Tag: opinion

Why is Seattle Parks and Rec hip-checking roller derby?

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Emily C. Skaftun

Amid all the bad news for women and other uterus-having people, the smaller-scale tragedy of Seattle’s roller derby apocalypse might understandably have slipped your radar. Why complain about something as mundane as losing a warehouse lease or some lines on a community center floor when from Alabama to, well, Washington state, legislation is being proposed to send women, barefoot and pregnant, back to the kitchen?

But while fighting the big fights, the little fights remain important, too.

Roller derby empowers the (mostly) women and girls who play it; just ask any of the thousand-some participants in the Seattle area. Yeah, it’s big. You know someone involved in derby, and it might not be who you think: We are students, tradespeople, professionals and parents; we are school-age children and old enough to be grandparents; we are queerer than average, with a quarter of players identifying as something other than heterosexual; we are all genders, one of few sports welcoming trans and nonbinary players.

To keep reading, head over to Crosscut, where this piece was originally published.

Fiction and empathy

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fiction and empathy - Dexter Morgan
Photo: Christian Weber / Showtime
Dexter Morgan, sympathetic serial killer of books and television fame. Fiction shows us the inner workings of characters different from us, possibly increasing empathy.

A message from Editor-in-chief Emily C. Skaftun

To me, summer is for fiction. It’s a habit deeply ingrained by summer reading lists and reading of my own that, without school, I finally had time for. What are days at the beach or pool for, if not reading? Reading for pleasure, which for me means reading fiction. Continue reading “Fiction and empathy” →

On shitholes* and immigration

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Symbol of immigration: Statue of Liberty
Photo: Pixabay
According to our country’s most iconic monument, we are a refuge for “The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Taking in immigrants from “shithole” countries is central to America’s identity.

Emily C. Skaftun The Norwegian American As is I’m sure old news by the time you’re reading this, the world having moved on to another outrageous scandal in the two weeks between my writing this and this issue of The Norwegian American arriving in your mailbox, the President of the United States may or may not have asked, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” about countries in Africa, Haiti, and El Salvador. Instead, he suggested that we could use more people from countries like Norway.

Sigh. Continue reading “On shitholes* and immigration” →

Is hate a Norwegian (-American) value?

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Emily C. Skaftun
The Norwegian American

I want nothing more than to let this subject go for once and all, but I’m afraid I can’t resist getting in the last word on it first. We have received an unusual amount of angry messages about a recent article entitled “Today’s Islamophobia challenge,” an opinion article that I thought was pretty innocuous. It argues that the fear and hatred of our Muslim neighbors is overblown.

But over on Facebook I had people telling me that “Islam just wants to rule the world, but they still live in the Middle Ages so it won’t happen [camel emoji],” and “If they could stop killing people, that’d be great;” telling me to “Find better writers;” and asking whether the article was a paid advertisement. Continue reading “Is hate a Norwegian (-American) value?” →

Pride of country and journalistic integrity

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Photo: Kay Skaftun
Yep, that’s the steely-eyed gaze of your editor bringing you a very serious “gratulerer med dagen.”

Emily C. Skaftun
The Norwegian American

Another year has gone by, as measured in Syttende Mais. In this issue in particular we celebrate Norway, country of our ancestry. Hipp hipp hurra for deg, Norge!

But then, this paper celebrates Norway in pretty much every issue, doesn’t it? It’s no secret that our position is pro-Norway, but in what’s being called the “post-truth” era, when “fake news” and “alternate facts” abound, I’ve been thinking a lot about when a newspaper’s attempt to remain primarily positive crosses the line into propaganda. Continue reading “Pride of country and journalistic integrity” →

Education isn’t one-size-fits-all

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Photo: Daniel Lee / Flickr
Those burgers aren’t going to flip themselves. Not yet, anyway. When they do, another big chunk of workers will find themselves needing training for new jobs.

In my mind, as a teenager, there was never a backup plan: I was going to a four-year college, and I was going right away. Anything else would have felt like abject failure.

I’ll admit that my views were a bit extreme, but they weren’t created in a vacuum. Our society is constantly telling us that the only way to get ahead is to go to a university and get a bachelor’s degree, then perhaps a master’s or even a PhD. Continue reading “Education isn’t one-size-fits-all” →