Monday 25 November 2002

Pic of the day: Norway is a rather cold little country in the world. Here a picture from my living room window.

Harry debates

"Norway is a country in the world" as one of our politicians is quoted some years ago. Yet sometimes we get these debates which seem out of this world. For the benefit of my international readers, I will entertain you with snippets of the latest public debate in the rich and peaceful little kingdom of Norway.

The newest topic is "harry money". This is, surprisingly, not the money from the eagerly awaited second movie about Harry Potter. No, in Norway "harry" means something else. (And so does "potter", but let's not go there.) Harry is an adjective describing something that is legal but in bad taste. Not in malevolent bad taste either, but ignorant bad taste. Like wearing sneakers on a business trip. Like driving your car back and forth through the center of the town playing country music. You get away with it, but it's not something you're supposed to do if you're playing with a full deck.

The minority government here in Norway (long may it live) had tried to get a majority vote for its budget for 2003. But the social democratic Labor Party on the left did not want it; they wanted more taxes and more public services. The right-wing Progress Party (inspired by America's Republican party but with booze instead of bibles) wanted more of everything except taxes and foreign aid, of which they wanted less. Both sides were perfectly willing to topple the current government, none of them would support each other in a new government ... as a matter of fact, none of them even wanted to form a new government themselves. They just wanted to condemn the current one.

Well, what eventually happened was that the government made a deal with the Progress Party, giving cheaper drinks to the thirsty citizens of our sickly little nation (we have twice as much sick leave as the European norm, and I doubt this will help). Also various other small handouts, and no new taxes. Since the government has invested its political credibility in not using more oil money than a certain small percentage of the petroleum fund, they had to do some creative bookkeeping to finance the deal. This is what the Progress Party derisively call "harry money". Actually at least part of it will be felt in the form of reduced services from the state-owned railways and postal company. (As if these don't suck already, by the standards of a rich nation. No wonder people prefer to send e-mail.)

***

The second earth-shaking topic of debate over here is whether or not the Norwegian ski elite used performance-enhancing drugs ("doping") during the Olympic Games some years ago. The largest non-state TV network, TV2, had a lengthy program in which some guy presented a list of medicaments supposedly ordered by the ski team, and the mysterious disappearance of several liters of blood plasma. And anyway, the performance of the Norwegian team was so good it just couldn't be done without drugs. I think this was the heart of it; I don't have a TV and the program has been removed from their online archive. And for good reason.

The next day, the local hospital made a statement to the press that they had indeed gotten all the blood plasma back; it was kept near the Olympic site in case of emergencies, which did not arise. They also said they had told TV2 this 6 times before the program was aired, but to no avail. The pharmaceutical company recognized the list of drugs as one of their order lists, from which the team had ordered only a few drugs, all of them relevant and legal. It seems TV2 had forgotten to check with them before going public with their revelation.

From what I hear, the populace of our neighboring countries loved the program. Here in Norway the reception was less than polite, and the verbal shelling still goes on. TV2 stands to lose various contracts, but at least they got publicity. Boy did they get publicity.

***

I already find it pathetic beyond measure that people are totally engrossed by some guys running a few seconds faster than some other guys over a distance of 10 kilometers, ski or not. The fact that there is not just fame but heaps and heaps of money in this is a testimony to the enduring stupidity of the human species. Come on already ... if these people had invented a cure for colorectal cancer or a new variant of rice that could grow in more salty terrain, I could see the reason for fame and money. But running? I can see how it takes a lot of dedication in addition to the inborn talent. Then again, it takes a lot of dedication to build a replica of the Notre Dame out of playing cards, and I would wager that it would take more brains too; certainly there are no animals that could do it, even with training. But do you see people compete about building cathedrals out of playing cards and getting money and fame on TV? Yet this running along a track, which is even more pathetic, engrosses not only the whole nation but the neighboring ones too.

At least there is no reason to have death penalty for stupidity. Just remove the warning labels. I applaud the choice to not mandate stickers on sofas and couches: "Warning! Sitting or lying excessively can lead to obesity, loss of muscle mass, reduced work capacity, depression, cardiovascular diseases and an early death." Or what about the fridge ... OK, I'll stop there. Feel free to let your own imagination soar. Harry style.