Showing posts with label vise - implinire - belsug. Show all posts

There was a recent showdown in Oscars documentaries between Colectiv and My Octopus Teacher. I rooted for Collective and it reminded me of a long running Italian TV series from my childhood, La Piovra. Caracatita a castigat si traducerea in romana pe FataCarte.

There are many ways, these days, to celebrate April Fools Day. I'm going to share with you a James Joyce poem along with the story of having sent it. (If you’re looking for a more conventional April Fools celebration, check out 2009.)

A few weeks ago we celebrated 30 years (10x3 years, man!). A lot of documentaries and retrospectives and I hardly kept up with them. But I did watch a few and learned (or refreshed my memory with) facts I either did not know or had forgotten. I will first list, and then, time-permitting, summarize them.

Recently, a new candidate for Romanian presidency, Alexandru Cumpanasu, has finally undergone more media scrutiny after having had to make some candidacy-related disclosures. We look into some of the claims made by this individual (whom we strongly dislike) and track down the most likely “university” he is attending, linked below in sources.

@BAndreescu_ (#BiancaAndreescu, ofc) catapulted herself so fast to stardom that I am having difficulties forming a mental picture of her. And so are most of her new fans, attracted to her rising star like loving insects to the blinding light. I’ll be giving you 3 reasons, not counting the intro, but if you can only remember / have time for one, remember creative visualization.

A former CNSS (Sf Sava National College / High School) classmate sent me a link to an article about Horia Constantinescu (curi-interlop), asking me if I remember this guy being in our class. In Romanian, “interlop” is used to mean shady/criminal while in English it means “unwanted, persona non grata”.

I should’ve written “Guten Abend” instead of “buna seara”, but I don’t mean to torture my readers more than necessary. I’ve recently learned about Ion Caramitru’s prodigal son Andrei having returned from Switzerland (bmr-icstory), much like the older Ion Ratiu, to give Romanians Nestle candies in exchange for votes.

While I am naturally a bit upset by the multiple levels of irony in this story, I have to admit I'm also quite irritated and disappointed. It appears that the German police has actively engaged in ethnic profiling at the Saxony Highfield festival, reported in the German press as "racial profiling", most likely because of the Gypsy/Roma/Romanian Confusion. Let us consider this news together with a few more concerning the diaspora.

In a recently published article on Euronews (en-roadfat), Alice Tidey asks the question where in Europe are roads deadliest; the answer is posted even before the question: Romania. We decipher a recent “ProTV News” news segment (spt-victime) where Titi Aur, a “defensive driving instructor”, reveals a deeply seated murderous misunderstanding in terms of the rules of the road, a misunderstanding that he shares.

I pity the politicians who want to do something good. They can’t clickbait their laws. For instance, the measure to tax sugary stuff can and should be called an anti-aging tax or, in Romanian, “contributia pentru o tinerete fara batranete si-o veatza fara de moarte”.

Unlike most of my Romanian friends, who are angered by the details of the 112/police (EMS) response to Alexandra Macesanu’s increasingly desperate calls, I am far more upset by police colonel, university professor and forensic psychologist Tudorel Badea Butoi-Severin and the inconsequential censure by CNCD following his deeply offensive, misogynistic, victim-blaming comments. I believe that the hostility and inadequacy of the police response is rooted in the attitude that Prof Butoi has expressed and this bigotry is the root cause of police inaction and incompetence.

I keep reading about Romanian Police incompetence and I can tell you that I’ve seen far worse here in Toronto. I learned about former cop and current “forensic psychologist” Butoi telling us why a living girl’s carbonized remains ended up in a barrel (cf Romanian “butoi”). And beyond all these facts, inadequacies and incompetence, the question we want to answer even though we know we can’t is why?

This blog has a Romanian Diaspora focus, so it’s only natural to go through the diaspora news. But our diaspora is everywhere (much like protochronist Dacians), and some have even returned, while some feel “exiled” in their own country, so we’re not going to discriminate. Especially since we keep hearing bad things about Dinamo, one of the 3 major “national” soccer teams while I was growing up.

A while back, I was having an argument (well, it’s more like I was trying to have a conversation with my designated troll, banned since) about the downside of population decline (PD). He demanded to know why is it bad (which is what I was trying to say) and I thought I provided some studies, but while searching, I was unsatisfied with the quality of the studies I had found. (The title term refers mostly to economy (i.e., population drops below the level required to carry the economy or more specifically old age pensions) whereas PD refers to demographics.) Since then, I’ve found a bit more so here it is.

I wasn’t planning to write about this game, even though it impressed me and it’s the biggest victory in Romanian tennis. But my Internet is off right now, it will take a while to restore and between writing this article and playing some silly games, writing wins.

Is it fair to give special incentive to the diaspora to return home? Doesn’t that encourage more to leave only to get the money on coming back?

I haven’t quite followed the morbidly insane “family coalition” initiative (w-coalitia), in all its pathology, but I recently discovered how some UniBuc prof has been using everything, including the Hamangia / Cernavoda sculptures for his fascist crusade against gays. And likely, from the same deep vein of christo-fascism, the nebulous coalition has managed (or is about) to pass a law to stick more Christianity into people’s faces under the guise of celebrating Brancoveanu Constantin, boier vechi si domn crestin (old boyar and Christian voivode).

Let us explore and make a bit of historical fun of the announcement of Louis CK stepping on Cage’s path, in Romania – a story that may be false and could possibly be fake. Most importantly, CK stands for a Hungarian name, which is why my Romanian compadres might worry that they are being invaded by the Great Hungarian Junta using Louis as a Trojan condom. 

In the past few days, most of the Romanians I know received two important gifts: PSD didn’t win the elections and Dragnea, its [widely considered] corrupt boss, was sentenced to jail and went there shortly thereafter. Though I’m not a Dragnea/PSD fan, I find the celebrations a bit empty. What bugs me is that only one candidate answered my questions re: #EP2019, and I fear that the vast majority of voters never tried to clarify the programme of the candidates they voted for, nor have they tried to interact with them. Let's try to find reasons.

I try to make sense of who voted for whom in this election, and especially who voted for PNL. Surprisingly for me, PNL managed to attract a majority of women / rural / “unoccupied” voters.