The market economy in Norway

In keeping with the theme of my previous post, I thought I’d write about the economy in Norway generally. I’ve written a fair amount about my work life here in Norway since I started this blog a little over a year ago, but not so much about the type of market economy that exists here. The common view is that Norway is a socialist country, however that is defined, but the reality is in fact much more complex.

The New York Times and other American newspapers are very fond of presenting Norway in a glorious light—you can almost see the halo as they sing the praises of Norway and of Scandinavia in general—especially when they discuss the social welfare system, paid health care, subsidized education, shorter work hours, longer vacations, and other things that make daily life easier. The fact of the matter is that Scandinavia and the USA have some similarities and some differences when it comes to matters of the economy and social support systems. And to some extent, both countries could learn from each other. Norway is not an absolute socialist state that shuns capitalism; it is a mixed market economy that includes aspects of both capitalism (privately-owned industry) and socialism (public/state regulation of markets). It is the strong regulatory component and the involvement of the state in any aspect of a market economy that makes diehard capitalists in the USA uneasy. But the USA is also considered to be a mixed market economy. The major difference between the USA and Norway is that government involvement in the market is much less in the USA than in Norway and Scandinavia generally. But it is not true that there are no market and trade regulatory agencies in the USA. A Google search turned up a number of such agencies, among them: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC—“responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person's race, color, religion, sex , national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information”), Federal Trade Commission (FTC—“responsible for preventing unfair methods of competition in commerce as part of the battle to “bust the trusts”), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA—responsible for protecting health and the environment). These exist to protect employees, fair trade, and the environment, but how well these agencies function, or how much power they actually have, is anyone’s guess. I really don’t know the answer to that. And last but not least, who can forget the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), which exists to “protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation”. In other words, they police Wall Street to a certain extent, whether Wall Street likes it or not. And Wall Street needs policing, as the recent packaged loan scandal and resultant global greed demonstrate. I believe that in the absence of rules and regulations, entropy ensues. Greed becomes dominant and the middle class and the poor end up suffering. It seems as though the SEC was just as much taken by surprise as the rest of us (was it asleep?) when it came to the recent corruption on Wall Street. That shouldn’t be. In any case, the rich will always survive well, in any country, and that goes for Norway too. The truly rich enjoy privileged lives here just like they would anywhere else—big houses, vacation cottages, yachts, fancy cars, multiple vacations each year, etc. Wealth has its privileges in any country.

But the fact remains that none of the privileges that Scandinavian citizens enjoy come ‘for free’. All of them are funded through taxes. I’ll simply refer to Wikipedia for information about the tax system in Norway—it’s easier than my trying to explain something I am not very competent to discuss in detail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Norway. But suffice it to say that the Norwegian government uses the tax system to raise money for public expenditures such as those I’ve mentioned already—comprehensive universal healthcare and a comprehensive welfare system. There are three components of the tax system: a) progressive taxation (there is a marginal tax rate on income, and Norwegians are taxed for their stated net worth); b) value-added tax (VAT), which is the largest source of government revenue--the current sales tax is 25% for most store items, 14% for food and drink, and 8% for movie tickets and public transportation; c) special surcharges and taxes on a number of items including cars, alcohol, tobacco, and various kinds of benefits (info from Wikipedia). I don’t have a problem with paying higher taxes knowing that the revenues go to fund universal public healthcare and those sorts of things. What I do have a problem with is paying an inordinate amount of money for a new car. New cars cost a lot of money, much more than most Americans would be willing to pay. For many years, my husband and I drove very old cars simply because we could not afford to buy newer (and more environmentally-friendly) cars. We drove gas guzzlers and exhaust-spewing old cars. Environmentally-friendly? No. Affordable, yes. Now we have a better personal economy, but still, I would not buy a new car because of its expensive sticker price. When new car prices come down, I’ll re-think it. But it has always seemed strange to me that a country that prides itself on being ‘green’ has done little or nothing to encourage its citizens to buy cars that don’t pollute the environment. I believe the reason is because they would prefer that people did not drive cars at all (a pipe dream if ever there was one). But that idea lies dead in the water. No matter how much the authorities encourage the use of public transportation, the fact remains that people will continue to use their cars because they are the most convenient way of getting from point A to point B despite a fairly efficient public transportation system within Oslo. The public transportation system within the city is in fact very good—punctual for the most part, with good connections between trams and buses. But it is expensive. A single ticket to ride the bus or the tram will cost you close to 6 USD at present. If you buy a Flexi-kort (8 rides), that will cost you about 30 USD. If you use your car, regular gas is more expensive than diesel; gasoline costs about 2 USD per liter (1 US gallon = 3.78541178 liters), so a gallon of gasoline costs about 7.5 USD. That’s a lot of money, and I don’t think Americans are willing to pay so much for gasoline. Americans will need to re-think their attitudes about how much tax they are willing to pay if they want universal comprehensive healthcare, for example. The only way that can be done is to raise taxes, and raising taxes is never popular politics for any president or political party.

