Aug 29
2009

Sitting on the shores of the Oslofjord, the $800-million Norwegian National Opera and Ballet is Oslo’s most popular attraction.

Dazzling structure interacts fruitfully with both visitors and its setting

In most cases, an opera house represents a means to an end. Then there’s the new Norwegian National Opera and Ballet. It opened in April last year, and still the crowds are coming. Getting a seat verges on impossible, but the majority of visitors are content to wander the building, inside and out, downstairs and up, looking around. It’s that kind of a place.

Designed by Norway’s most celebrated architectural practice, Snøhetta, this is one of those rare and remarkable structures that perform brilliantly even when the curtain’s down. It’s a gathering spot, vantage point, outdoor performance venue, playground, café, as well as a catalyst of economic, cultural and social change and urban renewal. It also comprises three halls, numerous rehearsal rooms, an opera and ballet “factory” with 600 workers, and several public restaurants.

Sitting on the shores of the Oslofjord just eight lanes of highway away from downtown Oslo and its busiest public space – the square in front of the central train station – the $800-million facility is the city’s most popular attraction. Even on a weekday morning, people are pouring out of large tour buses to clamber up and over this unique building.

The first thing they likely notice is the roof. That may not be quite the right word in this case; here the roof, clad in white Carrara marble, starts in the waters of the fjord and rises turn by turn to a point nine or 10 storeys above ground. From this vantage point, Oslo stretches out below, a city in a rush to reintegrate with its waterfront.

As happened in so many European cities, Oslo harbour was a going concern until some time in the 1970s, when the shipbuilding industry moved east. Containerized shipping and cruise liners meant the harbour remained in use, but vast stretches of the waterfront became available for redevelopment. That process has already started, but the strongest signal of the waterfront’s new status is the opera house.

It changed everything. Indeed, a tunnel now being dug beneath Oslo harbour will soon replace the city’s answer to the Gardiner Expressway. Like our raised highway, it slices the downtown and its waterfront in half. Unlike the Gardiner, however, it will be closed next year, and demolished. A road will still run past the opera house, but the heavy traffic will be in the tunnel below.

It helps, of course, that Norway has North Sea oil to cover the costs of such schemes. And although there’s much discussion about where waterfront redevelopment is heading, there’s no question the opera house has completely redrawn the map of Oslo.

A large rectangular site across the highway is now being turned into a row of commercial highrises. Locals call it the “barcode” because that’s what it looks like from above. Nearby, a finger of land that juts into the fjord just east of the opera house is on its way to becoming a mixed-use neighbourhood.

In another part of Oslo, former industrial land such as this has already been transformed into a residential/entertainment area characterized by lowrise buildings organized along pedestrian roads. Even on chilly nights, these restaurants are full; when it gets cool you can pick up a blanket on the way in.

On its site, however, the opera house remains in a state of splendid isolation. For now, visitors reach it via a footbridge that crosses the highway. It is a temporary structure, but one that will remain longer than expected – in this case, another six or seven years.

But even from a distance, Oslo’s new jewel sparkles. The white marble stands out in stark contrast to the rest of the city, which although colourful, doesn’t dazzle. And unlike so many contemporary landmarks, this one is emphatically horizontal. The sloping roof sections seem to camouflage the height of the building. Needless to say, the possibilities are not lost on visitors, who are more actively engaged in this building than almost any other you can imagine. And so are their kids – therein lies its brilliance. Its appeal is certainly democratic, if not entirely universal.

Inside, the cold and shiny marble surfaces give way to something warmer and softer. The dominant material indoors is oak, much of it stained to a darker hue. The main hall, horse-shoe-shaped and on the small side (1,350 seats), does a convincing job of updating this 19th-century precedent. The chandelier, for instance, is an enormous crystalline circle made up of prisms and 8,000 tiny LED bulbs. Seats are finished in traditional red plush. Even with three balconies, and amenities at every level, lines are clean and easily understood.

Mostly, though, Oslo’s new landmark is the most visible symbol yet of a city set on reimagining itself. Despite the essential modesty of Norwegian society, the opera house is a hugely ambitious building, almost heroic in its aspirations. But if it represents 21st-century architectural spectacle at its most dazzling, it manages to do so in the most practical way possible. Not only is every part of the building usable, it’s also open and accessible. Most opera houses, even the bad ones, bring a level of intimidation to the experience; Oslo’s doesn’t just make visitors feel welcome, it makes them feel they belong.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/687455

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Trackback  •  Posted in Music  


Aug 28
2009

In 1986 Leif Hauge’s brother had a farm in Norway near the sea and wanted to keep his vegetables cool by circulating water from deep in an adjacent fjord that would flow through pipes and surround a storage area. It takes a lot of energy to pump water uphill 100 feet, and if you let the water run back down you waste the energy. Was there a way to recover some of the energy? Have the water running down lift the water going up? Leif Hauge set about building a device to do just that. He eventually gave up after figuring his brother didn’t have quite enough water pressure to harvest. But he learned a lot about energy recovery.

