Dyslectic Heart [entries|friends|calendar] dyslecticheart userinfo recent entries add me friends Icons About Me Dyslecticheart, aka Lena Adams, is a fuckup from Norway currently living in Alaska with husband Sage and a collection of pets. Visit my website at Stuff by Lena. The Layout This layout was created at premade_ljs. [ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ] [ calendar | livejournal calendar ]

DiaryLand [April 16, 2008 @ 2:41pm] Hi, I've moved my blog to diaryland, as I can edit the layout to match my site. Check it out: http://moodyluna.diaryland.com/ Read (3) Comment

People are using my bases! [November 02, 2007 @ 11:07am] I've made these new bases that I named Tinka, this is how they look: And now I've seen several dolls on my base. It is a cool feeling to make a base, and then see people using it. Very Happy. Comment

Friends Only [May 25, 2006 @ 2:39pm] Please comment to be added. If you want to know more about me before you become my friend, please check out my memories. This beautiful image was created by naturalwonderz Read (22) Comment

Character Study - Correen [May 06, 2006 @ 7:35pm] She grew up homeless in the lower 48, traveling in a mobile home with a dad that apparently was a Nazi. Nazi is the term used, it isn't clear if he was following the Nazi ideology or just an awes whole in general. She has seven younger siblings. The mom has never been explained. Was she in the bus? Where is she? As a writer it is always easy to blame the mom, Jane Austin did it very seamlessly, but in the upbringing of 'carrying it straight' Colleen the mom is missing. Now the mom has a role to play, living with her seven children in Delta (a place for inbreeds) and teaching all her younger children how to follow the laminated path to the white trash kingdom. So the dad gave harm, and so this is where Colleen is. Her father harmed her and now she has to live with this stamp on her forehead for the rest of her life. Low cast, but fighting upwards. Fighting really hard. All she talks about is money, well, money and the Chamber of Commerce. I colored my hair a darker shade of brown and she commented in a way that I first didn't understand. Apparently in her world coloring your hair means you have money. Everywhere around her, every person around her has money. It's like she has an eating disorder and only sees people skinnier than her in the grocery shop. She is on the verge of breaking up with her attorney boyfriend of five years. They have constant arguments about, yes - you got it; money. He doesn't provide enough. She doesn't see that getting a job would solve the riddle. But she is fighting hard for that pass to middle class America. She has these blinds on her freaking head and all she sees is that house by the river, that new suit from banana republic, and the joy of networking with people who is like her, pretending they have money and status and in actuality are living in a freaking little town filled with gold miners. I feel sorry for her, but I can't respect her. Why the sorrow you ask? Because this whole frication about money and class doesn't mean anything. It is all made up. Good taste is just the taste of people who are in power, so good taste doesn't really exist on its own. And just like that, money has no value but for the goods they can bring us. They bring us goods so that we can survive and do what we like to do and do what we don't like to do. Live. And class in America is so foolish. It’s that social game that Colleen and her comrades have chosen to play. If it gave them any happiness that would be ok. But the result of their game is that they meet lots of boring people who laugh at stupid jokes and it doesn't have any value, and its not even fun. She doesn't realize that life is about having a good time, not about what group you are being put into by foolish people who also doesn’t know that life is about having a good time. Reality is hard, but there is possibilities of creating your own life even with the hand you have been dealt. I am me. Colleen is not herself. She is so afraid of herself that she has pushed down her spirit to the soles of her feet and they aren't walking anymore. And why don't I respect her? Because she doesn't dear to face life. She doesn't dear to face reality. I am not saying she has to face my fucked up schizophrenic reality, but at least /try/ to be happy, won't you? Read (2) Comment

