Could this interview with a McCain spokesperson be any more embarassing? What's the dog whistle here? "We both know who we're talking about." What? Who?

I sure wish I'd had this when Ragnfrid and I first started dating.

While we shouldn't make fun of these people, I thought I'd share with you guys that somebody came to my blog looking for "Adam Smith Karl Marx fanfiction". I hope they weren't looking for slash, because Adam Smith had been dead for roughly twenty years when Karl Marx was born - so there would be some pretty gross necrophilia going on. Either that, or the term "invisible hand" just got a whole new meaning.

Oh, and you guys saw the latest Tina Fey/Sarah Palin impression, right?

Rolling Stone has made their long, long portrait of David Foster Wallace available online. I think this is the closest we're going to get to a biography in a while. It's a great article, and once again makes me sad that he will never write another book.

Your Houses and Hotels Are Destroyed by Fire

While we are busy discussing Monopoly money in this post on the financial crisis, McSweeneys Internet Tendency is also describing the financial crisis in terms of monopoly.

Klassisk

Kort varsel, men: I kveld skal jeg være ordstyrer på en debatt om Norge som klassesamfunn i regi av Norsk sosiologiforening.

Klasser i Norge – et problem vi bør ta på alvor?

Velkommen til debatt!

Ja, vi vet at Norge er et samfunn der ressurser som inntekt, helse og livsmuligheter fordeler seg ulikt på tvers av sosiale klasser - men er det et så stort problem at vi bør gjøre noe med det? Og hva må i så fall til for å jevne ut forskjellene?

I panelet:

Magne Flemmen - universitetslektor i sosiologi. Har skrevet masteroppgave om rekruttering til den økonomiske overklassen i Norge.

Magnus Marsdal – journalist, forfatter av Frp-koden og Mannen uten egenskaper og andre problemer i norsk politikk. Styreleder i Stiftelsen Manifest.

Heidi Nordby – nestleder for et av lokallagene til partiet Høyre i Oslo, programleder i talkshowet studio 5 i TVNorge-kanalen FEM. Også kjent som den liberale bloggeren VAMPUS.

Trond Blindheim – sosiolog og rektor ved Markedshøyskolen i Oslo.

Tid: Torsdag 30. oktober, kl. 19
Sted: Dattera til Hagen (Grønland 10)

Møteleder: Martin Grüner Larsen

Spørsmål? Kontakt Irene Prestøy Lie på 91546566

Denne saken i dagens kulturnytt er interessant. "Nesten halvparten av alle bokdebutanter kommer aldri med bok nummer to" er ingressen. Det er gamle nyheter, men verdt å snakke grundig om.

Jeg synes også at denne saken er moro fordi dette faktisk er en debatt jeg hadde en hånd med i å starte. Den kommer nemlig fra en debatt jeg var med på å arrangere for et par dager siden på Bok i byen. Dette var en av premissene for "portvokter"-debatten som jeg var programansvarlig for. To av deltakerne i den debatten (Ibenholt og Øybø) er med i denne saken. Moro!

Via Ali Esbati, a long article by Nobel Prize in economics* winner Joseph Stiglitz. Here's the lede:

Describing how ideology, special-interest pressure, populist politics, and sheer incompetence have left the U.S. economy on life support, the author puts forth a clear, commonsense plan to reverse the Bush-era follies and regain America’s economic sanity.

* actually, the Swedish Riksbank Prize in memory of your mother.

the Wall Street crash is a failure of the imagination

Yesterday was the 79th anniversary of Black Monday, and today is Black Tuesday, two important days in the 1929 crash on Wall Street. Just, y'know, as an observation.

"Anyone who bought stocks in mid-1929 and held onto them saw most of his or her adult life pass by before getting back to even." said Richard M. Salsman* about the crisis, according to the Wikipedia page. So there's that.