So what is it that many American politicians, corporations and employers fear when they look at Scandinavian economies? It seems to me that the largest fear is that government regulation of business will become too extensive and that taxes will increase in order to fund social welfare programs. The rich may fear being taxed excessively in order to ‘distribute the wealth’ more fairly. It’s hard for me to imagine why a society would fear a more equal distribution of wealth and universal healthcare. It has something to do with the American idea that we should be independent and survivors—pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and don’t rely on anyone else for help. Which is all well and good if it were true. The truth is somewhere in between complete self-reliance and complete dependence on the government. Most Americans I know work hard, save money to buy homes and cars, and save money toward retirement. But the inequities start when you realize that a comprehensive healthcare program really only exists for those working for private companies that pay for these programs for their employees. If you are self-employed, you must pay for your own health insurance as far as I understand from those Americans I know who are self-employed. So problems start there if self-employed people fall ill or cannot go to work for a few days. If they cannot afford insurance, they must pay through the nose for medical care. Having universal low-cost healthcare for all is a worthy goal and has nothing to do with a socialist mentality. The costs of medical care are only going to increase as people live longer and as the medical research profession continues to find cures for different illnesses and diseases. The cures cost money—to develop, to test, and to promote. Nothing is ever free in this life. We pay for everything in one form or another. The questions just become—how much are we willing to pay for the goods and benefits that we enjoy, and is it fair that whole segments of the population that don’t work for others cannot enjoy these benefits?

Work-life balance in Norway

The Huffington Post just published a list of the 10 countries worldwide that have the best work-life balance; Denmark topped the list, followed by Norway in the number two spot. Finland and Sweden also made the list, as did the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal and Germany. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/01/top-ten-countries-with-work-life-balance_n_868224.html#s285271&title=1_Denmark

The USA was conspicuously absent. The work-life balance as defined by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was assessed using three indicators: “(1) the amount of time spent on personal activities; (2) the employment rate of women with children between 6 and 14 years of age; and (3) the number of employees working over 50 hours a week”. Scandinavia in other words has a good work-life balance, meaning that work life does not eat up all free time, leaving time for personal activities and for child-raising. After living here for over twenty years, I can attest to the fact that there is a good work-life balance here. But I also have to say that after studying and working in New York City for over ten years prior to moving to Norway, it took me a long time to let go of the idea that I had to work long hours to get ahead, to have a successful career. So when I first moved to Norway, I worked long hours, as did my husband who is Norwegian. We are both scientists, so there is no fixed time that one must spend in the lab. Your weekly hours are often defined by the types of experiments you are doing that week in the lab. Sometimes the experiments required 60-70 hour weeks. Sometimes they required that we worked one or both weekend days. The life of a scientist is not really a 9 to 5 affair. But I see now that the younger scientists are making it so. They are getting their experiments done between 9am and 4pm, because many of them have to leave then to pick up their children from daycare. There are a lot of factors that figure into this new equation; young couples make deals with each other—one drops off the child in the morning and the other picks up the child in the afternoon. Maybe they alternate weeks or months—such that each person gets a chance to stay a bit longer at work if necessary. But by and large, they are better than my husband and I were at leaving work at a decent hour each day. I often say to my stepdaughter that I wish we had spent more time with her when she was growing up. Not that it seems to have affected her too much that we worked late hours or talked a lot about science when she was a child. She has also chosen a career in science, as has her husband.

The point is that it’s possible to have a good career here without killing yourself, without working 70-80 hour weeks. But that’s where the problem begins for foreigners who work here, and I am not just speaking for myself now. You come to Scandinavia with your expertise, competence and willingness to work hard and to make a good impression. You end up working overtime and it is not necessarily looked upon favorably. It does not score you any extra points as it might in the USA. In fact the opposite is true, you might be viewed rather suspiciously—why are you working so hard when the others around you have gone home? What is it you are trying to prove? Are you trying to make the others look bad? It was exceedingly hard for me to accept that this is how I might have been viewed at one point when I had first come to Norway. One of the elderly professors at my institute—who did appreciate long hours and hard work—often said that if he was at work late, he knew that it was only foreigners who were there working late along with him. The Norwegians had gone home for the day. This is not absolutely true. I know a number of Norwegian medical doctors and scientists who put in long hours each day. But overall, the general attitude is that it is not necessary to kill yourself, so if you choose to do so, you do so at your own ‘risk’ without promise of reward. You do so because you absolutely love what you do; you might even be slightly obsessed with your work—a workaholic. I was one for a while. I am not one anymore, for a number of reasons. But ultimately, it becomes hard to not be influenced by the society you live in. In the beginning, I worked overtime, worked holidays, and took short summer vacations, simply because that is the way I did things in New York. My husband, who also loved his work, did the same. Our life proceeded in this way for about fifteen or so years; after that a lot of things changed, especially for me. Suffice it to say that hard work does not always yield the expected rewards. I don’t regret working so hard, but I don’t work that hard anymore. The problem with letting go of the ‘work hard’ ethic was the guilt associated with giving up my intense work ethic. Believe me, guilt is real. It nags at you. It tells you that you should be working when you are doing something fun. I’m past the guilt now. I will never be Norwegian, but I have adopted the Scandinavian work ethic. And in the process, I have learned something about myself and about the society here. It is possible to get a lot done in a shorter amount of time. It is possible to let go of the idea of having to be at work and having to be so incredibly efficient all the time. It is possible to not be a robot for the company you work for. And by letting go of my workaholic life, I found time for my hobbies—writing, photography, biking, cultural events, and so forth. Not that I didn’t try to do these things when I was working 70-80 hour weeks; just that it wasn’t always feasible because I was so tired. And that’s the main difference now. If I go home at 5pm, I have an evening ahead of me—to plan as I want. It may mean dinner out for me and my husband, or it may mean that I have more time to prepare a good dinner at home. It means that we can take a walk in the evening without feeling exhausted; it means that we don’t just come home anymore and collapse in front of the TV, dead tired after a long day in the lab.

