All This Because Some Rich Dude Felt Guilty About Inventing Dynamite

Huffington Post and the Associated Press dropped some stunning stats the other day, regarding President Obama's trip to Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

But first, a bit of interesting info you probably do not know about Alfred Nobel, courtesy of wikipedia:

The erroneous publication in 1888 of a premature obituary of Nobel by a French newspaper, condemning him for his invention of dynamite, is said to have brought about his decision to leave a better legacy after his death. The obituary stated Le marchand de la mort est mort ("The merchant of death is dead") and went on to say, "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday." On 27 November 1895, at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Nobel signed his last will and testament and set aside the bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prizes, to be awarded annually without distinction of nationality. He died of a stroke on 10 December 1896 at Sanremo, Italy. After taxes and bequests to individuals, Nobel's will gave 31,225,000 Swedish kronor (equivalent to about 1.8 billion kronor or 250 million US dollars in 2008) to fund the prizes.

Huh. Fascinatin'. And now, the larch*:

Despite his being there for only 24 hours, Norway is spending $16 million for security during Obama's visit. The chief of staff of Oslo's police force, John Fredriksen told the AP that the event was "the biggest - and most demanding - security operation in Norway's history."

From the AP:
With all the attention Obama's visit has generated, about 2,500 police officers from all over the Nordic country have deployed to Oslo. The Norwegian military has also contributed support in the form of helicopters and sharpshooters.

Last week, city maintenance crews welded shut over 400 manholes in downtown Oslo, and police said they will remove all downtown trash cans on Wednesday afternoon to eliminate potential hiding places for bombs.[...]

Police and city work crews spent much of this week erecting barricades around Oslo's compact downtown to help control the crowds expected to surge into the capital when Obama arrives.

On Wednesday morning, Norwegian police armed with machine guns guarded the Grand Hotel as hotel workers installed bulletproof glass to protect the president during Thursday evening's procession.

Reminds me of my last state visit in 2003, although I believe I stayed at the Continental. They welded 400 manhole covers shut? I hope the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles weren't down there--or if they were, let's hope they at least had a stockpile of anchovy pizzas to wait out the surprise imprisonment...


*a Monty Python joke I hope at least three of you understood...
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The Best Movie of 2008

And the best vampire movie ever made*:

Let the Right One In


It's Swedish. It has subtitles. It is already being remade in American, for people who can't read so good, probably with Catherine Hardwicke directing a script rewritten by Kevin Williamson, starring Haley Joel Osment and Abigail Breslin.

The original movie is fantastic. It is what every one of the countless vampire movies/series made recently wishes it could be--good. It is what every horror movie made lately wishes it could be--scary without trying too hard.

Instead of quick cuts, depriving the audience of information, surprising them, jolting them out of their seats, Let the Right One In chooses a creepier path--long, lingering, right-there-out-in-front-of-you shots. The violence speaks for itself, its import is allowed to creep into your brain, the characters get developed, humanized.

Instead of your typical bloodthirsty, vengeful villain, Eli is a vampire who hates what she is, what it makes her do; she feels remorse and shame after each thirst is quenched. She wants desperately to be good, to be normal, but knows it is impossible and that her fate is sealed. A girl's gotta eat!**

My favorite aspect of the movie--spoilers ahead--is that although the little vixen ultimately makes the boy her next mortal slave, and a no-doubt-centuries-long tradition continues, it appears as though the future will be brighter for Eli, that she has grown a sense of purpose, maybe even a social conscience.

She will no longer be alone; she will have a friend. No longer will she hunt the innocent, no longer will she force somebody else to kill for her: she will simply unleash this vulnerable boy--as one might send a blind chicken into a den of hungry foxes--into a world full of bullies and feast on his cruel tormentors.

Which is kind of a beautiful thing, when you think about it. The two ultimately form a symbiotic partnership, each benefiting from the other. Hell--they could travel the world as a team, roaming from here to there at will, attracting the local riff-raff and destroying them. And would that be so bad?

Probably good for the gene pool, right?



* The second-best vampire movie ever made.

** A friend recently told me that a friend told her--did I lose you yet?--that things are a bit different in the book, that Eli is a boy who chopped off his dick because he didn't want sexuality getting in the way of his vampirism. Which gives a different meaning to her "I am not a girl" utterance than I initially gathered and sort-of explains the odd full-frontal-genital shot we get of Eli in the movie, but actually just confuses things a whole helluva lot...

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