Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.02.2006, Blaðsíða 46

Urðarstekkur Guesthouse
Cheap accommodation just by bus-
terminal at Mjódd
Urðarstekkur 12 - 109 Reykjavík
tel: 557-4095
Classified
Grundarfjörður Youth Hostel
Do nothing, then rest. Or go hiking, swim-
ming, horse-riding, whale wathcing, kayak-
ing, golfing and more.
Central in Snæfellsnes. Open all year.
Tel: 562-6533/8956533
grundarfjordur@hostel.is
Want to be in this section?
Call for information
and rates : 540 3605
Accomodation
Grundarfjörður Youth Hostel 46
Urðarstekkur Guesthouse 46
Activities
Akranes Town 43
Blue Lagoon 42
Festival of Nations 7
Hallgrímskirkjas Friends of the Arts 10
Höfuðborgarstofa 4
Iceland Symphony Orchestra 14
Reykjavík Excursions 13
Þórir-Grapevine Week 40
Cafes, Bars and Restaurants
A Hansen 21
Aroma 39
Hornið-Restaurant 47
Hressingarskálinn 36
Kaffi Róma 5
O-Sushi 30
Segafredo 5
Shalimar 27&31
Stúdentabar 39
Sægreifinn 29
Við Fjöruborðið 44
Við Tjörnina 23
Vín og Skel 31
Museums and gallaries
Gallerí List 35
Gallerí S. Har 29
Gjafir Jarðar 27
Reykjavík Art Museum 41
Shopping
66°N 3
Björnsbakarí 32
Elísabet.is 9
Englatár 23
Forex 44
Konfektbúðin 32
Lush 32
Nói Siríus 10
Premium Beer 37
Transportation
Avis-Budget 45
Hertz 47
Other
Budget Petrol Station 48
Icelandic Course 7
International Calling Cards 48
Grapevine Ad Index
Want to become famous? Try this: Round up
a few of your friends, start a web page with
random trivia from your daily lives where you
write about how totally cool and gorgeous you
are, throw in a bunch of pictures of public
drunkenness (girls baring their chests or tongue
kissing each other are always safe choices, but
someone mooning the camera will do) and
you’re well on your way. To make sure you’ll
succeed, use derogatory terms about women
and homosexuals or anybody who doesn’t share
your outlook on life. As a finishing touch, have
a group picture taken of you and your buddies
that looks suspiciously similar to an ad for an
upcoming Hollywood TV series with bad act-
ing, and place it strategically on a banner at the
top of your page. It’s a proven formula. The
bloggers behind webpages like www.fazmo.is
and www.kallarnir.is have become celebrities,
earning major media attention. Gilznegger, the
best-known blogger from kallarnir.is, has been
regularly published in the paper Sirkus and is
now hosting a makeover show on TV. Others
have begun to follow and trends are rapidly
forming. You could name your blog after the
postal code area in which you live, hence the
105Crew, 101Crew and the 107Crew. If you’re
a female blogger, you could refer to yourself as
a slut, bitch or hooker, as long as you switch
the letter “s” out for “z”, hence www.cuntz.tk.
It is absolutely essential to have a nickname,
preferably describing your skin tone, such
as ‘Mr. Tan’ or perhaps your interests, like
‘Porno.’
It is impossible to please everyone, so be
prepared for controversy. Other surfers of the
web might criticise you for being ignorant,
full of yourself, shallow or even prejudiced.
Not all users of the net may understand your
intentions if you publish a video of one of your
fellow bloggers urinating on a young woman,
like the fazmo crew did. People might even
think that you’re morally depraved. In that
case, you can prove to the world that you’re
really a nice person by supporting an anti-vio-
lence campaign, such as V-day. That’s what
two members of the fazmo crew decided to do,
by opening the page www.tveir.is and throwing
a fund-raising party for the organisation. That
doesn’t mean that you have to change anything
else about your web page, though. You can still
publish statements like “Adidas is for homo-
sexuals” and pictures of topless girls mud-wres-
tling. As the guys behind www.tveir.is have
proven, supporting an anti-violence campaign
doesn’t mean you have to be open-minded
when it comes to other human rights causes,
such as gay rights or sexual exploitation.
The guys, Hallgrímur Andri (a.k.a. ‘Bronz-
man’* and ‘Benchpressing Halli’*) and Ingvi
(a.k.a. ‘Pink’*) have been on national television
twice, describing their contempt for sexual
violence. The cause is just, and their actions
have been commended by those who fight
against sexual violence. Surfers of the web have
awarded the two with astronomical hits (stand-
ing at 1,276,545 when this article was written),
which equals every living Icelander visiting
their page over four times. However, Bronz-
man and Pink don’t seem as concerned when it
comes to sexual violence against men. On their
page, under ‘Classics’* is a picture of a guy who
seems to be passed out from alcohol. Someone
has pulled his head back, placed unwrapped
condoms on his face and a substance that looks
suspiciously like semen. Finally, two uniden-
tified men are standing on each side of the
unconscious fellow, seemingly jerking off while
rubbing their respective scrotums up against his
face. The picture’s caption comments in a hu-
morous way on how hairy the aforementioned
nutsacks are. It’s all in good fun, isn’t it? It’s
quite all right to sexually abuse and humiliate
an unconscious man, as long as no ladies are
being harassed. These are gentlemen, after all.
