Sweden

Doesn't anyone in this country know the difference between communism and socialism? Russia had communism, or whatever it is called now, and Sweden has socialism. I have been to both places and they are not the same by any means. Sweden has its share of CEOs who are millionaires (Ikea, Volvo), and the rest of the population lives quite well. (They have a good national health care program, too.) Russia has millionaires, too, but the majority of the people struggle to make a decent living.

Doesn't anyone in this country know the difference between communism and socialism? Russia had communism, or whatever it is called now, and Sweden has socialism. I have been to both places and they are not the same by any means. Sweden has its share of CEOs who are millionaires (Ikea, Volvo), and the rest of the population lives quite well. (They have a good national health care program, too.) Russia has millionaires, too, but the majority of the people struggle to make a decent living.

It was with great interest that I read John Houser III's review of the Grand Cru in Belvedere Square ("Fine wines, fair small plates at Grand Cru," Nov. 3). Having been there several times myself, I wholeheartedly agree with his recommendations. There is however, a glaring error in his text, one which reflects poorly on our knowledge of regional cuisine and culture and only reinforces the belief that Americans have no clue when it comes to anything outside our borders. In this day and age of the Internet, how can it be possible to refer to raclette as a "Swedish classic"?

SATURDAY'S TELEVISION HIGHLIGHTS X Games Foz do Iguacu ESPN11 a.m. MLB Dodgers@Orioles, Game 1 MASN1 Detroit@Angels 453 Washington@Mets 53 Dodgers@Orioles, Game 2 MASN, 137 St. Louis@Philadelphia MLB7 NBA play. First Round: Boston@New York 2, 73:30 First Round: Golden State@Denver ESPN5:30 First Round: Chicago@Brooklyn ESPN8 First Round: Memphis@Clippers ESPN10:30 Basketball Nike Hoop Summit ESPN27 Boxing Fight Night: T. Fury vs. S. Cunningham 11, 44 Saul Alvarez vs. Austin Trout SHOW10 PGA RBC Heritage, Third Round 13, 93 Champions Greater Gwinnett, 2nd Rd. GOLF3 LPGA LOTTE Championship, Final Round GOLF6:30 NHL Florida@New Jersey NHL1 Washington@Montreal CSN7 Horses Coolmore Lexington Stakes MASN4:30 M. lax. Bucknell@Colgate CBSSNNoon Villanova@Notre Dame ESPNU2 Navy@Johns Hopkins ESPNU4 M. soccer EPL: Fulham vs Arsenal ESPN29:55 a.m. EPL: Sunderland vs Everton FOXSOC10 a.m. Tennis Fed Cup: U.S. vs. Sweden TENNIS2, 4 RADIO HIGHLIGHTS MLB Washington@Mets 1500 AM3 Dodgers@Orioles 1090 AM7

Two decades ago, Britain was seeking membership in the European Community while demanding changes in its terms. Sweden's late Prime Minister Olof Palme told a reporter for this newspaper that Sweden, in contrast, could accept all the terms of the EC's Treaty of Rome, but not the preamble. Neutrality forbade it. And that neutrality, the cornerstone of Sweden's national policy, was a balancing act. Sweden was acutely interested in what it was balancing between.Sweden's decision to apply for membership in the European Community is a testimonial that the balance of Europe is gone, leaving Sweden little to be neutral about.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- For nearly 79 minutes, this was the kind of game FIFA had been desperately trying to hide. No goals, and three, four and sometimes five players hanging back on the defensive end.And then it became a historic game in the world's largest sporting event, great until the last shot.Sweden midfielder Henrik Larsson scored in the lower right corner in a sudden-death penalty shootout, and then goalie Thomas Ravelli knocked down a shot by defender Miodrag Belodedici as the Swedes won a 5-4 sudden-death penalty shootout against Romania in a World Cup '94 quarterfinal.

WASHINGTON -- One young girl had trouble seeing the blackboard. Her teachers concluded that she was mentally retarded. In accordance with the nation's law, she was sterilized. Later, it was discovered that she suffered from nothing more than bad eyesight.What barbaric regime perpetrated such an atrocity? It was Sweden, the very model of progressive socialism.Between 1934 and 1974, 62,000 Swedes were sterilized, often against their will, for a variety of reasons. Many, like the girl who couldn't see the blackboard, were considered mentally inferior.

Nothing came of the last "bourgeois" party government in Sweden, which lasted from 1976 to 1982. That shaky coalition never created a program to alter the Swedish consensus on welfare socialism, which the ousted Social Democrats had achieved. This time, with a center-right array of parties once more displacing the traditional ruling party, the same could recur. Or it might end the Western world's most generous and simultaneously stifling welfare state.The drubbing of the Social Democrats in Sunday's election was expected.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- At the end of a long and emotional campaign, Sweden yesterday voted solidly to abandon its Arctic isolation and join the European Union.Sweden's approval follows similar yes votes in Austria and Finland this year and is expected to give a boost to a referendum at the end of the month in neighboring Norway, where opposition has been strong.The addition of all four countries would make the EU the world's largest and richest free-trade bloc, surpassing North America, and could help speed the integration of the Eastern and Central European countries hoping to join.

