Teofil Peter (April 11, 1954 – December 4, 2004) was a Romanian rock musician and bass player for Compact.
Peter was killed in a traffic accident at 4:30am on December 4, 2004 when 31-year-old U.S. Marine Staff Sergeant Christopher Van Goethem serving as a Marine Security Guard at the U.S. embassy in Bucharest, while driving his Ford Expedition, collided with a taxi carrying Peter. Van Goethem, allegedly drunk, did not obey a traffic signal to stop, which resulted in the collision. Peter was buried on December 7 in Mănăştur Cemetery, in his native Cluj-Napoca.
Van Goethem’s blood alcohol content was estimated at 0.09 from a breathalyzer test, but he refused to give a blood sample for further testing and left for Germany before charges could be filed in Romania. The Romanian government requested the American government lift his diplomatic immunity, which it has refused to do. The Marine was later cleared by a court martial of both manslaughter and adultery while convicted for obstruction of justice and making false statements.
The Peter case has been controversial from the outset. Because VanGoethem was working for the embassy–and was therefore covered by the same Vienna Convention diplomatic immunity clauses extended to other support staff–he was spirited out of Romania the day after the accident, igniting Romanian anger.
Peter’s death and Van Goethem’s court martial were very controversial and led to protests from Romanians in the United States.
In 2005, the U.S. Embassy announced the establishment of a memorial commemorating the life and work of Teo Peter. The memorial is an annual professional visit program awarded to a distinguished Romanian cultural figure whose work addresses young people or helps to advance the careers of new artists and performers.
I’ve wrote about Ivanka Trump before. Lately I’ve been watching a lot of interviews of her and I’ve discovered such a down-to-earth person in spite of breathing “very high” air. She is smart, she is beautiful, she’s vice president at the Trump Organization with an office at the 26th floor of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue and has her own line of jewelry and a flagship retail store called ‘Ivanka Trump’ on Madison Avenue.
On October 14th she has released The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life. Ivanka writes about life lessons for business success that she learned from her upbringing. She tells young women how to focus at work.
“Nepotism Got Me in the Door” she said, but “if I was not performing in a way that was satisfactory… I could not stay within the organization”.
I really believe that she will soon become an icon of NYC. We know that if you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere. And she did…
Today she marries Jared Kushner, the 28-year-old son of real estate mogul Charles Kushner. Jared Kushner runs the New York Observer, a weekly newspaper aimed at Manhattan’s wealthy elite.
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City’s Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city. Its interior was declared a city landmark in 1978.
The Radio City Music Hall was designed by architect Edward Durell Stone and interior designer Donald Deskey in the Art Deco style. Rockefeller initially planned a new home for the Metropolitan Opera on the site, but after the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the plans changed and the opera company withdrew from the project.
The names “Radio City” and “Radio City Music Hall” derive from one of the complex’s first tenants, the Radio Corporation of America. Radio City Music Hall was a project of Rockefeller; Samuel Roxy Rothafel, who previously opened the Roxy Theatre in 1927; and RCA chairman David Sarnoff. RCA had developed numerous studios for NBC at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, just to the south of the Music Hall, and the radio-TV complex that lent the Music Hall its name is still known as the NBC Radio City Studios.
Radio City Music Hall is currently leased to and managed by Cablevision. Movie premieres and feature runs have occasionally taken place there but the focus of the theater is now on concerts and live stage shows.
The Music Hall has been the frequent site of the annual televised Grammy Awards, Tony Awards, MTV Video Music Awards, and Daytime Emmy Awards shows.
The picture below was taken September 13th. People was in attendance of the 2009 VMA’s… Hours later at Radio City arrived Pink, Beyoncé, Janet Jackson, Shakira, Nelly Furtado, P.Diddy and many more.
I have to hold up the NY posts… only for today, in order to wish The Boss “Happy Birthday”.
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949), nicknamed “The Boss”, is an American singer-songwriter. He records and tours with the E Street Band.
His most successful studio albums, Born to Run and Born in the U.S.A. Because of his support for the presidential campaigns of Senator John Kerry and Senator Barack Obama, Springsteen has gradually become identified with liberal politics. He is also noted for his support of various relief and rebuilding efforts in New Jersey and elsewhere, and for his response to the September 11th attacks, on which his album The Rising reflects.
He has earned numerous awards for his work, including nineteen Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award, and continues to have a strong global fan base. He has sold more than 65 million albums in the United States and 120 million worldwide.
I am back, 10 days after. It was a day full of flights and airports and check-ins. Went to Frankfurt without even wanted it. Great airport by the way. But I prefer JFK better.
Today I’ll talk about a sad news though. The death of Patrick Swayze. In 2008, recently back from the United States, we heard about his illness. They only gave him then 6 months. He lived another 20 months. The fact that his death coincides with another return from the United States is lamentable.
