"In cold weather, I feel more alive..."

"This is, without a doubt, my soul season, especially the time leading up to the long darkness of the polar night, because, with the darkness looming, you just naturally soak up the moments even more. Every day feels special, especially in the golden hour, the burning rays of the setting sun."

What's the difference between hiking and walking?

I'm trying to read "Hiking Has All the Benefits of Walking and More. Here’s How to Get Started. Exploring the great outdoors offers a host of mental and physical benefits. But there are a few things you need to know first" (NYT).

Hiking offers all the cardiovascular benefits of walking, but the uneven terrain does more to strengthen the leg and core muscles, which in turn boosts balance and stability, said Alicia Filley, a physical therapist outside Houston who helps train clients for outdoor excursions. It also generally burns more calories than walking.

I'm guessing there's no clear line between a walk and a hike, and it's more of a state of mind. Or does it all come down to whether you wear a backpack?

Every hiker should bring the 10 essentials, which include food and drink, first aid supplies, a map and compass and rain gear — all inside a supportive backpack with thick shoulder straps and a waist belt.

I thought I went hiking just about every day, but if it's all about the backpack, I never go hiking.

I liked this comment over there from Kjartan in Oslo:

"Norway, with a population of just five million, is executing its quadrennial triumph over the rest of the world...."

"For Norway, everything changed after the 1988 Calgary Games, where it won just five medals, none of them gold. That was an unacceptable outcome.... Norway, which had quickly transformed from a middling economy built around fishing and farming into a petroleum-rich nation, started plowing money into Olympiatoppen, the organization that oversees elite Olympic sports. It also doubled down on its commitments under its Children’s Right in Sports document, which guarantees and encourages every child in the country access to high-quality opportunities in athletics, with a focus on participation and socialization rather than hard-core competition. Norway’s well-funded local sports clubs, which exist in nearly every neighborhood and village, do not hold championships until the children reach age 13.... 'There just seems to be a lot more emphasis on including everybody,' said Atle McGrath, a 21-year-old Norwegian Alpine skier whose father, Felix, competed in Alpine for the United States at the 1988 Olympics... Jim Stray-Gundersen, a former surgeon and physiologist who is the sports science adviser to the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, lived in Norway, where his father grew up, for five years while working as a scientist with Norway’s Olympic athletes. He said a priority of the country is to build a culture of health and regular exercise, and its competitive prowess flows from that. 'It’s how you produce psychological satisfaction, healthy life habits, and stellar athletes over time, and it’s very much in contrast to how we do it and don’t do it in the U.S.,' he said."

From "It’s Norway’s Games Again. What’s Its Secret?/Norway won its record 15th gold medal on Friday, the kind of success that has drawn experts from other countries trying figure out how the tiny nation keeps doing it" (NYT).

Here's the final medal count. Norway finished with 16 gold medals, twice that of the U.S.A. Germany won the second most gold medals — 12 — but Germany has a population of 83 million. 

Notice that what produced a lot of medals also seems to be great for everyone's health and well-being.

In Norway, a man who murdered 77 people — who was sentenced to only 21 years — is seeking release after 10 years in prison.

You may remember Anders Behring Breivik, who hunted down children at a Labor Party summer camp. The sentence was 21 years because that was the maximum permitted, though the judge was able to add a provision for "preventive detention," based on his future danger to society. But, technically, he's eligible for parole, and he's taking advantage of this access back into the public eye.

WaPo reports that it is "unlikely that he will ever be released." His presentation to the court reflects an awareness of that: His lawyer says he's "not expected to show remorse," and he's having a "neo-Nazi leader" testifying for him. And if he sticks to his past courtroom behavior — as seen in his litigation over his prison conditions ("isolation in a three-room cell — equipped with video games, a DVD player, a typewriter, books, newspapers and exercise equipment") — he'll give a Nazi salute.

"South Carolinians Mock Redesigned Palmetto Tree on Proposed State Flag."

 The NYT reports.

Scott Malyerck, a political consultant who helped create the design as a member of the South Carolina State Flag Study Committee... "It’s hard to come up with a quintessential palmetto tree that everyone will be in favor of.”... 

Ronnie W. Cromer, a state senator who helped create the flag study committee, said... "It would be nice to have a little nicer-looking tree.”... 

[T]he state has not had one official design for the flag since 1940, when the flag code was repealed.... “The idea is just to make it historically accurate and uniform,” Mr. Malyerck said. “Flag manufacturers should not decide what it should look like.” 

Here's the proposed flag, which relied on a 1910 pencil drawing:

And here's the pencil drawing, which was done by a woman:

The new flag designers seem to have gotten caught up in the idea of honoring the woman, and they went quite literal. A flag image needs a stark, shapely outline. A pencil drawing — like this one — can be sketchy, impressionistic, indicating light and shade. That's not going to work for a flag.