Why is it possible to have a good career here without having to kill yourself with overwork? Because at some point, you hit the salary ceiling. For example, as senior scientists, we make decent salaries and get cost-of-living raises each year (and sometimes small merit salary increases if we have done something extra special during the year). But we know that we are never going to get huge raises, and there is a ceiling above which we cannot rise unless our job title changes to Research director or Hospital director. So staff scientists who have worked in their positions for a number of years, cannot rise very far salary-wise above their fellow staff scientists, thanks in part to the union we belong to, which ensures each year that the small amount of money appropriated for individual merit raises gets spread fairly among the members. You can rebel against this idea, or you can learn to accept it. Either way, you won’t find yourself in a ‘special’ or ‘favored’ position. That’s just the way it works here. The ‘goods’ get spread around, like it or not. And sometimes I haven’t liked it because it means that the lazy workers benefit in the same way as the hard workers. The hard workers are not necessarily rewarded. That’s the flip side of the coin. That’s the negative aspect that you simply have to learn to swallow. You’re on your honor here. If you slack off, you get paid anyway, and you most likely will not get fired. Workers’ rights are strong here—very protected. If you work overtime, you won’t get paid any more than someone who works normal hours, at least not in academia. So you end up choosing to work normal hours, to value your free time, to use your vacation time (30 days each year), to take a week off at Christmas and at Easter, and to sometimes leave work early in the spring and summer when the sun appears. After twenty years in Norway, I understand why people leave work early when the sun comes out to go sit outdoors in cafes and restaurants, or at seaside cottages, or wherever. Because the sun is to be worshipped---the months of summer pass quickly and then we are back to the dark winters again. I have learned. I love the sun, I love my free time, and I look forward to summer vacation. There is something to be said for an easier and more peaceful life after years of working long hours, overtime, and intense striving, first in NY and then in Norway during the first ten years or so until I finished my doctorate. I’ve let go of my earlier intense work ethic after some internal resistance, and I can honestly say that I don’t miss it. I still have a strong work ethic, but I've made room for the other things in my life that are just as important, if not more important, than work alone. That's what balance means, and when I was younger, I didn't have that balance between work and life outside of work. 

What Georgia O’Keeffe Said

Georgia O'Keeffe was born in 1887 near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She is one of America's most important modern artists, well-known for her bold, beautiful and colorful flower paintings. She had some important things to say about art, courage, being an artist and being a woman. She died in Santa Fe, New Mexico, an area of the USA that she loved, in 1986.

·         Making your unknown known is the important thing.

·         To create one's own world, in any of the arts, takes courage.

·         Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.

·         I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me -- shapes and ideas so near to me -- so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.

·         When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.

·         I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.

·         I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking the time to look at it – I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.

·         I think I am one of the few who gives our country any voice of its own.

·         One cannot be an American by going about saying that one is an American. It is necessary to feel America, like America, love America and then work.

·         One can't paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.

·         Now and then when I get an idea for a picture, I think, how ordinary. Why paint that old rock? Why not go for a walk instead? But then I realize that to someone else it may not seem so ordinary.

·         I found I could say things with colors that I couldn't say in any other way -- things that I had no words for.

·         I don't see why we ever think of what others think of what we do -- no matter who they are. Isn't it enough just to express yourself?

·         I feel there is something unexplored about women that only a woman can explore.

·         I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life -- and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.

·         The days you work are the best days.

·         You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.

