Today I saw a review of a book called Unpacking my Library where people’s book collections are photographed and they are asked questions about how they buy, read and sort their books. So inspiring.

However, I’m the very happy owner of a Kindle and I certainly also get a thrill from browsing the millions of books that are there to acquire, for free or for money, at one little click.

But Jonathan Franzen’s words (link above) resounded in me and I’ve been contemplating what would happen if our civil rights continue on the slippery slope they’re on at the moment and suddenly one day we can’t be sure that a new edition of a controversial book is an exact replica of what the author wrote! That is a very scary thought and I don’t have a solution to it, because I neither think that e-books should be banned, nor do I think that the concept of paper books should prevail unaltered. Far too many books are published, printed and never sold.

But you will neither find me joining the chorus of whining authors and publishers who believe that their earnings will disappear and that the value of reading will devalue because it takes place on a “plastic device”, nor among the tech evangelists who can see no charm in the way it was.

Where I stand exactly, I honestly don’t know yet!

Lots of gory details and ideas for taking action can be found on this Wiki. Including this video.

Sorry about the odd sizing!

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After this book the next ones are bound to be disappointing. Am trying to read something dramatically different, but I still can’t really get into it!

This book is so cleverly written, but not, you know, *clever* in a contrived way, just downright brilliant. The realism and the magical realism mix together seamlessly and you often have to stop and think about these parallel universes and where they meet!

Tengo, Aomame and Fuka-Eri have moved into my mind and I think they are going to stay there forever like only a handful of other protagonists of all the books I’ve read. The way these characters’ destinies are slowly entwined is nothing less than fantastic and I had little thrills along the way when new threads appeared.

Lastly, the translation. I had some qualms about reading a book translated from Japanese into English and not into my native Danish. But so many people had advocated the English edition that I was convinced. And I have not regretted it – I can’t possibly imagine any other translator so elegantly explaining Japanese words and expressions, yet maintaining a beautiful and very Murakami’sk tone throughout.

View all my reviews

Og nå ja, Sommersko har slettet link til denne blogpost fra deres Facebook. Tja.

Oprindelig blogpost:

For et par dage siden havde jeg en trist oplevelse. I stedet for at springe direkte på de sociale medier, valgte jeg – som det ordentlige og høflige menneske I jo alle ved, jeg er – at skrive en e-mail til Sommersko. Den kan læses herunder.

Denne mail er rettet til Sommerskos ledelse/ejere:

I find myself caught up in a parent-spiral and I believe many of my thinking co-parents feel the same. Parents are expected to do ever more for their children – and these expectations do not only stem from the children themselves. The pressure is always on, from other parents, the media and society in general.

Although a rather spoiled and over-cared-for lonely child myself, I still took the bus/bike to school, walked/biked the long dark way to ballet training and violin practice, had a job from I was around 12 and did my homework on my own in my room.

My older son (22) was far more spoiled than I was, but somewhat less spoiled than his peers and than my younger son (10) is now (to older son’s constant chagrin). But my young son is far less spoilt than a number of his peers.

Spoiling children with love and attention is always good and never bad, but driving them everywhere when they could perfectly well walk, bicycle or use public transportation can’t possibly be good for anything? And giving them money every day to buy junkfood because they won’t eat a packed lunch, what good is that for a child? At the skatepark where young son goes to practice his skills on his scooter, there are many boys with very wealthy parents. Some of these ten-year-olds have more scooters and scooter-parts than they know what to do with, they always seem to have money to buy junk food and mountains of sweets and soft drinks and they clearly have no concept of money at all, because they all throw away the bottles. Young son has thus been given a way to replenish what in his view is a meagre allowance, so he brings big plastic bags in his backpack and collects the bottles the other boys throw away. At the top of the season, he can make around 100 DKR a week (10£). There’s little competition, because a number of the other boys’ parents have forbidden them to collect bottles… Also, when he buys scooter parts, he often gets free stickers. These stickers he sells to some of the others boys for ludicrous amounts of money. I allow it, because if these children have money to spare to buy overpriced stickers, then it’s their parents’ problem, not mine.

