Lögberg-Heimskringla - 15.06.2013, Side 7

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Lögberg-Heimskringla • 15. júní 2013 • 7
Fritters are deepfried delicacies or tidbits. The spelling is uncannily
similar to the Icelandic word Fréttir. Thus you are getting news
regarding Iceland from the Sunshine State and some tidbits too.
Florida Fritters
If somebody had said to your reporter 10 or 15 years ago, “Your e-mail account has
been hacked,” he would not have
understood a thing. He would
have thought that the speaker
was deranged or from another
planet. But much water has gone
under the bridge since then, and
he has been dragged into the
world of computers, kicking and
screaming, and has adopted as
well as can be expected.
First he bought a small
computer that he used only for
word processing, but after a few
years he purchased a larger one
and established a connection
to the internet. Your reporter
now had an e-mail account and
an address, and started dipping
his toe into the murky waters
of the bottomless pit called the
internet. He and his wife started
using e-mail slowly but their use
increased year after year and,
unfortunately, has now almost
completely replaced handwritten
letters. The computer was used
in many other ways and became
one of the more important tools
in the home.
Some years ago, after he
had become an “experienced”
computer user, your reporter
started hearing about bad
people, probably in China,
who spent their time breaking
into or hacking people’s e-mail
accounts. The human defense
mechanism, the one that gets
one to believe that bad things
can only happen to other people,
led him to think that only other
people’s e-mail accounts would
be hacked. Of course he was
wrong. One day someone sent
out to everybody on his address
list, in his name, an advertisement
for weight reduction pills. He
received messages from many
of his correspondents that his
e-mail account had been hacked
and that he needed to change
his password post-haste. The
dreaded words, computer virus,
were even mentioned. A new
password was made up, and he
thought his problems would be
over.
Wrong again. The merciless
hackers were just beginning to
play with your poor reporter,
like cats with a mouse. Now
they sent out a letter, in the
reporter’s name, stating that he
had been traveling in Manila in
the Philippines. There he had
been robbed and was now in
dire straits. He asked his friends
to help him out by sending
$1,850.00 by Western Union.
He promised, of course, to pay
the money back. Of course, this
letter was sent to everybody in
the address book. Again, many
messages were received from
friends, who fortunately had not
been duped by the letter. Others
joked about it.
Another password change
came, but when the hackers
sent an e-mail to the reporter’s
and his wife’s bank, asking
about balances and instructions
to transfer funds, more drastic
measures were necessary. Now
the $ 80.00 an hour computer
expert was summoned. It took
him two hours to clean up, close
the e-mail account, open a new
one, change e-mail addresses
and passwords and do other
things that were much too
complicated for your simple
reporter to comprehend. But
now everything is slowly
getting back to normal, and the
hackers have, no doubt, found
new unsuspecting victims.
Thórir S. Gröndal
Florida
114th Annual
Deuce of August
Icelandic celebration
Mountain, north Dakota
august 2nD, 3rD anD 4th 2013
“Hvað er svo
glatt sem góðra
vina fundur?”
“What is as joyful
as a gathering
of good friends?”
Visit us at www.august2nd.com
Follow us on Facebook
for instant updates!
Nordic Jazz Starts DC
Summer Season
June sees the eighth iteration
of the Nordic collaborated
jazz festival in Washington
DC. Twins Jazz will host five
concerts featuring some of the
best jazz musicians from the
Nordic region.
From June 20 to June 29,
Nordic Jazz 2013 showcases six
outstanding jazz acts from the
five Nordic countries. They are;
Norway’s Christian Wallumrød
Ensamble, Iceland’s Tómas R.
Einarsson Trio, Sweden’s Lina
Nyberg Band, Denmark’s Line
Kruse and Søren Møller, and
Finland’s Eero Koivistoinen.
Details at http://www.
twinsjazz.com
Icelandic Artists Touring
the US in 2013
Several Icelandic artists are
on tour on the United States.
They include, Sigur Rós, Björk,
Of Monsters and Men and
Ólafur Arnalds.
Sam Amidon is in Portland
on June 20, Ólafur Arnalds
in Los Angeles on July 12,
Pomona on July 13, New York
July 16, Minneapolis July 17
and Chicago on July 18.
Björk will be in Chicago on
July 19.
Sigur Rós will be in Rochester
Hills on September 14.
