Remembering ...

For more info on memorial services you may visit http://www.911-remember.com/

Hugo, you did it again!

I have to admit. People that stir up the status quo, I kind of like them. Chavez is not a person I particularly like, but I must confess, I do thank him for sparking life into US-LATAM politics. Also I like the fact that he gives the middle finger to Washington, especially its State Department. His energy agreement with Tehran and its controversial leader must chill Washington's spine. I must be clear here, that I don't really like Chavez but I do sympathize with some of his goals, the problems in his nations, plus he has the politician-comedian-star quality that Sarkozi and Berlusconi possess. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on the other hand is a person that gives me the creeps. In fact, I am afraid of him. I think he is much more evil than Hugo. Hugo is definitely insane, but I would not call him evil. More of a rebel. Sometimes without a cause. Mainly I think he is just really really pissed with the strong bully neighbor from the north - rightfully so if you ask me - and is doing everything in his power to piss them off. I think he is succeeding big time. Just by being arrogant. I also believe that he will have Mahmoud drink wine from his shoe just by being the only one who actually talks to him. Two birds in one stone. Haha!!

Greece's top 10

Top 10 things I hate about Greece
No 10: xenophobia
No 9: lack of collectivism in modern greek psyche
No 8: education system, especially higher education
No 7: 'lamogia' and all relevant attitudes
No 6: tolerating an environment-disrespectful behavior
No 5: public sector
No 4: bourtzovlahia (can not be translated and is unique only in Greece, perhaps some balkan countries as well)
No 3: lack of parks in Athens
No 2: treatment of animals especially outside of Athens/Thessaloniki
No 1: lack of accountability in all aspects of Greek life (which results in allowing morons to become MPs even PMs and stay out of jail, giving thus a role model for bad management and putting the bar too low in general)

Top 10 things I love about Greece
No 10: cheap taxi fare
No 9: weather
No 8: most of my family and friends live in greece
No 7: late dinners
No 6: i get to drive everywhere
No 5: greeks of the diaspora and those who have lived abroad
No 4: history and philosophy of ancient greece
No 3: the Acropolis in Athens, Delos, Delphi, Olympia, Epidaurus, Knossos, Vergina
No 2: the sea
No 1: Greek islands holidays

Inglourious Basterds

By far Tarantino's funniest movie. Although the American filmaker is going from horror to terror and torture scenes are increasing in his movies (don't forget he makes part of the 'hostel' producers team) and Inglorious Basterds does have a lot of scenes that you turn your head away, it is hilarious
Not Jerry Lewis hilarious. More Cohen brothers type hilarious. Brad Pit is super funny. The hillibilly soldier role he plays, he is doing a superb job. His one-liners are inspirational. Oh, let's not forget Pitt's attempt to speak Italian which brings tears. The entire team of his are doing a great job. Especially since their looks don't remind nazi-sculp-takers. They look more like accountants. But they become nazi's worst nightmare. This is part of Tarantino's genius. His genious coupled with his horror kicks gives us Eli Roth in an amazing performance. The actor and producer of Hostel, is a Tarantino buddy and a fellow horror movie fan. He is doing a superb job playing the somewhat deranged American soldier, who kills nazis with his baseball bat. Brutally. He enjoys it. The whole squad does. After all, like Pitt says, it is the only entertainment they can have. Watching nazi's sculls getting smashed...
Christoph Waltz is absolutely fantastic. He plays the super classy nazi officer who speaks four languages and smells jews and finds them, hunts them down, kills them. However, when he sees an opportunity to change sides to his benefit he takes it. Of course not before Aldo the Apachi (Pitt's nickname) marks the nazi cross on his forehead. Waltz's vilain character is outstandingly funny in its evilness.
Waltz is brilliant, the entire cast is, and the scenes are ever so powerful, each of them, all of them.
Perhaps, I would be offended if I were German to portray in such a sarcastic way the germans of the era, but then again, anyone with a decent sense of humor would agree that this is absolutely one of the funniest movies of the season. Of course his portrayal of Americans does not do justice either, equally funny, only that they are on the winning side
At the very end, the movie must fulfill most Jews' fantasy about gathering all top rankng nazis in one closed space and light a fire. Perhaps does not do justice in history, but it must certainly feel good to millions of people.
I guess even modern germans would much rather have it this way after Merkel's speech in Poland this week... Sometimes fiction is much better than the truth..I bet 1000 euros that Merkel would much rather have it done this way if she had a chance to rewrite history!