There is not, as it happens, a big global market for fjord-cooled vegetable storage. But there is need for energy exchangers in desalination plants. These plants extract fresh water by pumping up seawater to extremely high pressure and running it against a membrane that lets water molecules through but not salt ions. The pressurizing consumes gobs of electricity. Simply releasing the spent, high-pressure saltwater back into the sea is a waste of energy. That energy can be recovered in a pressure exchanger. A year after delving into the veggie-cooling project, Hauge realized that a variation on his water pump contraption could compete in the market for pressure exchangers sold to desalination plants.

Hauge, 53, never finished college and has been self-employed his whole life, working in construction and as an inventor. He eventually got his saltwater pressure exchanger to work. But it was a Pyrrhic victory. He consumed so much capital in the quest to perfect the device that he lost control of Energy Recovery Inc., the company he had founded to make the exchangers. The San Leandro, Calif. firm earned $8.7 million on $52 million in sales last year, but Hauge owns none of it and is consulting on water and renewable energy projects in Virginia. Maybe he should have quit? “I don’t know why I didn’t,” he says. “I guess it’s my nature. I persevere.”

ERI’s PX Pressure Exchanger is a 4-foot-long, 180-pound object containing a single moving part: a ceramic cylinder spinning at 1,000rpm as it pumps 13,000 gallons of briny water an hour. The device costs $25,000 and has 70% of the market for desalination energy-recovery devices. The PX needs no maintenance, is on the order of 96% efficient and pays for itself in electricity savings in about six years. Says G.G. Pique, the company’s chief executive, only partly kidding: “We’re getting close to a perpetual motion machine.”

Hauge’s first stop on his quest to conquer the desalination market was the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, which entered into a joint venture with Hauge in 1988 that provided him a staff, housing and a salary for three years to develop his product. Bad timing. Saddam Hussein invaded, and Hauge had trouble leaving the country. He thought he could escape with his pregnant wife through Baghdad to Jordan, but they were stranded in Iraq for three months.

He eventually made it to Virginia and established Energy Recovery in 1992. By then he had spent $500,000 raised from friends, Norwegian industrial foundations, his wife and credit cards. In the U.S. he funded his research with joint ventures with the German submarine maker Thyssen Nordseewerke and Virginia shipbuilder Newport News. A cash crunch in the mid-1990s forced Hauge to bring in new investors, like current ERI board Chairman Hans Peter Michelet and shipping magnate Morits Skaugen.

Competing pressure exchangers work by capturing energy in the exit water via a turbine (analogous to a waterwheel), then transferring that shaft power to a pump (waterwheel in reverse) for the entering seawater. Hauge’s clever invention cuts the mechanical complexity in half. High-pressure exiting water enters columns in a rotor arranged like the bullet chambers in a six-shooter. This speeding water smashes into low-pressure water that has entered the same tubes at the other end of the rotor. Because water can’t compress, the high-pressure water transfers nearly all of its momentum to the low-pressure water, pressurizing it, before turning back on itself and draining. The water enters and exits at slight angles, enough to spin the six-shooter chamber quickly, allowing the process to repeat 1,000 times per second. Surprisingly, very little mixing occurs (see diagram), although a little bit wouldn’t spoil the desalination. The freshwater output from the membranes is not part of the pressure exchange.

The mechanical ingenuity was only half the battle. The challenge was to find a material tough enough to withstand 1,000 pounds per square inch of pressure and inert enough to withstand corrosive saltwater. Several metal alloys, the final one a cobalt-chromium alloy, corroded or fused.

Frustrated, Hauge turned to ceramics, an idea given to him years before by a Danish company that had looked at an early prototype. He bought coffee mugs from Kmart and shaped them into rotors with a grinder. He spent two months at Oak Ridge National Laboratory working with precision ceramic-grinding equipment. He combed scientific literature for materials. He settled on a crystalline form of aluminum oxide called corundum–or, when pretty and polished, sapphire. Second only to diamond in hardness, it is strong and corrosion-resistant and can be lubricated by water.

http://news.alibaba.com/article/detail/technology/100163266-1-making-sweet-water-from-%2528almost%2529.html

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Aug 26
2009

President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he was heartbroken by the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, a longtime pillar of the Democratic Party who was a crucial supporter of his presidential candidacy.

“For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts,” Obama said in a statement from the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard where he is on vacation.

Kennedy, who had been battling brain cancer for more than a year, died late on Tuesday at his family compound in the nearby Cape Cod town of Hyannis Port. White House officials said Obama was told shortly after 2 a.m. (0600 GMT) of Kennedy’s death and spoke with Kennedy’s wife, Victoria, about 25 minutes later.

