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If I can stop laughing long enough I would like to offer Swedes who read this an apology on behalf of us Belgians for an item of junk mail that likely appeared in their mailboxes this past week disguised as electoral information for the Sverigedemokraterna, the country's minuscule anti-immigrant party.
Update 2004-06-06: Here is the PDF of the pamphlet.I opened it, of course, eager to see what they thought of a foreigner like myself, only to find a Belgian staring back at me, above the fold of the leaflet, bemoaning "how Sweden's political leaders are subjecting Swedes to racism and discrimination [by foreigners, apparently]."
What a bizarre thing to say, I thought, and what a bizarre person to be saying it. For what possible reason could he be on that pamphlet? My curiosity irked, I googled his name, Bernard Mengal, suspecting he was some Vlaams Blok party member being loaned out in the cause of pan-European xenophobia.
The truth is a lot weirder. Bernard Mengal is a rich property scion from Brussels and a militant pagan. He actually bankrolled this pamphlet, money which the Sverigedemokraterna accepted without asking too many difficult questions (or doing a google search, apparently) late last year. The only condition: His face had to appear on the publication. This obviously provided an interesting challenge to the pamphlet designers: How does one make the mug of an incongruous Belgian look like a perfectly reasonable thing to put on Swedish nationalist propaganda? (He looks just like that infamous pagan bard Cacofonix, don't you think?)
Soon enough, it was brought to the party's attention that they were aligning themselves with a nutcase. One party luminary, Tommy Funebo, quit after making the eminently reasonable point that a party defending solid Swedish Lutheran principles should not find a friend in someone still siding with the Vikings against the Christianization of ScandinaviaHere is Mengal's historical treatise, The Christian offensive against the Scandinavians, alas only in French.. Seeing Christians as freeloading newcomers in Europe takes xenophobia to a whole new level, though at least you can't fault Mengal's impeccable internal logic.
Mengal's name, not surprisingly, shows up in this antisemitism watch, practically by default:
[Neo-pagan Groups:] ... The Association des Successeurs des Ases (ASA), known as the Fils des Ases, for example, has been active since 1992. Based in Brussels this small group which seeks to defend the “Nordic race,” evolved from neo-Nazi groups of the New Right. Recently, publications ascribed to the ASA or to its spokesman, Bernard Mengal, have unmistakably endorsed a shift toward armed combat against the establishment. Mengal was also the initiator of works based on biological racism and an obsessive antisemitism. The main contributor to Mengal’s publications is the Frenchman Pierre Chassard. Together, from June 1998 onwards, they issued the journal Contre-Thèses.Sverigedemokraterna's leadership says [PDF] it took a good look at the available evidence, two issues of Contre-Thèses provided by Mangel himself, and that while he may be weird, he is not anti-democratic or anti-semitic. (Funebo, who saw those same issues, came to the exact opposite conclusion.) But the most hilarious defence of their actions is this paragraph:
Even the Vlaams Blok leadership was consulted, and they had never heard of Bernard Mengal and could not give us any more detailed information. From this one can conclude that Bernard Mengal is not a well-known person in Belgian politics, and cannot therefore be a renowned antisemite or extremist.Även ledningen i Vlaams Blok har konsulterats, men de hade knappt hört talas om Bernard Mengal och kunde inte ge oss något mer detaljerat omdöme. Av det kan man dock sluta sig till att Bernard Mengal inte är någon känd person i belgisk politik, och kan därför omöjligt vara en känd antisemit eller extremist.The inevitable conclusion being that the Sverigedemokraterna think it perfectly reasonable to take money from antisemites or extremists as long that they are not well known. Which, in the end, is what they did.
But the Sverigedemokraterna might now be feeling a bit embarrassed by the whole affair. Mengal's name is impossible hard to find on their EU election site (except for in the above PDF press release), nor does he feature on the newest version of the pamphlet. Or maybe they just used up all his money.
