I always hear Finns make the same comment about their own Reality TV shows: “I’m so embarrassed to watch the Finns!!” Why is this exactly?!? Here’s a few ideas…

1. Finns don’t share their feelings – So when they need to profess their love to The Bachelor, it sounds so forced and artificial. Finnish is NOT the language of love.

2. 5.3 million people is a small pool – When you have hundreds of millions to choose from, you’ll get a dynamic bunch. But Finland’s small, homogeneous population runs thin quickly – any random idiot will do. I couldn’t imagine reality TV in Iceland.

3. Little original content – Most of the reality shows are just localized from the United States (and as I saw from tonight, Japan as well). How about some original content, made by Finns, for Finns?

4. Cheaper production – A smaller audience means smaller budgets. Nobody named Jussi has a million euros, it makes the whole thing so unbelievable.

5. Finnish “celebrities” are lame – You know what they call a “tango stars” in other countries? “Joe” or “Bill” or “Jennifer”…but in Finland, even the retards fucking them are “celebrities” and worthy of television appearances. Lame.

6. Finnish pride – Finns are the proudest nation on the planet. So when you see Americans make asses of themselves on TV, it’s funny. But to see your fellow brothers and sisters make asses of themselves, it hits too close to home.

…what else am I missing?

My friend Esa hasn’t been to our weekly board game club in weeks. Each week I try to vote him off so he’ll return to our club.

Finland’s infamous immigrant-hater, Helsinki city councilman Jussi Halla-Aho, a member of Finland’s racist, nationalist political party, the True Finns, is court for, you guessed it…racism…

The Helsinki District Court read charges against Helsinki City councilman, Jussi Halla-Aho, on breach of the peace and agitating against an ethnic group.

According to the prosecutor, Simo Kolehmainen, Halla-aho has publicly defamed matters Islam deem holy. Halla-Aho has written in his internet writings that islam is a pedophile religion. In addition he has written that robbing passers-by and living off wellfare are national and or genetic features of the Somali Muslim people.

According to the Prosecutor, Halla-aho’s writings insult the Muslims living in Finland and endanger the country’s religious peace.

Representing himself, Halla-Aho admitted writing the articles in question. However, Halla-Aho denied the defamation charges. Halla-Aho claims that the prosecutor has taken the writings out of context. He plead not guilty.

A lot of Halla-Aho’s supporters were present and they laughed out loud when the prosecutor read excerps from Halla-Aho’s Islam writings.

Here’s a translation of the text that got Halla-Aho in trouble. Although my guess is that this was just “the straw that broke the camel’s back”, as he’s been writing this kind of stuff for years.

Halla-Aho goes after a lot of things in his post: “Politicians”, who create the laws Hallo-Aho loathes. “Free speech”, which there’s a severe lack of in Finland (very true). The “Muslim religion”, all religions are equally silly IMO. And “Immigrants”, oops, this is where Halla-Aho gets racist and retarded…

Somalis who constitute 0.2 per cent of Finland’s total population commit 12 per cent of robberies reported to the Police. One in ten Somalis living in Finland has a job. Committing robberies and living at taxpayers’ expense are a lot more common among Somalis related to their share of the population than killing while intoxicated among the ethnic Finns. Therefore, I present my assumption (that I do not regard as fact):

Robbing bypassers and living at taxpayers’ expense as a parasite is a national, possibly genetic characteristic of Somalis.

Robbing bypassers and living at taxpayers’ expense as a parasite is a national, possibly genetic characteristic of Somalis.

Ughh. This is where I quickly lose sympathy for the guy. Ignorant people like Halla-Aho should be ignored, yet court cases like these only further incite racial hatred in the country and bring more members to the True Finns party.

Below is an excerpt about usage of foreign words in the English language, from Arthur Plotnik’s “Spunk & Bite: A writer’s guide to bold, contemporary style”…

What other Finnish words have English-speaking authors adopted? (I would like to take credit for first penning, ‘nowheremäki’. Translation: “That podunk Finnish town you’re from, that most natives haven’t even heard of.”)

When I was a little boy, I got to play in old trenches that were virtually in my backyard. And no, I didn’t live in Suomenlinna. Back in 1914-1917 the Russians fortified an important naval base, Helsinki, against the German threat. The fortress was never used in action, except for some skirmishes during the civil war and parts of the underground bunkers used by the army and some locations as AA-turret bases in WW2.

