So today is now:

• The day of the world trade center disaster


• The day of Augusto Pinochet's bloody coup in Chile


• The day when Scandinavia once again was reminded that political assasinations are a reality even in our peaceful part of the world

And finally, today is also the 100th birthday of Theodor Adorno. Oddly appropriate that such a staunch critic of the modern world should find himself in accidental relationship with so much modern world sadness.

As an aside to Theodor Adorno's anniversary, it has been interesting being in Austria in the days leading up to his anniversary. His name was simply everywhere, in a way that would be unimaginable for any writer of books in Denmark, let alone a philosopher. He was on the cover of newspapers. Books published to commemorate the anniversary filled bookstore windows. Even the german language music video channel on my hotel TV set had a VJ who talked about Adorno (seriously! I'm not making this up).
I am not sure how much this is just a different 'sense of duty' wrt to the past and how much this is old fashioned book learning that is still alive and kicking in a broader sense in the German speaking world than in Denmark, but I think that it must mean that there still is a living Bildungsideal in a completely different sense than what's left of that kind of bookish culture in Denmark.

VJ's namedropping philosophers may not seem hot to you, but I think it is infinitely cool.