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Cambridge History of Science – BOOK REVIEWS: CONSTANTIN ROMAN – “CONTINENTAL DRIFT – COLLIDING CONTINENTS, CONVERGING CULTURES”

January 29th, 2014 · Comments Off on Cambridge History of Science – BOOK REVIEWS: CONSTANTIN ROMAN – “CONTINENTAL DRIFT – COLLIDING CONTINENTS, CONVERGING CULTURES” · Books, Diaspora, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations, Reviews

Prof> John D. Dewey, FRS,
(Universities of Oxford and California, Davis)

“Continental Drift” offered me a relaxing excellent read full of humour, humanity, wisdom and good science, way beyond the History of Science. This book is an Ode to the Joy of Freedom, of a kind celebrated in Enesco’s Rhapsodies, or the cosmic vision of Brancusi’s “Column of Infinity”: this is Constantin Roman’s “Ninth Symphony”. I trust the reader would share with me pleasures that have derived from reading ‘Continental Drift’.

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The Rev. Canon Patrick Comerford on the Centenary of the Anglican Church, Bucharest: 1913 – 2013

December 10th, 2013 · Comments Off on The Rev. Canon Patrick Comerford on the Centenary of the Anglican Church, Bucharest: 1913 – 2013 · Diary, Diaspora, History, OPINION, PEOPLE

In 1900, the British Minister or Ambassador, Sir John Gordon Kennedy (1836-1912), obtained the grant of a piece of land at the junction of Strada Pictor Verona and Strada Xenopol, in the corner of the Gradina Icoanei (The Park of the Icon) from the Commune of Bucharest in a deed of gift dated 2 December 1900.
The cornerstone of the church was laid 100 years ago today on 20 October 1913. The external fabric was completed by 1914, and the interior furnishings had been ordered from England. However, building work was interrupted with the outbreak of World War I.

The first service was held in the new church on Easter Day, 4 April 1920, and it was soon completed, and was dedicated by the Bishop of Gibraltar on 5 November 1922.

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Collection of Antique Prints and Engravings (16thc – 19th c), (Part II)

November 2nd, 2013 · Comments Off on Collection of Antique Prints and Engravings (16thc – 19th c), (Part II) · Art Collections, Art Exhibitions, Diaspora, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, Reviews

From a prima facie evidence it seems that this collection is not matched by similar efforts in the public domain, either in Romania, or elsewhere. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, also has not got this material although it covers immediately adjacent areas, such as the Levant and the Middle East, through the recent acquisition of a collection from a retired Shell executive.
The late Professor’s Oprescu’s collection, given to the Romanian Academy Prints Department, has some beautiful examples of watercolours and sketches, some by Count Prezziosi, but does not overlap with our prints. Prince Nicholas of Romania’s collection of maps has been dispersed soon after the Second World War. Sadly “Ceausescu’s surrogate “Muzeul Colectiilor” of Calea Victoriei, in Bucharest has relegated an important inter-war collection of historic engravings, donated by a private collector, to a “deposit” in a damp basement, sadly forgotten and most certainly ruined: such is the wisdom of our Wallachian luminaries, otherwise, known as “boierii mintii”(…).

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Şerban Veliciu: Recenzie – Deriva Continetală – Coliziunea Continentelor şi Convergenţa Culturilor”, sau – “Un Român în Derivă”

October 18th, 2013 · Comments Off on Şerban Veliciu: Recenzie – Deriva Continetală – Coliziunea Continentelor şi Convergenţa Culturilor”, sau – “Un Român în Derivă” · Books, Diaspora, OPINION, PEOPLE, Reviews, Translations

Deriva Continetală – Coliziunea Continentelor şi Convergenţa Culturilor” “Un Român în Derivă” Dr. Ing. Şerban Veliciu Profesor la Universitatea din Bucureşti, Citind “Deriva Continentală” aflăm despre meandrele carierei lui Constantin Roman, cel care a reuşit să strălucească în domenii în care, la începuturi, nu promitea prea mult. Am fost amândoi colegi de an la Facultatea […]