For a link that leads to the
Iceland Music Export site where
gigs are listed by country, go to
http://www.icelandmusic.is/
live/gigs-abroad/?sort=country
Music Festivals in
Iceland in 2013
There is a dazzling variety
of music events and festivals
in Iceland every year and
2013 is no exception. From
large established festivals like
Iceland Airwaves to smaller or
up-and-coming festivals visitors
are bound to find something
to their taste. These festivals
feature both domestic and
international artists, including
bands from the US. For more
information, the link is http://
www.icelandmusic.is/live/
festivals/
Used with permission, from
the Icelandic Embassy in
Washington D.C. May newsletter
Music – across the U.S.A. and Iceland
oLafurarnaLds.com/discograPHy
17di Júní, the Icelandic
Association of Chicago Iceland’s
Independence Day celebration
will be held in Vasa Park, Elgin
on June 22. We still like our
recent location, Promontory
Point by the Lake, but this time
the date falls on the same day as
Midsummer Festival, which we
call Jónsmessa. It will be held in
Vasa Park where the IAC sells
Icelandic Glacial water for our
scholarship fund, so we thought
it was a good idea to combine
the two. We hope to see many
of you there for the Icelandic
hot dogs with all the trimmings.
The IAC treats you to Icelandic
hot dogs, pylsa, Icelandic
style – ‘ein með öllu’ – which
includes dried fried onion and
remoulade. What makes our hot
dogs unique and oh so good, is
the Icelandic lamb meat.Other
than the hot dogs, the event is a
BYO or food can be purchased
from vending specialties in
support of the Scandinavian
Club. Our Association sells pop
and Icelandic Glacial water in
support of our scholarship fund.
Remember to bring picnic
gear: blankets, lawn chairs,
sunscreen, insect repellent, um-
brellas. If anyone owns flags or
other 17th of June decorations,
please bring it with you – takk.
We’ll have our parade with flags
and balloons but the park also
offers other activities including
music and a bonfire, rain or
shine.
The official address for Vasa
Park is Rte 31, South Elgin. It is
north of North Avenue on Rte 31.
Courtesy the Icelandic
Association of Chicago’s
newsletter, editor Siggy Jonsson
The Icelandic Association of Chicago was represented at the INL of NA convention by John H. Hofteig. The convention was hosted
by the Icelandic Club of Greater Seattle and held at
the downtown Seattle Crowne Plaza, attended by at
least 170 delegates and many guests from Iceland.
An optional day-long tour of the Icelandic-
heritage community of Blaine, WA included an
excellent presentation by Ms. Joan Thorsteinsson
Linde, a long-time resident of nearby tiny Point
Roberts, WA, a community whose early settlement
was augmented by sixty-plus Icelandic families
who re-immigrated from Victoria, BC, beginning
circa 1894. Initially, these Icelandic immigrants
were attracted by the prospect of free land per
“squatter’s rights,” exceedingly abundant salmon
fishing in adjacent waters, and employment
opportunities at four very large fish canneries then
in full production. Point Roberts is a peninsula
south of Vancouver, BC cut-off from contiguous
land-access to the rest of Washington State by the
49th Parallel. Originally intended as the site of an
American military fort, early-on it almost became
a forgotten isolated fragment of remote United
States territory. All of this changed early in the
presidency of Theodore Roosevelt when the federal
government announced formal plans to develop
this area for permanent settlement. The residents
of Point Roberts, mainly of Icelandic descent but
also including those from Germany, Denmark, and
elsewhere, immediately mobilized and petitioned
Washington, DC for the right to remain as landed-
immigrants. President Roosevelt’s personal
representative was so impressed with the industry of
these early immigrants and the improvements they
had made to a once heavily-forested coastal area
that all of its residents were immediately granted
secure homestead rights for the very first time. So
grateful were these new American citizens that they
engaged a local German immigrant and professional
tanner to sacrifice a prized ram and make a rug for
the President from its hide, a gift which President
Roosevelt graciously accepted and acknowledged
with a letter still preserved by local Icelanders in the
archives of Point Roberts.
Þrúdur Helgadóttir, wife of Manitoba’s retiring
consul general, Atli Asmindsson, was so impressed
with Joan’s presentation that she arranged for a
television crew from Iceland to come to Point
Roberts this past May 30, for about five hours,
photographing various sites and interviewing several
residents. The resulting documentary will be aired
in Iceland sometime next December.
Iceland’s Independence Day
features Icelandic hot dogs
Convention talk leads to Icelandic documentary
John H. Hofteig, Chicago, IL