At least, it's getting there. Tomorrow, the sun will rise at 8:36 in the morning. The sun will set at 3:38pm. If today was any guide, it will be entirely dark by 4:10. The high will be 33F (.5C), the low will be 26F (-3C). Snow showers will occur on and off throughout the day. By the end of the week, the high will be 22F (-5.5C) and the low will be 10F (-12C). Did I mention it is still November?
No matter. On Friday I am jetting off to Israel, where the weather will be in the 70s (low 20s in Celsius) and there will be three more hours of daylight.
And since I like to confuse my body, two days after my return from Israel, I will head on a Tallinn University trip to Lapland (Arctic Circle, Finland), where there will be about four hours of daylight and the temperature is currently 12F (-11C). I keep reminding myself that it was colder in Oslo when I was there last January and I adjusted to the cold surprisingly well and quickly. I will survive Lapland and hopefully see the northern lights in the process. But I'm admittedly really nervous.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Currency Comparison
I am currently enrolled in a course called "Estonian Country Studies." It is, more or less, a weekly field trip for Erasmus students to various points of interest around Tallinn. Today, we headed to the Estonian Bank Museum, which housed currency specimens dating back to the Russian czarist era. (Less than 100 years, and they had five-soon to be six- currencies!)
I noticed something striking about their choice of national figures to grace their bills.
2 kroon- Karl Ernst von Baer: First president of the Russian Entomological Society and co-founder of the Russian Geographical Society. Von Baer was born in what is now Estonia, though it was Russian territory at the time.
5 kroon- Paul Keres: Estonian Chess Grandmaster.
10 kroon- Jakob Hurt: Linguist who compiled many Estonian songs and fairy tales into the first written volume. (Prior to this point, Estonian was primarily a spoken language.)
25 kroon- Anton Hansen Tammsaare: Author of "Truth and Justice," which is considered the great Estonian novel.
50 kroon- Rudolf Tobias: The first Estonian professional composer.
100 kroon- Lydia Koidula: Poet and dramatist, considered the founder of Estonian theatre.
500 kroon- Carl Robert Jakobson: Leader of the Estonian Awakening in the mid 19th century, which helped demand equal rights for the ethnic Estonians to the Baltic Germans who controlled the region.
All coins, meanwhile, have the national seal. When Estonia take the euro in January, the Estonian euro coins will feature an outline of Estonia.
Compare this to the American currency. With the exception of the $10 bill and the $100 bill, all of our paper money features the face of a former president. Alexander Hamilton, whose portrait graces the $10 bill, was the first Secretary of the Treasury. Meanwhile, Benjamin Franklin... well, what didn't Benjamin Franklin do? The important bit is that he, too, is a major political figure even if he never held the presidency.
All of this got me thinking about what really comprises the American identity. I think it might be harder to really pin an American identity down- maybe "melting pot" really is the only description upon which most people could agree. If we were, for example, to pick ONE writer to honor with a place on our currency, whom would we choose? (I almost want to say Tocqueville, though I think many Americans would balk at the idea of having a Frenchman on our currency.) Which composer? Which poet? The leaders of which social movements?
This isn't to say that our choice in presidents aren't controversial. I'm sure half of Glenn Beck's viewers would take up the call to remove FDR from the dime should he ever bring the issue up on his show. (I hope I'm not giving anyone ideas, here.) Meanwhile, many people today might consider Andrew Jackson (of $20 bill fame) an odd choice for such a high level of commemoration. (Assuming, of course, that most people actually know anything about Jackson's presidency.) It's worth pointing out, however, that both figures were fairly popular during their rule. Meanwhile, some of the figures who are on our currency are loved now, but were NOT widely loved at the time of their presidency. Abraham Lincoln did, after all, hold the highest office while the country was in the midst of a civil war.
Since I'm curious, I do want to know if you had to pick a politician, two writers, a musician, an athlete, a social leader, and someone you think was just absolutely intrinsic in the formation of the American identity to honor on our bills, whom would you pick?
I noticed something striking about their choice of national figures to grace their bills.
2 kroon- Karl Ernst von Baer: First president of the Russian Entomological Society and co-founder of the Russian Geographical Society. Von Baer was born in what is now Estonia, though it was Russian territory at the time.
5 kroon- Paul Keres: Estonian Chess Grandmaster.