One Door Closes, Another One Opens

After the turbulence of last year, I made the decision that 2011 was going to look very different than 2010. And so far I can report that 2011 is turning out to be different than 2010. I am trying to live each day to its fullest (even though I am tired in the evenings these days and end up falling asleep on the couch instead of finishing off a project or two). I am trying to walk away from incendiary situations, trying to keep a lid on my anger and my irritation, trying to take good care of myself in all ways, trying to be happy and trying to be cheerful for others. I’m trying to be nicer to my husband instead of taking my irritation with workplace situations out on him (but I require the same from him, just to have the equal balance—we’re both trying). I am trying not to get dragged down by hopeless work situations, even though it would be easy to hit the bottom again from time to time. I have extricated myself from useless and time-consuming activities, from trying to change the world with people who haven’t the foggiest idea about what that means or what’s involved. I am trying not to cast whatever pearls I own before swine. I am trying to let go and let God as the saying goes, trying to not wall myself off when sad times hit, trying to reach out to others who are going through tough times, trying to remember that life is short and that every minute counts. When you remember that life is short, you live life in a more aware manner. Not everything that happens has crucial importance for your life; some things just happen, the world is sometimes unfair, people are sometimes frustrating and rude, but better times do come. They do. Doors close, opportunities disappear, but new doors open and new opportunities appear. My mother always used to say this. It appears that she was right about a lot of things, but I didn’t give her the credit she was due when I was younger, when I thought I knew best. Ah, the arrogance of youth.   

The key point is that I am trying, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing. I realize that I have taken failure so seriously, when in fact failure is a part of life. It balances out success—the yang to the yin. I cannot believe sometimes that I didn’t learn this lesson sooner. I mean really, who am I to think that I would be spared, when people a whole lot smarter and better at things than me have failed? Failing means to have taken a risk, so I can comfort myself with that. Better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. I have written about this in an earlier post, but it is true. Trying is what is important, whether or not success is the result. And by success I don’t necessarily mean achieving wealth and fame (although they are of course nice). It is enough with personal satisfaction and happiness, with the knowledge that one has achieved something that one has set out to do. That is immensely satisfying.

I send out small hopes and prayers into the universe on a daily basis. I won’t say what they are, but they are not selfish prayers. I hope and pray for others as much as I do for myself. I believe in the power of positive thoughts and hope that the prayers will be answered. We just never really know quite how they will be answered. But life and the universe have a way of providing opportunities and answers. I see that now. One of my little prayers has been answered recently--I got a few answers to some questions that have been causing my soul some amount of searching. A new small door has opened. I am entering it and have decided to follow the path that lies beyond the door. I’ll be writing more about that path as time goes on.  

Oslo's Botanical Garden

I thought I would write a short post today about the Botanical Garden in Oslo http://www.nhm.uio.no/english/visiting-nhm/botanical-garden/.  I was there the other night to join an organized tour of the Rock Garden (Fjellhagen), which is a collection of mountain plants from all over the world. The flowering season for these plants peaks in May and June. The tour was led by one of the gardeners who works at the Garden; he was very knowledgeable and could tell us a lot about the different plants we were looking at. After the tour, I walked around the Garden for quite a while, taking pictures and just breathing in the serenity and beauty of the place. I have been to the Garden once or twice before, but that was a long time ago when I first moved to Oslo. I enjoy visiting the Botanical Gardens in the different cities I have traveled to—London, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Amsterdam, and many others, including the Botanical Garden in the Bronx (when I lived there in the 1980s). I was talking to my friend Jean the other night and we decided to re-visit the Bronx Botanical Garden in the summer when I visit NY. It was always an enjoyable time to walk around there. Botanical gardens generally are peaceful oases in the middle of bustling cities, no matter where I’ve been, and each time I visit a garden I think how nice it would be to work there.

So the other night in Oslo, I enjoyed my Garden walk. It was a beautiful evening, the sun was shining, the air was warm, and it was a perfect evening to be outdoors. I am posting some photos I took on my walk around the Garden. Enjoy!

