Editorial

This is an article published in the last issue of the Ovi magazine - Ovi lehti

It's said that imitation is the highest form of flattery, but why didn't we feel flattered when somebody tried to copycat the Ovi magazine? On the contrary, we felt anger. It was not the anger you feel when somebody steals something of yours, it was the sort of anger that brings every possible swearword you learnt in all possible languages.

It's said, and I can verify it myself, that when burglars rob your house you always have the funny feeling that somebody is still there. The feeling in Ovi magazine is much different, how did they dare to do that?

How did they really? In a first communication with somebody Ari something Paskanen, the excuse was…we didn't know and we checked the Net, but we didn't see anything. I suppose that's the problem with the Internet in Alpha Centaury, bad connections.

Here on Earth, Google, Yahoo, AltaVista and other search engines find Ovi magazine sometimes up to 180,000 times. Most of them have Ovi magazine second or third when you search for 'Ovi' and guess what? When you try Finnish words like 'Ovi Lehti' or even 'Ovi Sanomat' Ovi magazine is magically there first!

When Mr. Jone Nikula decided to open the Ovi (Ovi in Finnish means 'door') of imitation and copycat he probably didn't realize that he had opened Pandora's Box. It's only left for us to see if his Pandora's Box has viruses and monsters just like the original did. So, inspired by all this we decided to make this month's issue a special about copycats.

Going through the articles we have written to cover this issue of copycats I drew one conclusion and I hope you will excuse me because I can find no better words to express myself: People who commit imitations and copycats are doing nothing more than masturbating with their failed ego. That's enough about copycats because at this very moment there are more important things happening that we should concentrate upon.

While writing this editorial Israel continues the demolition of Lebanon. I don't care for the excuses, actually they sound very poor and sad - I care for the poor kids and innocent people who die every moment. I care that Israel, a victim of genocide, has turned to mass murderer ignoring any civil right. I care that the west is closing their eyes creating more anti-terrorist excuses for their policies.

I care that the Arabs are ignoring the number of deaths that are rising as they take care of the price of oil. I care that 30 years have passed since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and nobody seems to be doing anything to punish the criminals. On the contrary, they ask the victim of the rape to negotiate and finally, like one of my blog-friends wrote: I care about what happened with justice, simple human justice.

Thinking about all these things while bombs were falling in Beirut, I found out that I could - not that I didn't want to - I could not write anything about it. The reason is very simple, the two scared kids I was watching the other day crying in front of their house in pieces might not be alive next week. I'm not becoming melodramatic; I'm just saying something that is possible. And that sunk me. Sunk me into desperation. My only defense, my only weapon is my pencil and using it once a month then it becomes blank.

You see that's what I meant before when I said that I didn't want to talk anymore about these masturbators of their ego because there are more serious problems and I want Ovi magazine to fulfill its reasoning by expressing and screaming opinions when things happen, since that's the only weapon we have. We are thinking about it and soon we will act and I promise you will be the first to know.

Anyway, from this issue we welcome a new writer, Jane Eagle, a cybermate I met in the wonderful world of blogs, who will be writing a column called 'Jane of Thought'. By the way, I think in the near future we must have an issue about blogs, since I made many and wonderful friends in there, people who have too much to say and they are always invited to join us in the Ovi Project.

We have all the usual suspects enriching our Ovi magazine with their work and some more to come in the near future. Actually, I started dreaming again and we promise that surprises will come soon from the Ovi Project.

