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Zangy Comment Graphics

* ROMANIA's WONDERS *

Marasesti Mausoleum – Marasesti – It was build in 1928 in memory of the First World War Heroes. Inside of this funeral commemorative monument burns the Eternal Fire in two funeral recipients.

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A liar in Cotroceni Palace

President Traian Basescu made a fool of himself one more time. Let me quote Ion Cristoiu, the well-known Romanian analyst: "The University Square housed a folk music performance featuring Traian Basescu". The head of state couldn't stay away from it and this time too he tried to turn a party of the retired Romanians into a media show with himself as protagonist, at a political time. He took advantage of the hundreds of people there. Among the retired there were members of his family and some top members of the Democrat Party, such as the omnipresent Elena Udrea. He also made use of some television stations' benevolence to show him on the small screen. And every word he uttered was a lie. Therefore let's talk about political lies.
I was not the only analyst to suspect the head of state of cheat when he promised to come to the University Square regularly to report to people about the state of the nation. He promised it at electoral times, deeply marred by disgusting political partisanship.
The first thing is that, under a democratic regime, one doesn't report to people in the street, but in the Parliament. The second thing is that it was already notorious that Traian Basescu doesn't keen promises. It was not by accident that journalists were watching the President the day he was to report. Traian Basescu lied indeed, for he had played truant at the meeting with Bucharest inhabitants. Last Saturday when attending the concert he claimed there had been no meeting between of the heat, but it was too late. He claimed he had dropped by the University Square, but that there hadn't even been five people willing to listen to him and therefore he had left. There can be no greater offense against Bucharest inhabitants !
It is time for readers to learn about the way Traian Basescu arranges his so-called crowd bathing. Everytime he tries to become popular, he opens the means of communication from Cotroceni Palace to the editorial offices. There leaks information, more and more precise, about what the President is to do at a certain time, about what time he is to reach a mall or a market or what time he is to dance. And this is how the press is always there and it is the press who informs people many a time. Or the crowds don't gather. This ritual admitting no exception wasn't performed that hot Saturday when Traian Basescu claimed he had gone to the University Square to find no one there. And there is one single explanation to it: he wasn't there and he didn't even intend to be.
But last Saturday he tried to fool us. This is why I called him a liar live on Realitatea TV the very last Saturday. I said that at least Elana Udrea, wearing some fashionable hat, et company would have waited for him, even for a quarter of an hour, by the University Watch. And of course the experts in presidential karaoke will claim the opposite.
Another blunt lie is the one on his "historical" right to confiscate the University Square. Traian Basescu said it was the place where Romanians gathered to rejoice or to be sad. In one single sentence he tried to cast derision on the symbolical dimension of this place, the o kilometer of Romanian democracy. The University Square is the square of freedom, but not a stage for political pantomime.
And one more thing: in his very brief speech the same Traian Basescu argued there shouldn't exist two different Romanias. So when did he lie ? Last Saturday, when asking the guardians to remove the fences separating the two groups ? Or last Friday, when he put it bluntly that he was the President of only those voting for him ? Who is splitting Romania in two, in fact ? The fences couldn't be removed, although Traian Basescu incited the public order institutions to break the law. There are two ways in which the law banned the removal of fences: firstly, because there were two different demonstrations and, secondly, because the Christian-Democrats would have crossed the street to be crashed by rolling cars. What a piece of liar we have in Cotroceni Palace !

Sorin Rosca Stanescu
Ziua monday 1 october 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

BNR governor: Save up RON

Mugur Isarescu, a governor of the BNR (National Bank of Romania), opines that Romanians should save up RON. He doesn't recommend frequent money conversion, given the associated costs. "I have got a piece of advice for you, for as long as I am a governor and afterwards: keep your savings in RON".
As for those who travel abroad wildly, the BNR governor admits savings in currency too. He comments: "I advise you to save up RON. It is best not to play with the money and move it to and fro. The currency rate will grow more and more unpredictable. And there is also the bank commission. If one wants to travel, one can save up currency too". He adds: "The interest can't bee too large, because it means gains for the most vulgar part involved in the activity. One does nothing, but one gains."(...)