I slutet av min tid i New York brukade jag köpa ett kaffe att ta med från Café Pick-me-up, sätta mig med min dator i Tompkins Square park och surfa via donerad trådlös bredband från grannar.
Jag har inte ännu kunnat göra samma sak här in Stockholm. Det är inte så viktigt i 8 av 12 månader, men just nu skulle det vara härligt att kunna skriva eller kolla e-post i solen på eftermiddagen.
Känner ni till caféer i Stockholm som har trådlös bredband? Var man kan sitta ute i timmar med en bärbar dator? Eller parker där det finns ett öppet wi-fi nätverk? Jag vill inte frilansa hemma när vädret är så fint ute. Tack i förväg!
While walking up the stairs after my run today I thought I might write boastfully here about my first sub-hour circumnavigation of Södermalm, and how I did it solo, without a wheezing bouncing Joachim by my side, after he broke an agreement to come running with me, citing prior children.
But taunting Joachim like that would not be nice, so I won't, though I fear you might be disappointed by what then remains of my post: sage descriptions of jogging Swedes that crossed my path in droves as I squinted into the late evening sunlight, a segue into how healthy Swedes are; how, more generally, duktig they are in everything they do. I'd then have to explain the word duktig to you, and recount how Emma once said there is no accurate English equivalent. It does not merely mean "good, able, capable;" there is an element of relentless self-improvement implied by its use; it is an inner initiative to learn from mistakes that makes Swedes duktigIKEA pitches in with an illustrated example of the word duktig.. At least all those who are not slarvig.
Or I might try to recount the thought processes of an hour-long run, how fragments of a rather good short story I had read just previously came back at odd moments, but I'd just embellish it, and maybe even make stuff up, like for example how some people can look like they are running fast when they are not, and vice versa — I just thought of that now. In any case, such writing would come across as earnest, and we hate that.
Perhaps I should just start a new genre where I do not actually write a blog but just describe imagined blog entries that I have not written. Noncommittal writing, I would call it, and I would engage in it in the more transient phases of my life, when nothing is really certain or cherished notions are in a state of flux, when writing down thoughts would give them more permanence than they deserve, like putting shacks up on the World Heritage List. And there is something wonderfully Calvinoesque or Borgesian to it all. Maybe I should just post reviews of my imagined rants, pronounce them the work of genius, but report back inexpertly and confused, and depend instead on the imagination of readers to construct something of proper greatness out of them.
In my continuing mission to infiltrate the Swedish psyche I managed to finagle my way into a proper Swedish student ball over the weekend. By proper, I mean tails for the boys, ballroom dresses for the girls, white gloves, dinner speeches, toasts, snaps, drinking songs, punsch, a 12-piece orchestra, ballroom dancing, and then, at 2.30 am, as the glow of morning twilight began brightening the proceedings, an ABBA medley.
It's all beginning to make glorious sense.
Favorite drinking song of the evening: A subversive rendition of The Internationale, which now goes like this:
More snaps in the glas,
more glasses on the table.
More tables at the party,
more parties on this earth.
More earths around the moon,
more moons around Mars.
More marching to Skåne (the region),
more Skåne (the snaps) God bless
bless bless.Mera brännvin i glasen,
mera glas på vårt bord.
Mera bord på kalasen,
mer kalas på vår jord.
Mera jordar kring månen,
mera månar kring Mars.
Mera marscher till Skåne,
mera Skåne gud bevars,
bevars bevars.
I mangled it con molto gusto.
For longtime followers of this site, the ball also provided an opportunity to lay to rest vicious recurring rumors that Steffanie and I are one and the same person. The visual evidence is presented on her site.
If you haven't already, first read NYT Public Editor Daniel Okrent's own assessment from Friday on that paper's dealings with Chalabi before and during the war. When are the NYP, WaPo and WSJ ombudsmen weighing in?