KAREN ARNOLD'S maternal grandparents immigrated to the United States from Sweden in the early 1900s.Nearly a century later, the Clary's Forest resident has returned to their homeland.Arnold, a poet with a doctorate in English, is teaching a course in modern American poetry this fall at the University of Lund.She went over in July to visit family. She plans to return home in December.While in Sweden, Arnold will work on translations of 19th-century Swedish women's diaries, a project she began on an earlier visit.

Baltimore police Maj. Melissa Hyatt, commander of police's Central District, was accepted into a three-week United Nations training program in Sweden with other law enforcement officials from across the world. Hyatt, 37, said she is the only American participating in this year's United Nations Police Commanders Course, which takes place April 8 - 26, with police officers from around the world. The course, directed by the Swedish National Bureau of Investigation and the Swedish Armed Forces International Centre, focuses on “intercultural leadership” using many of the same training UN military officers undergo, according to a course description.

Doctors in America told Chris Lyles a cancerous tumor on his windpipe was inoperable, but he and his family wouldn't take no for an answer. They wrote surgeons all over the world, pleading for someone to take his case. Then during an Internet search, Lyles' brother-in-law stumbled upon a doctor in Sweden who recently implanted a synthetic trachea in a man in Eritrea. They sent an email to Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, who replied with words they had been waiting months to hear: "I can help you. " Macchiarini performed the surgery, making 30-year-old Lyles of Abingdon the second person in the world, and the first American, to have a synthetic trachea implanted.

It was with great interest that I read John Houser III's review of the Grand Cru in Belvedere Square ("Fine wines, fair small plates at Grand Cru," Nov. 3). Having been there several times myself, I wholeheartedly agree with his recommendations. There is however, a glaring error in his text, one which reflects poorly on our knowledge of regional cuisine and culture and only reinforces the belief that Americans have no clue when it comes to anything outside our borders. In this day and age of the Internet, how can it be possible to refer to raclette as a "Swedish classic"?

Former Loyola soccer player Sarra Moller , now a Greyhounds assistant coach, has signed a contract to play for Kvarnsvedens IK, a professional women's soccer team in Sweden. Moller is the first Loyola women's soccer player to play professionally overseas. Moller concluded her college playing career in 2008 by earning All-Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference first-team honors for the fourth consecutive year. She was the conference's Defensive Player of the Year during her freshman and senior seasons.

Former Hart Trophy winner Peter Forsberg is on defending champion Sweden's Olympic squad for the 2010 Vancouver Games. The veteran center was selected for the 23-man Olympic team announced Sunday by coach Bengt-Ake Gustafsson. Forsberg won two Stanley Cups with the Avalanche and was the NHL's MVP in 2003. He plays for Swedish team Modo but has dealt with nagging ankle and foot problems for several years. Gustafsson said he is not worried about Forsberg's injuries going into the Olympics.

What's the best place in the world to be a mother? According to Save the Children, which compared the well-being of mothers and children in 146 countries, it's Sweden. On the other hand, there won't be too many happy Mother's Days this year in Niger, which ranked last among countries surveyed on measures of maternal and child health and well-being. Consider this comparison between the two nations: Skilled health personnel are present at almost every birth in Sweden, while only 33 percent of births are attended in Niger.

UPPSALA, Sweden -- Checks for more than $22,000 each have been mailed to about 200 Swedes who were forcibly sterilized in decades past after authorities deemed them socially undesirable and unfit to bear children.But the start of compensation in no way signals closure on one of the most devastating scandals to shake modern Sweden.Since the disclosure by an investigative journalist nearly three years ago that Swedish authorities sterilized more than 63,000 citizens -- 90 percent of them women -- from 1935 through 1975, fresh revelations have been made by media here of other efforts to perfect Sweden's genetic stock.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke departed yesterday for Stockholm, Sweden, where he plans to lay the groundwork for a Baltimore bid to play host to the Olympics in 2012.Before leaving, Schmoke said he had set up a meeting with the Sweden Olympic Committee, which is hoping to win the 2004 Summer Games for Stockholm.The chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority, John A. Moag Jr., will join Schmoke in what the mayor described as an "informal information exchange" on Sweden's experience in navigating the site-selection process.

Gothenburg, Sweden -- That's a crazy dateline for a Maryland outdoors column, but what the heck, that's where we are. This town on Sweden's west coast is deep in fish. There's a huge statue in the middle of town of the Greek god Poseidon squeezing the daylights out of a fish locals swear is a cod but I think looks like a shark. There's a fishing museum, but it's closed until spring, which I believe begins July 18 this year. And then there's lutefisk. Don't touch it, let alone taste it. The air-dried fish doctored with lye would take the bugs off headlights.