My 15 year old threw her first real party this weekend. We had the house full of happy, loud and drunk teenagers. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about teenage drinking, Danish drinking culture is very permissive. They were all really nice young people. most of them were more or less queer. my daughter’s generation is significantly less homophobic than my own. For them, queerness is simply a fact of life, not a friction point. At least here society has progressed.

It was a really good experience. They were all enjoying themselves.

For ages we’ve had lots of dumb conflicts over parties and drinking. Although both of us have come from a good place, my partner and I have been disagreeing about how to handle it. She has been concerned with safety and anxious about what could happen, trying to hold back the tide, I have been more concerned with building independence and been more on the permissive side. Our daughter has felt unfairly restricted compared to her friends, my partner has felt like she was the only one trying to keep her safe and I have felt caught in the middle, torn between loyalty to my partner and my belief that our daughter could handle the responsibility. But lately it seems that my partner has thawed to the idea that our daughter has entered that phase of life. Having her friends over gave my partner and I the chance to meet them and see that they’re alright and it gave our daughter reassurance that she can be open about this part of her life as well. It feels like we are all much more in alignment with eachother than before and I’m much more calm about her starting high school at the end of this summer and the parties she is undoubtedly going to attend in the future.

It also turns out that there are practical benefits to letting your teenager host a party. She has never been as motivated for cleaning up as she was preparing for her guests to come and she threw away all the junk in the garden that we have stared at mournfully every weekend, always meaning to do something about yet never quite finding the time for.

It doesn’t feel like that many years ago when I was 15 myself and just as eager to take on the world. I’m really happy and relieved that my daughter has a much more positive experience being a teenager than I had myself. She has friends and girlfriends and has lots of fun, nothing like the grey loneliness that was always my curse. It is a weird complex feeling, seeing her going through this period of her life reminds me of how I had it and that fills me with grief thinking about what could have been but I am also immensely happy to see her thrive and proud of her.

Our six year old is growing more independent as well The next day we took him to his second-ever football tournament. Last weekend the weather had been great and his team had won all their matches, this weekend it was cold and windy and rainy and they lost all their games. He took it nicely though and their coach was really good at keeping their spirits up.

On Sunday my mum came over and we drove out to meet a stone cutter. My father passed earlier this year and it was about time we got him a proper headstone. We met the stone cutter at his workshop way out in the sticks. It was an interesting place. The yard around the workshop was essentially a graveyard for old headstones that had been salvaged from discontinued gravesites and was now waiting to be recycled into new memorials as the blackberry vines was overgrowing them.

The stone cutter himself was a really nice guy who loved talking about his craft and told us about how he worked and showed us his shop that he shares with a sculptor. He told how he was one of the few remaining independent stone cutters as a large corporation was now dominating the headstone market. The tendency of capital to concentrate is no loss pronounced in the death business than everywhere else.

Eventually we settled on a headstone. My mum got what she wanted and even though it is a non-standard shape (which is fitting, for better or worse my dad was a non-standard man all his life and it would have been a poor memorial to give him the same kind of stone that everyone else gets) it didn’t end up costing more than an ordinary shape would have.

I’d like to be pinged

I tried watching an episode of The Office. I found it boring and unfunny.

European/Western culture/civilization/values

As well as the more specific “[NATION_ADJECTIVE] values” variant.

The rumour I’ve heard is that Joachim supposedly looks a lot like the late Count Schack, who had no heirs and handed his castle, Schackenborg, over to the monarchy when Joachim was 10. They then gave it to Joachim when he was a young adult.

I’m not saying I believe it’s true, but it would be funny if it were.

Another monarchy-related conspiracy I’ve come across is that Margrethe’s abdication had something to do with a paparazzo taking pictures that showed then-Crown Prince Frederik had spent the night at the apartment of a younger female influencer in Barcelona. Making him king, the theory goes, was a way to drown out the scandal.

I don’t really believe that last one, though. It’s not like Margrethe stepping down didn’t make sense, she was old, her health was failing, and she had already become the longest-reigning Danish monarch. Besides, the photos were already out, but the story never gained traction. Possibly because it runs counter to the cult of personality that the media and the public willingly build around the monarchy. The tale of a man cheating on his wife just didn’t fit the image people want the royals to have, so they simply ignored it.

Prince Henrik of Denmark was bisexual

Also, he was not the father of prince Joachim.

In Denmark the healthcare system has not been blessed with the innovations and efficiencies of the free market so as a patient you experience very little bureaucracy.

When I need bloodwork done I can book an appointment online at my GP’s office or at the hospital. When I arrive I scan my public health insurance card or type in my social security number. I then wait for a few minutes until the nurse comes for me. The only bureaucracy that happens from here is that they ask me for my social security number to confirm that they have the same number on the labels.

Because public healthcare is a growth-stifling monopoly, everyone uses the same digital systems. Test results, prescriptions and all other records are available instantly to all hospitals, pharmacies, specialists and general practitioners. As a patient it means you never see a form or a piece of paper and most of the time the standardised digital communication happens quickly and seamlessly.

The Danish system is far from perfect. Mental health services are underfunded, trans healthcare is slow, invasive and suspicious towards patients, dental care is virtually uncovered, the racism and classism of society in general is also present in healthcare, etc., etc. but at least it is not bureaucratic and you don’t feel like you’re wasting your time doing clerical work.

And they would never be able to change the name, even if they control all branches of government

Wasting the cops’ time by convincing them that you taught the bird to recite my_crimes.txt

I’ve met socialist people on the far right

You make no sense. Please elaborate.

Last year an elderly neighbour of ours saw a car with Polish license plates parked in the driveway of a house down the road. That upset her so much that she spent the entire next week telling everyone she met to make sure their doors are locked and their valuables safe.

Most new construction these days is so good damn ugly. They threw up some new high-rise in my city a couple of years back. It is square (apparently the only shape taught in architecture school these days), way too tall, and clad in brown sheets with windows slapped on at random all over the place. Because fucking up the where the windows go is about the only tool in the box for architects to impart soul onto the oversized refrigerators they keep putting up.

I kinda of like cheap concrete construction from the latter party of the 20th century better. It is not exactly pretty but at least it is honest.

Literal antifa super soldier

Democracy is when the majority of voters hate the government and the greater that majority is the more democratic it is.

Also, are commie blocks really that much uglier or built worse than comparable social housing constructed in the west during the same period? Isn’t that just how you built cheap housing at the time?

They managed to check if my puberty was progressing properly by simply asking me in a questionnaire. I never had my genitals examined as a child. Neither have my own children.

Are yank doctors really fondling the genitalia of children for no good reason?

You don’t need a garlic press. They are a pain to clean.

Instead, place the garlic clove on your cutting board, place the flat side of the blade of a knife on top of it and give it a good whack with your hand. Scrape your knife a few times over the crushed garlic to turn it into mush. If you sprinkle some coarse salt over the crushed garlic before scraping, the grains of salt will act as an abrasive and help break down the garlic.

America deserves the Trump ballroom

For comparison, in Denmark, where food prices are some of the highest in Europe, an 800g can of formula costs USD 20-30 with sales tax. You guys are being fleeced.

Self-checkout exists because the savings on labor costs outweigh the losses from increased theft. If self-checkout were a worse business proposition than manned registers, rational market actors simply wouldn’t offer it.

Since self-checkout remains widespread, it logically follows that the so-called “national crisis” of theft must be less severe than the normal operating costs shops faced before self-checkout existed.