The Swedish Chef

In my household, the men cook. This is how it has been in my paternal family for generations. Not only is a household duty for the men in our family, but it has become a hobby and a passion for some of us.
Throughout my life, i have known my father's greatest creative outlet to be cooking. Although he is an artist, he makes money off of commissions and has little time for free composition. Cooking is an art that doesn't require too much time and has allowed my father to experiment with new ideas or concepts. He will always try new recipes and play around with new ways of cooking old ones. 
The only other chefs alive in my paternal family are my father, my grandfather Sune and my uncle Jens (yes he is also named Jens). My grandfather and uncle are both also artists. My Grandfather worked with artistic carpentry all his life and my uncle is a painting and photography professor. When not in a kitchen, these men might be found quarrelling and tearing open old wounds from childhood in vicious arguements. When preparing a dish together, however, all ill will is forgotten. Cooking is therapeutic for the men of the Salander family. The three of them work cooperatively and move around the kitchen like a team of professional dancers who seem incredibly focused on the task at hand despite the jokes, old stories and general warm-heartedness that accompany these sessions.
My grandfather displays his patriarchy at the stove as he lectures my father and uncle on their cookery like a teacher to a pair of schoolboys. The two middle aged men listen to their father, taking mental notes, then right their mistakes and continue their work. This knowledge allows him to restore his fatherly role and provide wisdom to men who are already well into life. The two brothers listen to him without protest and follow his instructions carefully. Past the threshold of this room, Sune loses his aura of authority and we are once again reminded of his feebleness and growing age. In the kitchen he is king and unlike his eyesight and sense of balance, his prestige as a chef can never fade.
Sune is 92 and is currently in the hospital in Gavle , Sweden as we speak and is fading fast. His health has been deteriorating at an increased rate in the last month or two. My father believes he will pass away before our annual visit in August. Even if this is not so, I don't think he will be able to fill the  role he had because his vertigo, frailty and loss of eyesight will live him practically bedridden. My grandfather's connection to his sons through food and the art of cooking are the adhesives that hold my paternal family together. I don't know what the absence of this will mean for my father or his relationship with his brother.

Offshoring and Outsourcing Blog #3

           The United States and much of the Western world have been off-shoring business for decades now. This practice has seen the growth and flourishing of many industries happen, but it has also allowed some nations to find "surrogate countries" for their more devious practices. One such practice is the torture of individuals for the purpose of extracting information. On October 31st 2005, President George Bush announced "we do not torture (in the USA)" in response to rising critique of CIA's interrogation methods. Yes, we do not torture in the USA. We, like many other western nations today, have developed a keen system of off-shoring torture to one of our allied nations (probably in the third world) and hire their officers to do our dirty work.
           In Macedonia, Khaled El-Masri is bringing up charges against the Macedonian government for torture. Masri was tortured for months and then was dumped on the side of a road in Albania. El-Masri was originally in CIA custody but was later turned over to the Macedonian government and was "held incommunicado and interrogated in a hotel for several weeks at the behest of the United States, and then handed over to CIA personnel at Skopje airport." (Al Jazeera 1) This way, the United States could use the barbaric methods it sought to use without suffering the repercussions.
          Masri was under suspicion of using websites to try to recruit for a terrorist organisation in the USA. In October 2012 the United States Embassy in London (where Masri was being tried) announced it wanted Masri extradited to the USA ‘‘as quickly as possible’’ (Haaretz 1)

  Associated Press. "Radical Preacher Abu Hamza Al-Masri to Be Extradited to U.S., British Court Rules." Haaretz.com. Haaretz Newspaper, 5 Oct. 2012. Web. 08 Mar. 2013. <http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/radical-preacher-abu-hamza-al-masri-to-be-extradited-to-u-s-british-court-rules-1.468471>.

 Li, Darryl. "Khaled El-Masri and Empire's Oblivion." - Opinion. Al Jazeera Newspaper, 17 Dec. 2012. Web. 08 Mar. 2013. <http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/20121217143214129234.html>.

          

Offshoring to the Middle East

As of September 2012, Israel has held negotiations with the Palestinian Authority over outsourcing gas fields off the coast of the Gaza strip. The Israelis view it as mutually beneficial because they would be developing Palestine's marine oil reserves and create more available jobs for Palestinians. The agreement entails that Palestine would also have the liberty to tax any foreign companies seeking to pump there. Peace envoy Tony Blair states: "the PA would alone levy tariffs on any eventual revenues from private pumping in Gazan waters, though breakaway Hamas Islamists govern the coastal enclave."(Aljazeera 1.) implying that Hamas' governing of the coast would prove to be problematic due to their well known conflict with the Israeli government. 

This represents both an economic and political shift as Egypt was previously responsible for 40% of Israel's oil production prior to the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and also represents a stride towards peace between Israel and Palestine. This way, outsourcing is providing not only an economic but also political function. Israel's high tech companies have also begun to outsource to Palestine, specifically the West Bank. "Israeli CEOs say it's their way of bringing a little bit of peace to their troubled corner of the world. But the real reason they're hiring Palestinians, they acknowledge, is because it simply makes good business sense" (Haaretz 1.) It seems better to concentrate on the more beneficial reason. The Israeli government has, in the past, outsourced its IT industry to eastern europe, and article from Israeli newspaper Haaretz claims "In the past three years, however, some have turned to Palestinian engineers and programmers. They are cheaper, ambitious, work in the same time zone, and — surprisingly to many Israelis — are remarkably similar to them." Again, this is important not only for the economic development of Palestine but also for the cause for eventual peace in the region. 

Here, outsourcing succeeds triumphantly not only because it helps to develop the economy of one nation and expand the economy of another, but also because it improves the relations between the two nations.   

                                                 Work Cited

Al Jazeera News. "Israel and PA Discuss Gaza Offshore Gas Plans - Middle East - Al Jazeera English." Israel and PA Discuss Gaza Offshore Gas Plans - Middle East - Al Jazeera English. Al Jazeera Newspaper, 23 Sept. 2012. Web. 05 Mar. 2013. <http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/09/201292316466184221.html>.

Al Jazeera News. "Israel and PA Discuss Gaza Offshore Gas Plans - Middle East - Al Jazeera English." Israel and PA Discuss Gaza Offshore Gas Plans - Middle East - Al Jazeera English. Al Jazeera Newspaper, 23 Sept. 2012. Web. 05 Mar. 2013. <http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/09/201292316466184221.html>.