Enjoy the issue

Thanos

Ovi magazine, Ovi lehti, copycats & Finland

Share your bed

This is an article published in the last issue of the Ovi magazine - Ovi lehti

By Asa Butcher

Last month a coroner in the UK spoke out against the so-called 'dangers' of sharing your bed with your baby claiming that 300 babies die every year. Mr Roger Whittaker, the coroner in question, has only seen 12 accidental smothering cases in the past two years and is criticising the Royal College of Midwives for saying that there are some benefits to babies sharing a bed with mothers. Sharing a bed with your baby is only dangerous if you have been drinking, are on medication or are extremely tired; otherwise, the practice is perfectly natural. Natural is the keyword here because the majority of mammals sleep with their babies after they are born and it is common practice across Africa and Asia to share a bed with your baby. The thought of putting your child to sleep in a separate room is an alien concept on both those continents. Now we have to listen to coroners becoming self-proclaimed baby experts casually dismissing what science is proving and veteran parents know. How many babies stick curious fingers into power sockets, how many drink bleach, how many do the unexpected and pay the ultimate price? Are any of these things banned from our homes? Why isn't he speaking out against abuse, abandonment and neglect instead? Parents should listen to their own baby and react in the way that feels right, not the way that the book is telling you or the comments from a mal-informed coroner. Many parents share a bed with their baby but are too afraid of being judged by others to openly admit the practice. The act of putting your baby to sleep in a separate room or in a cot stems from convenient parenting, forcing the baby to fit to your needs and not vice-versa. Hearing parents crow with pride: 'My baby sleeps in his cot through the night in the other room', err, well done. Does the pacifier stop it from crying or are you using the 'let it cry it out' method? Dr. Sears, a paediatrician, coined the term "attachment parenting" and is one of the foremost advocates of nurturing your baby according to the way you feel. Picking the baby up won't make him needy, letting the baby cry it out damages the trust and sharing a bed is one of the most natural things a mother can do. Sharing a bed with your baby brings an emotional connection between both mum and dad. It means that you share sleep cycles, night-time emotions and a connection that feels like no other. Babies go to sleep better, plus both mother and baby have improved sleep patterns. Breastfeeding is easier, sharing fits in with busy lifestyles and babies thrive, which is something that has been known since 1840. Mr Whittaker should do some research about the subject before scaremongering new parents who have enough to worry about without that sort of input. If you want to learn more about 'attachment parenting' and its benefits, visit: www.drsears.com

ovi magazine, ovi lehti

Da Vinci's cope

This is an article published in the last issue of the Ovi magazine - Ovi lehti

The Da Vinci Code
By Dan Brown
Doubleday, 2003

Most likely everybody has heard about the film "The Da Vinci Code" or at least heard about it from the news, an intellectual show or in the church, especially if you are a believer. Most of the time people who haven't read the book or haven't seen the film argue about it in the most aggressive way, so what is the truth with this code?

I've read the book and some months ago I wrote an iKritic about it and I haven't still seen the film and I'm not sure if I want to see it. No, the film is not a satanic instrument and I don't want to see it, it is simple. I enjoyed the book and I don't want the film to spoil it. As I said before, the film is not the instrument of Satan but the instrument of Hollywood and its target is nothing other than your pocket and your money.

According to all the critics I've read, the film is nothing big, just the usual Hollywood stuff with a lot of small and big problems, including extended and boring dialogues. There are very few action scenes and even the ones that are included, such as the car chase, are covered with more dialogue. Enough with the film because I haven't seen it and the only thing I'm doing here is copying what others have said.

The book was good, it could keep you after one point and I think nearly everybody read it or at least knows what happened in that book. Unless you are one of those who believe in conspiracies, that Elvis is alive and UFOs have kidnapped you at least twice, you will understand that this is a novel that cleverly mixes reality with imagination. Even reading the book you understand that the hero is as much a scientist as Indiana Jones is an archeologist; it doesn't matter how limited your knowledge in archeology you will follow the plot.

The amazing thing is that next to the people who believe that Elvis is alive and that they have been kidnapped by a UFO twice are the other people who took it too seriously. They were the church, led by the Pope and the Patriarch, who turned a pulp fiction and page-turner book for the summer into something mystic and serious. It was like the Pope telling us that Superman is real and every time you feel you are in danger you are expecting a man with red underwear to come and rescue you.

The church called it heretic, but Dan Brown is not the first to write about Jesus' 'other' life. Kazantzakis wrote the "The Last Temptation" and the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize. I hope Dan Brown's followers don't expect the Swedish Academy to do the same because Ian Fleming is much better; Kazantzakis' book also became a film and the church still tried to excommunicate and ban the film.

The Greek Orthodox Church had Kazantzakis excommunicated and thirty years ago had to apologize in public admit ting their stupidity and dogmatism, so why are they ready to make the same mistake? Don't they learn? Isn't the possibility that Jesus had something going on with Maria Magdalena something we even talked about when we were in high school? Isn't pure and honest love a holy feeling?

You end up believing that there was a conspiracy between the producers of the film and the church. If the church hadn't reacted like they did only a few houses would have the book in their bookcase. Nowadays even people who bought books with titles like "10 ways to start small talk", "Marriage for dummies" and "How to write the perfect CV" have Dan Brown's book decorated their newly bought bookcase. You see they had to buy the rest of his books, if they've read them that's another case.

ovi magazine, ovi lehti, article, critic, Da Vinci code, film & book

Environmental pettiness

This is an article published in the last issue of the Ovi magazine - Ovi lehti

When the green movement - I'm very careful to use the word 'movement' and not 'party' - established itself on the German political horizon back in the '70s, with Petra Kelly, it become a global environmental movement with political influence and one of the main slogans was "nuclear power, no thank you!" I'm sure a lot of you have seen the small yellow badges decorating the denim jackets of teenagers nowadays.

