Some bad news and some drama..

Hey.

Yesterday I was thinking about writing a blog on this trivial drama that's been bothering me in the last few days, mainly because some of you asked me to address it. But then my mom called and re-defined what the word "bothered" means. I will still deal with what you want me to, but first please bare with me because I simply need to write about what's going on with me.

I did try talking to a friend over the phone today but when I got to what I wanted to say the words would just not come out. So maybe writing is a better idea. For those of you who don’t know, yesterday I found out that my brother (who lives in Germany with my mother since 3 years ago ) has just been diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis, better known as Hashimoto's disease.

To put it simply, my brother’s body decided to destroy his thyroid gland. It's an autoimmune disease. There is no cure for it, only treatment. My brother has another medical condition which I will not mention here because of the stigma attached to these types of illnesses. I know people can be ruthless and I don’t want anyone bringing that up at any point in any circumstances. I can say that it is a temporary condition for which he will only need treatment until he's in his late teens. For Hashimoto’s disease, he will need treatment his entire life.

I very often heard people say “how could this happen to ME?!”. And the response I always had in my mind was “life sucks, sometimes things happen”. But I never understood the depth of this feeling until yesterday. You see, I know that bad things happen. I know these things are unpredictable. But still, my brain cannot stop from asking “Why him?!”. He’s just a kid. He’s just 13. He is my brother. Why him ?! I can now understand what all those people felt. When it hits you, it is almost psychologically impossible to accept it.

Since yesterday I’ve been reading virtually non stop about Hashimoto’s. Almost all of it was encouraging. With treatment, my brother can still have a manageable and relatively normal life. I’m trying to think positively. He has been diagnosed early. He has great doctors. The treatment is free. If he was still living in Romania, none of this would be possible for him. I am trying to think he is actually lucky. But I’m failing. I will probably be able to convince myself of that at some point ... eventually.

So you can imagine that right now I have little patience for trivial stuff but I know that if I don't address this other issue it will keep nagging at me. I don't want to subject 60K+ youtube subscribers to a video that would basically be drama and nothing more, not to mention that I'm not up for making a video anyway. So I may as well get this over with now. This is what I said a couple days ago in a twitter post:

“The sexual assault of Lara Logan is yet another painful reminder of Egypt's attitude towards women.”

If somehow you never heard about the incident, please watch THIS before continuing reading.

Some people said that my statement was bigoted, that I blamed this one incident on an entire nation and that my words were “an indictment on ALL Egyptians”. Which is a strawman bigger than a cornfield. First of all let me explain what I meant by “Egypt’s attitude towards women”. I was talking about the fact that over 90% of Egyptian girls are subjected to genital mutilation, that women are subjected to sexual harassment and domestic violence at alarming rates, that they cannot leave the country without their husbands’ permission, that the law is biased against them and they are often ignored when asking for help and so on. If you want to read more about it you can click HERE or read THIS blog or watch THIS video or research it yourself .

Now back to Lara Logan. Did I judge an entire nation based on ONE incident ?! Hell no! I said the incident is a REMINDER of an ongoing problem within that nation. Not an indicator of it. Not evidence for it. I know my English is far from perfect but at least I understand the meaning of words. If Viktória Mohácsi would come to Romania and got brutalized by a mob, I could say the incident is a reminder of Romania’s attitude towards the Roma people, who are generally discriminated by the law and vastly by the citizens. This does NOT mean that all Romanians are racists. Or that all Egyptians are misogynists. Recognizing there was  problem and a prevailing attitude in Egypt that made the sexual assault on Logan more likely to happen, does NOT equal bigotry.

I know there are people who genuinely misunderstood what I meant, and to them I apologize for not being more clear. But there are also people who intentionally twisted my words and continue to do so.

Another thing I want to address is the accusation of being “a graduate from the university of wikipedia”, uttered by the same person who called me a bigot. For everyone who didn’t know, I am a college drop-out. Not by choice. I simply couldn’t afford it anymore after 2 years. So I am the first to admit that most of my knowledge does come from independent study, weather it is independent reading, lectures, audio books and so on. But should this invalidate my points or damage my credibility ? There have been times when people (who can testify to this) asked me to make a video on one topic or another and I simply told them that I am not sufficiently informed to talk about it. I see no shame in that. This is why most of my informative-type videos are on subjects I thought about and researched for years. You don't need a PhD to learn about things you are interested in.

