Notes From A Tunnel

Transfer...

2011-10-08T18:46:00.004+01:00

Somewhat less pensative times, as most of the time and energy is now transferred towards establishing an internet presence for Aquasport.

So the blog is coming along nicely, of course the crux of it will be continuous flow of content. Let's see how that goes.

But it's building up here ... and let's hope there'll be plenty of successes, too, to report there.

From zero to gold & silver

2011-09-13T17:00:00.002+01:00

During the current build-up to the 2012 London Olympics, one finds it impossible not to resonate with (or even seek out) stories on emerging sport talents whose future promises to be bright - if not necessarily by, but certainly beyond, 2012.

Recently I had the opportunity to closely witness the unusual story of a youth water polo team in a remote corner of Europe... A story about a start from absolute zero, resurrecting a sport after twenty-odd years of complete destruction, fighting local financial and administrative difficulties, and achieving in just two years something remarkable. Their recent past and present revealed a number of aspects that transcend geographical specifics and started to transcend also the material aspects of the equation that faced the coach & the kids when they started out.

Their career, in the club called Aquasport, started merely two years ago in the town of Targu Mures, in Transylvania, Romania. The sport had a hugely successful past in the city up until the 1989 Revolution. After the changes, the last 20-odd years have been marked by a total destruction of the sport, one could witness the former training bases fallen into total (and literal) ruin due to lack of interest & investment from the new circles of power who were and are disconnected with the pre-1990 history of the city.

Most of the internationally noted talent emigrated or given up completely any hope of keeping the sport alive in that city. Nothing is more symbolic of the last two decades than the disintegrating ruins of the 50m outdoors pool, which was once the place of two daily training sessions and countless matches during the summer months (see photo report here). Whilst there are several outdoors and indoors pools in the town, their owners for decades refused to allow the necessary training access to the new facilities.

However, a former international water polo player turned coach, Csaba Gagyi, returned from abroad and established a youth water polo club called Aquasport, attempting the impossible: bringing back from literally zero the once hugely popular and successful sport. The road was extremely bumpy to say the least, lack of funding was just a part of their problems, as the lack of support from new administration was in a way hitting them even harder.

For example, gaining access to one of the many indoors pools from autumn to spring has proven to be impossible in the past - and was only solved very recently by an amicable offer from the local University sports association. Access to an outdoors pool in the mornings and evenings was gained after much effort, attracting eventually the good will of the city’s Mayor. Donations were received from here and there, so they could buy equipment and fund their travel to competitions. A youth water polo club in Oradea, a city where the lethal discontinuity of the sport didn’t occur, offered help with what we could call an exchange program, training together, visiting their facilities and gaining match experience.

The real story then is what they achieved under these circumstances with the twenty-odd teenagers who joined the club. In just two years, the players born in 1995 and 1996 have managed to bring home in August 2011 the prestigious Turbo Cup from Szentes, Hungary, having won every match in this major Olympic Hopes water polo tournament that gathered more than fifty teams from around the world. The little ones, born in 1997-1998, reached 4th place in their age group, which was also a huge achievement for the young club.

Right after this, in early September they brought home a silver medal from Slovenski Waterpolo international tournament, only being beaten 11-12 in the final, when played against the mighty Honved Budapest's youth team.

It will be probably very hard for the lads to get used to everyday school routine after such a summer. One thing they will have to do certainly is getting up again at 5AM every morning, so that they can train before school starts. However, following the story emerging in what was my hometown many years ago, having witnessed the total destruction of that sport in the period 1990-2009, I have to share some of the thrill.

Whilst I follow the Olympics build-up that is filled with optimism and fuels dreams (or at least nostalgia) in any person of any age, it occurs to me that one day I might return to that city and watch amazing water polo being played again, as I remember watching it every summer of my childhood and adolescence. However, this is just a purely personal note.

Going back to that pre- and post-2012 context, having seen such stories as the one above, I firmly believe that whilst it is very important to discuss the tangible and material issues surrounding sports facilities, funding, discovery of local talent, the selfless ambition and determination in all involved parties remains a key ingredient even in a very material world - especially when faced with intimidating obstacles and initially debilitating ignorance on a seemingly impossible journey.

Their gradually emerging Facebook page is here.

So one can only say, best of luck to them and hopefully with their continuous recent successes, they will attract enough attention from officialdom to ensure their smooth training and access to all the needed facilities.

Feedback loops

2011-07-29T12:45:00.004+01:00

The furore around the phone hacking scandal that engulfed the Murdoch empire continues relentlessly in the UK. Certainly, it's the biggest media scandal of recent decades.

However, whilst revelations about senior police officials, media, former and current Government officials continue, whilst top resignations go on and on (today even the head of the Press Complaints Commission exited), one has to reflect on another aspect of this whole mess.

The very fact that Rupert Murdoch was worshiped for decades in the UK, to such an extent that top politicians lined up to gain access to him, purely shows that his media empire, and media in general, had huge power that could make or break top personalities and their futures. It could create and destroy votes, could alter the course of British politics.

How it got to that stage, that's another story. The fact remains, that Murdoch ended up pretty much running the show on occasion, or at least key acts of some shows, as all the new facts revealed. Ultimately, we, the readers and consumers of his media empire created this power.

Considering the media in Romania, it leads to yet another reflection.

Yes, that media has some power - but usually it makes rather than breaks politicians. It can manipulate fantastically successfully, as even recent non-political hysteria around the Fukushima story showed. It can create votes via that manipulation, but we are yet to see the Romanian media breaking a top politician.

It may publish some shocking facts on shocking corruption, but even when there is real-time footage about some despicable character, what really are the negative tangible effects? There are none.

At most, the National Department for Anti-corruption picks something up. But usually they bow to political pressures (as recently showed, mafiosi robbing the country blind to the count of few billion euros could make this department investigate a senator about some tens of thousands of euros of alleged 'commerce of interest and influence'). Or they uncover things that are far from being triggered by media investigations.

The fact remains, yes, there was extremely powerful positive feedback loop between Murdoch's empire and British politics & business circles. But there was also a mighty negative feedback loop there. Hence the primordial fear that British power figures had and tried to stay in Murdoch's good books.

That negative feedback loop simply does not exist in Romania. There is free press, and press that can be used for political manipulation - but we are yet to see that power (good or bad) that some other countries have witnessed when confronted with certain media moguls.

Insanity

2011-07-26T09:16:00.004+01:00

The recent events in Norway triggered plethora of discussions, to put it mildly. One has to reflect on the realities of organised and dis-organised evil, which always surprises with newer and newer manifestations.

Some of the polemic is deeply troubling, though. As a recent BBC discussion highlighted, we very clearly label certain manifestations of certain evils as terrorism and planned acts of individual or well-organised groups of terrorists. However, when something like this double Norwegian attack happens, we speak of... insanity. Madness and acts of madness.

If we look at cold, calculated, politically motivated evil, then history provides innumerable examples. And some of us have lived through some of those examples. If we stick to the last decades of the 20th century, we had plenty of small- and large-scale examples of such evil.

Those were not acts of insanity. And the acts of this terrorist, let's call a spade a spade, in Norway are also not acts of insanity.

He is profoundly motivated politically. He acted with spine-chilling lucidity and felt that executing perfectly innocent people in great numbers was perfectly acceptable as a means of political action.

To call him insane or mad, with the same promptness and ease with which we called all other bombers and assassins terrorists and extremists, is an easy, very easy path. Easy for us, easy for posterity.

We can not write off this pure evil as a sudden act of a madman. Asking the questions on what is the underlying though process that makes a person think: such acts are acceptable for achieving his goal, is a much more difficult process.

Like many terrorists, dictators, abusers of power, radicalised extremists, he carefully and lucidly planned all his acts over a long period of time. Madness was not the key force at work here.

Just because we can't pin the articles easily to an existing board of familiar terrorist patterns, it doesn't mean that it's an outlier for the bin marked 'acts of inexplicable madness'.

And then we have a bigger problem than classification. We need to look how in our 'free' world, political views can end up so radicalised, that regardless of age, gender, education, social background and geography, people can become monsters. Monsters who, as in this case, too, label their own acts 'necessary'.

So... please, let's not view him as mad. 'Mad' is a fantastically easy way out, that allows us to close the lid on that bin crowded with so many despots, extremists and political figures.

Power?

2011-05-22T16:06:00.002+01:00

A few days ago Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist whose astounding installation could recently be viewed in Tate Modern, was finally allowed to see family.

I say finally, as he disappeared for over a month, being detained by Chinese police and his family was worried whether his health has taken a downturn in the hands of the authorities...

Now there are news about tax evasion and other such reasons that apparently triggered his arrest and vanishing in the labyrinth of Chinese retaliation.

However, as a renowned artist who was and is deeply critical of the Chinese regime, he was a painful thorn that kept pricking the mighty monster.

And as usual, a seemingly all-powerful regime that flaunted its often delusional, but even more often real, might is so paranoid that is afraid of an artist.

It is perhaps the sharpest contrast between the loud arrogant discourse of such regimes and their tragicomic fear of a single person who has international voice.

Of course all such regimes spent decades retaliating against dissident artists, but when a giant like China does it, then this contrast is phenomenal.

One wonders what the ultra-paranoid China has to be afraid of - but whilst this communist giant takes on openly the US Government and international condemnations, it suppresses artists because somehow this giant feels so threatened by a handful of brave voices.

One would in a way wish, for the benefit of all the persecuted artists among who Weiwei is just a recent name, that China would really live up to its arrogant megalomaniacal rhetoric - and let the dissident voices reverberate internationally as if they were nothing to fear from.

But none of these regimes ever displayed true might - instead, their bloody hands (or tentacles?) trembled every time a little and brave individual opened his or her mouth in criticism.

Justice

2011-05-04T17:30:00.003+01:00

Some hyper-busy times, but recent 'termination' of Osama Bin Laden prompted another overdue entry here...

As someone put it, after World War II, the Nuremberg trial was there to show that civilisation prevails over barbaric violence. Emotions may have demanded violent retaliations, but reason demanded a process by which the victors show that they are above such methods.

It is interesting then to hear how Obama used the word 'justice'. Presumably with capital 'j'.

If we remove again what emotions dictate, can we call a summary execution-style killing of the 'embodiment of evil' a process by which justice was served?

Yes it is a closure for many. It is a certain and quick end to ten years of uncertainties (let's remove the conspiracy theories about Bin Laden being still alive... Occam's razor is very effective, as with most such theories, to make that cut).

But... justice? as defined by the Western civilisation's norms that we say we uphold? against which we compare the barbaric but calculated evil of such terrorist masterminds and their accolades?

Certain dictator were also executed, some, like Ceausescu and his wife, after a summary 'trial'. Latter case had an element of 'justice' in the sense of a short mock trial having preceded the executions.

But... one, still with cold reason and removing emotions, can not find 'justice' in what happened to Bin Laden. No matter how 'satisfying' the end of this most wanted man was/is.

Bush used the words 'holy war' and gosh, what a blunder that was. Obama used 'justice', and whilst it is not such a spectacular semantic disaster, it is regrettable.

Triggers

2011-03-14T19:00:00.005Z

It is usually very interesting what certain events trigger in a country's press, and, when you have the (mis)fortune to see direct comments from people, also in the mind of the everyday person.

The recent disaster that hit Japan is no exception. The Romanian press has been covering it extensively, but there are, even for such an unprecedented event, typically Romanian after-shocks.

For example, one of the major national papers, Evenimentul Zilei, has published an online article with a headline which literally stated: "New explosion at Fukushima power plant. 5000 estimated dead". Now reading the article, it slowly became obvious that the statistics on casualties were the overall estimated figures on the entire disaster, and not specifically for the nuclear reactor explosion.

The headline caused, thankfully, so many outraged comments and phone calls to the sensationalist paper, that they quickly changed the headline.

But what was perhaps most interesting, and deeply disturbing, well, a high priest of the Romanian Orthodox church has today declared in the national press:

- The disaster is a warning for us, it shows what happens when we turn away from God. (Implication being: the Japanese somehow turned away from God... and hence the punishment. It is pointless to analyse the early medieval logic here, one would ask: surely, which God? and how can a very public figure make such an ignorant and deeply insulting statement, essentially judging the victims and the survivors, who are going through desperate times none of us can possibly imagine).

- The disaster is also a punishment for turning away from Nature. He followed by stating that in the Balkans, there is still a deep respect for Nature and the peasant, when cuts a tree, prays for God to forgive him. (Apart from the early medieval schmaltz at work here, would also then conclude that he implies: Japanese don't respect Nature... and also, that Romanians, who massacred all their natural resources, where most villages and cities are traumatising examples of how nature was destroyed in the name of the fast profit after the 'freedoms' were gained, somehow these Romanians worship and respect Nature and certainly more so than the Japanese).

It is simply breathtaking, also to read the comments to such emanations of utter bigotry. And of course, such people should first find out a few very fundamental facts about Japanese culture, their remarkable ways in which they integrate the most modern technological and environmental elements with nature, how they also integrate various systems of faith in a sometimes exemplary ecumenical thought system, how they combine and respect both ancient and ultra-modern... how they relate to their fellow human beings and to the environment around them. To make a comparison, from withing the borders of Romania, even if not a shockingly ignorant one as the certain high priest did, is just grotesque at best.

It is revolting, insulting, traumatising on so many levels, logical, emotional, rational and sentimental, that one can't even begin to make a lucid analysis of something so irrational.

It is remarkable how a figure like this can vent his bigotry in major national papers of a 21st century country. But the comments to various articles, including this one, suggest that he does have audience.

In a somewhat tragicomic and desperately bigoted comment, one person wrote that those who believe in the fact that we come from apes must take heed and see that only prayers help, because God is punishing those people. Again, same revolting insult to the victims, but... goes on to say on the comment pages of a national paper, that only a prayer and true faith can help, because, and literally quote, it is impossible to practically help the affected people.

Well, an early medieval mind clearly can not imagine practical 21st century ways of sending international help, so pointing out the websites of Red Cross, GlobalGiving and iTunes store from Apple (to name a few) would be a waste of energy.

Also, reading the polemic, one has to conclude: even in the face of such disaster, that tests (in this case) their Christianity, some people find dogmas and revoltingly comfortable ignorance worthy of the 11th century much easier than actually taking ANY action on a personal level.

Donations are a start, and one can be sure there are myriad other possibilities opening up soon, judging from just last few days of organisational developments internationally.

So whilst our thoughts and yes, prayers in many cases, go to the affected people, we can set example by acting - instead of using rhetoric from the depths of a dark 11th century.

Analogies

2011-02-28T18:46:00.005Z

Watching Gaddafi, one wonders whether all dictators are originating from some same obscure factory, programmed with same delusions and even physical gestures.

His speeches that were recently shown in the international media trigger a truly strong deja-vu feeling in those who have seen previous dictators on their last legs. Ceausescu's 'emotional' content, rallying the masses, his gestures, his desperate statements meant to show power and, above all, willpower to survive anything and anybody, were carbon copies of Gaddafi's recent speeches.

Gaddafi declared today to the BBC that people of Lybia love him. So there you have it, the terminal delusions so often seen, and a very familiar element of victim complex, one should somehow feel truly sorry for this poor, poor harmless old man, loved by everybody, but victim to some obscure plot of a tiny minority...

He also said that the protesters are drugged people, drugs coming from al-Qaida. So there you have it, the usual projection onto some external forces and factors that are solely responsible for what is happening... completely disassociating himself from what triggered the demonstrations.

A further superb element of role reversal is in his sentence, which states that his loyal people have been given clear orders not to respond to violence. So here we go, who is the violent element and who is the saint-like creature, who tries to passively endure all that malevolence that the protesters brought...

I wonder whether there is a clinical diagnosis for the dictator syndrome.

Whether there are classic terms and precise scientific descriptions, labels, tags for what these creatures think, say, feel.

There must be - such similarities between so many such creatures, especially in just the last twenty-odd years, are bound to lead to a definition of consecrated terms.

One can only hope, that Gaddafi's position of (diminishing) power and maybe even life will exhibit similarly strong analogies with that of other recent, former, well and truly gone, demented dictators...

One can only hope.

Eyes

2011-02-04T18:33:00.004Z

Today David Cameron almost echoed exactly Peter Gabriel's lyrics in Biko, which ran 'The eyes of the world are watching now...'

The yet another day of unrest in Egypt was hoped by the protesters to be the day of departure for Mubarak. One can only hope, however whilst the almost proverbial eyes are watching, some loose parallels with an uprising still vivid in my memory are hard not to make...

Here, too, the army's position is unclear... and maybe shifting hour by hour, but at least they have not taken catastrophically drastic action against the protesters (yet).

Here, too, the army has a lot to lose... They enjoyed a superb status, we are talking about a country where they even have their own lanes at tool boots on highways. They have their own transport companies, they really are a parallel universe in Egypt.

Here, too, corruption within the army is happening at vast scale, you can pay off anything and anybody, to get out of tasks or picking where you wish to be posted... or not posted.

They have a lot to lose and it is certain that they will ensure their transference into the next regime, whatever it may be, will be a painless one.

Another loose parallel is that Mubarak is truly deluded into thinking: promising various concessions, reforms, replacing minister X and Y in the government will make the protesters go home. Not sure about them, but when Ceausescu tried similar promises of reform, we decided to continue until the regime falls. Egyptian protesters also marked Mubarak's attempts as 'irrelevant'.

And here, too, the US is watching. They wonder this time what the heck happens if the radical islamists take over... what if they renounce the treaty with Israel... what if... it is again a game of dominos...

I can only watch with hope and share, from admittedly a very, very comfortable distance, the protesters' hopes.

They called themselves today on that main square the 'referendum'... Let's hope that extremists don't manage to hijack what was ignited so successfully.

Medicine

2011-01-27T12:26:00.001Z

IMF has resorted to medical analogies when discussing the surface of Romania’s financial reality. The patient was operated on, but it is not stable and no real life signs detected…
The forays into such medical metaphors have caused, of course, some furor in the national press – but once again, all this is basically a storm about the surface.

If one digs a little bit deeper, then immediately realises that neither party is interested, nor in any way pre-occupied, with the actual problems. Latter are underlying structural problems, quite different from the main interest of the IMF (quick and regular patching up via numerous loans that can successfully drive any country into the ground) or of the Romanian government (long terms plans? underlying financial problems? who cares??).

The one moment of honesty comes when IMF says that one of the methods to increase liquidity (which they remark is a key issue) is loans. The other ways to increase liquidity (notice IMF’s immense power of stating the obvious and elementary) is population’s savings and foreign investments.

So if we take the extraordinary latter two insights (and skip over the matter of loans, that solve absolutely nothing in Romania’s actual financial problems – just think of the matter of public pensions)…

Population’s savings… considering the economic situation, everyday finances and minor matters like inflation (that put Romania again in shameful top ranking positions on EU tables), does the IMF have any grasp whatsoever on the population’s financial situation in Romania? Which then in term, has direct effect on level of savings, too… Well, rhetoric question…

Foreign investments… In conditions where, for example, Mercedes-Benz ran like hell out of Romania after first inquiries, due to what they simply called real estate sharks, or when myriad foreign investors either don’t come or pull out due to the immense taxation system and bureaucracy… what is IMF’s grasp on reality, or predictions for the future? On recent counts, the number of taxes and approvals needed for a foreign investor to really set foot in that country ran up to a 3-digit figure… As other example, whilst other countries, including the UK, have approached China with ‘begging’ for collaboration and investment projects, when China actually considered to put up with the breathtaking Romanian machinery gating foreign investment, and offer a huge project, Romania said no…

So we have a great match, an organisation who only looks at short-term quick fixes that patch a wound on the surface (to stick to medical analogies), and a government that also has no longer term plans. Romanian government, as usual, only concerns itself with immediate-to-short term issues, because they know they won’t be around for long…

Also, we have an organisation that has no grasp on the actual economic realities at street level when talking about a country, and a government that, well, has same lack of basic understanding on the same subject. A match truly made in Heaven.

Habits

2010-12-06T10:57:00.000Z

Old habits die hard. In the current flood of WikiLeaks, which more confirm our suspicions rather than susprise or shock, it is quite easy to see how regimes of yesteryear still have their tentacles in the current day reality of post-communist countries.

It is hardly surprising that Romania was called a ‘wild’ place. But interestingly, whilst Russia is said to be run by Putin-connected Mafia, the former Soviet Union’s and Romania’s old tactics are still shown as very much alive.

Recent data, coming from outside the streams of WikiLeaks information, shows how surveillance techniques are used in Romania as an ordinary routine to monitor people’s interactions.
In a country where mass media was labelled as a key danger to national security (does this sound familiar to anyone?...), just in the last year a total of 3000 orders were given for phone tapping alone.
This is double compared to 2005, and the ‘peak’ is attributed to the election campaign- whilst Romanian media mentioned this casually, it is a remarkable fact that this can be even casually thought to be a ‘normal’ state of affairs simply because politicians’ and media personalities ‘had’ to be kept under observation due to elections…

The stalinist ghosts of Securitate are truly walking casually on the streets of Romania in 2010.

Parallels with the former Soviet Union (and current Russia) are easy to make, considering that despite the vast shrinking in size & population (consider Russia now vs. former Soviet Union), Russia employs more secret intelligence officers than ever before in the FSB’s old incarnation, the KGB. Current official count is 600 000 intelligence officers…

Russia, in all its post-stalinist might, deals with its politicians via such methods, ranging from extensive surveillance to assasination attempts. Romania is certainly showing that not only still copies attitudes from Ceausescu’s era, but also cranks up efforts in at least monitoring, if not suppressing, its own political and media figures.

Old habits do die hard, especially when there are key models in the close neighbourhood to imitate…

Post-mortem

2010-12-01T14:00:00.000Z

Recently, the Romanian poet Adrian Paunescu died. This would have been an otherwise ordinarily tragic event, but his past has given rise to numerous posthumous debates. Latter, in turn, raise interesting questions about man vs. opus, morality vs. legacy.

He was buried with military honours. Considering the poet was a fervent supporter of Ceausescu’s dictatorial regime, who greatly benefited from praising the regime and its key figure, this poses the question whether anybody who considers Romania is still run by the old circles is misled (after all, 85 of top 100 most powerful Romanians are all faces from the old regime… to quote a quick & easy statistic).

It is difficult not to remember his propaganda marathons on TV, during the total of 3 hours of daily TV broadcasts… He organised vast rallies of ‘patriotic’ poetry and songs, all fervent pro-regime propaganda under the veil of ‘artistic’ programming.

So… where is the line between the person and his opus? Speer may have been brilliant architect, but was a lackey of an unspeakable regime…

Paunescu has re-invented himself after the Revolution as a lackey of the new (and then fervently neo-communist) regime headed by Ion Iliescu (who was in Ceausescu’s close entourage and became first Romanian president, dressing up in ‘democratic’ colours as ‘savior of the nation’). During the following years, in the Romanian pluralist political scene, Paunescu managed to swim between the moving buoys such that always maximally benefited from whatever political party was at power.

He was, until the very last moments of his death, a spineless version of chameleon (quite some creature), who, with maximum opportunism, sung the praise of whoever he could benefit from the most.

Clearly, his opus therefore is in much debate. Nothing objective can be said about art, except when that art is just incredibly bad… Some say his ‘opus’ really is that bad. But that is again a personal opinion. What remains a fact, is that his opus was intertwined with his political convictions and his manoeuvres on the political and ideological scene.

So it is difficult to separate man from his opus in this case. Since the person, in both his personal and political life, was a truly despicable amoral piece of work, his output is much debated from a moral perspective.

Some now claim with great fervour, that he was a patriot. Well, a person who sides with any regime of any kind does more damage to the country than any more open enemy of that country… Patriotism is not a blind and opportunistic, unreserved support of any regime in that country… if anything, it is usually the very opposite…

Some claim he was a great poet and they quote how many volumes he published – as if quantity is correlated with artistic greatness.

Others commented in press that he really wasn’t a servant of the Ceausescu regime, because he had his run-in with the regime. Yes, true, Paunescu spent some years out of favour, but purely because of an event (a tragic accident at one of his rallies) that had nothing to do with his political convictions (or changes of the latter).

Looking at 400+ comments wrote in to an article in the Romanian national media, the trend of the discourse and the patterns are quite obvious to an analytical eye: it is a fight between indoctrinated ‘opinions’ and rationalism.

People who (often unable to spell in their mother tongue) write in capitals, directly abusing negative comments about the ‘great poet’, just show a total inability to respect others’ opinions, or to mount rational counter-arguments.

People quote that they felt very happy at Paunescu’s rallies organised during Ceausescu’s reign. All they are stating is that they were successfully sucked into the propaganda machine, and hence already conditioned by it, they cannot look at the ‘great poet’ in every angle.

Many make fundamental semantic and logical mistakes, my absolute favourite is the person who wrote in screaming capitals: anybody who dares to criticise the poet’s work has complete lack of common sense. Truly perfect point made about dogmatic attitudes and indoctrination, but the comment’s author clearly didn’t realise how perfect own goal he/she scored.

So the one thing that can be said, is that he was and will remain a highly controversial figure of previous and current regimes. His poems, of vastly varying quality and convictions, will stand the judgment of time, but separating completely the man from his work remains a dangerous mistake to make.

