Mocking democracy [The politics of blowing up... everyone]

I guess democracy shows its value when it falls to the hands of a couple of hundreds Romanian MPs. The last one coming from Romanian "democratic" politicians gathered in the House of Thieves is this: they have dictated that for the May 19th [Orthodox Saint Patrick, which happens to be the family name of one of the most controversial Moguls pulling strings in Romanian politics] referendum the president cannot have TV and radio time for campaign, unless a party gives him its time. Marvelous, isn't it?
I bet no Western democracy could devise a hot trick like that: you have to vote for the president's fall or comeback, but the campaign shall be sustained by parties! "Incidentally," most of them [in fact, all but one, relatively poor represented in the House - o Thieves, yes] having the president as the public enemy no. 1. No president allowed! Ceausescu seems a little child. He would have had a decree for that. Of course, if it weren't his case. From now on, Romania is governed by a democratically elected junta.

I apologize for naming the Romanian Parliament "the House of Thieves." Hope that no honorable thief, looting small potatoes and some milk for the little one, will chase me for that. I would have called it "the House of Grand Larcenists," but - alas! - they need translation for such complicated terms.

Schwerer Kampf

Hard fight, indeed, but not only between the president and his personal enemies. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published an article signed by Karl-Peter Schwarz, "Die Kleptokraten putschen" ["The Putsch of the Cleptocrats"] [Awkwardly enough, the word "Putsch" comes from German, but is so well suited to Romanian political scene - and history, too - that one would think the Germans have stolen it from us!] Anyway, the author made a couple of very insightful observations on Romanian politics, and on the recent events. The language may be a little strong, but remains softly compared with the harshness of Romanian editorialists. The only problems seems to be that of the target [or at least the target most people think of - the opposing group of 322].

A couple of Romanian newspapers have taken excerpts from the article, and published the translation in their electronic editions. Of course, the most important one, the one comprising the sour conclusion of the author, was omitted. Readers' comments were, as usual, split; one may remember the issue of making propaganda in the newspapers' forums, thrown in the media as being liberals' operation. Well, the social-democrats and others aren't absolved neither, even if the media stood still after a couple of articles. Actually, it is hard to believe that more than a dozen of percents of the posts on Romanian newspapers' forums come from the honest readers. Mostly there are curses and filthy accusation thrown at "the enemy."

But the beauty comes only now. They've made it! They subscribed to FAZ, and now the fight goes ahead. In German, this time. Playing as German readers, or emigrated Romanians, some of them started their dirty job there. With the same old accusation from home. Isn't funny?

19...

of May. It is the date of the referendum over President's dismissal. The next step will be that of modifying the law, so that even a small number of votes should suffice for sending the president home for good. In all this turmoil there's a good thing: people shall be occupied with the "political crisis", doing nothing else. Which is very good, given that when they do something, it is more often than not a bad thing.
[A friend called me several days ago, asking me to join an instant gathering for sustaining the freshly demitted president. I told her, "No, thanks, I'm at the library, and I'm doing fine." "Well, do you prefer this crisis situation to last?" "What crisis? I was in the library all day, and - I swear - there's no crisis here!"]

Who killed at Virginia Tech?

In an insteresting article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Gary Lavergne says, "More than four dozen innocent people were gunned down by a murderer who is completely responsible for what happened. No one died for lack of text messages or an alarm system. They died of gunshot wounds." And, "(...) as long as we value living in a free society, we will be vulnerable to those who do harm -- because they want to and know how to do it."

Well, it's true that gun shots killed people there, but here we have a little trick. Even if they would have been protected by alarm systems, the death cause wouldn't by different. It is far from appropriate to put in the same balance two different things on scale of events. But the two phrases above rise the question: Wouldn't be better to have a more equitable distributed system of protection? I mean, yes, some guy may be angry on some class mates, a little deranged, doped, or with who knows how much alcohol on board. But why he doesn't go in the Parliament, or in the local police office, or even on the street? I think the most accurate answer is that in other cases the risks to be stopped (sometimes even before to begin your "revenge") are bigger. Opposing these risks we find those of getting in a university campus or in a high school. And with that it should start any discourse on this subject.

The Beauties of Democracy

We have a new president: the president of the Senate. The dullest man on Romanian politics. One who couldn't win a seat, not even in a local council, if he wouldn't have been put on list by his party. The elected president was demitted by 322 guys like him, all MPs. Isn't democracy beautiful?!

