Greece goes on fire!

The last weeks the Greeks are watching their forests being burned out. The Fire Brigade loses the war. This year has been burned more forests than ever. I’m surprised that this time people are not blaming the government… but actually the Fire Brigade although 3 firemen lost their lives!



I’ve been helping the Fire Brigade troops in big fires as a Red Cross volunteer last year in Crete. I’ve seen myself that due to the wild surface of Greece, ground troops cannot do much. At least not without help from the air. I’ve seen with my own eyes a small tree catching up fire on its own 4 times, although the firemen had thrown tons of water on it each time.

Is still the Fire Brigade responsible, when the government hires 3000 totally useless agrofylakes (agro-field guards) instead of firemen or instead of buying equipment (e.g. planes or helicopters) to enhance the Fire Brigade? Then what the hell is the government responsible for?

I hope to get an answer before the last tree of this country turns into ashes.

Turkey: Elections and immature meaningless acts.

Turkey goes to elections this weekend and once again Greece has to pay the price. Usually it’s Turkish military airplanes getting illegally into the Greek borders (or something with Cyprus). Increase of the number of such incidents, to be more accurate, since such intrusions/provocations are done by the Turkish army very often, almost every day. But this time it was something else. The International Union of Greek Orthodox Christian Youth had their festival in Istanbul where the Ecumenical Patriarchate of the Orthodox Christian Church lays. The festival would conclude with a concert given by a famous Greek singer Georgios Dalaras.

The Turks took back the permission they had given for the concert and the concert was cancelled. The Turkish media said this singer is anti-Turk. Georgios Dalaras has sung actually for the re-union of the island of Cyprus as well as to raise money for Turkish children suffering from mental diseases. And for Turkey this person is an enemy!

What can someone say about a country (willing to join EU) in which it is ILLEGAL to talk against this country, to admit that the Armenian or the Pontian-Greek genocide are not science fictions or that Kurds are actually a different ethnic group?!

Al een jaar in Nederland

Already one year in the Netherlands. It was like a glimpse. I’m sitting in my childhood bedroom now in hot Greece. This year is running back in my mind. Since I got in Greece I already miss the Dutch trains, the perfect roads and generally that abstract sense that everything works! However, by the first moment here, I felt the difference in those two countries view over the food! Oh, really, Dutch people have no idea. They just put something in their mouth to make their stomach stop complaining (“brood met iets erop”). Greeks on the other way have turned cooking into a real art. And that great artist, my mother, of course had something great for me when I came back. Hehehe.

I’m having a hard time to get used to the Greek summer. I left Netherlands with 12 degrees celcius and I landed on 30 degrees Greece. Well, it’s nice not to worry about what you’re going to wear (you wear as less things as you can, all 24 hours of the day), but if you work in a big city like Athens or Thessaloniki, you really suffer! I made a small visit to the capital of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, and it was like a trip to hell. The busses usually had no air-conditioning, and even when they did, the people were not patient enough and they opened the windows. So, no use.

Also a big difference that cheered me up when I came here. Whenever you go out: Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Sunday it doesn’t matter… it’ s always crowded! In Netherlands there are people outside only on Friday and Saturday. Sunday is a dead day all day long. Here Sunday is always crowded. People go on trips or just out to drink their coffee in a café by reading their Sunday-newspaper or just meeting friends.

Every country has its pros and its cons. Although I think I’ve already got acquainted to all the cons of Netherlands, there are still many pros to discover. It was a busy year with lots of courses and only a few money. Next year there will be more time to do things and more money since I’ll be working. But till then… I can have a great summer under the Greek sun ;)

Gay-friendly cities have more economic prosperity

Since last weekend it was the Gay Pride in Athens (also in Toronto as my friend Fotini informed me) let's write something about gays.

I found this research from the George Mason University in USA. According to it, the more "gay-friendly" a city is, the more "economically prosperous" it will be. In his March 2007 paper (which can be read here), they use a "Gay Index" to show that "artistic, bohemian, and gay populations" have significant effects on housing values. They also found that gay-friendly areas typically support technological innovation and higher income levels. Additionally, educated young people tend to move to the most gay-friendly cities, because they generally have the best job markets.

Could those cities really owe their prosperity to gays?

