On Conservatism
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Category: Big Picture
The Vision Thing
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Note: There was no post on Thursday due to our clearly having been hexed by witches. American social media and conservative commentators have been reacting strongly to a clip from Joe Biden’s gun control statement on Wednesday. They have since moved on to his bizarre whispering during a Thursday Q&A about the infrastructure bill, but…
Liberalism in Peril
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Today’s Berlingske features an opinion piece by Samuel Rachlin, with whose work I’m completely unfamiliar, entitled “A summit with a view to a little of everything: a turning point, doom, a big political miracle, or an historical nightmare.” It’s not particularly caustic one way or the other—in fact, on many levels this opinion piece seems…
On the Importance of Managed Expectations
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We had guests over for lunch Saturday afternoon. Unlike many Danish households, we hadn’t planned our day around the evening’s European Cup match between Denmark and Finland, but we weren’t deliberately avoiding it, either. By the time 18:00 rolled around, our little gathering was winding down so we turned on the game. We didn’t watch…
Days of Air and Spirit
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The Italian artist Salvatore Garau sold a sculpture entitle Io Sono (“I Am”) for $18,000. That’s not so remarkable. The interesting thing about the sculpture, and even more interesting thing about the sale, is that the sculpture is invisible. “Invisible” is, like beauty and astigmatism, in the eye of the beholder. Or not in the…
Safety First, and Second, and Third, …
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Note: AmerikanskeTilstande took a four day weekend without advance notice. We apologize to our readers and hope you’ll both forgive the omission. Turns out that when you shut things down, fewer things happen. That was the news from TV2 on Friday, in any case: “Violence in nightlife area fell drastically with midnight closings,” the headline…
On Seeing and Believing
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There’s a passage from G.K. Chesterton’s Heretics (1905) that I’ve cited a few times on this blog. It’s a typically playful Chestertonian spin on a bit of the Gospel, specifically John 20:29, but since most of us aren’t as fluent in scripture as Chesterton’s readers were back in the day, let’s refresh: Jesus saith unto…
American Pie
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Note: Due to the long holiday weekend, AmerikanskeTilstande won’t be posting again until Monday, May 17. Let’s say you’ve been hosting a dinner party for nine. It’s time for dessert. You’re going to be serving pie. Mmm, delicious pie! And let’s say your nine guests are unusually particular about how much pie they can eat….
Far, Far Better Things
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Do you believe in redemption? Not as a motif in a superhero movie. Not as a hackneyed cliché in the blurb on the back of a paperback. Do you believe that an actual human being, flawed and bumbling, can redeem him- or herself through sincere repentance and good deeds? Could you yourself could forgive, sincerely…
The Central Scrutinizers
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The big jury story making the rounds right now is the saga of juror #52 in the Derek Chauvin trial for the murder of George Floyd. I’m more interested in a very different jury. It’s called “The Oversight Board” and its decisions are final: there is no appeal. It’s Facebook’s Star Chamber, and DR makes…