The daily newspaper, Kristeligt Dagblad, hopes the Danes will come to be more like the Americans in their speech habits.
“When someone from the U.S. watches a talent show on Danish television on Friday evening he’s surprised at how often jury members or participants say the word ‘fuck.’ In the U.S. this word is considered…offensive, but in Denmark it’s part of standard language both on television and off. People in the U.S. are far more self-disciplined than we are regarding bad language. There, swear words are only used in private, with great caution and only in extreme cases. Normally, one assumes that trends from the U.S. take 10 or 15 years to show up here.
“But that’s wishful thinking when it comes to swear words.”
“Behind the scenes, President Ahmadinejad’s rivals are sharpening their knives,” the London Times wrote on August 26. “The Tehran Chamber of Commerce and Industry warns that almost a million jobs could be lost because the government is unable to pay its debts to private contractors. The Ministry of Labour has coolly announced that the economy is losing an average of 3,000 jobs a day. With double-digit inflation perverting economic activity, state-owned banks cannot attract investors even with annual interest rates of 20 percent labelled as ‘Islamic mutual benefit.’ In its last phases the Soviet Union, having earned the sobriquet of ‘Burkina Faso with missiles,’ was little more than an oil-exporting country with superpower pretensions.
“With Chinese technology the Iranian regime has managed to control satellite television within its borders. Now only programs broadcast by the state can be received. With its control of the media, its megalomania and its ailing economy, Iran resembles the Soviet Union shortly before its downfall.”
