Jacob Christensen

Before the cartoon thing, only two things could get Denmark in the international headlines: The occational “no” in referendums on the European Union and the Royal Family.

Today, The Times of London informs us that the Queen of Denmark, Margrethe II, has unofficially announced that she will no longer be seen smoking in public.

It is a sad day for Politiken’s satirical column, At tænke sig, which issued the Queen with the august title “Her Royal Smokeness” (“Hendes Kongelige Røghed” – the pun is impossible to translate directly but it builds on the style “Hendes Kongelige Højhed”) some year ago.

Meanwhile, politicians in the Danish parliament, Folketinget, were involved in a major fight over a ban on smoking at Christiansborg Castle. In the end – or should that be butt? – Søren Krarup and Jesper Langballe, MPs for the Danish People’s Party, managed to stop a complete ban on smoking. Politicians are still free to inhale, as long as they do it in their own officies.

Declaration of interest: I suffer from asthma.

The Swedish centre-right government hasn’t had a very promising start in the electoral arena: This week’s opinion poll, conducted by Synnovate Temo, still gives the Social Democrats, the Left Party and the Green Party a lead in the opinion.

According to SR’s report, the Social Democrats have been able to attract sympathies from blue-collar voters, men and voters in Greater Stockholm. Well done for a party which is effectively without a leader.

As I think I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, the unexpectedly bold – or right-wing, or liberal, or whatever – economic and labour market policies of the new government could be seen as an explanation for the decline in voter sympathies. Still, the next election is four years away, so lots of things can still happen.

PS: Aftonbladet wants the former Minister for Overseas Development and present leader of the opposition in the Stockholm City Council, Carin Jämtin, as the next leader of the Social Democrats.

On Friday, the Danish Liberal Party’s #2 and 3 men were involved in some high-profile resignations and sackings.

First, the head of the Danish National Board of Health, dr. Jens Kristian Gøtrik, resigned from his post with immediate notice after being criticised by the Minister of Health, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, in a live televised debate. The issue behind Mr. Gøtrik’s resignation was the handling of waiting times for cancer surgery. Mr. Løkke Rasmussen denies that he tried to force Mr. Gøtrik to resign.

Next, the Liberal parliamentary group sacked local government spokesman Leif Mikkkelsen following charges from the Employment Minister Claus Hjorth Frederiksen that Mikkelsen was being illoyal towards the party leadership and that his criticism of the Liberal Party’s centrist policies amounted to party-damaging activity.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, Prime Minister and chairman of the Liberal Party Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who is visiting South Korea denied any prior knowledge of the sacking of Leif Mikkelsen and said that the parliamentary group had been acting on its own initiative. Mr. Rasmussen also said that he was surprised by the sacking.

Slate 2006-11-21: Dead Plagiarists Society – Will Google Book Search uncover long-buried literary crimes?

Given the popularity of plagiarism-seeking software services for academics, it may be only a matter of time before some enterprising scholar yokes Google Book Search and plagiarism-detection software together into a massive literary dragnet, scooping out hundreds of years’ worth of plagiarists—giants and forgotten hacks alike—who have all escaped detection until now.

And Edgar and Herman are not particularly good role-models for students.

Fogh Rasmussen made two speeches at the Liberal Party convention during the weekend. A transcript of his Sunday speech – or perhaps performance is a better description – is available as a pdf document here.

Some quick notes:

• Before the convention, there was a disagreement over whether the new Liberal programme should contain explicit mention of “christian values”.
• In his Sunday speech, Mr. Rasmussen called for a reform of the wage system covering public employees. At present, the system is more or less based on a seniority principle, but Mr. Rasmussen wanted it replaced with a performance-based system.
• Another controversial proposal called for the introduction of fees for visiting local GPs and casualty departments.

The best way to summarise the debate is that the party leadership is trying to hold on to the blue collar voters which the Liberals captured from the Social Democrats in the 2001 and 2005 elections and to keep the working relations with the Danish People’s Party in the parliamentary arena, while the party members and especially the conference delegates wanted a more clear-cut Liberal profile in economic and social policies.