In dreams

Sleeping then waking

Falling into consciousness from a place conscious place

Of distance, far removed from all familiar things

Passing cars life on crowded city streets

Searching for something cannot find

Something solid does not change with time

Glided on wings there were none

Lifted up above the ground but close enough

Feel hands below ankle-grasping pull back

Muffled cries

Wanderer of corridors empty houses

Vast and beautiful inviting

Paused upper floor look out

Down upon earth below

Green field alive life trees flowers

Distant river sunlight plays on water

Birds flying overhead music only they can hear

Things of beauty made in dreams

Things of evil too--inner soul

Muffled cries anguish time passing

Bargain hunting devil eternal life abyss

Tunnel end light search caverns

Water dripping under below house

Subterranean depths paths lead somewhere

Walking sunlit silence silkiness coat of many colors

In time before ahead and now

Dreaming waking walking flying

Hands below hands above looking down looking up

Sunlit heaven angel wings devil hands hold back

Holding down dragging under caverns below

Water dripping muffled cries the souls lost paths

Multitudes of voices wilderness crying

copyright 2010 Paula M. De Angelis

One year ago

May 12th 2011 marks one year since I started this blog—a happy anniversary to be sure. I have often commented throughout this past year that this blog is a labor of love, and it remains so. I enjoy writing it, and even though there are times when it seems as though I’ve hit a dry spell, ideas and thoughts come flooding back after a few days. The experience of hitting the dry spells followed by the creative periods or vice versa has been a good reminder about the importance of patience and of learning to live one day at a time. It has also been a reminder not to worry too much about the actual process of writing. I actually knew this from before, because I have been writing poetry for years, and can attest to the fact that inspiration ebbs and flows like the tides, and sometimes does seem to come out of nowhere. But of course I know that there are a lot of things always going on in my subconscious, and that ideas and thoughts can suddenly bubble up to the surface of my consciousness, and then it’s up to me to grab them and to make something of them. It is a challenge these days, amid all the stress at work, to grab a hold of as many ideas as possible. Because one thing is certain, ideas come and go, but when they go, it is almost impossible to get them back in the form in which they first appeared. You lose the specific angle, the edge, the tone of the idea or thought you wished to present. It is frustrating when that happens, and is why I carry a notebook with me so that I can jot down ideas as they arise.

On May 12^th of last year, I attended a Town Hall meeting at the Hotel Bristol in downtown Oslo arranged by the American Embassy. It was the myriad of feelings resulting from that meeting that led to the desire to write a blog, to share my thoughts and feelings about being a New Yorker (and an American) in Oslo. I have realized that writing this blog has helped me reclaim my identity as an American. It is easy to lose one’s identity in a foreign country. You speak, write and read another language that is not your own. You must communicate with others in a language that is not your own. You risk misinterpreting what others mean because you do not understand the nuances in this new language. You risk saying things in the wrong way so that others misinterpret you.  In the beginning, it is challenging and fun to live behind the mask of a new culture and language; it can become exhausting to do so and ultimately unnecessary. No one in this country is expecting me to be Norwegian; it is my own impossible expectations that I had to fit into this culture that have made me tired at times. I am sure if I had been easier on myself that I would be less tired now. I would not have fit in any better, but I would have more energy!

A lot has happened during this past year. Perhaps the saddest event was the death of my friend and colleague, the American woman who attended the Town Hall meeting with me. We always enjoyed doing such things together as Americans in Oslo. It is only now that I am beginning to understand how much I miss her. And I see that my workplace misses her too. People are part of our lives, and then they are not. The contrast is blinding at times, like intense sunlight. Another reminder to ‘see’ the people who are in our lives—to not take them for granted.

I watched a very good film recently on TCM—The Straight Story. I recommend it highly. It is the moving story of an old man who sets out on a journey to visit his estranged brother whom he has not seen or talked to in ten years. It is based on the true-life story of Alvin Straight who traveled from Iowa to Wisconsin to visit his brother Lyle who had recently suffered a stroke. What makes the trip unique is that he makes the journey on a tractor, and travels through parts of the USA that seem to have been untouched by the passage of time. He meets truly friendly people along the way—who help him when his tractor breaks down and who share small parts of their lives with him. The film is made all the more touching by the fact that the actor who played Alvin--Richard Farnsworth--was terminally ill with cancer when he made the film. He committed suicide about a year after the film was released. His physical problems in the film were in fact real—he had problems walking and was in a lot of pain. His film ‘journey’ was his last journey—his confrontation with his own aging and mortality. It must have been incredibly difficult for him to make the film, and yet he did. You can see all of the different emotions he must have been experiencing so clearly in his face. There are very few films that make me really cry, that touch a really deep part of me—this was one of them. Watching it was yet another reminder about how the movement toward forgiveness of self and of others is one of the most difficult journeys we make in this life. It is the most important journey of all. 

Experimenting in the public eye

I performed an experiment of sorts this past week, with interesting results. I wasn’t at the lab bench working with cells or with different methods to study them. I was standing in front of a roomful of people, all of whom were there to listen to a PhD candidate whom I was actively questioning about his thesis work. What no one knows is that I had decided to model the style of my ‘opposition’, as it’s called in Norway, after the style of a Swedish scientist whose recent opposition a few weeks ago had resulted in satisfied customers all around. What I had been most curious about was whether his style had been acceptable because he was male and non-Norwegian, or because it was genuinely a careful and thorough way of questioning a candidate without terrifying or intimidating him or her. During this man’s opposition, I sat in the audience and copied down all of his questions to the PhD candidate who happened to be a woman. I counted how many questions this man asked in the space of seventy-five minutes and calculated how much time the candidate used to answer him. I decided to ask questions of a similar nature when it was my turn to be an opponent for a male PhD candidate. I was curious as to whether this style of questioning on my part would be just as acceptable as it had been for the male opponent. I can happily report that it was. This style of questioning works and is gender-independent. It does not intimidate the PhD candidates, and it relaxes the opponents so that they don’t feel pressure to perform unnecessarily in public on a day that should belong to the PhD candidate and not to the opponent.