This is one of those classical "prisoner's dilemma" situations we find ourselves in frequently in our society. What this situation makes clear is that if everyone maintains trust in the collective illusion of the market, the market will keep stable. What the stock market crash really is, is something that us literature majors can tell you all about (see? We can be useful - even in a depression! Hire me! Hire me!). It's basically a wavering in suspension of disbelief. Everyone has suddenly realised that their money really is Monopoly money and are panicking. Like Wile E. Coyote going over the cliff, suddenly looking down like an idiot. Stock market crashes, in effect, are simply a colossal, systemic, collective failure of the human imagination. And bright ideas are what's going to get us out of it.**

Society is a consensus reality we choose to participate in. A story that we tell ourselves. But some parts of that story have a really bad plot, bad grammar and poor writing. We need to rewrite those parts of the story without anyone getting hurt. This is the time, in other words, to remember that all money is pretend money. The only thing we get to decide is what kind of game we're playing. Are we playing capitalism or socialism? Monopoly or Junta, so to speak?

In short, if everybody would just hold on to their damned assets and be cool, we would all be fine in a pretty short time, while the "real" economy and the market got back in synch. If we could also reimagine what the world economy is supposed to look like while we're at it, that would be a fantastic added bonus.

* * *

* BONUS TRACK:

But then, Richard M. Salsman's Wikipedia page indicates that he is an objectivist Austrian school eejit. Let me share with you, as a gift, the titles of some of his papers and books:

* "The False Profits of Antitrust", chapter in The Abolition of Antitrust

* “The Cause and Consequences of the Great Depression”:

- “Part 1: What Made the Roaring ’20s Roar”,
- “Part 2: Hoover’s Progressive Assault on Business”
- “Part 3: Roosevelt's Raw Deal”
- “Part 4: Freedom and Prosperity”, January, 2005, pp. 14–23.

* “Bankers as Scapegoats for Government-Created Banking Crises in U.S. History”

* “‘Corporate Environmentalism’ and Other Suicidal Tendencies”

* “Banking without the ‘Too-Big-to-Fail’ Doctrine”

* Breaking the Banks: Central Banking Problems and Free Banking Solutions

Remember, my friends, this is not the time for gloating or schadenfreude. This is a time for honest, serious, dedicated work.

No, I'm just kidding. This is the time for merciless mocking. And it's a good time to put these people out of a job. And also a good time for reading Keynes and Marx.

** Mandatory endorsement: And obviously, that's going to be easier with an imaginative, creative, flexible US president. Like, say, candidate Obama. An inflexible, uncreative, volatile, insecure president like McCain? Not so much.

Lars - jeg er ganske sikker på at det ville ha vært raskere bare å sende en SMS.

Så du visste ikke at Lars Bukdahl blogger? Ikke jeg heller. Javisst, det er ingen kommentarfunksjon (med mindre man registrerer seg, tror jeg?) og det tok en evighet for meg å finne hovedsiden så jeg kunne dyplenke direkte til den, men de av oss som har fulgt Bukdahl noen år har alltid ment at denne utviklingen kun var et spørsmål om tid. Han har en bloggers temperament - og det mener jeg altså som en kompliment - så denne går i RSS-readeren.

Charlie Rose interviews Paul Krugman.

Garamond powerline.

If the world could vote.

Naja Marie Aidt & Lars Bukdahl på Bok i byen

Prisvinner i byen: Naja Marie Aidt

Tid: Torsdag - 18:00
Sted: Byscenen, Spikersuppa, Oslo

Forfatteren Naja Marie Aidt har siden sin debut for 17 år siden befestet sin posisjon som en av Danmarks viktigste nålevende forfattere. Dette arbeidet, som har omfattet en rekke diktsamlinger, novellesamlinger, verdens eneste helaftens marionettespillefilm og flere dramatiske verk, ble i år anerkjent med Nordisk Råds litteraturpris for den fantastiske novellesamlingen Bavian. For oss i Norge er Aidt likevel forholdsvis ukjent, og hun er først i år blitt oversatt til norsk.

