Jacob Christensen

If it exists, it’s on the internet: A blog devoted to Soviet posters.

I can’t say if there is a five-year plan for publication, though.

Via Organizations and Markets:

…at one of the world’s top business schools, such slide shows are now an entrance requirement. In a first, the University of Chicago will begin requiring prospective students to submit four pages of PowerPoint-like slides with their applications this fall. (Washington Post)

Words – or was that: Slides – fail me.

While we’re at the topic of religion and politics: I noted that the British press over the last six months has reported rumours about Tony Blair converting to the Roman Catholic church. The link between religion and politics is indeed interesting in the case of Blair who – perhaps with the exception of a couple of Norwegian prime ministers – must be the most openly religious government leader in North-Western Europe in later years.

Anyway, let me just point out that Denmark has in fact had a Catholic prime minister as Ludvig Holstein-Ledreborg who converted to Catholicism a young man, served as prime minister from August to October 1909. Holstein-Ledreborg was a merited leader of the Liberals who had resigned from politics in 1890 but was brought back as an emergency solution during a political crisis.

If we enlist the services of the Department of Contra-factual Political Science and History, it is not unlikely that Denmark could have had a Jewish prime minister (or to be more correct: A prime minister with a Jewish background) during the First World War as King Christian X found it much easier to get along with Edward Brandes than with Social Liberal prime minister C. Th. Zahle. (Why “Jewish background”? Because Brandes was an outspoken atheist).

Finally, Denmark has had a theologian serving as prime minister in recent times: Poul Hartling even worked as a vicar for a period before entering politics and becoming leader of the Liberal Party (1965-1977), foreign minister (1968-1971) and prime minister (December 1973-January 1975). If I’m not completely mistaken, Svend Auken, leader of the Social Democrats from 1987 to 1992 and Environment Minister 1993-2001, has also made some appearances as a layman preacher.

Svenska Dagbladet today has a story about a head teacher in Bräkne-Hoby who wants to move the school’s end-of-term celebration from the local church to a non-religious venue.

These stories pop up at the end of each term here in Sweden and I’ll have to admit that I’m slightly surprised every time. The thing is that I cannot recall any end-of-term celebration in my primary or secondary school (in Gladsaxe, Denmark) having any religious links whatsoever and I don’t remember ever reading about holding school celebrations in churches. It may be a bit different for some private schools but I would say that this is a definite no-no in Denmark.

But the Swedes do it and with the separation of the Church of Sweden from the state, the relatively high number of people with a “non-Swedish” background and the general embrace of multiculturalism, taking whole schools to a lutheran church seems rather odd. Why has this tradition survived in Sweden?

Update: The head teacher has now backtracked. The official guidelines for end-of-term celebrations are here.

The picture shows Buddinge Kirke, the local church which is just a couple of hundred metres from my old school.

Eszter Hargittai wonders if there is something slightly ironic about Marx merchandise.

For the original Marx, go here.

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