He fought until the very end and this makes him greater.
“If I leave this Earth, I want to leave this Earth just knowing I’ve tried to give something back and tried to do something worthwhile with myself. And that keeps me going, that gets me up in the morning. My work … is my legacy.”
Swayze was mostly known for a handful of supporting roles when he broke through with his performance as dance instructor Johnny Castle in 1987’s “Dirty Dancing.” Co-star Jennifer Grey, who played his young lover, Baby Houseman, in the film, described Swayze as “gorgeous and strong.”
“Patrick was a rare and beautiful combination of raw masculinity and amazing grace. … He was a real cowboy with a tender heart. He was fearless and insisted on always doing his own stunts, so it was not surprising to me that the war he waged on his cancer was so courageous and dignified,” Grey said in a statement Monday.
La Federación Internacional del Automóvil (FIA) ha abierto una investigación sobre la victoria de Fernando Alonso en el Gran Premio de Singapur del año pasado.
En aquella carrera Alonso se impuso contra todo pronóstico tras salir desde la decimoquinta plaza de la parrilla. La salida del coche de seguridad en los primeros compases de la carrera por un accidente de su entonces compañero en el equipo Renault, el brasileño Nelson Piquet, cuando el español acababa de hacer su primer repostaje, fue crucial en su triunfo.
Entonces se llegó a decir que el accidente de Piquet fue deliberado y fruto de unas órdenes de equipo, pero el brasileño se apresuró a afirmar que no pudo evitar acabar contra el muro en la primera carrera nocturna de la historia.
“Fue un error. Teníamos dos estrategias muy extremas: una con Fernando muy corto (de combustible) y otra conmigo más largo con la esperanza de que saliera el coche de seguridad. Si no me hubiera accidentado me habría venido mejor un ’safety car’”, dijo entonces Piquet, que ya ha sido despedido como piloto de Renault y sustituido por el francés Romain Grosjean.
Según informa ‘Autosport’ se desconoce si la investigación de la FIA es fruto de una acusación directa de Piquet, enfrentado con su anterior escudería y en especial con su director, el italiano Flavio Briatore, o es una iniciativa propia de ese organismo.
El FC Barcelona se proclamó campeón de la Supercopa de Europa, la tercera de su historia, gracias a un gol del canterano Pedro en la prórroga que hizo cierta justicia, pues los blaugrana fueron superiores al Shakhtar Donetsk en un encuentro que, sin embargo, fue bastante aburrido debido a un ritmo de juego demasiado lento y por la actitud defensiva de los ucranianos.
5 títulos de 5 posibles: Copa del Rey, Liga Española, Liga de Campeones, Supercopa de España, Supercopa de Europa.
Con la llegada de Pep Guardiola al mando del equipo, el Barcelona pasó a la historia en la temporada 2008/09 tras conseguir el triplete (Liga, Copa y Copa de Europa). Guardiola en su debut en Primera División como entrenador, logró lo que Frank Rijkaard y Johan Cruyff no consiguieron en varios años. Con el triunfo en la final de Roma ante el Manchester United (2-0) el Pep Team consiguió el triplete, siendo el único equipo español en haber logrado tal hazaña, y pasando al selecto círculo de clubes europeos que lo han logrado antes (Celtic, Ajax, PSV y Manchester United).
Además el Barcelona se proclamó campeón de Europa contando entre sus filas con 7 canteranos titulares. El equipo de Pep Guardiola, además de alzarse con los tres principales títulos, logró superar las hazañas del Dream Team en cuanto a cifras conseguidas en Liga, batiendo varios récords de goles, partidos ganados como visitante.
Al inicio de la temporada 2009-10, el equipo ganó la Supercopa de España al imponerse al Athletic Club en ambos partidos. También logró la Supercopa de Europa al ganar al Shakhtar Donetsk por 1-0.(more…)
Thousands of fans booed pop star Madonna after she spoke out against the discrimination of Gypsies at the concert she had in Bucharest.
Madonna paused in the two-hour concert to say that Gypsies, also known as Roma, were discriminated against in Eastern Europe. She said that made her sad and that nobody should be discriminated against.
Thousands in the crowd of 60,000 booed her. She did not react.
Roma musicians and a Roma dancer were featured in her show.
I will also post a comment to this news. It is the opinion of many. This person calls him(her)self mongol, but he(she) speaks for the majority of the Romanians.
“What does Madonna know? Is she an authority in human rights or Romania’s internal affairs? People did not boo because they are racist, they booed because her crass generalization was an insult. And ironically, they paid up to $270 to be insulted by this superficial being, yet appears to care so much and be so very knowledgeable. MOST Romanians have nothing against the Roma population per se. Naturally, when you’re transiting a Roma village by car and your windows get smashed with rocks one might feel a tad bit different. However, Romanians do not hate the Roma by default, they hate the criminals and the gangs because they affect the overall quality of life, not because of the color of their skin.
