Pat-a-Cat

Tomorrow we're off to the ASBL Animal Shelter (known as MTÜ Loomade Hoiupaik in Estonian). They have an ad on their site at the moment which reads thus:

COME AND PAT A CAT OR TAKE A DOG FOR A WALK!
Not all pets are lucky - some of them have no owners. Those in our animal shelter miss the interaction that relationship provides. Come and visit them, talk to them, take the dogs for a walk and pat the cats, and you'll be doing more for them than you might think :-)
__________

TULE TEE KASSILE PAI VÕI VII KOER JALUTAMA!
Kõigil loomadel ei ole vedanud, paljudel neist puudub oma inimene. Loomade Hoiupaiga asukad tunnevad puudust suhtlemisest ja tegevusest. Tule neile külla, aja juttu, jaluta koertega ja silita kasse ning Sa aitad neid rohkem kui oskad arvata :-)

Here at Positively Transforming: Estonia we love animals and wholeheartedly support any non-profit organisation dedicated to looking after them - especially those lost or abandoned. We are planning to make our own contribution to the shelter and recommend that anyone reading this consider doing the same. A little bit of affection goes a long way, and costs sod all.

http://www.loomadehoiupaik.ee/?lang=est

Power to the principals

It's been a day for school-related news. At the annual conference of the Association of Estonian School Principals, Minister for Education Tõnis Lukas has confirmed his intention to submit a proposal to local governments to provide principals with greater powers of reprimand.

“That way they could decide for themselves on the spot whether to issue the likes of a verbal warning or a fine to students or anyone else who happens to misbehave on school premises,” the minister said. “This will undoubtedly help to rein in students who act out, use foul language, deliberately provoke teachers and other students or smoke on school grounds.”

Why do I not share his conviction?

School ≠ holidays

School principals the length and breadth of Tartu (the 'City of Good Thoughts') have been whinging to Delfi that they'd had it up to here with their students bunking off to go on package holidays with their families.

Hugo Treffner High School, one of the most prestigious in the education capital of the country, has published a plee to parents on its website to no longer withdraw the fruit of their loins from classes for the purpose of frivolous travel. "There's a time and a place for holidays from school," said principal Ott Ojaveer, "and that's school holidays. The rate of absenteeism has gone through the roof."

The frustrated principal complains that parents seeking permission for their children to play hooky and skip the country means extra work for teachers and administrative staff. As things stand, schools have no right to refuse such permission and are left in the impotent position of merely being able to suggest that it might not be such a great idea.

The board of Miina Härma High School are facing the same problem. Stand-in principal Heikki Veinimäe* says a lot of travel agencies offer discount package tours during the off season which families latch onto. The only solution he foresees is the implementation of national regulations. "If the number of holidays being taken continues to increase, as well as the length of time these kids are out of school, we'll have to take the matter in hand," he said.

* what's the betting the real principal was on holiday?

Put paid to payrises!

Independent weekly Eesti Ekspress has been joined by a number of other media publications and public figures in calling on Estonia's parliamentarians to stop giving themselves pay rises when they're clearly not doing anything to deserve it. The following is a translation of the text that appeared in the newspaper yesterday.

At a time when even prime minister Andrus "Don't worry, everything's fine" Ansip is talking about belt-tightening, there is a select group of people in our society already living the high life whose salaries are going up yet again this winter - this time by 20 percent! And they'll be going up again in the coming year, and the year after that, and will keep on going up.

We're talking, of course, about the 101 members of the Riigikogu (the Estonian parliament - Ed.), whose salaries are four times the national average. At the beginning of the '90s this kind of pay was justified if normal people were ever to be enticed to enter parliament. But the system has long since become very unfair in the eyes of the majority of Estonia's citizens.

The overweening lifestyle our parliament leads has deepened disillusionment in politics as a whole and is damaging Estonia's reputation. Parties and politicians, wake up and smell the coffee! Agree that things can't go on the way they have been. Figure out a new salary system that doesn't fly in the face of fairness. And if you can't come up with anything yourselves, find some intelligent people who can.

We've had it up to here with party BS and politicians not being able to come to any agreement. For Christ's sake, just do it!

Daily broadsheet Postimees conducted a poll in response to the issue the Eesti Ekspress article raised, asking readers who they thought she be responsible for determining how much the country's parliamentarians get paid. 0.5% said the Riigikogu itself, 3.5% said the president, and the remaining 96% were united in saying the job should fall to an impartial commission. But who appoints the members?

http://www.ekspress.ee/2008/02/28/eesti-uudised/1413-eesti-ekspressi-yleskutse-riigikogu-peatage-oma-taltsutamatu-palgatous

Doing it for Estonia: the apology

Disgraced* athlete Kristjan Rahnu has, as promised, issued a statement to the press about the whorehouse-related charges brought against him. It goes something like this:

"I'm a decathlete who, out of naievity and stupidity, has found himself in the thick of something I wouldn't recommend to anybody. For the confusion and unpleasantness I've caused I would like to apologise to [a long list of people]...

