One of those ironies that hits you like a cold fish.

I continue to be obsessed with the disintegration of civil society in Sweden. Using the words of Fjordman:

Gangs of 14 - 15-year-olds raping and robbing is now common in many Stockholm suburbs.

It occurred to me today that one of my souvenirs from Sweden is a full-size Swedish-language movie poster for Stanley Kubrick's film of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. I had read the book just a year before going to live in suburban Stockholm. For those unfamiliar, the plot involves a nanny-state gone mad in which gangs of drug-using teenagers wontonly commit cruel assaults and rapes. It is meant as a cautionary tale and not intended as a blueprint for future society. Unfortunately it seems that the political heirs of Olaf Palme didn't get that memo.

At that time, I couldn't see the film in the US due to the rating and my age. Even the expurgated version was R-rated, whereas the original won the rating 'X' [which they now call 'NC-17']. I do believe that the original would rate no worse than 'R' by today's standards. Sweden's rating system was quite different. Nudity and even rape weren't considered as vile as beating and shooting. I could see this film in Sweden because I was over 15 and some of the beatings had been edited.

I hadn't given a thought to that poster in quite a while. It's sitting in a box somewhere untouched for at least 6 years. It hit me all the sudden a litle while ago.