Definition of the word and concept of Witchcraft [May 04, 2006 @ 10:20pm] [ mood | full ] Definition of the word and concept of Witchcraft I would like to define the concept of Witchcraft, as it is used in modern time, to you. A witch is a wise man or woman, and craft is the art of making changes in the here and now through the use of magic. The word witchcraft has very negative condensations to most people, but to neo-pagans who follow this belief system being called a witch is a symbol of honor and respect. Witchcraft is not a religion, unlike Wicca (a neo-pagan religion made by Gerald Gardner in the 1950's,) but a way of life. Witchcraft is unique in western culture by the fact that it is not dualistic. That means that there is no black or white magic, there is no polarity between good and evil, no race is more important than the next, and being an animal like a cat is just as purposeful as being a human being. Nature is revered as the awesome power and beauty that it contains. Some witches believe in Gods of ancient and new times, while some just work with spirits (like nature spirits, angels, demoins) and some are atheistic. What people who “do” witchcraft have in common is that they actively try to make beneficial changes to their own personal lives. They do this by magic of course, but also by the choices they make and by the way they view the universe/world we live in. They recognize that every living thing has a personal power, and that this power can be harbored and centered to make their lives take the direction they seek. While Witchcraft in itself is not spiritual, many witches add spiritual believes to their lives. Eclecticism is very popular, where you take what you like from different world religions and incorporate it into your personal believe system. Every witch is free to believe in what he or she may choose, as no one should have the right to tell you what you should and shouldn't believe in. Many think of witchcraft as old European Shamanism, or that witchcraft is watered down spiritual beliefs from priests and priestesses from old European religions. It is true that most witches descend from a European background. Witchcraft, especially with eclecticism, is one of the fastest growing belief systems in the western world. I choose to separate witchcraft from religion, as I think that is what gives individuals the most freedom to live their lives according to their own beliefs and needs. The goal of witchcraft is to harmonize with the ever changing, and always the same, universe. Read (6) Comment

Causes and Effects of Chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [May 04, 2006 @ 4:07pm] [ mood | hungry ] A paper on cause and effect for my English class: ________________________________________________ ( Causes and Effects of Chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ) Read (4) Comment

This is the story of a girl who was crazy [April 28, 2006 @ 12:47pm] I wrote this before I was admited to the hospital: _________________________________________________ This is the story of a girl who was crazy. She had no real life, so she had to make up one. Sitting in front of her desk, in her well organized office, she lit her cigarette and thought about life. Life had not been gentle with her, and in return she had not been gentle with life. Abusing alcohol was in her past, but resent past. She would go to bars and intrude on peoples conversations. Perhaps because she didn’t have a life she wanted to persuade other people that she was the most interesting creature in the world. She would brag, she would lie, she would charm. She would do anything to escape the quiet moment where real thinking had to take turn. But here, in front of her big desk, she started to think. And what she saw in her minds eye was not pretty. ( Read more ) Read (3) Comment

The Face of Schizophrenia [April 20, 2006 @ 11:25pm] I’m sitting in front of Dr. Kielie, and am looking for words that don’t exist. How can I explain the unexplainable of this disease? All my senses have taken over, I am the victim of them. They fool me, and I have nothing to report. My mind is fighting my mind. I am lonely in here, in this white world of silence and excess. I want to crawl under my skin, but I’m already there. Waiting for myself. Waiting for rest. Waiting for the day my schizophrenia takes over. ( Read More ) Read (6) Comment

my try at a narration [April 20, 2006 @ 4:31pm] I asked him straight out, from the middle of nowhere: “You’re bipolar, right?” His girlfriend moved anxiously in her chair, this was something we don’t talk about. But I needed that conformation of thought. I observed his sipping of his Long Island iced tea. Self-medicating. His triad of conversational topics, no consistency – no real cause; just being heard, confirming that yes; I do exist. He knows because he can hear his voice inside his head. It probably sounds very logical from in there, but out here in the real world it sounds sick. He answered by shifting his position, and said: I have been on Zyprexa, but it didn’t work for me. He mentioned that he hadn’t told the doctors or the “bad people” as he called them his real symptoms. I told him I was on Geodon, for schizophrenia. How it saved my life. He didn’t trust Geodon. He didn’t trust medication. Sweat! Don’t get help. Continue drinking your cheap beer and your expensive Long Island’s. Continue floating about in complete randomness, helplessly pushed from one moment to the next. No control. No essence. No self. Believe it or not: You have a choice. You're making it right now. Read (12) Comment

My Astrological Chart [April 11, 2006 @ 10:36pm] I got my free chart online here ( Read my Chart ) Read (7) Comment

