Update

As I said, it's been quite a week, amounting to a dream about Lee Goldberg and George W. Bush...

I've been to Helsinki talking about the TV show. The test pilot will be shot tomorrow and I don't know whether I'll be able to get any sleep.

Kauto went to the daycare on Wednesday. Everything went smoothly, but now he got sick with fever and cold. We've been giving him sleep school and slept badly ourselves. The last time we did this it seemed to go well, but then something happened and it went bonkers. It is stupid to restart it when Kauto is starting his daycare, but we just can't wait anymore - we want to sleep the night!

I've dug out some more old Finnish pulp stories from the archives for the anthology I've been editing all Fall, but I seem to be running out of steam. The authors are either too poor or too obscure. Some gems have sprung up even lately - for example Asser Harkima, who wrote tough private eye and gangster yarns in the late fifties. His endings are pretty poor, though. Maybe the book is done for my part (except for the introduction) and I should leave it rest.

I finally finished Joe Sacco's massive graphic novel/reportage Palestine today - I've had it from the library for four or five months now and can finally take it back. Vow, what a depressing read that was! It was easier when I was a kid and my parents told me that Jasser Arafat is the good guy, and that was that. Sacco makes clear that he thinks Israel is not the good guy here, but he makes also clear that the Palestinians are old-fashioned, bigoted and racist towards the Jews.* And sexist - even though this is not very clear, since Sacco has many women say that the hoods are good and the Quran tells them to wear them and what are they to say against the Good Book? It seems that there can be no solution. There should be, that much is evident, because the whole situation just raises hate and violence in the Arab world and may cause the World War III.

* How could not they be?