Then, read Christopher Hitchens embarrassing and apparently embarrassed defence of Chalabi. His best effort:
As to the accusation that Chalabi has endangered American national security by slipping secrets to Tehran, I can only say that three days ago, I broke my usual rule and had a "deep background" meeting with a very "senior administration official." This person, given every opportunity to signal even slightly that I ought to treat the charges seriously, pointedly declined to do so. I thought I should put this on record.Such investigative prowess! "Hey Dr. Kissinger, on deep background, is there anything to this Watergate scandal?" "Mr. Weinberger, Sir, Iran-Contra, yay or nay?"
Chase that sad excuse for journalism with Jane Mayer's stunning New Yorker profile of Chalabi. It reads like the addictive middle 10,000 words of a great spy thriller, just around the part where the audacity of the conspirators' machinations is revealed.
I'm not going to vote in the EU parliamentary elections on June 13 because I cannot. I found out too late I am supposed to first tell Swedish authorities which Belgian commune I am registered in so that Sweden can warn Belgium in case I am tempted to vote twice. (Isn't this why we have an EU bureaucracy? To take care of such things?) It hadn't occured to me that I might want to vote twice, but now that I think about it, it would have made for a good blog post. Of course, I had no idea I am registered in a Belgian commune, nor which commune that might be. That's because I'm a bad Belgian. Why do people have to belong to nation-states again? Can't I just be vaguely mid-Atlantic?
A concise summary of Sweden's political parties can be found here.
Cheat sheet:
S: ruling social democrat Socialdemokratiska arbetarpartiet
M: conservative Moderata samlingspartiet
FP: liberal Folkpartiet liberalerna
KD: Christian democrat Kristdemokraterna
C: ruralist Centerpartiet
V: left of left Vänsterpartiet
MP: green Miljöpartiet de grönaI'm fascinated by the election posters that are currently knotted to posts and railings around central Stockholm. I'm sure that political parties have surmised this election will not involve much homework on the part of the electorate, and hence that their poster slogans will have to bear the brunt of voter scrutiny. As a result, some of these posters have transcended their traditional branding role and are declaiming specific policy positions. But how have the parties gone about distilling their entire party platform into a couple of pithy sentences? I took my camera on a jog around Stockholm and snapped all the posters. I've broken down the parties' efforts by topic:
Terrorism:
FP: We can only combat terrorism together.
The liberal Folkpartiet (FP) are the only party mentioning terrorism, perhaps the biggest single new issue since the last EU parliamentary elections. That said, cooperation as a means of combating terrorism isn't exactly a counterintuitive stroke of genius — who could possibly disagree with that statement?
Energy:
FP: Emissions in Europe do not respect borders. Combat the greenhouse effect and continue with nuclear energy.
Last I checked, nuclear fallout is nothing if not an emission. The Danes tend to point that out when discussing the nuclear reactors in Southern Sweden. While Folkpartiet has been in favor of building new reactors to replace aging ones, I think this policy is best pursued at a national level, not a European one, where it stands no chance. And I happen to think it is a bad policy in an age of terrorism.
Trafficking of women:
FP: Human trafficking of women from eastern Europe can only be stopped with more EU cooperation.
S: Stop the trafficking of women
Somebody please tell Folkpartiet that most of Eastern Europe is now in the EU. Unlike the Social democrats' (S) slogan, however, Folkpartiet actually offers a proposal: EU cooperation.
Why is it this issue that is on campaign posters, instead of an injustice committed in our name that is causing far more suffering — the Common Agricultural Policy? This skewed prioritizing happened because well-intentioned feminists made the fight against the trafficking of women their rallying cry, and now they have to be pandered to. Clever feminists like myself meanwhile realize that CAP is ruining the lives of far more women — it's just that the victims are farther away. Clearly, both injustices should be addressed, but let's not pretend that human trafficking of women is the biggest crime against women that EU policy can remedy.
Crime:
FP: Organized crime knows no borders. Create a "European FBI".
M: "For security against crime and drugs"
M: Right: A better grip on criminals. Wrong: Going soft on violence and drugs.
