Bring on the Budwar

It is widely known Czechs produce the best lager in the world. But, what do trained Czech palates think of various kinds of Norwegian beer? Norwegian breweries were put to the test by a group of Czech friends last weekend. Here are the highlights.

Frydenlund Bayer
“Every employee at the Frydenlund brewery should be shot, and the factory leveled with the ground!”

Dahls Pils
“Do you make chocolate as well in Trondheim? Maybe you should make more chocolate and less beer??”

Aass Beer
“This one has a VERY curious aftertaste… is that… marijuana they put in that??”

Ringnes
“Drinkable”

Hansa Fatøl
“Next?”

Mack Arctic Beer
“Not bad!”

The test proved that Mack is the absolute winner among the selection of Norwegian breweries, but the old fashioned Vørterøl was more popular than any ordinary beer. Needless to say, the party moved on to Czech beverage as soon as polite behavior allowed…

The Religious Hand of the Left

Michael Lerner's book The Left Hand of God has created a heated debate on the role of religion in American progressive thought. Lerner claims that the left suffer from a religio-phobia that makes it incapable of speaking to the large religious American public. The answer? Old-fashioned christian socialism, with a twist to please the abundant buddhists and other "spirituals" on the American left.

Lerner and his his enthusiastic examiners address Americans' need for spiritualism in politics, and claim that this is the source of the success of the religious right. The successes of the American left, like the civil rights movement, have been largely influenced by religion, they argue.

Lerner's most valid point is that the left needs to stop communicating that religious people in general are as stupid as George W. Bush. That is a matter of course. But the reason that taking on religion could be successful for the left is structural, not spiritual. There is no non-religious civil society in a America that is financially strong enough to support the grassroots of a progressive movement. For that, the churches are needed.

For progressive atheists who resent political-religious movements, the structural approach could be helpful. Instead of half-heartedly accepting christianity's grip on American civil society, one could argue that a thorough finance reform for civil society and/or elections would make the same difference.

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The thoughts of a religio-phobe.
Religious left, huh? Had to happen sooner or later, it's probably politically efficient. Queasy feeling of... estrangement. What's that feeling saying? I don't like religion because religion never liked me. My politics, gender or sexuality. Would I bother with taking part in a religious movement... I don't know. I don't think so. And I doubt Rabbi Michael lerner gets that.
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Blizz give up 'phobic policy, agree with brave gnome

Blizzard have come to their senses and changed their policy on gay and queer-friendly guilds. We owe alot of the fuss that resulted in the policy change to Sara Andrews (picture). Who says it doesn't help to rebel against the corporations? It is, naturally, no coincidence that a GNOME was crucial in this valiant struggle for policy change. The exiled people of Gnomeregan honor Shimmre, for fighting the good fight.

The "Insignification" of Feminism

There has been quite some debate among feminists about the lack of feminist debate in the Norwegian media and public over the last couple of years. The problem, though, is not lack of airtime, but far too much feminist debate about insignificant issues.

Over the past week I have commented the following on national radio from a feminist perspective: Libresse's new commercial and model training for kids in a Norwegian small town. The issues are quite representative of a large portion of the issues debated on the radio. The problem is not saying something sensible from a feminist perspective about these issues, that is obviously quite easy. The problem is that they are, essentially, not very important issues. When a large portion of airtime dedicated to feminist debate is on largely insignificant issues, the message from that is quite clear: feminism isn't really all that important. Last week I criticized Libresse's "Vote for change" campaign for using the symbols of feminism to address something as unimportant as sanitary pads. Are we, journalists and commentators, proving Libresse right by giving media attention to barely significant issues in the name of feminism?

The process of insignification is an important and troublesome facet of feminist debate in Norway at the moment. It would be an easy way out to blame the media for it, but the journalists are no more or less guilty than I am. Fact of the matter is that many of them are doing their best to find informative and entertaining issues that shed light on gender in our society. They gravitate towards less important issues because tackling serious gender issues is very uncomfortable. The couple of examples of serious debate about gender issues that have occurred over the last few months clearly show that. The debate on public child care (commented below (N)) and the debate on men's violence against women reveal that important gender issues are both very controversial and very "touchy" in the general public. Debating insignificant issues thus becomes an attractive option for both journalists and commentators who want to address gender without seriously pissing people off.

The biggest challenge, to which I have no answer, is what to do about this process of insignification. Does it help if feminists discriminate more what issues to comment? Maybe. But that might also lead to less coverage of feminist issues. Your guess is as good as mine.

No Honor in Danish "Free" Speech

European racism is currently being cleansed by world media in the name of human rights and free speech. The cartoon debate couldn’t be more convenient for the liberal right. That’s why they staged it in the first place.

Jyllands-posten’s cartoon project was a bold political statement against Danish Muslims and the Danish left. The intention was to expand acceptable public discourse on racism and “immigration” in Denmark to the right. They wanted to expose the Danish left as wimps on immigration issues and terrorism. They got the support of the Danish right wing and part nationalist government. Because they agree. The government agrees with Jyllands-posten that Muslim immigration is a threat to Danish society, that’s why they are trying to limit it with all means available. There is no honor, as this alternet article suggests, in the Danish acts, nor in the European defense of them. The media and the state is spitting on a marginalized minority.

The political consequence of the rush to defense of the Danish cartoons is the strengthening of the European populist/racist right wing. The burning of Scandinavian embassies has the same political effect. The Danish People’s Party, which sells the book I’ve added the cover of, and their European sister parties couldn’t be happier with the mess they’ve made with their joint effort with muslim fundamentalists.

The rest of us should do what we can to get out of this mess as soon as possible, and address those parties’ racist policies where we can.

My right to print cartoons...

The ugly face of Scandinavian racism has been exposed to the world over the last couple of weeks through the debate about a major Danish newspaper's publishing of mocking cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. Norway was dragged into the mess when an extreme evangelical Christian online paper published the pictures soon after. Now the liberal right is in ecstasy and its bloggers are wallowing in the rhetoric of free-speech.

We should pay attention when the rights designed to protect the minorities and marginized voices are employed by the majority to oppress and marginalize.

Let that be my contribution, if you needed something to worry about this weekend.