Yes and no. I believe in the power of the citizen. When citizens are not supressed, and they are able to hunt their happiness and dreams they can do miracles. Either they are gay or not. So it's not that gay people are bettter than others. It's just that those cities make sure that a piece of them, an important one actually (10%), is free to act as it wills and has no obstacles or supression. They give it a chance to do miracles.

That can be a good lesson for Greece. The Greek politicians have not realised yet the power of the citizen (maybe only George Papandreou). Last week the mayor of Athens (Nikitas Kaklamanis) refused to put Athen's Gay Pride 2007 under the auspicies of the City Hall (municipality). He received very strong critisism about that.

The sooner Greeks wake up, the better for them. Especially in the gay issue, the whole Europe laughs when they hear that the country in which homosexual love was invented (or at least flurished) is actually... homophobic!

EU agreement

I read that the EU managed to go into a new agreement last night, replacing the failure of the European Constitution.

It's funny how two countries who want the same thing, but fight for it in a different way always manage to ruin Europe's true union.

The greatest difficulties were Poland and England.

Poland doesn't want to leave the veto-system. I agree. The new system just gives the big countries more votes. It doesn't give the decision to the majority of the European Citizens, so it's actually less democratic than the old one. But this is not why Poland dissagrees. Poland just wants to stay as much as independent as possible. Because it's a big country, compared to other EU countries it's powerful enough to stop any decisions it doens't like using the present system. If the system changes, it won't. Poland just wants to take from European Union and not give.

England is actually the same. England wants to be in EU, but also be as independent as possible. The new voting system doesn't affect it (cause it's a big country), but if the Constitution or the new agreement is going to pass, she has to accept the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which gives the workers of England too many rights, and England doesn't want that. How ironic that the Labour Party is in power!!!

Actually England has a Guiness Record on "exceptions"! The most obvious are Euro-zone, Schengen zone, etc etc. Whenever Europe goes forth, England stays behind. Whenever it comes to military stuff and common foreign affairs policy, England is more like the advocate of USA and never agrees with the rest of the Europeans. England was obsessed with terrorism and forced all these exhaustive and hysterical measures in the airports.

So, is UK in the EU because it feels like European or is it inside EU just to sabotage it?!

I'm tired of watching the same play again and again, every time EU wants to move on; having to discuss UK constant disagreements and eventually accept ANOTHER exception. Let's move on. The countries that are really interested in uniting Europe may follow. The rest of the countries can just make us a favour and stay the hell out of it!

Sto para 5

I spent my evening yesterday watching the last episode of the famous Greek comedy series "sto para 5". It's one of the innocent but not naive series that the whole family can watch. Some people complained about the last episode. It was too dramatic they said for a comedy. I think the last episode is like a break up. And break ups are always dramatic. It was nice. And it sent so many messages about life and death, love, etc. But the best I think was the last message: Switch the TV off! The real life is out there!

This message, along with the last picture of the 5 friends playing in the sea sent all my stress away and gave me a great feeling. I think I'm going to have a really nice summer :)

Welcome

Welcome to my blog.

I have no idea why people create those things. I just felt the need to create one too. I don't know where it comes from, I don't know how to satisfy this need, neither where it's going to lead me to. But I'm doing it anyway.

I'll start with a song. To present myself. It's Greek so I'll give you first the Greek lyrics and then I'll tranlsate for my international friends. I wish I could write in Greek in this blog. It's my favourite language. But things change, and we have to adjust. We always have to adjust, though never yield.

Με λένε Γιώργο
και ποτέ δεν τραγουδάω
για της αγάπης το γλυκό-πικρό καημό.
Δεν έχω μάθει
μαργαρίτες να μαδάω,
δεν περιμένω κανενός το γυρισμό.

Με λένε Γιώργο
και ποτέ δεν τραγουδάω.
Θα υποφέρω στη ζωή κάθε στιγμή,
γιατί δεν έκανα ό,τι θα ΄πρεπε να κάνω,
γιατί σαν άνθρωπος δεν είχα την πυγμή.

Με λένε Γιώργο...


My name is Giorgos
and I never sing
about love's sweet-bitter "pain" (although "kaimos" cannot be exactly tranlated)
I've never learnt
to pluck margaritas,
I don't expect anyone to come back to me.

My name is Giorgos,
and I never sing.
I'll always suffer in life, every single moment,
because I didn't do what I should have done,
because I didn't have the strength.

My name is Giorgos...