cactus

rose

dan and the 3D glasses

gay marriage

People who are saying that gay marriage is a threat to traditional marriage are really saying that gay marriage is a threat to the unearned privilege that is granted straight people, and they don't like it.

(Here is a link for the court's decision in the case that ruled California's Proposition 8 unconstitutional.)

strawberry lemonade and a strawberry lemonade shirt

looks like they are floating, right?

poem (II)

I hate pollen
pollen hates me

everyday on the pollen report
it says
"today: moderate levels
tomorrow: low"

poem

being american
means
having someone drive you to your car
(after you went somewhere together in
their car)
and when you see
not yourself
but your car
down the street
you say
"that's me"

my two cents

I'm watching President Obama on The View. He just said that yes, there are still differences in society, but the important thing is for us to treat each other right, and try to see life through other people's eyes.

The problem with that? That we can not think our ways into someone else's experience. We have to learn about the lives of others in order to understand them.

I tell my students over and over again that understanding is not an attitude, but that it has to be based in knowledge. Students may come into an Ethnic Studies class thinking that they have the right attitude, but when they leave they say that "never knew what it was like before".

We live in a society where one version of the world (predominantly white, heterosexual, and male) is held up as an all-encompassing truth. What we need to learn are three things:

1. White, heterosexual, and male people think that they know what the world is like, because their own image, and attitudes that support it, is reflected back at them wherever they turn.

2. There are pockets of knowledge among other groups that rarely rise to the surface of our collective culture. If they do, those images are often produced by the dominant culture, for dominant culture consumption.

3. We need to learn to be sensitive to the experiences of individuals in both dominant groups and underrepresented groups, through conversation.

what's a girl

In her new movie Salt Angelina Jolie is supposed to be a super athletic spy. But any time she runs you wonder what's wrong with her.

I think I've figured out Angelina Jolie's one weakness. I think she might run like a girl. And I think that doesn't go well with the industry's fantasy image of a female super spy.

I think it took a lot of movie making effort to take out the girlishness. The end result is that she looks awkward, and she doesn't look strong. But I bet if they had let her be, her natural athleticism would have come through.

I think they built the tower just for the pigeons

Kathy and I moved into a new office at work last week. This is our new view. Pretty.

it's time

Hard as it is I've decided to sell my 1972 Karmann Ghia convertible. I just bought another convertible, and I don't have the time or interest to give this one the attention it deserves. There are more photos here. If you want info, email me. Yeah, it has nose damage and needs a new top. But it runs great!

the deal with the ä and the ö

Babs told me about this very funny bit in the current issue of The New Yorker. Nora Ephron makes fun of Stieg Larsson. Only problem? Ephron doesn't know that a Swedish keyboard contains the actual å, ä, and ö letters. The title of the piece is The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut, and Ephron, along with every other American, is stuck in the belief that the two dots above the o or a, to make the ä and ö, are umlauts. They are not. They are parts of the letter. Ä and ö aren't as and os gone wild, they are real stand-alone letters.

How?

Well, umlauts indicate vowel shifts. Some uses of å, ä and ö in modern Swedish can be traced back to vowel shifts in the original German (from which lots of Swedish words were borrowed), but in some instances (and to the general public) å, ä and ö only represent sounds. (That was probably more than you wanted to know, but it's Saturday and you have the time.)

Here is a long complicated wikipedia article on the matter. And read Nora Ephron's piece. It's super funny.

something else we never knew existed

I experienced some very weird flashes of light in my field of vision this morning. Obviously this made me think of brain tumors, and stroke. So I called the doctor, and had an appointment with an eye specialist two hours later.

The verdict: An ocular migraine, meaning symptoms of migraine, but in one of the eyes only. Some people get the headache and the nausea too, but I didn't.

Thanks Dr. Duggan, my new favorite physician.

one counselor per 2400 students

Apple products - ipods, iphones, ipads, computers - are marked "Designed by Apple in California", evoking sun, palm trees, and capability. Here is a San Jose Mercury News article about the situation in East San Jose High Schools. That's California too.

all you can eat stinky fish

I may be the only person who is excited about this, but IKEA East Palo Alto has an all-you-can-eat Midsummer Buffet Dinner from 5:30-8:00 this coming Friday.

new batch of photos

I've updated my hipstamatic smugmug galleries. Click here to go there and have a look.

dan's uncles

veggie soup

Dan likes to make vegetable juice in the juicer. It's healthy, and tasty. The only downside is all the pulp that is left behind. It's such a waste throwing it away.

