The Kingdom of Denmark still includes Greenland and the Faroes. Føroyar were originally settled by Norsemen, but they identify strongly with the Shetlands and the Hebrides. Many of the women have Scottish DNA. The Danes had colonies in the West Indies, India, and Africa as well, but its Arctic zone is the largest. Iceland won … More Island, Grønland, Norge, Føroyar
One of the reasons I loathe grading in intermediate courses, and my mood is bleak, is that I have to read too many texts like this: The adoptive mother discovers that her son’s birth parents may still be alive, and may not have given their child up willingly. She makes a great effort to contact … More Things I Would Rather Not Know
This blog sounds altogether too pedantic lately, when not downright dour. But there is some fun I would like to have, and although I do not know whether I can afford it, I believe I should really try. One of my relatives, a rather well known composer and poet, has died. His urn will be … More In Nordic Light
1. I would like to endorse this post by Xicano Power and, although I am too tired to write anything very original about the issue, to add my voice to those supporting Kathy Sierra, the blogger who received the death threats, and criticizing the Daily Kos for being dismissive of her situation. I am glad … More On Sophistry
1. Anyone who persists in believing we have achieved a “color blind” society in the United States should read this article by Patricia J. Williams. A fertility clinic used sperm other than the planned father’s to create a child. They used African-descended sperm, to be exact. The family already had such DNA on one side, … More On Pseudo-Intelligence
1. The Friends Committee on National Legislation says: FCNL’s budget team calculates that 41 cents out of every dollar that you pay in 2006 federal income taxes before April 17 goes to the military – to pay for both current and past military activities. That figure is the clearest reflection of how the federal government … More Your Tax Dollars
This evening as I attempted to track down certain modern Faroese poems, I discovered that the language of the Shetland Islands was called Norn, and that it greatly resembled Faroese. I came upon this English-Norn vocabulary list, gathered from informants in 1774: Foula,… … Fugla or Uttrie An Island,… … Hion. Bread,… … Coust. Oat … More Norn
This friend of mine runs and does pull-ups while I race walk and lift weights. We did this the other evening and then drank wine on the porch, having the odd conversation we have each year: his fantasy is to have a Friend With Benefits, and of course we know that friend would be quien … More Oddness of Men, or, Is This Entitlement?
Here is Alice Fulton’s essay Fractal Amplifications: Writing in Three Dimensions (Thumbscrew 12 [Winter 1998-99]: 53-66). In the preamble to her Feeling as a Foreign Language: The Good Strangeness of Poetry (St. Paul: Graywolf, 1999), Fulton suggests that poetic speech is uheimlich in the sense of the undomesticated and ex-centric. It takes place in an … More Alice Fulton
It is windy here, so we will read an autumnal poem. Animistic, I like personified seasons, and I have bolded the lines which brought this poem to mind. To Autumn (1819) Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines … More John Keats
coldhearted scientist وداد 