h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Cooperation.

In itself it is not a fancy or resounding word. Quite boring and with a dusty smell of bureaucracy, actually.

(Sorry, today I'm not bothering with checking English spelling and grammar, so, you just have to do your best to understand. )

But cooperation in practise is as sweet and sensual, as it comes.

Right now I am at a Nordic summit meet for freelance journalists.

In spite of a 6 hour long board meet on the ferry from Copenhagen to Oslo last night, including too much wine and too little sleep, a flight from Oslo to Trondheim (2/3 up in Norway), and formal meeting items - it is still very interesting and very usefull to confirm cooperation on a Nordic and European scale.



After the summit meet we break tomorrow at noon and change to a Nordic Freelance Seminar with speakers from USA, Russia and Norway. Freelance photographers, television dokumentarists, ghost writers, news journalists, bloggers etc. etc.

I asked the woman at the reception desk about the light at this time of year. She says it gets 'kind of dark between 02 and 04'. Otherwise it is 'day time light' for the rest of the 24 hours.

I've never experienced 'midnight sun' before, so I'm looking forward to that.

Unfortunately, for the next five days, the forecast is rain and 10-16 degrees C.

But still.....

To be honest with you, that's about the same temperature as it's been here (well, the top end of that is the bottom end here) but we don't get the midnight sun.

Sounds good! And it made perfect sense, so don't worry about that.

I used to experience midnight sun when I was working nights, well it felt that way.

Cooperation is indeed a very good word, and should be adopted more often.

Cooperation? Yes, the best word in the book. It's the word that saves lives. Can't ask a word to do a lot more than that.

I'm really pleased with your response.

Solidarity is not a dead word, either, then.

We are some who try to give most children the opportunity to make their own quality of life.

What can I say It brings to my eyes.

Another day I'll discuss democracy and local radio....

Solidarity? Well, I would say that while the word might sound a bit old, the instinct seems to be alive and well. And that's what matters, isn't it?

Yes, indeed.

'Coop' also brings tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat, also. Once, on Rhodes. we stayed in a hotel on 'Rochdale Street'. Why Rochdale? It's where the Cooperative Movement was founded.

Many years ago, I was a member of The Labour Party, when it was still a Socialist party. Except...I wasn't *technically* a member of The Labour party. Under some arcane ruling, I joined the Harlow Town Cooperative Party, Affiliated To The Labour Party. The thriving cultural scene in the town was centred around the Workers Education Council and The Cooperative Arts Society.

And tartaronne...it's good to see that someone else is moved to tears at these things. Myself...I weep at the sight of a picket line.

Rhode Island Reds ain't bad Edward.

And they live in a Coop

or in a co-op?

'This chicken is tasty. Where did you get it?'
'From the Co-op coop.'

Journalists in cooperation sounds like a bigger plan...

they say 'quality never goes out of style'

and 'truth will prevail'

so i guess the same goes for cooperation & solidarity

i mean, why not?

Why not indeed.

We have just returned from a visit to the first fortress in the Nordic countries, where we had supper, heard opera and played our traditional internordic testmatch - the judges are strict but unfair, the rules should be bent, at the home team always wins.

And now past midnight it is still light outside .

Today we have been discussing the constant threat of Authors' Rights. In Finland the legislators are trying to pass a "Disney"-law - meaning that the employers will ensure/obtain all rights to the creative work they buy, on all platforms, now and forever in the whole universe.

Very problematic for freelancers - both our income AND our credibillity. We will not be able to protect our sources, the people we interview, against being abused.

We have recently in Denmark prevented the politicians to pass such a law, due to solid cooperation between many unions for creative people - but if Finland passes such a law, I'm sure the other Nordic countries' governments will try to follow the Finnish example.

On the program for the seminar, we also have listened to UK author and journalist Carol Lee - a much used expert on copyright - about which she is writing a novel. She was very inspiring.

Tomorrow UK journalist Robert Fisk is coming directly from Beirut.

US journalist is former/present? CNN reporter Stephen Lighthill, and the Russian guest speaker is Victoria Ivleva, the first reporter to film inside the Chernobyl reactor just after it stopped.

Of course we meet/hear a lot of Norvegian journalists, documentarists and photographers as well. The overall theme is Stories From Hell (Hell being the name of the little town here.)

Today we heard about a documentary on the reconsiliation work in Rwanda.

I tend to go on, but it is very uplifting to have confirmed why we are journalists and what we can actually do if we are responsible story tellers.



This seminar really is a treat.

>>Tomorrow UK journalist Robert Fisk is coming directly from Beirut.


Unmissable!

Yes, Robert Fisk was unmissable.

But as Victoria Ivleva, the Russian journalist, pointed out, there were no women mentioned in his 1½ hour speach of the politics in and in the western world's approach to the Middle East and the journalism about it, (how ignorant the politicians were and how reporters let them get away with it) or in the snippets from an Australian tv-production - except for a female hand laying behind after a big bombing in Beirut.

She herself has followed women and children - many refugees - in different African countries and in the former Soviet states, now independent countries.

So far this seminar has been great - only Stephen Lighthill was a disappointment. He seemed not to have decided upon what he wanted to tell us.

My bother-in-law knows Ivleva. He's a Reader in Russian Politics.

She is a very special Russian redhead, a bit scary at times, but has done some great work.

Today I also attended a workshop with two Norvegian women having travelled by train from Oslo to Irkutsk to investigate how the climatical change effects the Tundra - and lots of other stories from what they experienced on the road.

Interesting was a photo session from their celebration of midsummer. The wise woman was a shaman, and the people there looked like mongols and/or inuits and/or like the native indians in Canada/US. Some of the children were dressed like the native indians.

Now I must research the wanderings of people.