Environments

2010-11-08T18:43:00.003Z

There are some environmental changes in the EU that some in current Romanian so-called Government could pay a little attention to.

It was highly customary to do just about anything internally with any funds dropped on the doorstep, however the seemingly geographically specific declarations of Angela Merkel mark a new financial mood in the EU.

Although she spoke specifically about Spain, Portugal and of course Greece, she sternly pointed out that at least Germany had enough of bailing out financially collapsing countries. The changes would mean 'normal' bankruptcy once a country hits the rocks. And instead of just pouring tax payers' money into yet another major bail-out, the bond holders would be heavily impacted.

For example, in Greece the heavy austerity measures impact the citizens on unprecedented scale, but the actual result is not a relief from debt. As the Telegraph noted, it is purely a bail-out for investors... so we can cut all the false political BS.

Romania is also simply (well, actually, in typically self-contradicting ways that wasn't lost on the audience) running off to the IMF, switching on the tears and internally, hitting ordinary citizens with unprecedented (and illogical) austerity measures. But whilst it does this, and also ring fences the various upper circles' financial dealings, it is not addressing at all a structural problem.

It simply relies on the IMF money pouring in, to plug holes that (and this is the fundamental misperception, or delusion) seem temporary.

Let's not forget, for example, Romania's state pension scheme is at the very bottom of Standard & Poor's recent list about EU countries. It is the most unsustainable, because amongst many factors (and including the surreal levels of corruption hemorrhaging money in every direction), the recent measures are not at all tackling the underlying problems.

So if the complex underlying time bomb does go off in that country, too, then Angela Merkel's stance could have interesting implications. Of course, if she gets her way for an overall EU-wide scheme of orderly bankruptcy being introduced.

When ministers in the Romanian Government are too preoccupied with declaring 1.5 million Euros and hiding 7.7 million Euros from contracts made on public money (just one most recent example), it is hard to believe that anybody in Romanian Government is actually preoccupied with addressing structural underlying financial problems where the successive IMF loans are little plasters on a very large wound.

To add to this, those layers of politicians simply do not care about foreign investment even, at a real and proper scale. It reaches levels of embarrassment whereby, for example, debts to American companies have only been paid once the USA's ambassador in Bucharest had 'private and direct' chats with members of the Romanian Government. He amicably points out that if the country behaves like this, it will scare away private investors.

Unfortunately he is talking to a pretty deaf audience. Well, one with selective hearing... and I'm sure that also the reverberations of the true implications of Angela Merkel's statements are filtered out by that selective hearing so epidemic in Bucharest.

Evolutions

2010-11-06T16:24:00.006Z

Some reverberations to the recently uncovered Popricani grave (first of an estimated series) were quite interesting in the Romanian press.

Cotidianul, one of the major daily papers, published the comments from readers. It was hard to stomach the predominantly racist comments, and the biggest irony was that some of these 'people' called the archaeological findings 'Jewish propaganda'. The other major daily paper, Evenimentul Zilei, in a debatable moment, decided to ban any comments to the article they published about same news.

The latter paper's decision can be understood, if one saw the reactions (again impossible to describe) to one of their recent articles stating that Antonescu can not be rehabilitated... After what followed, they saw it better to disable comments to this recent news about the mass grave.

The current figures are stuck at 16, the archaeologists state that this is the first 'layer' of the grave, as the digging so far has been superficial. The estimates for this particular grave are re-stated by both newspaper sources and the archaeologists working there, but it is truly inhuman(e) to go into numerology.

Some comments make astounding and casually dismissive analogies between these findings and for example, in the case of one angry commentator, the lives lost currently in the Middle East conflict. It is just breathtaking thought pattern.

One could write a very dark PhD thesis (and some have...) on the mental associations made by some, many of them are truly unimaginable until one sees the words in print or online... Homo sapiens will again characterise itself perfectly.
So the news are evolving, and as expected, multitude international news fori have taken up the story.

Unfortunately, a trend in even the BBC reports is that quantitative aspects overtake the essence of what this single finding means.

The media is, as always, fascinated by numbers - but there are more worrying disregards for the essence of the story. For example, the military prosecutors claim that this has nothing to do with what the archaeological and eyewitness evidence states...

So there are evolutions taking place in this direction, too... as suspected in previous blog posting, there will be a long battle between facts and ideologically motivated claims. It would truly be Utopian to assume 65 years of history whitewashing would suddenly grind to a halt and in this particular political regime the complex picture of the wartime ruler of Romania would suddenly be altered back to the root facts.

Personally, it would be a tragic evolution if the media will bury itself in quantitative rhetoric, because we are talking about a topic where it is inhuman(e) to dissect the numbers on what is expected to be an increasingly troubling finding.

But the hope is tied to the fact that whilst information may suffer remarkable changes in certain official sources, in the age of the internet the people with their hands on the key facts (it was interesting to see, for the first time, the scanned copies of previously 'buried' testimonies of military officers who were present when the acts of genocide were committed) will have a direct pipeline to the public.

In the end, one can be certain there will be myriad new conspiracy theories that will claim the entire saga dating back to that summer of 1941 (not to speak of all the other events during the Antonescu regime) are some new hoax. Element of this already surfaces in comment sections in the Cotidianul newspaper...

But this will again be a showdown between tangible facts and speculations, and ultimately, for those without direct feed to those tangible facts, a showdown between Occam's razor and politicised sanitisation attempts.

Rewrite

2010-11-05T13:32:00.005Z

Romanian history has seen many rewriting rounds, changing, suppressing, denying countless facts. As a kid, I have seen how the history books changed and we were basically supposed to have selective amnesia in order not to spot huge discrepancies (and/or ask very dangerous questions about those).

One of the much debated aspects of recent Romanian history is the figure of the fascist wartime dictator Ion Antonescu. He was, in post-communist years, elevated to the status of a national hero, voting rounds for the Top 100 Great Romanians even ranked him No. 6 on the list.

The whitewashing of this convicted war criminal, responsible for ethnic cleansing, multitude of pogroms, an entire extermination policy, establishment of a criminal paramilitary organisation during WW2, well, was breathtaking. Already during Ceausescu's regime, facts about his life were totally rewritten and he was increasingly presented as a 'savior' of the country.

This whitewashing, exacerbated during the post-communist years, has now taken a major blow.

For the first time in 65 years, the crimes committed by the Romanian Army against (in this particular case) the Jews, are exposed in tragically tangible manner.

Near a village called Popricani, a mass grave has been unearthed - first of many located by archaeologists. The tens, possibly hundreds (the work is still ongoing) of bodies ended up in this particular mass grave during the summer of 1941, after mass executions committed by the Romanian Army. There are still eyewitnesses, and confessions dating back many years - however, these have been largely suppressed.

This is just the beginning - and possibly this time, some history books will be, finally, rewritten... to re-instate historic facts related to the much documented (but inside Romania, largely suppressed) aspects of the so-called Iasi Pogrom.

One can't have the delusion that the numerous individuals in key positions of Romanian administration, the Romanian Army, ideologically affected 'historians' who all orchestrated the vast farce that elevated Antonescu to the heights of a national hero will have some crisis of conscience.

Antonescu with all his genocides (and war crimes, as in current legal terms we have to make clear distinction between the two) maybe finally will be treated on a factual basis. Maybe his regime will be discussed properly in the newly written and re-written history books.

Problem is, as with many other aspects of re-written Romanian history, that after many decades of indoctrination, vast numbers of people believe the dogma rather than any new facts. Even in the era of the internet, all details being available to everybody from now on, there will be a strong undercurrent in Romania, still denying large and crucial parts of history.

Certain ideological rewriting of history always seems more appealing than difficult facts... To pull Eco into this, we do live in an evangelical world and to apply this 'faith in fakes' idea to Romania's still much indoctrinated masses, such new facts re-enforcing old suppressed historic facts will be less appealing than the fakes.

Still, Romania as a 'European' country, whilst looking into the horror of these freshly opened mass graves, should reflect just what does it want to say.

Will it continue to cover up, as just one of the most despicable historic cover-ups, the facts of its 'national hero'... or will be brave enough, for the first time, to step into the limelight of international opinion and state those facts?

Let's see... at least I can't have illusions on this front, but there is some hope... that at least for those that want to look and listen, the facts will be accessible in their full clarity...

Will there ever be in Romania something like the Truth and Reconciliation Committee? It would be a truly important gesture whilst we all trumpet our European values. And it would be unimaginably important as a national catharsis of some kind, just once in history, being able to face the facts of the past - even if very difficult.

Ray Bradbury stated, echoing somebody else in one of his short stories, that a nation without a past can not have a future. A fake past is always more damaging than a silenced or missing past...

Contexts...

2010-11-01T11:31:00.003Z

The previous gathering of statistical facts and comparisons has also led to a recurring need of stating the context, in case it was not obvious from the entire blog...

Comparisons with the 3rd world may hold very well whilst reading some figures extensively summarised and published in Romanian press. However, whilst one may have a moment of 'ho-hum' and/or sympathy if one has read such comparable figures about certain corners of the globe, it is a radically different experience when same figures relate to an EU country.

EU rhetoric abounds in the discourses of Romanian leading political figures (alternating with begging towards the IMF for further funds, whilst introducing such desperate financial measures that they manage the absurd: completely ringfencing the Mafia circles running the country, but hitting the poorest the hardest...).

At the same time, the country is at the bottom of the tables when it comes to the usage (or as more technically put, absorbing) of EU development funds... simply because the key corrupt circles can't bring themselves to go through measly paperwork for measly grants, if they can perfectly operate perfectly outside the law at a governmental level even, and rake in vastly superior 'funds' ending up in their pockets...

So similarities with certain 3rd world autocratic regimes are very easy to make. But what makes it particularly annoying, is that the schizoid situation of a loudly propagandising EU country is having such easy comparisons made about its affairs.

The essence of the deplorable numerical facts is that this will continue for generations in the same pattern established in the last 20-odd years... Actual EU funds either go unused (as the elite can't be bothered frankly with such tedious routes to get their hands on some smaller funds) or the ones given for infrastructure development (as the core topic of previous posting goes) get diverted and/or 'disappear'... whilst the tangible realities those funds were supposed to deliver are hard to see...

Possibly some 10% of motorways from more than 50% of the used (vanished) budgets, built over ludicrous amount of time and for the highest cost per mile in the EU are the best examples... and one can meditate over such very post-communist 21st century typical schizoid reality whilst drives along the 40-odd miles of Transylvanian motorway...

Best before...

2010-10-30T18:39:00.004+01:00

We routinely check the 'best before' dates on the myriad food products on supermarket shelves... but since the last posting about the motorway tax (and the state of Romania's infrastructure), felt compelled to elaborate a bit on just what is the 'best before' date stamped on that country's infrastructure.

Well, unfortunately, those goods have expired a long time ago... and the effects will be quite astounding...

A very conservative estimate stated that about 50 billion Euros would be needed to mend the country's infrastructure, not to make it perfect or state-of-the-art, but just mend it such that it becomes barely acceptable.

Trains move with the national average speed of about 45km/h (this is less than 30mph), due to the disastrous state of the rail tracks. 20 years of patching on ancient tracks has barely managed to keep them at a level where trains can just about operate and there are no deadly failures regularly. About 50% of the country's rail tracks have so-called dangerous points... that can give way at any time.

On top of this, let's not even touch on the state of the stations, the on average 30 years old train carriages (no, they don't just look ancient, they are ancient) - but then there are the antiquated signaling systems etc. - one may be misled by some bigger cities' more modern looking larger station halls... but those occasional computer screens don't mean that the essential parts of the railways match that level of apparent or real technical level... and having extensively travelled on these railways, one can certainly say: they really don't.

The modernising of urban transport has been done mostly by buying used and often old buses and trams from other countries. But these old vehicles look more 'modern' than any of the old Romanian buses and trams, so... again subjectively locals may feel a certain warm fuzzy feeling...

In order to eliminate the medieval conditions when it comes to countless smaller towns' and villages' water system, the estimate is about 20 billion Euros. This would not make them have latest and greatest water purification and pipe systems, this investment would just elevate them to a bearable level...

Where there are water purification plants and pipe systems, i.e. in all major cities, these date back to 50s and 60s, in best cases. Investment to modernise these have been postponed many times. The water quality in some major cities is such, that when sent for analysis in Germany, the labs thought the water was industrial 'B-category' waste water. The solution is to pump it full of chlorine, so that at least it doesn't cause problems with the organic pollution...

Asking several specialist doctors, an estimated 80% of adult population there has Giardiosis, a hugely widespread infection with a single-cell parasite that is amongst the hardest to eradicate, special antibiotic cocktails have a 90% chance of succeeding... and the parasite survives in 'standard' levels of chlorination of the water...

The blockflats built during the 50s, 60s and 70s are so shabby, that they can not withstand any noteworthy earthquakes, as this has been painfully demonstrated many times... and unfortunately, by now these buildings are truly in a sorry structural state.

51% of the population lives in rural areas, and only 10% (yes, 10%) of these settlements have sewage systems and mere 25% have running water.

30,000 Km of roads have no tarmac or asphalt coverage of any kind - they are dirt roads.

The heating systems for the vast areas of blockflats are also antiquated, date back 30-40 years and lose 30-40% of the heat due to ancient or non-existent thermal insulation.

Add to this the small fact, that as it has been eminently demonstrated over the last 20-odd years, any funds allocated to projects meant to modernise the infrastructure have been mostly stolen, which explains the truly absurd pace with which these projects progress.

So it is not a question of what is the country's 'best before' date. It has long passed, sometimes back in the 70s... and since then it's all been rotting away quietly.

Death and taxes

2010-10-24T17:23:00.003+01:00

The old saying, by now a cliche, states that the only certain things in this life are death and taxes.

Romania, once again, has found a way to transform old sayings into surreal versions of reality... The Government, whilst struggling with the economic crisis (which doesn't seem to affect the vast corruption it creates, promotes and benefits from), invents newer and newer ways to generate income.

The most recent wonderful idea is to have taxes introduced for motorways. Of course, this is perfectly normal in any country, but then again, Romania and its 'motorways' or even 'motorway system' is far from normal.

The hilarity and surrealism of this proposed tax comes from the number, length and satte of Romania's motorway 'system'. Let's not forget, it is the country where, due to unimaginable corruption, the most expensive roads have been built in the whole of the EU.

And the roads that were built, were puny in terms of length and the projects ran vastly overtime and over buget, best example is the Transylvanian section of mere 10% of the planned motorway, has taken by now 20 years and it has seen 6 transport ministers changing seats, 7 directors of the company contracted to make the road... but that 10% of the planned motorway has consumed more than 50% of the buget.

Imagine you would pay airport tax to get on a flight operated by the penguins of the film Madagascar, with 'facilities' that are comical (unless you are actually on the plane, rather than just watching the animation and laugh at it...) and you stand a certain minimal mathematical chance of surviving (if you don't get lost).

It is a somewhat far-fetched analogy, but a country that is truly at the rock bottom of the list of EU contries in terms of infrastructure (combined with surreal levels of corruption, whereby any infrastructure project actually uses about 10% of the allocated buget, the rest simply vanishes into thin air only to be found at the very heights of the Carpathian mountains...), well, is in need of quite a reality check when it tries to introduce a motorway tax system.

Also, it is truly characteristic... in terms of looking to the 'West' and copying things mindlessly, without the basic foundations being there.

There is no difference between this latest delusion and the nouveau riche family that built a veritable palace in southern Romania, filled the many bathrooms' tubs with handmade persian rugs, as 'overflow' storage rooms as they had no use for bathrooms...

The same greed, combined with the same fundamental lack of intelligence, the downright stupidity combined with the laughably schizophrenic attempts to look 'Western' and modern when it comes to discussions with the IMF, is the perhaps most dominant and most characteristic feature of this and all previous Romanian so-called Governments.

Information society

2010-10-03T16:54:00.005+01:00

Although in my current homeland the various excesses committed in the name of building a safer society are being revised, there was a curious and somewhat unexpected incident... An incident that showed just how precise the arguments against the gathering of personal information about vast numbers of people were.

There is a certain law firm in the UK, which few years ago began to send out tens of thousands of letters to people, letters that pointed out: they were sharing some copyrighted material on the net - and unless they want to avoid going to court, they should pay a certain fine to the law firm.

The claim by the latter firm (and one can find the same in certain parts of the much debated Digital Economy Bill) that the IP address of the person's connection identifies the person had a certain charming silliness that one can find in less inspired episodes of Bugs Bunny.

It is pointless to waste bandwidth here to describe just how charmingly silly this is, but the point is something else.

The very same law firm was amassing personal details about tens of thousands of people, information provided to them by a number of internet service providers. It so happens that the website of the firm had to be taken down after a cyber attack known as distributed denial of service. And when the website was put back, due to some other charming silliness, the entire server file directory was exposed apparently to the outside world.

People promptly downloaded email archives and... records of personal details about many, many people... who were accused by the firm that they shared X and Y copyrighted material.

Jacqui Smith wanted a society where pharmacies and other high street shops would have gathered biometric data about millions of people, sending these to other databases of the Home Office... for the purpose of then issuing biometric ID cards.

Isn't it interesting, that the above fiasco around the website of a law firm has now led to a direct question... a rhetorical one, which validates every word and every thought ever voiced about the former Government's wild plans (and excesses violating basic human rights) for a 'safer society'?

The rhetorical question is the following: based on the absolutely tragic (for many thousands of people) and laughable (for others) fiasco around the law firm's website, adding all the myriad incidents of the very Home Office losing and misplacing vast amounts of personal information about people... how can anybody in former, present or any future Government seriously think that gathering, storing, manipulating, sending of vital personal information about people can be in any way guaranteed not to fail fundamentally?

Especially when, as shown in the incident, there is no control, no safeguard whatsoever in place at the origin, along and at the end of the chain of information passing from some organisation to another.

There is the Data Protection Act. There is the Terrorism Act. There is the Copyright Act, in this particular case. There is the Digital Economy Bill.

These are all theoretical safeguards or, in the latter two cases, validations for certain actions to take place.

The practical reality is that there is zero security for anybody's highly sensitive personal information being exposed along one or more points in the chain.

In the specific incident, some internet service provider even admitted sending the information in unencrypted form...

It is time to revisit utopian legislation and so-called 'acts' and sections of those acts... and infuse some reality steeped deeply in basic human nature. And basic human stupidity. And its repeated results.

Migrations

2010-08-25T14:22:00.000+01:00

One can establish and sustain a reasonably comfortable, even cozy political platform via xenophobia. In Romania, reliable mountains of votes can be won (predominantly in Transylvania) with campaigns against the ethnic minorities. In the UK, with great support from very wide circulation daily papers that border on both fascism and paranoid schizophrenia, it is similarly profitable to scare people with immigration and immigrants.

Whilst major media tycoons also take part in xenophobe propaganda, the business realities in the UK have been, are and, based on recent re-assessments, will be very contrary to what the media and certain politicians say.

Recent numbers show that one in five employers feel they must consider (again) heavy reliance on immigrant workers, because they simply cannot find the skills and skill sets they need among local workforce. And we are not talking here about just the stereotypical cases of higher-level jobs in consultancy for example, the surveys showed that the problem exists across all layers of the job market.

The simple truth is, whilst the certain media goes on and on about the job losses amongst British people (and resonates with Gordon Brown – remember him? – lines on ‘British jobs for British people’), many jobs simply could not and will not be filled by non-immigrants.

The recent surveys showed numerically what was known by some more honest parts of the media landscape and the people with both eyes open: myriad jobs are simply ‘below’ the Brits. We live in a country where, due to decades of self-destructive educational policies, the average youth also thinks that by default, he/she must end up at some University, get a cozy white collar job with lots of pay and no real work, and retire with a smile (increasing number of) decades later.

Of course this is some exaggeration, but the problem is endemic and it is even more embossed by the recent financial situation and the countermeasures the Government brings in. With the austerity measures and their side-effects, it exacerbates the contradiction between economic realities and self-perceptions leading to expectations linked to the type of jobs Brits think they have the God-given right to do.

It is a sensitive topic, but the numbers and facts were there for decades, now just shouting at us even louder because of the financial and economic fallout.

Let’s face it, A-level results have been increasing beyond imagination in terms of A (and as of this year, A*) grades received by pupils. Those (including the pupils) without grasp on the realities of the education system’s demise in recent decades claim that it shows how brighter and better young people have become prior to, of course, jumping to some University campus,

Universities have been and are crying that this world where truly ludicrous number of students come with myriad A grades is an absurd world for them to differentiate between candidates. Employers have been and are crying that they spend years training the so-called stellar University graduates up for the skills that they really need.

In this climate, everybody thinks that he/she is entitled to a University education, and then of course the high-paying office job.

The reality is that vast reliance on immigrant workers is and will be happening, if one believes the reality seen across job sectors and the numbers coming out of sweeping surveying of employers… So let’s see what parties like the BNP and the xenophobe media will say in future, whilst watching the economic reality unfold.

44

2010-08-13T16:28:00.003+01:00

A value so close to the meaning of the Universe :-)...

Certainly, the Home Secretaries, who introduced the infamous Section 44 of the so-called Terrorism Act in Britain, thought that it is close to the meaning of the Universe...

Not one single terrorist was apprehended with the powers given to the police by Section 44. But it gave police powers to stop & search without any actual reason (nor had to give any reason to those targeted).

Just counting the cases where totally innocent amateur and professional photographers alike were targeted, it was a truly Stalinist piece of legislation. Just in the photography organisation that I'm a member of, every single month the newsletter listed the chilling stories documented by members, many of those cases bringing back memories of the 70s-80s in the Eastern Block.

The European Court deemed it illegal and one that was in violation of fundamental human rights. However, the former Government soldiered on, and only the recent (what one could call) regime change brought finally a revision of such laws.

The website that the leader of the Liberal Democrats opened for the public to vote on laws to repeal was soon overtaken by comments from pressure groups and just silly people (in vast quantities). It really proved the old Churchill saying, that the best argument against democracy is a 15-minute chat with the average voter. It also proved that vox populi always suffers of short term memory problems and selective amnesia.

However, despite the vast number of comments on fox hunting laws, smoking and drugs, Section 44 managed to die disgracefully - not that the voting website led directly to that, of course not... But it was an interesting experiment in democracy.

The Section 44 is now scrapped, and human rights organisations joined the cheering of the masses. The continuation is now up to the new Government.

Certainly, Section 44 was a shameful spot on a benevolent piece of (turned paranoid) legislation, but the true colours in the fight against terrorism will be revealed as time goes on. Let's see whether this Government can keep a sane and cool head, and not spiral into bouts of paranoia as the previous regime did.

Noise

2010-07-27T16:58:00.002+01:00

The way in which Romanian government 'deals' with the financial crisis (a still shrinking GDP, a structural rather than temporary deficit incl. pensions) is surreal.

Well, they were after the next installment of IMF loan, so they tried to show they take firm measures.

The slight problem is, there is no coherence in the messages they send out- the president says one thing, the PM the exact opposite, the government departments and ministers add further self-contradicting noises.

While this is going on, the country is dealing with interesting numerical problems. Out of almost 23 million people, only 4.5 million are officially registered as employed. Out of this, more than half are in state sector, now heavily cut.

The demographic picture is as dire as everywhere else, so even the governor of the National Bank warned: this is not a transient financial crisis, there are actual structural problems that will not go away with just a short-term plugging of a huge hole in the finances (via an IMF loan... then maybe another one... and another one... if they get it).

On a smaller scale, the effects are quite tragicomic. Whilst the VAT was hiked a few percent, the actual prices of vital goods including medicines have gone up sometimes almost by 100%. The same pills that used to cost 22 RON now cost in same pharmacy 40 RON.

So there are conservative estimates on how many pensioners will die this autumn and winter. Just in my hometown, several major central heating plants have shut down due to 'cost cuts' and tends of thousands of families were told to install their own personalised heating system.

The fact that latter costs a sum that most pensioners can't simply pay, and that the company that installed them is owned by the deputy Mayor, remains a tiny matter of detail...

The country simply does not have a solution for short-term, let alone long-term, financial and economic problems, at the same time that it is still struggling with what it inherited from the old regime: a forcibly and surreally industrialised country that is still mostly agricultural, but whose agriculture went completely bust.

Whilst unimaginable level of corruption is spanning every layer of society, there is a so-called government that tries to desperately build a facade towards the EU and IMF, whilst they truly don't care and lost the plot completely.

It is quite interesting to see the development, and how next critical autumn and winter period will play out.

The noise levels coming from the so-called government are deafening and are truly white noise, as there is no logical pattern of any kind in their disjointed communications towards the media or the masses.

Unless they at least admit the crystal clear demographic, economic and financial indicators (even a novice economist could shout: I've seen these patterns countless times in beginner's guides on macroeconomics), the surreal and schizoid situation will continue.

In that context, it will be especially interesting to see what happens once the current IMF loan runs out, no structural nor logical measures are taken, and they are stuck with the same conundrum that they think got resolved temporarily and superficially.

DNA

2010-07-21T18:54:00.004+01:00

After a summer break in my homeland, it seems Ceausescu popped up in news headlines again...

His remains are being exhumed for DNA analysis - the location of his grave was for decades a mystery, and authentication of what is said to be his remains are underway now.

