Blogging: Gods of a secularised world: All the international sports events, from olympic games to football championships, have been marked, in recent years, by ceremonies that tended to be ever more somptuous, ever more costly...
The struggle for sports: Romania used to be one of Europe's sports powers during the communist years. Now, the performance achieved in this malfunctioning system is considered a miracle...
The broken government: Daniel Timoce explains how and why Romania's governing coalition broke up
Is the concept of TV series changing? Everybody who lives in a part of the world that benefits from the miracle of electricity owns a TV set and knows what a series is...
Agro-dementia: Charles Bell discusses why Romanian farmers are turning their backs on European money
The links below allow you to have the latest news from Transylvania drectly on your desktop. To subscribe, you will need a so-called 'news reader' (you can search for one here).
Also, if you are a webmaster, you can display the latest SevenTimes.Ro headlines on your own site using RSS, ATOM, or OPML feeds.
These days, Romania's Social Democrat Party (PSD) elected their new board and president. Their old leader Mircea Geoana was replaced (after, or perhaps, because of having been defeated in the presidential elections) by the younger Victor Ponta.
I'm not interested much here in the consequences that this changeover might have for PSD (shortly, I think this is a positive turn, and will have beneficial effects for them). What stroke me during the days that preceded the election and the days after, was the huge amount of interest and debates in Romanian media.
Particularly, I was intrigued by the fact that most, if not all, of the questions, were of the type 'who?', istead of 'what?'
And this happens in all sorts of elections in Romania, and indeed in all sorts of political events. Who is going to have this or that position? Who is going to win? Who is going to fall? Nobody seems interested in this country in such questions as, what is to be done? What changes are needed for this society? How do we want to live in the future?
Follow any political debate on any Romanian TV channel, then follow any soccer debate on any Romanian TV channel. You'll be surprised how similar they are. You just have to replace the subjects of the sentences (political actors vs. football actors), an you've translated one dircourse into the other.
No wonder that many men involved in the football industry are also involved in politics. No wonder that many soccer commentators are also political commentators. Politics has turned into an entertainment affair. At stake is only adrenalyn and money, nothing else.
Romanian society revolves around who, not around what. It is subject-centred, not action-centred. The meaning of the verb doesn't matter in Romanian politics.
Verbs, actions, and projects don't even need to be mentioned (and are mentioned rarely), because they are self-contained in the subjects; they are taken-for-granted. When people do use verbs (seldom, in their official discourses), they lie anyway.
Is this fact rooted in Romania's too-long tradition of personality cults (Ceausescu, Antonescu, etc.)? I don't know. After all, other political systems might work the same way -- I'm not sure about the US, but I have a feeling it's quite the same as here.
And I'm not sure whether it's possible to change this style, either. Maybe these new young leaders will try and impose a new trend in doing politics. I myself am not very optimistic in this respect.
Ovidiu Brânzan szociáldemokrata politikus, volt egészségügyi miniszter csütörtökön kijelentette: a giule?ti szülészeten bekövetkezett szörny? tragédiáért...
Egymilliárd lej felhasználásának lehet?ségét kérte az egészségügyi minisztérium az augusztusi költségvetés-kiegészítéskor jóváhagyott pénzalapokból. A pénzösszeg...
The movie Katalin Varga (2009, directed by Peter Strickland) tells a troubling story of love, crime, forgiveness, and revenge. Read our news about it here.
For Sale: Dracula's Transylvanian castle
You already know the myth. Now find out the facts about Bran Castle from this short Al Jazeera film. At present, a large number of old Transylvanian castles are waiting for investors pepared to buy them and restore their condition. Read more here.
Too much Krivach won't kill you
A fresh and untypical interpretation of Queen's 'Too much love will kill you' convinced the members of the jury that Razvan Krivach deservs the big trophy at Brasov's 2008 Golden Stag music festival. Read more here, or listen and watch the song below:
Afrim's Attic
They are gross and at the same time funny; they are genuine, but also bold: The characters pictured up by young director Radu Afrim tell something about our own fears, our hopes, and maybe our madness.
Mr Afrim's work has been recently acclaimed at Avignon Off 2008 festival. Find out more here, and watch this short scene from his 'Mansarde à Paris/ Les détours Cioran' recorded by an amateur:
Drama experiments in Transylvania
A walk to the fringes of the possibilities of modern theatre. It's called Man.In.Fest, and it's an international festival of the experimental, the unexplored, and the unimagined theatre.
Read more about the 2008 edition here, and watch a short film about the 2007 edition of Man.In.Fest below:
