2005

Christmas celebrations are over, and NewYear festivities have faded into the background. To me personally it has been been a strange season of holidays, in many ways celebrated in a minor key...

In the last week before Christmas there was a a tragic car accident in which I lost three older friends; due to the icy road a car just slided off the road, turned around and fell into a small river, it got immediately filled with icecold water and the three old persons in the car drowned.

And then this terribly catastrophy in what we call the far East. 150.000-200.000 people are killed and/or missing, and millions have become empovered and homeless. I can't really imagine how it must be....

Sweeden and Norway (where I live) seem to be the European countries that have lost most people; 3500 are missing in Sweeden; Norway misses 1500. That is many to countries that comprise only 6 (Sweeden) to 4.5 million (Norway) people. A lot of parents have lost some of their children, and children have lost their parents. Yesterday we were told that over 60 orphaned children returned to Sweeden. Their parents were all missing......

When I recover, I will continue posting on this blog; due to a larger project, I will also occasionally present small texts about the early years of Philo, that is, about his social background. What do we in fact know about the life of Philo? I would appreciate comments on these issues.

In the second week of January, I will be on a study tour to York and London (England), so the postings will probably be few the first couple of weeks of 2005.
But stay tuned! :-)

Update Jan 3:

The Norwegian Police has now released the list of names of those declared missing in the disaster in the Far East, and after being checked and rechecked,the number has now shrunk to 275. The figures are also lesser than first announced in Sweeden. This is really good news. We are all very relieved, even though we know there are still that many missing.