A personally felt consequence of helicopter parents and their over-protected children is that the new, huge skatepark in Fælledparken in Copenhagen is now being closed to children riding scooters. I feel really sorry for my son and all the other boys who have practiced their skills in the road and at smaller skateparks and who know how to fit into the hierarchy of the skating community.

The reason it has come to this is only partly that anybody can ride a scooter (not so with skateboards and rollerblades), even if they’re only 2-3 years old. The real reason is that parents will take their small and/or inexperienced children to the skatepark and allow them to meander about on their scooters in the midst of a large group of very skilled and much older skateboarders and rollerbladers. This results in a lot of near misses and also some accidents when an 80-kilo young semi-professional skater with 50 km/h is unable to avoid a 4-year-old tottering along the bottom of one of the deep bowls. When the skaters ask the accompanying parents to please keep their children away from the bowls and big ramps, the answer is always “MY child has as much right to be here as you have”. But that is wrong! They don’t! They don’t need ramps and bowls, they need a road or a terrace or a playground.

If it were only inexperienced boys coming on their own to the skatepark, the problem wouldn’t have reached the heights that is has now. Because most boys on their own would quickly learn to fit into the hierarchy of such a place. All groups have hierarchies, and the hierarchy in a skatepark is really simple. The best are at the top! And it doesn’t matter what they are best at  (as long as it has wheels) or how old they are. The less experienced will very quickly learn to keep well out of the way of the really good ones and will know quite precisely when they are ready to start trying a certain ramp, etc. But the helicopter parents ruin this with their My Child Comes First-attitude and also create big problems for these precious children by cutting them off from a valuable life experience.

Why are we letting ourselves spiral into this way of parenting? Who benefits from it? Our children get fat, helpless in a kitchen as well as in traffic and never gain an understanding of money.

He was searching on… Yahoo… for something. Repeatedly and apparently unsuccessfully. Then he proceeded to… Google… and searched some more there. In the end I think he found what he was looking for: An Internet radio station! But clearly he couldn’t quite find what he wanted there either, because he kept opening it again and making new searches. When he finally closed the computer down (it being a Windows computer he had to start this process five minutes before we got to the station), it became evident that he worked for Maersk.

So it wasn’t because he was unintelligent or uneducated or that he was just uninterested in “Internet matters”, because had he been, he’d probably be reading a book in his spare time or the pink pages or something. It was simply because he didn’t know any better and clearly didn’t possess the curiosity and pioneering spirit to get the Internet to work for him.

We discussed this at lunch today and somebody suggested that some people are simply scared of “computer stuff”. But how is it possible for a thirty-something obviously well educated professional to be scared of “computer stuff”?

Please educate me!

Hvis nogen skulle have glemt det, så lovede statsministerens mand, Philip, højhelligt og på æresord sin kone, at han ville bakke hende op 100%, hvis hun blev statsminister. Og for en familie med økonomisk overskud, en skøn bolig tæt på København og to børn, der begge var over børnehavestadiet, skulle det være en smal sag for en mand med ben i næsen og de dér, I ved nok.

Men, ak og ve, aldrig så snart havde fruen overtaget Statsministeriet, før han blev opfyldt af selvmedlidenhed og mindreværdsfølelse. Først prøvede han små tricks med jobbet, og derefter bollede han ved siden af og forlangte skilsmisse, som et lille forurettet barn. Mage til fej kujon skal man da lede længe efter! Og hvem er det så, der må tage orlov fra jobbet, når datteren bryder sammen? Det er selvfølgelig selveste Statsministeren – der ikke engang overvejer at bede sin slatne nu ex-mand om at gøre det, enhver ordentlig mand i den situation selvfølgelig ville have gjort – helt af sig selv.

Og man kan endvidere spørge, om datteren ville være brudt sammen overhovedet, hvis Philip havde overholdt den aftale, han havde indgået med sin hustru og levet op til sin rolle som far.

