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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.

Duolingo (invite) sent me a new report placing me in top 1% users, which is a great opportunity to once again look at Romanian radio drama or theatre or teatru radiofonic. Traducere in romana in curand pe pagina de fatacarte Zamolxis.

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.

I happened to be in the area so I decided to pay the consulate a visit, not expecting to be able to vote, but hoping to learn more info about my programmed visit for my passport renewal. I didn't waste a lot of time, but in typical Romanian fashion, someone managed to use my time with info that is likely useless.

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.

In a recent post on his Facebook page, Raed Arafat, the Romanian EMS SMURDfather, complains that SMURD teams on the beach should not be expected to save people from drowning. As a Canadian-trained (RLSSC) lifeguard (salvamar), that strikes me as odd.

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.

Recent news (about how more than half of “followers” for “influencers” are fake) reminded me of a network of twitter accounts that seems to exist solely for attacking anyone criticizing Genie Bouchard. These “shadows of a real person” are somewhat darker than the shadow of what Eugenie Bouchard could have been, had she not been influenced by an inner circle that seems to treasure appearances at the expense of true achievement.

I’ve just read a piece of news that angered me a great deal as it smelled fake, but as I looked into it, I did not find the clear rebuttal I expected. It’s based on an obscure survey question that had not been reported in the media and now is fodder for fake news sites. The title is based on an 80s Italian song which roughly means “rogue nostalgia”, combined with the Romanian spelling of the word that stands for “rogue”, which, in the latter language stands for an insult, meaning “scoundrel, villain, miscreant”. 

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.

Recently, a friend asked me to provide Romanian lessons. I directed her to Duolingo (invite) and, as I occasionally listen to Romanian eTeatru (or “teatru radiofonic”), it occurred to me that this is something worth sharing with the rest of the world.

I watched it a few days ago and promised myself I’ll write down my thoughts before this forgettable creation disappears from memory. On the plus side, I identified a Romanian actress in it.

One thing about population in Romania that we can all agree on is that it is in free fall. A recent article has revealed to me that, supposedly, the number of Romanians moving out of the city and into the country side is greater than the number of Romanians moving into the city.

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).

I am beginning to see the limits of my enforced-positivity in terms of absorbing and interpreting the current political events. Yet the political situation in Romania is remarkably similar to what’s happening in USA.

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.

When friends ask me about immigrating to Canada, my first answer is always DON’T!. However, though I’ve already written about this in the past, I have yet do so in English, so I’ll do so here, especially since yesterday I answered another reader.

After briefly going through the just-published PISA 2015 results, here we expand on our knowledge of the top-performing Asian countries, which share some important characteristics.

It’s been a while since we haven’t talked about poverty in Romania and solutions. A recent “debate” caused by an over-the-top article on not giving money to the poor gives us a chance to look at it again and also address our reticence with BDSM practices.

I have in the past voted for the (former) President Basescu and even raised to his defence (more or less) when he was accused of slapping an impertinent child. Yet his latest display of inconsistency is more than I can bear.