Axel Axgil

Axel Axgil, the gay rights activist instrumental in making Denmark the first country in the world to legalize same sex marriage (1989), has died. He was 96.

Originally named Axel Lundahl-Madsen, he and his partner, Eigil Eskildsen, defiantly amalgamized their first names into the shared last name of "Axgil." They were in prison for distributing pornography at the time. 

In 1948, Axel organized "the Association," one of the earliest gay rights groups, upon being terminated from his job for being a homosexual. Forty one years later, he and Eigil were the first gay couple to be legally married in European and, I presume, modern world history.



 

Swede Wins Swedish Prize

Swedish Poet Tomas Transtromer, 80, whose work "explores themes of isolation, emotion and identity while remaining rooted in the commonplace," according to the New York Times, has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. I'd never heard of him.

Here's one of his poems, "The Couple," also courtesy of the Times.

They switch off the light and its white shade
glimmers for a moment before dissolving
like a tablet in a glass of darkness. Then up.
The hotel walls rise into the black sky.
The movements of love have settled, and they sleep
but their most secret thoughts meet as when
two colors meet and flow into each other
on the wet paper of a schoolboy’s painting.
It is dark and silent. But the town has pulled closer
tonight. With quenched windows. The houses have approached.
They stand close up in a throng, waiting,
a crowd whose faces have no expressions.

Danes Elect Dame

Helle Thorning-Schmidt will be sworn in as Denmark's first female prime minister. Her narrow victory at the polls is being billed as a victory of the center-left over the center-right, which has held power in Denmark for a decade. The center-right coalition had passed some of the most restrictive anti-immigration laws in Europe. No speculation that I saw as to whether a reaction against July's rightwing terrorist mass-murder in nearby Norway might have helped swing the numbers in her favor.

Meanwhile, in Norway, support for the far-right, anti-immigrant Progress Party plummeted in local elctions, sinking from second to third in national prominence. The confessed mass murderer, Anders Behring Breivik had been affiliated with the Progress Party for several years. The ruling Norwegian labor party, which had been targeted for extermination by Breivik, attained its best results in over two decades.

Swedish Suicide Bomber

Four people were arrested yesterday in the Swedish city of Goteborg by a task force specializing in terrorist threats. An art center, crowded with the premier of a new exhibit, was evacuated, and a section of the city cordoned off. Authorities have declined to reveal anything about the suspects. Whether the timing has anything to do with the tenth anniversary of 9/11 is unknown. There was no panic reported.

Last December, Sweden suffered its first suicide bombing. Taymour Abdulwahab, a Swedish National of Iraqi descent blew himself up in a popular Stockholm shopping district to protest the Afghan war and the publication of a cartoon depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammed  with a dog's head. Although reportedly wearing a knapsack full of nails, he suceeded in killing no-one but himself. Apparently the bomb went off prematurely. There's a metaphor in there, somewhere.

The cartoonist, Lars Vilk, described as a "free speech activist," has lived in seclusion and under guard since a $100,000 bounty was placed on his head by an Al Qaeda affiliate.

     

Big-Brained Danes

Scandinavians have the largest brains, says a recent report by Oxford phrenologists. Extra gray matter, along with larger-than-average-eyes, according to their hypothesis, helped Scandinavians to see clearly in the low levels of light at high latitudes. The conclusion was based on a study of 55 human skulls from around the world.

Meanwhile, seven Danes, including a family of five, were released after nine months of captivity in Somalia. A Somali pirate named Hussein claims to have received a $3 million ransom.

The Oxford scientists were quick to point out that larger brain size doesn't necessarily indicate higher intelligence. This would seem to be bourne out by the fact that the newly-freed Danes had been pleasure-boating with their children in the Arabian Sea, a known hunting ground of Somali pirates. How smart is that?

NazIKEA

Ingvar Kamprad--or, as I called him in my earliest notes, "the guy who founded IKEA"--has been a Scandinavian 81 candidate from almost the start. In a previous post, I mentioned the flatpack furniture tycoon in a discussion on influential Scandinavians with known ties to Nazism. In the mid-90s, Kamprad confessed to having had a teenage association with the SSS (the Swedish Nazi party). It was, he said, his "biggest mistake," a "youthful sin," resulting from "stupidity." He had deeply repented.

A new book claims that Kamprad's Nazi assoications were stronger, and went on longer, than he has admitted. According to author Elisabeth Asbrink, Swedish intelligence files demonstrate activities going well beyond "teenage confusion." Kamprad was an enthusiastic recruiter, says Asbrink, and seems to have been some kind of an SSS functionary. He also maintained ties with Nazi sympathizers at least into the 1950s, she says.

Kamprad spokesmen dismissed the allegations "old news." "The IKEA he created is based on democratic principles and embraces a multicultural society."

Ten or twelve days ago, I got around to ordering two books about Ingvar Kamprad. The first was Leading By Design: The Ikea Story by Kamprad and a collaborator. The second was The Truth About Ikea:The Secret About the World's Fifth Richest Man, by John Stenebo. It advertizes itself as an expose of the dark side of the IKEA empire by a long-time corporate insider. (The extent of Kamprad's wealth is disputed; according to Forbes he's "only" the 162nd richest human being.) These books arrived in my mailbox just a day or two before Ingvar Kamrad and his infamy were back in the news. A perfect example of the synchronicity that has frequently, though still-startlingly, attended to this project.