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Entries from March 30th, 2011

Romanian MEP Adrian Severin makes headlines in London’s Sunday Times

March 30th, 2011 · Comments Off on Romanian MEP Adrian Severin makes headlines in London’s Sunday Times · Diary, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations

Romanian MEP Adrian Severin, a former Romanian Foreign Minister, makes headlines in London’s Sunday Times

Adrian Severin (born 28 March 1954 in Bucharest) started his politics career under Ceausescu’s Communist rule, as Instructor (lector) at the infamous Ştefan Gheorghiu Academy, the infamous university whuch hatched Romanian Communist cadres. it seems that such qualifications were particularly well suited for a glowing political career after the Communist dictator was put down in 1989.

After this infamous Palace Coup, Severin became a member of the National Salvation Front and the Democratic Party (which he left in April 1999). which was a convenient trampolin for him to be parachuted as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania between December 12, 1996 and December 29, 1997 under the Emil Constantinescu Conservative Administration.

With the accession of Romania to the European Union Adrian Severin became an MEP on 1 January 2007 as a member of the Social Democratic Party, part of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, .

Four years later, in 2011 the European Parliament opened a formal investigation into alleged corruption by Severin and two other MEPs. Severin insisted he had done nothing “illegal or against any normal behavior”, although he was accused of accepting bribe in exchange of initiating a law amendment. He was called by the Leader of the SD Group in the European Parliament to resign., which he refused, against all factual evidence. As a direct consequence Mr Severin was suspended from his position of Deputy-Leader of the SD Group and was compelled to leave his Parliamentary Group.

Unlike the Romanian parliament where such contrition is unheard of, in the European parliament, at least, when one is caught red-handed and one refuses to leave, one is given the Order of the Boot: which implies that by European standards, at least, all chicken come home to roost – not so in Romania which remains unruffled as such minor irritants are chicken feed!

Mr Severin’s political career is not yet over as his talents will be in dire need in his home country: watch out this space!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12806955

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An9Yo_gyYYQ

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Poetry in Translation (LXXXI): Lucian Blaga (1922-1985) – “To my Readers” (CĂTRE CITITORI)

March 30th, 2011 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (LXXXI): Lucian Blaga (1922-1985) – “To my Readers” (CĂTRE CITITORI) · PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

MOTTO (In Marea Trecere): Opreste trecerea. Ştiu că unde nu e moarte nu e nici iubire – şi totuşi to rog: opreste, Doamne, ceasornicul cu care ne măsuri destrămarea.
Lucian Blaga (1922-1985), Poetry in Translation (XIV), “To my Readers” (CĂTRE CITITORI)
Versiune Engleza de Constantin ROMAN (Londra)

1924
Motto
The Great Passage:
Halt the Great Passge. I know Mylord there is no Love without Death. And yet, Mylord, please stop the clock with which you measure our decay.

“Believe me, believe me one could speak endlessly about anything:

About Fate and the well-wishing Snake

About Archangels ploughing the Garden of Man

About the Sky which we hope to reach,

About Hatred and Fall, Sadness and Crucifixion…

But above all, about the Great Passage.

Yet words are nothing else than the tears

Of those who wished so much to cry, but couldn’t.

Bitter, so bitter are all words

And therefore

Let me walk in silence amongst you

Cross your way

Eyes-closed.

(Rendered in English by Constantin ROMAN)

Copyright Constantin Roman, 2011

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Poetry in Translation ( LXXX) – William Butler YEATS – “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”

March 10th, 2011 · 2 Comments · Diaspora, Poetry, quotations, Translations

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

W.B. Yates (1865-1939)

” I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree.
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee loud glade.”

” But I, being poor, have only my dreams.
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.”

W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

Insula de pe lacul Innisfree

(Traducere libera de Constantin ROMAN)

Voi invia din morti, sa zbor la Innisfree

Sa-mi fac in vis coliba din paie si chirpici

Pe dealul insorit printre stupi voi tanji

Sa traiesc solitar in zumzetul de-aici.

