Fortinbras Radio Weblog

Thu, 30 Dec 2004 12:54:57 GMT

Det er mulig at dette ikke bare er en melding til Frankrike - det kunne kanskje være noe for Norge også?

Rapper's message for France

Caroline Wyatt
BBC News, Paris

The French government is worried that Muslim prayer leaders, or imams, are preaching radical Islam in the poorer suburbs of the big cities, and that increasing numbers of young immigrants are responding to the message. But there are some who have tried it and decided it is not for them.

I sat in a cafe opposite the Gare du Nord station, feeling slightly apprehensive as I waited for Abdel Malik to arrive.

Since 11 September, like many others, I've often wondered what drives some young Muslims in the West to become radicalised, sometimes to the point of violently rejecting the countries they've made their home.

All I knew about Abdel Malik was that he'd been an Islamist, written about in the French press a few years ago under the unlikely headline "Rapping for Allah". The 29-year-old singer came from the deprived banlieux or suburbs of northern Paris and, as a teenager, had followed and preached a radical form of Islam.

The only photo I'd seen of him showed a stern, shaven-headed youth staring out intensely at the world with a challenging, almost hostile gaze.

So when a tall, strikingly handsome man walked in with a broad smile, apologising profusely for being late, I felt a rush of relief. He wasn't at all what I'd expected.

He was still shaven-headed, and wearing the baggy trousers and hooded parka top that are de rigueur for any self-respecting rapper, French or otherwise. But he turned out to be funny, gentle and thoughtful.

I had a spiritual need. And Christianity wasn't answering my questions. Islam fulfilled that need and it gave me the answers
Abdel Malik, rapper

His parents were Congolese, he told me, in softly French-accented English, and he was born Catholic, brought up in a Paris suburb plagued by drugs and gun-crime.

By the time he was 13, several of his friends were dead - killed in gang warfare. Abdel was searching for answers, trying to make sense of it all, and his older brother provided them by giving him a book on Islam.

"I had a spiritual need," he tells me, without embarrassment. "And Christianity wasn't answering my questions. Islam fulfilled that need and it gave me the answers."

It also gave him an identity, made him someone that other, younger boys looked up to. Abdel smiles as he remembers growing a beard, walking the streets of the suburbs preaching, and the way that people would look at him - either with respect or for some, respect tinged with fear.

Choice

But at the same time, he was also discovering music, writing rap songs with a band he and his friends had formed. The songs he wrote were another way of trying to make sense of the world he was growing up in.

It was as if they had asked me to give up my family, to cut all my ties to something I loved, and I couldn't
Abdel Malik, rapper

Why were so many people he knew poor, angry, and in a dead-end life of violence and crime, while just a few miles away, others lived comfortable, complacent lives, simply crossing the road if they saw the boys from the banlieu coming their way?

"I wasn't violent, but my way of thinking was violent," he admits now. "I saw the world in black and white. If you weren't with us - the good people - you must be evil."

A few years later, though, his more hardline Islamist friends told him he had to make a choice. To be a proper Muslim, they said, Abdel must give up music. For him, it was an epiphany. "It was as if they had asked me to give up my family, to cut all my ties to something I loved, and I couldn't."

Instead, he cut his ties with radical Islam and continued to write music, at the same time reading more about his religion till he discovered Sufi-ism - a more mystic form of Islam that, he said, nonetheless made him feel whole.

'We're all human'

Now he looks back and wonders why he spent so long consumed with hatred, dividing up the world into good and evil.

"It sounds naive," he says, "but now I know that if you want to be a real Muslim - or a Jew or a Christian - you have to love people, not hate them. I came from the bottom of the bottom - I'm black, I'm poor, I grew up in a difficult neighbourhood - but then I realised it was up to me what I did about that, and I didn't want to be a victim.

"In the end whatever your religion, we're all human, we all share the same human heart."

I asked him about one of the songs on his last album - a song about his country. Abdel nods, and explains. He'd been travelling in Morocco, he says, and looked at the poverty around him. And for the first time, he felt a surge of gratitude to France. All around him were children too poor to go to school, already working by the time they were 13.

And he realised that whatever the problems of the place he'd grown up in, it had still offered him one crucial chance - the chance of an education. "You might take that for granted," he tells me, "but I suddenly realised that others couldn't." And so Abdel Malik wrote what sounds like a love song to his country, a song called May Allah bless France.

Today, he's found his own language - music - to express himself, and Abdel's message to his young compatriots in the suburbs is a rather different one to the vision he preached in his angry teenage years. Abdel Malik wants them to stop seeing themselves as victims, and instead as people who can achieve whatever they want.

