scale that was unimaginable for most people at the time.

If the United States and its allies such as Denmark keep insisting on maintaining control of Iraq and its oil for the years to come, the result will be immense suffering for the troops stationed there. Whether a continued  presence of allied soldiers will change anything to the better for the Iraqi people I don’t know. But I know as long as these soldiers are perceived as occupation forces by the Iraqi people, things will only get worse. The new proposal on how to “share” oil resources does not help to improve that image.