Pål Csaszni Halvorsen

The Era of Orbánism as an Exportable Model May Be Ending - VSquare.org Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán’s once-admired “illiberal model” is faltering — plagued by economic crisis, voter frustration, and collapsing governance. With the 2026 election looming, his future — and the global appeal of his system — is at stake as his government faces its biggest political test.

💥 Viktor Orbán faces a possible ousting in April 2026 — and whether he manages to cling to power or not, his regime and its global allure as a model for autocrats worldwide are crumbling. Read the sharpest analysis available.

Trist leder av Mari Skurdal i dag. Bernhard Ellefsen har forsøkt å tenke originalt og konstruktivt om norsk kulturpolitikk og blir møtt med det korte og slappe “tilsvaret”. Hvilke prioriteringer vil Skurdal gjøre for å gjenreise kulturpolitikken?

It’s going to be an interest in election last year

📸 There's a story behind this breathtaking shot of Hungary’s opposition rally marking the 1956 revolution: Orbán’s government banned drones to try conceal the crowd’s size. Yet a passenger on a landing plane caught the scene in Budapest from above — the photo hit Reddit and went viral instantly.

“Understand a people’s culture exposes their normalness without reducing their particularity.”

Clifford Geertz

I’m happy to see the awful Venezuelan regime being criticized but if “this is an award for an entire movement” (as the committee said), why give it to one specific person? And one with dubious friends and positions? Nobel Prize has been given to groups and movements before. Peace offer to Trump?

Krasznahorkai László kapta az irodalmi Nobel-díjat Az indokolás szerint látnoki erejű műveiért részesült az elismerésben, amelyek az apokaliptikus terror közepette is képesek megerősíteni a művészet erejét. Kertész Imre 2002-es sikere után nyerte újra...

Krasznahorkai!!!! Great award, most deserved!!
telex.hu/kult/2025/10...

With the Em Dash, A.I. Embraces a Fading Tradition

Oh no, may I no longer use the em dash? Afraid I’ve been sending wrong signals for a while now: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/m...

i love ta-nehisi coates so much

Today translators, tomorrow... We need to prioritize human-to-human connection.

“The more we remove human elements from human interaction, the more it could distort relationships between people. Now more than ever, we need humans connecting with humans.”

www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

No, that wasn’t Angela Rayner dancing and rapping: you’ll need to understand AI slopaganda | Marcus Beard The qualms about using AI imagery and deepfakes in politics are breaking down. It will soon just be part of the political language we all use, says digital, disinformation and AI specialist Marcus Bea...

The dangers of AI slop: “AI content can push our emotional buttons easily, re-affirming or amplifying existing beliefs with generated imagery. Practically every social media study since 2012 has found that the secret to virality is in making you emotional . . . .”

Contemporary Hungarian Society. Social Changes in Hungary from Late State Socialism | Nordisk Østforum

Spurt i 2009 om Ungarere lever under bedre, verre eller samme forhold som under kommunismen, oppga 72 prosent verre forhold. Selv russerne har et mer positivt syn på regimeendringene etter 1990 enn ungarerne. Les min bokanmeldelse av Tibor Valuchs nye bok (2025) tidsskriftet-nof.no/index.php/no...

this is one of the things where they’re clearly doing it to trigger the libs, but the triggering thing is “the government should be allowed to kill people for no reason”, and if you’re not gonna ‘take the bait’ on that, why even have a politics?

Currently enjoying being a part of the group «man with an unpublished book manuscript about World War II», but a bit hesitant to having the group «man with rejected book manuscript about World War II» as a possible future

A portrait photo of Irene Nemirovsky, holding a copy of "Les Nouvelles Littéraires" and smiling at the camera.

17 August 1942 | Irène Némirovsky, a French-language novelist born in the family of Russian Jews, died of typhus after a month of imprisonment in the German Nazi #Auschwitz camp. She was 39.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ir%C3%A...

Tilbake til råvarene - Syn og Segn For Oslo tingrett er Førdefjorden ein av 30 000 vassførekomstar i landet. For meg er fjorden noko som har gjort meg til den eg er. Men kva seier utfallet av Fjordsøksmålet om framtida til dei norske f...

Håvard Brede Aven skreiv ein veldig god tekst om Førdesfjorden og andre miljørettssaker i Syn og Segn i fjor. Kan vera verd ei nylesing no som naturorganisasjonane vann mot staten i lagmannsretten.

www.synogsegn.no/2025/tilbake...

Furthest I’ve been:

North: Tromsø 🇳🇴
East: St. Petersburg 🇷🇺
West: California 🇺🇸
South: Marrakesh 🇲🇦

Kjærås, NFF og leder for UEFA playmakers i Norge sier på radio at Innsiden ut 2 (!) er mer utbredt som kulturell fellesnevner enn Ambjørnsen og Moe, underforstått Askeladden. Jeg har alltid synes det har vært litt komisk med sånn kulturimperialisme-kritikk, men den har jaggu framleis sin plass!

There's something about the way men use LLMs that feel like those men at the strip club who believe that the dancers like them for their personality and wit.

They just want a toy that makes them feel good.

Orban Playbook.

Oval-framed daguerreotype portrait of Frederick Douglass, a prominent 19th-century African American abolitionist, writer, and orator. He wears a dark jacket, patterned waistcoat, white shirt, and bow tie. His expression is serious and resolute, with his wavy hair parted to the side. The photograph reflects his dignity and strength as a leader in the fight against slavery.

In July of 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered one of the greatest speeches in US history. Today it’s often presented in abridged form, though, and skips what seems like a long-winded introduction. If you read the intro closely, however, there’s an ingenious structure. THREAD👇🏽

God sommer fra Balaton 🇭🇺🏳️‍🌈 Årets sommerlesning: Contemporary Hungarian Society av T. Valuch. Anmeldelse kommer i Nordisk østforum i august!

Gratulerer med den lille!!

Ukrainian Author Posthumously Awarded Orwell Prize For Unfinished Book About Women and War Ukrainian author Viktoria Amelina receives the Orwell Prize for Political Writing posthumously for her unfinished work on women's experiences in war.

⚡ Ukrainian writer Viktoria Amelina, who was killed in 2023 in a Russian missile strike on Kramatorsk, has been posthumously awarded the prestigious Orwell Prize for Political Writing.

Nordisk litteratursosiologi-konferansen i Helsinki var stor suksess, og i 2027 kommer den til Oslo og ABI 🎉 📚
Femten år siden jeg skreiv en bloggpost sist, tror jeg, men her er sannelig en til:
#NOLS2025 #NOLS2027

uni.oslomet.no/abi/

22 June 1942 | A Hungarian Jewish boy, István Blankenberg, was born.

In May 1944 he was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber.