I.O.U.S.A.

Check out this trailer: I.O.U.S.A.

Also,

Taxes

Sometimes I blog to save articles that I would otherwise lose in my bookmarks menu or lose because I cannot bring myself to save them properly in categorized folders. This is one of those blog posts.

One of my good friends pointed out the fact that US citizens that live abroad have to pay taxes in both the country where they are working and in the US. Here is the article. And apparently, the US takes citizens on the income earned worldwide, read about it here. Craziness.

Madonna is so random

And so is her publicist. According to a list on perezhilton.com, there will be “3 Romanian gypsy musicians playing acoustic instruments” in Madonna’s upcoming Sticky and Sweet World Tour.

Is she jumping on Loredana’s bandwagon (literally) or what? Maybe she wants to adopt a gypsy child…

Apparently 1/4 of her show will be “Gypsy: A VIP trip to La Isla Bonita infused by the spirit of Romanian folk music and dance. A tour de force.” So now Romanian gypsies play Romanian folk music and dance… Well, I guess thanks for the PR.

It’s coming soon…

www.v-patrat.ro

Readings

I’ve been fully immersed in reading for the past few nights after Marius recommended (and dropped on my lap) the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I highly recommend that you all go out and read it. If you don’t speak English, you should learn just to read this book (I have not been able to find a Romanian translation and I do not know that I am prepared to undertake such a task, as the book is about 1100 pages).

Quote of the Day: I wanted to post a quotation from the book, but then I found one that is also appropriate and I hope to pick up The Fountainhead soon, so here: “Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.” (’The Fountainhead’ by Ayn Rand 1943) Some food for though on this Wednesday afternoon.

UPDATE: Also goes hand in hand with this article.

Something green

I started looking through different NGO’s today, mostly in Romania, and found a bunch of them doing a lot of green stuff. On Drudge I had become exhausted by references to Al Gore and his stupid inconsistencies/”green” business dealings. And then Drudge said that green was out of style, etc. I mean, it was exhausting to bear the hype of the green phenomenon. We couldn’t get enough of it and then we OD-ed.

Once again, “everything in moderation” becomes valid. I hope that my volunteers will of course become involved with ecological activities and collect, recycle, reuse, etc. But I won’t stuff it down their throats and risk alienating them from the issue before they’ve had the chance to do something about it. To all the people that whine about waste, pollution, etc., but don’t recycle, drive around in huge trucks (Mihaela Radulescu - the queen supreme of “green” fakedness), and harm the environment in many other ways… why don’t you do something and then talk about it? Like this guy: bucurenci.ro (If you can’t read Romanian, he’s helped clean up a whole lot of parts in Romania, gathering tons of garbage around the country - very impressive).

(Green) Quote of the day: We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors, we have only borrowed it from our children. - Apparently an ancient saying, can’t find an author, but I do remember having seen this quote in the NY Museum of Natural History.

Feeling patriotic

Romania still managed to take the gold in some part of the gymnastics competition at the Olympic games in Beijing.  For that, I thought I would post in their honor today.  I’m usually not this patriotic, although I would love to have Sandra Izbasa, the gold medal winner in the women’s floor routine, do some promo work for Voluntariat la Patrat.  I was actually watching the games when her routine came on and I’m very happy I got to see it.  Romania is now on the 14th spot with 4 gold and 8 total medals at this year’s games.  You can keep track of the medal count here. 

 V-patrat’s site (my association) will launch shortly.  Look for links soon.  If you’d like to receive more info in the meantime, write to adina@v-patrat.ro.  Happy Sunday!

Back from another vacay

Ok, we will stop going away (without Internet) soon. In the meantime I wanted to post a pic of some very cute kittens that live inside a house that you can visit as part of the permanent exhibit at the Romanian Village Museum in Bucharest. These kittens were found in a Transylvanian-style home dating a few centuries back, that I visited with my good friend Eric last week. As my first American friend to make it over here, he tells me that Romania is pretty much amazing. Now you know why I stayed.