That being said, I will probably not make a new video soon. I usually talk about things I am invested in and feel strongly about, and at this point I am too drained by what’s going on in my family to focus on anything else. I know this post is long. Thank you if you managed to read all of it. And please excuse the eventual typos and bad phrasing.

What's wrong with me ?!

I know I haven’t written here in ages (I should rename this blog to “CristinaRadCantWriteForShit”) and you are probably expecting something on Egypt or a post about the US bill that tries to redefine rape (did you know that there’s a thing called "forcible rape" ? Because in my naivety I thought EVERY rape is about forcing someone into sex. Silly me!) in an attempt to prevent abortions being funded by taxpayer money, because free abortions would obviously trigger what is now known as “The 2012 New World Order Zombie Apocalypse”. True story.

But I'm not gonna write about none of that (double negatives rock!) because I’m in a bad mood and just not up to it. So instead I thought I could vent about my week. I hope you don’t mind. Oh…you do? That’s too bad cos here it comes:

So first I drop my phone into my glass of wine. How did that happen, you ask ? Well, I pick up my phone and then IT’S IN MY DAMN GLASS. Gone. Dead. Killed by wine. Which btw, it’s how I wanna go too.

Then there was this creepy ass jerk in the bus. He most likely recognized me from YouTube. Because he kept staring at me for the entire freaking ride, which was around 15 minutes. No, he wasn’t checking me out. And he wasn’t looking at me in that “Hm, I think I know her from somewhere” type of way. Oh no! He was looking at me like I was dog shit on his shoe. The kind of look you'd have if someone offered you to smell a fish that died two weeks ago. Creepiness!

And then I walked into my kitchen wall. And hurt my shoulder. Quite bad. It’s still aching. If you have a reasonable explanation for how someone can walk into their own damn wall, please enlighten me. Because since I’m not blind, I can only assume that around here shit be moving! Oh, did I mention that I also apologized to the wall ?

And then there was the bug. Though “bug” is a gross understatement. A big ass fucking roach (possibly bigger than your penis) was chilling on my floor, all casual like it’s nobody’s business. It wold be way to embarrassing to tell how this worked out, but it involved a neighbor and everyone survived (besides my dignity).

And then I put salt in my coffee instead of sugar. And obviously I didn’t realize it UNTIL I took a nice good sip. If you never tried it, you should drop your curiosity and consider yourself lucky because that's just nasty!

I seriously don’t know what’s wrong with me. One of these days you should expect to hear that I died by drowning in my bowl of soup.

Ho !

Florin : We’re gonna spend the Christmas at my folks this year.

Me : I think you’ve mistaken the pronoun there.

Florin : Do NOT tell me you don’t wanna come!

Me : Fine. I won’t tell you. Just don’t expect me there.

Florin : Are you serious ? What do you wanna do, stay at home alone ? Christmas is a time to spend with family!

Me : Yeah sure… YOUR family.

Florin : Criss, we are married. My family is your family.

Me : That’s like saying that just because we're married, my money is your money. I mean, maybe, in theory, if it’s a really lousy theory. But in reality ? You wish!

Florin : Uhm… you. have. no. money.

Me : Whatever bitch, point is that if I did have money it would all be mine!

Florin : You’re gonna make me say bad things you know.

Me : About my mamma ?

Florin …the fuck ??!!

Me : Cos that’s what I was just thinking, that you’re gonna end up making me say bad things about your mamma. See how much we think alike ?

Florin : You're talking like you’re in one of your videos. It’s really annoying and not funny at all.

Me : Your face is annoying and not funny at all.

Florin : So are you coming ?

Me : Yo’ mamma is so fat she …she… really needs to lose some weight ?

Florin : Look, it’s just this one night, it will be over before you know it. And if you behave, I bet Santa will have a little surprise for you.

Me : Stop talking to me like I'm a child!

Florin : There will even be cookies.

Me : Hmmm… am I allowed to ask your mom who will win in an epic battle between Santa and Baby Jesus ?

Florin : Please be serious.

Me : I mean, they both must be sick and tired of sharing the spotlight on Christmas. And I know it’s tempting to say Baby Jesus because he’s, like, God and all that bullshit … but he is just an infant and Santa looks quite fit for his age.

