✐ Study of Swedish news broadcasting on August 1 - 2013

I'm questioning if the Swedish TV broadcasting news are as independent as we think they are. We have 2 major broadcasting companies in Sweden; SVT and TV4 that are sending the news. I have watched all the news broadcasts from both channels from August 1 - 2013. My question was, how much air time would the Manning trial and Snowden get.

Here's the result:

SVT
Rapport 7:30 pm (Rapport is Sweden's largest news with news around the clock for, SVT Forum and SVT Play.)
The main focus was about, Stockholm Pride demonstrating outside the Russian Embassy in Stockholm, against Putin's anti HBT laws, around 4 minutes of airtime. Snowden was mentioned for less than a minute and NOTHING about the Manning trial. Rapport 7:30 PM

Aktuellt 9 pm (Currently, SVT-depth news programs, providing analysis, debates and longer features.)
They focused on late diagnoses of people infected with HIV and a study about climate changes, that claims when it get's warmer, people become more aggressive and  angry, that violence, conflicts, etc it's more likely to happen then. Snowden was mentioned for less than a minute and NOTHING about the Manning trial. Aktuellt 21 PM

TV4
News 7 pm, Snowden was mentioned for less than a minute and NOTHING about the Manning trial. TV4 News 7 PM

News 10 pm, The focus was about the Berlusconi trial and Putin's anti HBT laws. Snowden was mentioned for less than a minute and NOTHING about the Manning trial. TV4 News 10 PM

I think this is remarkable, the big international news on August 1 - 2013 was about the Bradley Manning trial and none of the Swedish TV channels mentioned anything about it. The Swedish newspapers did have articles about Manning, but it wasn't first page news.

The Bradley Manning trial is a huge, very important and a major "event" in contemporary history. It's about human rights, freedom of speech and freedom of the press. This is something that should concern media worldwide, specially in the so called western "democratic" countries. That the source "whistleblower" Bradley Manning faces his whole life in jail, because he provided documents of war crimes done by the US army to Wikileaks. And the Swedish TV News channels didn't report anything about it, that's appalling.

Update, August 8 - 2013
Surprise, surprise... and now Obama is coming to Sweden in September, cancelling the planned trip to Russia, due to dissapointment that Putin gave Snowden temporary asylum in Russia!!! This is nothing but a political global "game", similar to kids playing in the sandbox. "If you don't give me that toy, I won't give you mine". Hello guys, this isn't a sandbox, it's the whole world you're playing with and you better be careful, we only have this one.

More to read here: President Obama to visit Sweden in September The Local - Sweden's news in English

"The statement issued by the White House confirming the visit referred to Sweden as a "close friend" of the United States, praising the country for "key leadership" on important international issues, including the forging of a new EU-US trade deal."

 

✐ Drones, the next upcoming technology

RT America have uploaded a video on their YouTube Channel: "First commercial drones to start flying this summer". With the Prism "scandal" still fresh in mind, I'm concerned about how the drones will be used...?

I'm quoting this:

"Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) sent two letters to FBI Director Robert Mueller asking for the agency to explain its domestic drone program as well as the policies behind it. Assistant Director for the Office of Congressional Affairs, Stephen Kelly, responded to the lawmaker's request saying that "every request to use UAV's must be approved by senior FBI management and without a warrant the FBI will not use a UAV." Also on Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration approved drones to be used for civilian use, and RT speaks with Michael Brooks, producer of The Majority Report, about drones."

I mean, thinking about Prism, how the US government kept it as a secret, until Snowden "whistled". Can we really trust that it won't be used as another spying device, violating the human right of privacy?! I'm aware of that the US isn't the only country developing and using drones, but this is a "progress" that I feel very uncomfartable with. What happened to Democracy, Freedom of speech, Freedom of the press and the right to Privacy, etc?

More about drones:
Drones by country: who has all the UAVs? (The Guardian)
Drones Over America: What Can They See? (NPR) 

✐ Democracy Now! - Edward Snowden

Democracy Now, July 29 - 2013
Holder Tells Russia Snowden Won't Face Torture or Death, But Does U.S. Record Undermine Its Pledge?

"The Obama administration has assured Russia that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden will not be executed or tortured if he is sent back to the United States. In a letter to his Russian counterpart, Attorney General Eric Holder said Snowden does not face the death penalty and would not even if charged with additional crimes. Holder said his assurances eliminate the grounds for Snowden's asylum bid in Russia and said the United States is prepared to issue him a passport valid for returning to the United States. "It's sad that the U.S. has to [promise] it won't torture people or kill, but in fact it's meaningless," says Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a lawyer for WikiLeaks' Julian Assange. "It's not necessarily enforceable by Snowden, but even more importantly, think about how the U.S. defines torture. The U.S. doesn't really think that anything it did under the Bush era was torture with the exception possibly of waterboarding. So that means Snowden can be subjected to every enhanced interrogation techniques -- lights on all the time, loud noise, cold temperatures, hot temperatures, strapped into a chair. Second, it doesn't say anything in the letter we won't put him into some underground cell and keep him there the rest of his life."