Fordi Philip netop fremstilles som en lille klynkende mandsperson, og ikke mindst fordi Birgitte fremstilles som et varmt og favnende menneske, der blot samtidig er ambitiøs, og ikke som den ellers stereotype iskolde karrierekælling (er jeg selv blevet kaldt engang, ha!) synes jeg derfor ikke, at Adam Price kan klandres for at have båret ved til det bål, BT her antænder. Tværtimod, synes jeg faktisk.

Apropos den debat, som artiklen affødte, så synes jeg, at Stine Carsten Kendal får sagt det allermest præcist og kortfattet på sin Facebook-væg: “Det er heldigvis kun de kvindelige politikeres børn, der betaler prisen”.

at Folketingets nye flertal ville starte med at trække en streg i sandet og lægge alle former for symbolpolitik på hylden. Der er desværre mange eksempler – ikke kun fra VKO – på symbollovgivning, der er beregnet på en helt speciel situation eller befolkningsgruppe. Jeg håber oprigtigt, at “rød blok” har taget ved lære af de forgangne 10 år, hvor mangen en symbollov har ramt en masse andre mennesker, end dem de var ment for, typisk muslimske indvandrere. Eksempler på sådanne love er garanteret legio, men jeg kan selv komme i tanker om 24-års reglen, reglen om genopdragelsesrejser og knivreglen.

Denne post handler om loven om genopdragelsesrejser fra 2004. VKO og Socialdemokraterne (der skulle SKAMME sig) vedtog sammen en lov, der skulle afskrække familier fra at sende deres børn på genopdragelsesrejse til hjemlandet. Jeg har forsøgt at læse loven, men den er propfyldt med henvisninger til andre paragraffer, og jeg har jo også et arbejde at passe. Men ideen er, at hvis et barn eller en ung er for længe væk fra Danmark eller kommer til Danmark i for høj en alder, er de ikke længere “integrerbare” og skal derfor udvises, uanset at de har deres nærmeste familie her i landet.

Ifølge en dokumentar på P1 om emnet, har loven været bragt i anvendelse 1731 gange på børn under 15 år. Af disse er de 796 begrundet med manglende “integrerbarhed”, mens resten er begrundet med forældrenes manglende evne til at forsørge dem, m.v.

Det gør ondt i hjertet at forestille sig, hvordan forældre og børn i disse familier har det. Og det er hjerteskærende, at man har en lov, der straffer børn for forældrenes “synder”.

8-årige Ripa fra Bangladesh

Helt konkret er jeg optaget af en lille pige fra Bangladesh, Ripa, på 8 år, der nu skal udvises af Danmark pga denne regel. På trods af at hun går i dansk skole og på dansk fritidshjem, bor sammen med sin far og dennes nye kone og deres nye barn, dømmes hun altså “ikke integrerbar” og skal sendes til Bangladesh, hvor der ikke er nogen til at tage imod hende. Læs mere om sagen her.

Jeg er generelt ikke særlig vild med at fokusere på enkeltsager, men

• HELE denne lov er lige til skrotbunken, fordi den ikke tjener noget legitimt formål
• Lige om lidt får vi en ny regering, der i hvert fald påstår, at den er modstander af sådan noget
• Udvisningen er med garanti en overtrædelse af FNs børnekonvention og formentlig også af Menneskerettighedskonventionen, som den tidligere regering var ligeglad med, men som “rød blok” mange gange har sagt, at den vil overholde (læs fx hvad Karen Hækkerup siger her).
• Der er tale om et lille barn på otte år. Jamen man kan da ikke sende små børn alene til et U-land, kan man?

København: helle@thorning-schmidt.dk, karen.haekkerup@ft.dk
Københavns omegns storkreds: mette.frederiksen@ft.dk, mogens.lykketoft@ft.dk, sophie.andersen@ft.dk
Nordsjællands storkreds: nick.haekkerup@ft.dk
Bornholms storkreds: jeppe.kofod@ft.dk
Sjællands storkreds: henrik.sass.larsen@ft.dk, magnus.heunicke@ft.dk, ole.haekkerup@ft.dk, mette.gjerskov@ft.dk,lennart.damsbo-andersen@ft.dk, carsten.hansen@ft.dk, julie.skovsby@ft.dk
Østjyllands storkreds: henrik.kristensen@ft.dk, maja.panduro@ft.dk,kirsten.brosbol@ft.dk, leif.jensen@ft.dk,torben.hansen@ft.dk
Vestjyllands storkreds: thomas.jensen@ft.dk, mogens.jensen@ft.dk
Nordjyllands storkreds: orla.hav@ft.dk, bjarne.laustsen@ft.dk, flemming.m.mortensen@ft.dk, rasmus.prehn@ft.dk.