I have seen too many public PhD defenses where the opponents ‘shone’ like the sun, and the candidate was just caught in one of the rays. I have seen defenses where both the opponent and the candidate were completely mismatched, so that the entire defense was painful to watch and an exercise in pulling teeth getting the candidate to answer any questions whatsoever. I have seen good defenses also—where the candidate actually challenged the opponent and then a discussion was underway. I’ve seen so many different outcomes of PhD defenses. I recommend the type of questioning that I and the Swedish scientist used; it leads to a good outcome and the public (mostly consisting of colleagues, family members and friends) are far more likely to remember the day as a good day instead of a day where the candidate made a fool of himself or was unfairly criticized or was unduly nervous. I don’t know if I’ll be an opponent again, but I recommend the non-intimidating but engaging way of questioning as a way of producing the desired outcome—a grateful PhD candidate, satisfied supervisors, and a happy audience.

I wish Norway would get rid of the public PhD defense. It is rather outdated and I don’t think it is necessary anymore given the continual reduction in the requirements for fulfilling the PhD degree that have been taking place over the past few years. It is exceedingly difficult to find willing candidates to sit on a PhD committee, given the current requirements that the committee has to be gender-balanced. I hope the country goes the way of many other countries, where the PhD defense takes place behind closed doors with a committee (that can consist of a PhD candidate’s own faculty members) who ask the candidate questions for a few hours and then the whole thing is over. In this way, it could be ensured that the candidate is not overly nervous such that he or she doesn’t answer any questions at all. I’m hoping that day is coming, but as with all things in Norway, it will take an inordinate amount of time to come to the decision to change this way of doing things. I hope that this time I will be pleasantly surprised and that change will happen much faster than usual.  

Reality check

You’ve got to wonder why it was so important that Schwarzenegger decided that he had to tell his wife that he had an out-of-wedlock child with his mistress exactly now, in 2011, years after the fact. If anything interests me about this case, it is that. What’s the hurry? So my guess is something’s up. There’s a reason he felt pressured into coming clean. I don’t know what that is, but my guesses are as follows: there are more out-of-wedlock children than we know about, and they’ve grown up and are interested in whom dad is, and maybe they found out that dad is a high-profile person, and they’re not going to keep quiet about it. And really, why should they? They would have every right to have contact with their biological father. That’s only human. Secrets will ‘out’. That’s the nature of secrets. Sometimes they come out after a person dies, but other times they come out while a person is still alive to cause problems for that person. Another possibility is that Arnold wanted ‘out’—of his marriage and the secrecy surrounding his life. Maybe he needed to get away from what he viewed as a restrictive life. Maybe he is having a slightly delayed mid-life crisis. Or maybe he doesn’t really care anymore about much of anything, which would be most sad for his children, since they don’t deserve the fallout. Or maybe he calculated the whole thing—I mean, he’s been a governor but he can never be president since he wasn’t born in the USA. So he has nowhere else to go politically and then who would really care about his personal life and secrets? But I’m putting my money on a new woman in Arnold’s life. Given the egoist that he is, I’m betting that there is a woman we don’t know about yet waiting in the wings for him to ‘get free’ and then when he is there will be the requisite number of months mourning the ‘dead marriage’ and then it will suddenly be announced that he has found happiness again after a long period of remorse and self-incrimination. That he has forgiven himself and moved on. And of course the press and media will eat it up, since Americans like to forgive their movie ‘heroes’ after they’ve first nailed them to the cross and whipped them until they’re bloody and begging for sympathy. I don’t think Arnold will beg, but I think he has factored in a certain amount of unpleasantness ahead (how many days and months he has to suffer through) until he is ‘redeemed’ in the American public eye. His fate is not the fate of Jesse James who betrayed Sandra Bullock. Jesse James was and is a nobody who found some fame with Bullock; his ‘coming clean’ did nothing for him and just made him look more like the bottom feeder that he is. His fate won’t be that of Mel Gibson or Charlie Sheen either—both of whom self-imploded with their bizarre comments and dealings. Schwarzenegger has had a high-profile Hollywood career that he is now putting on hold to deal with his family problems. It’s the polite way of saying that he will resume his career once the furor has died down. He is an egoist, pure and simple. Arnold comes first and always has. The only thing I’m waiting for is to hear the name of the new woman in his life who loves the ‘real Arnie’, who knows the real Arnie and who accepts the real Arnie—so that we can watch him sail off into the sunset with the woman of his dreams. Sounds like a real Hollywood ending to me.

Sexcapades

This past week the news has been dominated by sex scandals—some of them of an (alleged) illegal criminal nature and some of them not. What they have in common is that the men involved in all cases risked their marriages, personal lives and reputations to live out their different sexual fantasies. Again, I have to ask the question, what were these men thinking? But I know I won’t get a satisfactory answer. Or I’ll get the standard wisecrack answer—they weren’t—it was their second brain that was doing the thinking.