E.I.
Ziua monday 1 october 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

DNA has got political preferences

The checks on the DNA (National Anti-Corruption Department) by the judicial inspection in the CSM (Superior Council of Magistracy) have charted a true map of the institution's political preferences. It was Tudor Chiuariu, Romania's Justice minister, who concluded it. According to the minister, political influence on prosecutors comes most of the times from the Romanian President rather than from the Justice minister, as the latter is more of a link of the former. The official claimed couples like Ion Iliescu-Rodica Stanoiu and Traian Basescu-Monica Macovei were most relevant of it.
In the last week's international reunion on prosecutors, democracy of state and of law, minister Chiuariu argued that the report emerging after the checks on the DNA showed "something saddening": "All the principles about which we were told that they were the grounds of the 2005 reform were disregarded. We were told about the random distribution of cases to prosecutors, but the checks show this principle was just words in the DNA. Cases are distributed the way prosecutors in chief please. We were also told about the principle of continuity, according to which it is impossible that a certain case should be taken from one prosecutor and given to another. In fact, the DNA is in the habit of playing ping-pong with cases, taken and given with no respect for legal norms. We were told the DNA was an elite structure. But we have uncovered that DNA prosecutors mistake simple procedural acts".
But above all, he claimed, we were told about independence and impartiality. He added: "But they have got nothing to do with the habit of closing certain cases out of the blue, cases against protagonists on a certain political side. They have neither got anything to do with the habit of making up certain cases, although the necessary elements aren't met, and then of keeping them open without drawing the investigation documents. This goes for the opposite political side".
According to the Justice minister, one can notice a map of the DNA's political preferences. He developed upon it: "We can see such things used politically, as these days someone is trying to categorize politicians in good and bad, depending on the inquiries the DNA opens. How far can judicial control on political decisions go ?"
The minister mentioned there were opportunity seizing decisions and political ones: "For instance the government, the local or the district council sets funds for a project and dismisses another project. These are purely political decisions and they can have political effects only: sanction by poll. They may not be checked in legality terms or censored".
The minister pleaded that, in order to fight against corruption and economic criminality, there was need to understand certain mechanisms of the political and economic life in democracy: "Or you are ridiculous if you ask for information about a senator's ballot in the Chamber of Deputies." (...)

Bogdan Galca
Ziua monday 1 octomber 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

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* World Classic Gallery *

* AMEDEO MODIGLIANI *

BIOGRAPHY and PAINTINGS Modigliani, Amedeo 1884 - 1920

Italy, Expressionism (style)
Amedeo Modigliani was born in Italy in the Livorno ghetto. His father, a ruined banker, died young and his mother, a descendant of the Dutch philosopher, Spinoza, encouraged her delicate son in his aptitude for art, sending him to study in Florence and Venice and to visit museums throughout Italy. When Modigliani arrived in Paris in 1907, he had a small inheritance from a rich uncle, but he was already seriously ill with tuberculosis. Handsome, talented, sensitive, and extremely proud of his Jewish heritage, Modigliani became one of the most notorious characters in Montmartre and
was soon penniless and often homeless. Modigliani frequently slept and worked in the studios of artist friends who liked him and recognized his great talent as both a painter and a sculptor.
Modigliani moved to Montparnasse in 1913 and kept body and soul together by selling drawings in cafes for infinitesimal sums. Finally, in 1917, Modigliani married Jeanne Hebuterne and the couple set up housekeeping in a miserable garret. It was too late for this more normal life to conquer the ravages of consumption.
Modigliani died in a Paris hospital on a January day in 1920. His desperate widow threw herself from the roof of her parents’ apartment house on the day of his funeral, leaving their daughter to be reared by her maternal grandparents.
Two years later Modigliani paintings were discovered by Dr. Albert C. Barnes, the great art collector of Pennsylvania. Considered the leader of the School of Paris, Modigliani’s subjective and expressive paintings reveals his basic dignity, his despair, and a feeling of haunting melancholy. Modigliani's earliest paintings were slightly influenced by Toulouse-Lautrec, but the bulk of his surviving paintings dating from 1915 to 1920 indicate his interest in African sculpture, in Cezanne, and the Cubist paintings of Braque and Picasso and in the simplification of form that Modigliani learned from the sculptor Brancusi. The influences of his Italian heritage also appear in Modigliani paintings: the Italian Mannerism. These combined in his elegant, sinuous, linear style to produce easily recognized portrait paintings and nudes with long slender oval heads, sloping shoulders, and extremely subtle coloration that is less important than line and composition. Within the framework of Modigliani's mannered stylization a great variety of distinct personalities, poetic in mood, with a constant swanlike grace.

