Housekeeping — No comments
10
Feb 10
Smells like teen spirit - 2010
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!
Branding — No comments
27
Jan 10
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.
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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…”
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Housekeeping — 2 comments
18
Jan 10
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!
Polemos / in Danish — No comments
14
Jan 10
I lederen Kulturracisme 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:
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All things theory / Housekeeping / Polemos — No comments
13
Jan 10
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.
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Polemos / in Danish — No comments
05
Jan 10
Anne Knudsen
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 naturligvis ikke selve mysteriet, som ikke er et mysterium, men proklameringen af mysteriet. Mysteriet har jo rent faktisk mulige forklaringer, men som sædvanlig foretrækker Anne Knudsen at insinuere uforklarlighedens utilladelighed, ligesom hun afviser “forvildede unge” og “moraliserende lovovertrædere”, fordi muligheden af, at de skulle have legitime motiver, ligger uden for den tidligere antropologiske forskers fatteevne .
Julemysteriet er naturligvis relateret til gaven: “Riges omsorg for fattige mennesker er imidlertid en af de dyder, den moderne velfærdsstat har gjort en del for at udrydde; man fandt det nemlig uværdigt, at private fattige skulle (eller bare kunne) sige tak til private rige.” Statens gavegiveri er sĂĄledes “endnu et skridt pĂĄ vejen væk fra det personlige ansvar og frem mod staten som det eneste voksne samfundsmedlem.” Den patroniserende stat skal altsĂĄ afløses af de riges patronat. I stedet for en eftergivende stat skal de fattige børn fĂĄ en anden kærlighed at føle.
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Branding / Waffle — No comments
04
Jan 10
Polite Vomit
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?!
Polemos / in Danish — 1 comment
22
Dec 09
I fredags var Anne Knudsen som sĂĄ ofte før 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 anerkender menneskerettighederne, hvilket Anne Knudsen jo foregiver, giver det ikke mening at relativisere og hierarkisere dem. Menneskerettighederne betragtes vel som ubestridelige, som a priori strukturer i menneskets konstitution. Er ytringsfriheden vigtigere end artikel 6, der fremstĂĄr lettere overset i de politihandlinger, som Anne Knudsen hylder: “Ethvert menneske har overalt i verden ret til at blive anerkendt som retssubjekt”? Derudover er menneskerettighederne jo en “anerkendelse af den mennesket iboende værdighed og af de lige og ufortabelige rettigheder,” hvorfor de som fundamentale menneskelige elementer er evige. Skal man absolut give dem en historie, springer 1948 i øjnene som ĂĄbenlyst pejlemærke for alle menneskerettighederne, hvorfor det igen er meningsløst at tale om “ældste.”
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Polemos / Waffle — No comments
14
Dec 09
“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 . Usually, to speak and say nothing is not appreciated by the listener, the speech will be categorized as waffle, a waste of time. And rightfully so! There is, however, such an abundance of empty utterances that actually aim at – but horribly miss – meaningful communication that, from time to time, you long for the willful undermining of language, the brave probings of nonsense.
These are the days of the COP15 summit and more or less everyone is busy stating their views of a better world. There are a lot of professional opinion makers in the fray. Prominent among them, Naomi Klein yesterday contributed with the following commentary in her Memo to Danes: Even You Cannot Control This Summit: “In the morning demonstrators are going to march to the Bella Center to demand real solutions to the climate crisis, not the fuzzy math and carbon trading on offer inside.”
Carbon trading might be a legitimate means for handling the current problems, it might be the contrary, but to simply oppose “real solutions” to “fuzzy math and carbon trading” is downright silly. Why is math an unreal tool to the task? One should think that mathematics would be a necessary and very real element in fighting climate change. What she means, of course, is that the official negotiators have trouble agreeing on the math and that carbon trading is an unacceptable solution. But sadly, the math seems equally fuzzy at Klimaforum09, and carbon trading is, supposedly, a manifestly more real solution than “real solutions.”
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