What the Danish and European media misunderstand (and misrepresent) about America, and vice versa. And other stuff.
Anyone who’s followed the news this week, in American or in Denmark, knows about the Chinese Balloon spotted drifting over Montana a few days ago. “Spy balloon!” cried America. “Weather balloon!” shouted the CCP. I didn’t follow the story very closely because it seemed awfully trivial and stupid, but that just goes to show how…
In its Sunday opinion section, Berlingske ran a “debate interview” with Alex Vanopslagh, the chairman of Denmark’s libertarian Liberal Alliance party. The first three sentences set the table: On the bookshelf in Alex Vanopslagh’s office in Christiansborg stands a copy of a dangerous book. A book whose author can get both (communist green party) Enhedslisten’s…
Substack Note: there’s new content over at Nagan of Copenhagen, including a lengthy article featuring a substantive interview with the apparently uber-woke ChatGPT. Anyone who’s followed this blog for any length of time knows that Berlingske Tidende’s U.S. correspondent Mikkel Danielsen might as well be a paid shill for the Democratic National Committee. I’ve chronicled…
Rasmus Paludan is back in the international spotlight. I’ll just cite the lede from Danmarks Radio (DR): Rasmus Paludan burned a Koran in Stockholm on Saturday. Now Turkey will not support Swedish membership in NATO. Danmark’s Foreign Minister called that both shaming and shameful—the buring of the Koran, obviously, not a sovereign nation responding to…
Over the weekend I started up a Substack publication. If you’re interested, you can access it here: NaganOfCopenhagen. It was work enough just to get the settings configured, so the only post over there for the time being is an introductory one that’s probably entirely redundant to anyone who’s visited this blog more than a…
I’ll pick off right where I left off yesterday: Analysis: Biden’s advanced age is suddenly a political strength. A frail old man does not look like a criminalKristian Mouritzen, Berlingske.dk, January 18 Kristian Mouritzen, the author of this bizarre piece, appears to be acting as the very personification of Danish media. Everything he gets wrong…
First, a quick reminder of Michael Crichton’s Gell-Mann Amnesia phenomenon: Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or…
The poor darlings don’t know what to do. Here are screencaps of actual news searches I performed on “Biden” on Berlingske.dk and DR.dk at about noon (CET) on Tuesday, January 17, 2023: Berlingske: Danmarks Radio (DR.dk): Berlingske’s most recent news item that’s actually about the American president is already three days old (“Another five classified…
Danmarks Radio (DR) ran an interesting article over the weekend: You’re being cheated more than you think: here’s how to see through companies’ green liesKasper Madsbøll Christensen, DR.dk, January 14 The ostensible purpose of the article is to help readers recognize when to be skeptical about product claims of climate friendliness. The answer is always,…
The headlines aren’t splashy. DanmarksRadio (DR): Biden after find of secret papers: “I don’t know what’s in them.” Berlingske (using Ritzau): Find of secret papers at previous office surprises Biden TV2 News (using Ritzau): Find of secret papers at previous office surprises Biden Politiken (using Ritzau): Secret Papers from Biden’s time as vice-president found in…
In the most (and maybe only) memorable line of the movie A Few Good Man, the character Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson) lashes out at Lieutenant Kaffee (Tom Cruise) from the witness stand: “You can’t handle the truth!“ In the context of the movie, he’s saying that comfortable civilians are incapable of handling the reality that…
There’s a lot of stupidity in the Danish news today but a couple of days ago there was a sign of lucidity. That’s worthy of note. The new Danish government—the monstrous red-blue-purple “technocratic” government installed as a consequence of the November election—has made one of its first priorities the demonstration of its economic ignorance. Or,…
Very few people outside of Denmark have seen or are even aware of the Danish miniseries Matador, which aired in Denmark over four seasons from 1978 to 1981. The series chronicles life in the fictional town of Korsbæk through 24 episodes covering the bumpy years from 1929 through 1947—from the Depression through the occupation of…
A business article in today’s Berlingske Tidende examines what the spending bill passed by the U.S. Congress means for Denmark. The facts presented by the article are more or less accurate, but they’re served to the reader in a way that raises some interesting questions. When the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, made a surprise…
Language note: This post originally contained such salty language that I thought I should include a warning up front for those turned off by profanity. Against all odds, however, I managed to seize control of my temper and soothe it down to the point where I could form coherent sentences without explosions of Anglo-Saxon crudity….
Danish media have run a lot of stories about the new “technocratic” government’s plans to drop the national May holiday of “Great Prayer Day” in order to raise some revenue for defense. (For example here, here, and here.) As the name suggests, Great Prayer Day is an old Christian holiday that the decreasingly observant Danes…
