Dude: And you know Smokey has emotional problems!
Walter: You mean--beyond pacifism?
love that movie (thanks, tinka).

visited the folketing this morning w/ dk pol class. the word, if you're interested, derives from a viking communal decision-making procedure. quite sophisticated for its time, it involved representatives and the kernels of democracy. vikings called it "the thing." the danes have advanced to the point where they call it now "the people's thing." hence, "folketing." teacher morten told us that; i found it charming.

four parliament reps from different parties gave short speeches and answered questions. one, the youngest woman in parliament, the only woman on the panel and the only one of the four standing for the "right-wing" (danish standards, remember) coalition presently in power, seemed to get a little rattled. her party's coalition depends on the support of the fanatical fringe Danish People's Party which wants to send asylum-seekers home and continually astonishes the country by making unabashedly xenophobic declarations. at one point in response to a question about immigration, she sought to distance her self/party from them on that issue, babbling, "i have nothing against muslims. i could be friends w/ a muslim."
the rep. from the left-most Red/Green Alliance tended to drone, as charmless as nader. after a softball question about israel, someone asked how he'd deal with fanatics. "debate," he said more than once. "i honestly believe if you sat down with them to debate ..."
the two men from the middle were both more palatable, more what americans would recognize as political, although even they were honest and straightforward about their positions. we in the u.s. are very rarely treated to that and with that much respect for our intelligence.

i should not be posting. i should be writing. criminal justice: my question: in a classless society, where do the criminals come from?