Bok i byen er derfor en glimrende anledning til å få en introduksjon til dette lysende, alltid overraskende forfatterskapet. Her kan du møte Naja Marie Aidt i samtale med den danske litteraturkritikeren Lars Bukdahl, av mange regnet for å være blant de aller mest innflytelsesrike litteraturkritikerne i Danmark. [OG kritiker for Litlive. Det er derfor han er så innflytelsesrik.]

Programleder er Martin Grüner Larsen.

*

Og nå, et fullstendig urelatert musikalsk innslag fra Håkon Kornstad:

How the markets really work.

And now, a word from Karl Marx

The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state…. The necessaries of life occasion the great expence of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expence of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be any thing very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expence, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

Oh, wait. That was Adam Smith.

I remember reading that quote years ago in this brilliant little email that was circulating. Anybody have that lying around? It's not on Google. Anyway, after I read that I started tittering every time conservative hacks argued for market fundamentalism using Adam Smith as an argument.

(I totally stole this post from Edge of the American West, btw, which you should all be reading.)

That's it, the Obamiconics have gone too far!

*

Just back from incredibly interesting lecture by Lawrence Wright, the Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9-11. I hope to post on the lecture tomorrow, but the coming week will probably be my busiest week this autumn, so don't hold your breath (oh, and btw, if you can hold your breath for 12-24 hours, you're a freak).

Kort innføring i den postindustrielle seinkapitalismens* logikk

* Eller som Marx ville kalt den: skikkelig, skikkelig sein kapitalisme.

5080 - bloggen med godt omdømme - rapporterer at økonomiprofessorer landet over har startet en holdningskampanje. De vil at folk skal begynne å oppføre seg mer rasjonelt og skape ekvilibrium. Nok av all denne imperfeksjonen i markedet, sier de!

Personlig så mener jeg vel at den beste måten å få dette til er vel en perfekt informasjonsflyt i markedet, f.eks. gjennom verdensomspennende telepati. Dette er nok en forretningside som en driftig entrepenør kan ta tak i og utvikle.

BREAKING NEWS: I make the international news

Ok, so when I say breaking news, I actually mean news that's stale like five days old fish. But my name features prominently, only 17 paragraphs into this Swedish Reuters story from five days ago about Paul Krugman: Bush critic Krugman wins 2008 Nobel* for economics. The money quote:

He said news of the prize took him by surprise. "I took the call stark naked as I was about to step into the shower," he told a news conference at Princeton on Monday afternoon.**

[just kidding - that's not the money quote. Here it comes]:

(...)

Readers of Krugman's blog posted hundreds of comments congratulating him as an accessible voice of common sense.

"Sometimes it feels as though you are the only sane person in America," said a writer who identified himself as Martin Gruner Larsen.

I am now prepared to reveal that this writer, who identified himself as Martin Gruner Larsen, is in fact me, Martin Grüner Larsen. I like to be incognito like that without the umlaut. Wait, except when I'm using the umlaut, like here, in the quoted comment (#42 - I was quoted because I got the news early, because I have my ear to the ground and my nose to the wind).

In short: these snooty (and Swedish) Reuters people have to learn to phone their work in like the rest of us. Whatever happened to just copy/pasting my comment into the "post" field like the bloggers do? Stoop to our level here, people.

I would also like to take this opportunity to assure my American readers that while I obviously don't think they are sane - and reading the blog of some Norwegian person isn't helping - I don't hold that against them in any way.

* Guys, it's the Swedish Riksbank Prize in memory of... Oh, you don't care either? Ok.

** I quoted that only because I had already used the term "money quote" - I might as well go all the way.

global, completely non-biased electorate

What would the rest of the world vote in the US prez elections? The Economist has a poll which seems to indicate what I've taken to calling "a Fox News toss-up" (Republican: 38 electoral votes, Obama: 8.897 - no, really). McCain carries some interesting countries. I get that he carries Georgia and Moldova, and sort of get Macedonia - I reckon it has to do with having looked into Putin's eyes and watching for Putin as he rears his head into American airspace. But what is up with Cuba leaning McCain? Are they that tired of this whole socialism thing, or does it merely have something to do with the statistical methods of this completely unbiased sampling of completely random and representative The Economist readers from across the world?

