OF WHALES AND MEN

Man has always been fascinated by whales (the novel Moby Dick is a prime example) and when a beached whale appeared unexpectedly in a bay outside Gothenburg in 1865, there was enormous excitement and frantic activity. (You can read about the events in this interesting article.)

Today, the whale is stuffed (the only stuffed whale in the world) and on display at The Gothenburg Natural History Museum. (The historical pictures below are from the museum) 

Painting in primitive Swedish Folk Art ("Dala")  by Leif Sodergren

The fisherman Olof Larsson first discovered the whale 40 meters off land. He fetched his brother-in-law Carl Hansson. They chose a large enough boat since they were afraid that the whale might otherwise swallow them. Read more.

Together they spent two days killing it and then sold it for a large sum to August Wilhelm Malm, who worked for the Gothenburg Museum. He later had the whale stuffed.

Several steamboats and coal barges towed the now smelly and putrid whale to a ship yard Lindholmen where the cumbersome process of cutting it up and stuffing it took place. People tried to snatch souvenirs. More...

The stuffed whale in Gothenburg.


INSIDE THE WHALE - THE JONAH THING

Painting of Jonah in the Whale by Leif Sodergren in the primitive Swedish Folk art style.

And then there is the whale in the Bible that swallowed Jonah. That story has fascinated people around the world including the Swedish peasant painters  who often depicted Jonah and the whale very naively. One can see why Jonah has interested people -- Jonah is disobedient and argumentative with God and does not perform as requested. He runs away and is punished by being swallowed by a whale but is spat out after three days of serious repenting. 

The repentant Jonah is spat upon land by the whale by order of God and continues on to Nineveh to warn the sinning population to repent or face punishment by God .

Jonah finally obeys God's original command, namely to go to the city of Nineveh to exhort the sinful people there to repent or face being destroyed by God. The people repent and everybody should be happy. But not Jonah. 

Jonah believes that these sinners should suffer some punishment for having been so sinful. Jonah, up to his old tricks, has the audacity to argue with God about his decision to spare the people of of Nineveh. So again Jonah must be taught a lesson. The lesson is this:

God causes a very fanciful plant, (a Gourd -- the Swedish name for this plant is Kurbits and it is always present in the primitive "Dala" paintings) to grow up over Jonah -- he is shaded and sleeps nicely under this large, biblical plant. But God causes worms to eat the Kurbits so it can no longer shade Jonah. Jonah is disappointed and complains to God about not having the Kurbits plant to shade him. God tells Jonah that if he grieves for the loss of this one Kurbits   --  how much more would God not grieve over the destruction of an entire city of people who, after all, had repented. 

Hopefully all this has taught Jonah something about God being caring and merciful and not to question his motives. After all, God is God and should not be questioned by mere mortals.

Being inside a whale can be fascinating. Inside the stuffed whale in Gothenburg, there are benches and tables for people to sit as seen below. 

Many religious people have shown an interest in visiting the inside of the the Gothenburg whale -- perhaps wanting to experience the Jonah thing. When the whale was caught in 1865, two women threw themselves forward, "driven by an uncontrollable desire to verify if the passage of Jonah through the throat of the whale was actually possible"

(From this article)

The whale's jaws are hinged so it can be entered.

Coffee inside a whale -- what fun! These days the inside of the whale is not open to the public.

BEAUTIFUL LISEBERG IN GOTHENBURG

Liseberg Amusement Park has many nice sculptures. Soon it will open again.

CIGARETTES - HOW WE HAVE CHANGED

This ad sort of leaves you speechless...

ADDICTION TO THE ABANDONED

The slick quarterly British magazine INTELLIGENT LIFE has an article this month called AMERICAN RUINS. Here are some samples. 

Large abandoned machine halls are cathedral-like in their enormity and the rusted machines, pipes and ducts are beautiful in a serene and ghostlike way.

Why are people, amateurs and professionals, the world over so fascinated with derelict buildings, abandoned factories, rusty old abandoned cars? 

I suppose that the photos are interesting "stories"  that make us think of what has been, and what we ourselves will end up as one day. 

The interest appears to be enormous. On the photo site Flickr, there is a group called "Abandoned" and at present, there are over half a million photos there. Fancy a slideshow of them. Got some time?

ESTELLE FOR STAR -- A SWEDISH PRINCESS IS BORN

It was reported yesterday that the newborn child to the Swedish Crown princess Victoria will be named ESTELLE BERNADOTTE. She will not be the first Estelle Bernadotte however. 

Check out American born Estelle Manville-Bernadotte who no doubt inspired the choice of the name. She married Folke Bernadotte.

This picture is from this very interesting site: 

http://libertyladybook.com/

This Picture from Wikipedia

MITT ROMNEY: CHARACTER-DEFINING MOMENTS

"Tell me how you treat your dog, and I will tell you who you are"

The story lives on, the one where Mitt Romney transported his large Irish Setter on top of the family station wagon one summer day from Massachusetts to Canada, a 12 hour drive. There were five kids in the car plus packing and Romney decided, not to put the packing on top of the car roof, but chose instead to place the dog in a travel crate which somehow was secured on the car roof with some sort of wind protection. Rachel Maddow (see below) dug into this incidence in more detail and specifically brings up the two-part aspect of this character-defining moment in Mitt Romney's life.The decision to put the dog on top was bad enough she points out, but when the dog covered the car with a brown liquid (the dog ovbiously did not fare well) Romney stopped at a service station, got a water hose and rinsed off both the dog and the car, and continued with the wet dog on top of the car to their destination. 

New York Times journalist, Gail Collins, never fails to mention this incident whenever she writes about Mitt Romney. Today Salon.com had an article (by Joan  Walsh) and provided a picture from David Axelrod's Twitter feed of the president and his dog: "How loving owners transport their dogs".

"How loving owners transport their dogs" From Salon.com

This crate is suitable to transport a large dog. Was it a crate like this Romney used on the car? A male Irish Setter is a VERY large dog. And if so, how on earth can you secure a crate like this, with a dog inside, on top of a car -  and be safe on the road? The dog might be in danger, but so are other motorists should the crate fall of when driving.
This photo from: http://www.animaltransportation.com/custom-crates/

RACHEL MADDOW very interesting reporting.
(Choose "options" and Full Screen)

A male Irish setter is a LARGE dog

http://www.animaltransportation.com/custom-crates/

Here is another crate suitable for a large dog. It is also very top heavy and not easy to secure on top of an ordinary station wagon. 

Logistics: That dog was no doubt heavy -- was the crate first tied and secured on top of the car and the dog then lifted and pushed inside? Otherwise, at least two people would have had to lift the crate with the dog inside in, on to the roof of the car. One wonders what type of securing material was used? 

EMPATHY: Did the Romney family worry about the dog? According to Maddow, one of the Romney children had the task of sitting in the back of the car to be on the lookout in case....Did they think that the crate might fall of? And then what?