Dar sarac fiind sa fiu, doar un gand de pribeag

Mai ramane s-astern sub calcaiu-ti de vis

Peste doru-mi ai grije prea greu sa nu calci

Sa apari ca un fulg cand vei trece-al meu prag.

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Miracolul Bisericii de la Drăgănescu şi o profeţie a Părintelui Arsenie Boca

March 3rd, 2011 · 6 Comments · Art Exhibitions, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations, Reviews

“Pictura sacră e istoria în imagini a vieţii Mântuitorului şi a celor transfiguraţi de El. Adică imaginea raiului. Sfinţia Ta [pr. Arsenie Boca] ai înţeles să faci o pictură transfigurată în nuanţe clare şi deschise, paradisiace, pentru a sugera lumea feerică de dincolo. Biserica de la Drăgănescu iradiază lumina raiului” (Nichifor Crainic).
„Ceea ce am admirat la Sfinţia Ta e că nu te-ai lăsat. Din zugrav de suflete, fericite să se modeleze după Domnul tuturor, iată-te zugrav de biserici, adică al celor ce poartă pe chipurile cuvioase reflexul desăvârşirii Fiului lui Dumnezeu. E o mare mângâiere, acum când nu mai ai prilejul să desăvârşeşti pe aspiranţi, să poţi mângâia cu penelul pe cei desăvârşiţi pentru a-i da pildă pe zidurile sacre. Mica biserică de la Drăgănescu are norocul să simtă pe zidurile ei zugrăvite predicile fierbinţi, pe care miile de oameni le ascultau la Sâmbăta de Sus. E o pictură nouă ca şi predica de atunci. Nimic întunecat în această primăvară care îmbracă cu plai înflorit bolţile bisericii. E o lumină de tonuri deschise către lume, ca spiritul şi chipul Mântuitorului coborât să ne aducă lumina de sus, ce iradiază din pictura Sfinţiei Tale. E un stil nou, e o pictură nouă, după viziunea nouă pe care o porţi în suflet” (Nichifor Crainic, 1971).

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Lionel ROUX: “Odyssée pastorale” – Extrait “Chez les bergers des Carpates Roumaines”

March 2nd, 2011 · Comments Off on Lionel ROUX: “Odyssée pastorale” – Extrait “Chez les bergers des Carpates Roumaines” · Books, Diary, International Media, PEOPLE, Reviews

Son and grandson of moving shepherds…

in a biographical and reflexive quest, I was taken to look into a task that was the one of my father’s and my grandfather’s but will never be mine. My photographic quest draws its sources from a history of lines, of features, limits, traces, that constitute and mark a territory. It also finds roots in the ancient culture but in a very fragile way of the pastoral civilization.
In the beginning, there is the course where the line of the family roots stretches out between the alpine province and the Piémont mountains. The path (or rather paths) of the migratory shepherd, the trip that for centuries was brought twice a year by men and herds over the lands.
Shifts of altitude by the ones and shifts of attitude by my shepherd father to draw a line on this nomad life.
My artistic path, my photographer’s itinerary has been continually questionning the pastoral culture of the migration around the mediterranean area and even farther, ever since I was conscious of the fracture by my rejected inheritance.
It is not a simple quest for roots ( of which nomads don’t feel concerned ) but a semi-etnographic exploration of the mentioned event vanishing little by little : The trace of the pastoral routes, the mediterranean and african shepherd’s world.

Mon cheminement artistique mon itinérance de photographe n’a pas eu de cesse, dès lors que j’ai pris conscience de cette cassure (de cet héritage refusé) d’interroger l’épaisseur de cette culture pastorale de la transhumance, que ce soit en Europe ou en Afrique. Il ne s’agit pas d’une banale quête de racines (dont les nomades ne s’embarrassent pas), mais plutôt d’une exploration de ce qui se transforme peu à peu : la trace des trajets pastoraux, le monde des bergers.

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