London parks

London on a sunny day is beautiful. Best to spend the day in the beautiful parks that it has. One of the most important things I am jealous of world capitals is their parks. It reminds me of what we miss in Athens. Well, one of the things that would make Athens a better place to live.

In the loop

British, no matter what they will do, they will be more alternative. They have deeply embedded in their culture the importance to be self-sarcastic, and if delivered with humor, it is a regarded a quality of high intellect.
In consequence, all British comedies embody at least an element of sarcasm, taking the piss, as a favorite British expression has it
In 'In the Loop', the brilliant team responsible are absolutely taking the piss on big political decisions and, of course, politicians.
It is a hilarious comedy, definitely the best comedy I saw since a Fish Called Wanda. It will make you fall from your seat laughing. Oh, it does require a good ear for british english, especially if no subtitles are on. Definitely a must go, especially if you have had experience living in Britain.

A dog's best friends

Dogs are said to be a man's best friend. Man is not necessarily the same to the dog. But dogs can have some very good strange friends.
Elvis, the dog lives in Leintal Zoo, in Schwaigern, Germany. His two best friends Panya and Malia love him very much and show him with cuddles and play all day long. Elivs loves the attention and the care of his friends and disregards all the strange looks of Zoo visitors.
Love rules.

Learning from superior beings - video sent by Ceasar

I have very often referred to animals as superior beings. This reference had nothing to do with me being a weirdo or an eccentric late 30s single tree hugger freak. No. I am a person who loves animals and is equally naive about human kidness. Hense the single status. Well, to cut a real long story short, I have many times referred to the superior beings but rarely explained why. Well the reason is simple. They know how to love, to survive, to care, to nurture, to accept, to change, to move on. If a dog can breastfeed orphan kittens why can not a priviledged human adopt an unpriviledged child? What was the drive so strong to this dog that made her want to keep these babies alive? Why do humans equal their own survival with the destruction of someone else? Would they hurt to breastfeed orphans? Or feed the poor? Or teach them to live? Or cure them? Wouldn't global trade benefit of the hundreds of societies that are sieged by poverty, disease, illiteracy, and eventually gloom? One of the key principles in economics is the only way to make money is to let money flow in the market. Eventually it will come back to you.
Instead then of keeping all these poor nations under global debt by giving them all the more expensive money and letting them suffer under undemocratic governments, feed them, teach them, cloth them, house them, make them feel secure. Then they will be able to consume. At equal grounds. Like you and me. Like all of us. This will probably take place sometime in the following centuries and scarcity of resources will make people work together instead of killing each other. Till then, ponder on the lessons of some who have come to wisdom before our species

Now tell me where you see the human superiority over wild life....

Dog walkers

A trend that I first saw on the other end of the Atlantic, in Buenos Aires, is that of dog walkers. These are people that take the same dogs each day for walks around Buenos Aires to its numerous parks. After the dogs walk for around a few hours, they are taken to a distinct park area which is designed for dogs toilet. Yes, they have allowed perhaps 1/20th of each park where dogs can go and poo. Then I believe the dog walker will have to collect the poo and throw it to designated bins.
They travel with 10 or at times 20 dogs in such an orderly manner that I was amazed. Sometimes I can not walk in such way my two dogs because one might want to go left and the other right
Well, the way they do it is by having a leader dog, usually is the dog of the dog walker. So when the dog walker wants to give a command to the herd, he only gives it to the dog captain and the captain then with body language I presume, or perhaps some low voice barking involved, is telling the others where to go.
I thought it was brilliant and much much much necessary.
The dogs get to two a 3-4 hour exercise routine during the day and the dog owners don't feel guilty for not having the time to do it. And the dog walker gets to have some money to pay the rent.
At the end all are happY


I also saw this in San Francisco, but the dogs were smaller in numbers, but there was no dog captain there. Also, I have not seen that in San Francisco with large breeds, whereas in Buenos Aires, there were all breeds possible.

In any case, I was happy to see it happening at any place or any variation. At least some humans realize that we can work for animals
The girl in San Francisco, I asked her if all the dogs were hers. She replied: "No, I just work for them".

Brilliant answer!

More Kittens pictures

kittens update

They are now at second week of life. They are doing well. I found out there are 3 boys and one girl. The girl, Ginger, was about to die and a few nights ago I had to stay up all night to give her half a ml of milk every fifteen minutes or so - I had to force it down her tiny throat and I was afraid to break her. But she is fine now. They are all doing great and they all start developing their own personalities.
Let me at this moment present you with each one of these wonderful little kittens and will soon post more on them.
The two orange ones are a boy and a girl, so it is Ginger and Fred, the big guy is Rambo - he keeps drinking, and the pretty one is Eros.
Cute names, eh?

