"We should celebrate our mistakes" says one resident of Florence, Oregon...

... quoted in "‘Exploding Whale’ Park Memorializes Blubber Blast 50 Years Later/Residents of a coastal Oregon city voted to name a park for a 1970 explosion that rained chunks of rotting whale flesh on curious bystanders" (NYT).

It's not so much the belief in celebrating mistakes that caused this park to get the name "Exploding Whale Memorial Park." It's that they put up an online survey, and the alternatives were things like “Bridge View Park” and “Siuslaw River View Park.” It's how that British ship (almost) got stuck with the name “Boaty McBoatface” and some town in Estonia ended up with a marijuana leaf on its flag....

I just love #Estonia! The rest of the European Union, especially Sweden, has so much to learn from Estonian civilisation. The commune of #Kanepi just voted to let a #cannabis plant grace its local flag. Hurrah hurrah! https://t.co/HNFYGtFOFn #marijuana #EU

— Alexander Bard (@Bardissimo) March 9, 2018

ADDED:

Misread headline that puzzled me: "Ambassador says Trump wrong, quits."

I was all: So how did he say it? Troohmp? Tahrump? Tramp? Tromp? And why quit over that? Yes, it's embarrassing, but man up, ambassador. 

It is a man. It's James D. Melville, the ambassador to Estonia. And he didn't mispronounce the President's name. He expressed the opinion that Trump is doing the wrong things, The Journal Gazette reports:

“For the President to say EU was 'set up to take advantage of the United States, to attack our piggy bank,' or that 'NATO is as bad as NAFTA' is not only factually wrong, but proves to me that it's time to go.”...

Melville is a senior U.S. career diplomat who has served as the American ambassador in the Baltic nation and NATO member of Estonia since 2015....

That is, an Obama appointee.

I like the way this Journal Gazette article just rambles on to other topics: "Merkel reworking asylum procedures... Campus hopes to save some ash trees... Deaf puppy rescued from crevice..."

Volunteers erupted in cheers as the pup – named Toffee – was pulled out of the narrow hole around midnight Saturday with the help of a snare and some food. Toffee fell into the inches-wide space around 5 p.m. Thursday. Firefighters, cave rescue crews and plumbers joined the rescue effort, lowering nets, snares and food to try to retrieve Toffee.

Toffee!!



That happened in Huntsville, Alabama, not Estonia, and the food used (I read elsewhere) was sardines. The puppy is an Australian Shepherd mix, so again, not Estonia-related. So here's a picture of an Estonian hound:



According to Wikipedia,

The Estonian Hound’s development was announced by an ultimatum issued by the Soviet Union’s Ministry of Agriculture and Economy in 1947, which ordered every Soviet Republic to establish a local breed of hunting dogs to replace the large breeds of hunting dogs bred at that moment. These large dogs were blamed for the rapid decline of Estonia’s wildlife population; it was established that only dogs with a maximum height of 17 inches were allowed to hunt. The result was a very agile and hard driven breed that has enjoyed tremendous popularity since then: the modern Estonian Hound. After Estonia regained its independence, the Estonian Hound was proclaimed the country’s national dog.

"In Estonia, we don’t have Big Brother; we have Little Brother. You can tell him what to do and maybe also beat him up."

Says "a local" to Nathan Heller, author of "Estonia, the Digital Republic/Its government is virtual, borderless, blockchained, and secure. Has this tiny post-Soviet nation found the way of the future?" by Nathan Heller (in The New Yorker).

Also:

Today, in Estonia, the weekly e-residency application rate exceeds the birth rate. “We tried to make more babies, but it’s not that easy,” [Siim Sikkut, Estonia’s current C.I.O.] explained.

And:

Polling-place intimidation is a non-issue if people can vote—and then change their votes, up to the deadline—at home, online.

Vote and change your vote... That's an interesting innovation. We assume that early voters are locked in and therefore unaffected by late-breaking news.

Please read the whole article. I kept puzzling over whether this is the approach to life and government would spread all over the world and whether I should think it's very cool or how we ruin everything and can never get back out again.

In Estonia, we don’t have Big Brother; we have Little Brother....

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a fluffy slipper smooshing a human face — forever.

"Estonia remained one of the last corners of medieval Europe to be Christianized."

"In 1193 Pope Celestine III called for a crusade against pagans in Northern Europe. The Northern Crusades from Northern Germany established the stronghold of Riga (in modern Latvia). With the help of the newly converted local tribes of Livs and Letts, the crusaders initiated raids into part of what is present-day Estonia in 1208. Estonian tribes fiercely resisted the attacks from Riga and occasionally themselves sacked territories controlled by the crusaders. In 1217 the German crusading order the Sword Brethren and their recently converted allies won a major battle in which the Estonian commander Lembitu was killed. The period of the several Northern Crusade battles in Estonia between 1208 and 1227 is also known as the period of the ancient Estonian fight for independence."

In Estonia, today's "History of" country, which looked like this before September 21, 1217:

"Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman caused an angry Twitter tirade last year from Estonia's president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves...."

"Now the electronic spat has been turned into a 16-minute vocal piece that will debut in April in a performance by the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra in Estonia."

In case you are wondering what they are singing about in Estonia.

Sample lyric: "But yes, what do we know? We're just dumb & silly East Europeans. Unenlightened. Someday we too will understand. Nostra culpa."

ADDED: "Where does 'Nostra Culpa' come down on Krugman vs. Ilves, on stimulus vs. austerity?"

"As the librettist I was conscious not to take sides," Mr. Diel, an American journalist living in Estonia.... "For my part there was no winner or loser chosen or intended."

"There is something intrinsically dramatic in this story," composer Eugene Birman said.... "As a composer, the words 'austerity' and 'stimulate' are particularly evocative musically. Arguments just make great listening sometimes."