So, if you have a day to spend in Helsinki and you think you’ve seen it all, go see the Patterimäki between Pajamäki and Pitäjänmäki, take either the bus 14 to the terminus and or the commuter train to Pitäjänmäki station and take the bridge over the tracks towards the paint factory and continue straight up the hill, there are two AA turret bases on top along with trenches and bunkers. The Helsingin Sanomat has a number of pictures in a reportage they made of the current remains of the fortress along with maps, and theres a website, also in English, dedicated to the fortification with more old pictures Krepost Sveaborg. The fortress line winds more or less along what now is Ring I, so a little off the road into the forest there might be something interesting.

And I’d say this is a pretty remarkable piece of news. Traditionally the combination of alcohol and boating has resulted in at least half a dozen drownings. The statistics this year weren’t looking good as the thin ice caused a whole lot of fishermen to get into peril. The least drownings during Juhannus was in 2003 when the toll was four.

Otherwise the death toll so far has been 6 people. The most violent incident was in Kouvola, where three army conscripts were stabbed, one fatally and another in critical condition. A middle-aged couple had a beer-fuelled argument and the woman stabbed the man dead in Helsinki. The heavy holiday traffic went relatively safely but with several accidents, two fatal, and the police otherwise has been kept busy by drunk drivers. In Keuruu two men were found in the sauna, one dead and the other unconcious – possibly from cabon monoxide poisoning. Another man was found dead on a beach in Lappeenranta ant the police state they’re not suspecting a crime.

Otherwise the country has been doused with rain and hailstorms, maybe inhibiting the partying a bit. The police has had its share of domestic calls, and a man was shot in the leg while threatening the police with an axe. While the police say the amount of calls has been regular for a midsummer, the Coast Guard has stated it has had approximately half of the amount of calls to assist boaters than usual.

Update: By Sunday the death toll has risen to eight with another stab victim, and of a boating party one man found drowned and another missing – so that makes the inevitable drowning statistics. The Finnish swimming and lifesaving association’s spokesperson says that the bad weather did contribute, but he says he hopes that the downward trend is due to the efforts in public awareness as well. The return traffic is expected to be slightly congested even most people have started their summer vacations.

This piece of news from the Helsingin Sanomat really rang up high on the bizarrometer.

OK, so we have teenage angst and too much tv:

Police suspect that a 16-year-old Helsinki girl paid a 19-year-old man to kill her mother.

And what was with this “handgun ownership” so rampant in Finland then?

A moment later the woman felt a strong blow to the back of her head… One of the men had shot the woman with a crossbow – the kind that is used to shoot small game, police say.

Kinda… medieval this one.

Police say that the 16-year-old daughter had promised the 19-year-old man a cash payment for the killing. The daughter did not live with the mother at the time of the attack. The man had persuaded two 20-year-old friends to join him. The crime was planned at the Espoo home of a fourth man, who now faces charges of aiding and abetting. The suspects, all native-born Finns, do not have any prior criminal records.

Kids, don’t eat that yellow snow.

Few people know that Finland—Helsinki, in particular—is probably the gothiest place on Earth. One might ask, did Finland’s Goths arrive centuries-ago seeking refuge from Attila? Or did they move directly from Gotland? Nobody really knows their origins, but Saturday nights downtown can be a real costume party.

Sadly, the inventor and inspiration of this macabre fashion statement, the goddess of gothic garb herself, died recently in Hollywood. Maila Nurmi, the former TV personality known as Vampira, was 85.

Her real name was Maila Elizabeth Syrjaniemi (later changed to Maila Nurmi) and she was born in Petsamo, Finland (now Pechenga, Russia) on Dec. 11, 1922. At age 2, she and her family emigrated to Ohio, in search of a better life.

RIP, Vampira.

A former cast member from Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Fallon (33), married a film producer with Finnish ancestry, Nancy Juvonen (40). I’m with you Jimmy, those older Finnish women age like wine!

Raised in Marin County, California, and Connecticut. After college at USC, she settled in San Francisco where she help set up a company for Clarence Clemons. She met Drew Barrymore through her brother, ‘Jim Juvonen’, who was working on the set of Mad Love (1995).

Her ancestry is Finnish.