✐ America - Rammstein

✐ Freedom of speech for US citizens?

I found this video on YouTube, it's a press conference with a State Department spokeswoman, the journalists are trying very hard to get an answer out of her. The question is; "Does Edward Snowden have the right to freedom of speech?"

"Tensions are high as NSA leaker Edward Snowden officially submitted application for temporary asylum in Russia on Tuesday. After Russian and international human rights advocates and lawyers met with Snowden at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on Friday, the US said it was disappointed in Russia for considering the whistleblowers asylum. During a daily press briefing State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki was given a thorough grilling on the Snowden affair by journalists, including AP's Matthew Lee and CNN's Elise Labott and was left lost for words at almost every turn."

"U.S. House of Representatives voted down a proposal to stop the NSA program that systematically collecting telephone records of millions of Americans. The distribution of votes in the House was 205 in favor, while 217 voters were opposed."
Source: IDG News (Swedish)

So the NSA can continue with it's spying on everyone, regardless if they're terrorists or not. The American dream have become the American nightmare.

✐ Beer helps me sleep

I can understand why people suffering from PTSD often use alcoholic beverages to be able to cope with their traumatic experiences. I have never been diagnosed with PTSD, but my whole life, from early childhood to adulthood (my 10 years abroad) have been one big road of traumatic experiences.

I've been through 6 years of psychotherapy, just to deal with a traumatic childhood. It worked for awhile, then I left Sweden for 10 years and managed to get myself into more traumatic situations. Back in Sweden, mid 90s, I started to take medicines, that worked for 4-5 years, but slowly the meds stopped to have the same effect. I'm still on meds but they don't help all the way.

Not when I sleep and the subconscious takes over and keeps repeating the same dream over and over, my recurring nightmare. In order for me to sleep a dreamless sleep, is when I have been drinking beer or other alcoholic beverages. That's an observation I did after friday nights beer drinking. Such a relief to not have that damn dream, even though I was ill with a hangover the next day. It was worth it.

I'm not drinking very often, during the past 6 months, I've been drinking on 3 occasions. Alcohol is not my first choice when it comes to "drugs", I don't really like it, but it definitely helps me sleep whitout any dreams, it's more like bitter medicine. I can't drink it every day, but sometimes I really need a break and then I will drink.

✐ My recurring nightmares... again

My recurring nightmares I've had for 20 years, that I wrote about in an earlier post has been haunting me really bad lately. I did manage to see the nighmares as "movies" for awhile, but I think I just supressed them. They came back and more stronger, I can wake up several times a night, with a pounding heart and full of anxiety. Last night in my dream, I was stuck on an airport whitout any money, wanting to go "home" but not being able to.

Night after the night the same nightmare, for 20 years now and they've become more frequent and more horrifying, the past year. I always wake up, feeling exhausted and I hate to wake up at 4 am from a nightmare and not being able to go back to sleep. It's not possible when my body is in a state of fear, my heart is pounding and I have the feeling I just want to run away. I've been told by others in the past, that I often talk or scream when I sleep.

Feel like I'm close to being at the end of my rope, I'm always tired, have no energy or wanting to do anything, I've lost interest in almost everything. My anxiety is worse than ever and I don't see any "happy" future in front of me. I'm stuck in "hell". 

My emotions are frozen, I can't cry or laugh, I have closed the doors to other people, isolated myself. The only way out I can see is death, I've had enough of this world and myself. I'm exactly the same age as when my mother died of a heart attack in her sleep, I wish it would happen to me, she was suffering and now I'm suffering, I want to this to end. I've had enough.

Fuck this, I found an escape, beer and music in Second Life....want to find out more? Click 'Second Life' at the top, live reporting from there.

Found this video on YouTube, not that I feel it is much of a help, just an understanding what's happening in the brain. From The Brain Channel

✐ Mainstream Media and Independent Media

So, the elephant is out and with that I mean USA, NSA, Prism and Edward Snowden, before that it was Wikileaks and Julian Assange. Well not so much of surprise, governments all over the world keep secrets or lies to their citizens, also in the western "democratic" countries. In my opinion these "whistleblowers" are "the good guys", sacrificing their own lifes, by revealing these shady businesses, some governments are carrying out. And thanks to the independent media to make us aware about it. The Guardian - Glenn Greenwald

"The Guardian is part of the GMG Guardian Media Group of newspapers, radio stations, print media including The Observer Sunday newspaper, The Guardian Weekly international newspaper, and new media—Guardian Abroad website, and guardian.co.uk. All the aforementioned were owned by The Scott Trust, a charitable foundation existing between 1936 and 2008, which aimed to ensure the paper's editorial independence in perpetuity, maintaining its financial health to ensure it did not become vulnerable to take overs by for-profit media groups."
Source: Wikipedia

I have had doubts about mainstream media's credibility for quite awhile. In some cases I know for a fact that they don't tell you the whole story or angles the news in a way that serves their purposes, and who knows what they are. In my baggage I have 1 semester of Media and Communication Studies (Uni), I've learnt to examine all kinds of media with a critical mind and that knowledge is important, you need to know who owns the media, where they get their money from, etc.