10 kroon- Jakob Hurt: Linguist who compiled many Estonian songs and fairy tales into the first written volume. (Prior to this point, Estonian was primarily a spoken language.)
25 kroon- Anton Hansen Tammsaare: Author of "Truth and Justice," which is considered the great Estonian novel.
50 kroon- Rudolf Tobias: The first Estonian professional composer.
100 kroon- Lydia Koidula: Poet and dramatist, considered the founder of Estonian theatre.
500 kroon- Carl Robert Jakobson: Leader of the Estonian Awakening in the mid 19th century, which helped demand equal rights for the ethnic Estonians to the Baltic Germans who controlled the region.
All coins, meanwhile, have the national seal. When Estonia take the euro in January, the Estonian euro coins will feature an outline of Estonia.
Compare this to the American currency. With the exception of the $10 bill and the $100 bill, all of our paper money features the face of a former president. Alexander Hamilton, whose portrait graces the $10 bill, was the first Secretary of the Treasury. Meanwhile, Benjamin Franklin... well, what didn't Benjamin Franklin do? The important bit is that he, too, is a major political figure even if he never held the presidency.
All of this got me thinking about what really comprises the American identity. I think it might be harder to really pin an American identity down- maybe "melting pot" really is the only description upon which most people could agree. If we were, for example, to pick ONE writer to honor with a place on our currency, whom would we choose? (I almost want to say Tocqueville, though I think many Americans would balk at the idea of having a Frenchman on our currency.) Which composer? Which poet? The leaders of which social movements?
This isn't to say that our choice in presidents aren't controversial. I'm sure half of Glenn Beck's viewers would take up the call to remove FDR from the dime should he ever bring the issue up on his show. (I hope I'm not giving anyone ideas, here.) Meanwhile, many people today might consider Andrew Jackson (of $20 bill fame) an odd choice for such a high level of commemoration. (Assuming, of course, that most people actually know anything about Jackson's presidency.) It's worth pointing out, however, that both figures were fairly popular during their rule. Meanwhile, some of the figures who are on our currency are loved now, but were NOT widely loved at the time of their presidency. Abraham Lincoln did, after all, hold the highest office while the country was in the midst of a civil war.
Since I'm curious, I do want to know if you had to pick a politician, two writers, a musician, an athlete, a social leader, and someone you think was just absolutely intrinsic in the formation of the American identity to honor on our bills, whom would you pick?
Monday, November 15, 2010
At the movies in Helsinki...
I saw the trailer for this movie:
Which is based on this short film:
I'm strangely fascinated...
Which is based on this short film:
I'm strangely fascinated...
Peace at what cost?
Last week, I attended a conference on women in Afghanistan hosted by the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Estonian Atlantic Treaty Association. One panelist was from a women's organization that seemed to be a better-organized European equivalent to Code Pink. She ruffled a few feathers when she claimed that nothing had improved for women in Afghanistan in the last few years (despite the statistics offered by other panelists that would say otherwise). Later in her speech, she claimed that war, that violence and guns, is never the answer, and that we needed UN peacekeepers, not NATO soldiers. At the very least, this took guts for her to say. A security conference is not likely to attract a crowd that is sympathetic to her argument. A faint murmur arose in the audience, many (myself included) scribbled furiously in their notebooks. The man next to me shook his head in disbelief and said to his colleague, "Absolutely from another planet, this one..."
First of all, kudos to the EMFA and EATA for including her on the panel. Honestly, I'm not sure it would have occurred to me to include someone with such strong anti-war views in a conference on security: when the goal is to discuss how to move forward on a particular UN resolution in Afghanistan, and someone doesn't think we have a right to be there in the first place, a part of me would think that this person may be counter-productive, and maybe the conference should ask someone else to speak. Having listened to the woman in the context of this conference, I still think what she had to say was a little counter-productive and distracting. However, I am glad she was there, and glad she spoke. We can all say we have considered what she told us, and our own arguments are better for having done so.
When she first told us that guns are never the answer, what I wrote down next to her name was, "Hitler, anyone?" That is one of the most clear-cut cases of when the guns must come out: madman is trying to take over a continent, trying to eliminate any undesirables in his path, and peaceful appeasement clearly had not worked. If the world stood by as this was going on because of this lofty idea that guns are never the answer, the result would have been far worse than the Srebrenica massacre- when over 8000 Bosnians were killed as UN peacekeepers watched- legally unable to do anything unless they had not been fired upon themselves. Clearly, guns are effective. But are they necessary?