Quote of the Day:

Since you might know that I like Noam Chomsky, but I have ignored a lot of what’s going on in politics lately (even though I will probably voice an opinion soon on the Georgia conflict), here is a quote I stumbled upon today that I hope will inspire me in a future project in Romania: “Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.” - Noam Chomsky

Cats and Dogs

I almost got a cat yesterday. I ran into a stray kitty, with black and white fur, a few blocks away from our home. She was so cute that I had to stop and pet her. When I tried to get up and keep walking to the subway station, she started meowing, so I bent down again. This kept repeating until a little girl with her mother walked by. The little girl also wanted to pet the kitty, so of course the kitty was on cloud 9. Finally her mother decided it was time to leave the kitty and go home, so I started looking around for a place to leave her so that she would not get run over by passing cars. The first gated garden (in front of the apartment buildings lining the street) had a big black cat in it. I put the kitty on the ground to see how she’d react to the big cat. It was not exactly what I was looking for: to leave the kitty to face either the big cat or the crazy drivers that race down the narrow street. So I picked the kitty up and finally found a safe place to leave her. Later I went back to see if she’d still be around to move her into a family of kittens on my block, but I couldn’t find her. Maybe she’ll be there today.

The story I really wanted to tell today though, is about a stray dog. He is a big, fluffy dog. He usually sits (or sleeps) by the entrance to our fitness club: IDM. And you know who else frequents this fitness club? The President’s daughter. Her Range Rover is always parked right in front of the gym entrance. The dog has been there since at least December 2007 (when I first stepped into IDM).

How is this possible?! The head of state of a European nation sends his daughter to a gym where stray dogs still hang out. Couldn’t Basescu at least have helped this one out? It’s one dog… and it would’ve helped his daughter’s terrible image, if she still wants to get on the politics thing. The last thing the press had mentioned was that she was on her way to work in the European Parliament. WHAT!? The girl has more important things to do, like work out… every day… for a few hours… and I guess other stuff that is just as important, since she can’t even get her daddy to help her care for one poor dog.

You might be asking yourself why I haven’t done anything about it. First of all, I don’t yet have an army that stands at my disposal to help me pick up dogs and neuter them or place them in shelters where they could be cared for (most shelters are filled to beyond capacity). I do have a campaign in the works where people will be able to sponsor a stray dog and support medical costs for neutering/spaying the animal. The campaign will also hopefully improve stray animals’ image. Right now most Romanians do not care for such animals (unless they live near their homes) because they’ve read the stories about attacks on people. It is sad, but we cannot let this continue forever…

If you’d like to get involved in such a campaign you can write to me at adina@v-patrat.ro.

Happy Friday!

Batman forever

Last night Marius, his dad, and I went to the movies. I was really eager to see the “Dark Knight” after hearing about all the craziness surrounding it in the US. At first I thought it would be the same here when I wasn’t able to get tickets to the opening night at a local theater. But last night we had seats smack in the middle of the auditorium. And the movie did not disappoint. It was dark and violent, but it was so much more. I don’t want to bore you with a synopsis. I mainly wanted to post about it because after I watched it, I kept thinking back to the old Batman movies. For example, how cheesy does Batman and Robin look now? Or Batman Forever? Or the Tim Burton-directed flicks… Mind you, I’d probably still enjoy them immensely (I still think that Val Kilmer was the hottest Batman ever and Tim Burton is probably my favorite director ever), but this Batman is definitely more actualized. Like movies have matured, but are still accessible for the audience. I don’t want to go as far as to say that the audience has matured, especially when you consider all the Batman fans that went to see it wearing some sort of costume… The subjects discussed in the movie were rather deep for a Batman-like movie. It was still fantasy, but it was mixed with a darkness and deep psychology that I didn’t expect. The first Nolan-directed Batman (”Batman Begins”) sorta prepared me for this (I was kinda disappointed that some of glitz, glamour, and colorful fantasy was gone).
Also, one last thing… why is Batman more shallow than the Joker? I appreciated the Joker’s wisdom much more than Batman’s. Was Ledger just better than Bale or was the Joker’s role better written? The movie was good though.

Oh, and here’s the trailer for Stone’s “W.”