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Pause fra uenigheten
Siden vi nå alle – nesten alle – er enige om så mye for tiden, skal jeg ikke skrive om mine yndlingstema. Jeg skal isteden be dere se på et bilde jeg fant på denne nettsiden. (Jeg oppgir kilden i håp om at jeg ikke bryter åndsverksloven.) En annen grunn til at jeg setter inn…
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… der de er
Flyktningene fra Syria er for en stor del i Libanon. Som barn bodde jeg i Libanon i et halvt år. Det var det deiligste landet jeg hadde opplevd. Jeg har en masse lysbilder som min far tok, og jeg kan forsikre at de understøtter den dag i dag at Libanon var et deilig land. På…
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Floskeldirektoratet
Vet du hva IMDi er? Ikke det? Men du må innrømme det er et snedig ord. Nesten som Vex (eller burde det hete VEx?) Integrerings- og mangfoldsdirektoratet. Høres bra ut, ikke sant? Og det har en flott logo. Velkommen til Norge, kjære flyktning, enten du er kommet fra det ene eller det andre landet. Vi…
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Be happy + FAQ
I never understood the point of advertising. Oh, I’ll admit any day that if all my friends are raving about Vex – “and you know, it actually works,” – I might very well buy Vex regardless of what it’s for or whether I need it. But if some smooth humanoid that looks like Bambi pops…
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Grave robbery in Sweden
Of course, you don’t have to believe the common-law wife of the late Stieg Larsson. They’d been living together for more than thirty years when he died, but I’ll grant you any day that we can’t rule out that she’s a scheming bitch. I mean, all I know, except that “know” is a misnomer here,…
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The games they play
I hear they brought in a new top gun in Nigeria. Everybody’s very pleased, it seems, except the Nigerians, of course, but they don’t count. “Finally, democracy comes to Nigeria”, observers say. As for the Nigerians, I admit they did vote for Buhari, but I expect they did so mainly to please us. I really…
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Point of view
In my town, people don’t like Mr Putin. Come to think of it, I don’t like him much myself. In my town people look down their noses at Rambos, and Mr Putin, it would seem, is a Rambo. Around here, they prefer the spindly type, the Spidermans, agile and supple. And they don’t condone belligerence…
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Two sides of Mercy
Christianity claims to be merciful. And indeed, for believers who have no problem with the awkward concepts “original sin”, “immaculate conception”, “resurrection”, etc., who are happily married, give birth to healthy children, and who don’t have to steal to feed their young, the mercy of Christianity may well be a blessing. Caring for their loved…
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Alternative warfare – Christmas proposition
UNESCO has published a list of killed journalists. This year there were 60 of them. Sixty killed journalists! That’s a lot of dead journalists. Many were killed in 2013, too. And not only in Syria! Just take a look at UNESCO’s list: Unesco condems killing of journalists Being dead may, however, be better than being…
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What’ll it be, eh?
I have just read an article in El Pais which alerted me to a debate that appears to be raging in many academic circles. The writer refers to the immortal opening lines of Dicken’s novel Tale of Two Cities, which he finds particularly relevant. And who could disagree? It was the best of times, it…