While Romanian ponders over the DNA of a (still by some much loved) dictator, one wonders about other deeply imprinted traits in the society that left the dictatorship behind only 20 years ago.

A Transylvanian astute sociologist recently talked about power and how that society simply needs, even craves, power... of some sort... of any sort. It is entertaining to hear that in his opinion, Romanian society simply needs the displays of power.

Even the younger generation, maybe some metaphorical DNA is truly at work here, loves to see the 'leaders' ostentatiously displaying signs of wealth and power, it is simply the norm to be a truly primitive show-off, a characteristic of the nouveau riche in the Balkans.

Maybe in a few hundreds of years these layers of Romanian society will ennoble themselves, slowly seeping through the layers of the decades and centuries, sedimenting... but for now, this is a country where any power of any form is displayed at maximum levels of (truly tragicomic) ostentatiousness.

This in itself is a common trait of post-communist societies, but whilst listening to older generation taxi drivers and street people reminiscing fondly about the Ceausescu era, and how that era didn't have these economic problems, one does get a sense of that strange imprinting... the need for whoever, whatever, having absolute power over them.

The submissive attitudes are prevalent, whilst there is rage about some excesses of power.

Sociologically the perhaps most interesting paradox of the polarised Romanian society is this co-existence of the deep rage against the current circles of ultra-corrupt power and the sub-conscious craving to be dominated. It is at the core of what made many write in the '70s and '80s about how 'the porridge doesn't explode'.

Maybe a trigger akin to the one in 1989 is needed... plus organised and opportune help from within power circles. Otherwise change, whilst talked about on a daily basis, will not happen in bottom-up fashion.

Currently the Romanian 'Government' has no actual coherent solution, not even opinion about the solutions for the financial crisis. It, at the same time, drives already poor people and the poorest layers of society into even deeper poverty, by measures that are illogical, nonsensical in any economic mind, and also serve their own interests.

Will get back to such examples, but at the moment, whilst Romania is looking for the authentic corpse of Ceausescu, it is also passively contemplating the increasingly demented and self-contradicting Governmental measures that hit the most depraved layers the hardest.

The porridge will not explode, that is certain... and one can wonder how the current misery, exacerbated by the financial crisis and haphazard 'corrective' measures, on top of the deep and surreal polarisation of Romanian society continues to fill people with deep nostalgia of the 'golden era'.

People forget the dark side of that past regime, they only remember the job security, the free housing etc. - as ever, vox populi has selective amnesia and/or severe long term memory loss.

Stop, search, terrorise

2010-06-10T19:08:00.004+01:00

Section 44 of the so-called Terrorism Act has been the most abused and perverted part of the dubious, all-encompassing, vague and illegal set of measures meant to safeguard UK society from acts of terror.

It was illegal, was the European Court ruled it had no safeguards against police abuse of power, and well, it essentially allowed police to stop & search people without the police having any reason nor reasonable suspicion.

Thousands of people were targeted, and it generated great media furore also due to the hundreds of amateur, semi-pro and professions photographers who were jumped on in truly ludicrous circumstances.

The Home Office disregarded the European Court ruling, but now, surprisingly, after a regime change, the new Home Office revealed the extent to which this Section 44 had been abused by police.

Metropolitan Police is also taking now actions to chase down (but this time in a good sense) and contact people, as there is also the faint smell of compensation in the air. Of course not for those who even successfully sued the police authorities and won their case, ending up with nice compensation after downright Stalinist abuses of police power.

But, in this so-called free society, with the Olympics coming, it is highly unlikely that the Home Office would change Section 44, even after the admission of thousands of 'administrative errors' being committed. Nice and too elaborate term for what was actually going on in this country for almost ten years.

Although there are attempts to water it down, it remains to be seen whether the application of this part of the Terrorism Act will change, as too many minds in the police forces are used to, after almost 10 years of totalitarian abuse of power, applying it at random.

Hopes

2010-05-13T12:50:00.002+01:00

The new coalition Government in the UK has had its first cabinet meeting.

It is hopeful and interesting to see that one of the major areas where they feel the need to have rapid action is, as reported on the BBC, "a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour Government and roll back state intrusion.".

The mentioned erosion, suffered under the former Government and its (mildly put) stalinist Homes Secretaries like Charles Clarke and Jacqui Smith, would be attempted to be reversed via a list of measures, some highlighted below (as per BBC report on the section titled 'Civil Liberties'.

The list acts as a good summary on all the hair-raising issues that were introduced under Labour in what was known as one of the citadels of democracy and human rights.

Just look at this list, focusing not on what it states as something to be done, but as a list of what has happened that now needs removal, reversal or correction:

# A Freedom or Great Repeal Bill.

# The scrapping of ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the Contact Point Database.

# Outlawing the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.

# The extension of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.

# Adopting the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.

# The protection of historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury. (Again, in violation of the very Constitution, introduced in the name of a safer society...).

# The restoration of rights to non-violent protest. (Remember the rules that banned demonstrations around the Parliament in a vast radius? Eastern European dictators would have been proud of it).

# The review of libel laws to protect freedom of speech. (As we were heading for a total paranoia cult that could be enforced via such restrictions).

# Safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation. (Let's see what happens to police and jobsworth's continual abuse of power in the name of that legislation, affecting everybody from amateur photographers to journalists).

# Further regulation of CCTV. (Where we are on top of the list with never before seen levels of surveillance).

# Ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason. (Again introduced under the anti-terror legislation, and China would be proud of us...).

# A new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.

So future will tell, whether the UK can become again a country without deepening shades of totalitarianism.

Solutions

2010-05-11T17:32:00.002+01:00

While the UK election was, what a comedian recently said, a new high for anti-climax, the new Romanian Government certainly has solutions for solving its financial problems... or so they say.

While the UK is still waiting for the coalition talks to end and a Government to be finally announced at some point, the top agenda point for Emil Boc's Government in Romania was... the refining of uranium. Considering the recently disclosed data on what amounts of money were offered to e.g. Kazakhstan for its uranium by certain dubious governments, certainly this makes it a priority for the Romanian top Mafia. After all, the potential income is truly unimaginably vast even for the clan that runs the country.

But while they have such priorities and the vast sums of money disappear continuously (the anti-corruption show trials of certain ministers embezzling some puny sums of a few millions of euros are just tip of the iceberg), they also have a list of solutions for the Romanian financial crisis.

For example, what is the top measure to solve budget problems? Well, of course, the highly paid pensioners (who often can't pay even the heating bill in winter) are to have their pensions cut by 15% from 1 June 2010.

Also public sector workers, like teachers, will enjoy a 20-25% pay cut.

Then there will be an estimated 250 000 public sector jobs lost over the coming years, starting with a whopping batch of 70 000.

Food coupons, given out by certain employers in order to supplement the measly salaries, are to be taxed.

This Government (one could say in the UK currently that, well, at least they have a Government...) certainly is using a tiny icepick to poke at the tip of the iceberg.

The president has stated that he is a basically a hero and that the measures are not against Romanians etc. etc.

Apart from such helium balloons and the financial icebergs (or the proverbial elephant in the room they all hope nobody sees), they hopefully continue to work out the pseudo-legal money making schemes around Romania's uranium refining activities, after all, priorities are priorities.

Revisions

2010-05-04T19:08:00.002+01:00

After the wall-to-wall scandals and much publicised abuses of power under the all-encompassing anti-terrorism legislation (where also fellow members of a photography bureau have been challenged or worse), the police has now 'revised' its guidelines to the officers.

At least the worst offender, the Metropolitan Police did.

They now made it even clearer (but as they saying goes, you can lead the horse to the water... but...) that they can not confiscate nor delete the pictures a photographer has, only if the police officers in question are in possession of a specific court order.

The atrocious Section 58A of the so-called Terrorism Act, which made it illegal to photograph police officers, has also received a welcome special mention.

The new guidelines firmly warn the police officers that they can not (mis)use these powers in order to suppress legitimate photography in public places.

The latter section was said by many to be the end of street photography, as the dubious law gave truly stalinist powers to police officers.

Also, due to the many scandalous arrest of amateur and professional photographers, the new guidelines try to clearly state that such arrests can only and only be made when the officer(s) in question have a solid suspicion that the photographer is gathering material for terrorist purposes.

The previous publicity and well-thought-out acts by many, including the photographic bureau I'm member of, didn't quite manage to better things when it came to jobsworths thinking they are acting as guardians of the society...

So we shall see whether the new guidelines will change the mindset of people, at least those in certain uniforms, who caused so much grief all around London at least.

And there are general elections coming this Thursday, one wonders whether the new Government (whichever that may be) will revisit the measures that illustrious figures like Dave Blunkett and especially Jacqui Smith introduced... which, over the years, have shown at least one effectiveness: that of warping even normal minds with their cult of paranoia.

Privacy

2010-04-30T18:43:00.002+01:00

It is fascinating to watch the severe case of schizophrenia that affects British society.

One can rarely find such example of split personality (and the necessary dose of paranoia) as the recent debacle around the rights to privacy.

In the same country, where the so-called anti-terrorism legislation has brought astounding Stalinist levels of unprecedented monitoring of people and their communications, never before seen electronic surveillance and various laws that would make Orwell shout 'told you so!', well, we have deep concerns for the rights to privacy of... animals.

Recently an academic has kicked up dust clouds about the rights of animals to privacy and pointed out how unethical and immoral it is to film them without their knowledge.

His parallels with humans are touching and, well, touchingly hilarious. The 'case' he makes has received enough attention to make it onto BBC News.

While I am truly horrified :-) of just how immoral let's say David Attenborough's camera crew may be with their filming of some nest without the animals' knowledge, it is fascinating to me at least how such debate in public forum can take place in a society that is monitoring its members in every possible way.

While recently the angry author of an angry Twitter post was held under the Terror Act, we are worrying about the rights to privacy of... animals...

Censorship statistics

2010-04-25T13:34:00.003+01:00

Google, after quite a run-in with China, published the statistics on so-called data requests from governments and censorship requests (basically requests to remove certain data).

China's statistics have not been published, as these are 'state secrets' (undoubtedly would lead the list).

The top country, quite interestingly, is Brasil, followed by the USA (no surprise there) - but then the dubious honour of being third on this orwellian list is, as some may guess, the UK.

At the moment, a total of 40 governments use data requests and censorship, compared to a mere four governments 8 years ago.

We all followed and had the 'pleasure' of seeing how freedom of thought and speech in the UK have been increasingly constrained, mostly thanks to the all-encompassing anti-terrorism legislation.

It is therefore quite an honour to have the formet citadel of freedom and democracy as third on the list. It would have not taken the bronze medal, though if China had been on the list at No. 1 undoubtedly...

Naivety

2010-04-15T16:41:00.003+01:00

Recently the Nobel laureate writer, Herta Muller has made a few harsh and accurate statements about former and current Romania, its integration into the EU and the naivety of the West when handled the former communist country.

The writer, born in Romania and, after many years of persecution from the Securitate, emigrated to the West, has upset some...

Clearly, as she stated that the integration of Romania into the EU was premature and the 'West' was naive to think that this country has changed in terms of who holds the key power. She pointed out the facts about the former Communist Party and secret police officials holding political and financial power positions in Romania (goes very well with the BBC figure on 80% of top Romanians being former key people of the Communist Regime).

She stated, again astutely and accurately, that Romania represents now a second life of the communist dictatorship, but this time it's without ideology. This statement can be fully understood by those who know or have seen the current Romanian everyday realities across all layers of society.

Of course, the upset is voiced by some because, well, she emigrated and now she 'betrays' the country. Really? Stating a few painfully obvious facts that anybody with open eyes can see and has seen during the past 20 years is hardly a betrayal of her former homeland.

Former Communist Party figures, now all part of the vast Mafia in Romania, together with named agents of the Securitate, do hold and will hold all the key positions in political power circles, business and even administrative realm.

The old network has become the new network, as she put it, without ideology and without socialism this time.

The naivety of the 'West' has been painfully apparent during the Regime, and now it just takes new forms... after all, EU officials truly believe that Romania is capable of, as she put it, 'purification'. Which, of course, is a delusion.

Personally, I am glad that we have such high-profile emigrants who can call a spade a spade. Maybe some in the 'West' understand that apart from the surface and the mechanics, nothing truly has changed.

Suspects

2010-03-28T13:01:00.003+01:00

I am listening again in the gym the radio advertisement calling for vigilance, and people to report anything and anybody suspicious.

I am beyond wanting to explain to the Home Office anti-terrorist campaigners that something can not be suspicious... only suspect. But that is beyond their ability to comprehend basic English semantics, they are too busy sustaining paranoia...

Well, it has been discussed ad infinitum that when Joe Public is asked to be an anti-terrorist vigilant 'agent', he doesn't have any training nor ability to recognise something truly suspect... the only possible result is, well, exactly what is happening in current British 'free' society.

A musician was removed from a train for "behaving suspiciously" just because he was writing a list of songs which included the band name "The Killers".

The songs would have been played by his band, The Magic Mushrooms, at a forthcoming gig. But as he was writing the list, he was approached by two security staff employed by the train company and asked to leave the train.

He was told that he had been behaving suspiciously and was asked to explain the list he had been writing. The set list had songs like Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand, Cigarettes and Alcohol by Oasis and Love Me Like You by The Magic Numbers.

Also, there was All These Things That I've Done by The Killers, and as a shorthand, he had simply written "killers".

The really sad thing is that the stupid act of 'vigilance' was carried out not by everyday morons, but "highly professional rail community officers who work closely with the British Transport Police".

The spokesperson said that, and this is the really depressing part, the person had a good "understanding of the need to be vigilant in the current environment".

The "current environment" means all-out medically certifiable paranoia, where every week innocent amateur and professional photographers are arrested, interrogated, even held under the so-called Terrorism Act, we have people held in custody because of a few angry words on Twitter, and now we have also people thrown off trains just for writing a few things down that morons abusing their (absolute) power can not comprehend.

So one wonders, what is next in this ultra-paranoid 'free' society. All in the name of public safety...

China and the template

2010-03-23T12:03:00.005Z

It is fascinating how China's annoyance with Google, after latter refused to continue censoring searches made via its website, is phrased.

China talks about promise. Violated by Google, of course. China talks about 'Politicisation of commercial issues'. It blames Google for unreasonable conduct. It states it is all about China trying to stop information dangerous to national security and 'public'.

Is there a familiar template being used here? A familiar pattern?

Yes. Dictatorships have stated the same things for many decades, maybe some subtle differences of context and the nature of the media in question differed. After all, Stalin or Ceausescu or Honecker didn't have internet and Google.

But... the patterns are identical to those in the mentioned other dictatorships' textbooks. Unfortunately for yours truly, one of them was intimately known inside & out.

Information becomes threatening. A search for Tienanmen square is to be blocked. Now Chinese firewalls are stopping searches, instead of Google itself.

It is not politicisation of commercial issues, there is nothing commercial about a dictatorship's ideological censorship.

There is nothing commercial about rewriting of its history, about suppression of historical facts, suppression of fundamental rights and/or even people.

It is not a commercial matter.

But as all despicable totalitarian regimes, China has the very same schizoid medical condition: it can not acknowledge the nature of its own acts and measures.

So instead, it overcompensates by being upset and screaming at the rest of the world, crying like a spoiled child who had some toy taken away (oh, only one wishes it were taken away...).

It is a deplorable and somewhat laughable sight. Dictators and their entourage suffer, in the 21st century, playing with 21st century toys, of the same fundamental and incurable mental health issues as all their predecessors did.

It is also a deplorable pattern, though: if a dictatorship has weapons arsenal dangerous to the 'free world', or has economic powers that are important to the 'free world', or happens to have neither and is of no significance, then in all these cases the 'free world' will do nothing whatsoever.

So full respect to Google, it is quite astonishing in today's day and age to find a corporation who takes a stand with a simple but effective gesture against a despicable dictatorship.

The action came indeed from an unlikely source, but this is perhaps the only way nowadays - as political powers in the free world will only use their might to 'fix' regimes in countries that are of major economic significance AND incapable of fighting back effectively (via economic or military means) - see case of Saddam, where suddenly the 'West' was talking about (illegal military) actions brought against a dictatorship to 'remove a dictator'. Yeah right.

China is not powerless, neither economically nor politically... or worse. But maybe, although as a small dent, only such actions can start making a difference against a regime that is in complete state of denial. Which is again a very old-fashioned state of mind of all dictatorships throughout history.

It is remarkable, in this template of actions and declarations they are also using, how China as to 'condemn' the gesture and attack outwards, because it needs so desperately to convince itself of its version of reality and 'truth'.

It is a sorry sight to see such a huge man being such a despicable little child. But conversely, let's not delude ourselves that this 'gesture' has any clout of any kind, or that, if others join the superior American 'democratic' forces ;-), this will have anything to do with actual human rights issues or anything related...

Also, let's not even dream that USA or any of its companies have any moral ground to talk in absolute terms about freedom of information, human rights etc.

But dictators and dictatorships have always been psychopathic children who were perfectly happy to kill people even, but could not come to terms with their own actions - so had to invent imaginary deluded systems of values and stories to scream about, while banging the side of the pram with a loud annoying toy.

Mafia haven

2010-03-18T10:00:00.003Z

Over the years, well, two decades, since the regime change in Romania, it may have seemed that some over-used the word 'Mafia' when describing the various circles of power (political, administrative, law enforcement and/or business).

However, apart from everyday myriad cases of unimaginable corruption, the organised crime in Romania doesn't only engulf all layers of society, it has also created a very good environment for foreign organised crime.

The latter found refuge and could even develop the 'business affairs' from within Romania, and according to recently published statistics (which carefully avoid commenting on the ties these Mafiosi had with Romanian officials), Romania is a safe haven for the Italian Mafia.

This is not only about various 'minor' characters, like certain assassins chased by the Interpol, but also very important players in the major Italian crime families.

When these characters are found to have lived for many years in Romania, hiding from Italian and international investigators quite successfully, and organised activities like illegal arms trade, it is impossible to deny their ties to local and central authorities in Romania.

The leader of Sacra Corona Unita lived and organised his 'business' in Romania for a timespan of six years, until captured.

The 'Number 2' person of the dreaded Camorra has passed through Romania many times, and ultimately Romanian police was involved in his capture.

Another key figure of the Camorra has been living in Romania since 1994, until finally captured. His involvement in certain 'business' deals again points to (unspoken) tight connections with local Mafia and authorities.

A key figure of the Cusoti clan of the Cosa Nostra is just the latest person captured in Romania, and the list is just the tip of the iceberg.

The press talks about the social and cultural factors that made Romania a favoured country for these 'businessmen'.

But it is impossible to consider the obvious, namely that an unimaginably corrupt country in Eastern Europe, where corruption permeates every level of authority (regardless of which 5-minute-long Government is in power), is a haven for these people and their network.

So while Romania still struggles with its finances and the economic situation in general, at least the Mafia and its international networks, on top of the local Romanian Mafia, flourish brilliantly.

Parallels

2010-03-08T19:21:00.004Z

Interesting parallels have been found between the recent Greek financial crisis, its lead-up and Romanian realities.

It is quite intriguing how similar the two countries' economic path and their Governments' measures were in the years leading up to the Greek 'bang'. One wonders whether Romania will repeat exactly that 'bang', or somehow avoid it due to esoteric economic and financial particularities in Romania.

Well, let's see...

In Greece, budget deficit between 2006 and 2009 has risen from 2.9% to 12.7% GDP. In Romania, the deficit has jumped from 2.5% to 7.5% between 2007 and 2009, as they had to raise the truly puny salaries and pensions.

In both countries, the salaries in the public sector have risen to vast proportions of the budget, in Romania this is currently 27% of the budget. The number of employees in the public sector has risen vastly in both countries, as both grossly overestimated the economic growth... while the expenditure on the salaries has also risen greatly (in Romanian, it doubled in last 4 years).

Pensions have caused in both countries vast increases in expenses, Greece can show that pensions are 12.5% of the GDP, while income in the public sector is mere 32% GDP.

Romania's repayments on Government borrowing have now tripled in just under two years. Greece has followed a similar policy of plugging the increasing holes with borrowing that then can be barely repaid.

Both Governments before and around the elections have adopted same populist gestures that look disastrous on the balance sheets.

So parallels may meet, according to Bolyai-Lobachevsky geometry, at an infinite point indeed. In case of Greece and Romania, their economic stories may meet much closer than that theoretical infinite...

McTax

2010-02-24T20:12:00.003Z

It is, even to a seasoned ex-Transylvanian who has seen old and new political regimes in my former homeland, astounding to watch the new measures that the brand new Romanian Government introduces in order to deal with the deficit and the general economic situation (to use a mild word).

One of the newest inventions is the tax on fast food or junk food as we'd like to call it. 'Unhealthy' food will have an extra tax, which may increase the price of these by 20%.

Now I'm not a McDonalds fan, far from it (far being the key word here, as my distance from junk food tends to be a large and relatively constant value measured in many many metres)... but... something is truly interesting about this new tax.

OK, junk food will cost inevitably more, and my heart may bleed in a spare moment for the people stuffing themselves full of burgers in burger joints... but it will not just hit such stereotypical junk food.

It will hit lower quality, cheaper, not quite healthy food that is the main food for vast masses of people on low income.

Which then brings to the vast social problem in Romania... the layer of people on low income is a considerable layer of Romanian society. They may not buy the best low-fat foods with least artificial ingredients and 'enrichments', because it is impossible for them to afford it.

The Government now hits these people and the same Government, which has such grandiose gestures about its apparent care for the wellbeing of its citizens, pushed vast numbers of people into abject poverty.

We are talking about pensioners and diabolically low income people who are working 14 hours a day to pay just the bills, and one has to look at the >90% proportion of average income being spent on energy bills and food in Romania, putting it at the rock bottom of the EU.

So we are talking about so-called energy poverty and food poverty... On top of this, the Government is severely underfunding health care, the budget runs out by middle of this year and nobody knows where money will be found for the 2nd half of 2010.

This happens while hundreds of thousands of pharmacies have not yet been paid for the subsidies since June last year.

But now we have such gestures showing the EU, that while many literally starve and freeze in the winter cold, the Government is caring so much for its people's health, that will introduce such 'healthy' tax on unhealthy food.

What is also interesting, is that the Western media, including in the USA, has given praise to these measures, showing just how misinformed some of the most respected TV new channels and press is, when it comes to the Romanian REALITY behind empty gestures.

The same countries and same media celebrated Ceausescu, whenever he made a superficial and apparently anti-Soviet gesture.

Nothing really changes... one just wishes that this Western media would once bother to scratch the surface of Romanian reality and find what rotting tissue is underneath. In the meanwhile, Romanian politicians can laugh their head off, as they again managed to fool most of the EU with empty and stupid gestures.

Disappointments

2010-02-14T13:32:00.002Z

One wonders who feel stronger disappointment.

The European Court of Human Rights has recently ruled that random stop & search powers granted to the Police by the anti-terrorist legislation (namely the infamous, totalitarian Section 44 of the so-called Terrorism Act) are illegal.

While Home Office and police officials repeatedly denied that Police resorts to regular abuses of power (personally, I stopped counting the scandalous cases documented in the media and my organisation's newsletter), the European Court stated that these powers are a "clear interference with the right to respect for private life".

The Government, more specifically the Home Secretary, stated that they are 'disappointed'.

They also appealed against the ruling, which is quite interesting - considering that seven judges, one British, have ruled unanimously.

Let's face it, it is simply a Government that just gave one more clear indication that it is above any law when it comes to its anti-terrorism legislation... and it will and can apply it in any way it wants, not listening to absolutely anybody.

It is also interesting, that exactly when the Home Office appealed, suddenly the level of terrorist threat was raised to 'severe', of course again by pure co-incidence.

So there are, again, good reasons to be disappointed, but not for the Government.

One wonders how many people believe this is a democracy, when in the name of yet another faceless and ubiquitous enemy, yet another society can adopt 'laws' that give absolute power to the 'arm of the law'.

It just so happens, that while this Stalinist farce was happening, yet another photographer has won damages when sued the police.

He was unlawfully arrested and held while he tried to cover, as freelance journalist, a traffic accident. When refused to give detailed personal information and pointed out he was just doing his job, he was detained for eight hours and camera equipment confiscated.

It is a society where individuals and, as in this case, professional organisations keep winning cases against the 'arm of the law', so one could say that as long as such sanity exists to some extent, maybe there are still remains of democracy one can cling on to.

May...

2010-02-01T16:34:00.002Z

Nope, I didn't confuse my calendar, not it is a wishful musing on the joys of spring to come...

Recent anti-terrorism actions from the police in the UK, which now reached a point where one has to ask how these are different from a regime that tried to police every sentence and every thought, made me think also of the relativistic and probabilistic approaches to our reality.

The word 'may' pretty much sums it up. Even concrete things, quantitatively measurable, like the legal tread depth on my car tyres, are subject to the cautious and probabilistic statement of 'it may need new tyres' (as recently a garage assessed it).

Medicines and mumbo-jumbo concoctions advertised on TV 'may' help with something or 'may' assist with something. Nobody dares to say it has an effect, nor that it doesn't, even when scientific trials have fundamentally proven repeatedly their expensive uselessness.

And then we are in the realm of security and counter-terrorism.