Consider then the Cold War. The Soviet Empire eventually fell, and we never fought against the empire directly. (I would argue "directly" is the key word in that sentence.) However, Hitler was stopped much more quickly. Depending on when you start counting, it took anywhere from 24 years (starting the year he assumed leadership of the precursor to the Nazi party) to 6 years (starting with the invasion of Poland.) The Soviet Union lasted much longer, killed far more people within the Soviet Union- and that's before you start counting the people killed in the proxy wars. If we ignore the proxy wars for a moment, would anyone actually argue that the Cold War was morally superior to World War II? I suppose the argument would then boil down to whether more people would have died fighting the Soviets directly with guns in the short term than would have been killed by the Soviets in the long term. Of course, you'd never know the answer to this, but given that both parties involved were nuclear powers, it's plausible that a hot war would have killed more people. Of course, Afghanistan isn't nuclear (yet), so I'm not sure you can apply this argument so cleanly to the conflict in Afghanistan.
If bad people exist, and they come to power, at what point is it a moral imperative to stop them? Hitler and Stalin are extreme examples: Death tolls were in the millions, and they both had a way of making life miserable for neighboring countries. But what do you do when the death toll is in the hundred thousands? Thousands? Hundreds? Or if the injustice doesn't have a regional spillover effect? For practical reasons, a line must be drawn. For better or worse, I don't think the world wants to be in a constant state of war in order to try to maintain a perpetual peace. NATO and several partner countries have already committed themselves to Afghanistan, but NATO has had to struggle constantly against its own members placing strong caveats on the use of their troops. America is tired and overstretched. I think Europe is still traumatized from the 20th century wars, and perhaps really enjoys having the NATO safety net instead of forming stronger defenses of their own. I think many would be nervous having Russia or China police the worlds' human rights abuses. In such an era, how do you choose what is worth fighting for? It is often asked for what should we die. This question has a logical mate, but it's one we don't hear quite so often. For what should we kill? I can't pretend I have an answer, but I am quite grateful to Ms. Ebbe for bringing the question to the forefront of my mind.
First of all, kudos to the EMFA and EATA for including her on the panel. Honestly, I'm not sure it would have occurred to me to include someone with such strong anti-war views in a conference on security: when the goal is to discuss how to move forward on a particular UN resolution in Afghanistan, and someone doesn't think we have a right to be there in the first place, a part of me would think that this person may be counter-productive, and maybe the conference should ask someone else to speak. Having listened to the woman in the context of this conference, I still think what she had to say was a little counter-productive and distracting. However, I am glad she was there, and glad she spoke. We can all say we have considered what she told us, and our own arguments are better for having done so.
When she first told us that guns are never the answer, what I wrote down next to her name was, "Hitler, anyone?" That is one of the most clear-cut cases of when the guns must come out: madman is trying to take over a continent, trying to eliminate any undesirables in his path, and peaceful appeasement clearly had not worked. If the world stood by as this was going on because of this lofty idea that guns are never the answer, the result would have been far worse than the Srebrenica massacre- when over 8000 Bosnians were killed as UN peacekeepers watched- legally unable to do anything unless they had not been fired upon themselves. Clearly, guns are effective. But are they necessary?
Consider then the Cold War. The Soviet Empire eventually fell, and we never fought against the empire directly. (I would argue "directly" is the key word in that sentence.) However, Hitler was stopped much more quickly. Depending on when you start counting, it took anywhere from 24 years (starting the year he assumed leadership of the precursor to the Nazi party) to 6 years (starting with the invasion of Poland.) The Soviet Union lasted much longer, killed far more people within the Soviet Union- and that's before you start counting the people killed in the proxy wars. If we ignore the proxy wars for a moment, would anyone actually argue that the Cold War was morally superior to World War II? I suppose the argument would then boil down to whether more people would have died fighting the Soviets directly with guns in the short term than would have been killed by the Soviets in the long term. Of course, you'd never know the answer to this, but given that both parties involved were nuclear powers, it's plausible that a hot war would have killed more people. Of course, Afghanistan isn't nuclear (yet), so I'm not sure you can apply this argument so cleanly to the conflict in Afghanistan.
