What the Danish and European media misunderstand (and misrepresent) about America, and vice versa. And other stuff.
Joe Biden has been sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, so the reign of happy sunshine and rainbows has begun. Here was taxpayer-funded DR’s lead story on their website the morning of Inauguration Day: ANALYSIS: Farewell to Trump – not to the anger and the hate, Steffen Kretz, DR.dk, January 20…
Everyone called it the Wuhan virus because that’s where we saw it start. Saying “Wuhan virus” was just shorthand for saying, “that virus that’s spreading like crazy in that city called Wuhan.” That’s what we thought. It’s what we told ourselves. We didn’t know any better. Fortunately there were people who did. People with eyes…
A little over a century ago, a young man died of tuberculosis while in prison, just three months before his twenty-fifth birthday. According to various sources, he had etched a bit of free verse into a wall of his cell: Our shadows will walk through Vienna wander the court, frighten the lords. Gavrilo Princip had…
NOTE: Danish coverage of recent American events has been universally awful: whether on television, radio, web, or print, it’s all had the calm tone of MSNBC, the editorial equilibrium of the New York Times, and the penetrative historical insight of Vox. That is, it’s been a dumpster fire of unhinged and often uninformed hyberbole. Rather…
The Politiken editorial board wants the U.S. Ambassador called in because “there’s a coup attempt in progress.” I got a breaking news alert saying so on my phone the night of January 4th. They also put out a Tweet: The text of the Tweet: “Denmark and others must speak up.” The text of the headline:…
SPOILER ALERT: If you’ve never seen Grease, there are spoilers galore ahead, so I recommend you run along on your merry way and come back after you’ve seen it. None of this will make sense if you haven’t, anyway. TRIGGER ALERT: This piece uses words and defends ideas that people who are wounded by words…
I don’t know how I overlooked this early December opinion piece in Berlingske: it’s hard to think of a headline more appropriate for this blog: Stop the Americanization of Danish Culture, Jacob Mchangama, Berlingske.dk, 7 December I should remind non-Danish readers that “Amerikanske tilstande” translates literally as “American conditions.” The phrase has a long pedigree…