Rambo Drinking


Ginger and Fred


I could not manage to get a decent picture of Eros yet, but here he is, the darker one with the rest of them.

In the picture below is Eros, Fred and Rambo

Geodiscrimination

Having recently quit my job I am enjoying every moment to the fullest. I feel blessed to just google in the middle of the day whatever comes to mind. So, yesterday I was really trying hard to find out what kind of organizations for animal protection exists in Greece - a huge joke, right.
In any case, my search eventually led me to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), a US-based charity organization that has recently branched in Europe.
One of the things that PETA preaches (and I am about to try it out) is the vegetarian life style - its benefits to all parties involved: the slimmer and healthier vegetarian human, the greener planet and the alive animal.
On their home page (both US and UK) they have the free vegetarian starter kit

I downloaded and also ordered the hard copy to be mailed over.
Guess what:
I got a message (twice as I thought I was dreaming so I filled the ordering form twice) saying: We are sorry, we can not post to your location, or some BS like that.
Excuse me? I totally agree that I live in a country of barbarians when it comes to animals, but for the love of God, why can the miniscule minority of us who do care about non-human life, be discriminated against?
I really did not expect that and it absolutely raised my eyebrows. Is it a question of a business deal between PETA and the Greek post office?
Is it a question of money? why is it possible to mail to Italy and not Greece? Seriously I have no answer to that.
Yet, it occurs to me that PETA and other organizations like that are doing it all wrong. Being an animal protector in the US is fine, a cause worthy and all that. But why is it not being an animal protector - by vegetarianism in this case - in such a barbaric state such as Greece? I am not saying that there are not appauling cases in California, but they will be the exception. I am afraid animal abuse in Greece is quite common and the country needs desperately such activist groups. The darker we are on this the worst off the animals will be. You see Greek villagers for example, think it is perfectly alright for an animal to spend the entirety of his life tied up in a rope of one meter long without ever getting unleashed. And this is common practice. So PETA you'd better get your act together and not only mail the veg start kit in Greece but also set up your most powerful of branches because the abuse of animals in Greek provinces is a daily and very common occurrence and nobody does anything about it

New kittens on the block

One of the cutest sights in the world is kittens or puppies when little - by little I mean close to newborn - are searching for the nipple and playing with each other
Two days ago, just before they were euthanized, I 've rescued four little kittens. Gorgeous creatures, two ginger - identical twins, one black/grey, and one grey. They still have the blue in their eyes, they can hardly walk, they are about one week old, but they have different personalities - actually this is how I can tell apart the identical twins.
Zizou and Klelia are extremely curious. Zizou smelled them, realized they are yet again another source of noise, steal of attention from mummy, babies who will tire him with play, so he kind of looked the other way once he realised they were harmless, but another creature that mummy brings home
Klelia was taken by storm. She is looking at them, smelling them, afraid of them, religiously quiet when I feed them; she is I believe overwhelmed by the fact that someone is so little and can not even poo on their own. She is totally fascinated by them.
Patty hates them, as she hates anything or anybody that might cause more exclamation on their beauty than she does, and Junior is being Junior, not really keen in socializing with strangers.
I need to go soon but tales of the new kittens will come soon. Enjoy

The world after financial meltdown

Months following banking industry's nuclear catastrophy around the world's stock exhanges, the first rays of hope come to light. Wells Fargo announced significant profit, others smaller loss than predicted and although euphoria has not hit wall street yet, there is some elation.
Wells Fargo registered record profits in the midst of the worst economic crisis in banking - probably ever. Stock price went up by 32%. Others followed.
Citi was up 13%
USB 23%
Bank of America 35%
JP Morgan 19%
PNC Financial 20%

There is still speculation if they forecasted accurately bad debt or revenue

Wells Fargo mortgage loans went up. And the cheaper interbanking borrowing after government regulation helped. So it helped the financial aid.

The reasons for this recovery are definitely more complicated than I present here and not the same for all. Whether the sun will shine away the storm and this recovery will be sustainable not sure.

What is clear in my mind is that extreme positions can lead to chaos. So was extreme deregulation I think. Some balance is needed. Even in economics - it is called equilibrium and is usually forgotten - or so it seems.