Friday, September 18, 2009

And Now a Lecture from The Terminally Clueless

Fjordman sent a story from English section of The Local. It concerns Paul Anka’s second wife, Anna, who happens to be Swedish.

First, about Paul Anka, since he figures in the story:

Yes, Mr. Anka is still alive and seems to be thriving, if you don’t count the head wound. Mr. Anka is a good performer if you like his kind of music, and many people do. He’s extraordinarily wealthy as a result of his tunes, but he also has an unfortunate tendency to profane bullying, for which he has become rather infamous as a result of the eternal nature of the internet.

Like many entertainers, he divorced his wife of thirty-seven years (and mother of his five daughters) to eventually end up marrying a trophy wife several years later.

Well, a kind of trophy wife. And he kind of married her in the modern times version. That is, they cohabited beginning in 2002 and after the births of two children, they married in 2008. Not the way he did it the first time in 1963, when he married the daughter of a Lebanese diplomat who was, shall we say, a cut or two above Mr. Anka’s middle class Lebanese Canadian background. But, hey, after thirty-seven years, things get stale, hmm?

So now he has wife #2, set of children #2, and they live happily ever after, as Mrs. Second Paul Anka tells The Local :

The Swedish-born wife of Las Vegas crooner Paul Anka has called Swedish men “tragic” for their “nappy changing” and “equality nonsense”. LA housewife Anna Anka argues that she could be a role model for Swedish women to follow.

“In Sweden it is acceptable to let yourself go, as long as you get your man. I feel sorry for Swedish men who marry beautiful women who then quickly become unattractive, dress sloppily and neglect their husband’s needs,” Anna Anka writes on opinion website Newsmill.

Anna Anka, the 38-year-old wife of 68-year-old former 60s teen idol Paul Anka, is one of the participants of TV3’s new reality TV show “Swedish Hollywood wives” (Svenska Hollywoodfruar) which premiered on Monday.

Aside from claiming a “large fee” for taking part in the programme, Anka claims to have generated “a great deal of attention” in Sweden since the show was broadcast.

“It pleases me. Maybe I can be a role model for other Swedish women to follow,” she writes.

She continues to direct criticism at Sweden in general, and Swedish men in particular, hailing her adopted home of the USA as a place were “men are men, and women are women”.

“Swedish dads are tragic with all their nappy-changing and equality. A real American man panics if he is alone with a child for more than 20 minutes. American dads do not prepare dinner and do not iron, they work and provide for their families.”

This lecture is so loaded with fantasy it’s hard to know where to start. Let’s just go with the Rilly Big Lie, i.e., that she is a role model, or ever could be, for Swedish women. Heavens to Betsy, I sure hope they don’t follow her example. Swedish men have it hard enough without risking felonious assault at the hands of their wives:

Anna Anka police mug shot 2008 Anna Anka, wife of entertainer Paul Anka, has been arrested on charges of domestic battery after hitting her husband in the head with a piece of ice.

After returning from the hospital where he received two staples for the head wound, Anka found Anna missing and contacted authorities.

When Anna returned home, police arrested her for domestic battery, however, the Ventura County D.A.s office declined to prosecute the case.

Anna, born Anna Yeager, is Paul’s second wife…

So much for happily ever after. They married officially in the summer of 2008. In the weeks leading up to Christmas of 2008, Mr. Anka was getting treated for his marital combat wounds. There is no evidence that he either initiated or responded to Mrs. Anka’s tantrum. One commenter on a post about this incident claimed to have known Mrs. Second Paul Anka in school and she had a bad temper even then.

The charge drawn by the county attorney against the Swedish shrew was felony abuse. Because Mr. Anka is sixty-eight, thirty years older than this hothead, a few wags suggested that she be charged with elder abuse instead. My, my.

Like many abused spouses I’ve counseled, Mr. Anka made the county drop the charges. No surprises there.

But her lecture isn’t done, in fact it grows even more fantastical:

In return for economic security provided by their husbands, wives in the US always act with consummate style, Anka claims.

“As a housewife you should support in every way, you should always be attractive and well-dressed.”

This is like something from Marabel Morgan and her “Totalled Woman”( which did so much harm to women’s attempts to provide robust alternatives to the academic hyperfeminists back in the ‘70s). In reality, many US wives work; they are not sitting at home basking in the economic security provided by their husbands. As our vice-President made very clear, any jobs created in this down turn are not going to white men. Official government policy, guys.