Madonna wouldn’t know any of this. She is an overpaid entertainer who believes that mysticism combined with activism equals undeniable cool. This is exactly what her statement was meant to bring her. Whether that comes by toning up her old body to make it look 20 or by buying an idiotic outfit and then pretending it has a deeper meaning that eludes everyone else or by getting a brand new boy toy or by exhaling wanna-be-wisdom, is less important. Wakie-wakie, you’re not in Junior High anymore, Madge. And Romania is so not the new Malawi.”
Senator Edward Kennedy will be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery on Saturday, joining his two brothers and a host of America’s great and good buried there.
The military cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, just across the Potomac river from Washington DC, was established during the American Civil War. More than 300,000 people are buried there.
US infantrymen guard the cemetery and march each day through its grounds en route to one of its landmarks, the Tomb of the Unknowns, where the remains of the fallen US servicemen from the great wars of the 20th century lie at rest. The tomb is part of the striking Arlington Memorial Amphitheatre.
President Kennedy’s grave is accompanied by an Eternal Flame.
On September 8th I will be in Washington. I am not sure that I will visit Arlington though it might be a historical visit.
There was a time 40 years ago, right after the assassination of his brother Robert, when it looked like Edward Kennedy would become President someday by right of succession. The Kennedy curse, the one that had seen all three of his brothers cut down in their prime, had created for him a sort of Kennedy prerogative, or at least the illusion of one, an inevitable claim on the White House. For years he seemed like a man simply waiting for the right moment to take what everybody knew was coming his way.
Rose Kennedy wanted a family. Joe Kennedy wanted a dynasty. They both got what they wanted, but only for a time. Joe had made a fortune in film production, liquor, real estate and stocks. But he wasn’t just a businessman. In the scope of his ambitions and schemes, he was something out of Shakespeare. He married Rose in 1914, and as their children arrived, he formed the conviction not only that the boys belonged in public life but that one of them, maybe more than one, should be President of the United States.
This was the atmosphere that Ted was born into on February 22, 1932 – the last of the nine Kennedy children. But from the start, he had three elder brothers as a buffer between himself and the worst of the old man’s ambition for his sons. All the same, he grew up at some distance from his parents. Over the years, Joe and Rose had become increasingly estranged. Overweight and lonely, Ted was shuttled through a succession of boarding and day schools, but he grew into an athletic, good-looking teenager, one who ambled into Harvard, where Jack and Bobby had gone before him.
He hadn’t been at Harvard long before he screwed up in a way that would come back to haunt him years later. In his freshman year, Kennedy was having trouble with a Spanish class. There was a test coming up, and he needed to do well in order to be eligible to play varsity football the next year. With the encouragement of some of his buddies, Kennedy recruited a friend who was good at Spanish to take the exam in his place. The scheme backfired. The surrogate was caught, and both boys were expelled, though Harvard offered them the opportunity to be readmitted later if they showed evidence of “constructive and responsive citizenship.”
Ted had been in the Senate for less than a year when J.F.K. went to Dallas the day Lee Harvey Oswald was lying in wait. Jack’s death was more than a personal tragedy for Ted. It was a watershed. It put him one step closer to assuming the Kennedy burden, the perennial quest for the heights. It marked the beginning of his transformation into a true public figure. As a first measure, Ted devoted himself to ensuring the passage of legislation that had been important to his brother, especially the civil rights bill J.F.K. introduced the summer before his death. On June 19, Ted added his vote to the 73-to-27 majority that turned that bill into the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964. Then he headed to the airport to board a private plane that was to take him to the state Democratic Party convention in Springfield, Mass. But as the plane made its descent into a fogbound Springfield airport, it struck a row of trees and somersaulted across an orchard. The pilot, Ed Zimny, died at the scene. A Kennedy aide, Ed Moss, died a few hours later. Indiana Senator Birch Bayh and his wife Marvella, who were also on board, survived with minor injuries. Kennedy suffered a broken back and a collapsed lung.
What followed was a five-month recovery, mostly spent immobilized in a hospital bed, and a lifetime of back pain. Yet when he returned to the Senate the following year, Kennedy set to work with the energy that comes to a man who gets a second chance at life. It wasn’t long before Ted scored a victory on another of Jack’s unrealized goals, the reform of immigration quotas to allow more arrivals from nations outside Northern Europe. One year later, he secured federal support for neighborhood clinics, marking the first time he applied himself to the problem of health care, the signature issue of his public life.
Ted Kennedy, 1932-2009: The Brother Who Mattered Most
By Richard Lacayo
Alice