The choice, he says, is up to them. But France must also play its part - ordinary French people must open their minds, especially when they look in the suburbs. Not every Muslim they meet, he says, is a potential terrorist.

Thu, 30 Dec 2004 12:40:06 GMT

December 30, 2004

EDITORIAL fra New York Times.

Så da var selvfølgelig ikke Jan Egeland så langt fra sannheten. Men det kunne jo alle se at disse 15 mill $ var t ynkelig piss i havet.

Are We Stingy? Yes

resident Bush finally roused himself yesterday from his vacation in Crawford, Tex., to telephone his sympathy to the leaders of India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia, and to speak publicly about the devastation of Sunday's tsunamis in Asia. He also hurried to put as much distance as possible between himself and America's initial measly aid offer of $15 million, and he took issue with an earlier statement by the United Nations' emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, who had called the overall aid efforts by rich Western nations "stingy." "The person who made that statement was very misguided and ill informed," the president said.

We beg to differ. Mr. Egeland was right on target. We hope Secretary of State Colin Powell was privately embarrassed when, two days into a catastrophic disaster that hit 12 of the world's poorer countries and will cost billions of dollars to meliorate, he held a press conference to say that America, the world's richest nation, would contribute $15 million. That's less than half of what Republicans plan to spend on the Bush inaugural festivities.

The American aid figure for the current disaster is now $35 million, and we applaud Mr. Bush's turnaround. But $35 million remains a miserly drop in the bucket, and is in keeping with the pitiful amount of the United States budget that we allocate for nonmilitary foreign aid. According to a poll, most Americans believe the United States spends 24 percent of its budget on aid to poor countries; it actually spends well under a quarter of 1 percent.

Bush administration officials help create that perception gap. Fuming at the charge of stinginess, Mr. Powell pointed to disaster relief and said the United States "has given more aid in the last four years than any other nation or combination of nations in the world." But for development aid, America gave $16.2 billion in 2003; the European Union gave $37.1 billion. In 2002, those numbers were $13.2 billion for America, and $29.9 billion for Europe.

Making things worse, we often pledge more money than we actually deliver. Victims of the earthquake in Bam, Iran, a year ago are still living in tents because aid, including ours, has not materialized in the amounts pledged. And back in 2002, Mr. Bush announced his Millennium Challenge account to give African countries development assistance of up to $5 billion a year, but the account has yet to disperse a single dollar.

Mr. Bush said yesterday that the $35 million we've now pledged "is only the beginning" of the United States' recovery effort. Let's hope that is true, and that this time, our actions will match our promises.

Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:49:53 GMT

Earthquake rewrites SE Asia map - warning system

A good LA Times article puts the powerful earthquake in some perspective:

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck off Indonesia on Sunday morning moved the entire island of Sumatra about 100 feet to the southwest, pushing up a gigantic mass of water that collapsed into a tsunami and devastated shorelines around the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.

The quake was the largest since a magnitude 9.2 temblor struck Prince William Sound, Alaska, in 1964 and was one of the biggest ever recorded by scientists. It triggered the first tsunami in the Indian Ocean since 1883, civil engineer Costas Synolakis of USC said.

If this is true, it is astonishing. One can only imagine what forces were needed to move a huge swath of continental landmass 100 feet.

After the disaster, there are already calls to put in place a tsunami warning system like the one in the pacific. Something like that may well happen now. But I think criticism against Asian governments for not already having such a warning system in place are misdirected. What is the incentive for using sparse resources for building a warning system for an event that is so rare not even our grandfathers were alive when it last occurred?

Let's face is, such events are extremely rare, and even as the cost of this one event is horrible, we have to remember that in lesser time than it takes newspapers to move on to the next news item, more people will have been killed in traffic accidents (according to this page, more that 1.1 million are killed and almost 40 million injured in traffic accidents worldwide every year). While one massive disaster naturally gets all the attention, our sparse resources should really be used where they can benefit people the best.

[Secular Blasphemy]

Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:29:23 GMT

New wine in old wineskin

How to fix mom's computer is a nice article that most geeks can relate to with some dread. Starting with a totally unprotected PC with lots of adware and a full mess, Gina Trapani walks you through the necessary updates. Thus it's also a nice PC security primer.

Windows 98 directly on cable with no forewall? The horror! Updating to XP wasn't even mentioned as an option. Odd. Maybe the machine was very old.

[Secular Blasphemy]

Tue, 13 Jul 2004 21:07:54 GMT

Etter en liten tur til Island kan det være grunn til å minne om denne artikkelen her.