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Mircea Milcovitch: «Le Grand Mystère», Les Editions Romaines

September 23rd, 2013 · 1 Comment · Books, Diaspora, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations, Reviews

L’ouvrage que vous, lecteur, tenez entre vos mains n’est pas à proprement parler un ouvrage de théologie. D’ailleurs, l’auteur n’en aurait pas la prétention. Il s’agit en revanche d’un livre dans lequel Mircea Milcovitch a consigné l’ensemble de la logique biblique, de son intelligence de la foi chrétienne, qu’il a, au préalable, fait valider au fur et à mesure par de nombreuses conversations avec des théologiens de l’Institut Saint‑Serge de Paris (surtout Constantin Andronikof), et des moines‑théologiens du monastère bénédictin de Chevetogne, en Belgique.

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What has President Nicolas Maduro got in common with the late (dearly departed) President Nicolae Ceausescu?

September 22nd, 2013 · Comments Off on What has President Nicolas Maduro got in common with the late (dearly departed) President Nicolae Ceausescu? · Books, Diaspora, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Christmas Carol, 1980 –
(A Parody sung by Romanian Gypsy Children)

Father Christmas we do beg
Bring us butter, bring us egg.
If you ever come on foot
Bring some cabbage, or beetroot
If your bag is large enough
Add some maize and garlic cloves.
Christmas Father don’t miss either
The potatoes and the flour.
Should you come, though, in a sleigh
Don’t forget for the New Year
Toilet paper that’s so sparse,
To wipe at least our arse.”

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Romanian Dictionary of Quotations, Selected & Translated by Constantin ROMAN: Letter ‘G’

July 21st, 2013 · No Comments · Diaspora, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

Guilty:
“You are guilty of the spiritual impoverishment of the individuals, of their intellectual sterility, of the stifling of their personal duty, as well as of the creativity and inventiveness with which our people have been endowed. When they are treated as objects, deprived of their dignity, locked up in existentialist structures which do not suit them, paralized by the fear of the repressive regime, . Human beings end up behaving as objects. You are responsible for the physical debility of millions of citizens whom you have constrained through unheard of deprivations – of foodstuff, of heating, of medicines. The degrading of the human factor (the subversion of values, the egocentrism, the corruption) has jointly contributed, together with your political and economic errors, to the decadence of institutions, to the bankruptcy of trade and Industry, to the ruin of agriculture. Furthermore, you are also responsible for the demolition of churches and of prestigious historical monuments, of the falsifying and destruction of our past and lately of the destruction of our villages and of our rural traditions. In the historical past, our princes were building churches, after each military victory and perhaps sometime even after their defeat. You yourself, you are demolishing them, instead.”
(Doina Cornea (b. 1930), University Lecturer, Dissident)
(Open Letter to Nicolae Ceausescu, 23rd August 1988,
broadcast the same day on “Radio Free Europe” and published in Doina Cornea’s “Liberte?”, Eds Criterion, Paris, 1990)

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Love at the time of Swine Flu (fragment): by Constantin ROMAN

March 11th, 2013 · Comments Off on Love at the time of Swine Flu (fragment): by Constantin ROMAN · Books, OPINION, PEOPLE

‘You know, my dear boy, Catholicism is a very good religion to die in’.
She left all her millions to the Vatican, to consecrate her in a gigantic statue in the guise of Virgin Mary, no less, opposite a copy of a gigantic ‘Christ the Redeemer’, of Rio de Janeiro, only, this time, perched on an African mountain peak. In her lifetime she was no saint, to put it mildly, but she compensated by her good looks. You know? She was not unattractive and many a hopeful bachelor passed between her bed sheets, hoping for a share of the spoils. When they did not succeed to woe her, she offered them an honourable exit, which they could hardly refuse: she made suicide respectable. After she became a reformed rake, only weeks before she died, she was persuaded that she was a reincarnation of Mother Theresa, as she retired to a Convent of Dominican nuns. Her less charitable friends and relations, being frustrated of the spoils of any material windfall, spread the rumour that ‘she now tried to seduce God’….