Website Design - Classification Paragraph [April 05, 2006 @ 4:15pm] [ mood | indifferent ] To make a website that accord with the World Wide Web Consortium, you have to divide the process of making a website into three different parts, namely: structure of data, layout and style of data, and functions of data. The World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C for short, decides the standard for website design on the internet. For many years, the standard language for structure of data has been Hyper Text Markup Language, or HTML for short. Now we have other, similar, languages to use, the most popular being Extensible Hyper Text Markup Language (XHTML) and Extensible Markup Language (XML.) For year’s designers where forced to use HTML as a means for style and layout of data; this has now changed with the introduction of Cascading Style Sheet (CSS.) CSS is a language especially made for how you want your web content to look, and where it should be placed on the page. Instead of having to rely on tables and repeated style information, designers can now make one CSS file with all the style and placement information. Using CSS gives designers more creative freedom, and it makes the page more accessible to people with disabilities. You use functions to make your data do something, perhaps interact with the browser or interact with the server that hosts the web page. To do this you use scripting. There are two different classifications of scripting languages; client side scripting and server side scripting. Client side scripting interacts only with your browser. Client side scripting doesn’t need to interact with the server, so it’s a bit faster to load, but by not interacting with the server there are less things you can do with it. It is often used to make your site a bit more dynamic, and can create fancy navigation systems and scrolling images etc. The most popular client side scripting language is JavaScript. Server side scripting is where the big boys come to play. Here you have fully functional programming languages like PHP, ASP.net and Pearl. You can use server side scripts to make your site truly interactive. Server side scripts are used in shopping carts, forms that send you or your client information, and to interact with a database. Many design teams divide the work and let one person do the structure and style of data, while the other person takes care of the functions of data. Comment

Trip to Turkey in 1995 [March 30, 2006 @ 2:37pm] The reason my mother and I went to Turkey was that my grandmother (who I grew up with) died after a long period of illness. We where exhausted, and so my grandfather bought the ticket for us. While visiting Turkey my mother developed extreme allergies. It is often like that when you relax after a long period of stress. She was very sick and had bleeding wounds. I remember not liking the smell of the place, just to later realize it wasn't the city that smelled but my mother. She smelled of rotting flesh. Read (3) Comment

It Was Like This: You Where Happy [March 27, 2006 @ 7:10pm] This is a poem my English professor gave me, after I wrote about eating disorders. I really like this poem: IT WAS LIKE THIS: YOU WHERE HAPPY It was like this: you where happy, then you were sad, then happy again, then not. It went on. You were innocent or you were guilty. Actions were taken, or not. At times you spoke, at other times you were silent. Mostly, it seems you were silent--what could you say? Now it is almost over. Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life. It does this not in forgiveness-- between you, there is nothing to forgive-- but with the simple not of a baker at the moment he sees the bread is finished with transformation. Eating, too, is now a thing only for others. It doesn't matter what they will make of you or your days: they will be wrong, they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man, all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention. Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad, you slept, you awakened. Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons. -- Jane Hirshfield Comment

Journal Question about conflicts with inanimate objects [March 23, 2006 @ 8:47pm] I realize that I have no control over inanimate objects, and therefore I am less frustrated with them. I take what I like to call the Zen approach and don’t expect things to work out smoothly for me. I expect it to be a constant cycle of problems and solutions. Then I evaluate how much problems I can expect from the “thing”. If it offers too many problems, or it becomes too dependent on me, I get rid of it. Like TV, I had to stop watching TV because I started thinking I was the person in the show. So I stopped watching television; I solved that problem. I don’t want a car because I remember growing up how much trouble they caused. So I guess you could say I do a constant calculation on how things will influence me. Thereby I am in control over the things, in stead of them over me. Read (1) Comment

Example Paragraph - My brave Mr. Giggles [March 23, 2006 @ 8:47pm] Mr. Giggles is a very brave Main Coon I adopted from the animal shelter last fall. He had been in foster care, because of abuse by humans, but I didn’t know that when I met him for the first time. He showed his bravery that very day at the animal shelter. The veterinarian, or perhaps it was an animal nurse, gave him a shot against rabies, and he didn’t flinch. Not a movement, not a cry. I thought to myself: now this is a brave cat. He seemed very happy to be out of the pens they put their cats in, and while we where waiting for me to take him home he used his newly required freedom to investigate the place and the other cats. After all the paperwork was done, I could finally take him home with me. I didn’t have a carrier box for him, so I just held him in my lap during the car ride. Usually cats are afraid of the car, but not Mr. Giggles; he was happy to lie quietly in my lap and get petted. Poor thing, he was probably starved for attention. At home I already had two other cats, and I was anxious on how the introduction would go, but I didn’t need to worry about Mr. Giggles. I placed him on the second floor of our cabin, where he had all his essentials, and let him get used to the place, and let the other cats see and smell him from a distance. He took to the place instantly, realizing that this is his new environment and he’d better get used to it. He took to the other cats as well, learned their rules and chose to play with the rules instead of against them. One could call it life skills. Essential, but not everyone has them. To illustrate his bravery even more, we had an aggressive tom cat bothering the neighborhood. This tom cat, named Dog, didn’t have an owner and would spend his days hunting and guarding a territory that was quite big and included our yard. Dog had previously scratched our cats, and I was anxious to get Dog out of our place. Mr. Giggles fixed that problem. He had a silent confrontation with Dog, and suddenly Dog was not around anymore. Bravery doesn’t imply never being afraid, as cats need to be nervous to survive, but be nervous and still manage to deal with the world in a sensible way. Comment