Andre bloggere har også skrevet om Ripa, heriblandt Leoparddrengen og Udsigt.

På Twitter benytter vi hashtagget #RipaiDK, når vi omtaler sagen. Det må du også meget gerne gøre. Og hvis du læser, hører eller ser et nyhedsindslag, der omhandler sagen, så må du meget, meget gerne sende link eller omtale til mig som en kommentar til denne post eller sende mig en e-mail på nenelabeet@gmail.com.

Brief summary in English:
A 8yo girl is being expelled from Denmark to Bangladesh, where there are no-one to receive her. The (previous) Danish government introduced a law that was supposed to stop immigrants sending their children to the home countries for re-education. Stupid in itself, but this girl has never been sent away for re-education. How can you send an 8yo away from her dad?

We’re trying to make it an issue on Twitter, using the hashtag #RipaiDK

Jeg er også enig med de borgerlige i, at man (næsten) ikke kan starte tidligt nok med at putte lærdom ind i hovederne på ungerne. Dermed mener jeg dog ikke, at de som 4-årige skal sidde pænt ved borde og lære alfabetet, men at de på det tidspunkt skal til at lære, hvordan man koncentrerer sig, hvordan man holder fokus, hvordan man samarbejder, hvordan man forholder sig til at løse en opgave. At den opgave så måske består i at tegne en giraf, er sådan set underordnet! Og den gruppe af børn, som desperat ønsker sig at lære at læse – hvorfor skal de ikke have lov? Min yngste gik i en børnehave, hvor dette var en mulighed, men ikke en pligt. Han var fuldstændig uinteresseret, så det deltog han ikke i. Til gengæld var han langt fremme med tegnegrejer, saks og papir, og blev sat på “hårdt arbejde” med at udføre vanskelige opgaver og lære fra sig til de andre børn.

Jeg mener også, at konsensuspolitikken er gået alt for vidt i Folkeskolen, og at det skader både de svage og de dygtige børn. Skolerne er alt for “dygtige” til at identificere de svage og urolige og skille dem ud og helt elendige til at finde, hjælpe og støtte de meget dygtige børn, der ellers kunne fungere som drivers for svagere børn.

Fra USA har vi importeret den underlige skik, at børn skal roses for ALT. Hver gang de slår en streg på et stykke papir, hopper fem cm op i luften med løbehjulet eller laver deres lektier, skal de have at vide, at de er fantastiske. VEL SKAL DE EJ! Børn skal roses, ja, men de skal roses, når de gør noget virkelig godt, og hjælpes og opmuntres, når de gør noget knap så godt. Hvad kan man bruge ros til, der gives for ingen ting?

Hele denne svada er udløst af denne artikel i New York Times, som jeg fandt i dag, takket være @tashiadam og @jeppeengel på Facebook. Det er en rigtig øjeåbner og ALLE, der har børn i skolealderen eller som arbejder i skolevæsnet skylder sig selv at læse den i sin helhed. Jeg er ikke sikker på, om jeg selv havde haft forfatterens stamina til at holde ud på ungernes vegne, men belønningen var righoldig!

Skønt jeg aldrig, ALDRIG ville gå så langt som de såkaldte Tiger Moms (ambitiøse kinesiske mødre i USA), har de ikke desto mindre fat i noget. Hvorfor har jeg fx ikke tvunget mine sønner til at gå til spil, når jeg nu selv ved, hvor lykkelig jeg har været livet igennem, for at jeg kan læse noder og forstår grundlæggende musikalske principper? For slap har jeg været, simpelthen!