Florin : Ok, fine, don’t come! Just out of curiosity, if the house burns down while I’m gone and you die in the fire, how long do you think before it is socially acceptable for me to start dating again ?

Me : Marry Christmas baby!

Florin : I love you! (Ok, he didn’t really say “I love you” but I could tell that's what he meant from the loving way he slammed the door on his way out)


Happy Festivus y'all ! And btw ... Santa or Baby Jesus, who wins and why ?

UPDATE : Reading the comments I can see that some people think both me and Florin were actually 100% serious throughout our conversation. All I can say is ... oh boy :)

Why I'm Against Sharia Courts in the West

In an attempt to better explain my position, I want to argue the two main points I heard proponents making. 

1. Sharia Courts are only limited to civil matters.

I can think of only a few things more damaging to a society than civil matters being settled under religion-based laws. And as hard as I try, I can't understand why the proponents choose to ignore the FACT that Muslim Arbitration Tribunals and Sharia Courts are discriminatory, especially against women and children. 

One year after Sharia Courts started operating in UK, crime correspondent  Richard Edwards published an article with some interesting findings. From August 2007 to September 2008, Muslim Tribunal Courts have dealt with six cases of domestic violence between married couples and. In each of these cases, the judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes. There was no further punishment and all six wives withdrew the police complaints they had filed. 

In another case of inheritance dispute, the estate of a Midlands man was divided between his two sons and three daughters. The judges gave the sons twice as much as the daughters. 

I am only mentioning a couple of cases to point out what should be to no one's surprise : the discriminatory nature of these Courts. 

Under Sharia, sons inherit twice as much as daughters. A man's testimony is worth more than a woman's. A husband can divorce his wife simply by repudiating her, while the wife must provide "valid" reasons for divorce, which are usually very difficult to prove. Also, a woman's marriage contract is between her husband and her male guardian. A divorced woman who remarries loses custody of her children.  And the list can go on. 

2. It's their choice.

Proponents also argue the voluntary nature of Sharia Courts. That if both parties agree, then it's nobody's business to judge the rulings as being arbitrary/discriminatory. But the reality is that both parties do NOT agree, that's why they appeal to the Court's ruling. You file a case in Civil Court when you think you've been hurt financially or physically. And while the proponents argue that Sharia Courts are an alternative, just another option available to Muslims, the reality is that for many people this actually means taking away the only option to a fair hearing. How can a Muslim woman stand up against her family and community and ultimately, against God's system of law, when such a system is "available" ? And how many of these women are even aware of their rights under secular laws ?

Feel free to comment. 

As an end note, I have to expresse that I am simply appalled by how many people think that implementing religious Courts of Law in secular societies is a good idea, even when confronted with the text and application of these laws. 

I do defend people's right to practice their religion freely. But I can't, for the life of me, accept religion as a legal authority. Not in civil matters, not in any matters. 

What you don't wanna hear during sex

I love Twitter. It's like the most efficient way to spread vital information from which everybody can benefit. Information like this : 

But some people just don't seem to get it. It's like they don't want to be informed. And as if it wasn't bad enough that they are willingly, like, choosing to be ignorant, they also seem to actively hate on us, the normal ones.  
I'm gonna call this particular group of people "twignorants". Which should totally be a word from now on.

And one of the prime examples of twignorants is dprjones. BEHOLD! :

I know, right ?? It's all sorts of depressing to witness something like this. Kinda like watching Titanic, only without the sex.

And speaking of sex, in a last attempt to educate these people about the importance of Twitter, this is from earlier today :

Well, if you weren't a twignorant, you would have known what people don't wanna hear during sex, like, HOURS ago. Stuff like this :

• "Yeah, I've been meaning to see a doctor about that..."
• "Is it in yet ?"
• "Excuse me sir, my name is Chris Hansen"
• "Your father used to like the same thing!"
• "What do you mean, IN? I'm finished!"
• My granmum asking, "Where's the sugar, again?"
• My partner yelling out their own name
• "I don't think its contagious"
• "You really need to paint your ceiling"
• "Oh, now I remember why I became a lesbian..."
• "John! Oh JOHN! Oh JOHNNNNNNNNNNNN!" (My name is Phillip)
• "Wow, it's like a penis, but smaller!"
• "You remind me of my uncle!"
• "Sex never felt that good when I was a man"
• “Can you put your socks back on please?”
• "I am actually sixteen..."
• "Do you mind if I turn on the TV?"
• "You're the best. This evening"
• Snoring
• A sheep's "bahhh"
• "Heil Hitler!"
• "Luke. I am your father." 

