Swedes Return Danish Magna Carta

It's interesting to see how the sporadic and heroic efforts to formalize individual rights has occurred in history. Most everyone is familiar with the English Magna Carta ("Great Charter"), which enshrined some limited rights in Britain centuries ago. But, Denmark had something similar, a 1241 AD document they call the Jyske Lov (or Codex Holmeinsis in Latin). Captured centuries ago by Sweden as war booty, the two countries are now making arrangements to have it returned to a Denmark museum.

Here's a taste:

With law shall land [i.e. the nation] be built. And if all men would keep what is theirs, and let others enjoy the same rights, there would be no need of law. [...] If the land had no law, then he would have the most who could grab the most.

Not a bad start. Since Obama seems so determined to turn America into Scandinavia, maybe someone could get him to read this.

Sex Ed, The Danish Way

I've been learning a lot about Denmark lately. Apparently, my imagination was not far from reality. From the Copenhagen Post:

Sex ed classes supplemented with orgasm info

Sexologists are traveling to 50 schools in Zealand to give lessons on love, orgasms and the best environment for sex in an effort to round out the sex education currently being provided by teachers.

As part of the ‘Young Hearts’ project, the seven sexologists will visit schools and act as guest lecturers for children as young as 12 to teach them about all aspects of sex, not just the birds and the bees.

‘There’s more to sex than anal sex and STDs. There’s pleasure, games and respect for your own and others’ boundaries. But students don’t know this as their parents don’t talk about sex. Teenagers are often abandoned to shy teachers’ scary pictures of unwanted pregnancies, the boasting of friends or to porn films,’ said sexologist Jenna Harragaard Christensen to Urban newspaper.

Christensen is acting as a guest lecturer at a number of the schools to try to dispel myths associated with sex by young students, saying that many boys she encounters are disappointed not to have ’20cm between their legs’. [ed. note: 20 cm is about 8 inches]

The question is: is Ms. Christensen disappointed?

Can't wait to visit and find out.

[Update: A friend asks if they're going to have group study sessions. At least he didn't make any jokes about lab demonstrations or student-teacher conferences.]