Kennedy was a leading advocate of healthcare reform, a signature issue of Obama’s presidency. In January 2008, Kennedy endorsed Obama, who was serving his first term as a senator, for the Democratic presidential nomination. Many saw the endorsement as the passing of the political torch to a new generation. “Michelle and I were heartbroken to learn this morning of the death of our dear friend, Senator Ted Kennedy,” Obama said.

“I valued his wise counsel in the Senate, where, regardless of the swirl of events, he always had time for a new colleague. I cherished his confidence and momentous support in my race for the Presidency.

And even as he waged a valiant struggle with a mortal illness, I’ve profited as President from his encouragement and wisdom,” said Obama, who was elected last November and took office in January.

“An important chapter in our history has come to an end. Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States Senator of our time,” Obama said.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/8/26/worldupdates/2009-08-26T165832Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-419916-1&sec=Worldupdates

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Trackback  •  Posted in All Time Greats  


Aug 24
2009

What’s the big deal about Angela Merkel showing some cleavage? Yet again the media find it impossible for a woman to be both sexy and powerful

angela.jpg
Angela Merkel arrives at the opera Photo: Kyrre Lien/AFP/Getty Images

So you’re the German chancellor. You’re in Oslo on business and you get an invite to the opera. Hurrah: a chance to temporarily forget the world’s constipated money flows and dress up. You wear evening dress because that’s what people wear to the opera. Next thing you know your country’s media are chronicling your descent into apparent madness. They haven’t quite asked if you’re fit for the job, but the implication is there.

“Merkel shows cleavage,” said Bild, helpfully pointing out that “we have never seen her in such a low-cut dress.” Another suggested this might signal a “change of direction”.

The episode echoes last year’s Clinton Cleavagegate, when the Washington Post’s fashion writer, Robin Givhans wrote: “To display cleavage in a setting that does not involve cocktails and hors d’oeuvres is a provocation.” In fairness, Givhans thought it was an interesting move, but the fact that it seemed to warrant an article at all was disconcerting. Meanwhile, sitting next to Merkel, Norway’s PM, Jens Stoltenberg, was praised in the newspapers for not “ogling” his companion. His desire to say, “Jeez Ange, didn’t realise your tits were so big,” was possibly tempered by the fact that he’d probably figured out long ago that all women have breasts, even brainy ones and that this was indeed a GOOD thing.

And there, plunging deep into the décolletage lies the truth: It’s actually not men, but, frequently, women who seem to be most troubled by women’s fashion choices. Scan through newspapers – both tabloid and broadsheet – on any given week and you’ll find a great deal of opprobrium directed at women by women. The rules are fluid, but fundamentally brains and body are incompatible: you can have one or the other, OK? If you’re over 40 you can’t display any part of the body, unless you’re a beloved actress (Helen Mirren) or Elizabeth Hurley, in which case you’re deemed fabulous, glamorous and looking great for your age. Otherwise, well the idea of older women doing “sexy” is just too awful; like thinking about your parents having sex, which of course they only did to have children and certainly never did after they turned 35. Except for Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. God that grey was so drab. At least she showed some flesh in the evening.

As for women in powerful jobs dressing in a vaguely glamorous manner, well that’s just plain weird. What on earth are they thinking, these women who make policy and manage millions? Don’t they know that the minute they embrace their womanhood, their brain will turn to candy floss (like a tabloid journalist) and those poor, simple men won’t be able to work. This is how empires fall.

In an era of unparalleled body criticism (for we have now gone way beyond mere body consciousness), where the default setting for women seems to increasingly lean towards utter self-contempt, it might be hard to understand there are many of us in our 40s who feel confident physically as well as intellectually, and are not afraid of letting people know it. This isn’t about defending the attention-seeking displays of flesh so beloved of the brainless celebrity set, but more about acknowledging that a woman can embrace her sensuality as well as her intellect.

Surely there can be nothing more attractive than a woman of Merkel’s achievement and stature enjoying her womanliness. In every possibly way, she’s leading from the front.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/16/leadingfromthefront

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Trackback  •  Posted in Music  


Aug 24
2009

History

Wikipedia has an extensive discussion of the law of attraction.

1879

In 1879, the New York Times was the first major newspaper to use the phrase, describing the wagon trains of the Colorado gold rush as “moving in obedience to some occult law that overcomes all obstacles in their progress to their destination”.

A physical “energy of attraction”, 1902

As early as 1902, references to something similar to the law of attraction can be seen particularly in discussion of matter formation. John Ambrose Fleming an electrical engineer and turn of the century physicist described “every completed manifestation, of whatever kind and on whatever scale” as “an unquenchable energy of attraction” that causes objects to “steadily increase in power and definiteness of purpose, until the process of growth is completed and the matured form stands out as an accomplished fact”.

