I took this picture of the town of Olden, Norway from the cruise ship in 2005. It’s the jumping off point to visit the Briksdalsbreen glacier.



As mentioned below, today is Norwegian Constitution Day. In spite of what is often said (even in a book I reviewed recently), it’s not Norwegian Independence Day. The Norwegians adopted their constitution in 1814, in an abortive attempt to achieve independence. The Swedes marched in to nip that idea in the bud, but (being Swedish) they were nice enough to let them keep their constitution, with a few editorial changes. For almost a century after that, the Norwegians celebrated Constitution Day (often in defiance of the law), to keep the fires of independence burning. By the time they managed to get loose in 1901 (through the most passive-aggressive revolution in history) the tradition of Constitution Day as the great patriotic holiday was firmly established, and so it remains to this day, even though there’s a genuine independence day (June 7) to celebrate too. Plus Liberation Day (May 8) if you’re in a party mood.

I love Norway for many reasons. For all its progressivism and secularism and social democracy, it hasn’t yet joined the European Union and has not adopted the Euro (a decision that looks better and better every day). It ain’t easy for a country with three independence days to give up its sovereignty. Norway has the largest (though still vestigial) evangelical Christian population in Scandinavia. It possesses (imho) the greatest concentration of natural beauty in the world. And it’s full of really wonderful people, several of whom are my friends, or (lucky them) related to me.

So, God Syttende Mai (again) to our Norwegian readers. Of course our Norwegian readers are mostly in bed by now, and won’t see this until tomorrow morning their time, when we’ll be in bed ourselves.

But then it’s light in Norway till around 11:00 p.m. this time of the year, so maybe we’ll catch some of the hard partiers.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea to press candidates for high U.S. courts on their opinions of most of the amendments and clauses in the Constitution. Elena Kagan favors censorship, no doubt of only those ideas she disapproves. What other unconstitutional ideas does she support?

Today is Syttende Mai, Norwegian Constitution Day, the chief national holiday in the beautiful country of my ancestors. Congratulations to all our Norwegian readers.

My Norwegian flag is flying.

Photo credit: Getty Images.

I’ve begun to microblog and tweet here. I’m already cranky.