I've made mistakes, but I'm not a pimp. On the advice of my legal counsel and because the law dictates, I'm restricting my communication with the media, and to be honest I'm not ready for anything more... I know that my statement today and my wish not to appear on TV may be interpreted as an admission of guilt in terms of the accusations that have been made in the press. Honest people have nothing to hide and all that. But while the case is ongoing I can only repeat that I'm not a pimp.

What I want is to continue my career in sport, and I hope that's possible. It's the only way I'll be able to get my life back on track. In the meantime I'll provide all the help I can to the authorities in the name of a just finding. I hope you understand me. If you don't, I understand why."

* in the sense of 'by association'

I don't want to hear your words

President Toomas Hendrik Ilves has hit the headlines in the Estonian and international press for his views on speaking Russian.

Interviewed by an 'old friend', BBC journalist and Russophile Tim Whewell, and asked why he doesn't speak the language spoken by more than a quarter of Estonia's population, Ilves was quoted/misquoted/taken out of context as saying that speaking Russian would be like giving the nod to 50 years of brutal suppression. This inflammatory soundbite was quickly taken up by the local Russian press, with headlines along the lines of 'president refuses to speak language of occupiers', and also made it into the foreign media.

An opinion piece written by one Laur Viirand appeared on Delfi today in response to the controversy, extracts of which I have translated hereunder. Healthy debate of contentious issues is encouraged.

It's perfectly understandable that Ilves as an individual may not necessarily like the idea of studying and speaking Russian. To foreign Estonians the language perhaps symbolises their being forced to flee from occupation and the loss of their homeland. Unfortunately, things aren't quite so black and white when it's the president we're talking about. Such an inflexible position is not becoming of the office of president, whose primary role should be to mitigate conflict in society.

A foreign Estonian president taking up Russian lessons would be a magnanimous gesture, something the undercurrent of tension in the country needs. It would by no means be a sign of weakness, the imminent arrival of a second national language or some kind of white flag — rather it would be an indication of strength and the overcoming of complexes.

It would also be a sign of the maturity of the country. A decision by the president to learn Russian would not only be welcomed by the local Russian-speaking population, but it would also show solidarity with the majority of the Estonian-speaking population — most of whom were once forced to learn the language themselves.

http://www.delfi.ee/news/paevauudised/arvamus/article.php?id=18297311

Ticking time bomb

A passing reference by my partner led me to an article (link below) in Maaleht, Estonia's country newspaper, talking about the pros and cons of a warm, dry, snowless winter i.e. what we are experiencing at the moment. Though more than a year old, the stark warnings it delivers remain as pertinent as ever. Here is one we should all bear in mind for the forthcoming summer.

Warm winters are terrific for ticks: they breed like rabbits. Ticks will remain active even if the temperature is only hovering around +5 degrees, but since people rarely get back to nature in winter, infections just as rarely present themselves.

Now is nevertheless a good time to think of immunisation, getting your first shots in February or March. “Ticks are getting more infectious every year, which is why more people are getting sick,” explained someone from some hospital (etc).

The article goes on to say that on the plus side, warm winters mean there will be enough oxygen for fish (?) and that wild pigs will have plenty to forage for. Better yet, less people are likely to top themselves - something that is more common than you might think:

Thoughts frequently turn to suicide [at this time of year] – the majority of us have contemplated it at some point. This generally never develops into a concrete plan, however, and nothing comes of it.

Life in the country must really be hard with all these rampaging ticks and oxygen-starved fish.

http://www.maaleht.ee/?page=&grupp=artikkel&artikkel=7644

Foreign perspective

Saturday's Arter, the weekend magazine supplement to Postimees, featured an article entitled 'Do foreigners love us?' in which seven international students at the University of Tartu were interviewed about Estonia and Estonians and how their ideas and preconceptions about them have changed.

It made for interesting if slightly predictable reading, with most of the seven giving responses you might expect of people with their backgrounds - the Caucuses, Central Asia and the Far East - who have been in the country for a short time. The most amusing (qv scathing and on the mark) came from the only female respondent, Brazilian Helena de Mesquita da Silva (pictured with the caption that accompanied her snapshot in the magazine). What follows are the questions submitted to the group and Helena's responses to them.

What has surprised you most in Estonia?
The looks I get, affronted and rude, because I'm black. And the fact that the teenagers get around in expensive clothes but spend most of their time in parks smoking and drinking and their parents don't seem to care at all.

