February Issue

I have never called in to a talk show on radio but the other day as I was listening to the car radio on my way to a meeting I was quite tempted to get in on a discussion on CBC on whether children would become more productive if they got to start school an hour later. No, I don’t have an opinion on this particular issue but something else related to productivity at school. And I never called in to add my two-cents worth so I will use this forum for my rant instead.

When talking about making kids more productive at school, a very important element to consider, in my opinion, has got to be nutrition. And a sure way to ensure that kids have enough energy to get them through school is to provide a nutritious meal at school. Both the United States and Sweden have national lunch programs in public schools to ensure that students get a proper meal that gives them enough energy to tackle their afternoon classes.

In Canada some private and certain public schools do provide cooked lunches, and some even have breakfast programs, but at the majority of schools children bring their lunches from home. By all accounts a typical lunch consists of a sandwich, a sweet drink, (very often carbonated), fruit and a treat. Or in some cases students are given money to buy a lunch.

Many parents are really creative about the lunches to ensure that their kids don’t chuck everything but the treat, but it is not so easy to come up with something that is nutritious, yummy and keeps fresh. I can quite understand why so many egg salad sandwiches, that have been sitting unrefrigerated, end up in the garbage bin.

Studies have shown that a kid, or indeed an adult, is more alert and efficient if he or she has had a real lunch. It is not rocket science. An investment in nutritious lunches gives a good return. So why doesn’t schools and employers provide them?

Many Canadian friends are astonished when I tell them about the balanced lunches, that every kids got at school when I was growing up in Sweden. The school lunches to be served the following week were posted in the local papers so that parents could plan dinners at home accordingly.

Similarly when I started working, there was a beautiful cafeteria where a free lunch was served every day (not to speak of an indoor pool, sauna, billiard room and more). Workplaces that did not have their own facilities provided lunch coupons for their employees to have a proper lunch at a nearby restaurant.

Sadly things have also changed in Sweden. Some municipalities have introduced fees for school lunches and there are widespread complaints about the poor quality of the food in some areas. Subsidized lunches at work are also no longer the rule because of changes in tax regulations.

But that does not change my belief in a good meal for all in the middle of the day.

January Issue

The War Against the Bath Tub. Never heard of it? Then you may also be unaware of the War Against the Potato and the War Against the Street, writes Kristian Karlsson in the Swedish magazine NEO.


The journalist notes the vast amount of resources allocated to the war against terrorism, despite the fact that to date terrorism has killed an average of only 200 people each year, while between 300 and 400 Americans die each year in their bath tubs, 640 fatally choke on food and 6 000 are run over when they try to cross the street.


Kristian Karlsson does not want to down-play the threat of terrorism, but questions the measures used in, and the cost of, the war against it. Clearly tongue-in cheek, he argues that wars against the bathtub, the potato and the street would be far more cost-effective, while the war on terrorism is a bit of an overkill.


But historically this has been the norm and there are many examples of “overkill” in the face of a threat, whether real or perceived.


During the Cold War people in Sweden were put in alert mode by measures like the brochure entitled If The War Comes that made the monthly test of the air-raid alarm, sound really sinister. Almost 70 000 air-raid shelters were built all over Sweden, 7 000 of them in Stockholm, in preparation for a potential nuclear attack from the “east”. Most of the shelters were incorporated in residential buildings, but there is also a huge one at Slussen, and a gigantic one in Vita Bergen, that was to serve as the command centre for the civilian defence in case of war.


Plans detailing the location of the closest air-raid shelter as well as the exact location in the country that citizens were to be evacuated to, were posted at the entrance of each residential building by the civil defence authority.


The threat of war was taken more seriously by some than by others. My grandfather, who was a retired military man, decided that it was a good idea to have a residence in the small village up north, where the residents in his area were to be evacuated, all ready for himself and his wife. Since a son of his was likely to be conscripted, my grandfather also included a daughter-in-law and her young children in his plans. He proceeded to put in a classified ad in Östersunds Tidning that read "Commander Neumüller with two wives and three children would like to rent three rooms in case of evacuation ...". The ad was an instant success in the satirical paper Grönköpings Veckoblad that noted the two wives. My grandfather never got the funny part.


Anyway, after my coffee-loving grandfather’s death we also found more than a hundred bottles filled with coffee beans stored away in his cellar. Overkill?


As for all those shelters, most of them are today used for parking and storage. No new shelters have been built since the early 1990s, and should the strategic situation change, it is believed that there would be a time period of up to ten years to construct enough additional shelters to protect the bigger population of today.