But give Anna credit. She’s not about to let reality get in the way of her lecture:

The Skåne-born former beauty pageant queen then goes on to defend her treatment of “the long list” of those on her payroll and praises the US service-minded society.

“If you employ someone in Sweden they would have training and qualifications. Here [in the US] it is illegal Mexicans that do the work…They can’t speak English. It is like talking to a wall. It can get frustrating at times.”

Anka claims that if Swedes would follow after the US and employ help then families would be under less pressure.

“What I am getting at is that in the USA it is all about service. If the Swedish people had learned from the USA then Swedes would have more time for each other. There is no quality time. Now they come home and sulk and have to clean and iron.”

Oh, by all means, you Swedish families: go find some illegal Mexicans to abuse and you too can have more time for the family. Or you could follow the Saudi example and import some Indonesian slaves workers and take away their passports.

Read the whole article, including her sex advice to wives and the hilarious comments that follow. This woman has a bad case of Dumb California Blonde. She must have picked up the disease after she left Sweden, but it now appears to be a permanent condition.

Poor little rich boy Paul Anka. Imagine, he has this woman to look forward to in his declining years,beating him up while he crouches in his wheelchair — no, I’m not kidding. He ought to consider Divorce #2 and get a dog instead. As long as he didn’t buy a Rottweiler, he’d probably be safer than he is now.

When Fjordman sent me this story, he also included a comment I’d left in an earlier post. I’d forgotten I wrote this, but it sounds as though it was a warm-up for Anna Yeager Anka's dubious advice to Swedish women:
- - - - - - - - -
It remains a mystery to me that Sweden is so destructive of its men. They are called “stupid” in polls among women. They are regularly denigrated as less evolved than women.

It’s disgusting and it’s destructive of a country’s social fabric to attempt to reduce men to some inferior version of women. Having them stay home “equally” is not only utopian fluff, it’s actually damaging to infants. Men are not hormonally driven after the birth of their child to minutely observe an infant’s behavior. And with all the good intentions and careful thought in the world, they still can’t do as good a job as a woman. Not with newborns.

What they *can* do is take good care of the momma. A new mother who feels contained and made safe by her partner is a better mother. There is less post-partum depression, and the baby thrives in this environment.

This blunted idea that men = women does incalculable damage to babies. However, no man in Sweden could say that and survive.

It’s happening in the US, too. The phenomenon of “mean girls”, of sexually aggressive females at age 13, of the numbers of women now exceeding men at colleges is a commonplace. And the Kool-Aid drinkers think this is good.

Whenever women move overwhelmingly into a field, the men move out. It’s nothing planned or thought about: too many women in their group is just more estrogen than any man is comfortable with, so he moves on to something less confining, some place where he can breathe.

The other thing which Swedish and American elitist women don’t realize is that children who grow up without men around are less socially skilled, less intellectually challenged, and have poorer intuitive responses to those around them. They are also more aggressive.

American professional women don’t get it, either. They believe the propaganda-spewers. Someone pulled off their input knob so they can’t learn anything new. They sure can tell you about all the absolutes, though.

What we’re doing to men is destructive and immoral. It does not bode well for the future.

/rant

The phenomenon of “mean girls”, of thirteen-year-old girls who are sexual predators, of feminized men or their opposites, the gang-banger homeboys — all of these are disturbed, skewed behaviors. They are indicators that something is wrong with our culture. The frustrating thing is, how does an individual “fix” his culture?

Perhaps you have to care enough to put your foot down. We’re seeing that politically with the growth of the anti-Tax Movement, the Tea Party People. No one sat down and planned this. It’s a distributed process, and it occurs locally, but with networking to other places. The September 12th March on Washington was proof that change is in the air.

But those are political stirrings. How do we bring about cultural change? What will it take to make parents, for instance, band together in the face of school administration bullying? What is the tipping point there?

What will be the tipping point for men, fed up with being the butt of jokes, of being used by women?

What will be the tipping point for women, expected to rise to some “10” level of perfection before they’re acceptable in the meat market which has come to dominate the social life of single young adults?

I don’t know the answers, but I’m watching the Tea Parties change the political climate, so I have hope that the social climate can be shaken up, too.

