Classes yesterday

Some things from my classes yesterday.

Business class

The professor is the director of the Danish Brewers and Soft Drink Association. He helps beer and soft drink companies with their Danish and EU business strategies. He was formerly an executive with Scandanavian Airlines, and was a Danish diplomat to the EU in Brussels for 8 years. This class sounds like it will be very interesting, and he has a lot of first-hand experiences to bring into it.

One interesting comment he had about Norway. Norway has a very good economy (because of oil and natural gas), and hasn't joined the EU because they don't want to lose soveriegnty and the final say over economic matters, etc. However, it was hurting them to be outside the EU economic system, so they did join the common market because they really had no choice. In order to do this, they had to accept all of the EU economic policies anyways. So, by not giving up the final say in matters, they actually give up even more because they don't have any say at all. Norway actually loses soveriegnty by not being in the EU, rather than being in it. Follow that? :)

History class

I really liked this professor. He seems very knowledgable, and he gives a good lecture. The class is 20th century European History, and he spent basically the whole period explaining what the class was about. Discussed what fits into this time period (1871 unification of Germany to 1989 fall of Berlin wall). He said we really can't tell at this point if the period has ended, but he thinks it has. Maybe a better ending date would be 1982 with the first personal computer he said.

How to define Europe? Common heritage/background in Christianity. Compared to the other nearby cultures, Europe is similar. Historically large muslim areas to south and east.

Danish Politics and Society class

The professor was just in the Danish parliment for the last 12 years, so he has a lot of first hand knowledge too. Denmark has 6 political parties. The US Democrats would fit about in the center as far as Danish politics is concerned. The US Republicans would be far far to the right of any Danish political parties.

The Social Democrats (left of center) had been in power since the 1920s I think, but lost power in 2001 to Venstre (right of center). Venstre governs the country with the Conservative People's Party, but together they have under 50% of the legislature. So Denmark has a ruling group that doesn't even have a majority. Denmark's politics are full of comprimise as a result (rather than conflict). The system is set up so you need a majority to remove a ruling group from power, rather than a majority for them to get power.

About 75% of Danish vocabulary comes from German words. The grammar is completely different from German though, and has Angelo-Saxon roots I guess. So the grammar has more similarities to English than German. He said Norwegian was really just a dialect of Danish.

Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes have a lot of stereotypes of each other I think. Not all positive stereotypes either. :) I figured Scandanavia was Scandanavia, but I don't think anybody here would believe that for one second. While the rest of us might see a lot of similarities, they see a lot of differences. Perhaps both are right.