Forgetting while remembering

While working at the cabin, I couldn't find my water bottle.  I looked all around the cabin and a couple of workspots around it.  When I asked my wife if she had seen it, she pointed right at the bottle at another workspot, where I had been working most recently.  I immediately said "Tankspridd" which is Swedish for absent-minded.

Although I read a Swedish book or newspaper now and then and listen to a Swedish radio podcast, I haven't really used Swedish as a daily language since we lived in Sweden 1970-1974.  I think I've thought of the word "tankspridd" now and then, mostly in my own head.  Still, it was a bit startling that an older memory popped out while I had to dig for a more recent memory.

While double checking my translation, I came across Tankspriddas Riksförbund (National Association of the Absent-Minded). http://tankspridd.se/~/  According to this site, 99% of us are absent-minded.

Oh, yes!  Forget about the stereotype of the "dour Swede".  The Swedes have a very good sense of humor and tell lots of jokes and funny stories.

The fallacy of "right" and "left" – A must read

Robert Reich wrote a very interesting blog about his "counterpart" on the "right", David Frum, leaving public radio's Marketplace as a commentator for the "right". Frum didn't think he could "represent" the "right" anymore. Reich wrote that such labels don't lead to what's best for America.

See "The Triumph of Dogma", Robert Reich, 2011-10-14.