A couple of years ago we would make little patties: We'd take the pulp, mix it with egg, boiled potatoes, and spices. Then we would form patties and dip them in bread crumbs, and fry them. It was pretty good.

Today I made a soup. I cut up onion, garlic, carrots, and cauliflower, and sauteed it for a while. Then I dumped in the pulp, and spices. I added water and chicken stock and let it boil until the carrots were soft, before I blended everything using the hand blender. It turned out well. I ate mine with some truffle oil on top, but Dan sad no thanks to that.

looks like a church, right?

To celebrate the dual holiday of the Swedish National Day and National Cancer Survivor Day on June 6, Dan and I went to History San Jose. That is an outdoors museum in San Jose that features old buildings, a piece of a tram-line, and in all honesty not much more. But some of the old buildings are pretty, and they have an old fashioned soda fountain with ice cream sundaes, floats, and malts.

So we had ice cream, and wandered around for a bit. This pretty white building is an old fire station.

I love this photo of a soon-to-be college graduate

vanilla, yum

Today is the Swedish National Day, as well as National Cancer Survivors Day. Double reason for ice cream, if you ask me. Click here to see the sundae Dan and I split today.

speechless

Thanks to Mayka I found this well worth your time blog post by Roger Ebert: How do they get to be that way?

He is referring to a story about an Arizona mural, that had kids of color re-painted white, after racists had complained.

it's been raining a lot this spring

little red tree

worth the read

From the Washington Post, about the gayness, or not, of Elena Kagan.

why I love facebook

I got an ipad yesterday. (I had been looking forward to getting one for a while, and it's been a 24 hour love affair so far.)

Naturally, last night I changed my Facebook status to Ipad!.

Four people have 'liked' my status so far: Two guys I've gotten to know online thanks to doing iphone photography. They are grown-ups and both of them live in Italy. And two Swedish fifteen year olds: Gustav, my nephew, and John, the son of my best friend.

An equally random group of people have commented on my status: A couple of colleagues, Gustav the nephew, a former student, an old friend who lives in the Netherlands and who I rarely see, and another old friend who lives in Australia.

I think that's so cool. Facebook brings people together in unlikely combinations. For me, the different parts of my life actually come together too. I love that.

chad made smoke come out my ears

I learned today that the rabbi in this scene from Tony Kushner's Angels in America is played by Meryl Streep. If you are among the one percent of people who did not know that either, smoke will come out of your ears too:

egg plant

I've seen these flowers along the trail for years, but I have no idea what they are called. They are tall, and they remind me of big fried eggs.

I'm not making this up

It's interesting to me how cultures change, or not, as people migrate across the globe. This is what the Kingsburg Swedes were trying to sell to each other in the 95F (34C) desert heat.

swedish-american maypole

They celebrate Midsummer in May in Kingsburg, Calif., because no one can handle dancing in woolen costumes in the heat of California's Central Valley in June.

This is the dancing around the Maypole. Look at those skirts.

girls in traditional swedish costume, kingsburg, calif. (updated)

My mom tells me that the yellow dresses are from Leksand, and the costume with the pointy hat is from Rättvik. Both are towns in the province of Dalarna. During the time of national romanticism in Sweden at the turn of the last century the culture of Dalarna was elevated to represent Swedishness in general. Hence the popularity of these costumes, and the Dala horse.

During the same time, early 1900s, Kingsburg, Calif. was almost one hundred percent Swedish. Now, more than a hundred years later, you still notice an unusually high number of yellow-haired people in town, compared to anywhere else in California.

My mom was born in Dalarna, and she tells me that as kids in the 1930s, she and her sister would wear out their Leksand dresses, that's how often they wore them.

The Hmong, a people from South East Asia, believe that if you make babies look like flowers from above, evil spirits will mistake them for real flowers, and pass them by. I wonder if the long-ago Swedes had a similar idea?

the giant coffee pot in kingsburg, calif.

spring is here

"if americans knew what swedes receive for their taxes, we would probably riot"

A story about what Americans and Europeans get in return for their taxes, from New American Media.

