What the Danish and European media misunderstand (and misrepresent) about America, and vice versa. And other stuff.
It’s still a truth universally acknowledged that nobody knows who sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines earlier this week, but the vaporous fog of ignorance has been coalescing into two general assumptions in the establishment media. The first is something like “We still don’t know who’s responsible, but it was obviously Russia.” The second: “Anyone who…
Things are getting kinetic in the Baltic Sea. On Monday, two underwater explosions caused three leaks in the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia to Europe. The explosions and leaks occurred to the northeast and southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm. Quoth Danmarks Radio (DR): According to…
The hot-take out there in the wake of yesterday’s election in Italy seems to be that Europe is turning to the right. (Sweden did it! Italy did it! My god, it’s a pandemic!) I don’t believe any western European electorate ever really turns to the right: they just sometimes turn away from the left long…
The other evening Danish televison aired a news program entitled “the time of the crises.” I don’t remember what channel it was on, who was hosting, who was participating, or even any specifics about what was discussed for the few minutes I gave it attention. It was a panel discussion about all the various crises…
In reading this DR article about Giorgia Meloni, the woman who may well be Italy’s next premiere, I was struck by how freely they referred to her and her party and their allies as neo-fasicsts (nyfascister). I don’t know what to think when I encounter such adjectives in the western press, because when the president…
This is fascinating stuff: Female productivity decreases at lower temperaturesEditorial, TV2 News, Sept 23 …if the Danish workplaces lower the temperature, this could have negative consequences for women’s productivity, writes (the trade publication) Fagbladet 3F. Women are more susceptible when the temperature deviates from their preferred degrees, shows a study from the University of Southern…
First, quickly: In last night’s party leader debate on the energy crisis, Conservative party leader Søren Pape Poulsen actually mentioned the importance of the Tyra Gas Field. I felt like I should mention that, given that yesterday’s post was about our public servants’ unwillingness to address the supply side of the current energy crisis. Credit…
Mikkel Danielsen had a big article about Donald Trump and QAnon at the top of Berlingske’s website this morning. Big image, big headline, big story: The headline says: “A particular song got underway. Suddenly Trump supporters reached one finger into the air—what just happened?” I don’t know what happened. Neither does Mikkel Danielsen. Nor do…
The Little Mermaid was among my daughters’ favorite movies when they were very young. They knew it was a Danish story—they’d been riding “The Flying Trunk” at Tivoli since before they could walk or talk. That’s a very slow, very gentle indoor ride through various semi-animatronic scenes from the works of Hans Christian Andersen, including…
“The bite on which I gagged the most,” writes Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, “is not the knowledge that life itself requires hostility and death and torture-crosses—but once I asked, and I was almost choked by my question: What? does life require even the rabble? Are poisoned wells required, and stinking fires and soiled dreams and maggots in…
Two Quick Notes First, the Martha’s Vineyard immigrant story is all I want to write about. It’s the most perfect distillation of everything that’s wrong with the modern American left, and it just keeps getting better: yesterday, the Governor of Massachusetts requested 125 National Guard members to assist with the transportation of those migrants off…
The phrase “virtue signalling” entered the lexicon several decades ago as a critical description of moral valor being asserted without being demonstrated. The phrase is used often enough these days that everyone knows what it means. The earliest example I can recall of such posturing was probably the “nuclear free zones” declared by liberal municipalities…
There’s an old Danish maxim that “necessity teaches naked women to sew.” (Nød lærer nøgen kvinde at spinde). It’s actually to spin, not sew, but teaching naked women to spin is weirdly ambiguous in English—it might just as easily be a reference to pole-dancing classes. A figurative translation is better: necessity is the mother of…
Mikkel Danielsen tried to explain John Fetterman to Danes in yesterday’s Berlingske. The Democrats’ big hope is a middle-aged man in a hoodie and shorts.Worries are now growing about his conditionMikkel Danielsen, Berlingske.dk, Sept 13 Middle-aged men in hoodies and shorts are something I sometimes encounter Sunday afternoons at the dump. You can probably also…
There’s a particularly soft spot in my already squishy heart for well-reasoned, finely-worded arguments in defense of ridiculous propositions—especially when there’s actually a subversive point concealed within the nonsense. Swift’s “Modest Proposal” is the most obvious example: in suggesting that the starving Irish begin eating their own children, Swift let his readers laugh their way…
I’ve been struggling to understand the verious stupidities and absurdities of the world for a while now, but two two stories about immigration—one American, one Danish—have finally opened my eyes: we’re living in a Kurt Vonnegut novel. For the kids in the back row: I’m not saying Kurt Vonnegut is god, or even a god,…
Not long ago I wrote that the Democratic Party was driven by the twin-engines of hatred and utopianism. The reaction to Queen Elizabeth’s death suggests, however, that at least one loud chunk of the Democratic base is a single-engine affair, and it’s not utopianism that’s driving them. When I say the activist American left, I…
Energy prices are skyrocketing in Europe and the natives are getting restless. The situation absolutely requires that a really stupid and futile gesture be done on somebody’s part—and you know what that means: The EU summit will fight skyrocketing energy prices: “Russia’s manipulating our energy markets”Per Bang Thomas, DR.dk, 7 Sept Is it boring and…