The New Thought Movement, 1904 – 1907

Thomas Troward, who was a strong influence in the New Thought Movement, claimed that thought precedes physical form and that “the action of Mind plants that nucleus which, if allowed to grow undisturbed, will eventually attract to itself all the conditions necessary for its manifestation in outward visible form”.

In 1906, William Walker Atkinson (1862 – 1932) used the phrase in his New Thought Movement book Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World. The following year, Elizabeth Towne, the editor of The Nautilus Magazine, a Journal of New Thought, published Bruce MacLelland’s book Prosperity Through Thought Force, in which he summarized the principle, stating: “You are what you think, not what you think you are.”

The “law” in Theosophy, 1915 – 1919

The phrase “Law of Attraction” appeared in the writings of the Theosophical authors William Quan Judge in 1915, and Annie Besant in 1919.

“Think and Grow Rich”, 1937

In 1937, author Napoleon Hill published his book Think and Grow Rich, which went on to become one of the best selling books of all time, selling over 60 million copies. In this book, he discusses the importance of controlling your own thoughts in order to achieve success, as well as the “energy” that thoughts have and their ability to attract other thoughts. In the beginning of the book, Napoleon Hill mentions a “secret” to success, and promises to indirectly describe it at least once in every chapter of the book. It is never named directly for he says that discovering it on one’s own is far more beneficial. Many people have argued over what the secret actually is, but there is a general consensus that the secret he referred to is, in fact, the Law of Attraction.

Mid 1900s to 2000

By the mid 1900s, various authors addressed the topic and related ideas under a range of religious, occult, and secular terms, such as “positive thinking”, “mental science”, “pragmatic Christianity”, “New Thought”, “practical metaphysics”, “Science of Mind”/”Religious Science”, and “Divine Science”. Among the mid 20th century authors who used the term were Florence Scovel Shinn (1925), Sri K. Parvathi Kumar, (1942)[31] and Alice Bailey (1942). Author Louise Hay in 1976 released a pamphlet in which she links various diseases and disorders to certain thoughts and states of minds. This list was included in her 1984 best-seller book You Can Heal Your Life, in which she promotes positive thinking as a healing method.

Other proponents of the Law included Wallace Wattles, Robert Collier, and Helena Blavatsky, who all published books in the early 1900s.

The “law of attraction” in the 21st century

In 2006, a film entitled The Secret (2006) was released and then developed into a book of the same title in 2007. The movie and book gained widespread attention in the media from Saturday Night Live to The Oprah Winfrey Show in the United States. The same year the Hicks’ The Law Of Attraction was on the New York Times best seller list.

The success of the film and various books led to increased media coverage. Oprah Winfrey devoted two episodes of her show to discussing the film. Talk show host Larry King also discussed it on his show but criticized it for several reasons. He pointed to the sufferings in the world and asked: “If the Universe manifests abundance at a mere thought, why is there so much poverty, starvation, and death?”

This is similar to a common criticism that the law only works because most of the anecdotes cited in books and movies are about people who live in a culture that has paths to allow people to overcome adversity, while this is not true for much of the world.

In August 2008, Esther and Jerry Hickses’ book Money and the Law of Attraction: Learning to Attract Health, Wealth & Happiness appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Unschooling advocate, Dayna Martin, incorporates the Law of Attraction into her approach to radical unschooling, a parenting and homeschooling philosophy.

The Law of Attraction applied

Discover a way to encourage the power of this law:

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Membership is by invitation only. All members of GIN are and will always remain anonymous to the general public.

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Trackback  •  Posted in Success  


Aug 23
2009

THE first thing anyone who knows Oslo says when you mention that you are headed there is, “It’s really expensive.” The second thing they say is, “No, I’m not kidding. It’s really expensive.” And, indeed, a visit to Oslo brings with it immediate sticker shock: a bottle of water costs the equivalent of $6, a small glass of beer will set you back $10 or more, and a bottle of wine at dinner can practically equal a month’s mortgage payment back home. But you quickly, if grudgingly, accept the damage done to your wallet after a few hours strolling around this beguiling city — particularly in summer, when the sun’s last rays still haven’t faded by 11 p.m. and the locals, unshackled from the oppressiveness of the Scandinavian winter, seem to be in a nonstop party mode.

Friday

4 p.m.

1) ROYALTIES

If you walk down Karl Johans Gate, the main drag of central Oslo, a tree-lined promenade bordered by restaurants, cafes and upscale stores, you’ll eventually find yourself face-to-face with the Royal Palace, the mammoth, cream-colored home of the Norwegian royal family. As such, the palace (Henrik Ibsen Vei 1; 47-22-04-87-00; www.kongehuset.no) is open to the public only a few hours each day. In summer, one of those times is 4 p.m. on Friday, when an English-language tour (95 kroner, or $15.15 at 6.27 Norwegian kroner to the dollar) is given to visitors. You’ll get a CliffsNotes version of Norwegian history from the informative guides as well as a spectacular view of the city from the windows that open to the royal balcony.

