Every now and then, someone creates a political party or runs for head of state as a joke – and then wins or comes close to winning, shocking the nation. Mogens Glistrup was a professor at the University of Copenhagen in the 1960s when he founded the Progress Party. Most people thought the party was a joke. For example, Glistrup’s national defense platform was to abolish the Danish armed forces and replace them with an answering machine that said: “We surrender” in Russian. Remember, this was at the height of the Cold War, and Russian troops in East Germany were less than 50 miles from Denmark. In 1973, Glistrup’s Progress Party won a landslide victory in national elections, making his party the second largest in the Danish parliament. The Danish establishment was horrified, as were Denmark’s NATO allies. In case you are thinking: “This nut sounds like he came from Berkeley”, well, he did. Glistrup attended U.C. Berkeley in the 1950s.
Some of the most brutal and bloody wars in history started off as border disputes over a small piece of land. Hitler justified starting World War 2 by claiming that he was just trying to liberate the Polish Corridor, a small strip of land separating East Prussia from the rest of Germany. There are many border disputes in the world right now that periodically flare up in bloodshed. Look at what is going on in Armenia. Have you ever heard of Hans Island? Hans Island is a barren uninhabited island between Greenland and Canada. When Denmark and Canada agreed to a border line in the narrow strait between Greenland and Canada, they overlooked Hans Island, which sits on the line. Each country claims the island is theirs and has ordered the other country to take down its flag and leave, but neither Denmark nor Canada are willing to give up their claim to the island. In 2004, tensions between the 2 countries reached a peak when the Danish navy sent warships to Hans Island to “assert Danish sovereignty.” The Canadian Parliament responded by ordering their army to “liberate Hans Island” from “foreign occupation.” The Canadian army was preparing to invade Hans Island when both governments realized that the situation was getting ridiculous and withdrew their military forces. Today, both Denmark and Canada still regularly send soldiers to Hans Island, but never at the same time. When the Canadian army arrives on the island, they take down the Danish flag and raise the Canadian flag. They also take the bottle of schnapps left by the Danish army and replace it with a bottle of Canadian whiskey. As soon as the Canadian soldiers leave the island, the Danish army returns. The Danes take down the Canadian flag, raise the Danish flag, take the bottle of Canadian whiskey and replace it with another bottle of schnapps. When the Danes leave the island, the Canadians return. This has been going on since 2005. Now – wouldn’t it be nice if border wars were all this civil?
Hans island War News Update: The Canadian army has recently constructed a billboard on Hans Island that says ‘Welcome to Canada.’ The Danish army has not said what they plan to do about this new provocation when the Canadians leave the island and they return. Now before you laugh at the absurdity of all this, remember that some very bloody wars started over things just as trivial as this. In the summer of 1914, somebody who nobody had ever heard of before shot an Austrian archduke who nobody had ever heard of before in a place that nobody had ever heard of before, and as a result, within a month, the whole world was at war, and 20 million people were killed.
1. Anything that you plug into an electrical outlet. Why risk burning down your house or electrocuting yourself to save $1 or $2? The only way you can sell a power strip, extension cord, or night light for $1 is by making it on the cheap.
2 Electronics. Cell phone charger cords are cheap, but good ones cost more than $1. Why risk frying your cell phone to save 2 bucks on a charger cord?
3. Batteries. Cheap batteries leak and can damage your gadgets. Brand-name batteries at dollar stores are often old and near the end of their shelf life, which is why they are cheap.
4. Vitamins. Most vitamins sold at dollar stores are brands you never heard of. You have no way of knowing if anyone tested them for potency or safety. Like batteries, brand-name vitamins sold at dollar stores are often old and near the end of their shelf life.
5. Makeup. Who knows what cheap makeup is made out of? They don’t list the ingredients, and anything you put you put on your face will be absorbed into your skin.
6. Anything that makes fire. This includes matches, butane lighters, candles, flares, fire starters, lighter fluid, etc. It’s just too dangerous.
MY FAVORITE THING TO BUY AT DOLLAR TREE is Häagen-Dazs ice cream cups. They usually have them in a freezer next to the cash registers. These cups are small, but I like this size. There’s a little spoon under the lid.
Does Häagen-Dazs come from Denmark? No, but they have tried to give people that impression. Häagen-Dazs even used to have a map of Denmark on the lid with an arrow pointing to Copenhagen. (See photo below.) Häagen-Dazs was started by a non-Danish couple in New York. They wanted a name that sounded Danish because Denmark is noted for its high quality dairy products, and Americans have a positive image of Denmark, but Häagen-Dazs means nothing in Danish. Besides, there is no umlaut (the 2 little dots over the ‘a’) in Danish. There are some characters in the Danish alphabet that we don’t have in the American alphabet, like the letter that looks like an ‘a’ and an ‘e’ squashed together, like in ‘Julius Cæsar,’ but there’s no umlaut. In 1980, Häagen-Dazs sued Frusen Glädjé, a competing ice cream brand with a fake Swedish name. Frusen Glädjé means nothing in Swedish and was never made in Sweden. Häagen-Dazs argued that selling ice cream with a fake Scandinavian name was their idea and that no one else had a right do it. They lost the lawsuit. Kraft sold Frusen Glädjé to Unilever, which discontinued the product. Häagen-Dazs is now made in countries all over the world – but not in Denmark.