Heller islandsk enn engelsk. Norske forskere skriver mer og mer på engelsk. Enda verre: De skriver noe som ligner mistenkelig på engelsk også når de prøver å skrive norsk. Hva med en studietur til Island? [forskning.no]

Fri, 07 May 2004 04:51:45 GMT

(Med start lørdag den 12. juni planlegger vi en 8 dagers tur til Island. Her er litt bakgrunnsmateriale for en dagstur på Vest-Island. 8 stykker blir vi på turen)

Vest-Island.

Og helst områdene på Snæfellsnes og Borgarnes.

Når vi på resten av denne reisen skal konsentrere oss om de vestlandske landnåmsmennene på Island skal vi huske på at andre sannsynligvis har vært der før oss. At øya muligens allerede var befolket da vestlendingene kom hit på 800-tallet. Av bl.a. folk som fulgte i sporene etter St. Branden av Clonfert (år 480-576e.k), en irsk munk som hadde hovedrollen i en av de mest berømte legender i keltisk kultur: St. Brendan eller St. Brandans reise til de helliges lovende land, nemlig lykken og rikdommens øy! De irske munkene ble ofte kalt ”monachi peregrini”, pilegrimsmunker. De var mye på farten for deres kall var å finne st sted på jorden, et slags jordisk paradis som Gud ville åpenbare for dem.

Ifølge det irske diktet som forteller legenden, var Brenden en munk fra Tralee, County Kerry. Han ble ordinert til prest i 512 og seilte ikke lenge etter sammen med 14 munker i et lite og skrøpelig fartøy som havnet langt ute i Atlanterhavet. Legenden forteller om deres opplevelser, hvordan de fikk med seg ytterligere tre munker, deres møte med ildsprutende demoner, flytende krystallsøyler og monstre store som øyer.

Brenden og hans reisefølge landet på en øy hvor de fant trær og andre typer vegetasjon. De holdt messe og plutselig begynte øya å seile. Den ble til en gigantisk sjøskapning og de var på skapningens rygg. Og etter mange slike hendelser kom så Brendan tilbake til Irland.

I dag tror mange at legenden var en bekreftelse på at irske sjøfolk i middelalderen faktisk nådde kystene til både Nord-Amerika eller New Foundland, Island og andre øyer i Atlanterhavet.

Men for oss er det vestlige Island det området som danner geografisk ramme for alle de hendinger og beretninger vi kjenner så godt fra de islandske ættesagaene. Dette var et hendelsesrikt område gjennom hele landnåmstida med fjorder fulle av sel og fisk, øyer og fjellformasjoner fulle av fugl og egg, elver som flommet over av ørret og laks og varme kilder der kalde kropper kunne ta et avslappende bad.

På mange måter rommer Snæfellsnes og Borgarnes et konsentrat av nærmest alt karakteristisk fra den islandske natur og historie. Snæfellsjökull som danner et fascinerende blikkfang i dette landskapet, gir grobunn for allverdens historier - ispekket mystikk og overnaturlige hendelser. Det er ikke til å undres på når men en gang har sett dens perfekte kjegleform nærmest sveve over havet.

Berømte landnåmsmenn.

I det 9. og 10. århundre slo mange innflytelsesrike personer seg ned på Vest-Island. Skallagrim Kveldulfson, far til den uregjerlige vikingen og poeten Egil Skallagrimson kom til Borgarfjörður. Torolf Mostraskjegg, som hevdet at Helgafell var det helligste av alle fjell på Island, slo seg ned nær Stykkishólmur på Snæfellsnes-halvøya.

Til sydsiden av halvøya – kom den mystiske Barður Snæfellsás og bosatte seg på Hellnar og ble siden en slags åndeskikkelse for isbreen Snæfellsjökull.

Og så - Aud den djuptenkte – tenk hva slags egenskap det er som kan ha gitt henne dette navnet. Hun skal ha vært av Aurlandsætt i Sogn og kom via Irland til Island på 800-tallet og ble ei berømt kvinne der. Hun er nevnt i Harald Hårfagres saga. Hun skal ha vært driftig, klok og from – og blitt kristnet i Irland. Kanskje hadde hun med seg den irske salmen ”Deg å få skoda” til Island. Hun slo seg ned i Dalir-fylket og ryddet seg gard som hun kalte Kvam, et gardsnavn som finnes flere steder i Sogn, en av disse var et stormannssete i vikingtiden.