Ah, the crime and drug issue — always a crowd pleaser. The conservative Moderaterna (M) typically "own" the law and order plank, but it's Folkpartiet once again that proposes a specific policy. (And what's with that third poster? I feel like I'm in kindergarten.) As a rule, I am always suspicious of parties running on law and order platforms. It suggests a lack of new ideas. In any case, Sweden's murder rate (1 per 100,000 inhabitants per year) is already extremely low compared to other European countries and especially compared to its suicide rate (16 per 100,000 inhabitants per year). In comparison to the US (murder: 6/100k/yr, suicide: 14/100k/yr), Sweden has clearly tackled crime, but is lagging on the suicide front. Would it be too much to ask to put the following slogan up: "16 out of 17 violent deaths in Sweden are suicide, not murder. More money for mental health facilities."? I suppose neither the recently mugged nor suicide victims would vote for that.
Welfare:
S: Welfare is not merchandise/something you bargain over
S: Safe/secure jobs for everyone
For everyone? Like in the USSR? Brilliant! But first, let's tackle the mysterious epidemic that causes Swedes who already have secure jobs to take long paid sick leave in far larger numbers than in other countries. Then, let's lower structural unemployment by making it easier to fire people. With the economy in better shape, perhaps we could then afford all this welfare, in part because we'd need less of it. Would the Social democrats have a problem with that?
Globalization:
S: People are more important than the market
M: "A free and open Europe"
MP: The world is greater than the EU. Not the other way round.
MP: Why is it easier for drugs to get into the EU than political refugees?
I don't understand the Social democrats' poster. Aren't markets just people, consumers and producers, making choices? The Modernaterna at least seem to get that. The Greens (MP) make some very good points, though the second poster is perhaps a bit hard to fathom: Are they against drugs coming into Europe, in favor political refugees coming to Europe, or both? Although they don't make specific policy proposals, Swedes know the Greens favor leaving the EU.
Blatant votemongering:
M: The EU secures the peace
M: You decide what is right for Sweden
M: "Stop the bureaucracy"
The Moderaterna try to cover all bases with this trio. The first is aimed at the older generation, the second at patriots, and the third at everybody else. Just don't place the anti-bureaucracy poster too close to the anti-crime posters, lest the electorate start wondering how the Moderaterna plan to solve more crimes with less bureaucracy.
Suggestions welcome:
C: An EU with equal conditions for all citizens.
C: Slim, sharp and democratic.
Despite my best efforts, I have no idea what these rural Centerpartiet (C) slogans mean. The first slogan, interpreted blandly, is impossible to disagree with, and aren't EU citizens already equal before EU law? Perhaps rural areas, where Centerpartiet is strong, will interpret this along city/country lines, and see it as code for supporting farmers against pressures from city folks like myself. As for "Slim, sharp and democratic": Slim is a meaningful word in the context of the EU, but sharp and democratic? Is anyone in favor of a a dull-witted undemocratic Europe?
I jogged all over Stockholm to snap these posters, but despite my best efforts was unable to find offerings by the Christian democrats or the left-of-left Vänsterpartiet. I suspect they are sitting out this election.
Update 2004-06-02: I found two more posters. They're pretty self-explanatory.
FP: More bridges - fewer cows. Abolish agricultural subsidies.
V: Stop the EU state. No power to Brussels.
The British and Irish are censoring this film on account of the nipple. Ranting about their prudishness is something the Brits and Hibernians excel at all by themselves, which lessens the incentive for the rest of us, so I will refrain from doing so in this post.The opening montage of an EU-sponsored film advertisement encouraging voter participation in the upcoming European elections depicts an infant trying to decide whether to suckle from the mother's left breast or right breast. The message: "You've been voting since you were born: don't stop now - European parliament elections, 10th of June."
If I understand the metaphor correctly, we the European electorate are a helpless hungry infant. The EU is a plentiful bosom. Election day is feeding time. We're allowed to choose between a lunge to the left or a lurch the right. Either way, the result is the exact same pap.