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«COMPTES RENDUS D’OUVRAGES – BOOK REVIEWS – BOEKGESPREKINGEN». Geologica Belgica,

February 28th, 2013 · Comments Off on «COMPTES RENDUS D’OUVRAGES – BOOK REVIEWS – BOEKGESPREKINGEN». Geologica Belgica, · Books, International Media, OPINION, quotations, Reviews

“Cambridge was almost like a mythical mistress, whose eroticism would excite my resolve against obstacles put in the way by sundry bureaucratic tormentors and moral dwarfs”.
This is an exhilarating book and I can fully subscribe to Professor J. F. Dewey’s view (Oxford), who wrote the Foreword of the book: “Continental Drift offered me a relaxing excellent read full of humour, wisdom and good science, way beyond the History of Science”.

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Marea păcăleală – Scrisoarea lui Bata Marianov catre Sorin Iliesiu

February 10th, 2013 · 2 Comments · Diaspora, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations

“Ce treabă are “x” sau “y” să se amestece în biografia mea?”, îşi va spune dumnealui. Numai că situaţia se poate schimba total în cazul în care cel în cauză s-a expus public aşa de intens cum a făcut-o el. Dacă cineva îşi arogă hedonic şi fără reticienţe postura de creator de opinie şi pe cea de purtător de cuvânt al conştiinţei neamului, se poate aştepta şi la faptul ca cineva, cândva, să-l întrebe de una sau de alta… (…)
În ce mă priveşte, până acum, n-am spus mare lucru împotriva lui — de fapt, aproape nimic (cu excepţia acelei scrisori în legătură cu bombardarea Serbiei, cînd el era ministru de externe). (…)
Faţa lumii se schimbă puternic, nici cea a României nu poate rămâne la fel. A apărut, chiar în viaţa publică, o generaţie tânără, decomplexată faţă de trecut, informată şi, de ce să nu recunoaştem, cam disperată. Pentru aceştia, “piruetele biografice” întortochiate şi contradictorii a lui Andrei Pleşu (şi ale altora ca el), foarte iscusit împachetate într-un fals martiriu de ex-disidenţi, începe să nu mai fie o garanţie morală. În orice caz, nu una care să mai justifice imbatabilele poziţii pe care şi le-au monopolizat neruşinat. De douăzeci şi ceva de ani asta fac: s-au aşezat boiereşte pe sfântul tron cultural şi nu mai lasă pe nimeni să se apropie de sanctuar. Cenzurează şi admonestează la fel de drastic cum se făcea şi pe vremea “odiosului”. Aşa stând lucrurile, mă gândesc că aceşti copii or avea tot dreptul să le tragă picioare în fund celor care au contribuit substanţial la aducerea ţării la sapă de lemn.
Celor din “Primăverii” nu le făcea nimenea nimic, numai pe noi ne fugărea miliţia să ne taie pletele şi să ne radă bărbile… Sorine, toţi aceştia sunt din una şi aceeaşi gaşcă. Sunt la cataramă cu Petre Roman (puţin mai mare ca ei), fiul lui Valter Roman, şeful politic al armatei române de pe vremea lui Stalin (atunci când părinţii noştri erau la ocnă, ca deţinuţi politici)… Ce fac aceşti domni şi doamne acolo, la Fundaţia “Noua Europă” — înfiinţată special pentru ei, ca să aibe lefuri frumuşele? La ora actuală nu fac nimic remarcabil: doar taie frunze la câini pe banii “tăiaţi” de Băsescu din amărâtele de pensii ale lui nea Grigore şi tanti Mărioara… Cel puţin, Patapievici la Institutul Cultural Român împreună cu Mircea Mihăieş, mai fac din când în când câte-o tâmpenie, cum ar fi, de exemplu, a compara neamul românesc – pe spinarea căruia trăiesc ca ploşniţele – cu o fecală…

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