By the way: Sweden has applied individually set wages in the public sector since the early 1990s and has fees for using all kinds of health care. Back in 2000, I had to pay – if only 200 SEK – before the hospital would fix my broken arm. A visit to the local GP will set you back 100 SEK.

The new Swedish government under Fredrik Reinfeldt may have started in an unexpectedly furious fashion, especially with regard to labour market and tax policy. but according to the latest SIFO poll, the winners in the public opinion have been the Social Democrats and the Green Party, while the three centrist parties – who have been almost invisible politically during the last months – have lost support:

• v 5,7 (5,9)
• s 38,9 (35,0)
• mp 6,6 (5,3)
• c 6,7 (7,9)
• fp 6,3 (7,6)
• m 25,5 (26,2)
• kd 5,3 (6,6)
• övriga 5,1 (5,7)

The numbers in parentheses are the results from the general election in September.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s speech from Saturday is available here (pdf document).

Pundits will note that the Danish People’s Party is thanked before AFR mentiones the Liberals’ partner in government, the Conservative Party.

Steely Dan got it wrong: The song should have had the title Monkey in Your Brain, not Monkey in Your Soul.

I think these films have already been screened on Swedish and Danish TV, but the French-German TV-station arte decided that a Friday evening was the perfect time to enlighten the Continentals about the strange behaviour of their Scandinavian brethren and sisters. (Also: Information from arte’s homepage).

In case, you have no idea what I’m talking about: For a few years at the end of the 1960s, Denmark and Sweden happened to find themselves at the front of the pornographic revolution. The particular irony in the Danish case was that it was a Conservative Justice Minister who legalised graphic pornography in 1969.

This incidentially had major political consequences in Denmark as Christian Evangelicals and fundamentalists left the Conservative and Liberal Parties – abortion policy also played a major role here – to form the Christian People’s Party which played a pivotal role in parliamentary politics from the 1973 earthquake election until 1994.

Why did the government legalise pornography? I think there are two answers to this.

First, the attitude towards sexuality and pornography had changed during the 1960s as a consequence of the major economic and social changes of the post-war boom. In rural areas and small towns displays of open sexuality would be a problem, in big cities like Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg or Århus it was part of everyday life and in any case less visible.

Second, the government had to prioritise the use of police resources and it is safe to say that pornography was seen as a minor evil compared to the hard drugs that also became a common phenomenon during the 1960s. Instead of fighting pornography and lewd behaviour in general – the gay community also benefitted from this – the police now set up squads to monitor drug dealers.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any good evidence about the situation today, but it seems that there is in fact a difference between Sweden and Denmark with regard to pornography and sexual behaviour in general. One the one hand, Swedes are much more uncomfortable about sexual imagry in the public space than the Danes, on the other hand Swedish TV channels – usually owned by the same companies as their Danish sister channels – with the extensive aid of the tabloids excel in screening reality shows which leave very litte to your imagination.

In contrast, pornography is really a non-issue in Denmark – especially compared with Sweden or the U.S.

If you are interested in urban decay, abandoned places or just in a plain sadistic mood, I’d recommend these two sites:

Övergivna platser by Jan Jörmark who teaches economic history in Gothenburg. Demographic and industrial changes have meant that Sweden has an abundance of abandoned plants, housing estates, highway motels and the like. I think that the series from the abandoned metro in Charleroi, Belgium, must be a personal favorite, though.

Some of the galleries need registration but Jörmark is not spamming, so it’s a safe option. And as Jörmark is a historian, the comments to the galleries are also quite enlightning.

The Dutch site Urban Exploration takes on the same topic but deals with urban decay in the Benelux.

Edit: More on the Charleroi metro here: In Search of King Louie – The Lost Rail Vehicles of Charleroi. The Dutch (!) wikipedia has a good section on the Charleroi adventure, including map.

Also: The Urban Exploration Ring.