...And speaking of a poll of economists.

Denne danske "Indfødsretsprøve" er en skamplett på det danske samfunn. Jeg mener: Hammershøi og Kierkegaard og fuckings pensjonsreformer og grunnloven og Den Lille Havfrue meg opp i ræva. Hva med litt solidaritet, for faen? Hva med andre måter å leve på? Kan vi ikke for guds skyld ta kverken på nasjonalismen snart?

Barack Obama: stand-up comedian. (Also: John McCain.)

This old Batman video is like a perfect allegory over the current US election.

The political philosophy of Joe the Plumber. Seems like a likeable enough guy, even though he isn't in a union.

Audiobooks

Treasure trove: Librivox has released 365 days worth of free, public domain audio books. I've been listening to audio books while cooking and commuting for a while. It's actually an incredible way of learning interesting things while in a relaxed state of concentration that is very conducive to learning and thinking. They have Karl Marx' Capital volume 1 up. Maybe this would be a good time to get into it?

Or how about Kant's Critique of Pure Reason? You know how you could never "find the time" to read it? Go on, get it now. I'm sure Kant's bodice-ripping prose will be just excellent read out loud:

As regards clearness, the reader has a right to demand, in the first place, a discursive (logical) clearness, through con- cepts, and secondly, an intuitive (aesthetic) clearness, through intuitions, that is, through examples and other concrete illustrations. For the first I have sufficiently provided. That was essential to my purpose; but it has also been the incidental cause of my not being in a position to do justice to the second demand, which, if not so pressing, is yet still quite reasonable. I have been almost continuously at a loss, during the progress of my work, how I should proceed in this matter. Examples and illustrations seemed always to be necessary, and so took their place, as required, in my first draft. But I very soon became aware of the magnitude of my task and of the multi- plicity of matters with which I should have to deal; and as I perceived that even if treated in dry, purely scholastic fashion, the outcome would by itself be already quite suffi- ciently large in bulk, I found it inadvisable to enlarge it yet further through examples and illustrations. These are neces- sary only from a popular point of view; and this work can never be made suitable for popular consumption. Such assistance is not required by genuine students of the science, and, though always pleasing, might very well in this case have been self-defeating in its effects. Abbot Terrasson has remarked that if the size of a volume be measured not by the number of its pages but by the time required for mastering it, it can be said of many a book, that it would be much shorter if it were not so short. On the other hand, if we have in view the comprehensibility of a whole of speculative knowledge, which, though wide-ranging, has the coherence that follows from unity of principle, we can say with equal justice that many a book would have been much clearer if it had not made such an effort to be clear. For the aids to clearness, though they may be of assistance in regard to details, often interfere with our grasp of the whole. The reader is not allowed to arrive sufficiently quickly at a conspectus of the whole; the bright colouring of the illustrative material intervenes to cover over and conceal the articulation and organisation of the system, which, if we are to be able to judge of its unity and solidity, are what chiefly concern us.

Paul Krugman explains the stuff he won the Nobel for:

60 million people live along a narrow stretch of the East Coast. Those 60 million people aren’t there because of the scenery; each of them is there because the other 60 million people are also there.

(actually, if you were really good with numbers, that would be fiftynine million, nine hundred and ninetynine thousand nine hundred and ninetynine.)

Uh-oh.

Plums. Mmm.

William Carlos Williams is a really bad roommate:

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten
the soy ice cream
that was in
the ice box

and which
you expressly asked
me
not to touch

Forgive me
it was so gross
I threw half of
it away

Jon Stewart was just completely on fire last night. This is some of the sharpest media critique and political analysis I've seen on tv. Special bonus price: you get to see Ari Fleischer – president Bush's first press secretary – come out with a strong defence of taxation. That's right. Ari Fleischer. "Nobody should be exempt from paying taxes" says mr. Fleischer, a republican. It's terrible, terrible, how these people wouldn't be paying taxes under an Obama administration.

SPLINK! Now we can all remember the Green Code.