Eating Disorders [March 07, 2006 @ 8:48pm] We had to write a division essay, though this is more like an article. ________________________ You might get a glimpse of the sufferer in the grocery store, late at night or early in the morning. Walking skeletons tip toeing the health food section, or the very overweight cruising the baking section – looking for that next high. The victims of eating disorders are addicted to food like others are to drugs or alcohol. One can say that addiction is a coping mechanism, in this case with the control and or consumption of food. The fixation on food hides emotional and thought disturbances. Like other addicts, the person with an eating disorder often shows little insight into the disease. If you confront them they might react with anger and deny that anything is wrong 1. They tend to be moody and irritable, and distance themselves from family and close friendships. Unlike other addictions, eating disorders are closely associated with western culture. Ninety percent of the sufferers are women, and they typically come from the Caucasian upper-middle class 2. Eating disorders are a new type of illness, but it is with the same focus group as the sufferers of Freud’s hysteria. While the hysteric women displayed their disease in a very public way, women are now starving themselves to death, or slowly killing themselves with the help of food, in the privacy of their own home. The disease is silent, it is quiet and it is fetal. We have little to offer the person who has taken mastery of life to mean mastery over the physical self and food consumption. Anorexia and bulimia is what comes to mind when thinking of the word eating disorders, and these two are listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - Fourth Edition, while the over eater is not recognized to have a psychological disorder in that manual, and therefore not recognized by the mental health care system. I must say I much prefer the categories of the Norwegian psychologist Finn Skårderud, namely “the Denier”, “the Overeater” and “the Cleanser” 3. These names are easily understood, something that is very important for these silent disorders, and they really go to the heart of the manifestation of eating disorders. The first category is the denier, and as the name says they deny food intake, or limit it to specific foods only. It’s common to have allowed and forbidden food items. Foods containing high fiber could be allowed while bananas, eggs, and milk products are not allowed because of its high fat and nutrient content. The denier comes in shapes from the perfectly normal to the human skeleton variation. By controlling what goes in their mouths and bellies, they control some, small, part of their world and it makes them feel successful and strong in at least that field. The denier has taken charge over the body, creating that mind-body split, and it is mostly about control. The second category is the overeater, who in the USA are seen as just pure lazy or with a tendency to overindulgence, and not seen as having an eating disorder. I see the overeater as someone who’s lost complete control over their food intake. Some make rituals of food, with the intention of over eating, while others might eat on impulse. What is common with both types of behavior is that there is a tremendous amount of shame after the meal is consumed. The food is still, like with the other eating disorders, masking deep emotional and thought disturbances. Rape victims, as a way to process the trauma and to protect themselves from further attack, might make the unconscious choice to gain a lot of weight. One could say that the massive amount of fat creates a boundary between the sufferer and the rest of the world. The third category acknowledged by Finn Skårderud is the cleanser. The cleanser has gotten a lot of attention in the media, as it is more easily understood. The cleanser wants to feel clean, inside. Cleansing can be accomplished a number of ways. Removing the food soon after a meal by purging is very popular, and is what most people think of when concerning the cleanser. If this technique is taken, the dentist will often first know something is wrong, as the teeth get damaged by the enzymes in the stomach fluid. Another frequently used method of cleansing is by laxatives, where the goal is to hurry the digestion process. Fasting and over exercising are also techniques of the cleanser. This obsessive need for cleanliness would imply that they feel dirty. The sufferer might have the mentality that food is a bad thing, it pollutes the body and makes them feel heavy. Perhaps they feel dirty because of sexual abuse? When dealing with the sufferers of eating disorders it is important to understand that their relationship with food is not the root cause of the problem. The sufferer might one day prefer to show their symptoms with over indulgence in food (over eater), then hysterically exercise the next (cleanser), and so deny themselves food the day after (denier). The problem with food is the way the root problem or problems display themselves, as have been mentioned before; eating disorders are coping mechanisms. To illustrate this point, let’s take my schizophrenic husband as an example, who was displaying traits from both the denier and cleanser camp. He of course refused to admit he had a problematic relationship to food. His root problem was his schizophrenia, and as soon as he got medication for schizophrenia, he not only realized that his behavior concerning food was sick, but the medication also took away his need to use food as a way to control his life. This is the important point about eating disorders. They are culture based and revolve around food, but are really about deep set emotional problems. It is important that we know this, so that we can help the sufferers and prevent people from getting this deadly disease. Sources: 1. Sommerset & Wessex Eating Disorder Association. Carers and supporters. http://swedauk.org/carers.htm Date: 02.22.06 2. Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_disorders Date: 02.22.06 3. Finn Skårderud. Hva er spiseforstyrrelser? (What are eating disorders?) http://www.lommelegen.no/art/art2206.asp Date: 02.22.06 Comment