5:30 p.m.

2) SAY ONKEL

For a predinner drink, you might want to join the lively crowd at Onkel Donald (Universitetsgata 26; 47-23-35-63-10; www.onkeldonald.no), an open-air cafe opposite the National Theater, where the inviting aroma of burgers being cooked on a huge outdoor grill wafts over the young patrons as they share pitchers of Ringnes beer (245 kroner) and bowls of moules frites (159 kroner).

8:30 p.m.

3) FRUIT OF THE SEA

The restaurant Solsiden, set in a converted warehouse on the waterfront, offers an ideal setting for dinner, particularly when staff members roll up the huge canvas window shades and patrons can watch the sun as it begins its slow descent across the Oslo Fjord. Local seafood is the specialty at this spot (Sondre Akershus Kai 34; 47-22-33-36-30; www.solsiden.no; dinner only), which is open only from May to September, with many diners starting off their meal with a huge platter of fruits de mer. Dinner for two, including dessert and wine, should run about 1,600 kroner.

10 p.m.

4) ON THE HOUSE

When the Oslo Opera House (Kirsten Flagstad Plass 1; 47-21-42-21-00; www.operaen.no), designed by the hot Norwegian firm Snohetta, opened in 2008, the Norwegian capital got more than a world-class performing arts center. It also got an unlikely playground. At almost any time of the day or night, hundreds of visitors scramble all over the building’s sleek, gently angled Italian marble surface, inching their way up to the plaza-like rooftop. Think of it as a cultural institution that doubles as a jungle gym.

Saturday

10:30 a.m.

5) ON THE FJORD

The sun’s been up for hours by now, so stir yourself and enjoy its rays while taking a boat trip around the Oslo Fjord, gliding past bucolic islands dotted with the colorful summer homes of the city’s well-to-do residents. Boats (Radhusbrygge 3; 47-23-35-68-90; www.boatsightseeing.com) leave from a dock opposite the Oslo City Hall, and a two-hour ride costs 230 kroner.

1 p.m.

6) ON THE TABLE

After returning to land, head over to nearby Aker Brygge, a lively waterfront development of bars, restaurants and a huge indoor shopping center. There are plenty of dining options here, but probably the best place for lunch is Lofoten Fiskerestaurant (Stranden 75; 47-22-83-08-08; www.lofoten-fiskerestaurant.no), particularly if you can snag an outdoor table. Summer offerings include mussels in white wine (139 kroner) and baked sea pike served with lemon risotto (268 kroner). Reservations essential. Afterward, stroll around the area, popping into the Nobel Museum, City Hall and perhaps the shopping center, where among dozens of shops you will find a stylish Scandinavian housewares store called Kitch’n (Stranden 3; 47-22-83-45-20), selling everything from elegant salad bowls (495 kroner) to brightly colored rolls of toilet paper (29 kroner each).

4 p.m.

7) A PLAYWRIGHT’S HOUSE

Yes, behind every great man is said to be a woman. But how many women all but chained their elderly husbands to their desk for two and a half hours each morning, demanding that they put in a full quota of work before letting them escape down the street for a leisurely lunch and a welcome drink? That seems to be the legacy of Suzannah Thoresen, the wife of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, as entertainingly recounted by the English-language guides at the Ibsen Museum. (They also let you know that she was so penurious that Ibsen had to go behind her back and secretly order the expensive French fabric he coveted for the drawing room windows.) There’s more here than the retelling of domestic squabbles, however, as you walk through the painstakingly restored home where Ibsen, long self-exiled from his home country, spent his final years and wrote his last two plays, “John Gabriel Borkman” and “When We Dead Awaken.” (Henrik Ibsen’s Gate 26; 47-22-12-35-50; www.norskfolkemuseum.no; 85 kroner for a guided tour.) Don’t miss the short black-and-white film about Ibsen’s life and career, which includes newsreel footage of his funeral. It’s shown in alternating Norwegian and English versions. (The Norwegian one is oddly compelling, even if you don’t speak a word of the language.)

8 p.m.

8) TRY THE REINDEER

For a sampling of traditional Norwegian cuisine, like medallions of reindeer in a sauce of port and raisins, head over to Engebret Café (Bankplassen 1; 47-22-82-25-25; www.engebret-cafe.no), a quietly elegant restaurant set in a low-slung 17th-century building. If the weather is nice, grab one of the 20 or so outdoor tables, where the voices of the other patrons are softened by the sound of the bubbling fountain in the adjoining courtyard. Dinner for two, including dessert and wine, will run about 1,400 kroner.

10:30 p.m.

