Queen Elizabeth II is the head of state of the United Kingdom and 14 other sovereign nations, but not for long. I’m not referring to her mortality, an attribute that she shares with all of us except for Cher and…
Last Saturday evening, thanks to a spontaneous bout of channel surfing, I found myself watching, on NRK, Norway’s public-broadcasting network, the opening minutes of something I never even knew existed: the Eurovision Young Musicians competition. Eurovision Young Musicians is not…
Every year, the Norwegian Police Security Service (Politiets sikkerhetstjeneste, or PST) issues a National Threat Assessment report. Its objective is to identify what kinds of individuals or groups, either domestic or foreign, are likely to commit acts of terrorism in…
I’m no monarchist, but I have to admit that I was moved the other day by the British people’s massive show of affection for their sovereign on her Platinum Jubilee. I was stirred by the flyover of 15 Typhoons in…
The news came without warning on April 13. A work by the 71-year-old artist Ingri Egeberg, reported Sunnhordland, a newspaper in western Norway, had been seriously damaged. According to Vårt Land, the national daily that soon snapped up the story,…
According to the United Nations’ 2022 World Happiness Report, Finland tops the list of happiest countries for the fifth — fifth — year in a row. How can this be? Finland is remote, bleak, harsh, cold, dark, and populated with…
The year was 1999. My Norwegian partner and I were living in Amsterdam. One morning I saw in the newspaper (this was back when one read actual newspapers) that there was an exhibition at the Rotterdam Kunsthal of a contemporary…
On Tuesday, a small caravan of military vehicles drove past my window, on their way to the center of town a few blocks away. A look at the local newspaper provided the explanation that for a few days this week…
That thundering noise you heard across the United States on the morning of February 8 was the sound of mass indifference to the Academy Awards nominations, which were announced live on ABC-TV with the usual (but now pathetic) fanfare by…