At least I have proof that change is possible. And given the fall of the mighty recently, I know from personal experience that evil is reversible.

Let’s see what our global ruined economies do to dating, mating, and family-establishment patterns. Better wear your safety belt and a helmet.

20 comments:

Félicie said...

She is a real Swedish beauty. It is tragic that faces like this are disappearing. By the way, look at this picture.

http://www.kvp.se/nyheter/1.1257555/anna-fran-bjuv-blev-fru-anka

It doesn't look like the daughter is Paul Anka's biological daughter. She is just too fair. There seems to be nothing in common between feature- or coloring-wise the dad and the daughter.

As for women working outside the home, they almost always have. It is only for a very short span of human history, for middle classes and higher, that women were able to stay at home and dedicate themselves to motherhood and managing the household. Peasant women worked along their husbands in the fileds during harvest time. Poor married women had to work outside their home or take some work home (doing things like sewing or washing) in order to supplement the family income. It is a fantasy to imagine such an absolute division of spheres between men and women as a historical norm. It was only a short period of prosperity that allowed most families to have a wife at home. These times are gone. For most working and middle class people, it is an economic necessity today to have two incomes. Now if a wife has to take on extra work, it seems unfair to confine her apriori to menial work, like sewing or washing, because of some "traditional" considerations. Despite being a conservative woman with traditional values, I sure am glad that in this day and age I can get a higher education and use my brain to help make ends meet instead of working at a factory or cleaning houses. I am sorry if my presence makes men move out of their traditional fields, and I would prefer they didn't, but if I have to work, I want to work at my intellectual potential, because I am also a human being and my aspirations and interests also matter.

Dymphna said...

@Félicie -

The problem is not women working at meaningful jobs. The problem is the decision not to have children. And women don't have children because workplaces are hostile to having them in their environment. This artificial rule that children and business don't mix is left over from the time when only men worked.

If women ever want to have real power, they'll have to do something more than ape men on the fast track.

And if men want to have the loyalty of women and children to live after them, they'll have to figure out alternatives to what we have now.

In fact, the business world, as currently structured, is often inhumane to the adults, using them up and throwing them away.

This is a time of extreme transition. Who knows what patterns of kinship networks will evolve?

One thing is for sure, however: biology is destiny and women can't have it all. They can take a few years off mid-career and have children, going back when the kids enter school. But that will make them NOT the CEOs, etc. And we've been brainwashed to believe that if you can't go for the top, you're being cheated.

Whatever happened to normal expectations?

Zenster said...

What will be the tipping point for men, fed up with being the butt of jokes, of being used by women?.

The tipping point has already happened, at least to some extent. Look at the burgeoning market for imported brides who come from countries that still prize the nuclear family structure.

Many men I know regard American women as "damaged goods". This is not any sort of objectification but a genuine frustration with how often women carry forward baggage related to mistreatment that happened in previous relationships into their new ones. There is a rage and disgust felt towards spousal abusers and "players", or "bad boys" that is almost palpable.

Men who manage to retain their moral fiber can be expected to vote for increasingly harsh legal penalties related to spousal abuse and thuggish behavior. My own tolerance for bullies long ago dropped to less than zero. Just as any pity I used to feel has also evaporated regarding women who chase after bad boys, and routinely suffer the almost predictable physical abuse these cretins love to dish out. Especially after watching my neighbor cling to a macho meat-headed rectal cavity who, subsequent to their breakup, returned one holiday night with a shotgun and broke into her apartment in an attempt to murder her and her new lover.

As a firearms collector and avid hunter, this guy’s fear of being convicted for a gun-related crime, that could result in him being barred from weapons ownership, drove him to return home and blow his head off with the same shotgun. Had I, out of concern for my thankless neighbor, opened my door at the exact right time, I might not even be typing this right now. Instead, I got to spend New Year’s Eve of 1998 celebrating this consummate jerk’s exit from our world. Ask me nicely and I just might be able to squeeze out a tear for him … or maybe not.

If you want an example of “damaged goods” I welcome you to spend, like I did, an entire year in the fruitless attempt to help a sweetheart emerge from her sexually frigid shell after having experienced spousal rape. My ultimate reward was discovering several long distance daytime telephone calls to her ex-boyfriend whom she hooked back up with just prior to him landing in prison. Fortunately, I had already thrown her out after having had my fill of her regular verbal abuse.

