Oh lord, if there’s one thing that makes me laugh, it’s my own foolishness. Just a few days ago I was writing about confirmation bias and last night I realized that I too had fallen into this trap. Since January 1, as you know, I’ve been undergoing intensive language training in Russian. With all the events ongoing in Ukraine, it’s been a boon for me … Continue reading Bunicuta de Aur
Yesterday I read an article in a Romanian newspaper which left me grinning for the rest of the day. It was entitled There are people who exist that don’t exist, about people who have no IDs and don’t “exist”. My partial translation: Are there people who exist that don’t exist? The subject was brought to our attention by Ciprian Necula, a sociologist and activist working … Continue reading Off the grid
Today’s is International Women’s Day, increasingly important in the United States but a long-time holiday of major standing here in Romania. And so you’d think that I’d be quite happy about the fact that the new Ponta 3 cabinet has a number of female members, including Ioana Maria Petrescu, the new Minister of Public Finance. After all, she’s relatively young (age 34) and thus not … Continue reading Aioli
Although there’s zero mention of it on the American Embassy’s website, the American charge d’affairs, Duane C. Butcher, made a quick little stopover in Cluj yesterday to visit long-time embassy snitch Emil Boc. The only reason we know about it is because he gave a brief statement to the local Realitatea and Digi24 crews (video at the link). The article caught the Unsleeping Eye’s attention … Continue reading Threat Assessment
All the recent events over in Crimea put me in a somber mood, my thoughts turning to that strange old aristocrat Lord Alfred Tennyson and his poem The Charge of the Light Brigade about pointless and foolish deaths on that peninsula 150 years ago. Although thousands of soldiers from Russia and Britain suffered horribly, the Treaty of Paris at the end of that war lead … Continue reading WOTD: Baraj
All Things Romania 