Hun er også nevnt i den islandske Landnámabok og her er hun kalt Aud den djupaugde – som vel skulle bety ”den rike”. Det var nok slik at innflytelsen fra Vesterhavsøyene var langt sterkere på Island enn i Norge. De som innvandret herfra hadde vært kristne. Den fornemme Aud skal ha vært gift med Olav Kvite, konge i Dublin. Det var på sine eldre dager at hun kom til Island med 20 mann ifølge Landnámabok. Hun reiste et kors på en haug nær gården sin, og der forrettet hun sine bønner. Men hennes etterkommere reiste et hedensk horg på haugen og kristendommen ble ikke holdt i hevd av seinere generasjoner.

Hennes nabo var jærbuen Eirik Raude som bodde i Haukadalur. Han hadde måttet rømme fra Norge på grunn av et drap. Også på Island kom han i vanskeligheter og ble nødt til å fare av landet. Omkring 985 dro han med stort følge og 25 skip til Grønland. Eirik ble den første europeiske bosetter på Grønland og han sønn Leif Eiriksson fant Vinland i året 1000. Gudrid Torbjørnsdotter, den første europeiske mor i Amerika, var født i Hellnar, ute ved spissen av halvøya. Legenden vil ha det til at Akranes ble stedet der to irske brødre slo seg ned og at irske munker hadde bosatt seg i Hvalfjörður-området før nordmennene kom til Island. Der var også en irsk nybygd i Gufuskálar, tett ved den lille byen Hellissanður.

Sagaene og historieskriverne

Vest-Island var åstedet for mange av de dramatiske islandske ættesagaene. Egils soga, soga om Gunnlaug Ormatunga, Eyrbyggja soga, Laxdæla soga, Harðar soga, soga om Hønsa-Tore, Bjarnar saga Hitdælakappa, Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss og den romantiske Viglundar saga.

Alle disse er oversatt til en rekke språk og en kan finne utgaver hos lokale bohhandlere.

Den endelige demise av den gamle stormakten i det 12. og 13. århundre ble for en del satt sammen av den mektige Sturlunga-klanen som kom fra Vest-Island.

Fra Vest-Island kom også de berømte historikerne fra det 12. og 13. århundre: Are Frode (den lærde) bodde på Staðarstaður på Snæfellsnes-halvøya. Snorre Sturlason var født på Hvammur i Dalir fylke men bodde hovedsakelig på Reykholt i Borgarfjörður. En kan nå finne Heimskringla-museet der og det er gjort utgravinger hvor Snorres gård en gang lå. Snorres nevø, Sturla Torsson, bodde på Staðarhóil i Saurbær-distriktet og døde på Fagurey i Breiðafjörður. Minnesmerker er reist i disse områdene til ære for disse berømte historieskriverne.

Skarð på Skarðasströnd er sagt å være den eldste bygning på Island siden den har vært bebodd av den samme familie helt fra tiden rundt år 1000 og kanskje helt fra landnåmstiden. Et av de beste læresetene i middelalderen var Helgafell kloster på nordsiden av Snæfellsnes-halvøya, tett ved byen Stykkishólmur.

Kirkens menn

Mot midten av det 16. århundre utspant det seg en grufull hendelse i disse traktene. Det involverte den siste romersk-katolske biskopen på Island, Jon Arason og hans to sønner. De ble arrestert ved Sauðafell i Dalir fylket og holdt i arrest en stund av Dadi Gudmundsson, en rik bonde i Snóksdalur, som deretter sendte dem, etter ordre fra den danske kongen, sør til Skálholt der de senere ble halshugget.

Den mest kjente av de islandske salmedikterne, presten Hallgrum Petursson, bodde ved Saurbær i Hvalfjörður-distriktet i det 17. århundredet. Hans ”Pasjons-salmer” er blitt omsatt til mange språk.

Å ta vare på kunnskapeen

Professor Arni Magnusson, som har fått den Arnamagneanske samlingen oppkalt etter seg og likeledes Det Arnemagneanske Instituttet i København og Arni Magnussons Instituttet på Island , var født ved Kvennabrekka i Dalir fylket og vokste opp hos sin bestefar ved Hvammur sist i det 17. århundre. Hans samtidige, Steinunn Finnsdotter, fra Höfn i Melastveit Borgarfjörður, skrev en hel del forskjelligartede vers som har gjort hennes navn velkjent i litterære kretser på Island.

Det første trykkeriet, som opererte uavhengig av kirken, ble satt opp her på Hrappsey i Breiðafjörður sent i det 18. hundreåret. Det ble flyttet til Lairágarðar i Borgarfjörður rundt år 1800. Flatøy i Breiðafjörður var det viktigste kulturelle senteret på Island på midten av det 19. århundre med landets første bibliotek, riktignok ganske lite.