I've been looking for this - thanks random twitter person

The Barry Gibbs Talkshow:

quote of the day

Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up because they're looking for ideas.  -- Paula Poundstone

thank YOU, kelli

Today's funniest status update:

DC --> London = FAIL. Thanks a lot selfish volcano.

from new internet friends

Click here to see some really good iphone photography, chosen by Mauro Bellabeni. (To my amazement he included one of my photos. I feel totally unworthy.)

una donna, finalmente

The people behind an Italian website focusing on iphone photography are nice enough to showcase my work. I'm honored! Click here to take a look. It's especially cool that I'm the first woman featured in their series.

funky yellow flower growing on a tree

dan has a jacket that is as teal as the sky

more like spring for every day

to age in style

I saw The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo the other day. It's a good movie. I liked the book a lot when I read it, and the film more or less tells the same story.

A young woman disappeared in the mid 1960s, and a journalist is asked to solve the mystery some 40 years later.

The movie is Swedish, with subtitles in English.

I've lived in the US for 15 years, and it is always great to see Swedish people, cars, streets, houses, scenery, and choices. Makes me feel at home.

At one point the main character sets out to interview a woman in another town. Does he jump in his BMW? His Volvo? No, he goes on the bus, and from the bus stop to her house he walks along a snowy country road.

I recognized most of the actors, but some of them confused me. I couldn't figure out why, until I did some math in my head.

Some characters in the movie were supposed to have been teenagers in the mid-1960s, and the story takes place 40 years later. That means they are in their 50s when we meet them.

The reason I got confused was that Swedish casting directors had actually gone ahead and cast men and women in their 50s, to play characters in their 50s.

There were three actresses in the film I couldn't place. They looked vaguely familiar, but no names popped into my head.

When the closing credits listed Ewa Fröling (b. 1952), Marika Lagerkrantz (b. 1954), and Lena Endre (b. 1955), all very well known Swedish actors, I had to think to be able to link the names to the faces I had just seen.

Not only did these three women play characters close to their own age. They also looked their own age, because (I have to assume) they haven't had the plastic surgery that is common in Hollywood.

Had these three beautiful women been American actors, they would have looked closer to how I remember them: the 35-year-old versions of themselves.

jaime escalante

A story about a real teacher.

going back to my roots

Yeah, I went back to being brunette. It's been a while. When I look in the mirror I see 1995. But that's OK, because when I look at my feet I see 1995 too. (Hello, Doc Marten.)

I'll be platinum again when I'm old enough for my hair to be all grey.

sad, but true

Someone needed 54 cents to bypass the long line and get the pre-paid envelope she needed at the pick-up only window at the post office yesterday. But she only had a dollar.

It took about 5 seconds for the people standing next to her in line to come up with 54 cents.

That may sound like the normal thing to do, but it's not certain it would have happened in Sweden.

It's true that in a country where everybody is taken care of (comparatively speaking), people's willingness to reach out to others has suffered. They'd rather pay taxes, and have the state help.

day before christmas, san simeon, calif.

learn one thing in comm class: context context context

A few years ago I was at a large dinner party, and it so happened that the two people I was making dinner conversation with were both identical twins. It was interesting, and I started feeling like there was something wrong with there only being one of me.

Yesterday I was walking around with three other people who I have just met. It struck me that all three of them own, and fly, their own planes.

So, yeah, what's considered normal is totally a matter of where you are, and who you're with.

(They're tall, too, the pilots. At 5'8" I was the short one.)

the poster for the milan show

Cool, huh?

read it

Here is a cool story from 4th grade. Thanks Landis.

I'll remember this day

People around me were very nice when I was being treated for cancer in 2008. My friends came with me to the doctor, and to the infusion center when I had chemo. They asked what else I needed, and if I responded with 'nothing' (which was often), they believed me and didn't push.

Somehow I don't think Swedes would have been so effortlessly helpful.

So it's ironic that not until today has that basic generosity, thoughtfulness, and inclusion been official policy in the United States.

they did it

tender

my favorite time of year

poppy season

at almost 39, my car will be famous

This photo will be included in the exhibit 'Iphoneography and the automobile' opening in Milan, Italy, on April 8.

love paul weller

spring!

women

I just wrote a comment on Undecided, Barbara and Shannon Kelley's blog. It's kind of long, so I thought it might work as a stand-alone piece too. Here it is:

I saw a comment yesterday (thanks, facebook) from someone saying that congratulating women on International women's day is like congratulating AIDS patients on International AIDS awareness day. There is something to that, I think.

