This is a good example of what mutliethnic people face in love relationships

We think racial attitudes like this are only in certain areas of the US, but this but clearly it happens everywhere.
http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/11/12/2926351/washington-posts-richard-cohen-person-confused-blasio-mccray-marriage/

Diane Ravitch on Swedish education

More Ravitch

http://dianeravitch.net/2013/11/06/why-are-swedish-schools-falling-behind/

What is with the GRR Martin writes strong women characters meme?

So people seem to think that Martin's female characters are exceptionally strong. I have been thinking about this, as I read the last 3 books on vacation this year, my first in 10 years. There are a bevvy of women in the book. There are spoilers...

Catelyn Stark who is married to a man she didn't love after her betrothed died. She never forgave her husband for the illegitimate son and bringing him into the home. She encourages her son to wage war in revenge for his father's murder, and then is killed at her brother's wedding when the Starks are betrayed by the Karstarks only to be resurrected as an unforgiving leader of an outlaw band.

Alysa Stark the mistress of Ayre and the mother to a weakling son, whom at 8 she still breast-feeds. (I have nothing against breast-feeding, I breast fed my son for a year and would have done it longer except he quit). She rules the roost like a petulant child who will not leave her room for anything and imprisons people because she does not like them or what they say. Eventually she drinks of her own medicine as she is push out the sky door by her husband Baylish. He was sent there by the queen to take Alysa to hand and bring her around to supporting Cersei's son as king.

Sansa Stark the older Stark girl, who sees her father beheaded. She is first betrothed to Joffery, Cersei's older son, who violently and repeatedly has her publicly abused. Sansa is then married to Cersei's younger brother, the dwarf Tyrion at the age of 12, he 'has his way with her'. She is then wooed and helped to escape by a fool, rather a drunk knight who makes very inappropriate advances and with the conniving of Baylish helps her to escape. Baylish takes her to Catelyn's insane sister, after imprisoning her at his estate and getting her to take on a false identity for her protection and emotionally and verbally abusing her/brainwashing her. He then takes her to her aunt's where her aunt abuses her, then attempts to push her out a door in the 'sky' for stealing Baylish.

Arya Stark who also saw her father beheaded, and unlike Sansa who stays due to romantic ideas of kings and marriage, escapes. She is perhaps the strongest female character so far. She roams the countryside with a band of boys, with her short pointed sword, Needle. She is repeatedly imprisoned and escapes, she uses techniques taught by a sword master and by hook or by crook. She always in spite of horrific experiences always manages to land on her feet, finally to end up with a 'religious' order of assassins and getting training, for her list of revenge killings.

Cersei Barthenon, perhaps the most distrubing of the female characters. She is the queen to dead Robert, whom she had murdered, so her insane sadist son could take over the throne. She uses sex to get everything she wants, has 3 children by her twin brother, the discovery of which causes Brandon Stark a 7 year old boy to become an invalid and almost to be murdered by Jamie, Cersei's twin.

Melisandra the Red priestess, who makes all manner of evil happen including giving birth to a shadow that kills a contender to the throne. She reads fire and has the other brother to the dead king who is fighting for the crown. She is a religious zealot.

Daneryes Taragyen the queen across the ocean and the mother of dragons. She was abused by her power hungry insane brother, who if he had the opportunity he would have had sex with her. He sells her to a horse lord who terrifies her, covers her brother in molten gold. I have to check again but I think at first her husband rapes her, but then she 'falls' in love with him. She is supported by various disgraced knights, who love her but are banished when she finds out. She crosses a continent freeing slaves and nursing the only living dragons, born of the fire of her husband pyre and on her son's death bed. She wants to help and make things right for the slaves, but is fighting a loosing battle against an entrenched system of slavery and dominion.

Brienne Tarth the woman so ugly she became a knight. She is kind and genuine in many ways the ideal maid except she was so 'homely' no one would marry her, she is tormented by men. She spends much of the story on two quests, bringing Jamie to Cersei. She ultimately falls in love with Jamie, although it is never consummated, she is too damn ugly for that right. Then she is off to find Sansa Stark, but runs into all kinds of trouble and is ultimately is turned into one of the undead that suddenly populate the story.

