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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.

@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.

The most important debating tournament in Romania took place at the “Mihai Viteazu” high-school and the reporter summarized a debate with a BIRT on whether the Romanian government should provide reparations to the Roma community for the Holocaust. This is worth a discussion.

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”.

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.

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?

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?

#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.

Romania is once again going through some convulsive protests and it's fun checking out how they are seen on the dark side. I started with Mircea Badea, about whom I’ve written extensively in the past (Romania’s Glenn Beck, censured).

Whenever I talk to Romanians who want to come to Canada and I answer questions, I always end up being a bit upset. I find that people ask me too many simple questions they could answer themselves with Google and too few of the “important” questions. Maybe there’s a guru hiding inside of me, and here’s where I set him free.

Having recently come back from a trip to Calgary, a friend of mine was showing me beautiful photos of a snowy mountain, with real pine forests covered by snow, which all conjured up in my mind the image of the ski camp where I used to spend all of my winter holiday, and more, all throughout my school years in Romania.

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.

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.

I recently got an article from our very own Blegoo, who wanted to see his thoughts published and critiqued around here. It required serious formatting, but I thought it’s a free service I can provide to the second highest commenter (in terms of quantity) on this blog. My comments will be highlighted inline and concentrated at the end. 

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.

More than two years have passed since my last Poc-Rrrom (III) and today, inspired by a story I've just read, I've decided I'll go through with this one.

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.

I have a ton of things to do so that I can leave. However, part of the preparation is to look through local stuff and one such thing is this. The theft of a tablet in a small town, used subsequently to publish photos of the new owner, is a good opportunity to explore questions about policing, bias, antiziganism / racism and herd mentality.

This having been started as a Romanian blog, I first wrote what to do in Amsterdam when you’re alive in Romanian, with a friend, as an exquisite corpse. Recently, I met yet another Dutch girl who gave me more than one smile, so in return, I figured I'd give the world the translated version.

Quite a few people are (or were back in September, but it takes a while for local news to cross the Atlantic) appalled that Alexandru Arsinel, an aging and beloved Romanian actor, has supposedly bribed doctors (or used his fame) to jump the queue for a new kidney. But isn’t the outrage itself somewhat outrageous?