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The current culture clash about some Norwegian child welfare agency having seized a Romanian couple’s children over physical discipline and the ensuing protests coming mostly from religious groups has a recognizable background: it’s a rehashing of the century-old conservative vs liberal quarrel. I have respect and admiration for Norway and their altruistic, enlightened and generous foreign policy and foreign aid, but this case may be more than just that.

I have been staying away from the news of the moment, but this recent tragedy hits extremely close to home, whichever way a member of the Toronto Romanian diaspora (including myself) chooses to define that notion.

I struggle to write about my grandma’s passing away, between expressing all I have to say, and staying within the limits of what a reader might find interesting or useful, without falling into too much drama.

This is an (Austro?-)German movie shortlisted for the Foreign Oscar and filmed in Bucharest. It’s great and rated 7.6 on IMDB, with a Metascore of 93. It is also remarkably warm and positive toward Romania.

It's a sad day for Ioan Pop, his family, and Romanian Christian Orthodoxy in general, but on the bright side, the abused women are finally getting some closure and Ioan Pop won’t have a chance to repeat his weird brand of sexual religiosity. As usual, I am not content with only reporting on the news; I have a few other things to say.

Writing about the voting experience would be way too uninteresting even for me, especially since it was straightforward and uneventful, so rather than doing just that, I’ll be telling you about how the voting went, some food I bought and my “participation” in Doors Open Toronto 2014.

There are two subjects that seem to dominate the Romanian public sphere (I would say blogo.ro-oaie, but that's defunct): the religion choice in schools and the New York Times Op-Ed on corruption in Romania. I’m very tempted to make a nice hot stew out of both, but I’ll try to keep each to its own article.

A recent documentary about Romanians and their come on Channel4 was left seemingly ignored on this blog (though announced more than a week ago: 1, 2), so I hereby correct this oversight. The “EAT ME” photo refers to a similar but Canadian story.

Although I have written briefly about progressive rock, I shied away thus far from Romanian progressive rock. That's rather odd, considering that the apogee of that genre in Romania is universally considered to be the eponymous Zalmoxe by Sfinx, released (more like “censored”) in 1978.

After writing about the sexual assault complaint about Ioan Pop on September 13, I was even considering going to the October 15 court appearance. It turns out that a court appearance has already taken place before I had a chance to wake up (and I’m still on antibiotics).

I am EXTATIC!!!! N-am auzit de ea inainte sa fi castigat premiul Nobel, cum n-auzisem nici de francezul care a castigat in 2008, dar cu cat citesc mai mult, cu atat ma excit mai tare! E musai s-mpartasesc ce aflu cu cei 2-3 oameni care ma citesc, poate iau si eu un Hertzer sau un BlogIdol. Voi incepe sa scriu acest ghid prin a face mai mult spatiu sub birou.