Shouldn't the advertising geniuses behind such campaigns run their work by even just some mild cynics? Are these admirably high levels of truth in advertising really a good idea for get-out-the-vote campaigns?
What really matters in this EU election — nay, the only issue worth casting one's vote for — is how and when we get that evil monstrosity of a Common Agricultural Policy to stop monopolizing an entire teat. It should be shot with a silver bullet and impaled with a wooden spike and forever be prevented from sucking the livelihood out of developing countries with whom we pretend to trade fairly.
Almost half of the EU's total budget is wasted on CAP; this is far more important an issue than bickering about which political philosophy should dictate the allocation of the remainderI've ranted about CAP before so I will spare you the details this time round..
Imagine my delight then, when my favorite Swedish politician, the liberal FolkPartiet's Mauricio RojasI've blogged Rojas here., this week published a workable, concrete proposal for eliminating CAP over a three-year period. Unfortunately, it is in Swedish. Fortunately, I speak bad Swedish, and need all the practice I can get, so I have decided to translate into English the nine main points that outline the plan, both as my homework and as my contribution to humanity for today.
1. EU:s gemensamma jordbrukspolitik avskaffas omedelbart i alla dess delar. Full frihandel med jordbruksprodukter införs, tulltariffer och kvotrestriktioner avskaffas, priserna avregleras, direkta producentsubsidier tas bort och alla exportsubsidier upphör.
CAP is abolished immediately in its entirety. Completely free trade in agricultural goods is introduced; tariffs and quotas are eliminated, prices are deregulated, and direct producer- and export subsidies are abolished.
2. Enda undantaget till tullfriheten är de jordbruksprodukter som framställs i eller exporteras från andra länder med hjälp av subsidier. I sådana fall kan EU ta en kompensatorisk tullavgift.
The only exception to this free trade regime is for those agricultural goods produced in or exported from other countries with the help of subsidies. In such cases, the EU can impose compensatory customs tariffs.
3. Under en treårsperiod får jordbrukarna och agroindustrin i de gamla EU-länderna årliga omställningssubsidier motsvarande subsidienivån för 2001-2002.
During a three-year period, farmers and agribusinesses in the old EU are eligible to receive annual transition subsidies commensurate with their level of subsidies during 2001-2002.
4. För de nya EU-länderna omvandlas nuvarande infasningsprogram till ett treårigt omställningsprogram. Subsidierna i detta program ska vara likvärdiga med de i övriga unionen. Utgångspunkten för subsidierna blir de faktiska produktionsnivåerna 2001-2002.
For new EU countries, the current phase-in program is converted into a three-year transition program. Subsidies for this program are made equivalent to those for the rest of the EU. Subsidy levels are set according to 2001-2002 production levels.
5. Jordbrukare som helt och hållet vill lämna jordbruksnäringen får under tre år kompensation för förlorade inkomster.
Farmers who want to stop farming completely are eligible to receive compensation for lost income during a three-year period.
6. Ett skuldsaneringsprogram inrättas för att med offentligt finansierade medel kunna hantera de eventuella skuldproblem som en förväntad värdeminskning på mark och fastigheter kan ge upphov till.
A debt-restructuring (relief?) program is established using public finances to handle eventual debt problems that an expected reduction in the value of farmland and real estate may cause.
7. Tredje världens producenter som eventuellt drabbas av förlorade importpreferenser kompenseras fullt ut under en period av tre år.
Producers from developing countries who are affected by lost import preferences are compensated in full for a period of three years.
8. En tillfällig omställnings-, kompensations- och skuldsaneringsfond inrättas på EU-nivå för att hantera eventuella krav på kompensation och omställningsstöd enligt punkterna ovan. Fonden ska huvudsakligen finansieras med EU-medel motsvarande GJP:s nuvarande kostnader.
