Veel Üks Ring (One More Round)

I think I should make a written record of this particular Sunday morning.  At around 06:30 it was -20°C. That's -5°F. Note the minuses, the negative signs. Of course, the "real feel" temperatures were even colder (but are they really "real"). Just as I figured out that anything above 30°C is uncomfortably hot, so I figured out — not more than a couple of weeks ago — that anything below -13°C is bitterly cold. Like, if you are walking more than 12 minutes from Point A to Point B, eating nacho cheese chips without a glove on the hand diving into the bag to retrieve the next chips, that hand could feel like a pound of ground beef looks , defrosting on the kitchen counter. But this is Estonia, where there are no snow days, and if the temperature drops to -20°C, school may be cancelled for students in primary schools, -25°C for students in middle school. This particular Sunday though — yes, I had my coffee, but I drank it from the orange, Iittala (note the Finnish l...

According to Tõnis Saarts, Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at Tallinn University , defensive democracy is a rare form of contemporary democracy that prioritizes existential and national security over democratic rights and liberties, but, while doing so, it still adheres to the core principles of democracy. [This] doctorine asserts that in order to preserve the country's very existence and the democratic system itself, it may be necessary to curtail certain democratic freedoms and rights of specific social groups on some occasions. [A] second feature of a defensive democracy is that because the very existence of the country and democratic order is depicted as being under constant threat, the securitization of various policy areas and societal domains gradually becomes a new normality and necessity. In international relations "securitization" is defined as the process in which state actors transform subjects from regular political issues into matters of "...

...around 1,100 miles (1,780 kilometers) from England and 1,270 miles (2,045 km) from Turkey, "as the crow flies," according to Google Gemini. A Ryanair (FR) flight from Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport (TLL) to London Stansted Airport (STN) is two hours and forty-five minutes, an airBaltic (BT) flight to London Gatwick (LGW) is three hours and five minutes, and a WIZZ Airlines (W) flight to London Luton (LTN) three hours and ten minutes. A Turkish Airlines (TK) flight from TLL to Istanbul Airport (IST) is three hours and thirty-five minutes. Getting from IST, one of the largest airport terminals in the world, to the heart of Istanbul, a metropolis with more than 15.5 million residents, requires five stages: 1) walking from the arrival gate to the terminal exit (through passport control), 2) walking from the terminal exit to the subterranean M11 metro platform (through the fare turnstiles), 3) riding the M11 to the Gayrettepe metro station, the metro line's southern terminus,...

...the son of Robert, the grandson of Joseph, the great-grandson of Frank, and the great-great-grandson of John. Joseph, Robert, and I were born in Sangamon County; Frank was born in Morgan or Sangamon County. John was born in Ireland, according to U.S. Census records from as far back as 1870. ...the son of Carol, the grandson of VT, the great-grandson of Louis, the great-great-grandson of James, and perhaps the great-great-great grandson of Thomas. Carol was born in Macoupin County, VT in Macon County (most likely), Louis and James in Montgomery County, and Thomas in Madison or Jackson County, Tennessee. ...27% Scottish and Welsh, 22% English, just 18% Irish, and 10% Germanic, according to MyHeritage's latest "Ethnicity Estimate" algorithm. Ireland's ambassador to Estonia said that I am Irish enough to be on the embassy's mailing list. ...the great-great-grandson of a day laborer, according to the 1870 census; the great-grandson of a mining engineer (1900 and 191...