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#atatsaputut: As busy as one gets, occasionally there is the old "something wrong on the internets" feeling, and that was triggered by this Deutsche Welle free documentary about Romanian Roma kids begging on the streets of Paris as well as in the Parisian Metro (subway / tube) and how the French and Romanian authorities are dealing with it. Ca de obicei, versiunea in romana a acestui articol pe FataCarte.

It's not a lot, but “atat s-a putut”.

Our favorite former SF author, CTP, is back with another seemingly antiziganist or racist controversy, again on former PM and current PSD candidate for president, Dancila. He made fun of her family name etymology (likely Romani or Gypsy) and an anti-discrimination group / person entered the fray.

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.

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 just learned about two Romanian-Canadian people, mother and daughter Ana Constantin and Lisa Maria Paun being banned for life by Air Canada and left stranded without proper notice. This is not discrimination, just incredibly poor customer service and it’s an issue almost all of us have to deal with every time we fly.

In a significant development, the full transcript of the 112 calls by the last victim, Alexandra Măceșanu, has been published. It is unclear to me if these are the official transcripts or rather what some of those who have listened may have remembered or clandestinely recorded. I do not expect that the official transcripts are any different and I am publishing them along with the censured victim-blaming comments made in 2010 by Tudorel Butoi, who continues to provide his “expert opinion” in TV shows.

I recently learned some interesting facts from a follow-up (by a Romanian news outfit) on the “Romanian Government attack” on the corrupt Adamescu family who is “not showing off” and it reminds me of a joke with Ivan, the American Spy.

Based on my mistaken belief that there may be people reading this, I go ahead with my recommendations, after the intro and Asia. PISA is not just a set of tests, it comes with suggestions and recommendations.

The results of the latest PISA testing have come out. Will I manage to write about the educational styles in Canada (which is 4th, tied with Finland, after Singapore, Japan and Estonia) and Romania (48th out of 70)?

About two months ago, Maftei, my math teacher in high school, has passed away (fb-maftei). I felt sorry, and that’s why the expression he used to invite us to the blackboard (“iesi pe straße” or “come out on the straße/street”) found its way in the title of this article, which is about the high-school physics teacher Sever Iosif Georgescu and his (or his kids’?) attempts to erase the negative events of his past. This is the third installment in the Georgescu, Iosif SEVER saga:

There was a time when women were dreaming of a “knight in shining armour” but a steady decline in the prestige of shiny things coupled with a long set of economic crises have put an end to those romantic times. Today women seem to want a man who’ll pay and they rely on the State for protection and Facebook and/or Twitter for DIY reputation management (aka PR). A recent article on dating and paying for it (ctch-tspr) reopened a long-forgotten subject, a subject I haven't attacked in a while (since between 12 and 12-B, to be exact), despite a desire and even a plan to do so.

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.

The video of Dr Simona Tibu's arrest and assault has recently been released (cbc-video), after a protracted legal battle. What is debatable is to what extent is this a case of police brutality / use of unnecessary and excessive force, or white female entitlement.

The stuff I haven't told you yet about Anaughtia (see previous and still unfinished, at this time, article) is on my mind, fighting its way into a sequel. But it will be a while. There are other stories for other blogs that also searching for a way out of my head. Until then, a somewhat easier subject, on Sweden.

Feeling that the previous article, on how I can help you with your misunderstandings or simply to better understand certain concepts you may be unfamiliar with, was incomplete, I added a few more clauses, mostly having to do with a money-back guarantee and also describing my first attempts at implementing the I'm from DACIA answer.

This could very well be a paid post, but it's not (unless you consider a free concert and a couple of Pepsi bottles as 'payment'). I was just passing by their tent and the music caught my ear; I enjoyed it while watching a cover of Talking Heads (Psycho Killer). All in all, a great opportunity to reminisce on what Pepsi meant in my childhood.

Now that the European results are known and Euroscepticism discussed, after a short detour through Canadian visas for Romanians, we will finally take a look at the Romanian politics.

Today I met another European woman. Originally from Spain, she told me she worked in the Czech Republic for a while as a translator. Upon learning I'm Romanian, she also felt the need to share with me that there were "a lot of Romanians" in the Czech Republic who wanted to come to Canada but couldn't, because there is no visa treaty. When I told her that there were some problems here with Czech Roma getting visa through fraud and the visa had been suspended, her reaction was to remove her Czech work experience from her resume, out of fear that “Czechs now had a bad name.”

I suspect there is a 'TestVote' application for each member country of the EU. I decided to follow my own recommendation from Romanian MEP elections in Toronto and go through this, just before voting. Since there is very likely an English one in existence, and the English vote has already concluded, this article has the questions left in original, in Romanian.

Este donatia unei operatii de chirurgie plastica un act de emancipare sau o exploatare patriarhala a unei copile naive? Sunt femeile asuprite in Occident si daca da, de catre cine? Nu pot sa nu-mi amintesc o scena cu Bamo, cand stateam “La Mama” cu el si alti chirurgi plastici colegi la o masa, si prietenele lor se laudau cu cate operatii aveau la activ.

Using recent examples of discrimination against Romanian [most likely] Gypsies, I am arguing that Europe should give Gypsies the same cross-border roaming rights North America has given its First Nations.