A photographer 'may' be involved in something 'suspicious'. Recently TV presenters recording a children's programme, suited in fake army apparatus were challenged by police, they 'may' have been terrorists... armed with a pink hairdryer and a cameraman filming them... of course, makes sense, doesn't it?

A sentence written in the heat of a moment on Twitter 'may' have been a genuine threat, so the person got reported and arrested next day.

Everybody 'may' be somebody (else). Everybody and anybody 'may' commit whatever anyone can possibly imagine.

And in a former citadel of democracy, we are actually policing this. We are enforcing everybody's paranoia of what 'may' happen or what someone or something 'may' do.

Absolutes become probabilistic relatives. Proof becomes secondary, tertiary. Rational judgment of proportions dwarfs in front of the almighty scary 'may'.

Well, we may return to sanity at some point. We may restore rationality and reason. We may have democracy again and we may have freedom of speech in the UK.

But for now, I and many 'may' be arrested for some blog or Twitter entries, one 'may' get held for 8 hours for challenging dictatorial police force confiscating one's photo equipment, and one 'may' be a terrorist based on arbitrary everyday paranoia of the everyday man on the street.

Some 'may' find this revolting.

Freedom of terror

2010-01-20T17:14:00.006Z

Up until I hit the grand age of 18 and a half, the world around me was one of various terrors... A wrong sentence, a wrong word in the wrong context could have meant all sorts of variations of Hell. One learnt how to play the everyday game of everyday life without landing oneself in trouble with the absolute powers that shaped everything around us.

It is quite interesting that although the context very much changed, and keywords also very much got replaced with others, some things do come back and one feels stuck in a rondeau of a very macabre sort.

Recently a man was arrested under the Terrorism Act in the UK, because after huge delays at an airport, he vented steam on Twitter, saying that unless something is finally done to resolve the chaos, he'll just blow this thing sky high.

Even someone as pacifist as myself can't quite count how many times used such figures of speech in momentary peaks of annoyance and frustration.

When we have something like Twitter that allows instantaneous broadcasts of short thought expressions, then the flow of thoughts to some large or small audience becomes very easy.

But then should we be terrorised, as in the days of totalitarian regimes, by the spectre of being next day arrested for using some figure of speech?

Should we be, as this person experienced, held for 7 hours and interrogated under the Terrorism laws of Britain, the land of freedom of speech?

One could say, well, it has a potential for that person being indeed a terrorist.

But really? Do we then police every sentence people say and write wherever? Just to be safe?

So where is the line then between the 'safety' the Government wishes to guard and an Orwellian world?

The practicalities of course mean that it's astounding effort to have this level of monitoring and well, based on a sentence on Twitter, such police actions are huge waste of effort and resources.

But all the debates come down to the facts: we have a new world order where we have a new public enemy No. 1 - and in order to "protect" us against that enemy in any way we can, we end up in a society that in its actions and measures, does not at all differ from any former Stalinist totalitarian regime where thought police could have jumped on you just for the wrong sentence said in the wrong environment at the wrong moment.

So we need to watch, amongst the freedom of speech... every word we say, because they can become 'terrorist threats' and 'dangerous'.

Interesting how things move in circles... and what is then true terror? The menace of occasional and terrible atrocities committed by demented terrorists or the everyday terror of forces protecting us against that other terror?... where are the lines?

Wherever they are, UK has long crossed them in the name of protecting its society. I remember the very same reason used by every totalitarian regime in history...

Crisis measures

2010-01-10T10:21:00.003Z

Of course, Romanian economy wasn't immune to the global financial crisis.

It certainly doesn't stand out as a unique country in the way its economy was impacted, but it may be quite unique in terms of what measures does the Romanian Government introduce to tackle it.

After the presidential elections, where the second round was quite farcical, a new Government also got established so that the next batch of financial help is quickly unblocked towards Romania. It is just a beautiful quirk that vast majority of the ministers and the prime minister is the same as the ones in the Government which recently had a vote of no confidence against it.

The main priorities in the new/old or old/new Government's crisis measures are quite interesting, but surely nothing unexpected.

First of all, major job cuts in the state sector, about 80000 jobs are to go. About 15000 are school and high-school teachers, who anyway between the Christmas and New Year period were forced to take unpaid leave.

Their salaries have been and are diabolically low, but this is where the Government thinks will save significant amounts of money to help with the vast budget deficit...

While it hits this sector so hard in order to save some money, it reduced and eradicated special taxes (of the order of 20-25%) on the following: gold jewellery, precious stones, yachts (!) and hunting weapons.

These taxes are abolished whilst numerous other taxes are invented as the Government desperately needs money it seems - so there is new tax even for fast food. So there is a remarkable, typically Romanian duality at work here: vast (even seemingly public health-oriented) gestures combined with totally contrary measures favouring the ultra-rich Mafia of the country.

So let's just be honest and say it: this Government has absolutely ZERO willingness to actually solve the budget deficit and the overall financial crisis, it just makes empty (and silly) gestures while it looks after the vastly rich Mafia that runs the country. Simple as that.

What is also interesting, and has been reported earlier in this blog, that this Mafia is incapable of even stealing properly: the vast EU funds for development have only been absorbed in a proportion of 3% (!), putting Romania at the bottom of the table.

In order to get access to those funds, one has to write a proper document and build a business case that shows how the funds will be used by company X and Y. There are now consultancies specialising in this and helping businesses to file such applications.

But this means some real work, some real thinking, some real minutes and hours spent to make an application.

So why bother even at the level of making up a fake business plan?

Surely for the Romanian ultra-Mafia it is much simpler and time saving to just continue robbing the country blind as they did for 20 years, this requires (in the ways they are doing it) virtually zero intellectual effort and it is purely based on an established list of connections...

It is not an accident that this country is incapable of solving any real problem in any real way , and that it is incapable of even accessing real funds for real things...

20 Years

2009-12-22T09:25:00.003Z

Exactly twenty years after the overturning of Ceausescu's regime, there are some very educational facts for young Romanians today, who were either too small to remember the events or were born after the Revolution.

First of all, 85 of the top 100 currently most influential (and wealthiest) Romanians occupied key positions in Ceausescu's regime. As John Simpson, the BBC correspondent who covered the Revolution back then, put it: it is a lesson on how not to do a Revolution.

And what more beautiful irony can be presented to the Romanian people today, than the still reverberating farce of a totally corrupt presidential election which just ended recently and the President was sworn in yesterday, on 21 December - 20 years after Bucharest, too went up in flames, literally and metaphorically.

The election presented Romanians two main candidates, both with extensive communist past and extensive ties with the Ceausescu Regime of the past...

On top of this, the winner, Traian Basescu, has accumulated votes in a somewhat interesting manner - one is reminded of the recent Iranian and Afghan elections...

Just one example: during the last hours of the extremely tight first round, he had so many votes from the Romanian diaspora at the embassy in Paris, that calculating with basic mathematics it shows that Romanians at that embassy spent 13 seconds per vote... which is a remarkable feast of 'speed voting'.

After this world record breaking wave of votes for Basescu, the person in charge of the voting at the embassy in Paris has immediately received a job as Government Minister... by pure coincidence, of course.

In face of such blatant and far from covert corruption, one has to wonder: just what more does the current 'regime' have to show to Romanians of today to open their eyes just what kind of 'democracy' they live in?

And one doesn't even need to add to this the unimaginable organised corruption that rules the country on every single level of administrative and political power.

It is only a small baroque ornament, that the Democratic Union of Romanian Hungarians, a party who claims that represents the rights of the Hungarian minority in Romania, strikes deals with any and every possible party in power...

So the very same Prime Minister and virtually the exactly same Government that this Hungarian ethnic party signed vote of no-confidence against is now the great ally of Bela Marko, the leader of the Hungarian ethnic party... and they occupy 4 Minister positions in the Government they were only months ago so against... saying that they did this for the good of the Hungarian ethnic population they sooooo represent...

At the end of the day, the Emil Boc Government No. 4 (as he is the PM now for the 4th time( is almsot exactly the same Government that was deemed anti-constitutional and corrupt even by Romanian standards only a few months ago... the same monsters have returned now...

It truly is a country that even after 20 years of so-called 'democracy', applies every day the visions of Kafka, Mrozek and Camus... reaching levels of absurd tragicomedy that are beyond most people's imagination.

Winding roads

2009-12-01T17:27:00.005Z

While anti-communist demonstrations in Timisoara (the city where the 1989 Revolution started) and Bucharest have flared up, considering the current presidential candidates are all tightly connected with the former regime, another remarkable event took place.

The first 42 kilometers of the infamous Transylvanian motorway has been inaugurated.

What makes it remarkable is that it took six years, seven directors and five Government ministers to get this small chunk of the planned motorway completed.

Hungary, in comparison, completes 40-50 kilometers of motorways per year.

Until 2013, the company making this ill-fated motorway has to complete 370 kilometers of it... while to just build 15% of this motorway, almost half of the funds has been spent already.

The more tragicomic element of this vast fraud operation (as the funds have disappeared into the most expensive bits of road ever built anywhere, and this portion didn't even have to cut through the Himalayas let's say...) is that the motorway was hampered by all sorts of mishaps.

All kinds of 'archeological finds' stopped the work, in some cases some old half-demolished buildings in the middle of nowhere from 1950 which were proclaimed to be of key cultural importance...

The completed tiny portion is not even truly functional, entrance to it is made via an improvised concoction and the traffic node near the city Turda is not completed yet.

So we have 42 kilometers of heavy concrete and asphalt, semi-connected to existing roads and this is a great success.

Where the rest of the money will come (let's face it, the other half of the funds not yet spent will, in this manner, be sufficient for another tiny portion of road), nobody knows.

One thing is sure, in the same way, 90% of it will disappear into pocket linings as it did before...

Ceausescu had his grand dreams, and ironically he used to deliver (often unusable and semi-collapsing) materialisations of those dreams.

But this neo-communist regime is so busy with robbing the country blind, that even 15% of one single motorway, built in six years, is a heralded success.

Not quite sure any more what is more tragicomic.

Plurality

2009-11-24T17:43:00.003Z

There are again remarkable and unfortunate similarities between the political scenes of my former and current home...

Of course there are enough scandals around British political elite at the moment, and even the MP's expenses scandal pales in comparison when looking at the problem of the average voter: who would one vote for, when the Labour Government is thoroughly discredited, the opposition is playing a game of so vastly unsubstantiated resounding claims that even Joe & Jane on the street can see through them...

In the meantime, the extreme right is gaining popularity, people are turning away from the major parties and considering voting for 'whoever else'... combine this with the fact that many thought the fascist BNP had made 'good points' during their leader's recent BBC appearance...

There is a deep sense of pointlessness in this, and many on the street feel that this so-called democracy works only in its basic mechanical elements... once they vote for somebody to get into Parliament, or heaven forbid, ends up in Government (or acquires peerage as in the case of recent shocking cases of 'celebrity' business personality twits like Lord Alan Sugar), there is no control over what they do any more.

They can commit fraud on vast scale, cheat, steal and on a milder front, 'just' introduce legislation that would make even Stalin proud (just look at Home Office ministers' activities).

It is quite a tragic state of affairs when e.g. The Sun, a tabloid that has 9 million readers (no wonder, as it pairs 'political analyses' with page-three naked girls) pulled such cheap propaganda stunts against Gordon Brown that even their brainless readership resented it... When the readers of The Sun think of something on those pages as a 'cheap shot', well, that is quite an event in this sorry segment of media...

In Romania, plurality works equally well in its version of democracy.

During the current presidential elections, still ongoing as they need a second round, the main candidates are all ex-communists with either Securitate connections in the dark past or 'just' names from high echelons of the former Communist party.

Also the difference between the two main candidates that stand a chance of winning is marginal, both are mega-Mafiosi with a trail of corruption behind them that is simply mind boggling.

The discussions of the electorate on blogs and comments on national newspapers' web pages is as disillusioning as the British counterparts' are. Many see no point in voting and wonder who they could vote for 'just for the heck of it'.

It is also quite tragicomic how even the BBC gets it wrong... their article on the Romanian elections was fantastic, as they said, for example, that Geoana (the one people just call 'the village idiot') is proposing a vibrant and dynamic package for getting Romania's economy back on track.

Well, that dynamic package comes from a truly idiotic (seriously...) person who, for example, promises vastly increased salaries and pensions at the same time with vastly reduced taxes.

So maybe he could go from illiterate idiot (makes W. look like a genius, seriously) to a Nobel prize winner in economics...

Therefore there is quite little difference between the two political landscapes in terms of just what actual democratic exercise can be performed to elect the country's leaders... just that in the UK there is still some feedback loop and some actions have some consequences, while in Romania, well... anything goes.

People there actually believed and voted for Geoana, which means that, after we recover from the spasms of laughter caused by his electoral programme, we can give brownie points to good old Churchill... who said that the best argument against democracy is a 15-minute chat with the average voter...

Families

2009-11-19T13:06:00.003Z

There is the semi-romantic semi-nostalgic image of the cosy Mafia families, with their Dons that so much entertained us on the silver or shiny glass screens.

Then there are family values and family-centric policies of Governments and employers and whatnot. There are the Dynasties that filled pages of our history books in school years and beyond.

Then there are families that are much alike those illustrious (and/or sometimes bloody) Dynasties and surface in Romanian public, political and business life. Maybe not as romantic as the ones on silver screens or silver discs in our film collections...

The most recent and bordering-on-hilarity revelation comes from the reputable University of Iasi, where there are seven families employed at its Faculty of Biology. Out of the 62 staff members, 15 are related...

To add a particularly beautiful example of how Romanian legislation, rules etc. are in direct contradiction with everyday reality (namely laws and rules are simply worth the paper they are written on), the University in question has actually voted at the end of 2008 an internal rule which was 'anti-Dynasty'... in virtual unanimity...

Similar situation exists in the city of my former student years, Cluj - here the Faculty of Chemistry has a nice cloud of Dynasties on its staff list.

It would be very depressing to go beyond a few examples of such institutions who pay those salaries from public money... the list would be immense.

Just a few gems, as one can't resist: the National Civil Aeronautic Authority is riddled with close relatives holding high-powered jobs, including Tarom (the national airline company) and Romania's major airports. Young lads, who just took some exam or other, have been immediately put in co-pilot jobs... no comment.

National Energy Regulatory body is no different, nor is EnergoNuclear or Transelectrica, which are preoccupied with nationwide energy distribution and nuclear energy matters...

It is particularly interesting to follow the Dons and their Dynasties in such organisations and companies that spend public money and also in many cases are directly impacting public safety & welfare.

So we can return, in order for us to safeguard our health and reduce blood pressure, to the nostalgic cinematic imagery of families... and not peel any more layers from this wonderful giant onion...

Flu business

2009-11-18T19:26:00.003Z

Flu, especially the new swine flu, H1N1, is major business in Romania. After all, why this wouldn't have a huge and corrupt money making scheme around it?

The beauty of the situation started to develop a few months ago. By introducing containment rules well after all other countries at similar pandemic levels moved from the fundamentally useless containment stage to treatment stage, Romania was still closing schools, introducing quarantine regulations and sealing off hospitals... This was very useful for having certain companies get certain contracts via certain channels in order to procure and sell absolutely useless masks for example in the tens of thousands.

In case there is doubt, the masks on sale were of the very everyday type, hugely overpriced, sold to hospitals with vast profit margins, and the punchline is that these masks had holes about 3 times the size of the virus in question. Essentially, buying and then using these masks against the flu virus was exactly as effective as buying and using a fishnet to protect one against rain...

But then in true proto-capitalist post-communist manner, Romanian authorities and the Government developed their flu business further.

The Government has launched a competition for distributors of the anti-viral pills (Tamivir and Zanamivir). On the surface, well, it was a normal affair, having companies bid for the lucrative rights of distributing the drug.

But the devil lies in the detail.

The requirements posed by the Government were astonishingly precise... the list described exactly how many warehouses of what size (in square meters) in how many and which exact cities the winner company has to have...

It also described with interesting details the exact required number of vans and response times the company has to have.

When confronted with the obvious fact that these interestingly precise numbers happen to favour very clearly a certain company, namely Europharm, the Government defended the list of requirements and pointed out that these details are actually just copied from its pandemic prevention handbook.

Actually, as one may guess oh so accurately, the mentioned 'book' contains no such details...

So essentially the flu pandemic is another typical Romanian affair... all the boxes are ticked, all the legal checkpoints satisfied, but under the surface, it is the same corrupt machination as everything else, simply putting money in certain pockets via biased and pre-set deals struck before any contract bid was filed by anyone.

The current bill is 20 million Euros, and one has to ask what proportion of that is purely channeled via such corrupt deals and so-called contract negotiations, while the death toll has risen, number of cases is shooting up exponentially and the Government is just interested in shady dubious money making on the back of the oh-so-scary virus...

Land of culture

2009-11-07T17:33:00.004Z

Well, after 20 years of tragicomic inability to promote Romania in terms of culture & tourism (let's face it, the 'Western' crowds by and large only know imagery with horse-drawn carriages shot in God forgotten villages and orphanages with 12th century living conditions), the various 'cultural' departments of the Government had another valiant attempt... as miserable as all previous ones.

This time, at the Frankfurt Book Fair, they tried to present Romania via a glorious book entitled 'Romania - Land of Culture'.

The slight problem is that this book is riddled with literally nonsensical translations from Romanian to English, massacres of English language of such gory hilarity that only a translation software in the hands of some orangutans could produce...

A few juicy examples from the thousands of diabolical passages, from a book that took 30 000 Euros to publish... and yes, all quotes are exact:

A writer is described via the paragraph: "He published the following books: headlight, windows, pictures, poems, book romaneasca, 1980, Poems of love, Cartea Romaneasca, Bucharest, 1982, All, poems, book romaneasca, 1984; dream (in the next editions of Nostalgia) stories, Cartea Romaneasca, Bucharest, 1989, [...] dream chimera, critical study, Litear, Bucharest, 1991, transvestite, Roman...".

In case your eyes and head don't huer yet, let's continue with other gems...

A poet is described with "he debuted in 1994 with a volume of poetry naturally exaggerate".

Romania is said to be "deeply European through its Latinity", and that it was searching for its democracy since the Middle Ages. Wow...

Or the following pearl: "For the long running history, twenty years are only a fragment of cronology, but for the life of a people escaped from the totalitarian nights this period of time marks the renaissance of the country, the finding of the European brothers and cousins once again".

Well, in case you're still standing and not convulsing with laughter (and possibly anger), then you'll also be pleased that Romanian words like 'roman' (which means novel) have been translated to English as... you guessed it (?)... 'roman'. Which kind-of means something else, doesn't it?

Bucharest is described as "the only capital city in the world whose patrimony had ever been aggressed during peacetime, between the dictatorship years: '70s -'80s of the last century".

Oh dear.

This lexical soup was produced by the Ministry of Culture, but they blame the manufacturers...

It is just another grand act in the tragicomic opera of Wagnerian proportions, an opera that lasted already for 20 years and has proven that the Romanian Mafiosi running the country with zero respect for anything have also zero self-respect.

In 20 years, none of the myriad governments that Romania had could in any way promote the cultural and natural treasures of that country - why would they, as the only interest they have is how to rob the country blind.

I had a vague hope in the 1990s, namely that this Mafia will be able to realise that if they do a good job with promoting Romania abroad, they can attract more tourism money to divert to their own pockets...

But the Romanian so-called cultural elite in the so-called Government, including myriad ministers responsible for culture and tourism over the last 20 years, always pick (being ultimately the laziest Mafiosi on the face of the planet) the methods with least effort to commit fraud at astronomical scale.

So why would they put effort into thinking, strategies, promotions etc... if they can do what they did for 20 years in that country, with minimum effort?

Extremism

2009-11-02T16:39:00.003Z

It is quite interesting that the UK Home Office is setting up now databases which will hold information on 'extremists'.

How someone gets labelled an extremist? Well, before the Home Office Secretaries that introduced a mountain of downright Stalinist abuses of privacy, human rights and so countless violations of civil liberties, it would have meant probably militant violent people and/or terrorists.

Now, in the post-Jacqui Smith era, it also means just about anybody who happened to attend demonstrations, protest rallies etc.

Let's face it, in the current (extensively commented) Orwellian UK society, where even EU forums have shunned us for the abuse of human rights in the name of 'anti-terrorist strategy', the only democratic means at one's disposal are such protests.

But now, while we also can't take picture of policemen (exactly like in a former communist dictatorship) without getting arrested under the Terrorism Act, but they can freely and sneakily take pictures of anybody in the crowd, such activity can land you in a whole lot of trouble and certainly you can end up in the new database.

Well, I haven't taken part in any demonstrations, as I find the entire thing totally futile in this so-called democracy where we lost complete control of any kind over those who elect... exactly as it is in the post-communist states.

But... I just wonder who is extremist in this context.

Recently a photographer in Poole was stopped from taking photos on a public beach (which had no people even) and was told he needs special permission from the city council.

The myriad published and furore-producing abuses of power from the British police under the so-called Terrorism Act, not to speak the abuse of power from stupid mini-Hitler overzealous security guards and jobsworths in the name of the same legislation, are too many to count by now.

Now this database is just adding to the arsenal of what is becoming a police state in front of our own eyes.

Questiontime for fascists

2009-10-20T20:00:00.003+01:00

The fact that this week the BBC will give a platform for the leader of the fascist British National Party has caused a lot of debate online and offline...

Some say these horrid and unspeakably stupid people should not be given airtime... others that yes, after all, the BNP is a noteworthy political party and they should be invited along as any other party in the UK.

Now what I am about to say, well, write, needs to be put in context a bit. I grew up in a vehemently anti-minority and anti-human rights totalitarian regime. I swallowed countless ethnic discrimination measures and abuse in everyday life. After the Revolution, was treated to a pogrom organised by the Romanian far right in my home town. The fascist Great Romania party has been saying unimaginable vile stupidities since 1990... Ergo not for a moment do I in any way feel inclined to support revoltingly stupid and absolutely fascist people like the members and leaders of the BNP.

But...

BNP has seats in the European Parliament. It is one of the constantly mentioned political parties in Britain. And, thankfully, against their wishes, we live in a democracy where equality human rights do matter (unless they cross the boundaries of major political interests and power games).

So... I do think they should be invited to BBC's Questiontime programme, exactly as any other notable (for right or wrong reasons) party was and is and will be.

Yes, they are ignorant, vile and revolting. Yes, their leader and his entourage are amongst the stupidest people you can ever hear on TV or in the media. Yes, they fund animated films for kids, educating them in neo-Nazi ideology. Yes, they have scout movement to do the same to impressionable brains of kids sent to those camps by fascist parents.

But... again...

It is perhaps the biggest mistake to let them argue their vile case within the confines of their warped and demented audience.

It is a huge mistake to not bring them into the spotlight and pair them up with human beings.

Let us see just how idiotic their arguments are... Frankly, they are so incredibly stupid that it is just breathtaking to listen to them... they even, in a recent political stunt, kicked the Ghurkas... and famously many of their sympathisers went away from the debate with feelings that gee, these people are truly revolting.

So let's discuss their views. Let's have a debate, on national TV, on one of the most watched and reputable programmes on BBC...

Let uber-fascist Nick Griffin talk about their views... answer questions... debate with panelists on the programme...

There was no, and is no, better forum to expose their breathtaking ignorance, stupidity and extremism. Let's not send the BBC criticism for letting this happen - it's the best forum for showing what the BNP is.

With great regret, I can only wish that in Romania, Nick Griffins of that land would be exposed in this way...

Let's watch, fellow humans, how these animals make a fool of themselves, please tune in, it will be educational and entertaining at the same time...

Undercover

2009-10-11T19:22:00.003+01:00

There is a fascinating article in one of the Romanian national papers - the claims are quite interesting and the facts speak for themselves.

The opinions voiced by former president Emil Constantinescu (one of the very few respectable politicians that country ever had) are presenting a scenario which, far from being unbelievable, are causing a major stir and demands for investigations.

To put it simply, it is about turning black into white - in the Romanian media, a metamorphosis carried out by large numbers of journalists who hold key positions and happen to be undercover exponents of various political circles and not just... some are officers of the SRI, which is the successor of the dreaded Securitate.

The spokesman of the SRI, the Romanian Service of Information, has himself admitted grudgingly that the SRI always had agents in various levels everywhere in the Romanian media organisations...

One example of the black turning white, during a process that relies on well-orchestrated manipulative distortions of facts and also happens to rely on the short term memory of Joe Public, is the Stolojan case.

Constantinescu brings up this example, as it is just superb... Theodor Stolojan used to manage the funds of the Securitate, had close links with Ceausescu's circles, while being considerably dim intellectually... over the years, he was transformed by a media campaign into a champion of freedom, an intellectual beacon.

Stoloja happened to become suddenly prime minister exactly during the time period when the Securitate's funds were distributed...

But the highly effective wash cycle works also on other, much bigger Romanian political figures... even that of the current president, Traian Basescu.

Basescu is a self-confessed collaborationist, on top of which he was an informer, a leader of a group that used to spy in the NATO zone, a person who was appointed by Elena Ceausescu herself... but over the years, he has become a freedom fighter, a champion of change, a leader for the free Romanian people...