Media is a powerful tool in all societies of the world, even in the so called "democratic" countries. We're exposed to propaganda all the time through main stream media, some western countries are worse than others. Don't fool yourself because you live in a "democratic" western country, that you are not exposed to propaganda, because you are. I have found some independent news channels on YouTube, I don't know if they tell the "truth", but I find it enlightening to listen or read from a range of different sources

We need a free and independent press and media, it's their duty to scrutinize what the governments and their departments are doing. In all democratic countries, one of the most important amendments is the first; 'Freedom of the press' as well as 'Freedom of speech'. The sources or "whistleblowers" have a right to be anonymous and protected.

Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! is a United States daily progressive, nonprofit, independently syndicated program of news, analysis, and opinion.

"For true democracy to work, people need easy access to independent, diverse sources of news and information. But the last two decades have seen unprecedented corporate media consolidation. The U.S. media was already fairly homogeneous in the early 1980s: some fifty media conglomerates dominated all media outlets, including television, radio, newspapers, magazines, music, publishing and film. In the year 2000, just six corporations dominated the U.S. media."

RTAmerica
RT, also known as Russia Today, is an international multilingual Russian-based television network. It is registered as an autonomous non-profit organization, funded by the federal budget of Russia through the Federal Agency on Press and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation. (Putin & Co)

"RT America broadcasts from studios in Washington, DC. We report on the other side of the story, not making any conclusions, but raising the unanswered questions."

NOTE! Not an indpendent media source. I've noticed that some of their news stories are biased, specially when it's about immigrants, and particularly when it's about muslims, and other things.

YouTube Playlist: USA + NSA + Prism - Edward Snowden

✐ Summertime...

After a very long, cold and a snowy winter, summer has finally arrived in Sweden. If you ever going to visit this northern hemisphere, this is the time.

So yesterday I had to leave my comfort zone and travel to the nearest Police Station to renew my passport/identity-card. I had already booked a time on the web, so it went really fast. But I was a bit early, so I sat down on a bench outside and just enjoyed the weather. Speaking about 'benches', I've lost a lot of weight the past 3 months, specially on my butt. I could actually feel my bones, sitting on that bench and it kind of hurt. The protective 'fat cushion' I once had there is gone. Now I'm just waiting for the fat to vanish from my belly, my body have always had the tendency to store fat there first, so I guess that's the last that will go.

The view from where I'm sitting on the bench, outside the Police Station. This is actually the first photo I've taken with my Android phone since I bought it a year ago.

✐ We are the champions...

So Sweden didn't win the Eurovision song contest (didn't think so either). But we won the World Cup in Ice Hockey. There was a big celebration for the players in Stockholm yesterday.

✐ Memories

I couldn't help but to think of you today. The first semi-final of the Eurovision song contest, that takes place in Sweden this year, because of Loreen (Euphoria) winning the contest last year.  I watched it alone. Happy that your country made it to the finals.

Also it's 5 years ago I had to get a passport so I could visit you. The past few years I've used it as an identity card, but it's expiring in June. So I have to apply for a new passport, visiting the same place as I did 5 years ago.Then I was so much in love, full of dreams and hope...
Now I'm going there just because of necessity, I need a  document to be able identify myself in the society I live in.

These songs are for, what used to be "us".

✐ Dreams are like movies

Something did happen after the latest hypnocompic dream I had. I sleep so much better now, I still dream a lot, but I have been able to detach myself from the dreams. Instead of being caught up in them, they have become "movies" that I watch every night. Sometimes I've even laughed in my sleep, some of the "dreams" are funny.

I think I made a semi-conscious decision to not pay so much attention to my dreams. I realized they were just chatter from my mind, and the mind is tricky, bringing up all my past traumas during my sleep. My "witness" woke up and started to laugh, saying; "You fool, the past is the past, there is only here and now, how could you forget"

I know where this focus on my dreams comes from, psychotherapy. I started with it when I was 18 for 2 years, then I quit for a  year or two until I found a new psychotherapist and I went through 4 years of psychodynamic psychotherapy. A large part of that therapy was dream analysis, so I guess that so many years of conditioning and at a young age, really had an impact on me. I mean, altogether 6 years of psychotherapy, when I was 26 years old...