Sleeping Nude with Arms Open ( Red Nude ), 1917, Oil on canvas

Seated Nude on Divan, 1917, Oil on canvas, 100x65 cm

Female Nude, 1916, Oil on canvas

Portrait of Lunia Czeckovska, 1919, Oil on canvas

Jeanne Hebuterne - The Artist's Wife, 1918, Oil on canvas

Man with Pipe, 1918, Oil on canvas

Young Girl, 1918, Oil on canvas

Portrait of Jeanne Hebuterne, 1919, Oil on canvas

Reclining Nude with Left Arm Resting on Her Forehead, 1917, Oil on canvas

Standing Nude - Elvira, 1918, Oil on canvas, 92x60 cm

Portrait of Anna Zborovska, 1917, Oil on canvas

Portrait of Jean Cocteau, 1916, Oil on canvas

Reclining Nude, 1917, Oil on canvas, 60x93 cm.

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Zangy Comment Graphics

* World Classic Gallery *

* Alphonse Maria Mucha *

BIOGRAPHY and PAINTINGS Mucha, Alphonse Maria 1860 - 1939

Painter, Printmaker, Czechoslovakia, Art Nouveau
Alphonse Maria Mucha was born in Ivancice, a small provincial town in the Czech Republic.
Mucha started his artistic career as an autodidact. Alfons Mucha had a vocational training in stage decorations in Vienna from 1879 to 1881. In the evening Mucha attended a class in drawing. After a few occasional commissions for decorative paintings Mucha went to Munich in Southern Bavaria.
Here Mucha studied at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts from 1885 to 1887.
After Munich, Mucha moved to the “mecca” of arts, Paris. Here Mucha studied with different teachers. He lived in modest conditions and could survive with small commissions for book and newspaper illustrations. For a short period Mucha shared a studio with Paul Gauguin.
In December 1894 Mucha became famous with a commission for a poster for the actress Sarah Bernard. Sarah Bernard was a very famous actress and celebrity of her time. His poster design for the play Gismonda became a sensation in Paris. Sarah Bernhard was delighted. Mucha received an exclusive contract for six consecutive years by the actress. In the following years, Mucha not only designed all her posters, but her theater decorations and costumes as well. From now on the artist was swamped with commissions for all kind of commercial print advertising.
By this time Mucha had developed his own personal style - characterized by art nouveau elements, tender colors and bycantine decorative elements. And all these elements were ranked around images of fairy like young women with long hair and splendid, refined costumes. In the coming years, this type of female images should become his trademark.
Mucha used lithography as the printing technique for his posters. The posters are usually signed in the block. Some of his posters were produced as sets like The Four Seasons. Complete sets count among the most searched for of Mucha paintings and posters.
In 1890 the artist had his first one man show in Paris with 448 paintings on display. His art work was not confined to the printing media. Mucha designed tissues, stamps and even bank bills. In 1900 Mucha received a commission by the Austrian government to decorate the Austrian pavilion for the World Fair in Paris of 1900. Mucha became also active in designing jewelry.
Between 1904 and 1921 Mucha traveled frequently to the United States. He took commissions in the US and taught art at art academies in New York and Chicago.
In 1939 the German Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia. The popularity of the artist made him a number one target for the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police. Mucha was arrested, interrogated and realeased. Shortly afterwards, Alphonse Maria Mucha died on July 14, 1939 in Prague.
The city of Prague has dedicated an Alphonse Mucha Museum to the artist.


Heraldic Chivalry, Oil on canvas, 35.04 x 53.54 inches [89 x 136 cm]

The Apotheosis of the Slavs, 1926, Oil on canvas

Lefevre-Utile, 1903, Oil on canvas, 20.87 x 28.35 inches [53 x 72 cm]

Portrait Of Milada Cerny, 1906, Oil on canvas, 50 x 35.98 inches [127 x 91.4 cm]

Autumnal, 1896, Panel

Fruit, 1897, Lithograph, 17.48 x 26.06 inches [44.4 x 66.2 cm]

Monaco Monte Carlo, 1897, Lithograph, 29.33 x 42.52 inches [74.5 x 108 cm]

Winter, 1896, Panel

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Clash in University Square

The Romanian President Traian Basescu announced he would drop by the University Square today. The PNTCD (National Christian-Democrat Party) and ex President Emil Constantinescu have asked Bucharest inhabitants to prevent "the diversion meant to settle an unrelenting regime".
In May 19 the President claimed he would meet and talk to the Romanians once every three months. As he hasn't done it until now, he is to reach the University Square, Bucharest, today at 6 in the afternoon.
But at 4 Emil Constantinescu is to launch in the same place the "Manifesto for a Clean Romania". Romanian Christian-Democrats are asking President Basescu to drop the meeting and thus avoid violence resembling the one that legitimated Ion Iliescu's regime. They have warned the head of state that they will be protecting the University square revolutionary spirit against him, just as they will prevent him from confiscating and defiling this symbol. (...)

