Country number 1(1)

Blur, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Forest floor, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Geranium, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Returning to the topic of Finland being the best country in the world (and USA number 11), there was an interesting column in New York Times, in which Friedman quoted Samuelson on the topic of laziness and education: "Motivation is weak because more students (of all races and economic classes, let it be added) don't like school, don’t work hard and don't do well. In a 2008 survey of public high school teachers, 21 percent judged student absenteeism a serious problem; 29 percent cited 'student apathy.'"

I guess USA is not alone with this problem, we have that also in Finland. Sometimes it seems that some of the youth think that becoming a celebrity is the way to go, not learning skills and acquiring knowledge.

Friedman writes from the American perspective: "We had a values breakdown — a national epidemic of get-rich-quickism and something-for-nothingism. Wall Street may have been dealing the dope, but our lawmakers encouraged it. And far too many of us were happy to buy the dot-com and subprime crack for quick prosperity highs."

So: back to the basics. I sure hope so.

Here are some photographs from today. Back to the basics also here.