Constantinescu gives numerous examples of how the manipulation worked, after all the facts remain facts, but the methods used by the press campaigns are not difficult to guess. They range from files that happen to 'escape' onto pages of national papers with perfect timing, even conversations of the Home Secretary have leaked onto the pages of newspapers... which is simply unthinkable without orchestrated press manipulation.

The former president simply states that Justice has been put on hold during Basescu's reign... Not one person was sentenced for corruption during the last 5 years, and Basescu is considered a symbol of the anti-corruption fight, while he himself has a 'blocked' file in the Supreme Court...

So... yes, Romania has remained unchanged, only some surfaces have been re-painted, the essence, as always stated, remained the same - especially when it comes to absolute & absolutely corrupt power at the top.

Reversals

2009-10-07T17:58:00.002+01:00

Naturally, during the recession there was and is much talk about property prices in both Romania and UK, just to pick two countries one knows more about :)

House prices started to slightly increase in the UK over the last few months (giving rise to a lot of Labour-biased press coverage on how well the economy started to do... forgetting that it means nothing whilst banks are still not lending...). At the same time, Romania is seeing an interesting reversal phenomenon.

The price of old, communist-era block flats is currently 25-30% higher than those of newly built apartments. Knowing the quality of the glorious Ceausescu-era apartments, this is even more tragicomic.

The strange reversal, as in a quantum physics phenomenon, is due to the fact that the silly prices of the new apartments had to come down aggressively, as few can afford them in current Romanian economic climate. Also, banks are not that keen on loans there, either...

40-year-old apartments are being sold for 1600-odd euros per square meter... while brand new apartments scarep in at around 1200 euros per square meter...

Many property developers and building companies that try to sell the new apartments are choosing to sell with great losses, instead of not selling at all.

Vision impairment

2009-09-24T20:06:00.005+01:00

One watched for 20 years how, after the Revolution, the various layers of Romanian administration, Government departments, Parliament, business circles were harmoniously and consistently a vast chorus of utterly self-centred, short-sighted people who only and only tried to fill their pockets while in power.

Why would it then be a surprise to anyone that a German research group has placed Romania at the but-last position in the list of countries that took measures and/or have a vision against the economic crisis.

After all, why would people think about measures against the crisis and have any vision whatsoever about the country's future, if the same people have spent every minute of their political and business life simply squandering the resources of the country? In a country with unique and considerable natural and cultural treasures, they couldn't even make use of these in tourism, which is in deplorable state (unless we count the EU millionaires being brought in by organised Mafia to hunting parties where even protected animals, in the perfect Ceausescu era's fashion, are served in front of the shotguns of paying 'guests'). Politicians like Petre Roman and Attila Verestoy have, after all, also sold illegally vast amounts of timber cut from forests that now causes catastrophic flash floods. Especially Verestoy, who is known fondly as "God's Chainsaw"... for a very good reason.

It really is a matter of absolute and perfect state of self-absorbed egocentricity, where any means are employed to rob the country blind. Irony is that when it comes to EU funds, they can't even steal properly - the absorbing of EU funds is remarkably bad in Romania and everything is tangled up in such bureaucracy, that you have to pay layers of consultants to get anywhere near the funds.

Other funds, in the meantime, are diverted and stolen immediately, just think of the amount of money poured into Romania for infrastructure development (where again the country is in the last position in the EU rankings - and 20 years of motorway building led to few tens of kilometers being 'almost ready' while all the money disappeared) or anti-corruption agencies (which don't really do anything and never will).

A Deloitte study has shown also that 70% of the subjects considered EU funds difficult to access, and the overall pessimism regarding any chance of recovery is understandable when Romania can proudly show a 125% fall in consumer spending - this is the most dramatic fall in the EU.

What is remarkable is that this, to some in the press and on the street, is still surprising. Maybe 20 years of consistent patterns in the economic and political reality of the country were not enough for many to acquire some eyesight?... let alone vision...

Round figures

2009-09-21T16:42:00.002+01:00

It is remarkable how nice and round the figures in Euros get when it comes to how even local administration spends funds, including EU funds.

I had a little mention earlier of a children's playground in my home town, it has the surface of about an Olympic size swimming pool - I ran a little experiment and asked people their estimates, even guesstimates, and everybody came up with sums in Euros with at most four zeroes.

In all actuality, it apparently cost one million Euros... nobody dares to ask the Mayor of Tirgu Mures where are the receipts, but it is a fact that it was made without any competition between companies, the contract simply ended up handed to one of his Mafioso buddies. Ironically, he is suing a senator who dared to point this fact out on a local TV channel... after all, these crooks have standards...

Interesting enough, another little but round sum hit the light of day - there were plans for an underpass in my home town, and I remember going to my entrance exams at the University I planned to attend - at that point in time I was watching the huge craters they dug for that underpass. It was in 1990...

Since then, the project was on halt, every local election a few bulldozers moved some grains of sand from here to there, then everything stopped again.

But now, to show the change in wind direction and the might of the clan that rules the town, it finally got finished. It is in deplorable state, but there is a tunnel under the main road and you can, if your life insurance covers it, go from one side to the other... even maybe emerge alive at the other end.

It cost... you guessed it... one million Euros.

Dorin Florea and his Mafia seems incapable of counting in anything other than multiples of one million Euros...

The results are remarkable, as usual - I, for one, am glad that after 19 years, 'officially' the underpass exists and it is 'finished'.

If they had not finished it now, who knows how many more millions of EU and public money would be spent on that tragicomedy.

I am lookin forward to their next project...

Innocence

2009-09-14T17:14:00.003+01:00

I remember looking at the policemen (well, they were 'Militia' men) in the Romanian 1970s and '80s with fear.

The overall rule was that you were guilty until proven innocent - and I happened to be one of the kids that got once stopped at random, for no reason whatsoever in the little street called 'Peace Street' (ironically).

I was asked can I prove that I didn't steel the bike... which was of course mine. They were just bored out of their skull (not mind...) and had to pick on somebody. But they had absolute power... so conversation quickly degenerated into mumbling and hoping they get bored again... and they did so I was on my way without having to prove the impossible (no mobile phones in those days so I doubt they would have escorted me home to ask my Dad...).

But then who would have thought, that after all the totalitarian (sorry, anti-terrorist) legislation they introduced in the UK, including the ban on taking pictures of any policeman in any situation (maybe they are afraid to be seen again shooting to death innocent people on the Tube or making them have a heart attack, even if they are genuine bystanders at a demonstration), there would be even more Stalinism coming to the UK.

Thankfully I am exempt at the moment, but anybody being in repeated contact with kids and/or driving them to/from school will have to undergo a Criminal Records Bureau vetting.

So basically everybody in that category of (currently about) 11 million people in the UK are guilty until proven innocent, or at least deemed to stay innocent.

There is a lot of innocence lost here.

Simply because this country's Government and local officials, city councils etc. miserably failed in certain categories of public safety, and as per recent 'Baby P' scandal, toddlers died while all the child protection agencies and social services failed to recognise clear signs of abuse over long period, now we have a solution.

The solution that only a totalitarian state and/or its feeble minded impotent bureaucrats can invent.

We mark everybody a potential deadly risk to kids. Or worse.

We test and vet everybody.

This will then solve all the systemic and systematic failures this country should be thoroughly embarrassed of.

Where does this end? It is not enough that the systematically induced paranoia culture got to a point where more than 80% of parents don't let their kids out of the house any more, not in any radius greater than 100 yards... better to play on the computer and lead to situations where new psychiatric conditions are invented for what results out of game station and computer addictions.

This, somehow, is deemed to be a better society.

The real side-effect will not be suffered by the parents and people who have to go through the CRB vetting under the new rules... the future utterly paranoid generations growing up in a culture where any adult is officially considered a risk until labelled 'OK' by some bureaucrats will pick up the pieces...

Road wars

2009-09-06T17:54:00.002+01:00

There was an interesting statistic in one of the Romanian daily newspapers the other day (well, distance makes one read it online nowadays...).

Taking current figures, more people die on the roads of Romania each day than in Afghanistan. Also, they happen to be the most dangerous, well, lethal roads in Europe.

It is easy to take out to talk about certain isolated factors but there is a combination here of what personally would think as the key ingredients that built up this state of affairs over the years that followed the Revolution - one has to doubt whether such combination of such strength may exist in any other former Communist country.

On one hand, there is the state of unimaginable corruption - which among other things, allows truly countless numbers of people obtain driving licences (the huge figures reported in the press, after an anti-corruption clampdown on certain corrupt cops or administrative personnel are just the tip of the iceberg... or pile of corpses in this case).

But the same 'Mafia country' state of affairs allows also kids and people of any age basically get their hands on truly powerful pieces of machinery on four wheels. It is remarkable to see just what kind of people drive the most powerful cars - with few exceptions, at a single glance, you would not like to meet those people even in broad daylight in small side-streets. The stories of 17-year-olds, sons and daughters of the 'elite' (in Romania this has a very dark and particular meaning) are all the time in the news, causing incredible accidents and sometimes surviving themselves...

Couple this with the absolutely criminal attitudes, where most of the joyriders know for a fact that they (at least their relatives) are above the law...

Then on the other extreme, you have cars in vast numbers that should not be on the road - their safety has been seriously compromised years and years ago, but in a totally corrupt country anybody can get a pass on a roadworthiness test by paying off the right test centre's right people...

And then there is the juxtaposition of two worlds - one world is medieval and has people taking horse-drawn contraptions through even busy city centres very often, others leave animals roaming free and causing truly horrific accidents on motorways.

The other is a modern world that tries to cram way too many cars into way too small historic streets without any parking solutions (Romania is at the bottom of the EU list in terms of how it dealt, well didn't deal at all, with the explosion in the number of cars) that the other, medieval and rural, world clashes in ways not seen during the Communism. I myself, possibly together with the horse ands my taxi driver, almost died last year because a horse-drawn thingy packed with literally crap was going against the one-way street's direction of traffic where there was zero visibility, totally oblivious to any signs or markings.

And then there is the typical Balkan attitude towards things, the laid-back, who-cares type of attitude, which one can add as the extra spice into the lethal mix and anybody thinking driving styles in Italy are, well, scary, should try driving through any busy town centre anywhere in Romania...

So there is a war on those roads, statistically more lethal than some real wars raging at the moment - and it is a war between two world, where one is politically, economically, evolution-wise, law-enforcement-wise, anti-corruption-wise completely out of control. The other is trying to co-exist with its 'normality' and miserably failing.

Fractal country

2009-08-25T16:49:00.003+01:00

It often strikes me as truly remarkable that certain countries can be like fractals... no matter how much you magnify a tiny detail taken from any point, they end up showing you the same pattern in beautiful mathematical consistency.

Romania does have such amazing fractal-like qualities. If anybody had any contact with let's say their Embassy in London, their officials anywhere there or abroad, and knows Romanian everyday realities well, can easily conclude: these little mini-manifestations are exactly as the country, in the worst possible sense.

A recent peek into the microscopic fractal-like details of this place was offered by an unfortunate case about a mountaineering trip that went horribly wrong. If anyone knows the country, can find the similarities with everything from political life to everyday glimpses in the facts below...

An unfortunate but very experienced mountain climber suffered a stroke at 2200m altitude. Thankfully had friends with him and mountain rescue was called.

They were given explicit instructions to stay put and will be rescued.

Hours passed, nothing... further queries revealed that on one hand two regional mountain rescue teams were fighting over who should go and who has responsibility...

There was only one helicopter anywhere near that could have been commandeered to rescue, but that was owned by a private company.

The private company found it much more important to pocket a nice fee from a high-profile politician and take him to an opening ceremony than to save someone's life.

In the meanwhile, the mountaineers decided to descend from the cold to some more decent temperature, and the stroke-afflicted person had to actually climb as they could not just carry him down on that terrain.

In the end, by the time mountain rescue finally... rescued them... 20 hours went by.

The victim is in much worse condition than he'd been in, if he had professional help promptly...

At the moment nobody whatsoever is taking any responsibility.

So, just take a magnifying glass and zoom in on any Romanian corner of reality... I can say as someone who grew up there and after 20 years of 'change' still choking with frustration how few truly vital things changed at all... that the entire country will be depicted in what you see through the magnifying glass.

It is only a side-story that the mountain rescue team of my former home county is also on the border of tragicomic when it comes to how they set themselves up and how they operate... so if you suffer an accident, pray...

This latter bunch of 'experts' even had training of their mates (as selection criteria for employment in the team was, well, not based on any interviews nor test results...) in a mountain cabin, sitting around a table, watching training videos because... yes... it was raining outside. Poor things.

So as the unfortunate recent victim said, who is now trying to recover over many months and is half paralysed, one should do oneself a favour and in those mountains die properly and quickly... because if one has an accident, then these morons will never find one in time... Unfortunate to him, his statement proved to be perfectly and accurately prophetic.

Priorities

2009-08-15T18:09:00.003+01:00

Sometimes one wonders whether the mini- and mega-oligarchs in current Romanian political and administrative elite could be any more consistent in their ludicrous patterns of spending public money.

It is well known that my favourite mayor, obviously the mayor of my town of birth, Dorin Florea has scattered countless millions of euros of public money in the wind, a wind that always blows favourably around his entire entourage (which many just refer to simply as the local Mafia).

Apart from the many scandals, some lawsuits and the like, he reputedly said no to a plan of updating the town's absolutely diabolical water purification plant. After all, elections were coming and such an upgrade would not have been very visible. It was much more visible completely re-doing the pedestrian walkways of the town, replacing them with stonework which was contracted to one of his friend's company.

But now we have the considerably larger mini-dictator of a considerably larger city, the capital city of Bucharest, who has exhibited symptoms of the very same affliction, namely the obsessive-compulsive scattering of public money down a golden toilet, while high-priority and very vital projects are on hold.

This other megalomaniac (the ghost of Ceausescu must have popped in for a few brainstorm sessions there, too) has just spent close to 1 million euros of public money (also directly giving the money to one of his fellow Mafioso's company) on covering the many clocks of the city's parks in gold.

Yes, this is a high-priority project to be funded by the public. The same public of course in his mind doesn't really care about crime rates, public safety, heck, the clean-up of the mountains of garbage from every street of Bucharest.

When I last visited, in very central areas of the capital city, incredibly primitive people were throwing the garbage out on the window, from various floors of 10-storey block flats, the result being incredible and the result included also rats swarming between these buildings...

This medieval animalic misery right in the middle of the capital is of no concern... but the gold plating of clocks in the parks (which are also falling into tragic disrepair) is of key importance.

Security

2009-08-12T16:36:00.003+01:00

It's been commented to death that UK has turned into a perfect Orwellian surveillance society. OK, the former Home Secretary, if she hadn't left due to scandals, would have tried to perfect it further... there is no such thing in the current British Government's viewpoint as a 'perfect enough' anti-terrorism legislation leading to a perfect enough police state...

Still, the statistics published recently confirm what any sane (or insanely conspiracy theorist) mind predicted...

Councils, police and the intelligence services asked more than 500,000 times to approve access to private email and phone data. This amounted to about 1500 requests per day to spy on people...

The figures were published in the annual report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner, Sir Paul Kennedy.

All these requests were made possible by a wonderful legislation which was meant to serve the anti-terror strategy of the Home Office... turning it into an instrument of terror, ironically.

Another aspect, also commented to death, was the abuse on amateur and, well, any photographer, all done by police and self-appointed vigilant citizens in the name of a similarly crazy anti-terror law.

Now there is a new website set up to gather information about such incidents, provide a map of these and well, also offers of course a photo gallery.

One recent development is that the Metropolitan Police has issued updated guidelines which have been communicated to its officers (and community support officers) in which it states the Force "Encourage officers to be vigilant against terrorism but recognise the balance between effective policing and protecting Londoners and respecting the rights of the media and general public to take photographs".

Well, let's see. So far there are no measurable effects of the new guidelines, but time will tell.

Learning

2009-08-08T08:48:00.003+01:00

There is much renewed hope that current British Government ministers may learn from and evolve to the level of nonchalance and arrogance of the political circles in certain parts of the Balkans...

Currently Lord Mandelson is running the country from Corfu, via a Blackberry, while enjoying the lifestyle of a Russian oligarch he also visited there last year... All this farce simply because the Labour Party could not synchronise the PM's holiday with his deputy's holiday, who also left recently... so had to revert to the remote Mr. Corruption. As a reminder to short term memory loss cases, Mr. Mandelson, OK, Lord Mandelson has been thrown out of the Government so far 3 times, every time due to corruption and fraud... and made a comeback every time.

Gordon Brown, while there are British servicemen dying in Afghanistan, is 'keeping an eye on things' from his holiday in Scotland, where he also offered to do 'voluntary work'. The next step this desperate and hopeless Cabinet will do will be taking a page out of Ceausescu's manual and go around entertaining children who bring lots of flowers to the much loved Leader... What's next?

Then there was Tony Blair, enjoying long friendly visits to good old Silvio Berlusconi and receiving cheques...

It does seem that the role models of this party are the Eastern and occasionally Western European Mafiosi and oligarchs (not much difference really), and they are indeed progressing. The stunts pulled by the Labour Government only in recent two years shows that the learning process is going well.

We simply have to organise visits to Romania, they have so much more to learn - but they are on the right track.

Home affairs

2009-08-04T20:33:00.003+01:00

Certain affairs of my home town, well it's mayor and those of his entourage, are worthy of a Romanian version of Saviano's Gomorra.

Certainly every single thing described in Gomorra can be matched perfectly to what Dorin Florea and his local Mafia, with astonishing connections with the similarly corrupt Parliament circles, carries out.

The few small facts and small-scale frauds are just tragicomic. He lost his temper in many interviews, when asked about his and his gang's foreign trips, all paid by public money. The latest amusement is provided by the exorbitant sums claimed as travel expenses during a 'seminar' in Turkey, where it turned out that all those things were actually provided free of charge by the organisers there.

On a slightly larger scale, the astronomical fraud (on a local scale) of the so-called playground mentioned in an earlier blog entry (1 million euros for a tiny playground, which cost few percent of the claimed sum) is still kind-of amusing.

Then there are more interesting aspects, too of Mr. Florea's Mafia. Several taxi drivers reported that they are afraid to stop near any bus stops and pick up people who, in 30+ degrees temperatures had enough of waiting for a bus... The reason for the fear is that the police, also in Mr. Florea's pocket, has been monitoring taxis doing this and... to protect the income of the public transport company, also in Mr. Florea's pocket, they issued hefty fines to taxi drivers... on made-up charges, as there is no law against what they did.

Left, right and centre there have been vast amounts of trees cut, in the name of new parking spaces... as in the case of one residential area, there were no permissions issued, no paperwork whatsoever... except that the company paid to cut the trees had a piece of paper which was not signed nor stamped by the Mayor's office... but they got the contract due to the connections with that office. Any media investigation and Green Party actions have been totally futile.

To get a feeling of just what Berlusconi-esque Mafia (combined with the remarkable, grotty primitivism of the Camorra) is at play in this Romanian city, oh-so representative of what goes on in every local government, the local Romanian daily newspaper simply refuses to publish anything whatsoever that is in any way against the Mayor and his office, sorry, Mafia.

So those criticising the Parliament and the current (again will be short-lived) Romanian Government for the stratospheric heights of corruption have not yet understood that everything, at every level in Romania, has a remarkable consistency when it comes to textbook fraud, organised corruption, diverting of public and EU money and plain illegalities that they don't even mind if those hit the pages of the media.

There is a Berlusconi-esque Teflon coating on this little, medium and large scale Mafiosi... even if their deeds hit the pages of the press, unless the EU pressurises the national anti-corruption agency to take action, they brush it off and carry on.

Oh those puny British MPs who had to be disgraced and resigned just because some puny expense claims hit the pages of the Daily Telegraph... go, go, and take up political career in Romania... although when it comes to the art of fraud, you'll have to learn a lot there.

Uniforms

2009-08-03T19:11:00.003+01:00

It is interesting how among various echoes of the past, the love of various uniforms is so ubiquitous in formerly dictator-ruled countries.

Romania is no exception, the former dreaded 'Militia' was replaced with the police, but then there is the civilian guard, gendarmes and countless other similar bodies that have their people roam the streets in various uniforms. Oh they love uniforms.

It is interesting then, how this love for authority figures also reveals itself in finances. A report of the World Bank shows that Romania's target of 6.5% of employees working in the public sector has been achieved in 2008.

So far so good. But what the figures also show is that 37% of the state budget spent on these employees goes to... uniforms. Secret police, police, civilian guard, gendarmes, you name it, long list of uniforms... The other part of the budget then goes to all of the other public sector employees, from doctors to teachers, spread very very thinly.

Combining this with the information on salaries and the huge pensions these people get from the Government, it is evident that Romania hasn't cured its love for uniforms... and their deeper meanings.

It is also interesting, that when the Government gives signs of cutting public sector employment, they show plans of cutting teachers, who have a barely 4% portion of the budget spent on the public sector. There is no talk about cutting the multiple, bloated, obese (literally and metaphorically) uniformed masses of people.

It could be worse. We could have military-looking people presenting the weather forecast, as in a certain EU country in the Mediterranean...

Reality switch

2009-07-27T19:43:00.004+01:00

After three weeks in Romania, in some ways good to be back from the 35+ degrees heat to the typical English grey rainy mess. Also, it is again a heck of a reality switch for me... from old to new home.

On a small scale, it is still a breathtakingly corrupt country.

The Mayor of my town of birth has built a children's playground for 1 million euros... if you'd see it, you'd estimate its cost to about 5% of this sum, even in your most generous moments. Where 95% of the public funds went, nobody knows... but this is similar to what at least led to the resignation and criminal investigation of the Youth & Sports Secretary in Romania, who spent obscene amounts of euros on some rock concerts... and it turned out only less than 10% of the money was actually needed & used... Within days of her successor having been appointed, the new person also hit the news with her tax evasion scandals and 'omissions' of not declaring properties she owns in Switzerland...

So at Government level, too the corruption is simply astonishing, despite any national anti-corruption agency that only catches the smaller fish. The typically Balkan Mafia also has attitude... after all, the mentioned Mayor actually sued a city council member because latter said that he has (and he does have) evidence that the mentioned playground was built by a mate of the Mayor, without any public bidding and contracts were handed out 'under the desk'.

The nostalgia about the Ceausescu regime is still quite amazing... once again, had several taxi drivers wax lyrical about how great it was during the dictator, how traffic was much better and parking was easier... It is simply breathtaking that such things can outweigh in the people's memory the atrocities of the regime... but vox populi was and is always based on short-term memory.

What about ethnic minority rights? Well, nothing changed. Things prescribed in the Constitution are barely respected and when bi-lingual street signs go up somewhere, it is a sensational thing.

Steaua, a Romanian football team had a match with Ujpest, a Hungarian team - the match held in Bucharest led to major incidents between supporters, the Romanian media with very very few exceptions only presented the issues caused by Hungarian supporters.

The small fact that the Romanian supporters displayed in Hungarian a racist and chauvinist banner with such text that no media dared to even repeat it, was kept quiet. It only came to light when UEFA handed out to Steaua the largest fine it ever handed out to any Romanian club. The scandal was then big enough to have the Romanian paper Adevarul finally publish an apology in Hungarian (!) about the behaviour of the Romanian extremists.

Not that the Hungarian supporters were angels after their fuse was lit, but it is remarkable how the oh-so-familiar manipulation tactics employing partial truths and magic video editing (very familiar from the days of the ethnic pogrom in 1990, organised by Romanian fascists) is still very much alive and well.

So yes, not much changed in that country. Old patterns just got stronger and perfected on many levels. The fact that THE largest University called Spiru Haret was discredited by the Minister for Education and the diplomas nullified was just tragicomic... this University was founded by one of the Governmental Mafia clans and was the largest money printing business, handing out immense number of diplomas for money. 350 000 thousand students it had around the world, and wasn't even accredited in recent times.. but it lied about it on its website, and the money kept pouring into the pockets of the senators and MPs that were involved in this.

Many innocent students got hit by this, but eventually, as a calculated pre-Presidential election stunt, the Minister reversed the decision... already handed out diplomas will stay valid, but the fate of the so-called University is still in doubt.

In the meantime, the motorway being built in Transylvania is still not progressing, all EU funds are going into Mafia pockets, and it now turns out that 'accidentally' the route was designed to go right across an oil extraction facility - moving it or the motorway would cost up to 50 million euros...

So Romania does make one laugh, cry, but above all, made at least me as angry as I ever was during any of my visits to my homeland... I simply can not imagine to what heights will this corruption go, as it already operates at levels that no everyday mind can imagine.

Frankenstein's Michael

2009-06-27T08:44:00.004+01:00

Although one tries to concentrate on the main topics that this blog is, well, mainly about, it is impossible to ignore the media frenzy around the death of the King of Pop... and it is strangely as relevant for my new and former home's societies, as his life was relevant world-wide.

First thing that strikes one is that his life is truly a post-modern story. He was a chameleon, yes, but as someone put it: he was constructed from many disjointed parts. Now people have to choose which part, or actually, which Michael Jackson to remember. There were too many - and each incarnation has been a combination of strange, sometimes loveable, often tragic, often tragicomically misguided and, perhaps his greatest tragedy, way too innocent child-like elements.

He truly was a creation of Frankenstein - but the misguided doctor in this case happens to be actually the environment around the star, showbiz, media and the public's insatiable hunger for sordid details of his life.