A temporary transition-, compensation- and debt-restructuring (relief?) fund is established to handle the need for compensation and transition support as outlined in the preceding points. This fund will primarily be financed with EU monies corresponding to the CAPs current cost.
9. Jordbruksrelaterade forskningsinsatser, utbildning och annan service samt allt stöd till jordbrukarna relaterat till mark- och landskapsvård blir en nationellt beslutad och finansierad angelägenhet.
Agriculture-oriented research, education and other services, as well as all subsidies to farmers for farm- and land management, are decided and financed at the national level, France and Poland are you listening?
Well, maybe Rojas didn't quite put the last point that way.
One thing I glossed over in my previous post on business models for blogs, now that I think about it, is that Nick Denton and Jason Calacanis do provide one service that individual bloggers trying to monetize their readership don't have easy recourse to: By owning the revenue stream of multiple blogs, Denton and Calacanis spread their risk, and so can offer their talent a measure of job security. Denton pays a salary, while Calacanis lets you keep the first $1000 profit your site makes from the ads he sells and 50% beyond that, if I remember the NY bloggers talk correctly.
This is similar to how venture capitalists operate, except that real VC projects involve large sunk costs. With blogs, the only non-negligible costs are bloggers' wages and the effort expended trying to sell readerships to advertisers. Depending on how aggressive Denton and Calacanis are in weeding out underperforming blogs, the cost of failure can be quite low, and hence also their overall risk, leaving them with a generous upside. It's the size of this upside we're all wondering about.
Felix points out it's easy for Denton to fire a blogger. But the same is true for Calacanis. Should he decide to jettison a blogger, I believe all he needs to do is mail him a CD with his aggregated content and restart the blog with a new faceSo, Felix, basically you're wrong.. I don't think either venture blogger (VB?) could or should do this without good reason, though, lest the stable get antsy. Their talent musn't live in fear that a stale patch after a good run lands them out on the street.
Greg Lindsay's article in Business 2.0 on Nick Denton — an unauthorized mini-biography of sorts of blogging's greatest living impresario — irked the object of its disaffection sufficiently into penning a barbed retort, to which born-again ethicist Felix adjoined his qualms about ratting on sources, which in turn prompted a Lindsay rebuttal (appended to Felix's post), and fortuitously, a Young Manhattanite interview with Lindsay today. If we could just find a way to monetize these blogfights; put the ad in ad hominem, so to speakNote to self: Keep good ideas to self. And stop blogging notes to self..
Before I get to the original idea in this post, here are my two öre on Lindsay's article. I do get the feeling that Lindsay wanted to give Denton a bit of his own snarky medicine, though I am not sure if he navigated with expertise the fine line between snark and whinge. Lindsay launches into a bloggy first-person narrative about being shut out by Denton, about no longer being mentioned by Gawker, and then about possibly being manipulated by Denton into writing about him despite every sign to the contrary. Denton must be a psychological genius, or else Lindsay is having an unrequited journalistic crush. This would explain the bitter flattery, and the outing of correspondence. Classic jilted-lover behavior. Still, that's no excuse: reporters musn't take a shut-out personally, especially if the subject later agrees to endure a round of questions.
But the Lindsay article does contain a nugget (which he puts in backets). It homes in on what effect I think Denton hopes the advent of negligible-cost mass publishing is having on traditional media:
[Denton] launched a company called Moreover, whose goal was to aggregate on one site all the world's news, disintermediating most of his former profession. (This is a theme; when I first met Denton before working on this piece, he promised that Gawker would commoditize [sic] my then-job of media reporter.)Update 2004-05-24: Doh, it's commodify, not commoditize. And I went and titled the post wrong as well. All corrected now, both here and in the next post.If blogging commodifies reporters and disintermediates editors and publishers in traditional media — mainly by sampling, riffing on and linking to their original work exactly as this post is doing — then there is indeed a wave for Denton to ride.