How I met my husband [March 02, 2006 @ 8:49pm] This was a narration paragraph for my Exposition class: I met my husband in a bar in the old town of Tallinn, Estonia. It never was the recommended way to meet husbands, but this meeting by chance turned out to be my destiny. I was traveling alone, from city to city, going about by buss or rail and with my few belongings attached to my back, the backpacker’s life. There was no intention of meeting boyfriends, let alone husbands, even though I had already gotten an offer from a very nice Finnish musician. But as I was sitting in this particular bar, enjoying a beer from the local tap and a cigarette in hand, I couldn’t help noticing the handsome young man that would later become my life partner. He had a way about him that I would soon learn was typical for the Alaskan born men. Confident yet shy – what an intriguing combination I found it to be, and I still do. I actually had to wave him over to my table, but it was worth the work, as he turned out to be a particular good conversationalist. I made him nervous, that I could tell by his involuntarily blinking, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care for anything in this world but to be with him, talk to him, laugh with him. There was an unspoken, but complete trust. I knew that with him there was something special, something I would have to hold on too, and something precious that had happened to me. He became my best friend, my lover and my trusted partner. I couldn’t have asked for more, or less, from a husband. Read (1) Comment

Transformed From a Human Body to an Object [February 22, 2006 @ 8:49pm] A descriptive paragraph: ________________________ My hallucinations mostly revolve around body sensations, but in this example I actually transform from a human body to an object, namely an envelope. I am lying in bed, when an overwhelming feeling of flatness makes itself appear. I am an envelope. My physical self has been killed by office equipment. Everything is quiet. If you ask me of the taste of glue or the smell of paper, I can tell you that envelopes have no mouth, no nose. There is a brain there somewhere, it is registering two new envelope legs, moving back and forward, back and forward. I start fearing the flap of the envelop that is me. It is so sharp – where the glue is. Paper cut on my brain. I am an envelope, white on a white background. Read (2) Comment