To make a good palmetto tree flag, look for some actual flags that use an image of a tree and select the most successful ones, for example this flag of a county in Norway (Vest-Agder) that depicts an oak tree:

"'The virus is a wake-up call,' one of my doctor friends says, standing in a white bikini on a dock by the Oslo fjord."

"It is an early spring morning and we have just been for a dip in the sea, which is 4º C (about 40º F). Now we let wind and a bleak sun dry us off. 'We have messed up nature,' she goes on. 'We have exploited it in places we shouldn’t have been.' The ice-bathing club meets more often. We need the rush, the extracted inner heat that will keep us warm for the rest of the day. We strictly observe the recommendations of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health: no more than five in a group. Only meet outdoors. Stay one meter apart. 'We are all going to get it one way or another,' says Joanna, a cancer surgeon.... 'It is only a question of time. The strategy of the government is clear: Norway wants to curb the spread so that not too many get ill at the same time.'... A friend on my street is afraid of everything. Trampolines. Carbs. Falling stocks. Bank collapse. Losing control. But nothing scares him more than the Swedish model. Sweden is the only country in Europe to have imposed no rules of restriction. The schools are open, bars serve whatever you like, even fitness centers are functioning. With a population twice as big as Norway’s, the country’s death toll by end of April was more than ten times higher. Sweden has knowingly let a large part of the population get infected in order to achieve herd immunity before a vaccine is ready. 'What do you prefer? A country run by a government that listens to medical advice and takes the responsibility?' my anxious neighbor asks. 'Or the Swedish system of experts battling one another on thin ice?... What is solidarity?... It is for us who are privileged to observe the rules. What’s so bad about lounging on the sofa for a few weeks, anyway? Can’t we just be a bit careful? When did that ever hurt?'"

From "A Virus in the Neighborhood" by Åsne Seierstad (New York Review of Books).

Signs that no one gives a damn about the Olympics anymore.

From the front page of New York Magazine:

Elsewhere on that front page is:

NBC Declared Wrong Olympic Winner in Women’s Super-G
And gold medalist Ester Ledecka pulled off a massive upset.

If NBC can't even bother to get it right...

I myself am watching quite a bit of the Olympics. I use the DVR to skip over most of it, but I like zeroing in on the best skaters and snowboarders. I wish NBC would do what I seem to remember the Olympics broadcasters doing decades ago: Focus on the individuals, not the countries, and stress that this is a place where what matters is the individual and the only question is who is the best in the world. Ironically, that's the best propaganda for America, not this continual enthusiasm for whoever comes from America.

I approve of this satire:

Norway needs to be stopped https://t.co/H0LTopFNJE

— Dan Wetzel (@DanWetzel) February 18, 2018

This is sweet:

Ester Ledecka on why she’s still wearing her goggles, hours after winning Super-G: “I was not as prepared as the other girls. I don’t have makeup on.” #pyeongchang2018 #olympics pic.twitter.com/qrsMPYohPi

— Evan Doherty (@YSportsEvan) February 17, 2018

Norway will not give Finland a mountain for its birthday.

It's Finland's 100th birthday next year, and there has been a social media campaign to get Norway to give Finland the summit of Halti mountain, which is already partly in Finland, with the summit just 66 feet inside of Norway. It would hardly change the border at all to redraw the map to put the summit on the Finnish side.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the Norwegian constitution bars giving up any territory and the Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg said no to the cute birthday idea.

I made a screen grab from Google maps:

"Should Western relationship norms be taught to migrants?"

"The BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme attended a controversial class in Norway that aims to teach asylum seekers how to interact with women...."

Preben Svendsen, who runs the refugee centre, does not think the classes stigmatised the men, as statistics show most rapes in Norway are not committed by migrants. "What we do is give them the most information possible about society they just arrived to, so they can be as successful as possible," he says. "It's not just about the training itself, it's about creating a good relationship with the people who live with us, so they can build trust, and if they have any challenges in the future they will hopefully have the confidence to come and ask us for advice if they need to."

The men say they do not feel patronised by the classes. "It's known in society that sexual violence is wrong. Any rational person knows that," one says. "The difference is that you guys talk about it, and we don't. So it's a good thing."...

"Norway man sawed neighbour's house in half."

"I reduced it to a legal size, so the law is on my side. That's my reason."

I'm reading the news from Norway after getting sucked in by some damn thing about Obama's Nobel Prize being regretted by one of the individuals involved in bestowing it, a person who now has a book to flog.

There's better news from Norway. In addition to the Norway man who sawed his neighbor's house in half, there's the new school for Vikings, "where students will learn essential Viking crafts, such as sword forging, jewellery making, and roof thatching."