Den første jordbvruksskolen på Island ble etablert i Olafsdalur i Saurbær i 1880. Der er det nå et kvinne-forskningssenter.

Kunstnere i det 19. og 20. århundre.

Noen av de mest kjente poetene, forfatterne og kunstnerne i det 19. og 20. århundre har i det minste dels røtter på Vest-Island. Blant dem den første moderne romanforfatter på Island, Jon Thoroddsen. En av de første billedhuggerne på Island, Åsmundur Sveinsson, vokst opp på Vest-Island. Han skulptur, Sonatorrek, oppkalt etter eddakvadet av Egil Skallagrimsson ved samme navn, finner vi plassert ved kirkegården Borg nær Borgarnes, der Egill bodde. Den moderne billedhoggeren Påll Gudmundsson, skaper sine verk ut av stein og fjell funnet ved Husafell i Borgarfjörður. Den internasjonalt kjente maleren Erro, som bor i Paris, var født i byen Olafsvik på nordsiden av Snæfellsnes-halvøya. Folkemusikksamleren Bjarni Torsteinsson, vokste opp på Myrar-området i det 19. århundre og den berømte komponisten Atli Heimir Svinsson, kommer fra Flatey i Breiðafjörður. Mange poeter, malere og skribenter har også søkt inspirasjon i dette landskapet rundt Snæfellsjökullen, blant dem Islands Nobelpris-vinner i litteratur, Halldor Laxness, og maleren Johannes Kjarval.

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 04:50:57 GMT

Dette diktet går med en spesiell hilsen til sauebøndene i Bringedal og på Tveit. Det er en dramatisk situasjonsrapport fra livet på den irske landsbygda - og det er vel en situasjon dere kjenner skulle jeg tro.

Caesarean

Av Peter Fallon

They were clouds come down to ground to yean,
clouds from which clouds of breathing broke.
We went out, night and day, again and again,
to check or correct. One was clearheaded.
She hadn’t the fire to make that kind of smoke.

She stood humpbacked, worn out.
We knew she could no longer carry.
One slim chance. No time to doubt
that we would learn what to do by doing.
We did not hesitate or hurry.

This would take its own time. We lay
her down and gently pulled wool from her sides.
We were clearing the way.
We went for towels, soap, beestings, and the gun.
Her lambs could swim in rough tides

of her death. We shot her to save some drib
from loss, save her pain. She opened like a bloom
beneath the red script of the scalpel’s nib
and we found twins, abandoned, perfectly
formed in the warm nest of her womb.

Premature. Too young to live. We had thought
of everything but this, what could not be guessed.
That she was ready and they were not.
They lay like kindlings dazed by daylight,
the tips of their tongues, their front feet pressed

to dive as one into the waters
of the world. We knelt close to hear a heart,
heard our own and thought it one of theirs. Daughters
of death, they’d never know their gifts,
the everyday miracles of which they were part.

They were part instead of that sacrifice
of the whole. James shrugged a smile.
The lambs pulsed once or twice,
and died. We had done what we could. Now there
were other things to do. We said nothing for a while.

Peter Fallon er født i Tyskland i 1951, men han flyttet til Irland som 7-åring og har siden vært bosatt der. Han har gitt ut eller vært redaktør for mer enn 300 bøker om poesi, drama m.v.

Tue, 06 Apr 2004 22:14:04 GMT

Calling

There, don’t you hear it too?

Something is calling, although

The day is blank and gray.

The eye fastened on nothing,

The ear undistracted

And we with nothing to say.

But still that sense of calling,

Of something seeking attention

Beyond our consciousness.

That voice in voiceless things

When they cease to be themselves,

Losing their choice and purpose.

Joining the indiscriminate

Otherness which surrounds us

At our own times of withdrawal.

It is then that the world calls us

As if to reinterpret

Or to reconfigure.

Whose is this voice? A god’s?

Surely not. It seems

To be the voice of duty

That speaks of origins

And of relationships

Between things grown apart.

And I remember the muezzin

Singing every morning

Raptly, as if for himself.

Singing in the dark hour

At a distance, over all,

And yet outside our door.

His practised lilt spoke more

Of the puzzles of night than of

The determinations of morning.

As though the light had still

To be charmed into being

And each day a reward.

The voice is much like his,

A commanding meditation

Rising form the blankness.

Of a sleeping senselessness,

Thoughtful, improbable,

But stirring us to beauty.

And like his, the voice

Links us for a while

In its reiterations

Then ends abruptly, as if

Distracted by something else

Of no great importance.

