Just came back from the Norwegian Social Forum, a national variant of the World Social Forum. Bigger and more inspiring than ever before, it was just great on the whole.
By some incredible coincidence I stumbled into a guy from El Salvador who was in my workshop in an international student festival in 2001, where I was a workshop facilitator. Turns out he later moved to Norway and has a relationship with a Norwegian girl who was in the same workshop. I had no idea. Amazing.
I also met an incredible American street performer from New York, who was just fantastic with a violin, playing Norwegian, Irish and American folk tunes as well as his own stuff, and could play along to anything others played.
One of the more interesting projects presented is an attempt to win back the word 'individualism' from the exclusive ownership of the right, showing that it is not socialism and individualism that must conflict, but rather liberalism and individualism must conflict for the great majority of people. There is a book out on this now, and I look forward to reading it.
By some incredible coincidence I stumbled into a guy from El Salvador who was in my workshop in an international student festival in 2001, where I was a workshop facilitator. Turns out he later moved to Norway and has a relationship with a Norwegian girl who was in the same workshop. I had no idea. Amazing.
I also met an incredible American street performer from New York, who was just fantastic with a violin, playing Norwegian, Irish and American folk tunes as well as his own stuff, and could play along to anything others played.
One of the more interesting projects presented is an attempt to win back the word 'individualism' from the exclusive ownership of the right, showing that it is not socialism and individualism that must conflict, but rather liberalism and individualism must conflict for the great majority of people. There is a book out on this now, and I look forward to reading it.