There's the voting official in trouble for saying "Are you really taking the 'homo ballot'?" to "an old lady who asked for a voting slip for Åpen folkekirke (Open people's church), at a polling station in Oslo."

There's the heavy rain about which a government meteorologist said "This just does not happen in Norway, we have a hard time believing that it’s true... These are figures ​​that you only normally see in the jungle." Someone else says: "The animals were really afraid, the cows don’t understand what was happening."

There's the artist whose hanging-naked-in-a-tree installation went wrong and left her hanging naked in a tree for 3 hours. "The video ends when the camera shuts off, but I was there calling for help for another 30 minutes."

"Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik won a place on Friday to study at Oslo University from solitary confinement in prison, despite outrage at his massacre of 77 people four years ago."

"'He meets the admission requirements. We stick to our rules and he will be admitted,' Oslo University rector Ole Petter Ottersen told Reuters, saying prisoners are eligible to study as long as their academic grades are good enough.... 'I realise there are many feelings involved here. He tried to demolish the system. We have to stay faithful to it.'... The course includes study of democracy, human rights and respect for minorities.... 'His study will be carried out exclusively in his own cell.'"

"If it were theoretically possible to develop rheumatism, I am convinced that this rubber pen would be capable of causing it."

"It is a nightmare of an instrument and I am frustrated by its use... The fact that I must, therefore, envision a future with nothing more than a dysfunctional rubber pen, appears, therefore, as an almost indescribable manifestation of sadism."

Wrote Anders Behring Breivik, complaining about conditions in the Norwegian prison where he is serving a 21-year term for murdering 77 human beings. He sees himself as an author, so the problems with the pen, from his perspective, are momentous. Also, from his perspective, on the day of the murders —  on July 22, 2011 — he was very concerned about a 5mm-long cut on his finger:

“Look, I’m hurt,” he said... “I can’t afford to lose too much blood”...

While the plasters were being applied, Breivik wondered why he was bleeding. He remembered hitting his finger when he shot a victim in the head at close range. Something had flown into his finger and then popped out again. It must have been a bit of skull, he told the officers in the room.

The argument — in Norway — that LSD is a human right.

"EmmaSofia... whose name derives from street slang for MDMA and the Greek word for wisdom, stands in the vanguard of a global movement...."

Eager to sidestep the strictures of Norway’s intrusive “nanny state,” [Pal-Orjan] Johansen and his supporters tap into a more freewheeling side of this button-down Nordic nation and point to a long tradition of nature-worshiping shamans, particularly among Norway’s indigenous Sami people.

Also lending a hand are the Vikings, who, at least according to fans of psychedelic drugs, ate hallucinogenic mushrooms to pep them up before battle. Cato Nystad, a 39-year-old drum maker, EmmaSofia supporter and organizer of traditional ceremonies that involve psychedelic potions, said many Norwegians wanted to get in touch with their wilder, more spiritual sides....

Religious freedom. Know it. Live it. Be it.

A 10-point list of Easter news.

1. "An Easter Bunny character first hopped up in the 8th century with the English monk Bede's The Reckoning of Time..."

A little girl found a bird that was close to death and prayed to Eostra [the Germanic goddess of spring and fertility] for help. Eostra appeared, crossing a rainbow bridge — the snow melting before her feet. Seeing the bird was badly wounded, she turned it into a hare, and told the little girl that from now on, the hare would come back once a year bearing rainbow colored eggs.

2. In Norway, "Each year, nearly every TV and radio channel produce a crime series for Easter. The milk company prints crime stories on their cartons. In order to cash in on this national pastime, publishers churn out series of books known as 'Easter-Thrillers' or 'Påskekrim.'"

3. The Archbishop of York said: "God is creator of the Cosmos and that includes the Palace of Westminster and the White House. There are followers of Jesus Christ in all the main political parties in the UK. It is not for me to tell their fellow church members how to vote next month, but I will encourage them to use their vote."

4. Police in Tahlequah City, Okahoma nabbed a stuffed rabbit carrying $30,000 of meth: "We’ve intercepted narcotics in the mail before... The Easter Bunny I thought was a strange touch."

5. "When Obama spotted 5-year-old Donovan Frazier distraught after losing his egg roll in 2013, the president gave him a hug and advised him to 'shake it off.'"

6. Pope Francis said: Easter is "so beautiful, and so ugly because of the rain."

He had just celebrated Mass in rain-whipped St. Peter's Square for tens of thousands of people, who huddled under umbrellas or braved the downpour in thin, plastic rain-slickers.

7. In 1926, Time Magazine considered the proposal to fix the date of the moveable feast that is Easter. Was Easter not more about commerce than religion?

