Last week, all eyes were on Stockholm as the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to ... the European Union?

Greece's Ekathimerini, reporting in the midst of austerity measures and full-monty rebellions, remarks that "Crisis-hit Europeans see cruel joke in EU Nobel."

But Germany's Die Zeit, representing the country that has steered Europe through these measures, insists that "Ja, das macht Sinn" ("Yes, it Makes Sense").

Right or wrong, the prize raises another dilemma, probed by the UK's Guardian: "Who will collect the Nobel peace prize for the EU?"

Image: europapress.es

For reasons unknown to me, this story about a St. Paul man threatening a 62 year-old woman with a sword over a borrowed book has gotten way toomuch press. As a fan of St. Paul, and in the spirit of promoting the Midwest as a fairly decent place to write, I’d like to dwell on some of the story’s finer aspects.

Books matter to Midwesterners. As far as I can tell, the whole ruckus began when the suspect threw the book he had borrowed onto the floor, and the kindly loaner of the book gave him a little shit about it. Not only does the woman here acknowledge the value of books by suggesting they don’t belong on the floor, but the borrower, by his swift decision to get a weapon, suggests that he, too, knows the import involved here. If the guy didn’t think it was a big deal to throw a book on the floor, why would he bother brandishing a sword? It hard to imagine any of this happening over a Gilmore Girls DVD.

Midwesterners have Scandinavian impulses regardless of whether they are actually Scandinavian, and Scandinavians are insanely afraid of getting called out on something they did poorly. Scandinavians are also almost godlike in their ability to bring shame on others. We have here the genius of seemingly innocent Midwestern passive aggression: the woman suggested he just throw the book away if he were going to leave it on the floor. She doesn’t accuse him directly of doing something shitty but suggests that he might as well have done something shittier. Most people have likely expected the worst from him his entire life. And the poor guy, who later in jail admits he is an idiot, can’t help but get emotional: he, too, is caught up in the Scandinavian shame cycle.

And then there's his choice of weapon. A sword. Really? Most people I hang around with aren’t really prone to take an unsheathed sword as a threat. A gun? Sure. A big knife? Oh yes (more on that in a second). But a sword? From a kid who also has ninja stars and nunchucks? If it weren’t for the sword, there would be no story. Whatever the guy’s intentions, he has succeeded in provoking a great amount of curiosity. He might not be a good neighbor, or a good criminal, but he has proven that minor criminals can still surprise us, and that sometimes people’s small quirks get the most attention.

Saturday's frightening incident in Times Square lies on the opposite end of the blade-wielding spectrum. While our book borrower's actions provoked lots of trashy curiosity, the killing of Darrius Kennedy brings up a whole lot of actual fear. His standoff with the cops, the bystanders, and the rolling cameras of a hundred smartphones was not funny; it was chaotic and very sad. For all we know, both men might have begun with the same small, dumb impulse: a trigger response to a mix of panic, fear, helplessness. Our book borrower only briefly acted on the impulse. Mr. Kennedy took it to the limit.

Image: faildaily.blogspot.com

News of online storage service FileSonic's disablement didn't exactly get this downloading devotee's heart racing. FileSonic…had I ever heard of them? But Megaupload's shutdown left me shattered, considering its ultra-convenience and the realization that Swizz Beatz is CEO! (or is he?) Me, I'll remember Swizz for his bangin' production skills, plus his marrying the most beautiful woman in music.

Though there are myriad music-downloading options—not to mention social media-friendly sharables like Spotify and SoundCloud—that wasn't the case when I was a trainspotting undergrad, circa 2003. Picture it: an impressionable young man caught up in the crackling allure of breakbeats and basslines, dutifully reading BPM-bible URB magazine while marooned in Central Texas.

The massive Tower Records adjacent to campus helped a bit (carrying CDs of both Photek's splintered-rhythm masterpiece Modus Operandi and Autechre's cerebral robo-jam LP5), but it wasn't enough. Most of the artists I read about released their tracks on dubplates: DJ-friendly 12" or 7" vinyl records. Tower Records didn't carry vinyl, nor were these artists releasing “proper” CDs. So I made do with mp3 downloads. I wasn't content with streaming new tracks from the epic Drum & Bass Arena; I wanted to “possess” them, to listen to them whenever and wherever. I had a 2G iPod, but before that—I kid you not—I walked around campus with a Walkman, big-ass headphones and a bag full of burned CD-Rs.

I probably downloaded a million Gigs of music through the P2P networkSoulseek. This marvelous application was created by a former Napster programmer and had an enormous underground electronic music userbase. Soulseek featured "wishlists" (shareable stored searches of tracks you want) and chat-rooms with other users. I spent my days in lectures and nights downloading tracks and chatting with new "friends" on both coasts.

So when I "share" a track on Spotify with my friends or post it on Facebook/Twitter, I barely give it a second thought. It's funny that UK distributor STHoldings pulled its 200+ labels from Spotify in mid-November of last year, as many of those labels were my outlets for dope d'n'b back in the day. I can't add Blame's transcendent “Amazon Girl” to a Spotify playlist—yet his Asylum EP is available on iTunes, incredibly. The RIAA recently commented that the closure of P2P sites like Limewire actually lead to digital album sales, as many former users seek legal outlets.

It's not as freeing as last decade's nascent download/share culture, but for us trainspotters, there's always a way.

Image: Black Christian News (slightly photo-chopped by the author)