Yeah, I had a traumatic childhood too... (go figure)

✐ I am not from this world

Why think thus O men of piety
I have returned to sobriety
I am neither a Moslem nor a Hindu
I am not Christian, Zoroastrian, nor Jew

I am neither of the West nor the East
Not of the ocean, nor an earthly beast
I am neither a natural wonder
Nor from the stars yonder

Neither flesh of dust, nor wind inspire
Nor water in veins, nor made of fire
I am neither an earthly carpet, nor gems terrestrial
Nor am I confined to Creation, nor the Throne Celestial

Not of ancient promises, nor of future prophecy
Not of hellish anguish, nor of paradisic ecstasy
Neither the progeny of Adam, nor Eve
Nor of the world of heavenly make-believe

My place is the no-place
My image is without face
Neither of body nor the soul
I am of the Divine Whole.

I eliminated duality with joyous laughter
Saw the unity of here and the hereafter
Unity is what I sing, unity is what I speak
Unity is what I know, unity is what I seek

Intoxicated from the chalice of Love
I have lost both worlds below and above
Sole destiny that comes to me
Licentious mendicity

In my whole life, even if once
Forgot His name even per chance
For that hour spent, for such moment
I'd give my life, and thus repent

Beloved Master, Shams-e Tabrizi
In this world with Love I'm so drunk
The path of Love isn't easy
I am shipwrecked and must be sunk.

--  Jalal ad-Din Rumi - I am not from this world

✐ My busy subconscious mind during "sleep"

I've had a period now when my mind have been very busy during my sleep, processing past experiences, traumas, etc. I also have one dream that's recurrent and have been for almost 20 years now. I think it's connected with my 10 years abroad and what I experienced during those years. The settings in the dream can vary, but the emotions are always the same. 

The dream:
I'm in a foreign country and I want to go "home". I don't have any return ticket and no money. I want to pack my suitcase with all the things that I'm attached to, but the suitcase is always too small. Those nights when I get past these obstacles, new problems occurs. I'm trying to catch a flight, train or buss so I can travel home, but I always miss it. When I've managed to come "home" nothing is the same, everything has changed and I feel disappointed. There is so much anxiety, fear, anger, feeling lost, a feeling of not belonging anywhere or feeling homeless, in these dreams. Also some parts of the dream actually happened for real. I lived like a gypsy for 10 years and I did have some traumatic experiences during that period of my life.

So my subconscious mind have been processing these traumas for almost 20 years, but lately the dreams have become more intense and I have them almost every night.

Last night I had the dream, but just before waking up I felt so fed up with it, so I decided to walk away. Now I was in the hypnopompic state and the dream became very vivid. All of a sudden I was inside of a computer game where you have to fight to reach the next level. I felt so disappointed. When I walked away I was hoping for some peace, but now I was on a new level, standing on a platform with a big device with many buttons on it, in front of me. I felt stuck and frustrated over the fact that I had to keep on "fighting", the game wasn't over yet, I had only reached a new level. And the buttons on the device represents choices, what button should I press now...?

Still lost...

Fed up...

Want it to end now!!!

✐ Update on my toothache

I promised an update about my toothache in the post from March 6, Toothache. Well what to say... the pain on the right side is gone. Now I have the exact same pain, same tooth but on the left side. *big sigh*  I'm so fed up with this and I don't have the energy to write about the theories why this is. Also the 6th of April is my mothers birthday, if she hadn't passed away from a heartattack 1990, at age 56...

I found another "Dental Video" in F-Divas collection that I'm listening to now Dental foci, Dental infection, Toothache, etc (Isochronic Tones 47,5 Hz) Pure Series

I'm aware of that my damaged teeth won't be fixed, or that new teeth will be growing, by listening to isochronic tones. At some point I'm going to have to go to the dentist, but as I wrote earlier, dental work in Sweden is very expensive, specially the dental work I need. I just need something that may help me cope with the pain. I still don't have the money to pay a dentist.

Sweden is a great country to live in *ironi*. Health insurance for the rest of the body, but not for anything that concern the mouth, teeth, gums and jawbone, even though it's attached to the rest of the body and share the same bloodstream.

And yes, I am aware of that people in other countries may suffer worse than I, (spoiled western brat). I don't live in a warzone, I'm not forced to flee to a refugee camp. I have a roof over my head, I can buy food, talk about food, sorry but I can't eat any solid foods because of my dental problems. I've already lost a lot of weight, if this is going to keep on, I'll soon be starved and malnutrioned, as other people born and living in less fortunate countries and circumstances. But still my pain feels real and it hurts like hell. All is relative, I guess.

I'm so fed up and tired.