Wonderful video of old and scary British public information films. I have to admit I think some of the first traffic safety ones are really effective pieces of communication (not "SPLINK!" - quite possibly the most useless and non-intuitive mnemonic ever). And many of them are just plain fright-mongering unnecessary silliness. "I am the spirit of dark and lonely water"? C'mon.

I actually remember seeing the one with the electricity substation as a child and being scared witless. I can't imagine where, though. This must have been in the late 80s/early 90s. Maybe on Super Channel or Sky during early morning cartoons, or something.

A nice explanation of Krugman's "new trade theory". Also, the Huffington Post has a report that "Krugman Could Turn into Massive Douchebag, Colleagues Fear".

More on Krugman. Other subjects. I mean more on other subjects tomorrow.

Jens Kjeldsen blogger på Vox Publica om den amerikanske valgkampens retorikk.

*

Ali Esbati har en fin analyse av Paul Krugmans posisjon i forhold til nyklassisk teori i de handelsmodeller han vant Nobelprisen for.

morning linkage

Good morning! Back in Oslo and hard at work. Some quick links for you:

Fantastic video by Talking Points Memo comparing McCain's promises of a clean campaign to the unbelievable sludge we've been seeing. The soundtrack is the limbo song "How Low Can You Go".

*

This American Life has had two interesting broadcasts on what is causing the financial crisis. The second one is called "Another Frightening Show About the Economy".

*

Another autobiographical essay by Paul Krugman: "Incidents From My Career".

*

John Cleese on Michael Sarah Palin. "I used to think Michael Palin was the funniest Palin on Earth."

*

Btw, I'm sorry if my blog is too US-centric these days. It's just hard to focus on other stuff in here when all the blogs & newspapers I read are in hyperdrive covering the presidential campaigns. I am reading and thinking about other things, but they aren't as topical. Maybe I'll try to write more about them later in the month.

It's Paul Krugman day, here at (...)

Massive link collection (and comment thread) on Paul Krugman post Nobel Prize. More analysis of the win over at Crooked Timber.

*

A lot of this is economese to me, but here is one article on Krugman's work I'm going to read soon: "How I Work". Will probably also have a look at his book (signed by Krugman himself! Thanks, Suttonhoo!) when I get back to Oslo tomorrow morning.

*

For now, I'm in the University library in Bergen, trying to decide whether I'm more amazed that they still have secured wireless networks here or that my password still works a year and a half after I graduated.

"Breaking News 9:36 AM ET: U.S. Stocks Open Strongly After Gains Overseas; Dow Jumps 400 Points in First Minutes of Trading"

I didn't think Paul Krugman could fix everything THAT fast.

Paul Krugman Wins Nobel Prize in Economics

Not a joke! Blogger and columnist in the NY Times Paul Krugman, one of the leading leftist intellectuals in the US, has won The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2008 for his groundbreaking work in developing macroeconomic models in the field of being right all the time as well as his pattern theories of predictive smartassness.

But seriously, it's something about trade patterns or something. More at the Nobel page.

Ioannes McCainus, mavericus et veteranus captivusque Belli Francoindosinini, et Sara Palina, barracuda borealis, qui sneerare amant Baracum Obamam causa oratorii, pillorant ut demagogi veri, Africanum-Americanum senatorem Terrae Lincolni, ad Republicanas rallias.

Ezra Klein has an interesting article on undecided voters in US elections. If you're wondering what the undecided thing is all about, you could do worse than reading this.

Despite the near-ArtCrap™ in the presentation text, I really, really enjoy Paho Mann's work "Junk Drawers". They're like little found Cornell boxes.

And the Nobel Prize in Literature goes to... some guy I've never heard of

Jean-Marie Gustave Le who?

author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.

Petraeus pronounces "Pakistan" - "too academically". Read through to the end. That is some funny shit.

I'm doing some interviews and visiting old friends in Bergen from Friday until Monday evening. Let's hook up and have drinks. It'll be great.

