One Flew South

When travelling without kids, small things like being able to enjoy a slow, quiet lunch at the airport become almost magical. Before leaving Atlanta, we had the good fortune of doing just that at One Flew South, which has repeatedly been rated one of the best airport restaurants in the world. As expected, the food was incredible, and so was the glass of Bernhard Ott’s “Am Berg” Grüner Veltliner.

Two days later, terror struck again in the heart of Europe, leaving dozens of innocent people dead, with no other purpose than to fuel yet more hate, division, and extremism on all sides. More than ever, it is important to remember that, despite all the recent darkness, the world as a whole has never been this peaceful. It is imperative not to let these kinds of isolated events make us lose sight of the bigger picture and the hope that the Enlightenment project still holds, if we remain true to its cosmopolitan values.

It is morning again in America

As the sun rises over the Peach State, jet-lagged Europeans gather over their conference programmes and flat whites. Since Wednesday, the International Studies Association Annual Convention has been in full motion, with hundreds of panels covering every topic remotely related to the study of International Relations. This is my first visit to Atlanta proper, and the view (above) from Anna’s and my room at Aloft Atlanta Downtown definitely inspires some Stadtbummel.

There is something peculiar about America. Every time I land here, I am struck by the same simultaneous feelings of extreme familiarity and alienness. For better or worse, the United States remains a world unto itself, full of paradoxes that somehow always evade my political intuitions.

Svenska Amerika Linien 2.0

Spring

Barely had I finished complaining about the endless winter in my previous blog post when the skies turned blue and I found myself looking for my sunglasses, a copy of Pretentiousness: Why It Matters by Dan Fox and, of course, a bottle of balcony Borgoletto. With William turning 15 months yesterday, one can truly feel his excitement as he sets off into the spring.

In the outside world, many things remain frustratingly dark. The Republican primaries have been one long echo of our savaged past, with its hypermasculinities, bigotry, and reactionary irrationalism. On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders may rightfully have criticised the influence of money in politics and advocated many worthwhile reforms, from criminal justice to universal healthcare. Yet his narrow-minded isolationism, protectionism, and broken climate policies (for more on that, Ted Nordhaus has just published an excellent op-ed) are all worrying signs at a time when the world needs integration and solidarity more than ever.

In other news, today marks five years since the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. At the time, Anna and I were living in Hong Kong, and I remember that we were just about to board a flight to Vietnam for the weekend when the news broke of the 9.0 megathrust earthquake. Yet, despite the fact that the earthquake and tsunami killed more than 15,000 people, the world’s attention soon shifted almost entirely to the nuclear disaster unfolding at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Even though that accident has not caused any direct deaths, many took it as evidence that nuclear power was inherently unsafe.

Rereading my own posts here on Rawls & Me, I have to admit that I too was swept along by the anti-nuclear hysteria that followed. Yet, in retrospect, I think that, more than anything, it was precisely the Fukushima accident that made me so strongly pro-nuclear. After all, if a technology can withstand one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history, followed by a 13-metre tsunami and numerous aftershocks, without causing any fatalities (despite a deeply flawed safety culture), then that should surely count among its merits. This is especially so when considering the hundreds of thousands who die from fossil energy each year, or the fact that an exclusive reliance on renewable energy would condemn much of the world’s population to chronic poverty.

Tomtebo

The snow keeps falling and spring seems as distant as ever. Yet, in less than three months it will be June and we will have moved into our newly built home right at the lake in Tomtebo.

I have never been much into home ownership but the housing market in Umeå is what it is. After spending months looking for somewhere more permanent with hundreds of people answering the same ads, we simply gave up. With two small (and highly destructive) kids, we are obviously not the best tenants and I can understand why landlords pick someone else given how strong demand is. So, in the end, we had little other choice than buying. Nevertheless, had someone told me five years ago that I would end up buying a row house in Northern Sweden, it would definitely have been a stretch to my imagination.

While we still do not know the exact number, the street name will be "Lyktvägen" once all the houses are built so please come and visit!

Glasses

As someone who has been wearing contacts for nearly twenty years, it feels odd to suddenly have a pair of glasses that I actually feel quite good about wearing. Having said that, I am still not sure if I dare to wear them when presenting at the ISA in Atlanta in little more than a week’s time but the fact that I am even considering it shows that I am slowly coming to terms with my new bespectacled identity.