John Fuller.

Tue, 30 Mar 2004 02:31:33 GMT

Anne Fadiman forlater (sparkes fra) tidsskriftet The American Scholar.

Literary Journal's Editor to Leave in Budget Dispute. Anne Fadiman will leave her post as editor of The American Scholar, one of the country's premier literary journals. By Emily Eakin. [New York Times: Books]

Det som gjorde Anne Fadiman kjent i Norge var bl.a. denne bokanmeldelsen i NYT høsten 1998. Senere er boken blitt oversatt til norsk: "Lyden av leselykke" (2001).

October 15, 1998, Thursday

BOOKS OF THE TIMES; To the Bookshelf Born, With Noblesse Oblige

By CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT

EX LIBRIS
Confessions of a Common Reader

By Anne Fadiman
162 pages. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $16.

When Anne Fadiman was growing up, she writes in her endearing collection of essays, ''Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader,'' her family ''viewed all forms of intellectual competition as a sacrament.''

She and her older brother would vie to see who could find the longest words; she writes that he won ''with paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde,'' the word for ''a smelly chemical that we used to sing to the tune of 'The Irish Washerwoman.' ''

With their parents, both writers, they used to compete with the contestants on the old weekly television program ''G. E. College Bowl,'' a quiz show in which two teams of four students, each representing a different college, competed for scholarship money. Calling themselves Fadiman U., she admits with some chagrin, ''in five or six years of competition, we lost only to Brandeis and Colorado College.''

The four of them, ''compulsive proofreaders,'' loved to catch people's mistakes in print. ''I know what you may be thinking,'' she writes: ''What an obnoxious family! What a bunch of captious, carping, pettifogging little busybodies!'' But she's really just being polite here in the same way as when she berates herself for once proofreading a paperback edition of Nabokov's ''Speak, Memory'' and sending her list of misprints to the author, who surely must have been grateful. (She reports that Vera Evseevna Nabokov wrote to thank her on her husband's behalf for her ''thoughtfulness.'')

Besides, Ms. Fadiman can't help herself. As she writes, her urges are probably genetic. She was bound to her destiny, being the child of Clifton Fadiman, an editor, anthologist, book reviewer and former judge for the Book-of-the-Month Club, and Annalee Whitmore Jacoby Fadiman, a World War II correspondent with Time magazine and the co-author, with Theodore H. White, of ''Thunder Out of China,'' a 1946 best seller on China's role in World War II. She has been compelled to read omnivorously and to write ''The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down,'' which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction in 1997.

As for ''Ex Libris,'' whatever moved her to write the 18 essays gathered in it, they deal usefully with little problems people who care for books would be unlikely to think about systematically, let alone discuss with other readers and writers. For instance, in ''Marrying Libraries,'' she explains how she and her husband, also a writer, became truly wed only when, after much sorting, categorizing and compromising, they had merged their book collections.

In ''Never Do That to a Book,'' she identifies those who revere books physically and are therefore believers in ''courtly love,'' and those who underline, make marginal notes, tear pages out or keep reading books until they fall apart, and are thus believers in ''carnal love.'' She allows that the world has room for both.

In ''Words on a Flyleaf,'' she considers what to do if you should find in a secondhand shop a book you've inscribed to a friend. When Shaw once came across one of his books, inscribed ''To -------- with esteem, George Bernard Shaw,'' he bought the book and returned it to --------, adding the line, ''With renewed esteem, George Bernard Shaw.''

And in ''Eternal Ink,'' she considers how writers might record ideas that occur to them when they are not at their desks. ''One day, when Sir Walter Scott was out hunting, a sentence he had been trying to compose all morning suddenly leapt into his head. Before it could fade, he shot a crow, plucked a feather, sharpened the tip, dipped it in crow's blood, and captured the sentence.''

When she is not addressing practical matters, she is merely very charming, whisking us up odd literary byways -- like the sonnet writing of William Kunstler, the late radical defense lawyer, or a theory that the scarcity of first editions of ''Alice in Wonderland'' can be accounted for by the fact that so many of them were eaten by children.

First published in slightly different form in a column called ''The Common Reader,'' written by Ms. Fadiman for Civilization magazine, these essays also breathe new life into such seemingly tired subjects as reading aloud, secondhand books, plagiarism and how children regard their parents' libraries. (Ms. Fadiman reports that her daughter thought that John Updike's ''Rabbit at Rest'' was a story about ''a sleepy bunny.'')