What was the most interesting thing you heard about Estonia or Estonians before you came here which turned out to be a myth?
I hadn't really heard anything about the country or the people. I asked some Brazilians who knew a bit about it, and they said everything was OK, but when I got here I felt quite uncomfortable. I expected more from a European country. I'm from a Third World nation, so I was shocked when I saw that in some areas Europeans can be just as bad off or even worse off than we are.

How would you describe Estonians?
Cold and closed. Polite to the point of being impolite. They're easily intimidated and vulnerable and probably because of it paranoid about their privacy.

Estonian men consider Estonian women to be the most beautiful in the world. What do you think?
I guess Estonian men don't travel much. Men everywhere say the women in their country are the most beautiful. Some of these ideas cross borders, but before I came here I'd never heard that Estonian women were meant to be the best-looking in the world.

Estonian men often come across as male chauvinist pigs. Would you agree?
Perhaps that's why more and more Estonian women are marrying foreigners, at least statistically. Estonian men ought to think more about the way they behave towards women.

http://www.postimees.ee/230208/lisad/arter/313412.php?kas-valismaalased-armastavad-meid

Congratulations and jubilations

A blot on your escutcheon!

Outgoing Chancellor for Justice Allar Jõks has taken a swipe at the Riigikogu for sitting on their hands in regard to his proposal to remove all members of parliament from the boards of companies which the state has a financial interest in. It is not known whether their thumb twiddling has anything to do with the fact that many of them hold plum positions on the supervisory boards of many of the biggest corporations in Estonia.

"Just days before the 90th anniversary of our independence it is pathetic to see the political culture of our nation and its respect for the constitution reduced to the level of a spotty teenager," Jõks said, with a little embellishment from yours truly. "The fact that the majority of our parliamentarians continue to support a situation that flies in the face of the constitution is like them attending the Independence Day reception with a glaring great stain on their lapel."

http://www.postimees.ee/220208/esileht/siseuudised/313495.php

Doing it for Estonia

Olympic decathlon hope Kristjan Rahnu has been arrested on suspicion of running a whorehouse.

We won't go into details here, because we don't know any, and we would never stoop to making tabloid generalisations and assumptions. Here at Positively Transforming: Estonia we work on the principle of innocent until proven guilty, which is clearly something we share in common with former Olympic gold medallist Erki Nool and Minister for Justice Rein "Proud to be Bull-Headed" Lang, who have come out in defence of the athlete, and not with the Estonian Olympic Committee, who have removed Rahnu from the list of potential athletes for the Bird's Nest.

Whether or not any guilt is attributed to Rahnu - in the event of which he may face up to 12 years in prison - we couldn't think of a better story to attach a tagline to a la "you can take the boy out of Estonia, but you can't take Estonia out of the boy". We wish him well in his name-clearing endeavours (starting Monday) and look forward to cheering him on to a probably middling result in Beijing.

I want my independence

After topping charts by being the first country to recognise the independence of Montenegro, Estonia has plummeted to somewhere only just inside the top ten with its rubber-stamped recognition today of the newborn Republic of Kosovo.

Commenting on this historic decision, Foreign Minister Urmas Paet gushed about the importance of the western Balkans in the security policy of the European Union, applauded the leaders of the breakaway region for upholding the Ahtisaari plan and writing the protection of minorities (i.e. the Serbs) and their cultural heritage into their declaration of independence, and promised that Estonia would play its role in any civic mission to the country.

What Paet failed to mention was the terrible repercussions recognising Kosovo's independence may bring for Estonia. Let's look at the most serious of these: the reception the Estonian entry is likely to receive at the Eurovision Song Contest in Belgrade in May. As if the situation wasn't desperate enough with the fan maffia in the front row promising to boo the 'joke entry' out of contention, Kreisiraadio will now have to face the wrath of the rest of the audience plus a hostile Serb media.

If only our politicians took in the bigger picture before making such rash decisions.

PS What are we thinking of the flag? It's all a bit too Bosnia for my liking.

Moving experience

Remember this? I used to live somewhere that looked a bit like it.

I don't live there any more. I live somewhere that looks like this.

It's on Town Hall Square. For those of you who don't know Tallinn all that well, it is the central square in the Old Town. As addresses go, it is rather glamorous. And as we all know these days, if your life in Tallinn isn't glamorous, it is, quite literally, N O T H I N G.

You too can be share in this glamorous lifestyle by viewing the pictures we've taken of the place at http://www.gamelink.planet.ee/. Don't say I'm not generous.

Public service announcement

January has become February and we're not that far off March, but needless to say I haven't gotten around to blogging again. Partly because I've been spending the last month moving; partly I've been very busy at work; and partly I couldn't be arsed. However, I may yet, given the overwhelming support of all these anonymous readers. (Why don't you have names?)