King Christian X of Denmark and the Jewish Star. I have a friend here in Berkeley who was born in Denmark. I
have known her for over 40 years.
She is a retired U.C. Berkeley professor who grew up in Copenhagen during World War 2 when Denmark was under German occupation.
She has
told me several times that one of her most vivid wartime
memories was seeing King Christian X riding through the streets of
Copenhagen on his horse in a military uniform and wearing a yellow
Jewish star on his tunic. I don’t argue with her about
this, but that never happened. My friend is not the only Dane who
remembers seeing this. Lots of people in Denmark remembered seeing King
Christian
wearing a Jewish star to protest the persecution of the Jews. A lot of
Americans also remembered seeing photographs of King Christian wearing a
Jewish star.
I think the first time I heard this story was when I saw the movie
‘Exodus’ with Paul Newman when I was a teenager. The King Christian
Jewish star story is in that movie – and in other movies as well. Now
the story is partially true. King Christian X
did ride through the streets
of Copenhagen on his horse every day during the war and in a military uniform,
but he never wore a Jewish star. This story illustrates a strange thing, collective false memory.
It’s not unusual for an individual to remember something that never
happened, but sometimes, hundreds or even millions of people distinctly
remember something that never happened, and they all remember the same
thing. Collective false memory has always fascinated me.
Casablanca. I know people who have seen the movie ‘Casablanca’ many times and who very clearly remember Humphrey Bogart saying: “Play it again Sam”, but that line is not in the movie. When people who have seen ‘Casablanca’ multiple times are asked what was the most memorable line in the movie, the Number 1 answer is always: “Play it again Sam”. The Number 2 answer is: “Drop the gun, Louie.” That line is also not in the movie.
Shazaam. This is even stranger than people’s memories of ‘Casablanca.’ Do you remember the movie ‘Shazaam’, made in the 1990s and starring the comedian Sinbad, who played a genie? A lot of people remember seeing this movie very well. Thousands of people have commented about ‘Shazaam’ and written reviews of it online. You can sometimes find DVD copies of this movie being offered for sale on Ebay. The only problem is that no such movie was ever made! So how come so many people remember seeing ‘Shazaam’? And what do you suppose people get, if anything, when they buy a DVD copy of this movie on Ebay?
The Mandela Effect. The Mandela Effect refers to people who remember of the death of Nelson Mandela in prison in the 1980s. This started in 2010 when a woman shared her memories online of the day that Nelson Mandela died in prison in 1985. Very quickly, lots of other people who also remembered the death of Nelson Mandela in prison began sharing their memories of that day. Thousands of people have now posted online their memories about Mandela’s death in prison on blogs and in chat rooms. I have read some of these memories. Many people distinctly remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the shocking news that Nelson Mandela had died in prison. However, Nelson Mandela did not die in prison. He was released from prison in 1990 and was elected president of South Africa. He died at his home at age 95. Although Nelson Mandela’s death in 2013 was front page news all over the world, people are still posting their online memories of the day Nelson Mandela died in prison.
The Lindbergh Confessions. In 1932, the 1 year old son of the famous aviator Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped. A large ransom was paid to the kidnappers, but the child was never returned. The murdered body of the infant was eventually found in a wooded area near the Lindbergh home. The kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby was front page news all over the world. Within days of the kidnapping, people started walking into police stations across the United States to confess to the crime. Police were astonished at the number of confessions they got and the sincerity and detail with which some of these people told their stories. Ultimately, over 200 people confessed to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. Some of these people were just publicity seekers, but most of them were ordinary people with no prior history of doing anything like this. Keep in mind that it was common knowledge that kidnapping and murder were capital crimes in New Jersey, where the Lindberghs lived. In other words, these people knew that they were confessing to a crime that was punishable by death. Most of these 200 people had never been to New Jersey, and some of them lived in foreign countries. There were people in England, Scotland, and Germany who confessed to killing the Lindbergh baby even though they had never been to the United States or ever traveled outside their home country.Editor’s Note: In case you were wondering, Yes, a great many articles have been published in psychiatric journals about both the Mandela Effect and the Lindbergh Confessions. And Yes, I realize that this is another one of my stories that sounds so improbable that people are going to check it out to see if I made it up. – Mark.
About King Christian X of Denmark. Although he did not wear a Jewish star, King Christian X was sympathetic to the plight of the Jews. How do we know that? In 1943, King Christian was tipped off that the Nazis were about to round up all the Jews in Denmark and ship them to death camps in Germany. The king asked members of the Danish resistance to meet with him at the palace to discuss this matter. The king told the resistance that they had a moral obligation to smuggle the Jews out of the country before the Nazis nabbed them. The king promised to help them with information and cash. True to his word, the king did supply them with much of the money they needed to finance the operation, and it was an expensive operation. A lot of people had to be bribed and paid off. (Everyone in Denmark knows the story of how the Danish resistance smuggled the Jews out of the county, but strangely, I’ve never met a Dane yet who knew that King Christian personally financed the operation.) At considerable personal risk, the Danish resistance along with many private citizens transported nearly all of the Jews in Denmark to Sweden in small boats. Sweden was neutral throughout the war. Below is a photo of a Danish fishing boat taking Jews back to Denmark in 1945 after Germany surrendered. Also below is a photo of King Christian X riding through the streets of Copenhagen on his horse during the German occupation. Notice that the king is not accompanied by bodyguards or policemen. What European king would do that today?
