Bio

KHAAN ...

Born in Denver, came back after the fall of communism in '91. Journalism/comm teacher in Tallinn, Estonia, and a meat Popsicle 6 months out of the year. Winter is ALWAYS Coming ...

I live in Uus Maailm, which translates as "New World", and is the hippie district of Tallinn. I freelance in the local publications on culture, media, and current events from time to time.

My main achievement this year is getting through a liver transplant in late October, seemingly with flying colors (I had two different genetic disorders conspiring to result in this solution), but I'm back to work. I'm only in my early 40s, and I have plenty of castles I still want to storm. I've started my own company for my freelancing. If you ever need a media availability on events in this part of the world, contact me.

If you are ever in town, drop me a line. I'm a hospitable local and guide. A couple Ricocheters have already taken me up on that offer.

Twitter: @EstoniaKat

Skype: @EstoniaKat (tell me who you are first, and only for media-related stuff. I don't add people I haven't met)


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EstoniaKat's Profile

EstoniaKat
Name:
EstoniaKat
Hometown:
Tallinn, Estonia
Joined:
Jul 3, 2011

Recent Comments

Re: Who knew?

EstoniaKat

As an Estonian, I feel for the Circassians. An independent country that has been extinguished.

I will lay down a marker now; Sochi is too juicy of a target. There will be a attack by Chechens there next year.

EstoniaKat

That's pretty powerful. But I agree that he needs to explain his switch.

EstoniaKat

I will be in the Kansas City vicinity in late October - going to the Kansas State/West Virginia homecoming game, and have business in Columbia. It will be my first footfall in the States in 4 years, so I demand a meetup over ribs during that time frame, Amy.

Just throwing out an early marker.

What's that place in KC where they give you your ribs on a plastic tray and give you a handful of pickle slices? I loved that place.

EstoniaKat
Stuart Enkey: I love the podcasts which is actually how I discovered ricochet. I wish there was more audio content; not to take away from how great the existing content is.

A thousand times this. I discovered it the same way, and I walk around town with a podcast on my player, instead of music.

I demand MOAR.

EstoniaKat

@Created or Saved : Sorry for my assumption. :)

EstoniaKat

I changed my stance from squishy pro-choice to pro-life. I couldn't believe the horror of the Gosnell trial, that was pushed by a certain Ricochet editor, relentlessly, when the story really broke in USA Today. I educated myself afterwards.

Edited on June 19, 2013 at 12:59am
EstoniaKat

Misthiocracy

Dr Steve:

I deplore that there is news being broken in any of these instances.

No news has been broken.

The fact that the NSA collected metadata from cell phone companies, including Verizon, was reported as far back as May 11, 2006 by USA Today.

But USA Today isn't considered a "real" newspaper by the intelligensia, so it didn't become a "real" story until it was re-reported by The Guardian and The Washington Post, seven years later.

Not a defense of the NSA's program. Merely a condemnation of the ever-so-self-interested news media. · 5 hours ago

The news being broke is that the spying is domestic U.S. The original stories in 2006 reported that it was focused on international traffic.

EstoniaKat
Created Or Saved: I'll tell you what I can't believe,  I can't believe I just read a comment on here basically saying "eh, the holocaust was a long time ago, who cares,  don't we have better things to do than to look for Nazis" oh yes and for some people to just " get on with their lives".   That's what I can't believe. · 0 minutes ago

I think you are referring to my writing. I suggest you read it again, and read the context of the three posts in a row.

EstoniaKat

Dr. Steve, can you tell us what types of people are hired by the NSA? What are their backgrounds, what kinds of degrees do they have? Were you recruited, or did you apply?

EstoniaKat

This needs to be on the Main Feed.

EstoniaKat

Between Graham and McCain, I can't decide which one is Beavis, and which one is Butt-Head.

EstoniaKat

Gary McVey: EstoniaKat, I'd appreciate your insider's Baltics breakdown. I've been nearby, in Vilnius and Kaunas, and noticed that the Baltic (former Soviet) republics seem to have slightly (not horribly) strained relations, probably due to national differences like the number of ethnic Russians, peculiarities like Lithuania's connection to Poland, etc.  To put it another way, on the map they look like three brothers, but in political practice they are no closer than three cousins. 

Is there anything to this? Can you set me straight?  · June 15, 2013 at 9:29pm

Really the only thing that the three countries share is the Soviet occupation, Estonia being the most unique of the three.

Best think of Estonia as a Nordic country, a "Southern Finland," both linguistically and culturally.

Latvia and Lithuania are similar, because of a little bit of linguistic similarity, but not so much. Lithuania still has strong Ukrainian and Polish tugs.

I wouldn't characterize it as "strained relations", but pretty much a lack of common concerns nowadays. All are in the EU, all are in NATO. We share the same security concerns (cough, cough), and Baltic Sea issues, but that's about it.

EstoniaKat

James, it sounds from that one report that this guy was in a similar group. And based on his age, he grew up with the Holmodor (the purposive mass starvation of Ukrainians by Stalin). Wouldn't you be interested in a group that was trying to fight back, especially with the carrot of Ukrainian independence (illusory as that might have been)?

This guy might have committed war crimes, or his unit might have. But without absolute proof, I would hope the U.S. would just leave it alone. That was a long time ago, and being in the Waffen SS is no proof of anything.

D-Day and such gets all the movies, but the Eastern front was a titanic, terrible hurricane, pitting family against family, and there were no rules, except one horrible side won and another one didn't. And still, there were no winners.

EstoniaKat

This, despite the fact that the Russians occupied Estonia for SIX DECADES, and had every opportunity to deal with Nazi war criminals (the Holocaust was a huge topic in the school system, as a way to glorify the regime).

Two, there is a huge difference between the regular SS and the Waffen SS (the Nuremburg trials stated this, but it's conveniently forgotten by some people, and nations, for their own political purposes. The Waffen SS were made of essentially conscripts from the countries that the Nazis had taken over to fight against the Soviets. The Soviets conscripted as well. The first Estonian president after occupation, Lennart Meri, was shipped to Siberia as a enemy of the state. His brother faught for the Soviets, and was given the Order of Lenin (he was put on trial for crimes against civilians in Estonia, but died before the verdict).

EstoniaKat

Fat Dave:  The history  of Central and Eastern Europe aren't taught very well here in the West; it is very chaotic and does not fit very well into the American Manichaean paradigm. · 3 hours ago

Edited 1 hour ago

Word.

Well, James, from my point of view, the first thing that sets off my alarm bells is that the article references Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Weisenthal Center. This guy, (again IMO) has a history of throwing around charges against "war criminals" with very little evidence. He regularly publishes a top-10 list of "war criminals at large". A few years ago, an Estonian by birth was on that list (he has subsequently died), and beat on Estonia regularly to prosecute him. Estonia said they had no evidence of criminality (he had the same name as a guy who did, but it was a common name, and there was no proof that he was the same guy.)  But Zuroff continued to bash Estonia for the non-prosecution. And Russia uses this stuff to beat on Estonia and call us all a bunch of Neo-Nazis. You've been to Tallinn, James - how did you like our goose-stepping?

EstoniaKat

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putin
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