Media storm

Pronkssõdur is a star. Somehow that little statue on Tonismagi has managed to capture the attention of the world media. Eesti passing the law to remove the statue managed to make the front page of the Globe & Mail (Canada's national paper) and even Google News. This crap makes Estonia look bad to a lot of people who know nothing about the country so hopefully this thing will go away soon.

Not being in Eesti anymore I'm not sure what the local sentiment is about the statue now but back in the summer when I was still there it was kind of a joke especially when they spent untold dollars and manpower protecting it with a police escort. It will be interesting to see what Toomas Ilves decides to do as there's been rumors that he may not ratify the law as it may be unconstitutional, it will also be interesting to see whether all this crap will somehow effect the upcoming elections.

Ad overload

One of the many amusing little differences between Canada and Eesti that always made me chuckle was the fact that newspapers in Eesti will often sell their entire front page for advertisement, so instead of seeing a headline you see an ad. I don't think I've ever seen that with a North American paper (maybe for the free subway papers but that I don't consider anything more than headlines with ads), I guess most papers try and come up with a catchy headline that they hope will sell a lot of papers but for some reason that doesn't figure in in Eesti, they'd rather sell the upfront ad.

The reason I bring this up is that I just read that Oliver Kruuda, everyones favorite chocolate baron, has just purchased the front page for Paevaleht for a whole month. Funny how he bought the ads just before the elections, I wonder if we'll see any of his classic shenanigans like big K's or pictures of Savisaar with a milk mustache.