Unrelated, but related: I was at a talk a couple of weeks ago about the past, present, and future of ethnic studies. It was a really good event. High quality invited panelists and lots of interesting stuff. Afterwards I had a discussion with my class. Several of them seemed to think that the only woman on the panel should have smiled more. The two men seemed happy, but the woman was more aggressive. My students (usually liberal and open minded young women and men) said she ’seemed angry.’ I told them that anger might be a relevant response if you teach ethnic studies (never a high on any priority list) in the University of California system right now (check the news for the most recent update on budget cuts). They persisted. She seemed angry, and that was a bad thing.

I hate to make any Downer my friend, but I do think realism is a good thing. It’s dangerous if we so value a positive attitude that we loose track of what is real. International women’s day is a day to remember those who came before us, and those who still need our solidarity. It may also be a good day to remember that real women don’t have to smile.

stupidity

The Keep Calm and Carry On poster was designed in 1939 by the British Ministry of Information. The idea was to use them should the Germans invade Britain during WW2. But, since that never happened the posters were never mass-distributed.

At a Barnes & Noble that I went to yesterday they had red notebooks with the same text on them. And they had red bookmarks in the same style.

When I saw those things I remembered a poster in a magazine a while back, on a wall in the London apartment of Jo Malone, the woman with the perfume line. So, I went online to do a little research.

I found that there is an entire line of products. Some of them are for sale in the US through amazon.com.

I've never lived through a war. But, it's ironic to me that a culture that promotes drama queen-ness, excess, and hysteria (Housewives, anyone?) puts British calm up for sale.

thank you so much to everyone who voted, this photo won!

Yea, this photo of Dan waiting for the movie theater to be cleaned at Camera 7 in Campbell, Calif., came in first in 'people's choice' in the Hipstamatic photo contest! Yay! I'm super excited!

The coming week there will be an independent voting session by impartial judges, where they will select three additional winning images. So please hold your thumbs, cross your fingers, or do whatever else your culture tells you to do for good luck! And thanks again for voting, everyone!

getting competitive - final update

So I've been asking everybody I know to vote for me in the hipstamatic photo contest. Or, to be honest, I've probably asked everybody I know twice. Or thrice.

The competition will be over Tuesday night. Three photographers will be featured on the website as winners. On Sunday night it looked like I was in fourth place. On Monday afternoon, one of my photos comes in third, but now I'm down to fourth again. Arrgg!!

If you want to help and vote for me, please click on the link here, and then click on the magnifying glass to the right on top of the screen. If you search for 'charlotta kratz' my photos will pop up. You can give all of them five stars. No need to pick favorites! Thanks!

it's been raining a lot lately (III)

I wish I would have gotten more detail of this car

light at night, after I was done with class

this is one of my favorite photos right now. kid was late for class.

help me win!

I've entered a bunch of photos in a contest. Please click here, search for 'charlotta kratz', and vote for me!

'my father asked me to kill him'

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I like Keith Olbermann. He's a passionate guy, and his dad has been very sick for a long time. His point all through the health care debate has been that everybody should have the right to the same level care that his dad gets, regardless of whether they can afford to pay for it, or if they can afford to pay for private insurance. He thinks health care is a basic human right, and I agree.

idiot

Someone on the Martha Stewart morning show just injected a dog, and referred to vitamin C as "anti-cancer".

It's extremely upsetting to me that people make it sound as if simple vitamins could stop a disease. "Anti-cancer" isn't a casual statement. It could sound a lot like a promise to someone who needs hope more than anything.

The truth is that nothing is anti-cancer, except death. Take vitamin D, exercise, eat lots of veggies. Avoid red meat, smoking and alcohol. But there are no guarantees.

in the doctor's office

tree in bloom

white flower

willow

health insurance, again

I went to see my oncologist today. (And isn't that a sentence you don't think you'll ever write.)

I like her. She's a good doctor. Click here if you want to see her picture.

First I have to go the lab downstairs. You sign in, they check your insurance card, and the second you sit back down again they call your name. Very efficient.

When I had had my blood drawn I went upstairs and paid the $10 copay for the doctor's visit. I waited 15 minutes, then I got called in and the nurse took my blood pressure, and weight, and temperature.

She put me in a room and I waited another 15 minutes before the doctor showed up.

The visit took ten minutes. Maybe 15. Everything seemed OK.

