{"id":6919,"date":"2018-03-23T10:01:41","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T14:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=6919"},"modified":"2018-12-25T18:27:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-25T23:27:00","slug":"friday-march-23-2018-loa-fidurgisin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=6919","title":{"rendered":"Friday, March 23, 2018 \u2014 L\u00f3a fi\u00f0urgisin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Engis bi\u00f0ur ein \u00e1 str\u00f6nd<\/em><\/span>
\n\u2014 elsk a\u00f0 fri\u00f0i\u2014 \u00feysinn,<\/em><\/span>
\nStor\u00admak\u00adli\u00f0 n\u00e9 l\u00fd\u00f0 um l\u00f6nd<\/em><\/span>
\nl\u00f3a fi\u00f0ur\u00adgisin.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

[Alone on the beach, the feath\u00aders worn and shab\u00adby, the peace lov\u00ading bird tries to evade the noise and the storms that blow through the lands.]<\/span><\/p>\n

\u0336 Gu\u00f0\u00admundir Fri\u00f0j\u00f3nsson<\/span><\/p>\n

The above is from an amaz\u00ading record\u00ading of r\u00edmur<\/em> sung by Steind\u00f3r Ander\u00adsen, a renowned kv\u00e6\u00f0a\u00adma\u00f0ur<\/em>, or tra\u00addi\u00adtion\u00adal chanter. This verse is from an old record\u00ading, but it is fol\u00adlowed by addi\u00adtion\u00adal vers\u00ades in a mod\u00adern, rock-like orches\u00adtra\u00adtion by Hilmur \u00d6rn Hilmars\u00adson. Both men have worked with Sig\u00adur R\u00f3s. The sen\u00adti\u00adment is appro\u00adpri\u00adate to my inves\u00adti\u00adga\u00adtions in Ice\u00adland. This small, peace-lov\u00ading island coun\u00adtry has weath\u00adered many storms blow\u00ading across the sea from pow\u00ader\u00adful con\u00adti\u00adnen\u00adtal tem\u00adpests. While mis\u00adtakes have been made, Ice\u00adland is a place where peo\u00adple seem to believe that prob\u00adlems can be solved. This atti\u00adtude is in sharp con\u00adtrast to the mor\u00adbid pas\u00adsiv\u00adi\u00adty and defeatism that enshrouds some of the larg\u00ader and loud\u00ader nations. To under\u00adstand this, I\u2019ve been speak\u00ading with a vari\u00adety of Ice\u00adlanders. It is just a first step. I have been mere\u00adly intro\u00adduc\u00ading myself and estab\u00adlish\u00ading some rap\u00adport so that these issues can be explored in greater depth by cor\u00adre\u00adspon\u00addence. It has proven both infor\u00adma\u00adtive and delight\u00adful. The egal\u00adi\u00adtar\u00adi\u00adan Ice\u00adlanders care not that I have lit\u00adtle pres\u00adtige \u2014 I\u2019m mere\u00adly a curi\u00adous Cana\u00addi\u00adan. Peo\u00adple rang\u00ading from civic and nation\u00adal politi\u00adcians and civ\u00adil ser\u00advants to aca\u00add\u00ade\u00admics, musi\u00adcians, and film\u00admak\u00aders, have all giv\u00aden me pre\u00adcious time and hon\u00adest talk. I must thank, among them, \u00c1sgr\u00ed\u00admur Sver\u00adris\u00adson, K\u00e1ri Gun\u00adnars\u00adson, Sveinn Gu\u00f0\u00admunds\u00adson, Herdis Sig\u00adur\u00adjons\u00addot\u00adtir, Ste\u00adf\u00e1n Bal\u00addurs\u00adson, Sibeso Imbu\u00adla, and Sig\u00adur\u00f0ur Bjorn Blondal. There will be oth\u00aders to thank in the days to come.<\/span><\/p>\n

Solv\u00ading the prob\u00adlems that face a nation is not served by con\u00adcoct\u00ading utopias, but by observ\u00ading sound prin\u00adci\u00adples of fair\u00adness and rea\u00adson. I was delight\u00aded that every\u00adone I spoke with seemed to take that approach. There was no whin\u00ading. As one of my infor\u00admants observed, in the wake of the finan\u00adcial cri\u00adsis of 2008 some of the peo\u00adple respon\u00adsi\u00adble for the deba\u00adcle were lat\u00ader instru\u00admen\u00adtal in cor\u00adrect\u00ading it. Appar\u00adent\u00adly, the well-being of the coun\u00adtry in the end over\u00adruled stub\u00adborn pride. This was a remark\u00adable point to make. Every nation, like every extend\u00aded fam\u00adi\u00adly, has its fools, and even the wis\u00adest have their moments of fool\u00adish\u00adness. But it is a strong fam\u00adi\u00adly indeed that has fools who learn from their fol\u00adly. When I was in Ice\u00adland the first time, short\u00adly after the cri\u00adsis, I did not find peo\u00adple in a pan\u00adic or a rage. I found peo\u00adple who knew that they had made mis\u00adtakes, and were deter\u00admined to cor\u00adrect them. Now that I am back, I see the results of those efforts, and they are impres\u00adsive. Cana\u00addi\u00adans could learn from this. We are not a small, tight\u00adly bound togeth\u00ader coun\u00adtry like Ice\u00adland. Indeed, we are loose and sprawl\u00ading, with many fac\u00adtions bare\u00adly aware of each oth\u00aders\u2019 exis\u00adtence. But we are not a tor\u00adpid giant like our neigh\u00adbour to the south, and not con\u00addemned to moral and intel\u00adlec\u00adtu\u00adal paral\u00ady\u00adsis \u2014 unless we so choose.<\/span><\/p>\n

We are now enter\u00ading a time of much greater per\u00adils than mere stock mar\u00adket crash\u00ades. We will have to step nim\u00adbly to survive. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Engis bi\u00f0ur ein \u00e1 str\u00f6nd \u2014 elsk a\u00f0 fri\u00f0i\u2014 \u00feysinn, Stor\u00admak\u00adli\u00f0 n\u00e9 l\u00fd\u00f0 um l\u00f6nd l\u00f3a fi\u00f0ur\u00adgisin. [Alone on the beach, the feath\u00aders worn and shab\u00adby, the peace lov\u00ading bird tries to evade the noise and the storms that blow through \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1494],"tags":[1028,1027,1030,1026,1029,1025],"class_list":["post-6919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-ai-blog-2018","tag-gudmundir-fridjonsson","tag-hilmur-orn-hilmarsson","tag-iceland","tag-icelandic-music","tag-loa-fidurgisin","tag-steindor-andersen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6919"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6922,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6919\/revisions\/6922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}