Religion

Updated and corrected: Nuggets of nonsense from Norway

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Bruce Bawer at the PJ Tatler offered a couple links the other day to a brace of rather alarming opinion columns in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten (I’m not sure about his characterization of Aftenposten as “Norway’s most conservative” major paper; I guess that may be true, in the sense that Lenin is the best-preserved Russian revolutionary).

One was written by Stein Lillevolden, a Norwegian leftist, about the new book by Danish editor Flemming Rose, the man who published the “Muhammed cartoons.” I won’t translate the entire article, but the gist of it is that (Lillevold claims) Rose wrongly appeals to the book I Will Bear Witness to the End, by the Jewish-German philologist Victor Klemperer. Lillevolden thinks Rose misses Klemperer’s true point, and anyway it’s apples and oranges. Continue reading Updated and corrected: Nuggets of nonsense from Norway →

Poetry

Hiraeth, a poem

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Here’s a brief poem on the Welsh word, Hiraeth, which is a longing for the past or homesickness. “As loneliness slips in beside …”

Also look over at Pamela Petro’s beautiful thoughts on this word, Deep Longing for Home, Hiraeth.

Authors, Bookselling, Fiction, Publishing

Me on the radio, Baen authors at Pajamas Media

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NARN

It’s getting almost as if you can’t turn on the radio without hearing my voice these days. I’m happy to report that I’ve been scheduled for an interview on one of my favorite shows in the world—The Northern Alliance Radio Show on WWTC AM 1280 in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Mitch Berg, who blogs at Shot In the Dark, invited me to appear this Saturday at 2:30 p.m. Podcast links are archived here, so you can download it if you’re not fortunate enough to live in the Center of Things.

Is Science Fiction getting more conservative? This is the question asked by Patrick Richardson at Pajamas Media. He interviews four contemporary stars—Jerry Pournelle, Orson Scott Card, and two writers for my former publisher, Tom Kratman and Larry Correia of Baen Books.

Larry Correia is a Facebook friend of mine. They left out my best novelist friend, though, Michael Z. Williamson (probably because they’re afraid of him).

But even though they no longer publish me, let me say for the record, Baen is a great house, run by smart people.

The Press

Is This What Fear Looks Like?

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From The Washington Post in a few venues: “Post columnist Dana Milbank has pledged not to write anything about Sarah Palin for one month. Would you pledge not read or watch coverage of Palin for one month?” Yes: 70%; I’ll try: 10%; No: 20% at the time Big Journalism covered the story Saturday morning.

You know, it’s one thing for editors to decide Mrs. Palin is not news-worthy in general; it’s another to declare a pledge and encourage viewers to avoid all news coverage on her, which wouldn’t work anyway and could back-fire in an embarrassing way. This looks more like fear or anger than what they say it is, which is reader interaction.

The craze continues as partisans parse and dart.

Reading

Presented without comment

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An excerpt from page 34 of The Memoirs of Peer Strømme:

In the fall of 1868, just a few days before I was to leave for Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, I suddenly became seriously ill, so that the trip had to be postponed until the following year. Grandmother thought that my illness was a punishment because we simple folks had no business pursuing ambitions not suited to our class and circumstances.

Fiction, Non-fiction, Reading, Religion

Against the Strømme

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I promise there will be a point somewhere further down in this post, but the first part involves a lot of Norwegian stuff. I apologize for that, after the fashion of one who apologizes for a vice he has no intention of giving up.

Someone gave our library a couple books recently, and I’ve been reading them in preparation for accessioning them, because of their historical value. They’re translations, done a few years back by a very small publisher, of a couple books by a Norwegian-American pastor and journalist named Peer Strømme (1856-1921). Strømme was quite well known—within our community—in his own time, but because he wrote mainly in Norwegian, and was not great enough to invite translation on the scale of Ole Rølvaag, he’s not much remembered.

The Memoirs of Peer Strømme (not available on Amazon, though this volume, which seems to be the first part of it, is) tells of the author’s life from his boyhood in eastern Wisconsin, though his education at Luther College, Decorah, Iowa and Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, to his installation as a Norwegian Synod pastor on the prairies of northwestern Minnesota (he would later leave the ministry and become a journalist in Chicago). Continue reading Against the Strømme →

Uncategorized

A Riddle for Monday

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“I never was, am always to be,

No one ever saw me, nor ever will

And yet I am the confidence of all

To live and breathe on this terrestrial ball.”

I like this one. I got it right the first time I read it, but a week later I was off. What do you think?

Now, for C. N. Nevets’ sake, here’s an cheating riddle. Who succeeded the first Prime Minister of Australia?

In other news, I will be out most of this week, and though I will be online for part of it, I doubt I will be able to write for the blog. I hear that sigh.

Fiction

Congrats to the Story Tellers

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John Kenyon’s fairy tale turn crime fiction contest drew 16 stories from the blogosphere, and our friend Loren Eaton won third place, which was not enough to get him a place on the president’s reelection committee. That’s not the kind of notoriety you want, sir. Take it from me. I was on Ford’s reelection committee as a kid, and it was the worst several months of my life.

Uncategorized

Winter tales

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I had this really epic picture to share with you. I got it from someone who lives in northern Minnesota, and it showed his outdoor thermometer at 8:00 a.m. this morning. The thermometer goes down to -40° F., and it basically had no mercury visible.

Unfortunately, although I could open it on my computer at work, it won’t open for me at home. So you’ll have to be content with my renowned descriptive skills, to get the sense of the thing.

Here’s a story from Norway, about a kid who found himself facing four hungry wolves, and fought back with a ruthless application of pop culture:

“I was afraid they would attack me,” Walter told the Norwegian tabloid VG, describing the incident, which took place on Monday. But he didn’t let his fear show. Remembering his parents’ advice, Walter pulled the earphones out of his mobile phone, turned the volume all the way up and blasted heavy metal music over its miniature speakers. At the same time, he yelled as loud as he could while flailing his arms about wildly to scare off the pack of wild animals.

(Someone commented on a radio show this morning that the band whose music he was playing, Creed, is a Christian heavy metal band. Their Wikipedia page says they’re not an explicitly Christian group, though their music carries some Christian themes.)

Sadly, the boy’s ordeal is far from over, I fear. Having subjected wolves to the cruelty of Heavy Metal music, he can now expect attacks from animal rights activists that’ll make him wistful for the courtesy and compassion of the wolf.

Authors

Strange Things My Authors Do

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I have to wonder if all of these little facts have anything to do with writing strategy. Passion for words outweighs most of these. 20 Acclaimed Authors and Their Unique Writing Rituals

Did you watch the first Tim Keller interview and hear him say that, when his wife was a child, she received four letters from C.S. Lewis? Wow.