9) NIGHTCAP OR NIGHT STARTER

After dinner, walk down to the waterfront until you encounter the park surrounding the famed Akershus Castle, a cannon-protected fortress that offers romantic views of the Oslo Fjord. Following the winding path will eventually lead you down to the bars of the Aker Brygge promenade, like the barge-like Lekter’n (Stranden 3; 47-22-83-00-60), where many of the city’s youth are getting ready for their night to shift into high gear.

Sunday

11 a.m.

10) WE ALL SCREAM

Two words: “The Scream.” You can’t visit Oslo without seeing this masterwork by Edvard Munch, which is on view at the National Gallery (Universitetsgata 2; 47-21-98-20-00; www.nasjonalmuseet.no), with helpful signs leading you along the way. But take a few moments to check out other, lesser-known works, like several pieces by the painting duo of Adolph Tidemand and Hans Gude, whose “Bridal Voyage on the Hardanger Fjord” is described as “one of the most important in Norwegian art.” A total immersion in Edvard Munch, both of his own work and of the art he collected, can be found across town at the Munch Museum (Toyengata 53; 47-23-49-35-00; www.munch.museum.no).

1 p.m.

11) SCULPTURAL PARK

The Vigeland Sculpture Park (www.vigeland.museum.no) is the work of the sculptor Gustav Vigeland (1869-1943), who not only designed the park itself but also created the more than 200 sculptures that dot its grounds, including the massive Tower-of-Babel-like centerpiece known as the monolith, with its collection of writhing, naked bodies carved out of a single granite block. The park, which you can reach either on a short ride on the No. 12 tram or through a pleasant walk through a lovely residential neighborhood, is extremely popular with the locals. On a recent afternoon, the crowd included picnickers, sunbathers, families out for a stroll, and even two groups of rival cheerleading squads practicing their routines. (Was “Bring It On” a big hit in Norway?)

THE BASICS

Continental has nonstop flights from Newark to Oslo Airport Gardermoen, with airfares starting at about $610 round trip for weekend trips in September. Slightly lower fares can be found on US Airways and SAS, but they require a stop along the way. The best way to get into downtown Oslo from the airport is Flytoget, the express train, which leaves every 10 minutes and takes about 20 minutes to get to Central Station. The one-way fare is 170 kroner ($27 at 6.27 kroner to the dollar) if you buy it from a vending machine; 200 kroner if you buy it from a ticket clerk. (A taxi could cost as much as 775 kroner, or about $125, one way.)

First Hotel Grims Grenka (Kongens Gate 5; 47-23-10-72-00; www.firsthotels.com/en) is a modern, sleek hotel in the city center, right next to the National Museum of Architecture. Free Wi-Fi in the rooms and a lively bar on the rooftop. Rates for a double room start at about 1,550 kroner, about $247, a night, based on a recent check on the hotel’s Web site.

The Thon Hotel Opera (Christian Frederiksplass 5; 47-24-10-30-00; www.thonhotels.com), part of a popular, midrange Norwegian chain, is across from Central Station. It has views of the nearby Opera House from many of its 434 rooms, as well as from the glass elevator rising from the sleek lobby, the terrace bar on the fourth floor, the inviting Scala restaurant and the treadmills in the hotel’s vest-pocket gym. Rates for a double room start at around 1,140 kroner a night, when booked through the hotel’s Web site.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/travel/23hour.html

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Trackback  •  Posted in Travel and leisure  


Aug 18
2009

Canada has recently begun Military exercises in the North Arctic region of their Country. This has been an ongoing discussion over the last few years. Canada, USA, Denmark, Norway and Russia are the only 5 countries that lay claim to regions of the Arctic. Due to global warming many of the ice caps and glaciers are melting and scientists believe there may be valuable natural resources such as minerals and even oil.

There has been a lot of speculation as to who will control the Arctic territory. Back in 2007 Russian explorers planted their flag on the seabed below the North Pole which caused a lot of ruckus and controversy among the other countries. Although this topic has been somewhat under the radar expect to see more coverage as time progresses and more ice starts to melt.

The Canadian Forces are attempting to show strength. The country’s military is not viewed as very powerful by most other nations and Denmark and Norway’s defense forces are significantly smaller than Russia’s or the United States. Denmark has just fewer than 23,000 active military members, Norway has around 27,000 and Canada is at right around 66,000. Russia has the 5th largest active duty military behind China, USA, India and North Korea. If you were to count active and inactive duty members, Russia would outnumber the United States.

Unlike Antarctica, which has a treaty that restricts territorial claims, there is no agreement on the Arctic region. So questions about drilling and territorial claims or even who would be responsible for environmental damage are very unclear.

