International Politic exam

… so I got my subject for my international politics exam. I have to write 4000 words on it, within a week. 4000 words is really a rather short paper, so the hard part will not be writing the words, but finding the hook and angling the bate.

The question:

1. What theory(s) can best explain thedisagreements in the Durban II confrence: Huntington’s teory on culture- and civilation clashes or other theories?
2. What theory(s) can best explain the outcome of the conference?

So how do you angle that? What theories to put in play? How to make this a political scince paper and not an essay? How to chose just a few theories and how to chose the right ones? I got so many ideas for this, non of them concrete enough to really voice. It will properly not suprise you that I got construtivism playing in the background.

The Durban II conference was the conference on racism  this April. And my first thought was: What do the UN think they can do about racism by hosting a conference? Do they really think it will help anything on the ground? It might turn the focus to the issue, but I don’t really see any governments really changing their minds on this. I do perhaps see some getting a push in the right direction. I might be cynical today, but do UN really think that they can change the human fear of those who are different from us? One of the best ways of fighting intolerance is though education so instead of hosting a four day long conference on racism, they should host one on education and poverty. I think that racism is a really bad thing, and I do think that debate is good. I do just not see the Durban confrence helping anything – if anything it drew up the line between the “West” and the no-West even more clearly – making it easier to judge and condem.

As you can see I might have a problem keeping this paper scinetific and non-biased. Keeping it from turning into a essay.

Afraid to be wrong

We are so afraid to be wrong that we quote other people’s word, so if we are wrong, at least we let someone else voice our wrongness. We are so afraid that what we think is wrong, that we are afraid to think new thoughts that have not been thought before. If we think thoughts that have been thought before, we say them not in our own voice, but in the voice of others. This kills creative thinking, this slay down new thoughts, before they are even born.

Where our Hephaestus to free our thoughts from our heads? Why have they locked him up, why do they teach us only to think with other people’s thoughts? Were are the tools to think new thoughts? Let Athene out… Let her be born!

Marina details

I spend this weekend with my family in the family’s holiday cottage in Virksund, Denmark. We had a wonderful weekend and I got to try out my new digial camera. I took a number of detail pictures in the marina. I wanted to share them with you.