Perhaps his sometimes freakish childish innocence clashing with the immense pressure of the showbiz engine exacerbated everything - surely, we never had such a tragic case of a mega-star who was so devoured by, importantly, not just the media pressure itself but his own efforts to deal with it.

He was truly unique, whether one appreciates his music and/or his showmanship or not - and so was his quite tragic downward spiralling life which was, again, a truly unique and direct product of the showbiz machine. We had way too many troubled artists over the decades, but just looking at the series of physical and mental transformations this man has gone through shows one that we truly have an unfortunate and very special case in Michael Jackson.

Second thing that strikes one is the hypocrisy of the media which now uses every bit, byte, terabyte and every wavelength and every square millimeter of paper to give touching tribute to the often bizarre, consistently touched by genius unique mega-star.

The very same media that used every opportunity to speculate and use same bits, bytes, wavelengths and square millimeters to discuss Michael Jackson's bizarre transformations and, for the last 10-15 years, truly bizarre behaviour, is now talking about the same person with immense reverence.

The extremely obvious law governing the media here and in my former home (as indeed, they have evolved rapidly and aligned themselves to the best and worst levels of world media hypocrisy) is that they will say, write, show anything that sells whatever medium they use.

At this point in time, for a short while, as in the case of Diana, the Kennedys, Priestley, Monroe (yes we and/or our parents have seen all this before, many times), the best thing that sells is reverence, with cautious and occasional references to Jackson's darker side.

This phase will be followed by the newer and newer revelations about his private life and once all the biographies and back-catalogues are sold out, there will be new books and new documentaries dragging him through the densest mud the media can produce. This, too has been seen too many times.

But also, one hopes, invariably and certainly, once all these media phases expire, there will be his memory as a musician and showman and, not least, dancer - his memory as an artist, troubled as he may have been.

Racial statistics... and anti-terror law

2009-06-17T19:42:00.003+01:00

From the viewpoint of someone that has a visceral reaction to any totalitarianism, whether honest in-your-face or covert by twisting democratic (?) legislation, the issue of the British anti-terror legislation has been covered in ample manner on this blog. Its lessons are valid for any country and any regime...

But it seems there is no amount of 'paranoid' speculation that would be sufficient to beat the plain facts of current British reality...

The Government's anti-terror watchdog has now revealed that "thousands of people are being stopped and searched by the police under counter-terrorism powers simply to provide a racial balance in official statistics."

There is virtually zero evidence that Section 44 which gives the police stop-and-search powers has any helpful effect as a counter-terrorism measure.

Lord Carlile has pointed out that none of the many thousands of searches had ever led to a conviction for a terrorist offence - also, the damage done to community relations was "undoubtedly considerable".

Also, it has been pointed out that the new legislation which allows police to challenge (and, as countless cases show, frankly and simply abuse) amateur photographers has been widely abused, exposing the police officers themselves to criminal prosecution.

This, I am sorry, is a police state, whatever anyone says - and in order to say the opposite, one has to be completely and utterly blind.

The paranoia race

2009-06-15T18:58:00.003+01:00

In the race for reaching the state of complete and utter paranoia of truly Orwellian and, in some cases, truly Dickian heights, the UK and China have been head-to-head for a long time.

In China, the various surveillance measures (electronic and otherwise), control of the internet with the great help of great companies that herald their ethical and moral stature (just think of Cisco, which was, while advertising how it connects people, at the forefront of routers that allowed totalitarian regimes to intrude in and control the internet traffic depending on 'banned' keywords...) is all done in the name of a certain status quo, a certain regime opposing true democratising.

In UK, the citadel of democracy, well, it was all done in the name of anti-terror legislation and 'public safety'.

Thing is... the UK has finally won the race. Not yet at the level of electronic surveillance (unless the successors of the recently resigned criminally incompetent and unprecedentedly evil Home Secretary continue her epic thrusts in that direction), but at the level of general paranoia - and amongst its manifestations, the abuse of power stemming from paranoia when it comes to amateur or (semi-)pro photography.

A photographer who worked extensively in both UK and China has recently reported his experiences during and after the Beijing Olympics, and one, after having seen the scary mass of stories on British authorities and Joe Public abusing photographers, is stumped reading his accounts.

In China, he could work for months unchallenged, even in highly sensitive areas - and could also do photography with tripods on , around and in official buildings without anybody stopping him, confiscating his equipment, arresting him etc.

Things he managed to do consistently in China as a photographer were absolutely unimaginable in today's Britain. The situation in the UK is simply out of control and despite petitions to Downing Street, endless fights via human rights organisations, the 'anti-terror strategy' with its campaigns has not only managed to make police regularly abuse their power, but also Joe Public with just one braincell (but highly evolved paranoia) is free to radically challenge and abuse even the amateur photographers.

The normality, which was experienced by him ironically in China of all places, is gone, if not forever, for the next generations in the democratic and oh-so-free and oh-so-Great Britain.

Well done, David Blunkett, Charles Clark, and especially the magnificently Fahrenheit 451-inspired (?) Jacqui Smith... you have been excellent Home Secretaries that any communist or other dictator would have loved to employ you... and you have left behind you a society so infused with the paranoia you cultivated that a person can actually discover how much freer he felt doing his job in China than in Britain.

Fascism and protest votes

2009-06-09T19:34:00.002+01:00

The recent chaos around the British MPs, Government and the Labour party have led to interesting, well, deplorable developments and side-effects... far from the hilarious effects of the recent months of scandals.

The voting public vented anger in protest votes... both at the local and the European elections. This was predictable, so was the fact that with many staying away from the urns and others voting for just about anybody except the Labour party (or even the main parties) - after all, even the archbishop of Canterbury has made an official statement calling for people to go to votes and not let the fascists get seats in the European Parliament.

Of course one is talking about the BNP, its leader having been treated today to raw eggs in a serving that Gordon Ramsay would have deemed less than appetising. People chanted 'fascists get off our streets', while throwing eggs. Probably British eggs, locally made and sourced, not some foreign stuff BNP would soooo much more hate.

But it doesn't change the facts that while the BNP got less votes than five years ago, proportionally they've done very well due to the 'protest voting'.

It is a lesson in democracy.

Take a country that is a historical 'citadel' of democracy (minus what was done in the name of the anti-terror strategy that turned it into as despicable of a police state as any totalitarian regime did elsewhere).

Then screw up its political scene so much, even by such ludicrous frauds as those committed in expense claims. Get the people to hate the party at power and also the other two main parties.

Then sit and watch what happens.

The result is that while angry voters feel that democracy failed, that they lost any control over the country's politicians who they have elected in the past, we truly lose control as a result of the direct actions of those who feel they have one single weapon left: abstaining from voting or voting at random for minor parties.

And then, for the first time in British politics curing the existence of the European Parliament, we get extreme right, OK let's call it what it is, fascist party to end up in the European Parliament with two proud seats.

A dark day, no matter how many eggs were thrown at BNP's leader.

Post-modern D-Day

2009-06-07T14:16:00.003+01:00

Recently, amongst all the political turmoil caused by or just exploded around the British Prime-Minster and MPs, there was this other conflagration of an international mini-scandal.

The fact that Sarkozy hasn't invited the Queen to the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, well, in itself is funny, bizarre, scandalous, take your pick. The Royal family's reaction and the media was again, well, funny, predictable, take your pick.

But there is a greater, quite philosophical significance around this farce.

Sarkozy said that the reason for knowingly not inviting the Queen was that, well, this was a Franco-American affair. And this truly funny comment lands us in a juicy debate around the Wikipedia history of the world, around the post-modern situation that as long as something is, as a convention or belief, accepted by sufficiently large numbers of people, it becomes fact.

The Hollywood image of history, built over so many decades of cinematic excrement, took weeks of international diplomacy to sort out a bit... but it doesn't mean it changed the understanding and perception of people on the street. Hopefully illuminated Sarkozy to a few facts...

Facts like... the Brits gathered most of the intelligence, from maps to detailed photos of even German radar stations. The Brits came up with all, OK, let's not exaggerate, about 90% of the entire plan for the D-Day landing. The Royal Air Force provided the main muscle in terms of air cover and the list goes on and on. And of course, half of the forces that stepped onto the shores of Normandy were British and Canadian...

But then cue Hollywood. Eminent history professors like dr. Mel Gibson and the like... OK, he hasn't truly screwed with WWII, but has done so with other bits of history. But there are vast numbers of Hollywood 'history lessons' that made vast parts of the 20th century an 'American affair'. Of something with a hyphen and still predominantly American.

Quite remarkable that media and pop culture distortions of (in time) not so distant facts can gradually, sneakily, become the new history.

What shows it more eloquently than Sarkozy's remark... apart from showing utter ignorance and silly chauvinism (well, what chauvinism is worthy of serious analysis), it shows how the countless celluloid 'outputs' and Americanisation of our global culture has led to a truly nice lesson in post-modern philosophy.

The cost of expenses

2009-05-24T19:55:00.003+01:00

The expense claims scandal that engulfed the British Parliament continues... but as it provides further tragicomic episodes, it is difficult not to see the cost of this scandal - and some of the costs are huge compared to the temporary humiliations and the destruction of public trust.

First of all, it is expected that the fascist British National Party (yes, they do send chills down one's spine) will gain vastly by the turmoil. It is capitalising on the public anger so much that even the Archbishop of Canterbury had to make a political stance and explicitly beg people not to vote in anger for the BNP. When trust and faith (or remains of them) in any major political party has taken a huge beating, then BNP's loud anti-Europe and anti-establishment messages attract a large number of voters - their scary fascist manifestos and agenda are secondary in many people's much narrowed field of view.

Then, more softly, there is that issue of... moral relativity. What is the true cost to society when the disgraced MPs, whose expense claim records hit the press, dare to treat the public to such manifestations as these handpicked ones below:

"The system is bad" - ah yes. Countless criminals, and even mass murderers, used this excuse throughout history. Sorry, but the problem is with individuals... who perverted the system to an extent worthy of Easter European parliamentary Mafiosi.
"It was a mistake", "It was an accounting error" etc. - these, and endless variations of these, make it sound as if anybody could defraud the country in any way and then go 'oops', without any repercussions whatsoever. I wonder what would happen if any humble mortal used the same line after let's say trying on a nice tax evasion trick...
"I will pay it back" - as some were made to, and other offered to. So if basically, you catch a shoplifter and he/she hands back the valuable item, it's all OK - again, no repercussions.
"The claims were approved and signed for" - right, so again, it's the system and someone else... not the individual.
"I am a hard working person, very busy, with kids" etc. - wonderful, great, brilliant... and it explains and absolves everything and everybody... just how exactly?
"People are just jealous of my big house" - this is perhaps the most amazing reaction from an MP. Right. So his scandalous fraud is somehow forgotten, what matters is the envious, pardon, jealous, public's reaction.

The list could go on. But... with such utter moral relativity (as any humble mortal trying on any of the frauds committed by hundreds of MPs and using such excuses would find him/herself kicked through the justice system after the first few laughs from the Fraud Squad), they truly set an example to kids and adults alike. A terrible example... of a world where laws and regulations don't matter at all.

It truly, really adds a very Balkanic dimension to all this... just that back there all this is normal and doesn't produce scandals... but in British politics, the damages done by this mess will reverberate for generations. In short-term, perhaps vast number of extra council and Parliament seats will be gained by the extreme right-wing, absolutely fascist party or parties of this political landscape of carnage.

300 years... or 20 years

2009-05-19T19:20:00.003+01:00

In my former home's Parliament, nobody really gets pushed to the point of deep embarrassment and has to resign and/or criminal investigations are launched against him or her, unless he/she is such a petty criminal that diplomatic immunity is taken away and even the EU steps in... as it happened recently.

In 20 years since the Revolution, Romanian politicians and MPs have evolved, one can say, beyond any physical realm and they are truly untouchable... unless again, they commit such petty crimes that, compared to stratospheric corruption and Mafia activities which are the norm, lead to them falling from those heights.

In Britain, it took 300 years to have the Speaker of the House of Commons forced out of the Parliament. With a speed that hopefully overtakes the speed of thought while some think I am making some parallel between the unfortunate gentleman's departure and the Romanian Mafia/Parliament (at home, truly there isn't really a distinction between the two, trust me and the facts...), I have to quickly emphasise: there is no parallel between the two Parliaments and the two countries.

The expense claim scandal that engulfed the entire British Parliament and the Speaker, who unfortunately focused on how the information was leaked rather than apologised and at least seem regretful, bares a number of key dissimilarities with Romanian realities:

In Britain, the publication of the frauds (as some are just comic, but majority are scandalous frauds committed by Ministers and MPs who very well knew and exploited the system that now suddenly all call ' a bad system' and their frauds 'regretful mistakes... purely because they hit the press... otherwise it would have carried on for hundreds of years...), well, has negative feedback loop. It leads to investigations, scandals, resignations, apologies (mostly empty gestures as no legal action is taken against chemically pure fraud that would drag any normal human being through courts immediately...). In Romania, anything published in the papers leads to a Goodfellas-style 'well, what you gonna do?' gesture from most... as billions stolen or diverted, extorted, cheated etc. are just the expected norm.

The Speaker has found himself the regrettable target of most of the anger - regrettable not because he is innocent, but because he's being made into a scapegoat. The problem is not him, but with anger focusing at him, attention is diverted from the outrageous and wilful frauds committed by most of the MPs, who, despite all this scandal, will never face legal proceedings brought against them. In Romania, the former leader of the House of Commons, in quite different manner, had to be pushed in front of legal action by even EU stepping in and diplomatic immunity had to be taken away, otherwise he would have been closing a deaf ear to all the media outrage... he would have stayed totally immune to 'public anger'. Politicians in Romanian are simply not that connected with the public to feel any level of anger, unless hundreds of thousands march on the streets and manage to smash up the building they are in... But then again, as Machiavelli very well put it, any ruler who thinks that he can control the fire on the streets he ignites is simply deluded... so even politicians in Romania are careful to repeat the events that took place in 1990...

The disgraced MPs apologise, are forced to pay back the defrauded sums, and ah yes, they do try to call all of the scandalous expenses 'mistakes', 'errors', 'bad accounting' etc. Of course, the single, one and only, unique reason why any of this is happening is that their actions have become public knowledge. Otherwise none of the regrets and apologies would be happening, nor the heated debates over the 'so corrupt bad baaaaad system' which was a perfectly good and maximally exploited system until... yes, it hit the press. In Romania, well, I am still waiting after 20 years for any MP to apologies for anything whatsoever... and their crimes are unimaginable in comparison.

One thing that has changed, though for both worlds... that Eastern absurd genetic hybrid between capitalism and old Balkan 'values' and this citadel of so-called democracy... The one thing that is common is that both now exist in the 21st century. Things - emails, CD-Roms, whatnot- get leaked to the press. There are long lenses and directional microphones... there are instantaneous bank transfers for a juicy CD filled with data that made the Daily Telegraph's sales skyrocket when published...

Things, in both countries, do hit the light of day and the optic nerves of Joe Public. What happens after that, though characterises both countries... and with the above differences highlighted, in many ways, no matter how amazing the current scandal is, I am somehow very grateful to have the opportunity to live in this, and not that, country and see these, and not those, things happen with its politicians.

Unacceptable...

2009-05-15T17:20:00.003+01:00

I wrote extensively here about the various (well, infinite) shades and flavours of Romanian, and in general, Eastern European post-communist corruption.

Time to write a bit about the quite grandiose scandal that erupted around the British Parliament recently. In order not to duplicate the terabytes so far published in the media about this over the last few days of public anger, some things that should be said in addition... so let's see...

In a nutshell, the MPs expense claims have hit the press - and there were amazing, scandalous, outrageous and also downright breathtaking lists of perversions of the system, MPs from the main parties claiming amazing amounts of money for amazing things...

But now some party leaders have taken action and are loudly talking about the following:

1. The system - "the system is wrong"... Well, sorry, but numerous criminals or just plain dishonest people (or downright monsters) throughout history used this excuse. The 'system' i.e. the rule book very clearly states what an MP should claim for... so people for years going around this and violating the rules in every possible manner for personal gain, on taxpayers' money, is not the system's fault... it is the moral failure of individuals.

2. "Unacceptable" claims... Sorry, but the only thing that made these claims unacceptable was that they hit the press... Otherwise everybody would have carried on, as they did before, with the outrageous expense claims... Suddenly now all the moral champions trying to score electoral points (especially Mr. Cameron, who is a perfect in-the-flesh version of Yancy in Philip K. Dick's Mold of Yancy) are talking about unacceptable actions of MPs...

3. Taking action against these unacceptable claims, being forced to pay the sums back... OK, but again, none of this would be happening unless someone leaked the information to the press... So sorry, but someone now being a loud 'hero' does not actually score any actual moral bonus points: all he/she is doing is damage control in face of utter public shaming and... scoring bonus points for the next election.

It is remarkable how short is the short term memory of the people... vox populi always was and is based on that short term memory... Add to that the fact, that most people can not grasp the causality chain at work here, and suddenly you elevate a David Cameron to the level of a 'hero' who is now cracking the whip about 'unacceptable' expense claims... Oh, please...

Show me the money...

2009-05-11T19:17:00.002+01:00

In 1990, just after Ceausescu was removed from power (and shot...), certain bits of information claimed that his bank accounts in various banks abroad amounted to about 400 million dollars.

The PM, Petre Roman, in 1990 kick-started an investigation into the dictator's bank accounts, Swiss and Canadian experts signalled that they found a trail of money - and their contract was suddenly terminated.

The matter of the Ceausescu accounts is back in the spotlight, due to the 'relaxation' of certain banking laws in Switzerland (as a result of the credit crunch fallout).

Interestingly, the Canadian expert has now declared that there are significant amounts of Ceausescu's money in Swiss bank accounts and those could be recuperated... but the Swiss expert who took part in the 1990 investigation denies this... also claims, that the Canadians made all sorts of dangerous claims back then and now.

Funny enough, the very same Swiss lawyer in 1990 declared that the leader of the Communist Party, Dan Voiculescu (who was connected to the huge funds hidden in those accounts) could even be arrested.

But now, 19 years later, Petre Roman says he doesn't even remember the investigation ordered by him... clearly, it was a small matter and easily forgotten :-)

Also, since 1990, various Romanian parliamentary committees have reached the conclusion that the Ceausescu accounts never existed.

Last year, a 'final report' done by a committee chaired by a subaltern of Dan Voiculescu (of course impartially...) declared that there is zero evidence of any Ceausescu money in any foreign accounts.

Amnesia, when it comes to certain aspects of the dictatorship, is epidemic in Romania, it seems...

The irony is... 400 million or even 4 billion dollars are peanuts compared to the amounts stolen, embezzled, diverted etc. by the various Romanian Mafia of the last 19 years... all of them sitting comfortably in the Parliament.

Ups and downs

2009-05-07T16:25:00.002+01:00

The European Court of Human Rights last year judged the British DNA databases illegal - they held innocent people's DNA data for the last 12 years. Now finally, after much subterfuge and magician tricks pulled by the Home Office and its head Stalinist, Jacqui Smith, UK finally starts to act on this ruling.

DNA profiles of innocent people are to be deleted from the national database, but innocent people accused of serious violent and sexual offences who are released without charge will still have their genetic profile stored for 12 years under the Home Office plans.

Kids convicted of only one minor offence will be deleted from the database when they turn 18... so this means that totally innocent people - very much including children - will have their most intimate details stockpiled for years on a database.

So some progress, but it sounds like, as some put it, UK has to be taken to court once again... until this mess is resolved in a manner that aligns the UK to the rest of the civilised world.

To compensate for this partial good news, the much debated ID cards (yes, biometric data will be held on databases...) will have a go-ahead via retailers (yes, not kidding, high street shops!) taking part in collecting the data from shoppers.

They were deemed suitable for this and also security concerns over the data were said to be invalid. Scottish National Party's Home Affairs spokesperson, Pete Wishart MP, said: "It says everything about Labour's priorities that, when they are slashing essential frontline investment, they are throwing away billions on an unwanted, expensive and unnecessary ID card scheme."

Also, it hides the fact that the program needs an extra quarter of billion pounds...

So, now as another spin on the 'terror strategy', high-street shops will be potentially authorised to take your biometric data, send them to Home Office databases and then have the ID cards issued to you. Clearly, an improvement in Jacqui Smith's (very very limited but worthy of a dictator's) mind.

Greed for information - Addendum

2009-04-28T16:27:00.004+01:00

As an addition to a recent blog posting, there are some new developments around the Phorm technology (which monitored personal data and during the pilot experiment forgot to mention users about this...).

There was a theory that surely, if the British Home Office got something so simple so wrong (i.e. does it or doesn't it violate European laws...) then it must have had a reason to give such blatantly false information (and approval).

Well, it is remarkable, as said before, that reality in the case of the current truly Stalinist British Government (when it comes to so-called 'safer society') beats any conspiracy theory and/or paranoid delusion.

It turns out, that emails between the Home Office and Phorm show the department asking if the firm would be "comforted" by its position.

The messages show Phorm making changes to the guidance sought by the ministry. The emails say (in, as some called, jaw dropping manner) thing like: "If we agree this, and this becomes our position do you think your clients and their prospective partners will be comforted".

In an email dated August 2007, an unnamed Home Office official wrote to Phorm's legal representative and said: "My personal view accords with yours, that even if it is "interception", which I am doubtful of, it is lawfully authorised under section 3 by virtue of the user's consent obtained in signing up to the ISPs terms and conditions."

In an e-mail dated 22 January 2008, a Home Office official wrote again to Phorm and said: "I should be grateful if you would review the attached document, and let me know what you think."

So the Government guidance was quite... interesting. And one wonders, and this is then a rhetorical question: why would the British Home Office give such incredible treatment to this matter...

Well, obviously, they had their eyes on the technology- so that, while introducing truly unprecedented electronic surveillance, can expand that technology and eventually, one can be sure of this, find other 'applications' to Phorm...

Jim Killock, executive director of privacy campaigners, the Open Rights Group, said: "The Home Office's job is to uphold the law: not to reinterpret it for commercial interests.

"It's extraordinary, when you think of the blatant disregard Phorm showed towards UK laws in its secret trials, that this sort of lax attitude should be shown."
It is a very black day again for basic human rights and this scandal around the anyway truly unbelievable Home Office measures, misinformation and misleading of the public has hit new heights.

It is a democratic country, remember? We vote for these people... and once in office, we lose completely any control over them... and under the new Holy Grail of master manipulators, the anti-terror strategy (oh sorry, it's called 'terror strategy' actually- well, it literally is) anything is possible.

I lost count so far on how many levels and points has the Home Office violated the Constituion, European law and basic human rights.

And these people actually comment on China's human rights issues?...

High spirits

2009-04-23T20:29:00.002+01:00

Ah, no, it's not some attack of good mood in much corruption and financial crisis-impacted Romania.

It is literally about high amounts of alcohol used as bribe... Well, one can say that there is pride to be taken in having so characteristic and special ways of using tools of corruption.

It came to light, after many files of the national anti-corruption agency's investigations hit the pages of the printed and electronic media, that apart from usual amounts of money having changed hands, alcohol in various forms and quantities has also been used as bribe.

In the premier league of football, bottles of vintage wine were used to bribe referees. Possibly, to also enhance their visual acuity and reaction times... At least the officials who gave the bribes were caught and sentenced.

In the justice system, judges and prosecutors have been caught accepting wine and whisky as bribe... again, much improvement was probably made to their accurate legal thinking and to their much needed associative memory... Others gave bribe in money, wine and whisky to get into various positions in the justice departments.

The ex-minister for agriculture has also been involved in similar bribe taking, accepting 15 000 euros, 100 liters of brandy (well, that will last some time) and was supposed to also receive an Audi Q7 (but hopefully not driving it while consuming the hectoliter of brandy)... Gulp. Giggle.

So yes, in many ways even bribes have a special twist (or fruity body...) to them 'over there'...

Paranoia in extremis

2009-04-16T17:05:00.003+01:00

Interestingly, just when things really heat up around the economic situation (coupled with new heights of political scandals) in Romania, the country starts to suffer of a classic case of projectile paranoia. At least its media and political figures do...

My term projectile paranoia is made-up based on Ray Bradbury's classic thought about how a society, when can't find any good reasons to explain and defuse its own problems, will start projecting them outwards (pointing at other countries and external forces) or will find enemies within.

Well, at the moment the Romanian media is discussing how the country is surrounded by hostile neighbours... Well, on one level, it is quite true that being neighbour with a country like Romania (which oscillates between subtle subversive attacks and downright fits of fascism) is difficult.

The list is quite interesting, but not quite in the manner that media tries to depict it. Yes, Romania had its fair share of tensions with the Ukraine...

With Hungary, as usual, the matter of Hungarian minority issues and excesses of the extreme right on both sides have made relationships difficult - and in the last few months, tragicomic and childish acts around the much debated autonomy of a region in Transylvania have heated things up so dangerously that it got close to tensions that preceded the pogroms of 1990.

With Serbia, it has minority problems but in reverse... tensions are there because of the situation of Romanian minority in Serbia.

With Bulgaria, it had a number of 'incidents' and issues with the border, namely on both sides of the Danube.