People have stepped from decorating their altars to decking their bodies, until the Easter Sunday “parade” of fashionables and fops gets more notice in the lay press than does the sanctity of the holiday. This display of clothes and flowers and jewels and carriages, wily merchandisers have gloated over. None the less they have peered with squinted eye at the fluctuating date of the festival, even as they touted a robe as “hot from N’ York, lady,” or “new from Paris, madame.”

8. "Do You Really Need Jesus for Easter?" asks Steve Neumann at The Atheist's Life at The Daily Beast.

[T]here simply is no supernatural realm for a God to occupy. Nature is all there is.

America's native philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson... wrote “Too feeble fall the impressions of nature on us to make us artists. Every touch should thrill. Every man should be so much an artist, that he could report in conversation what had befallen him.” Achieving that isn’t easy—if those impressions were too feeble 175 years ago, they’re almost undetectable now that we’re surrounded by a shell of concrete and steel, covered by a blanket of wireless radio waves....

“Time and nature yield us many gifts,” continued Emerson, “but not yet the timely man, the new religion, the reconciler, whom all things await.”

9. David D. Ireland of Christ Church in northern New Jersey indulges in the kind of golf meditation that used to drive me crazy when I went to church in northern New Jersey half a century ago:

Easter is God’s mulligan to humanity. In golf, a mulligan is a stroke that is replayed from the spot of the prior stroke without any penalty. Your error has been forgiven. You may take the shot again. This Easter make a commitment to meet Jesus for the first time … again. Easter reminds you to keep trying to live the God-kind of life.

10. "For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again."

"'In Norway 'we have brats, child kings, and many of us suffer from hyper-parenting. We’re spoiling them....'"

"... explained the producer [of a documentary], a father of three. The French 'demand more of their kids, and this could be an inspiration to us.'"

I used to think that only Americans and Brits did helicopter parenting. In fact, it’s now a global trend. Middle-class Brazilians, Chileans, Germans, Poles, Israelis, Russians and others have adopted versions of it too. The guilt-ridden, sacrificial mother — fretting that she’s overdoing it, or not doing enough — has become a global icon. In “Parenting With Style,” a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, the economists Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti say intensive parenting springs from rising inequality, because parents know there’s a bigger payoff for people with lots of education and skills. (France is a rare rich country where helicoptering isn’t the norm.)

(Here's the discussion we had about French parenting last month.)

"Norway’s handsome PM poses as taxi driver to hear the wishes of the people."

(Via Bloggingheads.)

Anders Behring Breivik — who killed 77 and injured 242 others — is sentenced to 21 years max and maybe only 10 years.

He admitted the murders and claimed he was sane. The court — in Norway — found him. But the sentence — for all of that — is 10 to 21 years. Is Norway sane?

ADDED: It's Norway's "restorative" justice approach:

A comfortable cell, clean and relaxing environment, and nice daily activities such as cooking classes are all meant to prepare the criminal for potentially difficult or painful internal reformation. Incarceration, in this thinking, is the treatment for whatever social or psychological disease led them to transgress. The criminals are not primarily wrongdoers to be punished, but broken people to be fixed....

Despite the lighter sentences, restorative justice systems seem to reduce crime, reduce the cost of imprisoning criminals, and reduce recidivism....

"Norway is today more imbued with democracy and diversity than it was on July 22, 2011..."

Said Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

Democracy is "the most important weapon in the fight against violence," he added.

Prosecutors want Anders Behring Breivik — who killed 77 and injured 242 persons — to be found insane and given psychiatric treatment.

Breivik himself claims to be sane and wants his political philosophy taken seriously, but the government asks the court to find him insane.

Without a hint of regret, [one prosecutor] said, Breivik had told the court how he had reloaded his gun while victims sat waiting for him to kill them on the island of Utoeya.

Breivik could be seen smiling at times as he listened to the prosecutor.

"When the girl fell on top of her, she stayed under her dead body until the sound of shooting stopped."

Testified Invgrild Stensrud, who was shot by Anders Breivik in the Utoeya Island massacre.

ADDED: More detail here:

"I thought they (the attackers) were exchanging messages but realising he was alone, I think the scream was actually a battle cry," [Stensrud] testified....

"I tried to get to the door behind others and when they got shot, they fell on me. One laid across my chest," she told the trial, which will continue until mid-June. "That's when I got hit in the left thigh. Many were shot lying on the floor.... Next to me (a man) was coughing up blood"...

That person, Glenn Martin Waldenstroem, said Breivik appeared both joyous and angry. "His face looked distorted," said Waldenstroem, 20, who survived being shot in the face. "He looked angry and smiled simultaneously"....

Breivik has said he initially tried to call an end to his killing spree after leaving the cafe, picking up a victim's mobile and phoning police, only to be forced to leave a message.

He continued killing, shouting "you are going to die today, Marxists"....