What will be the tipping point for women, expected to rise to some “10” level of perfection before they’re acceptable in the meat market which has come to dominate the social life of single young adults?.

I’d say that anorexia, bulimia, “cutting” and a host of other self-destructive behavior is the correct answer to that question. I’ll let someone else who is more well-versed describe the phenomenon of “cougars”.

Skalman said...

Félicie: I´m sorry to say it but where´s the beauty in Anna Anka? She isn´t now and has never been a beauty. We went to school together and she has always been a stupid, childish and ugly girl. Harsh words perhaps but nonetheless true. Time hasn´t changed any of it. And btw the daughter is not Paul Anka´s daughter. Hence the difference in appearance and colors.

When it comes to women at work I don´t see the actual problem. Having worked almost exclusively together with women for fifteen I know you have the same capacity when it comes to intellectual performance but that does not necessarily mean that women should try to become bleak copies of their male counterparts at work.

It is fully possible to maintain ones masculinity/femininity while performing at one´s maximum. I would even go as far as to suggest that it is an absolute necessity. We are different in many ways(and thank God for that)and to draw the max out of ourselves we cannot do it while trying to be someone else.

As I see it the problem is not wether women work or not but the leftist feminist ideas that equality is about men becoming more feminine and women should get more power without anything in return. When, for example, do you see the feminists crying for more female plumbers, welders, construction workers and so on? Never. And do they ever get the idea of taking over "male tasks" at home like carpenting and fixing the car? My experience is they don´t. They always argue about the powerful positions and about men "doing nothing at home" while they just want to get rid of things to do, and as it feels, in an attempt to reduce their own bad consience. They constantly refuse to see all the things men actually DO at home.

So please spare me the feminist b*llsh*t. It has nothing to do with equality. Only with power.

And I´m sorry. I don´t buy that anymore.
Let men be men and women be women but as equals as it is supposed to be. Life for one without the other would be a lot less appealing and why fight each other because of an twisted ideology and powerhungry feminists when we could enjoy each others company instead?

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

Dymphna:

"The problem is the decision not to have children."

Now we have a generation of middle aged woman who feel they were pressured into not having children and regret that they made the wrong choice. While woman at the bottom of the economy were pressured into being sterilised courtesy of the N.H.S. Single mothers were stigmatised when what they and their casual partners were doing in a tight and contrived society, was adapting to the economic and political environment in which they lived.

The neoliberals turned male and female relationships into a political and economic battlefield, you can not raise children in that atmosphere, never mind live together.

It always amused me that The feminist reality for most woman was cleaning the toilets of those die hard feminists.

Félicie said...

Dymphna: "One thing is for sure, however: biology is destiny and women can't have it all. They can take a few years off mid-career and have children, going back when the kids enter school. But that will make them NOT the CEOs, etc. And we've been brainwashed to believe that if you can't go for the top, you're being cheated."

I can agree with that. Furthermore, I think women are constitutionally unsuitable to be CEOs, army generals, and occupy other traditional "alpha male" positions. I don't think that they should be legally barred from doing so - God knows, we might get another Joan of Ark in these strange and trying times - but we should definitely not count gender percentages in various occupations and declare a state of emergency at the sight of a "disparity."

I do believe in one single exception though (and this might be my personal quirk): I think that women should be formally barred from being priests. This is just wrong for various spiritual reasons I can only intuit but cannot explain.

Félicie said...

Skalman, we'll have to agree to disagree about Anna Anka. She might be an unpleasant person, but I do think that she is a gorgeous specimen of female beauty - both face and figure. I happen to think that Swedish people are the most beautiful ethnicity on Earth. Unfortunately, a lot of Swedes do not appreciate their looks, think that they look "boring," and are therefore eager to intermarry with someone "interesting" and exotic-looking. I've never seen as many intermarriages in any other country. This is why we are now losing this unique breed, which is a sad loss for the entire human race.

Skalman: "It is fully possible to maintain ones masculinity/femininity while performing at one´s maximum. I would even go as far as to suggest that it is an absolute necessity. We are different in many ways(and thank God for that)and to draw the max out of ourselves we cannot do it while trying to be someone else."

