On February 10, Sarah Palin tweeted a public birthday greeting to Glenn Beck: “Happy B’day Glenn Beck! Ah, the wisdom of our elders…” Apart from the feigned folksiness of the word “B’day” and the astonishing attributing of wisdom to Glenn Beck, the tweet primarily declares an attempted strategic alliance. Self-professed “rodeo clown” Glenn Beck soon [...]
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The Housekeeping department is pleased to announce an addition to the photo section: It is the documentation of a recent reliving of our teenage years – the 90’s! Bottoms up!
Read more →I recently spotted an interesting proposal on a Diesel store front: “Be stupid.” Intrigued, I read the two connecting billboards: “Smart has the brains. Stupid has the balls.” and “Smart listens to the head. Stupid listens to the heart.” Of course, it is hardly the first time we see the call for “gut” thinking” in stead of “brain” thinking and we all know that as metaphors for courage, balls and guts are all parts in the same horror movie.
Another cry for the supremacy of basic instincts rises from the depths of the Cult commercials: “Party now – Apologize later.” A seated man holds the head of a young woman close to the aforementioned balls whilst looking the spectator in the eye with a sober look. The girl, however, looks utterly drunk in a diagonal approach to his membrum virile, as if she had fallen over and happened to land her head on the thing. Once down and greated by a welcoming yet sustaining hand, the girl seems to have thought, “What the hell, now that I am down here…”
Read more →The Housekeeping department would like to briefly draw your attention to an update in the audio section: Walter Benjamin’s writings for children’s radio Aufklärung fĂĽr Kinder. Enjoy!
Read more →I lederen Kulturracisme [1. Weekendavisen nr 01 - 8. januar 2010] tager Anne Knudsen til orde i debatten om Lars Hedegaards efterhĂĄnden famøse pĂĄstand: “De voldtager deres egne børn. Det hører man hele tiden. Piger i muslimske familier bliver voldtaget af deres onkler, deres fætre eller deres far.” Til den omfattende stĂĄhej, denne udtalelse har afstedkommet, svarer Anne Knudsen:
“Hvis nogen efter en tĂĄr over tørsten havde forsøgt sig med at lancere pĂĄstanden om, at de missionske boller deres døtre tykke, eller at førtidspensionister driver hjemmebordeller med mindreĂĄrige, som et seriøst indslag i debatten om noget som helst, havde alle og enhver trukket pĂĄ skuldrene over det rablende fjols, uanset hvilken forening han eller hun var formand for. Men adskillige fuldvoksne danskere har nu i ugevis seriøst beskæftiget sig med Lars Hedegaards pĂĄstand fra denne skuffe.
Anne Knudsen mener altsĂĄ, at Lars Hedegaard har været udsat for en noget pedantisk behandling, der ikke var tilkommet nogen anden i en lignende situation. AltsĂĄ udgør “adskillige fuldvoksne danskeres” barnlige reaktion en overfølsomhed over for enten Lars Hedegaard eller enhver kritik af Islam. Dette argument er tidligere fremført af Søren Krarup:
Read more →A friend recently questioned the use of the personal pronoun “we” on aleph.dk. The question was posed on a rather bacchanalesque occasion, so the debate soon wandered off and finally had to sit down against a wall somewhere. In order to actually answer the very interesting question of personal pronouns, however, it would be pertinent to quote Beckett: “Qu’importe qui parle, quelqu’un a dit qu’importe qui parle.”
There is a funny double entendre in the French original, which is sadly lost in translation. The sentence has three members. The first one is perceived as a question even though it has no question mark. The second member states that someone said something, this something being the third member. The ambiguity arises in this last member, which can be read as both a direct and an indirect quotation. Either someone repeated the question in the first member – “What matter who’s speaking” – or someone said that, in fact, it matters who is speaking.
Read more →Anne Knudsen indleder sit juleevangelium – sin sædvanlige tilsvining af alle, der ikke smertefrit træder den gode produktive borgers sko og marcherer i takt med “det store vi” – med et julemysterium: Hvordan kan det være, at der ĂĄr efter ĂĄr bliver flere værdigt trængende, nĂĄr arbejdsløsheden stadigt er lav. Det mystiske ved mysteriet er [...]
Read more →Norwegian airline Widerøe accept the potential oral effluent of their customers with polite and polished ease. One side of the complementary vomit bag carries the inscription “uff da… (ooops…)” while the other one conveys the best wishes of the airline: “god bedring! (get well soon!)”. Isn’t that nice?!
Read more →I fredags var Anne Knudsen som sĂĄ ofte før 1 ude med sin lettere sløve rive efter alle, der ikke indgĂĄr i “det store vi” med dertil hørende respekt for ejendomsretten og generel tilfredshed med det bestĂĄende samfund. Hun indleder med, hvad der i en bedre verden var en overflødig anerkendelse af ytringsfriheden. Hmm…
Hvis man [...]
“I am here, and there is nothing to say.” “I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry as I need it.” These two quotes are, respectively, the first and one of the first sentences of John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing 1. Usually, to speak and say nothing is not [...]
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