where are all of the dannede people?

danish has this great word, dannelse. google translate tells me it's formation in english, but it's more than that. it's a combination of education (the danish word for that being uddannelse), being widely read (at least partly in philosophy), having travel experience (slow travel of the kind favored in another age) and displaying good table manners. kirkegaard was a dannede man. erudite, gracious and a deep thinker.

the dannede person is capable of synthesizing complex thoughts and having a coherent overview of complex situations, further s/he is able to articulate real arguments with a basis in logical thinking.  s/he dresses well and can equally well dine with royals or with a table full of smoking intellectuals at the algonquin. s/he probably writes - essays, novels, fairytales, poetry or perhaps even the constitution. s/he commands respect because when s/he says something, it's thought-through and erudite.

we are sorely lacking such people in the world today. and i'm not sure how it happened. husband's theory is that it all went sorely wrong when the masses got money. once we no longer needed to be particularly educated in order to succeed financially, people stopped seeking education. eventually these people, who lack any basic training in how to form logical arguments and systematic ways of thinking about the problems facing the world, end up in places like the congress of the united states. and it all goes horribly, horribly wrong.

they have a lack of respect for the principles of a democratic process they don't understand - instead behaving like naughty children who throw a temper tantrum and stand and stomp their feet when they don't get their way. they don't understand the bigger picture or the tradition into which they've fallen - that when a bill is passed by a majority and signed into law, you cannot later tack it onto some other bill which has nothing to do with it and hold a whole country hostage. that's not how democracy works.

what seems to be the saddest part of the kindergarten that is now the american house of representatives (and i'm being sorely unfair to kindergartens here) is that there doesn't seem to be any adult supervisors. i have read time and again over the past week that this is a handful of extremists with a new and decidedly not dannede stranglehold on the repugnant party. there was a time when there were smart republicans out there, but they seem to be curiously powerless and silent and not doing a damn thing to rein these clowns in.

how on earth can the united states go around the world, forcing democracy down on the heads of afghanis and iraqis when they can't even get their heads around how it works at home?

i shake my head and feel grateful to be observing it from afar.

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please help gwen get stories to her students.

dear spam

dear stupid french spammers -

here's a few tips for you:

~ i don't have a danske bank credit card, thus it would be pointless for me to update my credit card details using your link.

~ your spam mail about the use of my "dansk bank" credit card (see above) on a porn website might be more convincing if you didn't use google translate to write it, tho' that bit at the end about how you're just detecting weaknesses (or a burning sensation, depending on how you read it) in our society does show some understanding of the danish mentality.

~ i can SEE the email address you're sending from and it's not a danske bank email address.

~ oh, and danske bank is spelled with an e, not "dansk bank."

sincerely,

/j

p.s. are these lame spam attempts really working on people?

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dear random people who keep asking to do guest posts on my blog,

it would be advisable to actually READ my blog first. in which case you will see that i don't really have guest posters, since no one else has the same insight into MY sanity and what might have a chance of preserving it as i do. this blog is about me working out what i think and feel about stuff. guest posts would kinda defeat the purpose of that.

blogging is, after all, cheaper than therapy.

sincerely,

/j

p.s. do you really get guest posting gigs this way?

p.p.s. you can have your own blog. they're even free, depending on the platform you choose.

* * *

dear people selling penis enlargment,

i don't have a penis.

sincerely,

/j

random wednesday

i love the rainbow-colored S-train. it makes me happy just to see it. they're usually just plain old red, but a few of them are rainbows. almost makes you like the public transport. and speaking of public transport, i started off my first week of birthday resolutions by speaking to a stranger on the train. in denmark if people speak to someone they don't know in public, they are either drunk or mentally...ahem, shall we say...diminished...in some way. true to form, the woman who spoke to me, while high functioning, was clearly not all there. but, it still counts. even tho' she initiated the conversation.

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gerber daisies were 3 bunches for 50 kroner (that's less than $10!) at magasin. it made it feel like spring or even summer, even if the wind was pretty biting today, despite the sunshine. they look perfect in my ktichen, tho' they got a bit droopy on the long train ride home (made longer by some signal problems that meant we sat between the main train station and dybbølsbro for an inordinately long time):

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i ordered some acrylic waterfast inks from dick blick art supplies in the US the other day, a big whopping $20 worth and they sent a quote on the shipping today (thank goodness they actually sent it for approval). they have the skills of a fence post in finding reasonable shipping. their offers were $38.08 for fed ex or $29.75 for the slow boat USPS (2-3 weeks, they said). all for something which can't weigh more than a few ounces. are they completely mental? do they think they can just take advantage of stupid foreigners who don't know any better? who are they trying to fool here? i'm positive that it wouldn't take more than $10-12 to ship to me and it could be here in a week to ten days with regular international mail.  i think it is a really crappy way to do business, making up what are perhaps too-low prices on the actual items on shipping costs. madness. i'll harvest some squid myself, thanks. 

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sabin's big (half)sister has been hanging out here all week. normally she comes only every other weekend. she's 17 and you'd think it was a pain in the patootie to have a teenager in the house, but with husband in north carolina, it's pretty good having her around. she's made dinners and snacks because she wanted lessons in making The Pasta dish, hummus, and spanish omelette. so lessons she got. easy peasy for me. and she's a sensible, good kid. i hope sabin's this easy when the time comes. 

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that's all i got today, folks. turns out this going to work on the train and sitting in an office all day is kinda tiring. hope your wednesday was less random than mine.