Anthem Blue Cross is the largest health insurance company in California. I heard on the radio today that they are proposing to increase the rates for private insurance holders (people who buy their insurance on the open market, and don't get it through an employer) with up to 39%. Why? Because the company's costs have increased. In the recession young, healthy people drop their insurance when they loose their jobs. So Anthem Blue Cross is left with the older, sicker, people to insure, and fewer young healthy ones to help offset the costs.

So, yeah.

spiky red flowers that come out in the spring

maybe I shouldn't have told you this

American public bathrooms, in workplaces and movie theaters and restaurants, often have several separate stalls with doors and walls that are open at the bottom and open at the top. You don't have a lot of privacy.

Years ago I was in such a stall. I couldn't help identifying the sounds as the woman in the stall next to me flushed the toilet, pulled up her pants, and got out.

I couldn't help hearing that she left. And I couldn't help hearing that she didn't wash her hands before she opened the door and got back to work.

I never told anyone.

Months later I overheard her offering to cook a meal for a colleague's sick daughter.

I never told anyone about that either.

The other day I was back in that same stall again. And I couldn't help recognizing the same woman's shoes in the stall next to me.

I waited.

She left.

No, not this time either.

Feb. 18, 2010

Students have held a theme party at UC San Diego that mocked Black History month. Here is a link to the Los Angeles Times story.

From the story:

History professor Danny Widener, who directs the university's African American studies program, said he was outraged but not surprised by the party. He said African American students comprise less than 2% of undergraduates at UC San Diego, which he described as inhospitable to them.

"The campus climate is one in which you are constantly regarded as a statistical anomaly at best," he said.

Widener also criticized [UC San Diego Chancellor Marye Anne] Fox's response as "tepid" and urged strong action against the party organizers, including expulsion if they are found to have used UC computers or facilities to send the invitation.

Chris Strudwick-Turner, vice president of the Los Angeles Urban League, also urged a tough response.

"If campus climate is important, a message needs to be sent that this is not acceptable," she said.

In Sacramento, Assemblyman Isadore Hall III (D-Compton) said leaders of the Legislature's black, Latino, Asian Pacific Islander, gay and women's caucuses would gather outside the Capitol on Thursday to condemn the party.

this is funny

I liked crazy heart, the movie

the sun set just as I left work to go home

sometimes when I have nothing else to do at work I take photos of the orchid

salinas, calif.

'the kitchen had been the source of so much unpleasantness'

This is a very funny blog: unhappyhipsters.com.

suck it

When I was in my twenties in Sweden all of my friends, or almost all of my friends, and I, smoked. You were allowed to smoke in bars, restaurants, and coffee shops, and there were designated smoking areas in university buildings, work places, and in every public waiting area. People smoked everywhere. Waiting for the bus, driving, and at home. You could smoke in air planes. One of my former boyfriends commented years later that I had been the only one able to smoke while riding my bike. I don't think that was true. I saw lots of people do it.

Yesterday I went for a walk on the trail in my little California town. I walk most days. Lots of people use the trail, most of them doing some kind of serious exercise. Biking, running, hiking. The trail goes to the mountains and you can get a good workout.

I met this couple. We didn't talk, they just came towards me on the trail. They were ordinary enough, dressed in exercise outfits, walking briskly. The man held a cup of coffee in his hand. You see that a lot, actually. People get coffee at one of the cool downtown coffee places, and take it on the trail. It looks weird to me. How do you keep a decent pace while handling hot coffee? And why would you want to walk and drink out a cup at the same time?

Then it hit me. Coffee is the new smoking.

Coffee drinking fills the same emotional needs as smoking does. It's something to hold onto in life. Like a teddy bear. And, it's something to suck on, like a pacifier or a mother's nipple. I think that's why those plastic containers, or the straws, are so popular.

It's also something to help build your own personal brand. Your identity. People's coffee orders are complex and specific because we think that is a way of knowing who we are. Just as smoking Marlboros or Camels made my friends and me into who we thought we were. People know turn into "Peet's People", or "vanilla soy latte", "tall" or "short".

I did a little googling, and here is the most complicated Starbucks order on the interwebs: "a tall half-skinny half-1 percent extra hot quad shot (two shots decaf, two shots regular) latte with whip".

That kind of reminds me of my 27 year old self, rolling my own cigarettes from a specific brand of Norwegian tobacco, and smoking them in 1950s cigarette holders.

purple and pretty

the smell was lovely