The Ramshackle Country

One month before the elections for the European Parliament, and all the media discourse targets the conflict between the toughest men of the country (one weaker than another) and the parliamentary games for keeping the Govern alive. The newest sidewalks look worse than the oldest ones in many countries of Europe. The Govern pays about 1,000 euro for each ramshackle automobile switched with a new one (being it Audi or Mercedes). The citizens make barbecues parties, even in graveyards, leaving behind seas of waste. The cigarettes, the energy, the railways tickets, and just about any little thing you buy often have new prices, higher than the old ones. The inflation is going down. The US dollar does the same (which means that in US dollars prices are much higher, every day). We cannot go in Sweden without a passport. The red on the traffic-lights is green for everyone (driver or pedestrian) who wants that. For a little holiday everyone recommends you the Bulgarian seashore. Cheers!

Happy Easter Romanians, wherever you are!

Paşte Fericit! Frohe Ostern! Joyeuses Pâques! Srećan Uskrs! Bona Pasqua! Páscoa Feliz! Kaló Páskha! Kellemes Húsvéti Ünnepeket! S prazdinkom Pasxi! God Påske!

That’s because the 23 languages accepted by the European Commission felt under our hands. Thanks god it’s only the languages. Yeah, I know, many of the above languages aren’t EU’s, but it’s enough, I guess, for all Romanians from abroad. By the way, more than 90% of the Romanian newspapers and magazines on the internet are written in a strange language, to which you have to mentally add diacritical marks in order to read it correct. Otherwise you can take “face” as “daughter,” “Easter” as “pasta,” etc. Almost all official documents, even those issued by Romanian Parliament and the Justice Courts are written in the same way. Romanian literacy in electronic text editing is a scarce resource nowadays.

But let’s see where we are…

The people are on the streets, markets, and hypermarkets. God knows where they are rushing, and why they buy everything’s on sale.

The good old and brand new prime minister is fighting with the president, being prepared to make an alliance with whoever promises some help for that. Aside, he’s fighting to maintain the tax for imported second-hand cars, which can lead to less money for Renault (indigenous producer!!!) and his own affairs (almost all his money come from importing new cars), whether in his property or not. He says that isn’t good to transform Romania in a junkyard. As if one can compare a 100,000 km Mercedes from Germany, which is still a car, with a 250,000 km “tin can” Dacia, which should be named rather motorized wagon. There are herds of Dacia, all over the place. As if Romania isn’t already a junkyard for cheap, plastic textiles, or every other merchandise not allowed by civilized countries, but “good for us.”

The legislative flock is occupied striving against the same president who’s the nightmare of the prime minister. In this time, all the awkward laws and norms from Europe seems to have found the best place to be enforced: Romania.

The media in its turn is occupied with the political war, crisis or whatever the journalists call it. Each newspaper or TV channel points the finger against the personal enemy of the owner, who becomes for weeks “the first public enemy.” To be more attractive, it envelops the finger in the outstanding deeds of the local or international stars. Recently the limousine of an idiotic character was bumped in an intersection in Bucharest, getting a media coverage bigger than all other traffic news of the week.

The education minister wants to build campuses; the former one bought new vans to transport the children from isolated villages to school. And so, we have an overall investment progress. The education is doing well. So well that in many high schools the main occupation of teachers is exchanging pickles recipes, while the students pay for personal preparations, with the higher level of disinterest ever, most of them waiting just to get the hell out of the school. In colleges there is a more feverish activity: most of the undergrad students are hunting reasonable marks, involving in this effort the entire arsenal they can get: copying from the internet or from colleagues (at exams). There are many cases in which they can get the exams with money.

The health minister is the best. All he cares about is reforming. The reform goes so well that you should be happy if he gets alive from the hospital, with no more than one new infection, other that the hospitalization reason. The doctors are fleeing abroad, as well as the nurses. The older population spends days every month to get the “free” medicines, from which half they don’t even need. But it’s “free”!

And so on… But the people are happy here. They continue cracking the walls for getting nicer houses (most of them in blocks that one could expect to fall down every minute, without any earthquake help), they walk through the alley filled with human, feline and canine pooh, cross the street without taking in consideration the traffic light is red or green (the drivers don’t care either, so, why bother?) and, above all, they cherish the liberty. The liberty to bump into each other, to yell curses, and to get rid of things, all over the place: on the sidewalks, and on any cavity. They throw and stick paper napkins and handkerchiefs, chewing gum, plastic bags, food remains, flower sun seeds shells and all such unnecessary stuff. After that they spit. Satisfaction guaranteed!

But there’s a bright side every time. You can cross the border easier. The official statistics say that around 2,000,000 Romanians are abroad. Methinks that is a gross underestimation. From the village where my mother lives, even the priest fled in Spain. In every fifth house there’s at least one man or one woman gone in Spain or Italy. They are called “the strawberryers,” and probably there are six or more millions of them, not only for picking strawberries (that’s the origin of the name), but for other works too: studying, driving, building, cleaning, taking care of babies and grandmas, programming computers, etc. Happy Easter for all!