See ? This is the reason why Twitter is awesome and dprjones totally fails. 

It's all about getting scared and eating candy!

Ohi!
So I made a commitment to myself to write here at least once a week from now on, which is unfortunate for both of us : for me because I rarely get inspired, and for you because … well … I’ll show up in your blog subscriptions or e-mail and then you’ll feel compelled to click on my post just because you ARE already subscribed, and ignoring me would be rude, plus I know you're afraid of gypsy spells (which I totally need to learn how to do asap if I wanna have any viewers).
The honest truth is that I do like to write, and the even more honest truth is that I can’t write for shit. Seriously. Like, I need AntiBullshitMan to tell me where to properly put commas. I'm not even making this up. Go me!

And if this wasn't enough, yesterday I opened a movie reviews blog, just in case you feel masochistic enough to subscribe to that too : RadCinema

But the main point of this post is to wish everyone a Happy Halloween! Generally I'm not a fan of holidays, but if I were to celebrate only one of them, this would be it. Because I love all things scary. And also because I love candy. I can't really tell why, but Halloween seems like the best excuse ever to stuff your face with candy. Too bad for me (and for the candy shop owners) that we don’t really celebrate Halloween here. We don't have a “trick or treat” tradition, we are apparently incapable of making good use of pumpkins, and we don’t even get to dress like sluts and then put some bunny ears on our heads and call that a costume. It sucks.

On a happier note (I guess?), someone did scare me today, even though it was unintentional. My neighbor sometimes gets herself locked out because her door locks itself automatically, which may be great for security reasons, but it’s also not-great because of “my neighbor is a dumbass and always forgets her key inside the house” reasons. That, or she has Alzheimer. Which I really doubt, because she is only 23 and also because she never forgets to tell me at the end of the month that I have to pay my share for the mail service. Which is fucking annoying because I never get any mail, like EVER! Except for once or twice a month when I find an envelope in my mail box and I get super excited and I'm all “Oooh! A LETTER!”, but then it’s just bills. Fuck my life!

Anyway, I am the one who suffers the consequences every time my neighbor gets herself locked out because she gave me a spare key to her house for this purpose alone, probably knowing that she’s an idiot. So she starts ringing on my door, obviously waking me up since it was only 1 PM y'all ! And I go to open the door, not knowing that she finally brought home her doggy that she always talks about but for some reason she never cared to tell me that this “doggy” is THE SIZE OF A WELL FED PONY and that he starts barking uncontrollably every time an unsuspecting victim who just got out of bed opens the door for his idiot owner who always forgets her key.

What happened after that is a bit fuzzy, because when that OVERSIZED THING started barking I kinda went into a “shock mode" and I vaguely remember that I screamed and that people were looking at me funny and that my neighbor was like “OMG I can’t believe you are afraid of a dog” and I was like “well at least I’m not dumb enough to constantly lock myself out of my own house even though I totally don't have Alzheimer as an excuse, so I win!”, but I think I only said that in my mind, which is a good thing because that dog is fucking scary.

And since it’s Halloween and I just got scared shitless, I went and bought myself a tone of candy because, after all, that's tradition. Or something.



P.S. : Happy birthday Jerry ! I know you wanted me to make a scary video but since I couldn't, I can only hope my usage of commas is scary enough.

Assisted Suicide

The following post is an addendum to my "Right to Die" video , please go ahead and watch that first if you haven't already.



I know that when most people are thinking about what suicide means, they have some images in mind... images of teenagers who cut their wrists in the bathroom or empty their mom's bottle of sleeping pills. This is usually far from the reality of someone who actually intends to take their own life. Wrist cutting and medicine overdose are (very often) deliberate forms of self harm or cries for attention, rather than suicide attempts. For the people who are indeed set to do it, the methods are much more brutal and the images much more shocking. The most common ways of suicide are by firearms and hanging. Other methods include jumping from hights, throwing self in front of a train or another moving vehicle, deliberate pesticide poisoning, intentionally crashing the car, setting self on fire or throat slitting.

