Random Pensées

When did Norway start living the Jerry Springer dream?

(My wife is just going to love this post. Fortunately, she is at the dentist and may not see it until tomorrow).

When did Norway become such a ready-for-prime-time Jerry Springer player? This was the question I posed to myself after catching the following stories on the front page of Aftenposten's English edition:

1. Norwegian sexologists unveil "penis atlas" Publishers Dinamo will make a first presentation of an unusual book project, the Penis Atlas, on Thursday. The work of four sexologists a photographer and a designer, the volume uses photographs of 100 men in order to inform, demystify and correct many existing misunderstandings about the male sex organ.

2. Record number sexually abused by women
Never before have so many Norwegian men reported being sexually abused in their childhood by women. An increasing number of incest victims have stories to tell about female assailants, and experts say that women can more easily disguise such offenses as care, newspaper Dagsavisen reports.

3. Cannabis plants removed from palace park
A surreptitious patch of cannabis plants tended on the fringe of the park surrounding the royal palace in central Oslo has been discovered after an alert call from newspaper VÃ¥rt Land. The annual plants were sown in the spring but will not be completing their life cycle.

4. Children left alone while parents party
Norwegian parents who take their children on holiday overseas are increasingly leaving them on their own while they take off to drink relatively cheap liquor. The problem already has cropped up in Spain, and now Norway's ambassador to Turkey is sounding alarms.

Doesn't this sound like the next Jerry Springer episode? "On our next show, we'll be talking to pot growing, penis obsessed Norwegian women who abuse children sexually and then abandon them for drinking binges. Make sure you tune in!"

All kidding aside, I am disgusted to read about idiot parents who abandon their children without food or water in hotel rooms in Turkey while they go on drinking binges. I keep coming back to the old thought that you need a license to own a dog, but just about anyone can have a child. Whether they should or not.