Summitwise
One. What is it that made me snap at security measures today?! Don't get me wrong -- I support Romania's hosting the NATO summit. I don't particularly support NATO -- though it may have its uses -- but I really think good things could come Romania's way through hosting it. Anyway, I am really not swapping thoughts on the summit's content because debating it on this dusty ol' blog cannot possibly make a difference (it can however make me crazed, so I'll pass).
I totally salute security measures taken for the summit. Not the ones about the homeless and the stray dogs, but I get even those. Security paramount, got it, owned it, moving on. (But did they really have to ban the selling of alcohol along the official summit route?!) And yet today I snapped at something like 9 police officers. Like when they stopped me from entering my newsroom for an hour (Officer, I don't give a fig Bush is speaking next door, why do I have half a kilo worth of media badges and passes hanging around my neck for, anyway? I want to speak to your boss. Go get him). Or when they kept telling me not just where to cross the street, but how to cross it. ('Mam, more to your right. Quickly)
My snapping was stupid because I couldn't possibly have won. They were right. Doing their jobs. And I knew it. I guess it's the paranoia that comes from tight security - police are caving in under the pressure of all those potential bombs in all those backpacks, so they will push their guard up to some seriously absurd levels. Journalists will cave in under the pressure of, say, potentially having their phones tapped. Hence the snapping. There's no getting around the fact that I acted like a bully to 9 officers today for no good reason. Even though, technically, they're the bullies. Which brings me to
Two. An army of police and gendarmes busted into a factory rented out by some people who don't like NATO. They weren't making bombs, but anti-war banners. On some pretext or other, police picked up 54 people who just happen to not like NATO. That's 54 people who have a constitutional right to not like NATO and say so publicly. Police laid out a good argument for the bust (and the people were eventually let go) but the massive display of uniforms screams of paranoid bullies.
Three. There are about 28 people in all covering the summit from my news outlet. There were scores of stories going out today, some actually terrific. But it only took one that mistook Bucharest for Budapest and now we will always be that news outlet that mistook Bucharest for Budapest. Fuck.