The trouble is, why can't the revolution eat its children? Why shouldn't we bloggers in turn try to commodify Denton's job as impresario? That's the riddle Denton is still trying to solve. Compared to that, launching successful blogs must be easy.
Denton's blog problem is that he is very good at creating something that is very hard to own: Buzz. His touch now guarantees a new blog 50,000 eyeball pairs on launch day. With that kind of send-off, an interesting blog — and those in Denton's stable are certainly that — is guaranteed to ascend the blogpile. But this is where Denton's indispensible contribution ends. The authors become niche celebrities and eclipse the brand while Denton tries to sell their readers to advertisers. And anybody can do this part of his job.
Officially, at least, Denton is banking on bloggers just wanting to be hacks:
I ask Denton what will happen to the next editor who decides he or she wants a piece. He explains that since he has no plans to take his company public, he won't offer equity positions. "I'm a traditionalist: I believe that writing is a job and writers should get paychecks. It would be entirely bogus to offer people empty revenue-share promises or meaningless equity."But the evidence is that his authors quickly make their reputations, which they then cash in elsewhere: Elizabeth Spiers did so, Gizmodo's Pete Rojas (now of Engadget) did so, and Choire Sicha is doing so (at the very least getting all manner of writing gigs on the side on the strength of his performance at Gawker).
Rival blog entrepreneur Jason Calacanis's approach attempts to sidestep the challenge facing Denton: Let the bloggers do their own clawing to the top, but run the stable and give them a cut of the ad profits. For those who have already made it, like Rojas, this proves to be a better deal. In his particular case, Denton's heavy lifting is now being monetized by Calacanis.
Denton is trying to ward off these threats by strengthening the brand at the expense of the author, much in the same way Dick Wolf made the characters in Law & Order first and foremost plot devices, easily replacable and hence cheaper. His latest, Defamer, for example, is anonymous. We'll see if it works. Otherwise, Denton will need to resign himself to a high turnover of talent that blogs for him for low pay but high exposure. Removing the personal voice from a blog is not an option.
It's possible that as the business models adapt, we end up with the same compensatory solution as traditional media where names attract audiences: Iron-clad contracts that stipulate how long a blogger must edit a Denton-branded site, so that Denton gets his return on investment. Is it time for a dotcom era non-compete clause yet?
It's also possible, however, that a third way develops, a better deal for bloggers than what either Denton or Calacanis can offer as their sites become popular. Calacanis asks 50% for what is essentially an advertising salesman's job. Shouldn't his percentage be closer to that of an agent? Why can't several successful blog authors band together and employ the services of one advertising salesperson, working on commission? Or why can't an advertising sales freelancer offer to sell ads for a site he's had expressions of interest in?
Gothamist has a DIY version going, selling their own ads alongside Google ads, MarketBanker text ads, and merchandise, netting them $1,500-$2,000 a month, maybe, with a potential to double that. What they should really try to do is generate economies of scale by offering to sell ads on behalf of other, similar blogs, on a commission of, say, 25%. It would be like Google ads, but with banner ads by local companies aimed at a local market — a service Google can't provide (yet).
Gothamist's authors are clearly netting more than than they would under either blog entrepreneur. The disintermediation of Denton and Calacanis in this case could well become a popular model. But is this so surprising? Negligible-cost publishing was always meant to tip the balance in favor of the writing talent. Wasn't this supposed to mean the talent would own the revenue stream?
PS. I am still curious as to why Denton does not believe in group blogs. Felix promised to ask him, but I have not heard back. Group blogs might offer several advantages over individual blogs as a marketable product: with many authors, quality is more consistent, vacations have little impact, and individual time requirements are far less, allowing for moonlighting by real professionals who actually have something to say, and who might appreciate some pocket money but are not expecting a proper salary out of it. Maybe, from Denton's perspective, MC-ing a group blog would be too much like herding cats. That doesn't dismiss group blogs as competitors, however.
Sweden is probably going to trade in a Christian holiday for a new national holiday. I approve, because I do not believe religious holidays should have state sanction, which makes this a small step in the right direction.