This I agree with. I have always thought of men and women being complementary to each other: each gender can offer its unique perspective and abilities. I think that both men and women are suitable for intellectual work, but they will contribute to different areas differently and to a different extent. There will always be fewer women in sciences, and that's OK. The ones who will end up there "naturally," i.e. not through afirmative action and other social engineering programs, will be as valuable as man.

I think that a lot of women will be genuinly happy to be housewives if the family finances can allow it. But a significant minority of women will prefer to work outside the home even if they don't have to because the area in which they can express themselves creatively lies outside the domestic sphere.

Henrik R Clausen said...

And we've been brainwashed to believe that if you can't go for the top, you're being cheated.

Absolutely agree. This creates some interesting aggression, too, for the fact that some women actually prefer to care for family over becoming Higher-than-thou CEO's leads to average wages for women being lower.

That's natural when less energy is being pushed into the job and more into family - but many take this statistical fact and twists it into a problem. Even otherwise fine friends of mine urge more coercion to fix this 'problem'.

spackle said...

4Symbols said:

"Now we have a generation of middle aged woman who feel they were pressured into not having children and regret that they made the wrong choice."

Yes, and now they have two to four dogs which are their entire lives. Even Liberal couples now substitute the animal kingdom for children. I sure hope dogs and cats learn how to take care of their "Moms and Dads" in their old age.

ɱØяñιηg$ʇðя ©™ said...

I can only agree with Skalman on this. AA is not a beauty queen and poor you who had to suffer school years with such a jerk. Then again we have all suffered time with school jerks to some degree. Only difference, you had a now famous one while ours hopefully has faded into the obscurity they so well deserves. My only consolation is that she as a swede must be aware of how ridicolous her name is in Sweden. Anka happens to be the swedish word for duck, so one can really say she's such a QUACK! :)

Skalman said...

Félicie: OK. Let´s agree to disagree about her beauty. It appears to me though that you´ve not been to Sweden. It would take me less than two minutes in an averagely sized swedish city to find 50 women looking far better than AA and most likely with a lot higher standard when it comes to personality and intelligence.

And BTW. She´s given nature a really huge helping hand when it comes to her figure. Her natural body shape is that of a broom stick if you know what I mean.

@Robin: I didn´t really suffer. I was fortunate enough to be able to ignore her most of the time. But her normal behaviour was sometimes less than moral and making noises with various bodily orifices was part of her standard conduct to offend our teachers. I don´t find that to be a proper behaviour from anyone and even less appropriate from a "beauty queen".

So sorry guys. If I´ve taken away the illusions I apologize.

Godffrey said...

Women. oy vey. That seems to be the zeitgeist now, they are all either feminational socialists or dumb California blonds. I agree with what Anna says but she is the wrong person to say it and she is clearly not practicing what she preaches when she beats up her husband. It is the job of women to teach their children proper values and at this they have failed. I don't really feel bad when i read the story's about girls getting beaten or raped by the cultural enrichers because they are the ones who have done this to the west (and if they aren't getting beat up CE's they are usually dating them). Multiculturalism is based entirely on emotions: "we must help our poor, little, brown brothers, those poor things!". The exact same emotions that women show towards their own children are projected on to third-worlders by women who support multiculturalism. These same women are the ones who have hijacked our political cultures and turned it into one big display of emotions at the expense of reason. Why can't we cut welfare funds? Why, because that would be racist and mean. Why can we not cut foreign aid since it has done nothing to help the third-world? Because that would also be racist. Why do we need an expensive national health system presided over by bureaucrats? Because its a moral imperative!!! Your desire to keep your money and your liberty is greedy and racist!!!

xlbrl said...

It is rare for a major entertainer not to be an ass, but Anka to my knowledge was not that. The fact that we who played him knew so little of his private life actually speaks well of him, and he always treated people respectfully.
Give 95 out of one hundred people serious money, fame, and a successful road show, and I'll show you 95 asses.
Too bad about the blonde. I expect he's thinking of the little ones. From the looks of that picture, he's going to have a lot of thinking to do.

laine said...

This just seems like another example of unearned wealth turning the heads of the already simple-minded.

Better be thought a fool than open one's mouth and remove all doubt.

ANTI-ISLAMIST said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ANTI-ISLAMIST said...

.
Yesterday Aftonbladet, Sweden’s largest newspaper, in popular parlance: the Evening Whore [AftonHoran] disclosed that Ms Anna Anka wants to become a politician - in Sweden.

