Plastic Fantastic?

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If you have watched the French documentary about plastic in our oceans, you will know that plastic is not that great. In fact, it causes one of our time's largest pollution crisis. Not long ago a dying whale was taken ashore in Bergen. When researchers from the university of Bergen opened it up, they discovered that its stomach was full of plastic bags. The World Economic Forum has had plastic pollution on their agenda for several years. In Norway we have just started waking up, and many consumers want paper bags instead of plastic bags - the question is are our voices load enough?

Want to live longer?

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Read a book! At least that is what The World Economic Forum says, check it out here if you are in doubt. In fact as little as half an hour of book reading a day adds days and months to your life.

Fake News

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Have you ever spread fake news willingly or unwillingly? How do you know if a piece of news is real, or just made up by someone in order to make the public support their point of view? According to Denise-Marie Ordway in Journalist's Resource as many as 23% of  American adults have shared false news on the internet. In the same article there are links to sources that will help us reveal which news are false and not. So, be aware whenever you post something be it on Facebook, Twitter, Insta or in a blog - make sure you are not one of the people spreading lies. Lies on the internet do not vanish easily, because someone might have used your information before you manage to delete it... Read more about the topic here and use this site to check if the facts are true or not.

Christmas

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Did you know that the word "Christmas" comes from the old English term "Cristes Maesse", and as such means Christ's mass. It is celebrated on 25 Decemeber in most countries. The tradition of decorating a tree at Christmas is from the 16th century and started in Germany - it can also be said that earlier than this people had evergreens over their doors and windows in order to keep out ghosts, witches and evil spirits. Anyway, I just wanted to wish you all a merry Christmas and a lovely, delightful, very pleasant, very nice, very agreeable, marvellous, wonderful, sublime, superb, fine, magical, enchanting, captivating, terrific, fabulous, fab, heavenly, divine, amazing, glorious holiday.

The War in Syria

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The civil war started in 2011 and an estimated 500,000 people have been killed in addition to the millions injured. Most of us would be dumbfound and overwhelmed, but not the people in Aleppo. In this article in CNN 15 November, 2016, you can read about truly innovative people who really make the idiom "necessity is the maker of invention" come true.

Presidential Election in the USA

Coming up very soon is the presidential election in the USA, which is always on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Why on earth couldn't it be just the first Tuesday? The reason is simply because people who had the right to vote (men only - women were given the right to vote in August 1920) had to travel quite some distance to get to the polling station. Back in the old days travel took a long time compared to today, and because of not wanting conflict with the church service, travel should start on a Monday, not on a Sunday. Most Americans were agrarians and therefore November was a good month to waste time on election.

In November 2008 Obama was elected president - this was the first time an African American had such position in the USA. This year maybe a woman, Hilary Clinton, will replace him - if so, that will also be historic because no woman has ever had that position in the USA before.

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People around the world wonder what will happen if the other candidate, Donald Trump, representing the Republican party will win. He has said many unforgiveable and unforgettable things which will make it difficult for him running the country.

The third presidential debate between the two candidates will take place 20 October. I will post a link here as soon as I know where it will be shown.

How can WE help?

This boy shows us how to care, but what can we do? Two days ago in the news a man and a father in Aleppo, Syria, asked the world for help. He said his children were asking when it was their turn to die.  Read today's news from Aleppo here. How can we as humans tolerate what is going on in Syria? Many NGOs such as Medicins sans Frontieris, the Red Cross, and the NRC do what they can, but still it is not enough...