And then, perhaps most ironically, recently its relationship with Moldova has taken a beating... while demonstrators were taking a real beating on the streets of Chisinau in Moldova... Romanian media and the political luminaries have been foaming about the rights over that territory, proclaiming injustices and even calling Moldova ancient Romanian territory.

Well, it is just fundamentally funny and ironic, how the country so riddled with layers and circles of the extreme right and downright fascist circles in government can taste its own medicine...

Anyway, somehow, while several very high profile politicians had their immunity removed, some jailed, others under criminal investigation (because in a country of out-of-control Mafiosi some are so bad that even the Mafiosi need to get them thrown in jail), economic situation with unprecedented problems etc. etc. ... somehow everything can be put down to the fact that, well, poor country is surrounded by such unfriendly neighbours... and the country is a sorry victim of dark forces...

The greed for information

2009-04-14T17:05:00.002+01:00

While several times Britain has been singled out when it came to surveillance tactics, so-called anti-terror 'strategy' that is taking pages out of the totalitarian states' secret police cookbooks, its databases called illegal... nothing ever happened internally or externally to actually DO something about these issues.

Not sure the new scandal will do much, but finally, Britain is actually targeted by the EC and latter started legal action.

A new advertising technology called Phorm was a while ago tested on BT internet users - it is a behavioural advertising service. The trick is, it gathered information about the users without their consent. Furthermore, Britain has actually said that it is perfectly fine under European data laws... well, it wasn't.

Last year, Phorm received clearance from the Home Office and police closed a file on BT trials of the technology which looked into their legality. The UK government said last year the technology could only be rolled out if users had given their consent and it was easy for people to opt out.

It is the same government that ignored international laws and its databases with personal data have been labelled illegal by international judicial committee...

Also, the EC remarked quite nicely, that it is very "concerned that the UK does not have an independent national supervisory authority to deal with the intentional interceptions of user data.". Well, surprise, surprise...

Anything and everything was, is and will be committed under the so-called terror strategy (which, by now, has really become a terrorising strategy, if we just count the fundamental human rights violations it brought)... It is a strange coincidence, that exactly the country which (apart from US and China) has beaten all records on (il)legal surveillance, allows an 'advertising technology' to spiral out of control.

Surely, they can read and could have checked (if they wanted to) whether it satisfies fundamental legislation - but, greed for information is blinding them by now.

What fascinates the more lucid ones amongst us, is that the acts of this Government by now resonate letter by letter with what a paranoid delusional mind obsessed with conspiracy theories would think up.

Just shows that under this Government, in this former citadel of democracy, reality beats any paranoid delusion.

Databases

2009-04-05T17:36:00.004+01:00

While the British Home Secretary was busy with her 'terror stratergy', a few things happened.

The funnier even was the discovery that her husband paid for a few porn movies and these were listed on the expense claim she signed for. So taxpayer even picks up the tab for the esteemed Home Secretary's husband's porn movies...

The less funny event was that about a quarter of the Government's databases held on people have been deemed illegal. Not that it matters...

After many high-profile data loss scandals, the report examined 46 public sector systems. A quarter of them were "almost certainly" illegal under human rights or data protection laws.

Professor Ross Anderson of Cambridge University, said: "Britain's database state has become a financial, ethical and administrative disaster which is penalising some of the most vulnerable members of our society."

Funnily, the Government said it was "never losing sight" of its obligations under the data protection and human rights acts. Ah yes, so the absolutely incredible data loss scandals are then quite an attack of blindness...

Search and replace

2009-03-24T17:40:00.002Z

The perfectly timed new 'Terror Strategy' (hm, one thought it's anti-terror strategy...) of the Government has been unveiled in the UK. It has perfect timing because it is best to take the attention away from a number of extremely embarrassing problems the Government is responsible for.

Well, if one took a Stalinist discourse from Romania, dating back to 70s-80s, and performed a search & replace operation, one would end up with a very familiar sounding text... almost identical to what Home Office has published.

Let's look at the key ideas. If any of these sound familiar, or even identical to what you saw few decades ago, then you're not imagining it.

The enemy is among us. Yes, of course... but what is the new strategy? We push the power to the people. We have more vigilant people... this comes after the openly paranoia-cultivating poster campaigns. There is just one letter difference between vigilant and vigilante... and in the UK, even with previous 'strategies' we have seen the shocking results of absolute everyday morons starting to feel important in the 'war against terror'.

Then we train tens of thousands of people, from hotel employees to shop staff, to fight terrorism. This of course ranges from 'observing' and reporting 'suspicious' people & acts (yes, the everyday moron will be free to make up his/her mind on what is suspicious... again, we have seen how nicely this works...). There will be 'extremely' wide ranging attack against terrorism.

People voicing anti-democratic or extremist views will be suppressed, reported, marginalised. May one ask: what is extreme and what is anti-democratic? Who will make the difference? Of course, the everyday moron with mostly zero education (let's just take the average British public...). And what is a view that damages society? Yes, of course this is meant to marginalise extremist Muslim leaders, clerics etc. but come on, sweet (seemingly) naive Home Office, you know very well how Orwellian this gets in any society and in any country.

"Terrorists will try to stay one step ahead of us" and counter-terrorism was "no longer something you can do behind closed doors and in secret", says Jacqui Smith. Yes, indeed but in the context of the paranoia cult she induced, this sentence again sounds eerily familiar, although on the surface wants to seem all focused for a good cause.

There is talk about increased electronic surveillance (after all, we have to match at least China's level, we are close second at the moment), encouraging pro-democratic voices from Muslim leaders, increased funding for intelligence etc.

And of course, separately, several databases held by the Government with personal details of people has been ruled to be illegal. And of course, they now introduce an extra database, that will indefinitely hold information on where you travel and why...

Deja-vu.

Heights of corruption

2009-03-19T19:55:00.002Z

Well, a philosophical Romanian cab driver once told me that the similarity between USA and Romania is that while USA is the country where everything is possible, Romania is the country where anything is possible.

Reading the newly published facts about what amount of money can buy what in Romania, even skeptics have to agree...

Let's look at a few examples of the dizzying heights of corruption in this EU country...

Even the most exclusive university diplomas can be acquired for up to 15000 euros, but most go at much lower prices. It is amazing, how every illiterate politician's illiterate kids get amazing diplomas at amazing Universities... Engineering diplomas go for around 3500 euros, as recent huge scandals have shown.

Stolen cars can be registered and false tax discs obtained for about 4000 euros.

If you bought your driving licence from Italy, you may have paid 600 euros, but locally, in Romania, those that bought it there without attending a single lesson or exam, paid around 3000 and 10000 euros.

Citizenship can be arranged for 10000 euros, via naturalisation - i.e. in Romania's case, for this amount of money the Mafia 'supplies' a willing woman that will become one's wife to sort out the naturalisation.

The most high-profile case of corrupting the course of justice involved 25000 euros paid for a judge to suppress a case... Thankfully, the judge was arrested.

Kidneys go for around 8000 euros and transplant organ black market is flourishing. Only recently, the details of parents that were selling their kids for organ harvest have hit the press.

Selling kids for adoption is commonplace, some sums are around 12000 euros.

And the best part... you can actually get into the Parliament for 50000 euros... the pinnacle of democracy. After all, Romania has cut out the middle man - the Mafia is not paying off members of the Parliament and Government... the Romanian Mafia is in the Parliament and Government. Camorra, Piovra, eat your heart out...

Evolution

2009-03-12T19:15:00.009Z

As discussed before on this blog, certain aspects of changes in Romania are seen by many locals as steps backward, while these are in reality just very speedy alignments with the deplorable standards of education and the like in the 'West' they try so desperately to copy otherwise.

Now it is remarkable that while Darwin is being celebrated around the world (and Sir David Attenborough for his factual and excellent documentary series about Darwin, aired on the BBC in the UK, received literally tons of hate mail from religious bigots), Romania also 'evolved'.

It evolved in a way that finally aligns it with the best standards of enlightenment seen in the US especially... when it comes to bigotry. A new biology manual, for the 9th grade, was published recently in Oradea, Romania... and it presents Darwin's theory as an 'alternative theory'.

It thanks the Creator for the creation of lymphocytes, so that we can fight infections. It asks the pupils: could Christ heal viral infections? It teaches that the HIV virus is associated with sin, and it is God's way of punishing us for it. So probably the countless people that contracted it via blood transfusion or due to medical equipment in the decades of communism when the 'imperialist' HIV could not exist officially, are all sinners in some way? including the babies born with it due to the mother carrying it? Just how astounding can officially promoted bigotry be in an EU country in 2009? .. as it also has the Education Minister's seal of approval...

It states that this manual, as it teaches about biology, will make the pupil appreciate that every cell, every leaf, every insect and every creature shouts in the language of complexity: God created me.

And it also leaps into utter paranoia, stating to pupils that mass-media is the 'shadow agent' covertly promoting Darwin's dubious theories...

So yes, even Romania has finally evolved to the level of the... 12th century.

While far from being an atheist myself, such blatantly manipulative religious fundamentalism does, as in the case of any reasonable and rational persons, send chills down my spine in 2009.

It is worth reading the comments that some wrote... they range from foaming bigotry to gems of 21st century thought like "it is ridiculous to believe in 23 billion years old so-called evidence", that "only the Bible is the one true text" etc.

Maybe these people should read a few, very few, but fundamental facts about the history of Christianity and just how many times, when and who edited, cut, changed, re-hashed the text of the Bible. And to raise an interesting question: just what proof do they have exactly about the exact origins of that text? But debating these facts would make one sound like some avid fan of Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris... and once the debate comes away from the facts and becomes a fight between camps of various convictions, all is lost.

Being a reasonable person, having partially absorbed thousands of years of scientific learning and progress, does not make one less of a believer or less of a Christian in this case. But it seems that we need to push education to a new level, where thoughts from the Dark Ages have to be pushed into our kids' minds.

Evolution. After all, it does exist... we just witnessed another great phase of it in Romanian education.

Galilei was pardoned by the Vatican in 1992. It makes one think: if even hard laws of physics needed hundreds of years for the 'approval', how long does it take to accept the ideas in the theory of evolution... and the laws of genetics and natural selection... But maybe by that time some people will... finally... evolve.

Bulldomanipulator

2009-03-09T16:36:00.003Z

Rarely one finds in Romanian press something truly worthy of a very loud, full bodied, spasmic attack of hilarity...

Romsilva, the Romanian 'authority' in charge of the forests of this... foresty country, purchased for 300 000 dollars a ... something... that they still insist is a 'bulldomanipulator'. That's the equivalent of 8.7 billion old romanian Lei in local currency.

This bulldomanipulator lies unused for the past 5 years in a ditch, watched by a guy with soem dogs, as the local roma gipsies are very keen on taking any removable bits off it and selling it as recycling centres.

The magic gizmo is a T55 tank, repainted in orange and sold to Romsilva by a Ukrainian company that imports and exports military, yes, military and not agricultural, equipment.

It needed a lot of repair, when many parts were replaced at great cost, then its pipes burst. It was a sorry saga for years, trying to get it going again and, well, using it for something useful. Obviously it arrived as a tank that had various bits put on it to make it look a little bit like a ... bulldomanipulator, whatever that is. It took them weeks to even start the engine, until then they had countless villagers and visitors standing around it regularly and admiring it.

The first time when it started, it broke down immediately. After all, it was an old tank :-)... After a while, they finally managed to use it to clear 7 hectars of terrain...

It was then moved to its current location, in Dimbovita, and it's rusting there ever since. If anyone did use it, it would eat up 10 liters of oil per day, almost 100 liters of petrol and well, it would run the economy of the local little community into the ground...

The director that 'imported' the thing was given a 'knighthood' by the former president Ion Iliescu, among other things, for being the most efficient director of Romsilva...

The genetics of a police state

2009-03-02T19:37:00.003Z

Only days after international and national verdicts on the practices applied by the government of this oh-so-democratic country, UK government ministers again are at it...

The new measures are introduced, just to quickly recap, in a country with the highest number of CCTV cameras per head, the longest period of detention without trial in any civilised country, among the strictest electronic surveillance system for emails, phone calls and the like, the most restrictive rules on data storage by ISPs (only China leads here, but UK is working hard to equal that... or even beat it)...

The government is trying now to circumvent the recent European court ruling that condemned Britain's retention of the DNA profiles of more than 800,000 innocent people.

The "blanket and indiscriminate nature" of the UK's current DNA database was harshly condemned, and this database includes DNA from those never charged with an offence.

Last month the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said she would publish a white paper setting out "a more proportionate, fair and commonsense approach", but she has not given any indication whether DNA samples already obtained would be destroyed. However, Home Office sources said the government, which was given three months to respond to the ruling, has "no plans" to destroy samples of DNA.

So... as per the data for biometric ID cards, now introduced via 'back doors', we are again moving to newer heights of democracy, freedom and basic human rights abuse...

While thousands of photographers protested about the recent Stalinist law banning photography of policemen under any circumstance (yes, you guessed it, again under the Terrorism Act), the Government is blissfully in denial.

One who lived under totalitarian regimes has to wonder: how many more moves like this are needed to become one of those regimes... we are really not far off that point. At least Jacqui Smith has good examples to follow in history, only some keywords change but the essence remains the same.

Rights... of various nature

2009-02-24T19:46:00.002Z

The deportation of the radical cleric Abu Qatada has recently whipped up quite some furor in the press.

Of cours the furor was not ignited by the long turmoil around the deportation, then the appeal, now the final verdict of ... deportation, nor around the person. The upheaval was about this person's rights... human rights, of course. He is, biologically, human... His mind is more that of a particularly scary monster, but he does have human rights.

Especially so in a society and a country so proud of its human rights record. Qatada should not be deported, some say, to Jordan, because he faces torture with very high probability... therefore one should not be deported to a country where one faces such inhumane treatment.

What gets me is the funny selective amnesia that this historical democracy, oh-so-high on its human rights track record has.

The same Government took us to an illegal war, based on fabricated evidence. It is just mildly amusing that Jack Straw today has vetoed the publication of minutes of key Cabinet meetings held in the run-up to the Iraq war in 2003.

"The damage that disclosure of the minutes in this instance would do far outweighs any corresponding public interest in their disclosure." , he said. In other words, those minutes are soooooooooooo bad that we can't possibly have access to what by now is known as a historically significant monumental lie.

Human rights are selectively suspended and erased by any Government anywhere, even such amnesiac one as this. Whether it is pure political interest, oil, financial and economic reasons, strategy, whatever... human rights are mentioned by the Government as and when suits them.

Things were not dissimilar in any other political regime or country, and people like myself remember those all too well.

This certain Government, whenever trumpeting deep dilemmas about human rights, should recall its track record over the last few, not so few, years - all the stalinist measures they introduced that curtailed MY and OUR human rights.

Frankly, whether a chillingly demented radical cleric's human rights are suffering some scratches and dents, is not up for debate, the politicians say: those rights are not adaptable, questionable depending on how evil one is.

Well, not sure how we ordinary people in this country compare to such demented, dangerous maniacs... and yes, we are not facing probable interrogation torture about anything just yet.

But if those rights are so absolute, can we please stop taking them down one by one under the name of 'War on Terror', please?

Fear of Terror

2009-02-17T16:44:00.003Z

After the Geneva-based ICJ published its damning report mentioned yesterday on this blog, too, there have been other much welcome statements.

The head of MI5 itself said that, quite eloquently, "It would be better that the government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism - that we live in fear and under a police state".

She said that, neatly put again, ministers are using the fear of terror to introduce interesting legislation.

A short summary of the BBC was quite good, this doesn't even go into the insane new laws on restricting photography or all the abuses of police power reported here, too over the last few years (all committed under the amazing umbrella of the Act on Terror):

"Government plans for a giant database to record the times, dates and recipients of all emails and text messages sent and phone calls made in the UK
The growth of Britain's DNA database - it is now the world's largest, per head of population, with samples from some 4m people
The use by councils of laws designed to track criminals and terrorists to spy on ordinary citizens. In one case a family was watched to see if they were really living in a school catchment area
The spread of CCTV cameras. Britain now reportedly has some 4m, the highest density in western Europe
Proposals for secret inquests, excluding relatives, juries and the media, which the government says would prevent intelligence details leaking out. "

At least for some of us, these are deja-vu... Could of course add to the list the radical and revolting new laws on photograpy in public, and minor things like the propaganda about 'suspiciously acting photographers' to be reported, the rule about not demonstrating around the Parliament in a 1000 yard radius, the further rules about 'being vigilent' at all times...

We all said, this is a stalinist state of affairs in the making, it is quite shocking that some erudite committees and fountainheads have seen what we all thought we must be only imagining, it simply can not be this bad :-)

Well, fear culture I'm sure will develop more and can never underestimate the esteemed politicians' abilities to think up such new legislation in the name of public safety...

Arbitrary terror

2009-02-16T19:26:00.003Z

UK civil liberties have taken a new beating today. I recall the days in my former home country when the 'militia' (which turned itself into the police force after the Revolution) were dreaded. One could not imagine taking pictures of them out & about, and certainly even during the events of the ethnic pogrom in March 1990, if they caught you immortalising their acts & activities meant serious trouble.

Well, wind the tape forward, and tada... as of today, a new law - Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act - has come into force in the UK. It allows the police to arrest anyone found "eliciting, publishing or communicating information" relating to members of the armed forces, intelligence services and police officers, which is "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism".

In other words, taking pictures of policemen can land you in trouble. In a country where (as per several past blog entries here) they were already renowned for utter abuse of power, now they have even more to arbitrarily interpret and abuse.

Photo organisations and journalists have been outraged. It is simply incredible that the utterly ludicrous legislation on the War on Terror has now a new addition of this kind.

It is just tragicomic that with impeccable timing, the International Commission of Jurists said many states used the public's fear of terrorism to introduce measures, concluding after a 3-year world-wide study.

The chairman declared: "In the course of this inquiry, we have been shocked by the extent of the damage done over the past seven years by excessive or abusive counter-terrorism measures in a wide range of countries around the world. Many governments, ignoring the lessons of history, have allowed themselves to be rushed into hasty responses to terrorism that have undermined cherished values and violated human rights. The result is a serious threat to the integrity of the international human rights legal framework."

So at least one can see one is not imagining it... and also, that some still have a lucid perception of what is going on in these so-called 'free societies'.

Certainly the UK, as per all the bad things, leads again... so hail the brand new Section 76.

Overzealous police officers who thought that they have the backing of these dubious laws were already abusing their powers and illegally, anti-constitutionally committed everything from confiscating photo equipment from even amateur photographers at random, demanded or actually did deletions of photos, arrested photographers for absolutely no reason (and some managed to even successfully sue the police because of such stalinist abuses of power)... Now they have even more 'backing' to do whatever crosses their mind, in the name of 'public safety' (?) and the 'War on terror' (?).

Just who is terrorising who?

Safety

2009-02-15T15:13:00.004Z

The Romanian PM, former mayor of Cluj, has stated categorically that there isn't an increase in the rate of crime and that especially Cluj remains a safe city.

Right... Well, some commented that, without having fond memories of Ceausescu's Golden Era, in the 1970s and '80s one could walk in perfect safety alone in the middle of the night, true, had to carry the ID with him as the dreaded 'militia' was roaming the streets. At the moment, one is often afraid to go to quite central areas of the city in broad daylight...

What makes the firm declaration even funnier is that in Cluj a few armed robbers have emptied a bank in one minute and 6 seconds - Oceans Eleven, eat your heart out. Hollywood would really have to scratch its giant head to make thrillers with scripts consisting of the robbers' 'Veni, Vidi, Vici... in one minute and six seconds' routine.

The minister for internal affairs, in quite a contrast to the PM's silly statement about public safety and no increase in crime rates, stated that they really have to consider more beefing up of the police force. Well, this triggered some thoughts and comments along the lines of whether a police state is what we need...

In Romania, policemen mostly clamp down on those that they can clamp down on without further repercussions... if they happen to jump on a key mafioso, then they lose their job in minutes. As usual, laws there are for those that are not above the law... and its enforcing only works towards that particular category.

It is just hilarious, that the above coincidences of events and statements is further made surreal by a third virtually simultanesous piece of news, namely that overzealous Romanian policemen have stopped three ambulances that were rushing ten people to hospital after a major accident.

The particular combination of total disconnect from reality, surreal and laughably easy crimes triggering calls for even further 'uniform mania' and then the events showing just how utterly useless armed policement are in hitting the right spots is truly unique... but it is just one of the synergetic tragicomedies of everyday life there.

Biometrics

2009-02-11T13:30:00.003Z

While in Romania there was a great upheaval about passports with biometric data, UK has some further tragicomedy... well, actually deeply revolting tragicomedy on this front.

The Romanian Orthodox Church labeled them "Satan's document", because... yes, this is in 2009... there is some 3-digit occurrence of 666... then they changed the tune to talk about human rights, just when the backlash was getting louder (mainly consisted of the question: when will they leave the Dark Ages?). Then of course it raised other eyebrows, because, as the population above the age of 30 very well remembers how the same church had zero problems about being the right hand of Ceausescu's circles of power... Human rights didn't matter to this church before, but of course now they are much reformed...

Anyway, in the UK the situation about the biometric ID cards is even funnier.

If someone said that they are purely and simply after your biometric data (and not so much after the actual ID cards or their use for the ... ah yes... war against terrorism), they got labeled paranoid conspiracy theorists.

But let's look at the facts:

UK Government spent 4.7 billion pounds on the program, mainly to be able to gather the biometric data.

Yes, you read it correctly. The equipment to actually read the data from the cards and match to their bearer and its roll-out has not been budgeted. Clearly, its practical use is not the main aim here...

Furthermore, they said that they have no budget plans for this latter minor element in the landscape of biometric data-based identification of people... not now and not in near future.

So let me summarise:
- they make the biometric data ID cards compulsory (well, you have to present it when you enter the country in the future... so as long as you never leave and enter the UK, you'll be fine...)
- they only spend money on the actual biometric data gathering project
- they don't even have plan to spend money on introducing the reading and authenticating equipment

So... it still is very paranoid from some to say that UK in the name of 'War on Terror' has again played games... and the real objective is to gather as much as possible data about everybody, without an actual practical use in everyday life.

Looking at this, it is not that surprising that iris scan data can only be used on even Terminal 1 at Heathrow in 1 single cubicle (!), so even at that level they have no real intention to use it for what it was advertised to be used for: security and faster passing through airports...

Resonances

2009-02-01T18:05:00.002Z

Interesting how the financial and economic crises have triggered nationalism and extremism in various forms.

Watching the events in my former and present home, can't help realising that the core issues are the same, even though the manifestation and the details are very different.

In Romania, there was a master strike - the number of Hungarian language classes that can be run in schools have been dramatically cut. When this was noticed, it produced quite a furor and it was apologetically rectified... but by then, Romanian pupils and high-school students started to organise extreme nationalist protests due to the extra Romanian classes being 'replaced' (hence 'cut') in favour of Hungarian ethnic minority students...

It would be funny, unless it was also happening in my home town that has seen more than enough ultra-nationalist and fact-distorting upheavals... some ending up in a literally bloody mess, like the events in March 1990.

So once again, the spark is simple and purely ethnically driven- but its timing is also perfect and it's being blown out of proportion, as it successfully diverts attention from the huge problems of the current (newly elected) Government. If people are drawn into yet another xenophobia frenzy triggered by tragicomic partial truths, at least they won't pay much attention to the financial crisis deepened by the utterly incompetent Government parties - and that for example the key Mafiosi-turned-politicians like the unbelievable Nastase received tens of billions (in old local currency) from state institutions for his electoral campaign.

If you are raging about the ethnic minorities, you won't maybe notice that these parties have emptied the country's pockets so much for their own political aims, that even child benefit payments were delayed for ages, pension rises cut back to fractions of what was promised... and the currency has reached record lows relative to Euro and Pound.

In the UK, strike actions started due to the fact that foreign contractors are used in many jobs that are seen as 'given away' to alien (to use the kind British term) workforce while unemployment is soaring in the UK. On the surface, fair enough and while Mr. Brown is talking about how protectionism will be disastrous in current economic climate, this really is a matter of protectionism... but of a country's own workforce. Still, it gives rise to uncomfortable questions: currently, anybody who has the right to work in the UK also has the equal right to apply for a job... and the employer can ultimately pick.

So things are not as straightforward as they seem, but this didn't deter the BNP-like fascism to spike again. Loud illiterate gorillas are already shouting with foaming mouths about foreigners and locals... in a country where anyway, always and with boring self-repetition, foreigners are the cause of every problem, even the situation of the diabolical and shameful public transport system's.

So, once again, foreigners among us and foreigners 'out there' are the cause of all of our problems :-)... Yep, another deja-vu and some things are just... universally applicable. Just have to do a search/replace for keywords and the same stories can be printed in Romanian and British media.

Deja-vu

2009-01-29T17:51:00.002Z

Sometimes it is truly remarkable how history in certain countries can repeat itself. Or rather, how certain people of certain countries can make history repeat itself

The Romanian Government has introduced measures to combat the financial and economic crisis... and these measures are exact copies of Ceausescu's truly surreal and utterly nonsensical measures introduced in the 1980s.