The Western Concept of God from Aquinas to Nietzsche [February 14, 2006 @ 8:50pm] Had to write a Definition Essay: ________________________________ The Western concept of God has many facets, and we have many ways of viewing the same, Christian, God. Kant believed in God for rational reasons, while Kierkegaard believed despite the fact that he found the whole thing irrational. Most of us believe God takes human form, while some think of God and the Universe as the same. Proving the existence of God is difficult, but even more so to prove his nature. Then you have the question of evil and the longing for Gods love in our every day life. Some people, like Marx, Freud and Nietzsche don’t believe in God, and I happen to agree with many of their points. So the first question that comes to mind is, what are the qualities of this God? How would we explain him to our children? A poll in People magazine reported that 55% thought God looked human, in other words that he was anthropomorphic. This seems like a childish view to me. One would then have to ask questions like; does he have a penis? Can it ever be hard? Is God Jewish or Asian? How would this God smell? Like a spring morning or like a newborn child? On a more serious note, the Christian God has some specific qualities; He is all powerful, all knowing and all loving. Remember them, because we will have to challenge them in a little while. I have tried to believe in the western concept of God for the better part of my life. As a child I learned to read so I could read the big black bible that was in my grandparent’s bookshelf. I studied and studied, and came to the conclusion that I was receiving the wrong kind of Christianity. So I started reading Catholicism for a couple of years. I’ve had a hard life, with little love, and this love from divine forces was something that appealed to me, but I never felt it. God had left me all alone in life, and I felt like something was wrong with me. As I grew up I realized it wasn’t just me who suffered and cried for God. The problem of the Western concept of God is of course the problem of evil. Why is there so much suffering in the world? If God is all knowing, all loving and all powerful how could he let the Holocaust happen? And there isn’t just the problem of human evil, but of non-human evil like the recent earthquake in Pakistan and the tsunami of 2004. Those weren’t caused by human sin, but by the earth itself. How could a perfect creature create such an imperfect world? So I started looking at the arguments for God. What I learned was that it is one thing to prove God’s existence, another to understand his nature. Let’s look at his existence first, shall we? Saint Thomas Aquinas believed strongly in both the cosmological argument and the argument by design. The cosmological argument basically argues that everything in the universe has a cause before an effect. Therefore something had to be the first cause, namely God. I can’t help asking, what was the cause that created God? The argument by design is very popular. If you’ve ever studied biology you know how nicely everything fits together in this place called earth. Everything is just so perfect that some people can’t believe that this all happened by accident. So there must be a creator, a designer, behind the universe. David Hume gave a reply that I will narrow down for you: if a designer had designed the universe, he did a mighty poor job of it, a work of some infant God floating about somewhere. Hume is here talking about the problem of evil. He said that no theology was better than a theology built on superstitions and limited knowledge. Then you have the ontological argument by Saint Anselm. It is a bit more complicated, a so called a priori argument; that means something that is true in itself. His argument goes as follows: 1. We cannot conceive of God except as an infinite and most perfect being 2. A being who had all perfections except for the perfection of existence, would not be “most perfect” 3. Therefore, the most perfect being necessarily exists. My philosophy professor swears that this logical argument is valid and sound; I somehow can’t grasp it… but then again, I can’t conceive of God in the first place. Perhaps this is one of those where you have to believe to see the truth of it. After debating the existence of God one might start to question his nature. Is God transcendent (separate from the world he created,) or immanent (part of the world he created)? Baruch Spinoza is a philosopher I like a lot, and he thought God was totally immanent. Another word for his belief is pantheism, that God is everything in the universe. There are philosophers who believed in God for rational reasons, and some for irrational reasons. Kant was a rationalist, and believed in God simply because there exists something like justice and love in the world. Kierkegaard had no reason for believing, but still had faith in God. For me, the rational thing to do is to reject God. And here I have a few fellows to agree with, namely Marx, Freud and Nietzsche. Karl Marx says that man made religion and that man must suffer for it. He famously wrote, ‘Religion is opium for the people.’ Freud found the whole thing wish fulfillment and God a fake father figure, while Nietzsche killed God for us all. What is the logic behind Nietzsche’s statement? He believed that instead of God creating people, people created God, and so could kill him any time they wanted to. You have heard my arguments, and seen the different opinions on the western concept of God. Now your question might be, what harm is there in believing? Well, do you believe in God because you love this creature, or because you are afraid of going to hell? Does God make your life full of joy or does he limit your freedom? To me, life on earth never was as beautiful as when I realized it wasn’t created by some higher being, but came about by chance. Life is a chance to enjoy yourself. Do it! Read (1) Comment

Norway & Social Democracy [February 03, 2006 @ 8:51pm] For my Exposition class. We had to write a paragraph: ___________ Norway, a country in Northern Europe, is a social democracy. The main idea behind social democracy is that everyone has equal rights. This way of thinking started while using foods stamps after World War Two. Most would say social democracy works for the Norwegian population, as the United Nations in 2005 pronounced Norway the best nation to live in. This type of policy has many visual benefits, like free healthcare, a secure retirement, and [public schools and universities. However, being such a homogenous culture and the strong belief in equality and equal ness leaves little breathing room for different personal choices. There is no room for the gifted pupil in the public school. Small business ventures must compete with state owned companies, and even being different than your neighbor is seen as an attack on the institutions of social democracy. The question becomes; is social democracy really worth it? Read (1) Comment

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