So where am I going with this ? I am not trying to be morbid, but to simply point out that most suicide attempts are not really "attempts". The people who truly want to kill themselves are most of the time either successful or end up mutilated. The popular image of the depressed adolescent who "tries to commit suicide" is actually describing something else : a depressed adolescent who has indeed serious issues and fakes a suicide attempt as a cry for help. Most of them do it in their own homes, which is the place they are most likely to be found, and between the hours of 4 P.M. and midnight, which is the time of the day when someone is most likely to be around. These people don't really want to die, they want to be rescued. And don't get me wrong. These kids are NOT drama whores. They DO need help and if they are desperate enough to go to these extremes, it is a clear indication that they are going through serious issues. They must not be taken as a joke or ignored!

However, the people who intend to commit suicide are a different matter. They WANT to die. They will choose a way to make sure they end up dead. And they should not have to go through that. Weather you like it or not, some people make the decision that their life is not worth living. It is not YOUR choice to make, it is not YOUR life. And you shouldn't have a saying in it. Making assisted suicide available for them is not an encouragement, but an act of mercy and compassion. To believe that legalizing this will actually make more people want to do it, simply has no basis. People, as a general rule, desire to live. This won't change just because they have an option to die pain-free.

I know that most of you reading my blog and watching my videos are from the U.S. You don't have a social health-care system there yet, so this may sound strange. But my proposal is to make assisted suicide part of the health-care plan. It would be free, same as the psychiatric evaluation and assistance (those things are already free of charge in most European countries where a good health-care system is in place).

I'm going to stop here because I will probably make a second part ... I suspect it will be necessary once the comments to my video start piling up.

Summer 2010

I forgot I had this footage from when Larry Kamerman was here ... thought I might as well do something with it . You get to see a bit of Romania too :) Oh well...

Respecting the Dead

In my last YouTube video dealing with this entire "Mosque at Ground Zero" fiasco, I stated this :

<< Personally , I don’t give a crap about respecting the dead. They’re just … well…dead.. “Respecting” them is a social construct that has no meaning to me and I couldn’t care less about it. >>

Many people misinterpreted what said and were even offended by my words, as I could see from their comments. I don't understand exactly why, since I followed my statement with an explanation that, at the time, I thought it would make my point clear :

<< But I’m not an insensitive asshole and I can acknowledge that most people do see value in it. So, even if I didn’t care about this mosque, I did think it is in poor taste and I could understand why the families of the 9/11 victims would be offended by it . >>

Still, I received a number of comments "disagreeing" with me. What is there to disagree on ? My ...feelings ? I never said I am against people being affected by what happens to their loved ones AFTER they die. It's just that I (as in "me", "myself", right ?) am not. What is so offensive about that ?

I actually thought it was a bit funny how some people were trying to trigger an emotional response from me by insulting the people who (they thought) I loved and passed away. Starting with my "dead grandma" who is still alive, and ending with my dead hypothetical children that I will never have. Some of them went to very "gruesome" and explicit details of what they would do to my dead ones. The strongest emotional response they got out of me was "Ew!".

No, I don't care if someone insults my dead loved ones. I don't believe in any form of life after death and since they are dead, they obviously can't be affected by insults. I also don't care if someone "disrespected" their dead bodies, I have absolutely no emotional attachment to their corpses. I do value the memories I have about them. I cherish the little things I have left from them, sometimes I get nostalgic when I hear a song that my grandfather used to love, sometimes I go through the pictures I have with them, sometimes I even think "what would they say about this" when I do something I know they wouldn't like or they would appreciate. But I never visit their graves, their physical remains hold no importance to me.

If you are offended by this, I would have to ask why ? Are you offended by me thinking this or by me saying it ? And what meaning is there in honesty if you are offended by me simply saying what I think ?

Btw ... it's not like you will see me go around and "insulting" dead people, like my "sensitive" commenters tried to do. I would never do that because I know that most people feel differently than I do, and I can understand and respect THAT. I just personally don't relate to it . That's all.

Cribs Yo' !

So I was filming on a project for Larry Kamerman when I had this idea to do a lil' Cribs parody. Btw, this aint really "my place" so the mess around is TOTALLY not my fault. I swear!