WikiLeaks and extremism

This article in Reason magazine looks at some aspects of the WikiLeaks operation that seem to have been largely ignored by its supporters.

The irresistible call of Scandiwegian crime

London's Mayor Boris Johnson explains in his Telegraph column why the British are so fond of Nordic crime novels:

It's like our joy in the Iris Robinson story. We wouldn't be so thrilled to discover her in bed with a 19 year-old if she hadn't spent all those years ranting drearily on about family values. Nordic crime writers profit from the fact that the blood is all the more vivid on the snow, the corpse more horrifying on the swish hygienic IKEA furniture. Scandinavia is still a mental landscape where crime is shocking, and that is a great compliment to Scandinavia.

Carl O. Nordling

The Finland-Swedish historian and architect Carl O. Nordling (1919-2007) created an interesting website which is still maintained online in his memory, and also updated from time to time. The site contains numerous essays, articles and archive materials in a number of fields, including Scandinavian and Soviet history, music, literary criticism, anthropology, and Finnish and Finland-Swedish culture. Of particular interest to readers of this blog, perhaps, are the essays and reflections contained in The Finland-Swedes, a compendium of lists and writings relating to Finland-Swedish writers and artists, Finland-Swedish military men and civil servants, Finland-Swedish scientists and Finland-Swedish promoters of the Finnish language.

Among the site's more unusual offerings are a reconstruction of Stalin's speech to the Politburo of August 19, 1939 and the complete text of a book entitled Shakespeare: Who Wrote Hamlet and Why?

(Hat tip: Mari-Ann Kelam)