It may well be that my head is in a funky state from exams and the floaty existence that surrounds them, but I’ve seen so many outright awesome headlines on my tour de web today that I will collect them for future reference. These are from renowned sources, it’s not April fools’ day and they are, as far as I can tell, completely true. Some are serious stuff, but forgive me for laughing - it is too absurd.

Woman exchanged 2000 Monopoly dollars into 1400 danish Kr in the bank, at an exchange rate of 0.7. But it does not stop there: Next day she went back to the same bank to do the same thing.

Blagojevich planned to sell the empty Illinois senator seat to Oprah Winfrey (who has never been in politics)?!

Car stuck, in church roof 35 m above ground. Used slope to launch.

No case files exist for Guantanamo detainees. Wait, what? That’s even crazier than I expected.

Man accepts other people’s speeding fines -goes to jail.

I promised to write only about important, essential things, no personal jabjab that makes some blogs so tideous. Rabbits are important.

My place is now a bunnyplace. I didn’t realise how much I’ve been missing companion animals. How calming it is to work in the home-office to the eager sounds of rabbits busily minding their own business. How much they make me smile when they run across the floor and can’t stop when they reach the other end. A bunnyplace is a happy place.

We picked up Lilo and Luna from a shelter organization yeasterday. It was snowing so heavily that black rabbits were white before we even got back to the car. Sure getting snowed on is not a bunny’s favorite pastime, and two sulky rabbits stared at us from the far corner of the cage the rest of the day. Although the door was kept open and we tried our best to trick them out on the floor with treats, they only wanted to lay there like some amorphic fur heap with ears. Today is another matter altogether, they seem to have moved to under the couch and arrange expeditions to the other rooms from there.

In their previous home they lived with cats, and rabbits were bossing the cats around. Bunny got guts! It broke my heart taking them away from their cosy home and their feline frenemies, but at least they get more jumping room here!

They’re already doing the funny, weird things rabbits do, like hiding their food bowl under a heap of hay and a number of other rearrangements that seem perfectly random to non-rabbits.

They absolutely love that carpet. Guess it reminds them of a grassy field.

Embarrassingly enough, I can’t tell them apart - but they don’t seem to care what I call them so using the wrong name should be forgivable.

Wow! I am going to have to moderate yesterday’s post substantially. While I’m still as puzzled by the selective blindness I’ve seen many times, the people of Oslo have proven that there’s still solid numbers of people who care. When a city of half a million can present 40 000+ people for a procession, there must still be hope. Alas, as I was hindered from participating and the media seem to focus solely on a different, violent demonstration the same night, I haven’t been able to find pictures from the procession.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government is still ignoring the UN and blocking the border, even for Redcross!

In danger of reducing Murmeldyr to a collection of links to good causes, I give you a few channels to show concern:
Call from Palestinian human rights organizations to UN, EU and the Geneva Council

Avaaz’ petition to the UN, EU, Arab League and USA for negotiations instead of force

Petition by the whole Norwegian left wing and workers’ federations to the Norwegian government to remove its investments in Israel -a powerful message

I turn on the news. I can’t watch and turn off again. I turn it back on, it’s too important, too big to be ignorant about.

I’m of course talking about the war on the edge of Europe. This is no political blog, but I can’t hold my peace on this. But instead of commenting the things that are going on, which many have done better than I ever could, like in The Independent, I will rather express my profound wonder regarding a quite common reaction to these news: “Meh.”

As we walked past a newsstand, I said to my friend, -have you seen the headlines? She shrugs,
-There’s always a war somewhere. There’s no way my friend could care less, and I see the same mentality in a lot of people when the issue is brought up; in lunch at work, on the bus. The information we get is truly hard to relate to and people tackle it in very different ways; some cry their empathic hearts out, while some lock it all out and deny the existence of the whole situation. The latter case puzzles and fascinates me and gives me some very low thoughts on humanity. It seems, the more terrible the violations, the less do people care. Sure the Middle East conflict is as old as Israel itself, but this is different, this time the people have nowhere to escape and that is what makes it so exceedingly inhumane. 30 years ago there would have been a massive uproar, but there have only been scattered demonstrations in response to this.

A simple explanation would be that people protect themselves from pain by relating to a difficult problem simply by not relating to it. That’s an accepted psychological fact. But isn’t that still too simple? How is it possible to ignore such a massive fight, so close and so well documented in media?
 Are we really ready to accept anything with a shrug and a frown? Where will that take us? How much are we capable of accepting and ignoring without ever reacting?

To those who have given in to the hopelessness I quote Avaaz: Our efforts really can make a difference — Israel’s own foreign minister admits that international pressure, if intense enough, could ensure a ceasefire (våpenhvile).

In the meantime, I’m glad to see that some ordinary people still keep their hopes. Jewish teenagers with a conscience are going to jail for refusing to participate in this war. Please sign this petition to free them: December 18th campaign