Her purpose in writing them was to go to what she considers the heart of reading: ''not whether we wish to purchase a new book but how we maintain our connections with our old books, the ones we have lived with for years, the ones whose textures and colors and smells have become as familiar to us as our children's skin.''

In ''Ex Libris'' Ms. Fadiman has produced a smart little book that one can happily welcome into the family and allow to start growing old.

Mon, 29 Mar 2004 21:15:02 GMT

SEA-WIND

by: Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898)

HE flesh is sad, alas! and all the books are read.
Flight, only flight! I feel that birds are wild to tread
The floor of unknown foam, and to attain the skies!
Nought, neither ancient gardens mirrored in the eyes,
Shall hold this heart that bathes in waters its delight,
O nights! nor yet my waking lamp, whose lonely light
Shadows the vacant paper, whiteness profits best,
Nor the young wife who rocks her baby on her breast.
I will depart! O steamer, swaying rope and spar,
Lift anchor for exotic lands that lie afar!
A weariness, outworn by cruel hopes, still clings
To the last farewell handkerchief's last beckonings!
And are not these, the masts inviting storms, not these
That an awakening wind bends over wrecking seas,
Lost, not a sail, a sail, a flowering isle, ere long?
But, O my heart, hear thou, hear thou, the sailors' song!

Og så tar den engelske (han er forresten oppvokst i Belfast) samtidspoeten Tom Paulin fatt i Mallarmés dikt og gir sin versjon av det. Da ser det slik ut:

Sea Wind

(Mallarmé)

It's a sad creature I'm afraid the body
all the classics - every book that stands steady
on my shelves I've read them through but only
to make this wish - oh to walk to the edge of the sea
and watch stints skittering along the tideline
then scattering up and beyond into the sky!
not a thing - not the gardens of mouldy chateaux
wet and glaucous in her eyes -
not a thing no one will stop me I've got to go
down to the wild sea - i tell you not nights
crossing blank pages under my desklamp
- not that desert wild or the sigh
of a dumpy girl breastfeeding her child
will stop me booking a berth on some tramp
steamer heaving its rust toward the tropics

- I'll wave my snotrag from the deck sick
of stroking my own boredom - by the saltstained smokestack
let me dream of wind and wrecks!

Tom Paulin er født i Leeds i 1949, men oppvokst i Belfast. Han er utdannet fra universitetet i Hull. Han underviste i engelsk ved universitetet i Nottingham fra 72 til 89 og har vært gjesteforeleser ved en rekke univesitet. Han er også kjent fra radio- og TV-program. Mye av hans ungdomspoesi gjenspeilte den politiske situasjonen i Nord-Irland. Med denne poesien har han vunnet en rekke priser. Men han forlot denne ungdomsstilen midt på 1980-tallet. Fra nå av konsentrerte han seg mer om frie assosiasjoner, naturen og det å fange det vesentlige ved tingene gjennom frie vers. Kanskje eksperimenterte han også med ord og ordkonstruksjoner. Forbindelsen mellom den tidlige og senere Paulin er vel at han alltid er opptatt av orden og uorden. Orden var dominerende i hans tidlige poesi mens "uorden" dominerer den senere Paulin. Han skriver dikt om bagen sin at den "has to be tamed or strapped' otherwise it has no form nor pattern".

Mon, 29 Mar 2004 19:11:54 GMT

Elena er ukrainsk biker. Hun har kjørt sin Kawasaki gjennom Tsjernobyl. Hennes billedreportasje med kommentarer er bedre enn vilken som helst dokumentar. Jeg fant dette hos en japansk blogger: Se http://joi.ito.com/

Men fremfor alt - bli med Elena på en tur gjennom spøkelsesbyen Tsjernobyl. Om jenta er riktig klok som våger seg ut på dette det er ikke godt å si, men jeg tror pappaen er atomfysiker. Joi Ito er forøvrig en venn av Loic Le Meur som jeg fortalte om i går.

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/

Sun, 28 Mar 2004 19:11:29 GMT

Franske Loic Le Meur har inngått avtale med amerikanske Six Apart om å markedsføre deres bloggerprogramvare Movable Type og Typepad.

Han har sitt eget selskap Ublog SA som også har et bloggerprogram. Han har en blog på fransk som fortsatt vil være på U-blog mens hans engelske versjon er nå lagt over på Typepad. Han sier at etter hvert skal han tilby programvaren på flere europeiske språk. Han har selv presentert avtalen på sin blog den 20. mars i år:

March 20, 2004

Six Apart and Ublog SA sign an exclusive representation agreement in Europe

Mena, Ben & me

Mena, Ben, Barak and myself have been already working on this agreement for many weeks, I am very glad and honored to announce that Six Apart and my company Ublog SA have signed yesterday an exclusive representation agreement.