Security expert John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org speculates that whoever has the best access to the Arctic region is most likely to control that area and right now it is Russia. Arctic sea ice is usually 1 to 3 meters up to (9 feet) thick. It is thickest during autumn and winter and shrinks during the spring and summer. Researchers have studied this for the past 50 years. It takes a special kind of ship called an “Icebreaker” to penetrate this ice. As of 2008, Russia reportedly had 6 Icebreaker boats, working to increase their fleet to 14. The USA has 2 that are worn out and very old. Russia also boasts of owning the world’s largest one, completing it in May of last year. These boats can take a long time to manufacture, up to 10 years. Canada has 2 active Icebreakers and has had this technology for over 100 years.

http://www.examiner.com/x-14096-Tucson-World-Travel-Examiner~y2009m8d16-Battle-for-Arctic-territory-continues-Canada-increases-military-presence-Russia-is-best-equipped

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Trackback  •  Posted in Economics  


Aug 17
2009

Here is how one traveler sees it:

I came to Scandinavia a couple weeks ago intending to both update my guidebook and sharpen my plans for filming here next month. I was fine with my intended Oslo and Stockholm scripts, but worried about a weak fjord country script.

Happily, I come away with piles of exciting ideas for our fjord show, from ginger glacier hikes to zodiac speedboat tours in the mist of waterfalls under towering cliffs. We’ll visit the best stave church in Norway, lonely in a lush valley ‘ its thousand-year-old dragon eves still snarling at evil spirits in the sky. We’ll hike to a tiny, weather-aged log cabin farm hamlet stranded high above the fjords, where goats still find grass. And we’ll film an Edvard Grieg piano concert in a sleek little concert hall with a long black grand piano perched before a huge window to become part of a dramatic fjord setting, including the idyllic cabin where the composer wrote much of his best music. I am just at the mercy of the weather.

The weather has been scorching during this visit. I’d just wash out my shirt and put it on wet. Locals were acting confused, saying, “I can’t even think straight in this heat.” Scandinavians were at the beaches in droves. I noticed in both Helsinki and Stockholm that the former military forts (the Gibraltars of the Baltic: Vaxholm and Suomenlinna) were now parks with families picnicking literally atop 19th-century gun emplacements ‘ places once strategic for national security, and now strategic only for sun worship.

Society here is famously compassionate and well-organized. Highway billboards show a man napping peacefully on his thankful partner, who shares an important message to approaching drivers: “Sleepy? Pull over and take a rest.” Another billboard has a dad driving with his child’s arm snuggly across his chest like a belt. The sign reads, “Buckle up for your family.” I put in a lot of miles safely. I wore my seatbelt and kept myself awake thinking about random stuff. Did you even notice how many people have the initials HH? (Hubert Humphrey, Hugh Heffner, Helly Hanson, Herbert Hoover, Howard Hughes.)

Norway has laced and drilled its way together with an amazing road system connecting fjord country with Oslo. The longest tunnel is 15 miles. When a toll is levied (as it is for cars entering Oslo and Bergen, to keep down traffic), toll booths are antiquated. You don’t stop and pay. A camera takes your car’s photo, and the license plate is matched to your credit card, which is billed. Those new roads zip travelers around quicker, but also make previously tranquil valleys noisier. I had to drop one unfortunate campground with great riverside bungalows from my guidebook. For ten years, it was a fine little budget place to sleep. Now, rumbling trucks trample the tranquility, so it’s out.

Scandinavians speak English so well, most tours at museums and historic sites simply dispense with the local language and locals and tourists-alike hear it in one language: English.

I was at a cousin’s dinner party with a dozen people in Oslo. Because I was there, they simply spoke English. I felt like it was an inconvenience, but it fazed no one. Topics were fascinating: One man, who just wrote a book on FDR (in Norwegian ‘ a market of only 4 million readers), talked with me about the intricacies of American post-WWII politics as no one I’ve ever met. Someone else suggested that, as Norway’s international telephone prefix is 47 and the USA’s is 1, the system must have originated in America. Another observed that Europeans seem more interested in American Indians than Americans are, and asked if that might be because we feel guilty and they have no guilt on the subject. And another observed that Midwest Americans talked louder than other Americans, and wondered if it was for the same reason West Coast Norwegians talk louder than people from Oslo ‘ because they are always trying to be heard above the constant wind.

Norwegians love to vacation in Greece. They agreed with me that Greece may have invented the aesthetics of beauty, but you’d never know it today by driving around the country. One suggested it might be like how England invented the Industrial Revolution, yet has today’s rustiest economy. Perhaps economically or culturally, a society is inclined to rest on its laurels ‘ it’s just human nature.

People seemed very content. Two new parents at the party were debating the various ways to split their paid maternal and paternal leave. There seemed to be little concern about any economic crisis. These Norwegians were just loving their salmon, shrimp, and goat cheese.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/rickstevestravel/archives/174703.asp

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Trackback  •  Posted in Travel and leisure  


Aug 16
2009

Norway’s $397 billion sovereign wealth fund said on Friday it now owns 1 percent of the world’s stocks and signalled the end of its emerging markets asset ramp up after posting its best ever quarterly results for April-June.

