STAKKARS NORGE

It means “poor Norway,” not in the sense of impoverished, for this is a VERY, VERY, VERY wealthy nation, but to mean pitiable. I intend, of course, the recent atrocity that took place in Oslo and environs, and any country where such a thing occurred would be pitiable.

The unbelievable ineptitude of the Keystone Kops’ response to the tragedy is, however, utterly disgusting. They were unable to muster a police helicopter because ALL the pilots were vacationing??!! That’s what I read, and, in several ways, I wasn’t surprised.

Even in the days before the oil windfall, it was a land of vacations, and the work ethic was considered unethical. Then, as now, if a person were not taking a vacation, he was planning the next one.

As for the police, their best capability is laying booze traps to catch drivers with a drop of alcohol in their blood. This is not a bad thing to do, for take a look at drunk driving in our poor country. They are also highly keen when it comes to apprehending the smuggling in of commodities the government taxes into oblivion, alcohol and tobacco. An American woman that lived there told me she came home one day and remarked that the Salvation Army certainly maintained a prominent presence in Bergen. Her husband asked how she could tell that, and she proceeded to describe the peaceful men strolling the streets in those long, black cassocks, and those were the police!

It’s a beautiful, prosperous, happy nation with a government that tells everyone every move to make. Friends there complain about being controlled by a pack of Socialist farmers, which was their impression of the Storting (Parliament). The admirable lack of crime – it used to be that a rape made the national news, and nearly every violent crime is committed by one of the aliens the generous country encourages – explains, naturally, its unpreparedness for the mass murderer.

Stakkars Norge, to be sure, but all the police pilots on vacation at one time? The maniac had an hour and a half to shoot the poor victims. Wake up, Norge; start working a little and believe that no one, anywhere in this world, is completely safe.

How many lives is a vacation day worth, anyway?