Ublog SA becomes the exclusive agent of Six Apart in Europe, Middle-East and Africa and has started distributing its leading weblogs publishing products, Typepad and Movable Type.

Typepad is already available in French and Spanish and will also be available in the next weeks in German and Dutch. Most European languages will follow shortly. Local Typepad and Movable Type websites will be launched very soon.

Asia, Europe and the USA gathered in California

As Six Apart launched successful partnerships in the USA and Asia such as NTT and Nifty's Cocolog (one of the main ISPs in Japan), Ublog's team in Europe is already offering Typepad and Movable Type products to European ISPs, Telcos, Portals and Media Companies.

Current Ublog platform users will be able to upgrade to Typepad accounts and seamlessly import their Ublog weblogs if they like. Ublog will maintain its popular free offering with more than 11 000 weblogs in France and make similar products available in Europe.

Part of the team @work

Our European team is very proud to join forces with Six Apart's visionary team that now has global representation in the USA, Asia and Europe.

Thank you Mena, Ben, Barak and of course Joi for your trust !

Der finnes en mengde presseoppslag om denne saken. De finner du på http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2004/03/six_apart_and_u.html

Sun, 28 Mar 2004 18:55:21 GMT

Wearing black in protest

Glutter
CHINA HAS FURTHER CURBED FREE SPEECH AMONG ITS CITIZENS

THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT HAS BANNED ALL TYPEPAD SITES WITHIN CHINA. ANOTHER BLOW TO FREESPEECH AND FREEDOM OF INFORMATION WITHIN THE COUNTRY.

THIS IS A SAD DAY.

GLUTTER TURNS BLACK AS A MEANS TO PROTEST AND BRING ATTENTION TO THIS ISSUE

If I could so much ask, I would like to suggest others who own typepad sites and other blogs to put a note on theirs as a means to spread the word.

So until TypePad blogs are unblocked, you will all have to bear with this ugly black border around my blog.

Pass it on sier Loic Le Meur på http://www.loiclemeur.com

Via North Korea zone and Joi Ito's Web

Sun, 28 Mar 2004 17:09:35 GMT

One year ago today har vår franske venn Loic Le Meur kalt et innlegg han har på sin blogg og det å spå fremtiden. Du finner han på http://www.loiclemeur.com

"[Weblogs] are an interesting phenomenon, but I don't think they will be as talked about in a year's time."

A quote attributed to Mike Smartt, editor of BBC News Online, and published a year ago today.

It's not quite as good as some of these, but such dismissive talk - like decent wine - always matures with age...
[via Neil McIntosh]

Sun, 28 Mar 2004 09:16:56 GMT

Det jødisk-amerikanske miljøet i USA har etter "håndfast" opptreden i Irak og Gaza funnet grunn til å gjøre litt narr av europeerne i etterkant av bombingen i Madrid, kanskje helst franskmennene (som vanlig). Flere blogger har denne:

From WindsOfChange:

The French Government, taking a page from our own Department of Homeland Security has established internal threat levels. Unlike the USA, the French only have four such levels. They are, from low to high: RUN, HIDE, SURRENDER, and COLLABORATE.

[Secular Blasphemy]

Ja, dette er jo fryktelig morsomt - men kanskje skulle vitsemakerne tenke over det faktum at svaret på truselen mot Europa vil være: "Kill them - not us". Them - vil i dette tilfellet selvsagt være jøder og amerikanere. For jo mer frykt Europa føler, og jo mer svakhet, handlingslammelse og unnfallenhet vi viser - desto mer misstro, sinne, aggresjon og hat vil vi vise overfor dere som med ufattelig stupiditet og råskap har brakt oss europeere inn i denne situasjonen. Så - min jødiske venn i WindsOfChange - kan du forklare meg det morsomme?

Sun, 28 Mar 2004 08:17:40 GMT

Patrick Moore som var med og startet Greenpeace rundt 1960 er nå deeply critical til organisasjonene holdning til bioteknologi.

Greenpeace and its allies of "green" terrorists are using bully tactics, sabotage and wholesale destruction of property to make sure no sensible voice is even heard against its scaremongering. Thanks to the hysteric reaction of these luddites, as opposed to calls to caution from more sensible quarters, GM products that could reduce malnutrition and disease in the third world has been stopped or delayed. The GM industry has a massive worldwide PR problem:

Artikkelen finnes hos Michel Vuijlsteke i Tales of Drudgery and Boredom. [Secular Blasphemy]