Petra Kelly and two hundred people around her realized that the environmental movement had started to have a voice and more people were listening, so it was time to interfere in the political system actively. This happened far before the green movement became a party that dreams of ministries and starting middle-class revolutionaries from the sofa in front of their flat screen TV. Sadly the romantic end came too early with the tragic murder of Petra Kelly.

I know that in nearly every issue of Ovi magazine, one way or another, I return to the subject of the new nuclear plant in Finland, but somehow I cannot resist. The funny thing is that the nuclear plant has become a second issue in front of the immaturely and inconsiderate behavior of the Green Party and its members.

The article I wrote in the last issue of Ovi magazine ("Green Party, R.I.P.") became a theme in a few conversations I had with Finnish friends and their attitude towards what calls itself the Green Party in Finland. My friends are not supporters or voters of the Green Party, but they are considered progressional and environmentally aware, yet they would never vote for the Green Party.

Amazing as it sounds, the Finnish Green Party seems to make all the mistakes there are in the book. Nepotism, believe it or not there are whole families as candidates with the bright example of three sisters that 'ecologically' fill Helsinki with paper posters and brochures every time there are elections; it doesn't matter whether they are general, municipality or union elections.

To support the idea of free cannabis doesn't necessarily make you an environmentalist; still, this is a good excuse to become a member of the Green Party in Finland. When you ask a member what they are doing about the landmines in Finland the answer is that this is tradition. Like the folklore dances and dresses, Finns see landmines as a tradition.

To be an immigrant is a good thing; it doesn't matter if you are as environmentally aware as George W. Bush or you just love flowers, this doesn't make you Green, especially when at the same time you are prejudice to anything that doesn't fit your measures and personal ambitions.

Green doesn't mean I say 'I am green', but everything you do contradicts every single principal of the green movement. The people who run this party have to understand that the work is collective, the decisions are collective and that quantity is not necessary quality. The number of votes that bring the ministry chair closer just makes the distance to the environment bigger.

Finally, I still cannot believe that the Finnish Green Party decided to make certain compromises for the "nation's good" and the need for energy, and in exchange for the promise to have a minister from the Green Party. As sad as it sounds, the worst enemy of the environment and the environmental movement in Finland is quickly becoming the Green Party!

ovi magazine, ovi lehti, enviroment, finland

Games over the Aegean Sea

This is an article published in the last issue of the Ovi magazine - Ovi lehti

For over thirty years there has been a war on the borders of Europe that nobody wants to admit. For thirty years, generations of Greeks and Turks are waiting for one thing, the day they will wake up and have to run into a war. For thirty years, war games leading to madness and the result of all that is something we saw a few weeks ago over the Aegean Sea.

For thirty years the people of both countries are just losing. There is no winner in this war. Both peoples are losing their chances for a better tomorrow investing everything in weaponry and defense systems, into airplanes that each cost the same as both countries spend for education. Turkey suffers more than all that. A country with sky high inflation and a society under change with problems in every sector - please I don't want any mails for Turkey, for proof just read the online English version of Turkey's newspapers or check the international financial organizations.

Much worst, the whole thing is not only costing money and is a barrier in front of the improvement of both countries, but it costs human lives as the latest incident has shown. What happened a few weeks ago had been predicted for a long time now and actually everybody was surprised how it had never happened till now.

When tens of fully-armed war planes take off with only seconds warning nearly every hour from both countries and engage in war games and maneuvers over the Aegean Sea it is certain that something will happen one way or another. With the frequency these things happen they have definitely crossed any line in statistics involving air accidents and it is a wonder how nothing has come out yet concerning the pilots' stress, physical or mental health.

There are differences between the two countries. A few months ago we found that there are differences between Canada and Denmark; there is the Cyprus issue that, to my opinion, is an embarrassment for the international community and the EU, having a part of a member country under occupation, but this is the reason the international community created the international courts.

The cost of human life, any human life is much higher than the national and occasionally chauvinistic pride.

What happened over the Aegean Sea? A Turkish RF-4 spy plane was flying to Crete to photograph the defense system of the Greek island and was accompanied by two Turkish F-16s. The reaction from the Greek defense forces was natural, yet the question lays elsewhere. Why did an ally country, a fellow member of the same alliance NATO and candidate for the EU send a spy plane into an ally's airspace? Would it be normal if the French did the same with England or Germany? What would have happened if Finland had sent a spy plane over Sweden? What's the meaning of actions like that?