Let's see a few eerie examples, so deja-vu that one is stunned into admiration:

- in the Victoria Palace, many light bulbs are removed to reduce current consumption. This is exact copy of 1980s Ceausescu measures, but in that case the amount of energy saved compared to the amount used by the industrial obsolete monsters created by him was infinitesimal. In this present case, if a proportion of light bulbs being removed saves somehow the Government from financial crisis, it will be a miracle of some sort...

- They save money by not printing official documents, but using CD-ROM delivery. Right... They have not yet agreed how to send around the electronic documents, but the paper saving is again a straight copy from Ceausescu's 1970s and 1980s. Do the maths and you realise just how much this will help in fighting the financial downturn...

- Students and school kids are supposed to have an extra month holiday, to save energy while the schools don't have to be lit nor heated. This is again an absolutely exact copy of Romanian 1980s. Again, the maths are amazing.

- The coup de grace, for those that by now are suffering deeply while staring at these ghosts of the past, is that heating in the Parliament and Government offices is turned down. If this is not familiar to anybody who lived through the Romanian decades of glory under Ceausescu, then those suffer of long term memory loss.

So... a new, this time real, problem (let's not forget what the real thinking behind the 1970s-1980s Romanian energy and cost saving measures was... as per early chapters of the memoir posted on this blog). The methods of attacking it are... old and familiar.

Ceausescu's ghost, very much happily walking around still in the Romania of 2009, must be having fits of laughter.

Unfortunately, the people are not exactly amused... but a large part of them, those who were born in or after 1989, have no idea of just how strong deja-vu this is...

Human stupidity seems to be not only eternal, but eternally looping back on itself... re-using past stupidities in new form, under new motivations.

Please, Romanian Government, could you please, please at least think up one new and original method for absolutely pointless, useless, and utterly stupid attack on the financial crisis?

Impartiality

2009-01-27T19:38:00.004Z

Quite an upheaval about a humanitarian appeal for Gaza not being shown by BBC. More than a hundred MPs have signed a condemnation of what was, by some, called cowardly act.

The most intriguing element in this entire mess is that the BBC said they refuse to show the appeal due to the fact that it would compromise their impartiality.

It is the same organisation that has no problems about being blatantly impartial when they were blocked from getting into Gaza and presented for days the events based on information provided to them by the Israelis.

The same BBC shows all other humanitarian disasters and whips up huge emotional campaigns, just recall everything from Live Aid to the new Live Aid and from Darfur through Kosovo to Congo.

But now somehow, suddenly, an appeal about a similarly factual humanitarian disaster is a danger for its impartiality.

By refusing to show the appeal, they have become ironically one of the two least impartial and politically skewed media organisations - the other one being Sky News.

The fact that Sky News dare to say they are impartial, well, it is so tragically hilarious that one is truly searching for words...

So well done, again, BBC. After they got slapped around a few times, now they are so afraid that even such revolting acts can be claimed to be committed under a shield of impartiality.

Full circle

2009-01-22T16:49:00.004Z

On 20 January, Romania also applied the new laws on monitoring everybody's phone calls. The call duration, timing, address details of the people are logged and stored for a period of 6 months.

This comes together with the previously mentioned EU legislation about monitoring email patterns.

While the exiting "W" talked about leaving behind a much freer world, it is amazing irony that a nation so used to phones being tapped now revisits the Stalinist and Ceausescu era experiences under a new wording and a new reason.

It just proves some of the lines here in the past that methods are the same, just the motivations and context may change.

This is all done due to the so-called War On Terror, and for the infinitesimal chance of discovering some terror-related contact pattern, everybody loses one more fundamental human right (to privacy).

So welcome to an even freer world, and the deja-vu it creates for those that had their phones randomly tapped. This time you won't have it tapped, just your call patterns recorded.

Interestingly, those regimes that monitored huge number of phone lines could not stop people bringing them down.

Now we think with such Orwellian measures we can stop some small terrorist cells from doing something... or helping the investigation after they did something...

It is farcical and tragicomic, but welcome to a deja-vu...

Seismic matters

2009-01-18T17:12:00.002Z

As there are more and more discussions ongoing about the revision of the Romanian Constitution, there are a couple of new 'items' that (if they get anywhere near the border with reality) may produce some seismic shocks.

One of them is quite radical for a radically tragicomic situation... namely, members of the Parliament would have their immunity removed. Investigations of them and their affairs would no longer need the Parliament's approval.

One wonders, even if this change does occur, what the realities of its consequences can be in a country where the Mafia doesn't pay off MPs and the Government, the Mafia simply is in the Parliament and the Government across all levels of Power. This is pretty much the Bulgarian model and with the recommended change to the Constitution, the situation could become tremendously funny, well, tragicomic rather rapidly.

Surely there would be a need for a 'halo' around the circles of Power so that nobody will initiate legal proceedings against the de-immunised MPs and Government officials... otherwise one can imagine a utopia where every member of the Romanian circles of political Power ends up in jail for long periods of time for corruption at levels that one can't imagine sometimes...

The other interesting recommendation came from Bela Marko, leader of the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania... He suggests that the issues of ethnic minorities this time need to be treated properly. Again, a utopian idea, we all know what happened historically to even basic minority rights stated in the Constitution. Even when they were captured there, they were worth the value of the paper they were printed on.

But what could be a seismic shock is the dropping of the term 'nation state' from the text of all texts... As a reminder, Romania was and is considered a homogeneous (that dreaded word) state with one single nation. The ethnic minorities (huge communities like those of Hungarians) were considered to be, using same example, Hungarian-speaking Romanians.

As Bela Marko mentioned, "there is no rush" - well, certainly it would be highly (well, even more highly) utopian to expect any speed with eradicating ethno-political schizophrenia that marked every heavy-weight politically significant text in Romania since 1918...

On the other hand, let's forget the two potentially tectonically threatening change recommendations... Even if they happen in any form (at best, diluted down), may one ask those that hold any hope of whatever new content meaning an actual change in everyday practice, heaven forbid mentality: has any line of the Romanian Constitution ever mattered?

It was and will remain a document of some (and purely) symbolic meaning, transgressed against, ignored, re-interpreted in any way the circles and ellipses of Power will see it fit.

The change the country desperately needs is not of the text itself - 19 years after the Revolution, would be good to have changed mentalities and changed political Power that is not 100% self-obsessed and utterly above the law of any kind.

Then, a certain text may start to actually mean something and may be applied in some way.

Yes, utopia indeed.

End of an era

2009-01-16T20:32:00.002Z

"W" finally exits after 8 years of tragicomedy.

Unfortunately his parting speech wasn't riddled with wonderful lexical gems that he became known for (after all, he is a very 'misunderestimated' president, to use just one of his countless linguistic jewels).

But he did say one thing that was astonishing. He firmly believes that he created a freer world.

Really?

So the War On Terror, which also removed one dictator from power (to put it gently), somehow made our world freer.

So maybe my memory is foggy after too many lexical bombardments from "W", but... I can not recall all my email traffic patterns recorded by every internet service provider before.

I don't recall in the much less free world before him to have laws banning any demonstration in a radius of 1000 yards around our Parliament building. Also can't recall the abuses of power, the stalinist methods being resurrected for a 'safer society', the scrutinies, the 42 days of imprisonment without any charge and judiciary process, the... oh heck, the list is endless.

So at least in the UK, the world does not feel much freer as a result of what "W" and his lapdog (currently a peace envoy for the Middle East- yes, reality produces irony that beats any comedian's imagination).

During the last era marked by this misunderestimated headcase, the world around me changed into something resembling so closely something else I thought I left behind many miles and many years ago that it simply gives me the creeps.

So welcome and enjoy the freedoms created by the those two luminaries on two sides of the Atlantic. Rejoice.

Privacy and paranoia

2009-01-12T16:46:00.003Z

To add to the wonderful developments in terms of rights to privacy in this Citadel of democracy that UK loves to see itself as...

From March, information on every single personal email message will be kept for a year by ISPs. The content of individual emails will not be held but the timing and number of each communication are.

At least we are not alone, this is an AC directive - but the UK Government will reportedly have to pay the internet service providers more than £25 million to ensure the law is obeyed.

So the rationale, if we consider for a moment the claimed reason for introducing this, is that among billions of emails, some may be the ones sent by terrorists - and then police could use the information to see not the content, but the pattern of the contacts made by those people.

The effort vs. benefit, cost vs. benefit ratio is so huge in this case that it is simply ludicrous.

But... as many other things, this for our own good. This is supposed to help in the so-called War on Terror.

Some lucid voices stated: "This degree of storage is equivalent to having access to every second, every minute, every hour of your life. People have to worry about the scale, the virtuality of your life being exposed to round about 500 public authorities. Under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, privacy is a fundamental right... it is important to protect the principle of privacy because once you've lost it it's very difficult to recover."

For an infinitesimal probability game, your entire personal contact network and your ways, timing and pattern of contacting it will be stored. Therefore... another triumph in the War on Terror... and bummer, if only Stalin were alive to see this...

Good old medium

2009-01-10T20:26:00.004Z

A book based on this blog has successfully emerged and saw the light of day...
The memoir-cum-discussion on a personal journey from a certain corner of Cold War to a certain other corner of the 'War on Terror', with parallels between the former not so free and the new oh-so-free world has been published by Legend Press in the UK over the Christmas period.
Press release about the book is at www.pressreleasehome.com/press-releases/from-cold-war-to-war-on-terror-a-personal-journey
As another line of shameless promotion, it is available via Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble and other such major book retailers.

Future now

2009-01-08T19:39:00.002Z

The topic of vast majority of parents not letting their kids go out unsupervised beyond a radius of 100 yards around the house, well, was discussed here. So was the matter of the freedom to fear of everything and anything, in a society where a washing up liquid doesn't just clean, it "protects you and your family".

The topic of what monsters lurk beyond the walls of our houses, our medieval fear of the edge of the unknown (which in the old days used to be far, far away, at the end of the world, but now it situates itself right outside the walls of our houses) has also been talked about here.

Well, if we thought that we can't get more paranoid in a so-called free society, where a key marketing tactic is to induce irrational overblown fear of... anything and everything, so that we buy even that puny banal washing up liquid... well... Now we can have wrist watches with built-in GPS locators.

For kids.

Yes.

For worried parents to feel at ease, to give them peace of mind.

At least one psychologist on BBC had the guts to say the obvious: this is rationalising the irrational, well, at least it is trying to.

You can not give peace of mind to a parent who is afraid of his/her own shadow (the survey results about their paranoid fear and the 100 yard radius were stunning, many admitted that they know they live in an absolutely safe area where there never was any violent crime nor fatal accident but they still fear 'something' and feel 'unsafe'...).

You can not make a parent this utterly paranoid (read: this well adjusted to his/her society that relies even for a washing up liquid advert on the cult of irrational fear of germs) become a person who will let his/her kid roam the park and the street, just because the kid is now wearing a GPS locator.

When we saw this and similar ideas 20-30 years back in sci-fi movies that either fell into dystopian B-movies category or tried to really extrapolate things, we quite rightly thought those were just overblown negative utopias.

Well, now we have it - the tags for our kids are going on sale. Yippee.

Impressions

2009-01-07T17:30:00.004Z

Another few weeks spent in Transylvania, another set of impressions of former home...

There must have been more coins made over the last months, as there was less tragicomedy of change given as Nescafe sachets, vitamin C tablets and chewing gums, latter having been the ubiquitous 'change' given even last Summer still.

The financial and economic crisis has reached these shores, well, mountains already, although as for several Euro-area countries, only the initial effects are seen. Several banks have increased interest rates even though a leasing contract may have listed a fixed interest rate... as with many other things, certain institutions and organisations are above any rule or legislation in this country...

The experiences and impressions related to the state of education have proved again to be the most memorable. 9th-grade high-school students not being able to solve simple problems that teachers used to give us when we were 10-12 years old (and this is not the odd exception, it was in one the best high-schools of my home town).

Levels of literacy have plummeted further, and it is, like everywhere, a result of multiple factors - but some factors are unique to this geographical area.

One of the dominant factors are that parents only discover their child is virtually illiterate when he/she gets to first year in high-school... as two of my friends' (both teachers) experiences showed. The reason is that at least one parent works abroad, often the kid is brought up by a relative or even neighbour... and we touched on this phenomenon earlier in this blog.

The statistics are still quite scary and at least some organisations studying this have not lost their sense of proportion. On top of this, the manic copying of the 'West' adds to the problems - non-stop and indiscriminate use of TV and computers, in vast majority installed in the kids' rooms, make them unable to cope with a normal school day, let alone have time to read or study.

The former compulsory lists of books that kids had to read has shrunk to one, maybe two books, and as teachers in a neighbouring city told me, even those are often left unread, kids copying or obtaining some summary from someone else or the Internet.

I keep saying to these teachers: in many ways, as it was analysed in several blog entries, these aspects may be a bit extreme but they are essentially showing a perfect and speedy alignment with standards and levels of education and general culture that we see in the formerly so elusive and distant 'West'.

The continual shift in systems of values is even more shocking, as the polarisation of the society continues, while the truly mafia-like layers that have zero regard to any laws of the country have become even richer and more disconnected with the common people's reality.

One tiny aspect was telling: the Government was still recovering from the election campaign spending spree and even the (for many families vital) child support money was delayed several weeks, completely missing even Christmas. There were people physically crying to the postman and asking when the money could arrive.

Bucharest then finally, with great delay, wired the money to regional post offices... priorities come first, don't they. Not that anything like this is surprising, but due to the dire economic situation, such things have become either more noticeable or downright unbearably painful.

So... there is more progress...

Act of terror

2008-12-08T19:15:00.004Z

Those, who brought in the Terror Act and apply it indiscriminately as a universal tool to sort out whatever they find unpleasant, are quite resourceful again and seemingly are the only people committing act of terror on every normal everyday person... every single day with their renewed machinations.

And since there are occurrences of classic paranoid terms like 'they', well, let's be clear, it is about the current British Government and Home Office, specifically.

The matter of the compulsory ID cards with full-blown biometric data, as an essential tool in the fight against terrorism, has been debated a lot in the recent past, well, ever since its wonderful idea was introduced. Nothing wrong with ID cards per se, many countries have some form of it, but the rationale for its absolute need was flawed from the beginning.

What is particularly hilarious is that the Home Office, in this citadel of Western democracy, is now trying to introduce them via the 'back door'. They want to introduce a clause by which they make the presentation of the ID card compulsory at border points, when entering the UK. So if asked, one has to produce it.

Ergo, ID cards are no longer compulsory. You can perfectly live without them, as long as you never leave and (re-) enter the UK. Brilliant.

What is then interesting, is that the European Court recently had a verdict by which holding of DNA information on any person not involved in a criminal investigation (and/or not convicted in the end) is illegal.

Our Home Office Secretary, the particularly creepy, spineless, transparent and utterly brainless woman she is (a wonderful combination that any totalitarian dictator would have loved to have in the Government), found the ruling "disappointing".

Well, what it will do to our ID cards, we'll see... maybe some more back doors are to be introduced.

I would like to leave this topic with just one interesting example of Home Office theory and practice.

They introduced at some airports the iris scan facility, and once enrolled, you can enter without passport checking queues. Well, in practice it means most of the time slower and longer queues at the very few iris scan cubicles and countless times I got through quicker via traditional and even longer passport checking queues.

When they got pulled up on why there is only one cubicle at LHR Terminal 1 and it most of the time 'out of order', the response was: we shall install more as soon as we refurbish the arrivals area at that terminal.

Well, they have done so... work has finished. In the renewed immigration check area you can guess how many iris scan cubicles there are.

You guessed it, just one. The same one and it breaks all the time.

Come on, Mrs. Smith of Home Office grandeur: you have no real interest in biometric data being used for people's advantage, to speed or modernise things, to help in any way anybody.

You just want to POSSESS full biometric data on everybody. Full stop.

Ah yes, apparently for helping the war against terror. Ah yes.

One democracy, two democracies

2008-12-05T19:35:00.002Z

An interesting update about the Romanian farce first: it didn't quite work. In the end, with a marginal difference, the old Mafiosi were not brought back, instead we have some continuity with the not so old Mafiosi :-)

Another interesting development is that the extreme right Great Romania Party, with the colourfully demented fascist leader, C. V. Tudor did not reach the needed threshold to get into the Parliament, what a shame.

While former home, Romania was sorting itself out in the aftermath of the elections, the current home, UK has reached new heights of its democracy.

The Terror Act was used against an MP who leaked information to the opposition regularly, about frankly scandalous matters of the current Government. So one can say, whether it was a violation of the Official Secrets Act or not, is secondary, because the information was something the MP in question deemed necessary for the public to know. So it can be a philosophical debate...

But while that debate may go on, it is clear that none of the leaked pieces of information were in any way a national security risk. Still, that is the label put on them, and the chap was raided by police, his office was also searched - and the clencher is: search warrants were not issued at all.

Not only showed again that the Terror Act, exactly as predicted by every lucid being years ago, can and will be used for utter abuse of power, as soon as something doesn't suite the Party that established it, but it also showed that even the most basic aspects of judicial process, never speaking of basic human rights, have been violated or bypassed altogether.

This has all the elements of a totalitarian state... not the first time this so-called Terror Act was used as a tool to sort out whatever didn't suit Mr. Blair or Mr. Brown's Government.

Also, the irony is that the Party which labelled the scandalous information leaked to the opposition a national security threat is responsible for countless diabolical losses, misplacement, leaks and losses of highly confidential information that all WERE indeed direct threats to national security.

Furthermore, if Gordon Brown had this treatment, then he would have spent most of the 80s in jail, when he made a career out of leaking information...

Romanian democracy

2008-12-01T13:20:00.006Z

It is a sarcastic title - and while one fights with sense of guilt for not having been physically there to feel every minute of the General Elections in Romania, it is just simply impossible to leave that absolute farce without a comment.

Don't look at Zimbabwe... there are much closer places on the map, where democratic principles have been completely thrown out while performing an apparent eminent democratic process.

Such artful farce so far was the exclusive characteristic of talented African and former Communist block dictatorships, but we have something very close to it now.

As some stunningly erudite analysts stated, the Social-Democrats in Romania have relied on under-development, on miserable voters living in medieval conditions (and medieval mindsets). The gamble succeeded, the winning seems to be by fractions of percent. As he also states, the manipulation of the depraved thick layers of the society was a 'negative magnum opus' achieved by the party - and the well-designed electoral farce has also succeeded.

For starters, for the first time, more than a million voters could not vote... because votes for (I emphasise!) general elections could only be cast at your permanent residence. It brought back a certain feudalist practice, and it was not by accident, it was by design. More than a million voters were caught out by this absolutely absurd new rule, while also arrangements for students to make their way home from distant cities have been strangely pushed into chaos.

Why? It's not conspiracy theory, it is a well-designed and obvious pattern, considering who seems to have won the elections, based on the current polls and preliminary counts.

The rural votes have ... ruled, and they brought their characteristics with it. Romania, in many ways still a very rural country, has now brought back to power the (what countless called in the Romanian press) traitors and ex-communist/neo-communist Mafia which traditionally always managed to charm rural voters and that party has learnt the lesson how to orchestrate the elections such that these key votes will be the predominant ones.

It is incredible that after 18 years, these pests are voted back into Government, bringing back the darkest years of post-Revolution history. Reading the more enlightened comments in national and local press, it is evident that the closest state of shock that resembles this was the re-election of "W" :-)

Fun aside, there were concerted efforts to make urban and more 'intelligent' votes invalid, prohibit people from non-rural environments (who eminently work further away from where they are registered as permanent residents). There were concerted sabotage actions to prohibit hundreds of thousands of students to properly reach their permanent home where they could cast their votes.

Never before the split was so clear in the country, between those that are blinded by the well-organised empty propaganda augmented by pure emotional campaigns and gifts (yes, immense funds from somewhere were spent on bribes of entire communities!) and those that see who these people are. Not difficult to see, as they have been on the political stage before and the results were, well, the darkest neo-communist Mafia years of the country.

Even compared to the usual standards of Romanian corruption across every layer of society, this bunch will truly make them pale in significance. We are returning to an era of the post-Iliescu/neo-Nastase clans...

It is a dark day. And dark months and years are to follow.

Reading the comments in the press and online, even traditionally patriotic voices are so bitter that many state: they are happy to live outside the country and they are deeply ashamed to even mention their home country now. Some wrote that they were planning to return to Romania in coming years, but this change now (and HOW the election was orchestrated) means they abandoned any plans to even visit home...

It is sad to see this, while personally I am also blinded with anger, listening to the street-level reactions and facts about the way the election was run.

Some at least attempt to make elections look democratic, but the Romanian political Mafia has acquired enough arrogance and power over 18 years to not even bother with appearances.

As the Social-Democrats can't govern with their proportion in the Parliament, now the coalition talks will be extremely interesting, especially as the key players currently flatly refuse coalition.

One sweet pill, though: it seems the ultra-fascist Great Romania party for the first time does not make it into the Parliament, what a shame.

The present of presents

2008-11-30T11:18:00.003Z

Last year, roughly with similar timings, I talked about the future of presents... Now, with credit crunch, global financial and economic crisis (well, crises), something triggered a short typing exercise about the here-and-now, the present, of Xmas presents.

This morning on the BBC News we had the chance of being enlightened by money experts and members of think tanks (yes, it was wall-to-wall expertise, in glorious widescreen)... Enlightened about whether we can have a nice Christmas while we may not be able to splash out on presents the way we used to.

I just find it astounding, truly astounding, that this topic even comes up, let alone that 'experts' and think tank mini-tanks (well, she looked like one... how nasty of me) have to tell us the obvious: YES, you CAN have a nice Christmas without a Himalaya-size pile of presents in quadruple copies that then will make you queue all January to bring back to shops as unwanted gifts (and yes, people nowadays give gifts with receipts as they EXPECT that most of the gifts will be duplicates, triplicates etc. and you'd have to taken them back).

We heard the experts stating the wonderful obvious, but forgotten basics: Christmas is about family, being kind and loving, atmosphere, getting together etc. etc.

I'm not saying for a moment that finances under the Communist regime were the worst imaginable - there were and are many areas of the world where the former Romanian standard of living can seem utterly luxurious...

But... in that particular misery, I remember having GLORIOUS Christmas celebrations... Before we all started to be re-programmed into thinking that a smashing Xmas is about piles of as expensive as possible presents, the emphasis was about knowing the other person, lovingly picking something that he/she will absolutely love... simple things... and besides things, the hours and days spent together, with a meal as festive as we could put together from the food rations saved up over many weeks and months in the freezer... Endless list of things and utterly immaterial things that made us happy at Xmas.

I wonder whether the experts paraded this morning on the BBC managed to convey the obvious message, that only such experts could state...

The closest I've seen anything and anybody come to the long forgotten, former ideal of Christmas was the John Lewis advert. Apart from the brilliance of it, the final and inevitable slogan had to be there and it said: If you know the person, you will find the present.

And that present, my fellow & dear non-experts in human nature and the quantum physics of Xmas, can be anything, even something as untouchable as time itself.

Social networking

2008-11-18T16:29:00.002Z

Nope, not of the traditional kind (you know, that ancient form of social interaction arising from being outside the walls of your house, being in contact with real people, building social skills, acquiring vital intuitive skills when it comes to your own safety etc.

This is about two pieces of news that, with remarkable synchronism, popped up recently.

One was about a girl that is so addicted to Facebook that has to be treated for it... She not only spent immense amounts of hours in front of the computer, doing 'social networking', but also went into a frenzy of acquiring 'friends'. She set her alarm clock to wake her up every two hours each night, so that she could check whether eh was marked as 'friend' by some more people. At the point where the parents had enough and also realised that this is pathological, she had more than 5000 'friends'.

The fact that she had no concept of what the real meaning of the word 'friend' is and well, she seemingly never had a real one, is a secondary aspect.

Why? Well, there was that other piece of news. There is a new social networking website set up specifically for children as young as five.

Now... trying not to be old fashioned, but there are some facts that are coming to light in countless sociology and psychology studies. Not just the obvious facts (that all this prohibits children from developing 'normal' social skills and learning to interact with real people), but also some quite interesting novelty items...

It seems that the huge amount of time spent in front of the computer also seriously reduces the kids' ability to develop orientation, combinatorial and manipulation skills important for the three-dimensional space they inhabit. It seems that they actually, genuinely, are affected by a vast amounts of time spent processing information conveyed via an eminently two-dimensional medium.

This trend is gathering momentum in Eastern Europe, too - what started as a genuine 'wow' due to internet and travel opening up the previously so impenetrable real or virtual borders, has now taken over.

There is also a third little news gem... regarding the UK at least... The game consoles have now outsold any other home electronics device.

Again, not being old-fashioned... but some things will not change in our world(s) and one, as a kid, has to have basic skillsets to deal with it. Yes, some skills are now more important than centuries or even decades ago... but we are not talking about what has more merit currently: being able to fence or being able to fix your printer driver in Windows. Clearly, things have moved on and one has to adapt.

But there are basics, and that's where the studies show just how tragicomic the situation is becoming. We still have to be able to play, interact, stay safe and survive, socialise, explore, experience, touch, love... in the real world populated by real people.

Looking at these results and news, one has to think that it is no accident, and it is a self-reinforcing process, that almost 80% of UK parents don't dare let their kids go alone for more than 100 yards radius around the house...