Buoyed by a broad financial market rally from the depths of the global downturn, Norway’s oil fund posted a 12.7 percent return on its investment, or a $45 billion gain — its biggest quarterly gain in relative and absolute terms.

Europe’s biggest owner of stocks also launched an initiative aimed at fostering dialogue on environmental issues with firms in its portfolio, a blueprint for green activism by often passive institutional investors. [ID:nLD26718]

Including inflows from oil and gas revenues, the fund grew 14.9 percent in the three months to end June to reach 2.385 trillion crowns ($396.6 billion), in line with preliminary figures. Since June, the fund has swelled above 2.5 trillion.

“Economic developments showed clear signs of stabilising in the second quarter and the uncertainty over the financial sector decreased,” the fund’s executive director Yngve Slyngstad said.

“The positive development has continued into the third quarter,” he told a quarterly news conference.

The Government Pension Fund — Global, commonly known as the “oil fund”, invests Norway’s energy revenues in foreign stocks and bonds to save for future generations.

Norway, whose prudent oil wealth management has helped the resource rich country avoid overheating and high inflation, has 4.8 million people, less than 0.1 percent of global population.

The world’s second largest sovereign wealth fund after that of the United Arab Emirates has tilted its global investment profile towards Europe to better reflect Norway’s trade flows.

It owns 1.7 percent of all listed European companies, compared to 1 percent of global stocks. It also owns 0.7 percent of European bonds and 0.4 percent of bonds in the Americas.

EQUAL WEIGHT IN EMERGING MARKETS?

Slyngstad signalled that the fund’s year-long ramp up in asset allocation to emerging markets was over as its proportional holdings in developing markets reaching par with those in developed markets.

“We have a weight in the emerging markets that is proportionally identical with the developed markets,” he told Reuters when asked if the fund had reached its desired level of emerging markets exposure.

“This is a level (of emerging market exposure) which is set by the finance ministry, and we have so far not sent a request with a proposal to increase this amount,” said Slyngstad, who rarely gives forward looking forecasts or comments.

Bouncing back from its worst performance in its 10-year investment history in 2008, the fund outperformed its benchmark by 2.1 percentage points during the second quarter.

Slyngstad said the fund had also completed a two-year drive to raise its equity allocation to 60 percent of total assets from 40 percent, at the cost of lower bond holdings.

Because the fund bought a larger than normal amount of equities during the downturn, its share of global stocks has more than doubled over the past year, Slyngstad said.

“Since the markets turned in March and up until today, the value of the fund has increased by more than 600 billion crowns,” he said, adding that liquidity was “beginning to return” to a number of fixed income markets.

The fund was badly burnt on U.S. securitised debt last year, triggering a formal government review of procedures and changes in the way it actively manages assets, including a sharp reduction in the number of external managers it hires.

The fund’s biggest equity holdings include near $3 billion stakes in oil major Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L), food group Nestle (NESN.VX) and banking group HSBC (HSBA.L). It owns about $13 billion worth of both British and U.S. state debt and $7 billion in notes from U.S. mortgage lender Fannie Mae (FNM.N).

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSLE34057520090814

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Trackback  •  Posted in Economics  


Aug 16
2009

Insanely Healthy Energy Like You’ve Never Seen

Because slowing down is not an option, there’s Verve! With a convenient and fast-acting boost of energy, Verve refuels and revives your body quickly without a jittery feeling or energy crash.*

The tropical fruit flavor, patterned after the very popular mangosteen fruit, tastes great!

Verve incorporates the best, most effective ingredients into one powerful product, making getting the energy and nutrition you need a snap!* Verve’s trifecta of benefits includes:

1. A delicious, fast-acting energy blend.
2. 12 full-spectrum vitamins and plant-sourced minerals.
3. An exotic mangosteen and aloe superjuice blend.

Choosing right amount of energy you need can change as rapidly as your day unfolds. That’s why Verve comes in two perfect delivery systems: Verve Energy Drink or Verve Energy Shot.

Verve Energy Drink is a great tasting beverage that pairs well with the morning rush or for fast-acting energy.*

It’s the functional and refreshing 8 ounce energy drink that delivers that extra boost.*

Verve Energy Shot shares the benefits of its energy drink counterpart packaged in a 3 ounce portable product.  The shot is a quick, convenient way to recharge with a healthy and serious jolt of energy.*

It easily fits in your purse, pocket or carry-on and doesn’t require refrigeration. Verve’s healthy energy is available in low natural sugar and sugar free options. Whether you are looking for the 80 mg caffeine energy boost from Verve Energy Drink or the powerful 125 mg caffeine energy rush from Verve Energy Shot, you will find what you need to recharge for the day.*

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.  This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

http://offto.net/verve/

The Vemma family of nutritional products available in Norway:

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Trackback  •  Posted in Health  


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