- I've always been interested in politics. I wrote my first political letter to the editor of the Helsingborgs Dagblad when I was nine years old. Then I received awards for the best letter to the editor, she says.

Ms Anka has previously said that she wants to be a role model.
- I might become a Swedish Martha Stewart, she says and laughs.

It is the Conservatives [Moderaterna] and the Christian Democrats who are closest to her heart, she says.
- If any of them would call and ask me to take part in the campaigning, I'd really do my homework and if it feels like a good party...
- But if it does, so absolutely. It would be a challenge.
- Many Swedish laws are wrong!

When asked if it would not mean reversing the roles, pursuing a career instead of being a full time affectionate housewife, she answers:
- Yes, but Paul and I usually joke about it.
- He says he is so old now, so that it will soon be my turn instead.
(picture of paul amd politically interested wife Anna)
- - - - -
You get the politicians you deserve, don't you?

ANTI-ISLAMIST said...

.
Smart work?
The week that was has been turbulent in "Social-Zioistic Sweden".
Mohammed Omar - well known to GoV-readers (here and here) is now of the opinion that the Swedish cultural establishment exists only to indoctrinate people. - It is their job, he says. The Swedish society is socialized all the way through, and also sionized. - It is Social Zionism that governs this country, sais Omar.

In the mild turmoil Ms Anna Anka, who apparently shares Mohammed Omars's view of a thorougly socialized Sweden (who does not?), succeeded to become a combined political provocateur and a television celebrity having appeared last monday on the TV3's series "Swedish Hollywood Wives".
In a recent interview she announced that she was available for a stake in Swedish politics eigther with the Conservative or the Christian-Democrat Party.

The secretary of the Christian-Democrat Party directly welcomed Ms Anka as a member and debater. The Christan-Democrats of Sweden have a very weak political position -- just above 4%, which is needed to remain in parliament.

- All who share our values of equal worth and the importance of the family are welcome with us, answered the Christian-Democrats' party secretary Lennart Sjögren a question from the paper Expressen.

However, a wall of criticism from leading figures in the party got him double-quick to back off.
Early on Friday Rolf Tufvesson , regional CD politician in southern Sweden, raved: - Lennart Sjögren confuses in a most unfortunate way the Christian-Democrats' belief that every woman should live her life as she wishes with Ms Anka's vision of woman's duties and obligations of a bygone era. For us modern Christian-Democrats of European average, it is alarming that Mr Sjögren makes even the smallest shred of supporting her outlook on humanity, roared Rolf Tufvesson.

Maria Fälth, who leads the Christian-Democrat Women Federation, also thundered against the party secretary's opening for Ms Anka.
- Anna Anka has expressed that you have to be beautiful for your husband and that it is a woman's responsibility anytime to satisfy her husband sexually - otherwise she must blame herself if he is unfaithful. These are not ideas that we in the Christian-Democratic Women's Federation stand for, emphasized Maria Fälth in a statement.

Anna Anka has published herself on Newsmill (in swedish).

kirche said...

during an expat assignment at saab in sweden, i'd befriended a woman on the morning bus. she was mid-30's, quite attractive, intelligent and friendly, and she lived with her boyfriend and their four children. she, like many/most swedish couples, live a fimily lifestyle but do not get married. i quizzed her about this attitude and she vigorously defended it as some old-fashioned, superfluous tradition. a week before i was to end my year-long assignment, she'd invited me to a family BBQ. i had a great time and got plenty drunk like a good swede does. when i was leaving and saying my goodbyes, she (birgita) walked me out, gave me a little hug, and drunkenly whispered in my ear, "i really wish my boyfriend and i were married."

this it the true damage of feminism: it defies and warps human nature for both sexes.

ɱØяñιηg$ʇðя ©™ said...

Anna Anka was not the only famous swede in the headlines yesterday. No, the leader of the Social Democrats, Mrs Mona Muslim was another one. She had flewn (very expensively) to Mallis (Mallorca) to celebrate the 50th birthday of her friend Micael Bindefeldt. Caught once again with her fingers in the marmalade can, huh? :)

ANTI-ISLAMIST said...

,
Sahlin slammed for partying in Majorca
"Sahlin's spokeperson, Anna Hellsén, stressed that the party leader
has paid for the trip herself" (???).

Any freudian slip of the tongue here?