If you and your buddies stick around in the
blogging business long enough, you might even
need to publish a dictionary to teach your read-
ers your evolving local slang. For best results,
explain your slang with extremely offensive
examples. Kallarnir.is have long since mastered
this art. For example, the anus is referred to as
‘the garage’*, and the example used is “She is
such a bore that I’ll go straight to the garage,
should shut her up”*. An erection is referred to
as ‘a Hard one’*, the example being: “The only
thing these hags want is a Hard one”*. Last but
not least, a vagina is used to describe a loser or
a sissy, like “That guy is such a vagina”*.
There you have it, your key to fame. As
long as you stick to the formula, you should
have a good shot at having articles written
about you in the papers, being interviewed on
the news or, if you’re lucky, landing your own
TV show. Just remember, do not under any
circumstances try to be intellectual, humble or
open minded. That’s only for vaginas who’d
like a Hard one up the garage.
Blogging:
A Claim To Fame
a column by
Þórdís Elva Þorvaldsdóttir Bachmann
Former Icelandic television personality Guð-
mundur Steingrímsson, writing a column in
Fréttablaðið on 4 February called “Muslims,”
once again demonstrated his tendency towards
oversimplification, comparing the Muslims
outraged over political cartoons in Danish
newspaper Jyllands-Posten (and reprinted in
others) to “a grumpy old relative who is easily
offended.” At the same time, it should be not-
ed that Steingrímsson is the only columnist in
the Icelandic media to say that these cartoons
should not have been printed. Steingrímsson’s
column is an indication - albeit a tiny one - of
the cultural crossroads where Iceland finds
itself. Foreigners might be nothing new to
Iceland - they’ve been visiting these shores for
as long as Iceland has existed - but with an im-
migrant population of about 10%, Iceland now
must choose between actively working towards
a harmonious multicultural society, or living in
denial until riots start.
I’ve seen the cartoons in question. Whether
or not I found them offensive is irrelevant. No
one has the right to tell someone else that a
statement directed at them shouldn’t offend
them - you can only comment on how they
react. I believe there is an innate sense of pro-
portion that most of us have, which is why pro-
tests outside the offices of a newspaper (a no-
toriously right-wing paper that once celebrated
the rise to power of Hitler and Mussolini)
seem a much more reasonable response than
storming and setting fire to embassies. But at
the same time, one has to wonder - would so
many people have reacted so strongly to a series
of drawings? Or was this just one offence too
many?
Denmark has a race problem. This is no
great secret. Go through any of the poorer
neighbourhoods of Copenhagen and see what
kind of people live there. Nobody chooses to
live in poverty when they have the opportunity
to live otherwise - it is obvious that the im-
migrant community of Denmark (especially the
non-Scandinavians) are not afforded the same
opportunities as the Danes. Yet instead of
taking real steps to level the playing field, the
Danish government continues to pass stricter
and stricter immigration laws, many of which
are adopted by the Icelandic government.
Minister of Justice Björn Bjarnason told the
Grapevine last year that such immigration laws
as the “age 66 law” - wherein the parents of
an immigrant cannot come to this country on
a family residence permit unless they’re older
than 66 years of age - were literally copied
from Danish law. Not only does Denmark
have a completely separate set of circumstances
from Iceland, but the Danish government has
been recognised as failing both its immigrant
community and the country as a whole. For
Iceland to adopt the same immigration policies
as Denmark is ludicrous and potentially disas-
trous.
Iceland needs to do more to support
multiculturalism. Such a statement might
seem obvious, but when the same government
that requires foreigners to take 150 hours of
language classes in order to receive permanent
resident status does nothing to lower or at least
cap the cost of language classes, while Minister
of Social Affairs Árni Magnússon responds by
saying, “That’s life,” it becomes clear that the
Icelandic government cannot even grasp the
obvious. It seems they would prefer instead
to adopt the laws of a country that is clearly
failing to address the needs of its immigrant
population, or to assume that everyone coming
to Iceland will simply surrender their identities
and become obedient little Jóns and Guðrúns.
Neither outcome is realistic. Serious repercus-
sions - worse even than Mr. Steingrímsson’s
column - could be the result in the not so
distant future.
Iceland is in the unique position of being
able to learn from the mistakes of those coun-
tries that were in Iceland’s place decades ago.
This will take hard work and imagination, but
there are plenty of people up to the task, both
within and outside the halls of parliament.
What form these actions will take remains
to be seen, but the time to act is now, for the
good of the country as a whole, and not in
response to a domestic disaster brought about
by years of ignorance and denial.
Iceland,
Immigrants,
and How Not to End Up
Like Denmark
a column by
Paul F. Nikolov
columns4