Meanwhile, one Swedish commune is taking a step in the wrong direction by proposing that, in addition to Protestant holidays, schools should also take days off for other religions, like Ramadan, the Orthodox Good Friday, and the Kurdish New Year, Newroz. While the intent may be admirable — to accommodate immigrants — the possibilities for unintended consequences are daunting. First off, Sigtuna commune is not suggesting that all ethnic groups be accommodated — only the fifteen most popular ones. Does the popularity of a religion then determine the legitimacy of its claim to a holiday? How is a government body going to decide and justify where the line is drawn? Will it find that there are not enough Jews locally to justify Hanukah as a holiday? Are strict Catholics going to be forced to take off two Good Fridays? Is Satanism or Scientology a religion?
I don’t think government, local or national, should concern itself with such issues, just as it should not concern itself with deciding what religious symbols students may wear. Give everyone X days, to use as they please. If many students and teachers at a particular school are Kurdish, then the school will simply have fewer classes on Newroz. The state should treat all religions fairly by ignoring all of them, rather than trying to accommodate all of them — which is impossible — or just some, which is unfair. Welcome to the multicultural Europe of the near future.Q: Tydligen ska Nationaldagen bli helgdag och Annandag Pingst tas bort. Är det bra att Nationaldagen blir helgdag? (Tycker du det är riktigt att man tar bort en annan? Är det för få helgdagar?)
A: Ja, men bara om vi tar bort en annan helgdag. Vi måste jobba mer, inte mindre!
Q: Vilken är den bästa helgdagen och varför?
A: För mig, även om jag är belgier, är bästa helgdagen amerikansk Thanksgiving i slutet på november. Det är icke-politisk, icke-religiös, populär, utan presenter, pro-familien — liten som Midsommar, min favorit svensk helgdag.
Q: Stefan, vad tycker du verkligen?
A: Tack för frågan: Det finns fyra sorter helgdag: Patriotiska, som Nationaldagen, religiösa, som Pingst, politiska, som Första Maj, och populära (eller säsongsbetonade) som Midsommar och Valborgsmässoafton. Av de här föredrar jag mest de populära, sedan de patriotiska, och minst de religiösa och politiska. Varför? Staten bör inte föredra en religion mer än en annan eller en politisk tilltro mer än en annan, därför att medborgare bör vara jämlika i statens ögon. Om vi ska ändra helgdagar, bör vi minska religiösa och politiska helgdagar, inte höja de.
Därför är det bra att vi kommer att ha en ny patriotisk helgdag istället av en religiös helgdag.
Därför, också, tycker jag inte om vad Sigtuna socialdemokraterna föreslog: inte bara ha lovdagar på skolor till protestantiska kyrkans högtider, men också, till exempel, till Ramadan, den ortodoxa kyrkans långfredag, och Newroz, det Kurdiskt nyåret. Jämlikhetsproblemet löses inte upp med att ha mer religiösa lovdagar, därför att Socialdemokraterna vill ha lovdagar bara för de 15 största etniska grupperna. För att ha jämlikhet, bör alla religioner i Sigtuna har deras lovdagar. Är det möjlig? Hur ska man bestämma var finns gränsen? Om det finns bara några Judiska familjer, far de inte har lov till Hanukah då? Om jag kände mig Scientologisk, fick jag inte har lov till L. Ron Hubbards födelsedag? Om jag är strikt Katolsk, ska jag vara tvungen att också har lov till ortodoxa kyrkans långfredag? Staten bör inte avgöra sån saker (och inte heller vilka religiösa symboler är acceptabel). Säkert inte nu att Sverige kommer att ha ännu mer invandrare.
Det är bättre att ge båda studenter och lärare X antal lovdagar, som de får använda hur de vill. Det gäller också för Protestanter, självklart, och för gudsförnekare. Så blir staten riktigt neutral på religiöst ärendet.