Ovidiu Banches
Ziua Sambata 29 Septembrie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

Liberals dismiss President's offer

Some representatives of the PNL (National Liberal Party) reacted to the statements the Romanian President made last Thursday by saying that President Basescu was neither credible enough nor morally entitled to propose that the alliance of the PNL and the PD (Democrat Party) should be rebuilt. They claimed the head of state was the main guilty for the alliance's death.
Liberal Bogdan Olteanu replied that the PNL didn't trust the President's proposals, adding that Traian Basescu's "main concern" had been to destroy the PNL-PD Alliance and the governmental coalition.
According to the Liberal official, the President "managed to kick the Conservative Party out of the government, to break the PNL in two and, last spring, to force the Democrats into choosing faithfulness to Traian Basescu instead of solidarity within the Alliance". He concluded: "Traian Basescu is now claiming to be trying to mend what he broke, but I don't think he is still enjoying the necessary credibility. The Liberals no longer trust Traian Basescu and we can't trust what he offers". (...)

Razvan Gheorghe
Ziua Sambata 29 Septembrie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

Social-Democrats mind President's interference

The PSD (Social-Democrat Party) is against the idea of making a government of representatives from the PNL (National Liberal Party), the PLD (Liberal-Democrat Party) and the PD (Democrat Party), as suggested by the Romanian President last Thursday. The Social-Democrats dislike the President's interference in domestic party matters. Ion Iliescu and Adrian Nastase, targeted by the head of state's critique, wouldn't comment. Ion Iliescu, an honorary president of the PSD, just said he wouldn't lower himself to the President's obsessions.
"Unacceptable interference"
The PSD president Mircea Geoana commented yesterday that the other evening President Basescu hadn't spoken as President of Romania, but as president of the PD. He argued: "The President's speech shows he isn't aware of the historical opportunity consisting in the PSD bill against the government. His approach is narrow and , as a politician, he is trying to take advantage of it".
Mircea Geoana also reproached the Romanian President for expressing opinion on what would follow after the bill too early, describing as "unacceptable" his interference in the domestic life of parties. According to the PSD official, the President's hint at the criminal cases against some politicians is proof that the head of state is using threat and Justice cases as political weapons.
PSD puts up with early elections
Titus Corlatean, a general secretary of the PSD, mentioned the party would agree to the early elections idea, if President Basescu went on supporting instability and political tensions. Ovidiu Natea, a president of the Social-Democrats in the district of Mures, claimed in his turn that the party would never vote for a government headed by a Democrat PM, no matter what the President should do. (...)

Roxana Andronic
Ziua Sambata 29 Septembrie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

Hysterical show

Just as I estimated, Traian Basescu is making use of the whole equipment so that PM Tariceanu will be given the sack next Wednesday, if the bill against the government is successful. On Thursday evening the head of state made a TV1 show for public opinion. It went on yesterday too, but this time on the public radio post. And today he is addressing the 'people' in the University Square, Bucharest. The show is growing hysterical, as the destructive call of the 'president-player' is coming out.
While chatting about his meeting with Mircea Geoana in Cotroceni Palace, Traian Basescu pretended to leak some pieces of explosive information. Three of them are about the PSD (Social-Democrat Party). It is a party the head of state affords to criticize, teach and offer solutions to, despite the Constitution. One piece is his statement that Mircea Geoana is the young wing in a party that should get renewed with people of the same kind and eliminate Traian Basescu's traditional adversaries and it would thus become eligible for any sort of political combination. And for taking over again in the future, the President suggested. Of course there was a bizarre metamorphosis in the President's mind, since the President had offended Mircea Geoana so many times before, humiliating the leader of the largest parliamentary party. Given the direction from the President, Mircea Geoana should start eliminating some party members at once.
Another piece of information dropped is that his meeting with Mircea Geoana in Cotroceni Palace was not a tete-a-tete one. There probably were several participants: the head of state, some one or two advisers, Mircea Geoana, some representatives of the PSD, their names still secret, and some two or three outstanding members of the PD (Democrat Party). Therefore it was not the generous President who provided counseling at the request of the political opposition's leader. Cotroceni Palace housed negotiations, in fact, and in the end they made a pact. I am reminding you that ZIUA was the first publication, if not the only one, to disclose the nature of the agreement made in Cotroceni Palace. Mircea Geoana is forcing the PSD into going all the way with the bill against the government, an initiative supported from the shadow by the National Anti-Corruption Department, the President, the PD and the PLD (Liberal-Democrat Party). It is meant to establish a minority PD government to arrange early parliamentary elections in the spring of 2008, to be held at the same time with the local elections. The PSD gets nothing in exchange for it, but Mircea Geoana gets consolidated as president of the party due to the opening of action, generally of criminal nature, against his domestic rivals. What good business it is for Traian Basescu! But it is spoiled by the very party authoring the bill and refusing to trust Mircea Geoana all the way.
Traian Basescu also mentioned that, unless a government of Liberals and Democrats was possible, without Tariceanu as PM, of course, then he would appoint a Democrat PM after the government collapse. Guess who will become a PM ? But Vasile Blaga has still got to wait. After outlining that he was not the President of all Romanians, but only of those supporting him, Traian Basescu informed us that, after the parliamentary elections, early or not, it would still be him to make the rules by appointing some PD member a PM.
And tomorrow there will be one more classy show. The great player will be dropping by University Square at about 6 in the evening by accident, but we already know it ! If he is lucky enough to run into a large group of adepts, brought there on purpose, then he is sure to address them. And microphones will show up from nowhere, together with people crying out to complete the presidential message. It ill be a hysterical show.

