politics

Ukraine attack

/ Andrada Costoiu / 11 Comments

by Andrada Costoiu


  

I would start by saying this: GREAT HOUSES DO NOT EXIST WITHOUT GREAT HOUSEKEEPERS. 
Do you agree with this?
And now, it is time for a second question: WHO ARE THE HOUSEKEEPERS? 

I was born and raised in Romania. We were communist for so long, and it wasn’t the greatest time of our history. Then, the Romanian Revolution came in 1989 followed by waves after waves of corrupted politics. It’s been 30 years and although the new society and political structure was not built at all levels the way that it was expected (lots of Romanian industry landmarks and natural resources have been sold to foreign companies for pennies, by corrupt leaders, while their accounts were loaded with money), Romanians are free. Romania is a democracy, a beautiful country with beautiful people that live their life in peace. Everybody is doing the best they can, living and speaking their minds without the fear of being jailed or killed. I cannot imagine going back in time, to the old ways of life. I can’t.

Now, let’s go back to Ukraine.  How do these people feel and most importantly, who is there for them? Them, themselves only?  What should they do, while Russia is on one side and NATO on the other side? They are part of none, but they’re in the middle. 
How much time do you think they can hold in this position? 

Photo credit: Paul Michelman, MIT Sloan Review

Yes, unfortunately, the geopolitical situation of Ukraine sucks. It really does, and there is nothing drastic that can be done about it, unless the world is ready to risk war expansion and massive loss of life.

Unfortunately, the way our world is built it places value more on institutions than on what it actually happens on the ground. It is the same whether we consider the macro and micro scales. When planes throw bombs, they do not imagine families in those buildings, mothers crying next to her children, and old people huddled in bed praying for their lives. They throw bombs in the name of geopolitics, in the name of balance of power, and not in the name of humanity.

What is happening right now in our world is not only about Ukraine, about Russia, about NATO. It is about everything, including geopolitics, big corporations and interest games that are sucking our souls, the people.

There are, for example, approximately 40,000 oil fields globally and 6 million people that live or work nearby. If not done carefully, drilling pollutes local soil, water, and air, which in turn causes cancer, liver damage …and in general, the destruction of our planet.  In the game corporations vs cost of human lives, who wins? Us, people?

There are many such examples, but without loading this post with much information, I want to go back to the simple statement and the simple question I posed above. 

GREAT HOUSES DO NOT EXIST WiTHOUT GREAT HOUSEKEEPERS. EARTH IS OUR HOUSE. WHERE AND WHO ARE THE HOUSEKEEPERS? 

Under the Iron Curtain – book launch

/ Andrada Costoiu / 29 Comments

by Andrada Costoiu

The pandemic has been unkind to our world but has also offered more time to ponder on different aspects of our lives and more time to write. Because I was able to work from home, I finished writing my first novel, “Under the Iron Curtain” which has now been published in Romanian edition, by Niculescu Oxford Publishing House, Bucharest in July 2021.

The novel presents a fictionalized account of the last 3 years of Ceausescu’s regime in Romania, 1986-1989, ending with the fall of the Iron Curtain. It follows a family, as it struggles living in a world led by a government that oppresses its people.  Many historical truths are embedded within this book, as it recounts the struggles of daily lives during Ceausescu times, the woman’s condition in the communist societies, as well as important events in the Romanian history, such as the Brasov rebellion of November 1987 as well as the Romanian Revolution of 1989. Characterized as a transmodern literature, this is a story of moral courage, a story of parenthood and moral dilemmas, and a story about the resilience of the human spirit that shines through years of hardship.

Here are a few pictures from the official book launch.

And couple of TV shows where I had the pleasure to be invited.

My poem “Undocumented” published by Spillwords Press

/ Andrada Costoiu / 6 Comments

This is a poem inspired by my work with war refugees. You can read it at Spillwords Press by clicking on the following link:

Undocumented,by Andrada Costoiu, Spillwords Press

Undocumented
By Andrada Costoiu

The sun above is scorching the playground,
The child burns his fingers on the only swing,
From outside the walls the eyes are watching,
His every move, his everything.
The camp keeps other people that fled from war- thorn place,
The snipers are now far, but other jailors rule this space.

