Swedish News

When you live alone in a cold Northern land, with only a stuffed sheep (no sheep jokes please... I ain't sheering Seamus with anyone) to keep you company at night, there is a lot of time for pondering life's great mysteries. Last evening while drifting in and out of sleep i began to wonder....

Research Question:

1) When you live in Sweden, one of the safest countries in the world, what exactly can the news report?

Definitions for the purpose of this study:

1) Safe: the ability to stumble home drunk and naked at 4 am without encountering harm from humans... (human being the imperative word, it's difficult for a government to prevent unwanted advances from randy raccoons)

2) News: something of public interest that is worth repeating and making available to the general public through means of television, newspaper, internet or that new fangled social media everyone keeps talking about.

Abstract:

Here are a few of the greatest headlines I came across when conducting research:

Obese drunk driver: 'I'm too fat for jail' -- Naturally this just lead me to ask the real question at hand... how much alcohol does it takes to get a 458 pound man drunk?

'Grim Reaper' threatens to castrate incontinent patient -- its cold and dark half the year... people have to come up with a way to amuse themselves somehow, and come on, everybody knows it is the classic slumber party unspoken agreement the bed wetter deserves ridicule and harassment

Jilted lover fly-posts pics of ex-boyfriend's privates-- let's just be glad she isn't the grim reaper... then again... who wants to date someone who pees himself... and we all know dating leads to babies (***Footnote "the Swedish normal course of dating": 1. sleep together 2. have mutual friend set up actual date 3. live together 4. get engaged 5. have a baby 6. get married) in which case girlfriend is totally justified... you don't want to pass on bedwetting genes to your future children. Social Darwinism triumphs again!

But don't be mistaken, Sweden like all countries has its especially dark moments (and I'm not referring to the lack of sunlight between November-March), so I feel it would be negligent to not mention that there is violent crime including shoot ups from time to time (and not just of heroine... this isn't Norway after all) fe. As proof please regard the headline below...

Icicle gunned down in eastern Sweden

I wish Icicle stood for a rapper, drug lord or really anything besides something formed from hanging dripping water that freezes... but on the plus side city workers did describe it as dangerous... that has to earn the country some street cred!