Sorin Rosca Stanescu
Ziua Sambata 29 Seprembrie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

We wish...

Zangy Comment Graphics

* ROMANIA's WONDERS *

Arges Monastery – Curtea de Arges - Was builded in 1517 by Neagoe Basarab, ruler of Muntenia, and has reach his celebrity for the legend of carpenter Manole.

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MPs bored with bill against government

The PSD (Social-Democrat Party) bill against the government was read out yesterday in the Parliament, in front of almost 300 senators and deputies bored with the issue. It was Cristian Diaconescu, a vice president of the PSD, who read out the text asking that the Tariceanu Cabinet should be dismissed.
Looking rather disinterested in it, the PMs sat listening. The Romanian PM Calin-Popescu Tariceanu together with most of his ministers were present. Ion Iliescu was the main PSD official who didn't attend. As for Adrian Nastase, Viorel Hrebenciuc and Miron Mitrea, they were there.
After the reading was over, the PM said he would comment on it only on October 3, when the debate was due. As for the PSD leader Mircea Geoana, he claimed the PM failed to realize the true sense of the bill, persisting in his false idea that it was a means for blackmail so that the PSD would take over. Mircea Geoana promised that all PSD MPs would attend the following week's debate and vote for the bill.

R.I.P.
Ziua Vineri 28 Septembrie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

CIA checks on Bucharest

CIA chief Michael Hayden dropped by Bucharest at times when Romania is seized with political and secret service scandals. In one single day the US intelligence chief talked to the President of Romania Traian Basescu, to PM Calin-Popescu Tariceanu and to the chief of the SRI (Romanian Secret Service) and the SIE (Foreign Intelligence Service).
The visit was actually the response to the invitation expressed by George Maior, head of the SRI. Hayden eached Romania last Wednesday, just when the SRI is suspected of political police action.
Scandal in full swing
Whether by coincidence or not, the CIA official paid his visit when the SRI is facing both media crisis and domestic inquiry meant to uncover the way secret information leaks from Romania's most important intelligence service. According to official information from the SRI, the talks between the CIA chief and the representatives of the secret services in Bucharest focused on the evolution of international security, bilateral cooperation in particular, and also on the fight against terrorism. The process meant to transform and modernize the SRI was another issue raised. According to the SRI Press Office, both the Romanian party and the US one expressed appreciation for the two services' mutual trust, as well as for the very good intelligence cooperation between Romania and the US.
'Clarifications' from the US
Apart from the troubled waters in Romanian politics, this visit also ran into the very severe accusations against the SRI activity. The deadlocks in the activity of this institution, an active partner of the similar institutions in the EU and the US, may at a certain time do severe harm to the action in some conflict regions. And it is also about the influence of terrorist and paramilitary groups working in Europe, which is strictly related to the imminent declaration of Kosovo's unilateral independence. It may shake the Balkans' so weak stability from the very foundations. And, given the Romanian-Serbian border, the EU security is also at stake. Hayden's visit to Romania may not be separated from the evolution of the UN's Iranian nuclear case or from a possible military action on the east of the Iraqi border, in the state headed by Ahmadinejad.
Controversial view
After Tuesday's meeting of the Supreme Council for National Defense (CSAT), the Romanian President announced he asked both the Council and the government members to show respect for Romania's firm view on the future state of Kosovo. He mentioned the government was to continue Romania's already expressed approach and used at international level. The President argued: "We can't give it up because of both national and regional interests". He added that Romania wanted the solution to be found to the Kosovo issue to generate stability in the region instead of causing trouble in other regions of Europe, close to Romania.

Doru Dragomir & Marius Batca
Ziua Vineri 28 Septembrie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english