*

Devastating editorial in the NY Times attacking McCain's campaign. "Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have been running one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember." And: "they have gone far beyond the usual fare of quotes taken out of context and distortions of an opponent’s record — into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia." They also note that the negative campaigning is, not unsurprisingly, relighting the culture wars: "A recent Washington Post report said at a rally in Florida this week a man yelled “kill him!” [Jon Stewart has video in his Oct. 7 broadcast]as Ms. Palin delivered that line and others shouted epithets at an African-American member of a TV crew." So yeah, way to be lifting the public discourse, there, people.

(watch the Daily Show for a Palin rally crowd booing the NY Times, btw.)

I find the Sad Guys on Trading Floors-blog strangely compelling.

Somebody invite me to Spotify! Pretty please with sugar on top?

Transfusion

World Bank chief economist/Nobel Laureate/Smart Guy Joseph Stiglitz comments on the bailout bill at Democracy Now. His basic take: it's like giving someone suffering from internal bleeding a blood transfusion. It has to be done, but if the bleeding (the foreclosures on the property market, from what I gather in a rush reading) isn't stopped, the patient will die.

Facts

A site I love is GlobalIssues.org. Their "Poverty Facts and Stats" page is a helpful reality check every once in a while.

Consider the global priorities in spending in 1998:

Global Priority | $U.S. Billions
Cosmetics in the United States | 8
Ice cream in Europe | 11
Perfumes in Europe and the United States | 12
Pet foods in Europe and the United States | 17
Business entertainment in Japan | 35
Cigarettes in Europe | 50
Alcoholic drinks in Europe | 105
Narcotics drugs in the world | 400
Military spending in the world | 780

And compare that to what was estimated as additional costs to achieve universal access to basic social services in all developing countries:

Global Priority | $U.S. Billions
Basic education for all | 6
Water and sanitation for all | 9
Reproductive health for all women | 12
Basic health and nutrition | 13

(sic(k)!)

Kristin Clemet foreslår alternativt statsbudsjett i dagens Klassekampen:

- Jeg vil kutte i landbruket, og jeg vil kutte i sykelønnsordningen. Den må i hvert fall bli mindre sjenerøs for arbeidstakerne - det må koste litt mer å være syk enn det gjør i dag.

Er det sant? Er det mulig? Går det an å si sånne ting offentlig? Hey, nå må du slutte å håve inn på at du fikk ryggskader fordi du jobber i den totalt samfunnsunyttige omsorgssektoren. Og siden det er din skyld at du slapp inn influensaviruset i kroppen, så må du vel nesten betale for det ut av egen lomme. Husk: Sykdom er et moralsk problem. Ditt moralske problem. Så dra deg opp av sengen og kom på jobb mens du stadig er syk, sånn at du virkelig forsinker din attføring til vårt alles felles beste. Ok? Ok.

Oppdatering: en liten rettelse i tittelen på posten, oppdaget etter kun 2 døgn.

Har ment å lenke lenge: Den nye vinen finner du på 5080 - bloggen med godt omdømme. Sjekk ut noen klassikere som den opprinnelige Hässelby, en Albert Åberg-som-voksen-sketsj som ble lagd lenge før Hässelby var et glimt i Johan Harstads øye. Eller denne artikkelen som påviser at Dagbladet og VG skriver om sex for å selge masse, masse aviser. (Sistnevnte bittelitt NSFW, forresten)

Litlive #60 får en lang og grundig og god anmeldelse i Information.

Specifics

A thing I've noticed:

Sarah Palin has now, in several interviews, used the following phrasing. In reference to which newspapers she reads, which constitutional rulings she disagrees with, and other completely non-essential issues:

Interviewer:
Name me a specific case of X.

Palin:
I can name you specific cases of X. You know, I think it's important in terms of X bla bla bla. So, you know, X.

Interviewer:
And what specific case of X are you thinking about?

[At which point she says basically more of the same, and you scream in agony and close the window you were looking at.]

