Jacob Christensen

Instead of watching Den hemmelige krig (see previous blogpost), I went for the first episode of Fredrik Lindström’s new series Världens modernaste land (The World’s most modern country).

The homepage of the series also includes a “lagom”-test of Swedishness. I made it to 80% which raises the question: Have I been assimilated after 8 years or are Danes and Swedes fundamentally alike?

What does “lagom” actually mean? The word has no direct equivalent in Danish or English – suitable seems to be the best match. What is interesting is that the etymology of the word suggests that its original meaning is “in accordance with the laws”. This speaks volumes about Sweden.

Die Zeit discusses the mental health of school teachers with the psychologist Uwe Schaarschmidt.

Two topics for discussion:

1. Can these results be applied on other forms of education as well?
2. In the end of the interview, Professor Schaarschmidt seems to imply that the problems teachers face in handling their work basically arise because aspiring teachers have chosen their line of work on the wrong premises (leisurely hours, long holidays). How does this add up with the arguments made earlier in the interview?

Embarassed update: Burned-out cases? d’oh! It’s burnt-out cases.

Thank you so much for the attention (Link: Time – Person of the Year 2006) but let’s not overdo it. There may be a lot of senders on the internet but that doesn’t necessarily mean that all that is sent is also received by someone.

And I would also be careful to predict the demise of traditional media and hierarchical structures even if we may be about to see some profound changes in general and specialist publishing (c.f. this blog post by John Holbo).

Earlier this week, Swedish Television rebroadcasted Christoffer Guldbrandten’s documentary Den hemmelige krig (The secret war) about the treatment of prisoners taken by Danish military forces in Afghanistan. The allegation made by the documentary is that the military, and in the last resort the Danish government, handed over prisoners to U.S. authorities knowing that U.S. treatment of Afghan prisoners breached the Geneva Conventions. (To start somewhere: Wikipedia on Guantánamo Bay detainment camp).

What is interesting is the quick rebroadcasting as Swedish media usually ignore Danish politics. Sweden isn’t directly involved in the Afghan operation so the documentary has no immediate implications for Swedish foreign or national policy. I have the programme recorded but haven’t had the time to watch it, so I can’t make any relevant comments about the documentary and the allegations made. Perhaps one note could be that the controversy surrounding and resignation of Lars Barfoed may have deflected any impact on Danish politics the docummentary might have had.

Just to add to my misery, SvT will be airing what could be an interesting documentary about the Swedish Liberal Party tonight. According to the press release, the documentary Spionskolan (The Spy School) will reveal a paranoid and conspiratory culture within the party which eventually led to the intrusion scandal that marred the party’s election campaign and has seen six officials facing legal charges. Maybe the Liberals should have enlisted a professional.