I probably am the laziest "collaborator" of ET, but anyway I´ll continue my strategy if there´s no complains :)... That is, quoting some articles I find interesting and see if there´s comments and views...

This one is about that unknown country, Moldova (who knows sth from Moldova, please raise a hand, even in Romania or Russia, wine and little more is known).

Three Paradoxes of PostSoviet Moldova
Source: RFE/RL (www.rferl.org).
July 05, 2008
By Andrei Brezianu

Eurobarometer Survey, 1 July 2008. Summarized by Open Society Institute (LGI)

People of Roma origin are considered the least desirable neighbours in the European Union, a survey released in Brussels on Tuesday showed. According to the Eurobarometer survey of almost 27,000 EU citizens, 24 per cent of Europeans said that they would feel "uncomfortable" having a Roma neighbour, with half of them saying they would be "very uncomfortable." That figure is more than double the number who would not like to live next door to a homosexual, and four times more than those who would feel uncomfortable living next door to someone of a different ethnic background, the report said.

I'm doing a test on EU knowledge this week, so i'm browsing a little bit europa.eu, although I do know they will be asking things like "which of this articles talk about codecision" or "how many representative have the Committee of Regions". Who knows, maybe I'll be able to get some data into my clumsy head...

Anyway, there had been a long time I hadn't read the "EU abc" (http://europa.eu/abc/). And well, found the Panorama of the EU quite interesting, so life-is-beautiful... Here it is, some too easy EU marketing for you to complain of... if you feel like too, of course. We are in Summer, after all!

Hey, I´d like to get some help from you to try to do a movie listing.

I watched a few day ago a Romanian movie I liked a lot, California Deamin' (Nesfarsit), by Cristian Nemescu. This film, whose director was killed in a car accident before finishing production, won a Cannes award (Un Certain Regard) in 2007.

What's the film about? Romanians use to say that in 1945 they were waiting for Americans to come, but Russians came instead, and stayed. So, what happen when, after 50 years, in 1999, a group of American soldiers on their way to Kosov arrive to a lost village in the middle of nowhere?

This film reminded me of a Spanish classic, Welcome Mr. Marshall, shot in 1953 by Luis García Berlanga. Another painful comedy on a little village that prepares to receive the visit of Eisenhower during its first visit to Spain, as they have heard that the he´ll pass by the village
(Political context footnote: Ike's visit meant the end of the post Civil War Spanish international isolation, because of the fascist origin of the dictatorship, and the creation of the first US -later NATO- militare bases in Spanish territory. Not having participated in IIWW Spain was left out of Marshall aid and investment programme to postwar Europe).

Both films are terribly funny, terribly painful, terribly historically significant, showing a lot on external perception of "American Dream", "American way of life" and so on...

So I have started to think that it can be even a "minor genre" on similar movies... I came up, for example, with Everything is Illuminated, Liev Schreiber, 2005, which I think shares some features with these other two films, with very funny scenes based on Ukrainian sterotypes on American people...

Help me out with more recommendations, please!

Fast Food = cooked food that you buy in some kiosk to be eaten on your way...

1. In St. Petersburg, in Koroblestroyteley Street, they have the best kebabs (Shaorma) in the world... Maybe because those where the first ones I tried, when I was 19 (b.G.: before Globalization arrived to Spain), and were eaten with appetite and in good company.
2. In the Netherlands you can insert a coin in a machine and get a Coke, a coin in another one and get a chocolate bar, and then a last coin in a third machine and get a hot hamburguer... Not very tasty, by the way, with some Dutch "touch" in the sauce that didn't convince me at all. I would advice to get three chocolate bars instead and wait to reach some place and get a proper meal.
3. In Britain Fish&Chips' fish is too greasy and quite disgusting... Chips fried in that same oil, I don't know why, taste very good, though, specially after pub crawling (half pub crawling in my case)! And, by the way, kebabs are much spicier than in other places in Europe I've been in... The Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi influence, I suppose.
4. In Italy you can get a piece of pizza in every corner, Pizza al Taglio, and it costs differently depending on its weight. On kebab local specificities, I'm afraid, I don't know... But food at an Etiopian cafe is worth trying! (Although it's not fast food in that case...).
5. In Romania fried chips are served INSIDE the kebab, all together with the meat, vegetables and sauce.
6. In Madrid we get huge sandwiches filled with fried squids!! ("Bocata de Calamares")
7. I´ve been told that hot dogs at Christmas market in Hamburg are gorgeous.

I would love to know your views on fast food delicatessen... Very useful and tasty information-sharing :)

Good appetite!

I just read the title of a recent report from Crisis Group on Abkhazian-Russian-Georgian conflict:

Georgia and Russia: Clashing over Abkhazia
5 June 2008
Moscow and Tbilisi need to cease military preparations in and around Abkhazia and cool their rhetoric lest their increasingly dangerous confrontation bring war to the Caucasus.

(full report)

It´s nice for a (once upon a time meant-to-be) social researcher to see that her papers don´t get old, yet I would like mine about Abkhazia, written in 2002, to become rubbish... It´s so sad to feel like an expert of an issue I haven´t paid much attention for 4-5 years (time enough to many new generation phones and so on to get into the market...)

Because the date could as well have been 2003, or even 1998... Abkhazia, a non-recognized state since 1991, a non-state, a failing state, a puppet state... Lost in a mess of poverty and ethnic-cleansing, survival economy and local mafia, local low-intensity war ("clashes") and regional (and even international, in the context of the links of islamic extremism and Chechen radical groups...) power politics. A case to remember that is, sadly, forgotten. Just information now and then on crisis peaks, having more to do with bargaining in Georgia-Russia relations than with real change in the nature of conflict and situation.

I've been living in Romania since last February, trying, amongst other things, to understand the national political system, ideology, civic culture... It's quite complicated (and risky) to draw opinions on any country's social life, being new, being an outsider. Anyhow...

This Sunday (1st June) there were local elections (first round, second round when needed, as happened in Bucharest, will be held on 15th June); national elections will be held in the Autumn.

That means that I have suffered a colourful election in a city split into 6 municipalities, every one with its mayor, plus a general mayor to be elected. Imagine that one side of the Thames is ruled by one chap, and the other side by other... That's Bucharest. Now, imagine you have to decide on the future of the bus that links both riversides... That's Bucharest.