Cum ne-ar denumi extratereştrii dac-ar vorbi română?

În timp ce mă ocupam eu frumuşel de traducerea filmului "Meet Dave", dau la un moment dat de cuvântul "alien", pe care, evident, trebuia să-l înlocuiesc cu echivalentul din română. Instantaneu antenuţele îmi transmit termenul "extraterestru", aşa că dau să-mi continuu liniştită treaba. Dar stai aşa, că nu-i aşa! Extraterestru, dacă nu mă înşel eu, se referă la cineva sau ceva care nu este de pe... Terra, logic. Perfect, minunat, numai că în filmuleţul respectiv cuvântul "alien" este folosit chiar de nişte... aliens, exact. Deci noi eram extratereştrii în contextul ăsta. Numai că noi nu suntem extratereştri. Are sens ce bolmojesc eu aici? Mă rog, după ce am stat să mă gândesc puţin şi după ce-am răsfoit câteva dicţionare, fără însă a găsi un sinonim aproape perfect al cuvântului, m-am oprit la "pământean".
Asta m-a trimis cu gândul la modul în care Columb şi Cortez i-au descris pe amerindieni când au ajuns în Noile Indii. Amerindienii ăştia erau nişte sălbatici cu înfăţişare ciudată, cu obiceiuri ciudate, cu limbaj ciudat, cu mod de viaţă ciudat... ce mai, totul era ciudat. Atât de ciudat, de fapt, încât în descrierile lor, C&C au fost nevoiţi să recurgă la comparaţii cu lucruri deja cunoscute de ei, dar care aparţineau unor neamuri străine şi inferioare, desigur, cum erau evreii şi musulmanii de pe teritoriul Spaniei. Aşa aflăm, de exemplu, că amerindienii aveau moschei. Nu era deja evident ?
Toată abrambureala asta vrea să ducă la o idee relativ simplă: percepţia este subiectivă. Da, ştiu, am descoperit America! Pe lângă asta, în general se ia în calcul versiunea celui care se află într-o poziţie avantajată (pe diferite planuri). I-a întrebat cineva pe amerindieni ce cred ei despre minunaţii cuceritori ? Dacă li se par ciudaţi sau nu ? Dar maurilor şi evreilor, le-a cerut cineva părerea cu privire la nivelul de evoluţie al creştinilor ? Aşa şi noi, românii (în cazul ăsta), ne limităm la cuvântul "extraterestru" (înlocuit uneori cu "marţian", pentru variaţie), deoarece nu vedem de ce am avea nevoie de alţi termeni pentru a exprima noţiunea de entitate externă. Doar extratereştrii ăştia nu există, deci cum ar ajunge ei să vorbească despre noi ? Da, dar cică nici amerindienii "nu existau" înainte de 1492.

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Americans, Stop the Hypocrysy and Start Acting!

I'm so sick of all this American drama and hypocrisy!!! Take the tv show called "America's Got Talent", add in a soldier who's just returned from Iraq, spice it up with regular singing skills and what do you get? A whole new level of screaming in awe, appreciation and national pride. I'm pretty sure this guy wouldn't have gone through to the next level had he not been wearing that military uniform. The judges were in tears, and they even called his wife to join him on stage, while the audience were waving their hands as if they were attending a friggin' Michael Jackson concert or something. Not to mention the hero's exit ("hero" being one of the few terms I don't use lightly here), covered by Mariah Carey's song... ta-da-da!!! Hero, obviously.
My dearest Americans (although I should say "United Staters", since "Americans" refers to the people living all over the three American continents), if you appreciate your troops that much, why do you keep on voting for that amazing President of yours, Bush, who cares about nothing else than money and oil? If you cherish your army men so much, why do you support the war in Iraq and swallow all the bs that the Government is feeding you? Or are you in such a need for heroes that you'd rather send young people to war zones and get them wounded, or even dead, instead of letting them stay home and enjoy life together with their families, just like the rest of you? I guess the U.S. of A. are nothing without all that fake appreciation and crocodile tears. Maybe you don't feel like you have enough to be proud of, so you need to create your own plastic reasons by sending people to die for utopic rights and liberties. No matter what your reasons are, at least stop pretending to care after the harm has been done and learn to accept your guilt.

Not Such a "MERRY"-go-round!

As I was looking over some of the photos we took in Spain last year, I discovered one taken at the amusement park in Logroño. It's the picture of what could look at first like a regular merry-go-round, but after a second it turns out to be a "live" merry-go-round. Indeed, those ponies are real, and I can still remember the shock we had when discovering that people had thought of using ponies in such way. Where were the Human Rights activists, what were the police doing? The only ones "protesting" against this kind of abuse were the park's patrons themselves, who simply refused to ride or to let their kids use such a carousel.
They even had name tags! And this happened in Spain, a modern, Western European country, in the year 2007!

Give Me a Synonym for "Dictionary"

Earlier today, in an attempt to relax for half an hour, in between my studies, I played a silly game that sometimes makes me more nervous than calm. This was the case today, but this time the players had me exclaim "how stupid can one be?!!". Instead of enjoying the game, I had to fight with people, while trying to explain them the Thesaurus IS a dictionary. "No, dictionaries give definitions of words, this one gives words with the same meaning". Am I going crazy or this is plain ignorance? "OK", I said, "it's a SYNONYM dictionary"!
I don't know, I was just extremely shocked by this episode... blah!