A sad national symbol that flies above the ground,
Had stamped undocumented the boy’s and other souls
And locked them up because they made it,
While buried free the souls that drowned.

Pushing his legs the child is swinging higher in the sun,
Oblivious to man-made rules that shouldn’t,
Build cages for the lives of people like him,
Or for the lives of anyone.

Perhaps one day the current faith in borders,
Will dissipate just like the air under his swing,
Leaving the truth, good morals, justice and good conscience,
To document belonging to a society where fair will be the king.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

© Andrada Costoiu and a-passion4life.com, 2020- . Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Andrada Costoiu and a-passion4life.com, 2020 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

My new poetry book “Love poems: insights into the complicated mystery of love” is available on Amazon. You can get it here. Please write a review if you get around it. I would really appreciate it.

Randomized how?

/ Andrada Costoiu / 4 Comments

by Andrada Costoiu

California here.

This morning I was looking over the official ballot. I found it odd that Trump is at the top and Biden at the bottom! I didn’t know how they establish the order in the ballot. I did’t think it’s alphabetical because I checked and the others are also not alphabetically sorted. So, how do they determine the order?

They say that California has a randomized alphabet procedure, I went to the state’s website and you can find more about it here : California Randomized Aplhabet procedure . This procedure was established by legislation passed in 1975 in response to court rulings declaring that standard alphabetical order or incumbent-first was unconstitutional…..

I questioned the “random!” , because of the order in my ballot. But then a friend sent me hers…….

So, not everybody gets the same thing…. BUT!! She lives in a different county. Other people in the same county with me got the same order as mine……

So now, I would be curious to know if the ballot’s order is randomized per county or individually?

Elections are stranger than fiction….:)))))

One story

/ Andrada Costoiu / 9 Comments

by Andrada Costoiu

American Progress, painting by John Gast, 2017. Image from Wikipedia.org, WikiCommons

In reaction of judge Ruth Ginsburg death, I wrote a poem, which I am sharing with you below. I am worried for what happens in our politics. I want peace, progress and a better future. This is what we are known for, we are a country of open minded, kind people that care about each other. People that came here to escape religious persecution (that doesn’t mean that you cannot be any religion you choose!), founders of this land who came here with their dreams, California’s gold diggers who came here to change their lives, immigrants who came on ships to follow their American Dream, ALL came here for a better life, for equal opportunities. This is who we are, this is what makes us different from other parts of the world, where you cannot speak your mind or where you have cast systems that will prevent you from achieving your potential, because you’re not born into it.

America means progress. America means equality. America means fairness and equal opportunity. America means freedom. America means gender equality. American means us, all of us.

And here is the story I wrote, it’s the story of our founding mothers and fathers. And that, unless your are a native American, lives in all of us.

One story

by Andrada Costoiu

She, born in the land of sewed mouths,
And tall fences,
Made it to the shore.
She touched her wings,
Bruised in her erratic flight 
To escape to freedom.

Guardians of the new land came and took her,
Some had assuming eyes and asked about her journey.
She looked up at the eagle flying in the sky,
And smiled.

She didn’t have a map to show her journey of yesterday,
But just like the eagle flight, high and free,
Her dreams and hopes were fearlessly flowing through her veins,
Holding promises of a shinier, better tomorrow.

She took the cotton rag strapped across her chest,
And kissed the picture of another 
Compressed in charcoal.
She folded its burned edges,
Still smelling like her mom’s cooking,
And stud up,
Until the guards let her follow the music,
Of the valleys and mountains of this newfound land.


The memory of her first step joined others,
Next to big and small footprints.
The dirt road looked like an eternal mosaic jigsaw puzzle,
With different colors.
She smiled as her mark added more meaning,
To its one big, and still in progress story.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

© Andrada Costoiu and a-passion4life.com, 2020- . Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Andrada Costoiu and a-passion4life.com, 2019 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content

My new poetry book “Love poems: insights into the complicated mystery of love” is available on Amazon. You can get it here. Please write a review if you get around it. I would really appreciate it.