If Turkey feels threatened or that it has rights that Greece ignores, why didn't they go to the international court in Hague? If Turkey thinks that they have the right to expand their airspace borders everywhere, especially in the Black Sea, from six miles to ten miles, but then thinks that Greece does not have the same right in Aegean Sea, they can go to the international court in The Hague.

Both countries paid the cost of a few who cannot see clear into the future, but live in the past. As I have said from the beginning, the worst part is the cost of human life. In my opinion, both countries have to do something and soon before something more dramatic happens. Turkey has to stop all these dangerous games and if they feel that Greece is not right they should go to the international court in The Hague. The Greeks should stop complaining to the EU council and the UN, complaints that after thirty years nobody bothers to read anymore, and just go to the international court in The Hague.

Ending I'd like to add something from personal experience. I grew up in the middle of this period with Cyprus very alive in my memories and what happened then, I did my national service in the Greek army, a very tense period that nearly led to another war between Greece and Turkey. Since I was a kid, Turkey and war were combined in my mind and I went through phases to finalize with me saying out loud, "Well, if a war is to happen, let's do it." Some will be killed, but at least it will be peace in the end. The whole thing scared me then when I said it and it scares me now I'm writing about it. A solution has to be found here and now, in no way I want my kid to think the same thing, never again.

Ovi magazine, Ovi lehti, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus

Building boundaries

This is an article published in the last issue of the Ovi magazine - Ovi lehti

It is nearly twenty years since the fall of the Berlin wall and other walls seem to come just to remind us that boundaries are still here. The USA government builds a wall on the border with Mexico and Israel continues its wall to separate the Jewish population from the Palestinians ignoring borders and agreements.

The walls don't just keep the outsiders out, but keeps the citizens prisoners to their own prejudices and boundaries. Boundaries because there is no other way to describe what's happening. Between the USA and Cuba there is a sea with sharks and wild waves, but has this ever stopped the illegal immigration the last 40 years? Why will a wall stop the Mexicans from illegally crossing the borders?

Walls only hide their own boundaries and by putting their head in the sand like an ostrich and avoiding the real problem. The solution should be found first before moving to building a wall. Prejudice has become a boundary for both Palestinians and Israelis. For every Israeli a Palestinian is a terrorist ready to kill everybody who is around. For every Palestinian, an Israeli represents the invader and murderer of children who occupies their land.

Palestine and Israel are extreme examples but you have only to check the news to see how many boundaries are around us in every single part of the world. Boundaries that have to do with nearly everything: color, religion, education, sexuality, past, future, cooking, language, accent, the list is endless.

Studying psychology I came across the question if you should cast people in wider teams and groups. Following what most of my professors said, I decided that every individual was exceptional and despite similarities you have to treat every patient individually and take care of his/her own individual needs. Somehow the same applies with the boundaries.

Before we move to social boundaries we have to do something with our personal boundaries. In a conversation we started with a friend in Ovi forum about the leader of the left alliance in Finland I found that the word 'communist' had become a taboo. It was a boundary for him and the etiquette was enough for him to expel the woman to the worst hell without any excuses.

In a conversation at a party a few months ago, a young man from Turkey could only talk about Cyprus emphasizing my Greek origins, which was traumatic since the only thing I wanted was to have a joyful couple of hours and drink a few pints of beer. In the end I felt like a representative of the Greek Foreign Office occasionally saying things I didn't really agree with.

For a certain Iranian who lives in Helsinki every American, as a principal, is a bad guy, a supporter of George W. Bush and it doesn't matter how twisted he's expressing himself his true is the only true. All of us added together combine to make society and we have the liberty to express ourselves and aware whether or not to influence people around us. The fight against boundaries should start from each one of us individually.

I was really careful in the examples I used because racism and prejudice is not a far step from these boundaries. For as long as we acknowledge that there are boundaries there is hope and we must never forget that we all have our boundaries one way or another.

To cross the line is not difficult and the anti-Americanism of the Iranian becomes hate to anything American blinding him as a consequence and leading him to prejudice against innocent people making him no different than the usual skinheads. If that Turkish man would have crossed the line of his boundaries we could have both really had a good time drinking our pints and talking about the Finnish weather and football, instead of a tense half-an-hour and then avoiding one another for the rest of the night.

Having a kid, especially a daughter, has made me more aware of the boundaries I will have to cross in the next few years and the only thing I can think of is how the hell can I forbid my daughter from doing nothing more than the same things I did when I was a kid and a teenager. I think by just doing that I will have become a better person and my daughter might live in a society without a need for etiquettes and walls.

ovi magazine, ovi lehti, boundaries, politics, greece, cyprus, turkey