If bad people exist, and they come to power, at what point is it a moral imperative to stop them? Hitler and Stalin are extreme examples: Death tolls were in the millions, and they both had a way of making life miserable for neighboring countries. But what do you do when the death toll is in the hundred thousands? Thousands? Hundreds? Or if the injustice doesn't have a regional spillover effect? For practical reasons, a line must be drawn. For better or worse, I don't think the world wants to be in a constant state of war in order to try to maintain a perpetual peace. NATO and several partner countries have already committed themselves to Afghanistan, but NATO has had to struggle constantly against its own members placing strong caveats on the use of their troops. America is tired and overstretched. I think Europe is still traumatized from the 20th century wars, and perhaps really enjoys having the NATO safety net instead of forming stronger defenses of their own. I think many would be nervous having Russia or China police the worlds' human rights abuses. In such an era, how do you choose what is worth fighting for? It is often asked for what should we die. This question has a logical mate, but it's one we don't hear quite so often. For what should we kill? I can't pretend I have an answer, but I am quite grateful to Ms. Ebbe for bringing the question to the forefront of my mind.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Same same, but different
A few weeks ago, the Goethe Institute hosted a German film festival in Tallinn. I had a friend visiting from Germany, and one of my flatmates is Austrian, so we decided to check out a film called "Same Same but Different." In short, the film is about a young German tourist that falls in love with a Cambodian prostitute, finds out she is HIV-positive, and does all he can to ensure that she gets the proper medicine. The film ends with the recently-married couple discovering that she is pregnant. The real life couple on whom the film is based is still married, and the husband is still HIV-negative.
While much can be said about the film itself, what struck me most was the trailer.
The German phrase roughly translates to "In your early twenties, are you ready for the love of your life?" Ignore for the second that that phrase is a gross misrepresentation of the film... I'm not sure I would be ready to discover the love of my life is HIV-positive at ANY age. Aside from that, I can sort of see why this ad campaign might work in Europe. Several people I know seem to think that 28 might be an early age to get married. Meanwhile, it a lot of my American friends seem to think that 25 or 26 is the ideal age to get married. If I met the love of my life tomorrow, I wouldn't marry him next month, (after all, if he is the love of my life, he'll still be around in a few years, right?), but I wouldn't spend so much time trying to convince myself that he cannot possibly be "the one" because I'm only at the verge of my 23rd birthday. The film's protagonist seemed almost as concerned that he was 21 as he was concerned that this woman is in Cambodia and HIV-positive. So what do you think? If you were asked if you wanted to see a movie about meeting the love of your life in your early 20s and wondering if you were ready, would you actually want to see it? To me, it just seems too normal.
While much can be said about the film itself, what struck me most was the trailer.
The German phrase roughly translates to "In your early twenties, are you ready for the love of your life?" Ignore for the second that that phrase is a gross misrepresentation of the film... I'm not sure I would be ready to discover the love of my life is HIV-positive at ANY age. Aside from that, I can sort of see why this ad campaign might work in Europe. Several people I know seem to think that 28 might be an early age to get married. Meanwhile, it a lot of my American friends seem to think that 25 or 26 is the ideal age to get married. If I met the love of my life tomorrow, I wouldn't marry him next month, (after all, if he is the love of my life, he'll still be around in a few years, right?), but I wouldn't spend so much time trying to convince myself that he cannot possibly be "the one" because I'm only at the verge of my 23rd birthday. The film's protagonist seemed almost as concerned that he was 21 as he was concerned that this woman is in Cambodia and HIV-positive. So what do you think? If you were asked if you wanted to see a movie about meeting the love of your life in your early 20s and wondering if you were ready, would you actually want to see it? To me, it just seems too normal.
Autumn
Today is November 3. It is a fairly mild day, meaning we have a high of 48F/9C. I am wearing a long-sleeved shirt, a cardigan, a pea coat, scarf, gloves, wool cap, two pairs of stockings under my jeans, and boots. Most days, the cold doesn't bother me that much, but today I am especially put off by it. I've decided it has something to do with the fact that my dad texted me to tell me that it will be in the upper 80s back home.
It's ok. I will make hot chocolate with the mix my good friend Emily gave me as a "Thanks for letting me crash at your place for a week" gift, and all will be right in the world again.
It's ok. I will make hot chocolate with the mix my good friend Emily gave me as a "Thanks for letting me crash at your place for a week" gift, and all will be right in the world again.
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