Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.07.2011, Qupperneq 5

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Say your piece, voice
your opinion, send your
letters to:
letters@grapevine.is
4
Letters
Sour grapes
and stuff
MOST AWESOME LETTER
FREE LOBSTER FEAST
There's prize for all your MOST AWESOME LETTERS. And
it’s a scorcher! No, really! It's a goddamn scorcher is what
it is! Whoever sends us THE MOST AWESOME LETTER
this issue will receive A FRIGGIN LOBSTER FEAST FOR
TWO at Tapas Barinn.
Did you hear that? Write in and complain about something
(in an admirable way), win a lobster feast at one of Reykjavík's finest? THIS IS THE DEAL OF
THE CENTURY IS WHAT IT IS!
What's in a 'lobster feast'? Well, one has to assume that it has lobster-a-plenty. Is there
more? Probably, but still... Lobster feast? Wow! DON’T PANIC if your letter wasn’t picked
AWESOME LETTER. There's always next month!
Now, if you're in the market for free goodies next month, write us some sort of letter. Give us
your worst: letters@grapevine.is
MOST AWESOME LETTER:
Hello!
The vulcano going mad again on Iceland.
Could this be MAN MADE?
On You Tube a lof of videos showing beam-
ing against vulcanoes.
On cryptome com there is articles called
Man made disaster.
There are submarines making earthquakes,
and new technology like Haarp.
Could be making tsunami in Japan in
March:
http://www.infiniteunknown.net/tag/navy/
When I look at the pic from your last vulcano
I see a lof of lightning (google pic section).
Natural or man made?
Nice if you check this up. Haarp station in
Norway, Tromsø.
Yours sincerley (vennlig hilsen)
Per Dahl, Norway (Norge)

Dear Per Dahl from Norway (Norge),
thank you for your nice letter. And for your
tip! We really love it when we get tips on po-
tential stories from you readers. It doesn’t re-
ally make our life easier, but it doesn’t make
it harder either. Anything that doesn’t make
life harder is OK in our book.
Now, as for your tip: come on man! Are you
fucking kidding? Everyone knows the earth-
quakes and tsunamis that have all of the
sudden started plaguing mankind after mil-
lennia of peace and quiet are being caused
by THE LIZARDMEN and their evil cohorts
(does the name APPLE COMPUTERS ring a
bell?) that wish to further enslave mankind.
Seriously Per, get with the program! By
spouting these crazy ‘conspiracy theories’
you are only undermining those of us that
have actually put some thought into figur-
ing out how the world really works and who’s
pulling the strings behind the curtains.
Still, when you think about it, the ability to
make volcanoes erupt on command sounds
like it could be pretty useful when the final
battle between THE LIZARDMEN and us
freedom fighters finally reaches its impend-
ing epic crux in a Michael Bay directed
BATTLE OF THE EVERYTHINGS! Maybe
the good people manning the nuclear sub-
marines and the HAARP rayguns and that
grassy knoll are secretly training and devel-
oping weapons to counter the LIZARDMEN.
And by uncovering them in public like you
are, you are effectively ruining mankind’s
only shot against the lizards and the illumi-
nati.
DID YOU EVER THINK OF THAT? HUH?
Wait. Sorry, we didn’t mean to shout. We take
it all back. Here, take our ‘MOST AWESOME
LETTER’ as a token of our regret.
Love to you, Per
I happened to pick up your fine publication
while spending two very educational and
enjoyable days in Reykjavik and read your
commentary on Jake Halpern's NYT article.
I was appalled - not by your response, but by
yet another example of "helicopter journal-
ism" (or "helo journo", can I copyright that?).
The most egregious example of this was the
focus on knitting and canning as some sort
of macroeconomic truth.
Mr. Halpern would do better to stay in
his own country and explore more of it. In
the Midwest, or "flyover country", where I
live, plenty of people are knitting and can-
ning for a number of reasons, a lot of them
economic. Yet I suppose a visit to Minnesota
wouldn't be as interesting as the chance to
pass judgment on "weird" Iceland. Interest-
ing, isn't it, that many of the commenters on
Mr. Halpern's article wished for more of that
"weirdness" in the United States.
I hope to return to your lovely and sane
country for a longer visit, but in the mean-
time I will try not to bash my head against
the wall as a response to what passes for
journalism these days in the traditional me-
dia. I'm also thinking of taking up sewing
and container gardening.
Sarah Nagle
Minneapolis, Minnesota
USA
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for your letter nice letter. We’re glad
to hear that you enjoyed yourself here and
that you found something nice to read in our
paper, too. We try and stuff it with nice stuff.
Now, we’ve seen a lot of those ‘helo journos’,
as you call them, over the last couple of years.
While Hello Kitty would be preferable to
those lazy, generalising layover guys, we do
guess we’re some kind of symbol or micro-
cosm of the global crisis and will as such be
studied and wondered about by journalists.
And if working in publishing has taught us
one thing, it is that journalists are all really
lazy. Sometimes they don’t even btoher to
spelll chekc theyre artiles bfoer subnitting
then!
So lazy journalists are prone to generalis-
ing instead of trying to paint a larger, more
nuanced picture. But such is the nature of
today’s media, we guess (present company
included). Maybe it’s good to remember that
no one article or essay can portray a com-
munity or issue with all the subtleties and
contradictions inherent in life, the universe
and everything. They can and should be read
for fun and information, but they should also
always be read with a critical eye. Interacted
with if you will. Which is what you’re doing.
To be fair to Jake Halpern, while he does
highlight and exaggerate and perhaps go out
of his way to find Iceland’s oddballs, his ar-
ticle was pretty fun to read and as far as we
know he didn’t make anything up (unlike
that Michael Lewis asshat). Good ol’ Jake, he
sure was a fun read. And no cars exploded
around him.
Look forward to seeing you next time!
Hello Grapevine,

I find an urge to comment after reading
about Victoria Harnish's experience which
she described in the last issue.
The thing is, as an early 30s male Ice-
landic national—and professional, mind
you—I have experienced exactly the same
things as Victoria, not once but twice. The
only caveat in my story is that my experi-
ences occured in Boston International Air-
port and in Minneapolis - and the "agents"
investigating me wore suits, black suits. I
never dreamed of complaining to someone
about it - as I sincerely thought that was life
and travel in the U.S. - but I am happy that
Victoria has shown me how to do it. I know
how to contact my local councilman and the
airline. The only thing I need now is an Ice-
landic equalivent to Homeland Scurity and
an American equalivent to the Reykjavík
Grapevine - any help would be appreciated.

best regards,
Gunnar Guðmundsson,
Caucasian male thitysomething Icelandic
professional
Dear Gunnar,
thank you for your letter. Seriously, though
Gunnar? You too? Are they profiling the
wrong people? Is ‘Caucasian 30 year old pro-
fessional’ the new ‘North African Muslim’?
We hate to break it to you but that prob-
ably just is life and travel in the United States.
Though we can’t say we’ve had the same
experience (well, not all of us... some of us
look more professional than others), it makes
sense to us that ‘Caucasian 30 year old pro-
fessionals’ are, just like anybody else, taken
for a random security check. Maybe in a
twisted way, you could be happy that TSA is
doing their job.
Of course it doesn’t change the fact that it
totally blows. Stupid everything!