So she specifically says that she can name specific cases of whatever it is (newspapers, constitutional law cases. Y'know: elitist things), and then reveals that she can't. Anyway, watch for it. As Michael Bérubé says, it's like watching a student try to fake a term paper in real time. Which, btw, is exactly the feeling I got watching that "all under the umbrella of job creation"-answer, which Tina Fey repeated verbatim in the Saturday Night Live sketch.

Litlive #60 ute nå!

Det tresindstyvende nummer for Litlive kommer også i den første nye måned i vort femte år. Jubileet er selvfølgelig i sig selv en god anledning til at sprede en vis feststemning, men i redaktionen er vi også glade for at kunne præsentere et nummer af Litlive, der i rigt mål viser, hvad Litlive opfatter som god litteraturkritik. Som vanligt anmelder den faste stab af kritikere fra Norge, Sverige og Danmark på kryds og tværs af lande og sprog.

*

Men i tillegg til alt dette, som i seg selv er grunn god nok til å juble, så feirer vi i redaksjonen også fordi vi er utrolig glade for å kunne ønske velkommen til to nye redaktører i Litlivestaben: Mathias Kokholm og Kamilla Löfström! Ønsk dem hjertelig velkommen.

*

Innimellom konfettien og fyrværkeriet:
I Litlive #60 læses der dagbog: Karsten Sand Iversen læser Lars Noréns dagbøger og Mikkel Bruun Zangenberg læser Kafkas. Det læses digte: Espen Stueland leser Niels Franks digte, mens Fredrik Hertzberg læser syv bøger af Simon Grotrian. Og der læses romaner: Sissel Lie kigger i Johan Harstads fjerde bog, mens kritikerteamet Kristina Nya Glaffey og Anders Abildgaard læser Maja Magdalena Swiderskas debutroman.

Litlives kalender er som sædvanligt opdateret med litteraturarrangementer i Norge, Sverige og Danmark. Savner du et arrangement i kalenderen, eller har tips om kommende arrangementer, er du mer end velkommen til at sende mail til litlive@litlive.dk.

Med jublende og jubilerende hilsen,
Redaksjonen:

Annelie Axén (S), Mariann Enge (N), Martin Glaz Serup (DK), Martin Grüner Larsen (N), Mathias Kokholm (DK), Kamilla Löfström (DK) og Thomas Nystrøm (DK).

Øvrige medarbeidere:

Webmaster: Bo Ærenlund Sørensen (DK)
Design: Judith Nærland (N)

Skribenter: Eivind Røssaak (N), Espen Stueland (N), Frederik Hertzberg (SF), Hanna Nordenhök (S), Helena Boberg (S), Henrik Petersen (S), Hilde Martre Larsen (N), Jenny Högström (S), Johan Dahlbäck (S), Kari Løvaas (N), Karsten Sand Iversen (DK), Kristina Nya Glaffey (DK), Kristine Kabel (DK), Lars Bukdahl (DK), Lilian Munk Rösing (DK), Linda Östergaard (S), Mai Misfeldt (DK), Mikkel Bruun Zangenberg (DK), Nils Olsson (S), Nora Simonhjell(N), Peter Borum (DK), René Jean Jensen (DK), Sissel Lie (N), Tania Ørum (DK) og Ulf Karl Olov Nilsson (DK).

Litlive utgis med støtte fra Kulturkontakt Nord og Norsk Kulturråd.

Fox News in a nutshell.

Being a community organiser is sort of like having actual responsibility

Why is it that YouTube's comment sections are relentlessly horrible while Flickr's are (mostly) full of delight and good cheer? As an exercise in community-building, Flickr really is one of the best examples on the interwebs.¹ There are lots of reasons for that. A lot of it has to do with a woman named Heather Champ, who is nation-builder-in-chief at Flickr. All Norwegian community builders, especially newspapers, take note of what this article says between the lines: the hosts of the community set the tone of the community through active presence in it and nurturing of it.

1. I just realised that all of the jokes about "internets", "interwebs", "nukular", etc. are soon going to be obsolete. For a second I felt a slight twinge of nostalgia and sadness. Then I realised what I was actually thinking about and laughed maniacally.