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In calitate de erou al mai multor lepse mogulitoare, m-am gandit ca daca nu pot raspunde tuturor, pot macar sa le aplaud si eventual sa inventez propria mea leapsa.

When it comes to presidents, I prefer them quiet and subdued, but when I look back, I kept voting for the loud ones. I’m much like a woman who claims she’s looking for good guys but constantly ends up with bad boys. I’m not the only one, judging by the recent results of US elections. So I’m hurrying to finish this article, in a McDonald’s with non-working Wi-Fi, fueled by their free coffee promotion with only 30 minutes left to go. 

I don’t like to adopt a nationalist stance on any day of the year and least of all when you are supposed to do so, such as on December 1, Romania’s national day. Rather than pen yet another pointless, devoid of meaning nationalist article, I’d much rather look at a few forgotten issues.

Although I already said I’m not voting, due to atrocious bureaucratic hurdles at a time when it was supposed to be as easy to vote as possible in the most expensive election so far, I’m having second thoughts. Voting is an opportunity to give some unknown hopeful a chance, so I will have a quick look at the lesser known candidates who are worthy of a second look (apart from frontrunners).

Extreme division in the public opinion is not new and is not common only to Romania. What is special about our situation is how ludicrous and paranoid their claims are. In this article commenced long ago, we look at how “tunnel vision” and “excessive focus” ruins politics, and implicitly, electorates who fail to censor the politicians who succumb to it.

In week-end-ul ce taman a trecut, o fundatie i-a invitat pe cei doi fosti presedinti (G. W. Bush si Bill Clinton) la o sezatoare in Toronto. Frank McKenna, fost ambasador canadian in US i-a moderat si regulat.

A recent “viral” video clip shows the Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis, moving the Union Jack (the UK flag), out of the way as he talks to reporters. This act of “elimination” is probably the least interesting of the ones discussed herein.

There’s a new kid with his bum closely fitting Dragnea’s hand and his name is Sorin Grindeanu. Iohannis accepted him and that has made him Prime Minister. How is he better than our odalisque, I don’t know – seriously, wouldn’t she have been much better?

Sriracha is a 'sauce piquante', SRI is the Romanian Secret Service, fall is autumn, and in Romanian "picant" could also be derived from 'to fall' which is 'a pica.' We look at the consecutive declarations of Romania’s president, an allied journalist and finally, the candidacies of other president-hopefuls, from the head of the Romanian Secret Service, Melescanu and to the former Justice Minister, Macovei. But most of all, the title is a tip of the hat to Vlad Petreanu and his excellent expose, with a title that translates roughly as “The [secret] Services Autumn.”

Ioan Pop, the priest with the All Saints Romanian Orthodox Church was just charged with sexual assault at church. Apparently, a woman barely escaped only after a couple walked in on what was going on.

If you follow Romanian news, you mustn’t have missed how Victor Ponta, the current Romanian prime-minister, leader of the most popular (and also crypto-communist) PSD party and the most likely winner of the upcoming presidential race, launched his candidacy, on his birthday, on a stadium.

(I’d place the last word of the title in quotation marks, but they’d get escaped, causing the title to look silly.) Recently, Francois Hollande, the French president who looks like a Mickey Mouse (not Victor Ponta, the real, trademarked one), allowed the press to take photos of him and his lover. I suspect the show is put on so that the French people can convince themselves that they still have a heterosexual president. "Is his lover a woman? Are you sure? Well, then we can keep drinking wine, eating cheese and live long!" Meanwhile, I'm annoyed as hell that a friend of mine won't (or pretends she does not) get my jokes.

It is almost painful to discuss the election results, chiefly because nothing is unexpected, most voters see a completely different reality than I do (or, if you will, they see the same thing but interpret it differently) and there is no way I can ever bridge this gap. Not only that, but it's virtually impossible to do so, even if I tried. I gave up trying long ago.

I was going to let this one pass, but the stink is still with me days after I got wind of it.

A more recent politico-artistico-philosophical scandal, far more interesting to me but, apparently, less interesting to the Romanian public, is the open conflict between Andrei Plesu, my favourite philosesseist, and the PSD cultural wing.

M-am izbit recent de cateva stiri economice ce merita discutate. Om generos, nu le-am putut tine numa’ pentru mine sau blogurile englezomane.

Though it may be unfair to extend the failure of the Romanian National Press Agency (Agerpres) and the Romanian External Affairs Ministry to an entire nation, let us not forget that part of their job is to represent the country. The recent faux-pas, confusing the French contours with the German one in a one-print commemorative brochure is, unfortunately, indicative of the dilettantism that has taken over the Romanian government.

The recent debate of Romanian politics in the European Parliament was the grotesque conclusion to this summer of our disco tent.

There are two issues I have not written about, though they’ve been on my mind and are quite troubling, from a consistency point of view: Sevil Shhaideh Saga and Kovesi’s plagiarism. The second can wait, but the first is quite important.

I noticed recently how the mere mention of Birchall, in a positive manner, by President Iohannis, has caused backlash in PSD and there is even talk of excluding her from that rapidly disintegrating party. One could say that he likes her, but is he just mouthing it? To me, this is symbolic of PNL encroaching in PSD’s home turf and, in some instances, replacing it.