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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.

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.

Hotnews has previously interviewed Romanian diaspora people, which we covered, and we have also been profiling others in the diaspora ourselves. This interview is somewhat new in that the interviewee is "returned" - and we expect to be many more like him in the coming years.

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.

I have recently read an opinion by some “journo” in a tabloid on how anonymous SIM cards should be sold no more (i.e., make them available only to those producing ID). I argue that the writing privileges of this person should be suspended.

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.

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.

The title means “Romanians vote anticorruption”, but then I realized that Romanians know what happened, it’s foreigners who might be more interested in what I have to say about it. I wish I could write a celebratory article, but I can't. Most Romanians who lined up seem to think that they are voting against corruption, but have they really?

As previously announced, I am presenting here the questions to ask euro candidates. I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to pose the questions, which is why I am posting them here, in the hope that someone else might help asking them and returning the answers.

The elections for the European Parliament are coming up soon, and this time around, I decided to ask all candidates a few questions and post their answers. But before sending these questions, it makes sense to look at the details, the first and most important being that the voting day is May 26 between 7:00 and 21:00, local time (EST) and there’s not voting by correspondence.

#WTA has recently confused #Romania anti-#corruption #rezist #protest with people coming out in the streets to welcome and congratulate Simona Halep in her recent Grand Slam triumph (gsp-tnr). It’s not only foreigners not getting what’s going on, but even some of those protesting.

In Romanian, “firea”, the articulated form of the noun fire, is part of many idioms. It is also the name of the current Bucharest Mayor, who recently had to shamefully backtrack on announcing the winner for a logo contest, due to a likely case of plagiarism. This fickle-mindedness seems to be common to her entire party, PSD, struggling as it is with the conflict between its deep desire to "forget and forgive" cases of corruption and the public commitments, forced by weeks or #rezist protests to the contrary.

I just had today, on WhatsApp, a conversation with a former classmate, who posted some photos from Baile Herculane (Herculean Baths? – a touristic destination from Roman times with geothermal springs). The situation is dire. I advised her rather strongly to fight, to which she countered with the refrain I constantly hear in this situations: “you are disconnected from the Romanian reality”.

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.

When discussing corruption, my view is that Romanian corruption is not much higher than elsewhere, when comparing apples to apples. It irks me to hear people who try to motivate their compatriots with calls to make “corruption” like and idyllic West, because in so doing, they prove they do not know much about the West (or they have misunderstood what they’ve learned), and are also selling short their own country.

Ion Tiriac, the richest former athlete in the world, had some choice words to say about the protest actions and as a result he is pilloried in the press. I can’t help feeling that he’s repeating what I’ve been saying.

After repeating what’s (still) irking me about #corruption and the way it’s tackled and perceived, I get to summarize the events of the past few days (since Executive Order / Ordinance 13) and provide you with my much unwanted and unneeded opinion.

Romania seems increasingly divided between the “bad teeth alliance”, pro-government and protesting against the president Iohannis, and a massive, more numerous, happily protesting dancing flash mob who won’t take “corruption is bullshit” for an answer. What irks me is that in the international media coverage, so much is lost in translation.