Not sure how these are 'strong women' characters more like women reacting in various ways to horrendous abuse only to be eventually killed.

Objectification

http://www.walkingbutterfly.com/2010/12/22/when-you-kill-ten-million-africans-you-arent-called-hitler/

A friend posted this article on FB, and as I read it, I realized how much I have been struggling with othering and objectification in what I have seen here in Iceland and elsewhere. Right now it is more focused on Iceland as I am living here and their conversations are the top thing on my mind.
I even find myself doing some of this as I teach, where it is easy to use the US as an example, since there is just so much out there about the US, youtube, research and media in general. I find myself saying things like not to generalize or qualifying it with my own experiences in the Midwest. But it worries me because I see how easily we or one can draw a circle around one´s self and point outside of it and say this is not me or look how strange different or odd those people outside of the circle are. This includes cultural voyeurism things akin to ´culture days´ Where people are encouraged to put their different culture on display for the curious the unknowing and the leering public. Sure it can create a modicum of cross cultural interaction and some understanding, but what my problem with this type of work is that it is always and invariably an us versus them scenario.
Here is my flag, my language, my food, my music. It doesn´t often lead to the deeper discussion and development of cross-cultural understanding that really needs to take place. And sadly much of what I have seen here is in this vein, only skin deep and at best focused on the tip of the iceberg. In fact just thinking about it is so upsetting that I can´t focus my thoughts enough to write something organized about it. And added to that is that I find it difficult to find people to discuss it with, who would understand without getting defensive with the critique I am making about all the good things that are going on here.
I find my mind going off to think of nicer and easier topics, than a critique of something so hard. I know I have a few articles to write, and i have to think hard about how they are framed and phrased, but my mind wont let me think about them yet so I will keep trying to write ideas and thoughts on paper and elsewhere until I have it all framed and ready to just write write write.

More on immigrants

Been reading this piece on immigrant issues in the Scandinavian countries. Different countries have of course responded differently, but most of them have established official legal organizations that deal with both asylum seekers and immigrant issues. This has not happened in Iceland. The type of immigrants who come here are mostly for work. While in other countries there are more asylum seekers and since there easier boarder crossings, than swimming the north Atlantic ocean. So most of the time people are caught when they sneak into the country on a boat or on a plane. Well not much sneaking on a plane.

Working on immigrant minority stuff lately.

So living here in Iceland has required me to retune my research and work. Yes I wrote a book on multiracial teens, not yet published by a big publisher, but available as a dissertation. My move to Iceland has shifted my focus just a little bit or more appropriately stated added a new dimension to it. I still look at marginal students, students who are not part of what is loosely and incorrectly termed 'mainstream,' now I am back looking at immigrants in a school system that is much more used to dealing with students who all look mostly the same. In the past 20 years there has been an increased focus on inclusive education, which aims at including differently abled children, but doesn't always refer to the education of students who are not native language speakers. This is considered and presented quite separately from minority culture students and immigrants. To be clear prior to the 1970 Iceland had few "interlopers" (people who look noticeably different from Icelanders).
When my mother moved here in the late 60's there were few 'immigrants' unless they were married to Icelanders or from the Navy base. There were no programs or language classes for those who wanted to learn Icelandic, except a few for people interested in Old Norse. In the past 20 years this has all changed significantly. Iceland is now home to 20,000 + immigrants and families. There are a number of classes for those who wish to learn Icelandic. In fact in order to become a resident of the island an immigrant must show documentation of language classes.
Currently I am reading a paper from the department of social services that examines responses to the increasing immigrant population and their needs. It like many of the papers I have read, they delve very superficially into the past history of immigration and the different populations. It should be noted that Iceland's Icelandic population is a population of immigrants and slaves (Norwegian, Irish and Scotish). True that all happened 1200 years ago, but prior to that there is no record of anyone living on the island. Like many Nordic cultures Icelanders are extremely proud of their history, and they can boast a long history and literacy and as a result a great deal of national pride. This of course means that although this is an open and welcoming culture, there is an strong under current of well they are here in our country and they just need to learn the language and fit in, assimilate. As if people who travel abroad for vacation, sun and cultural experiences, can hold the changing world at bay, even as they need more and more hands to work in industries that most Icelanders no longer want to work in.
When talking to collegues about such things as internet access and household computers, the answer is that most people/homes have computers and internet access, which is then qualified with a that isn't always true for immigrant households. As someone said today, "Some people have different priorities, fake nails, hair extensions and pets." (Are these cultural values or learned behaviors of how they show their wealth in a new place and time?). And how are the priorities to be understood and read? One of the things I keep thinking as I read is who's values are we offering these people, whom have we asked about their needs when the government does a study of immigrant needs and services.

