I dislike culturally tolerant blindness nearly as much as extremism

If you look up the antonyms for "extremism" in the dictionary, you will find "moderation". I believe that moderation is not the other end of the scale - it is the middle point; the zero, from which you can count in both directions. At the other end of the scale is extremism with a "plus" sign. I would call it culturally tolerant blindness.

I can see the climbing eye-brows and I owe an explanation... Culturally tolerant blindness is the condition in which literally anything, any wrong-doing, injustice or plain stupidity, has to and will be excused with either cultural or religious background. This is the situation where nothing should be condemned if the excuse is either religion or culture. Moreover - nothing should be questioned or debated if you say the magic words - "that's how we do it in our ... (fill the blank)" I leave the possible scenarios for you to imagine - the 21st century is full of them.

No! Things should not be excused for either religious or cultural reasons! When I come across things I don't understand, I put them in a diagram where "equality" is on one axis, and "justice" is on the other. Not only that - I disagree with those philosophers who try to look at the most basic concepts from cultural point of view. The notion of justice has nothing to do with Western values and should never be flagged as such. Justice is one and universal, it is plain and straightforward with no detours or exceptions.

I feel sad when I see bright minds blinded by cultural tolerance beyond limit. I await the day when moderation in judgment will come back in fashion, when we start calling things by their own names, and injustice, bigotry and violence will be called what they are in fact.

I suddenly felt like writing this posting after going through some of the older discussions on this blog and thinking back of the seminars we used to have in my university in Edinburgh. It is not an academic paper though, so don't look for hard evidence and examples.

Where are the world's "most jaw-droppingly beautiful women"?

Apparently, they are in Estonia. We also boast to be amazingly super-hyper-tech wifi paradise full of programming geniuses. I guess that makes Estonia the fairy-land of the Beauty and the Geek dream-come-true.

Well, cheeky comments aside, I came across an amazing article this morning, which made my patriotic Estonian heart beat like a drum and my naughty feet go dancing around the house. Following, is an introduction by an inspiring New York blogger Giustino to a longer article in The New Republic magazine. Both worth the read. I have nothing more to add...

Giustino: "In the latest issue of The New Republic, Tom Bissell goes to Estonia to find out what all of the 'e-Stonia' buzz is about, and oh, how he finds it.

The best parts of his piece are definitely his first hand experiences in Tallinn, but my personal favorites are his glowing reaction to Estonian womanhood. "Tallinn boasted what I can say were--without fear of hyperbole--the most jaw-droppingly beautiful women I have ever seen in my life," he writes. When he loses his bank card and has to go to Hansapank to pick it up, "a six-foot-two-inch Estonian Amazon so glowingly blonde she appeared to be irradiated" retrieves his new card for him.

Bissell also reacts warmly to the wife of Scott Diel, who is editor of The City Paper. "Diel's biggest impetus for staying in Estonia, he told me, other than his predictably lovely Estonian wife, was 'lifestyle'," Bissell notes.

There's a lot more meat to the story than Bissell's admiration for the exotic Estonian female. But I like it the best. It reminds me of when I was younger and single and sitting in a cafe in Oslo going, "Oh my God." And yes, there are some beauties in Estonia and I do recall at least one time going to the desk at Hansapank and completely forgetting what I was doing there or perhaps, what my name was. So here's a big "terviseks" to Bissell for so honestly portraying his experience. It is of benefit to us all. So read the piece. He is equally smitten with Toomas Hendrik Ilves."

The new shape of spam

Once in a while, say one out of thousand times, you get a spam-letter and you actually like it. Well, maybe it happens one out of million times. But the point is the same - you itch to share it.

On the other hand, I hate spam. And those individuals who send spam on other people's mobile phones are particularly disgusting... Pooji has reinvented spam-sharing, and I stole her idea. Well, I'm just joining in being ethical about sharing silly-but-cute internet nonsense.

Anyway, whether you take it as my new year wishes, or a sign of weakness (I have a soft spot for polar bears), but here it is.

[Click on the picture above to see the polar-bear-spam.]

2007 begins

... Internet here in South-East Asia is so slow - it drives me crazy ... They only now started repairing the underwater internet cable near Taiwan ... I am almost done with the first level of my Chinese studies, and the trip to China was a lot of fun ... Happy New Year! ... I think 2007 will be a great year.