This time it was Arnold Schwarzenegger who ‘took full responsibility’ and stepped up to the proverbial plate to inform us about his extramarital affair with one of his household staff members and the resulting love child. The news was apparently kept secret even from his wife Maria Schriver, who when she heard it from him apparently a few months ago, promptly moved out of the house. They are currently separated and will likely divorce. When I first heard the news I thought, yet another male politician who couldn’t keep his pants zipped. Really, what is the world coming to, I ask you? One politician after another caught up in the arms of sleaze—affairs with household staff/servants (Schwarzenegger and a few of our country’s founding fathers), dabblings with prostitutes (Eliot Spitzer), oral sex with congressional pages and sex with nightclub singers (Bill Clinton), adultery with women sneaked into the White House (John F. Kennedy), adultery with an Argentinian girlfriend (Mark Sanford) and adultery with other (healthy younger) women while their wives struggled with cancer (Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, and a few other men I know of who are not politicians). The latter especially is distressing to read about if you own an iota of empathy, because you know that the news that your husband is fooling around or having children with another woman while you battle cancer cannot be anything other than immensely stressful precisely at the time when you need little to no added extra stress. And how sad to leave this life knowing that your husband was a ‘rotter’ as my mother would have called these types of men. What a thing to forgive, and can you really? What a betrayal—the ultimate betrayal. Even if you did live, could you trust a man again? Again I find it hard to believe that men can behave this way. Of course I know that there are two sides to every story. If I didn’t write that here I’d be reminded of it by some well-meaning person. And I agree, there are two sides to every story. But it’s hard to find equivalently awful stories about female politicians who behave in this way toward their husbands. I’d like to know about them, I really would.

I have been witness to some strange male (and female) relationship behavior during the past thirty years, so I know that bad behavior does happen. I know of married men who traveled under assumed names to meet their lovers so that their wives wouldn’t find out, I know of men who were on message boards and internet dating sites passing themselves off as single when in fact they were married, I know of men who were fooling around with their current wives while their soon-to-be ex-wives were succumbing to cancer, I know of men who strung women along for years telling them that they would marry them and then dropping them the minute they found the woman they ‘wanted to marry’. I know of swinging couples and wife-swappers; of men who lied to women about being ‘separated’ in order to get a woman to sleep with them. I know of men who travel on business who pick up prostitutes and call girls when they are in another city. I know of married men who offered to be sperm donors for single women and whose wives would probably not have appreciated the offers had they known about them.  I also know of women (married and single) who have contacted the wives of the men they have decided to seduce, to tell the wives that they and the husbands are very attracted to each other and that if the husband hadn’t been married they would be together. I know of women who pursue married men on social network sites, by email, and via text messages. I know of women who worked for men who told them at the outset that they’d like to be their mistresses, who ended up being so, and who ended up marrying them after causing hell for the wives involved. In Norway alone, infidelity in marriage occurs in one of two marriages according to what I hear from other people and from news reports; I have no way of knowing whether this is true, since most people would never talk about this honestly. In turn, I know of wives who fought back and told some of these women off and told their husbands off at the same time. I know of some women who divorced the louts they were living with. I know of some wives who really fought back—when their husbands went to live with the other women and the scorned wives made their lives a living hell. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. You bet. And maybe it’s good that it is that way at least in some cases. But sometimes I believe in divorce as the solution to painful hellish lives. I’ve seen a number of abusive and depressing marriages during my growing up—drunken men who hit women, eternal flirters and skirt-chasers who were never happy with the women they had at home, or men who always had to have the last word—who controlled their wives and families with an iron fist. And this took place/takes place in Westernized society. So every time people say to me that women have it so much better in our neck of the world, I remind them of this, and then we come down a few notches on the ‘everything is great for women in our society’ scale.

Which brings me to the men and women I know who are unsung heroes in my book. The men and women who have stayed married through thick and thin without cheating, without abuse, without carping. Who start each day with a smile and who never cease to amaze me with their cheerfulness and helpful spirits. Who are loyal and kind to their spouses and children. Who have probably been tempted to leave a few times in their lives, but didn’t, because they put the happiness and needs of their spouses and families ahead of their own. Who stuck by spouses in times of sickness—the true test of love. I’ve seen what sickness in one or the other partner can do to relationships, so I know it’s not easy. Loyalty is underrated in our society these days. But it is what makes marriages and friendships last. Without it, there can’t really be much trust. You have to be able to see into the future and ‘know’ with your gut that the person you share your life with will be there for you when you are sick, when you need help, and vice versa. No one said it would be easy. Maybe you’d like to run at the first sign of trouble. But maybe you didn’t; maybe you wrestled with your doubt and anxiety and temptation and stayed put. These are the people who impress me. You don’t need to climb Mt. Everest or practice extreme sports or any of those things to impress me. ‘That don’t impress me much’, as Shania Twain sang a few years ago. What does impress me is longevity and the ability to be positive and cheerful in a marriage. I’m not saying that all people should stay together for an entire lifetime; I’ve already argued for divorce as a solution to hellish relationships. But if after some years of being together, an otherwise decent marriage loses a bit of its luster and temptation comes one’s way, maybe one should take a closer look at what one has before tossing it away for a sexcapade. It is possible to stay faithful, and I know couples married for forty or more years who have been faithful to one another. They say so, they are still in love with their spouses, and they are my heroes. 