Coping with loved ones in prison

This is just a short thing. Found this on upworthy.
http://www.upworthy.com/cookie-monster-is-in-jail-im-actually-really-happy-about-the-reason-why?c=ufb1

Being a single parent.

Recently, I have noticed many of my partnered women friends posting statuses about single parenting. In their estimation when their working partners are away on business trips or the like, these women suddenly become single parents. This is, as has come up in discussions among my many single parent friends, rather insulting. These are women who have a partner who works and supports his or her family. If the second parent is gone for a few days or weeks, even months, these women are assured of a few things that real single mothers or fathers are not. They are assured that there is at least one steady income in the home, often the significant one, they are assured that at the end of the day the can most likely get ahold of the absent partner on the telephone, through email or the miracle of skype or google chat. They also know that this time alone with the children is only temporary.

While I would never argue that being alone with one, two or more children is an easy task, a single parent faces this task every day, 365 days a year. Single parents cannot count on a spouse or a partner to lighten the load. While we may have some financial support from the absent parent, true single parents do not have the financial, physical or emotional support of the child’s or children’s other parent.

According to a recent piece from singlemothers.com based on statistics from the US Labor Bureau : As of 2011, 11.7 million families in the US were headed by a single parent, 85.2% of which were headed by a female.¹ Around 45% of single mothers have never married; around 55% are divorced, separated or widowed. Half have one child, 30% have two. About two fifths are White, one third Black, one quarter Hispanic. One quarter have a college degree, one sixth have not completed high school.  Single mothers are much more likely than others to live below the poverty rate and struggle to provide for their children.  

These women do not always have an assured steady income which supplements their own; they do not have the knowledge that they can call the absent person at the end of the day. And they for damn sure know no one else is going to be home to take over when they are too tired or too sick to parent. This is not to say that a single parent is always alone. In my 20+ years of single parenting I have met many single women and a few single male parents, who have family and friends who support them. I certainly did, but even then the single parent knows she is really alone, when her child is puking and she needs to stay home from work often losing a day’s pay as a result.

My friends and I over the years, through desire and downright need, have built support networks of other single parents. We share babysitting, share meals, joys and failures, still we return home to a house where we are often the only adult. Most of my single parent friends have been the sole authority figure their young women’s and men’s lives. These parents have struggled to find the right words and levels of discipline for a young man suddenly bigger and strong than they are or for a daughter who is taking risks we recognize as ones we took all those years ago. Yet my friends and I have been fortunate, the respect for us as mothers our children have keep these sons and daughters on a sometimes crooked, but ultimately straight and respectful path in life. We have learned when to let go and when to hold on often with great anguish.  And we find support in each other and our children.

The real single mother in American society’s vies has been a woman to be pitied, ridiculed and during the recent elections someone to blame and shame. Historically she has been a wonton hussy, rather than what many of my single parent friends are, women who ended up in unfortunate situations, both by their own choice and through no fault of their own, but who have chosen to take on the responsibility of their actions by loving and supporting their wonderful children as they grow.  I am not bashing hardworking stay at home mothers and fathers or two working parent households, far from it. Parenting is hard work, keeping a safe, warm and loving home is a feat in this modern world. But I am asking that people consider what they are saying when they use the term single parenting with such glibness.