Sexual predators

Two stories about (alleged) sexual predators in the news this past week—one a very high-profile ‘money’ man (Dominique Strauss-Kahn) whose putative crash and burn story will preoccupy writers and psychologists for years to come; the other a rather odd story of a man who advertised for a live-in housekeeper over the internet (I believe it was through craigslist—an already questionable site), whose main intent was to find himself a sex slave that he could imprison and control. It’s strange that both stories appeared almost at the same time, and yet, knowing the vagaries of the universe, not so strange. I puzzle though over both these stories. What were these men thinking, to paraphrase Jay Leno’s question to Hugh Grant after he was literally caught with his pants down with a prostitute. I mean really, what were they thinking? That they would never get caught, just because they hadn’t been caught up to this point? Does that type of cockiness make you stupid? It doesn’t matter though what they thought ultimately, because I’m glad if two of the many sexual predators out there were taken off the streets. And high-profile sexual predators who believe that their power and clout will help them escape have some rude surprises in store for them. It seems as though the USA is fairly intent these days on punishing convicted rapists to the fullest extent of the law. It seems that way anyhow from what I read in the news. And that’s good, I say, because Europe, or at least Scandinavia where I live, does not punish rapists severely. Prison sentences for rape average three to four years from what I have seen from the outcome of rape cases that come to court. And from what I can see of the Third World where women have little to no status anyway, raping women seems to be something men can get away with a lot of the time, with all of the nasty repercussions for women that men never seem to suffer. Rape has been used as a weapon in the civil war in Congo, rape is apparently rampant in Haiti, and so on. And I need only think of the story about the CBS News correspondent Lara Logan who was brutally raped while covering the resignation of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. And then I think-- if there is a God, I want him/her/it to smite these men down. That’s the prayer I send out into the universe. “I hope God is coming, and I hope she is pissed”—in whatever form it needs to take. Just let women and the good men be protected from whatever comes.

We will always have men who need to control women, who view women as beneath them and who need to exercise physical and sexual power over them. I don’t understand the psychology of these men nor do I really care to. I just want the world to change. I want respect for women, justice for women, equal rights for women, fair play for women. Everywhere. Because it is only in a world where women are respected that we will find the peace that we are looking for as global citizens. I cannot believe in the prospect of world peace until women around the world enjoy the same rights as men in every country—the right to an education, to a job, to free choice as to whether they will marry and raise a family, free choice as to whom they wish to marry, free choice to divorce, to travel, to amass wealth, to have an opinion—in short, all the rights that men take for granted. And men take them for granted. The fact that they can take them for granted endows them with a self-confidence and a swagger that most women I know don’t have and will never have, because if they behaved in the same way they’d be told to can the behavior or to keep their mouths shut or to stop acting so high-and-mighty. When all societies raise their boys and girls to look forward to enjoying exactly the same rights, then I’ll say that we’ve evolved as human beings. Until that time comes, I will continue to respond to the rhetoric about how the world has changed and about how far women have come with my own individual free-choice adult thoughts and voice—so much hot air, so many empty promises. There is a time for smiting, and that time is coming. 

Another poem by Maya Angelou

Just a beautiful and piercing poem................


I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

A free bird leaps on the back of the wind

and floats downstream till the current ends

and dips his wing in the orange suns rays and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage

can seldom see through his bars of rage

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill

of things unknown but longed for still

and his tune is heard on the distant hill

for the caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill

of things unknown but longed for still

and his tune is heard on the distant hill

for the caged bird sings of freedom.

A poem by Maya Angelou

I'm discovering some new poets and rediscovering some old ones. I'm in a poetry mood this week. A lot going on at work, and my brain needs to focus on deeper thoughts and rhymes and new ways of thinking. I will post another one by Maya Angelou today as well. 

Alone

Lying, thinking

Last night

How to find my soul a home

Where water is not thirsty

And bread loaf is not stone

I came up with one thing

And I don't believe I'm wrong

That nobody,

But nobody

Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone

Nobody, but nobody

Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires

With money they can't use

Their wives run round like banshees

Their children sing the blues

They've got expensive doctors

To cure their hearts of stone.

But nobody

No, nobody

Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone

Nobody, but nobody

Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely

I'll tell you what I know

Storm clouds are gathering

The wind is gonna blow

The race of man is suffering

And I can hear the moan,

'Cause nobody,

But nobody

Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone

Nobody, but nobody

Can make it out here alone.

A poem by J.R.R. Tolkien

All that is Gold does not Glitter

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king. 

A poem by Langston Hughes

Dreams Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.