Had it had less flesh tearing (although the sculp taking mania is part of the hilariousness of the movie) I would give it top marks. But there were many scenes I turned my head away. Therefore I will give it an A-.
Finally Tarantino decides to forget the Bmovie crap (Planet Terror, Death proof) and give us again his unique class we saw in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction & Kill Bill. Much much funnier this time
Bloody well done!

Wrath of summer sun in California

The catastrophic fires in California are another reason why I continue to feel devastated for such a long time. After the fires in Athens, now California is burning. The historic Yosemite park is threatened, among other vital spots including Mont Wilson.
Californian residents are living days of hell. Marvellous californian nature and wild life is threatened seriously again.
The greek government will no doubt now say that fires in the summer are an unavoidable part of the scenery. Perhaps. Once they start it is difficult to put them out. In the California fires two brave firemen lost their lives. Fire Captain Tedmund "Ted" Hall was 47 years of age and was a member of the Los Angeles County Fire Department for 26 years and lived in San Bernardino County, California. Firefighter Specialist Arnaldo "Arnie" Quinones was 35 years of Age, and was a member of the Los Angeles County Fire department for 8 years and lived in Palmdale, California.

Besides these two firemen there were three civilians that died but that's only because they did not follow guidelines...yes, they existed. Guidelines I mean.
"There were people that did not listen and there were three people that got burned and got critically injured because they did not listen," said Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's governor.

To the dismay of the greek government, most likely the californian fires did not start from arson. Like the Athens fires.

The californian government and the entire administration knows how to deal with this stuff and is actually doing something more than praying or just expecting firefighters to do the job on their own without any help. Mr Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency in some areas as firemen warned they wouldn't be able to put out the fire for at least a week.

Citizens are better coordinated and informed. Human and animal shelters have been organized. Citizens are asked exactly how they can help.
For example check out this blog:
http://calfire.blogspot.com/
In it you will find links to other incident sites that keep you uptodate with what is going on and directions of what to do if you found an injured human or animal.

Oh, and get this: Most of these initiatives are state organized. State government or the various administrative bodies and departments. For instance, in California a Forrest department actually exists!!!! http://www.fire.ca.gov/
Actually it is called california department of forrestry and fire protection. It is not that in california fires don't get wild. It is that the land is not built afterwards, it is that there is a special force that is protecting the forrests, it is that fire departments, despite the accidents, are more numerous and better equipped within the borders of california...It is that californians feel safer with their government, their forrestry, their country.

I still feel devastated. About the Athens fires, the Californian fires, and most of all the Greek political parties and of course government. Which comes down to the people in Greece that vote for those morons.

Pendeli the day after

All this week volunteers have tried to go over the burnt land and save any animals that we found that were hurt but alive. Unfortunately most animals we found were dead. Not that many animals were found to be honnest. It is either wild life in Pendeli has long been gone or that the fire ashed most of its victims. We found mainly turtles and a few dogs and cats the first day but the more the days progressed the more we would find dead bodies.
Animals sometimes hide for days at a place of safety and we will be placing food and water all next week till we go a week from friday to search for survivors again.
The sight is heartbreaking...apologies for the shocking pictures.
Today after 5 hours and 20 volunteers we were able to save 5 turtles - one badly burnt - and one lizard. The rest we found dead...in awful state.
The anger slowly kicks in and takes the place of devastation and sorrow. Anger against almost everybody. The arsonists. The construction companies. The people who bought houses up in the mountain. The politicians. Above all against the citizens who continue to vote for personal gain.
Athens as we know it will die. This was the end.

The moral code of animals

Finally!!! It is proven scientifically that animals think, they have emotions, they sympathize with their fellows, they distinguish right from wrong and they employ fair play in their games.
After years of long research, Marc Becov the professor of Evolutionary Biology of the university of Colorado and his associate biologist Jessica Pierce proved their hypothesis that animals have recognizable emotions and moral intelligence.
They were so amazed with their findings that decided to put them in a book
A young female elephant was falling down after a male pushing her strongly. An older female came to her rescue after chasing the male away. A mouse refused to push the button that would bring him food as he realised that the very same button would create an electroshock for the mouse in the neighboring cell. A young coyote will always use fair game in his play; if not the elders of the community will cast him out. A chimp group punishes everyone who comes late at dinner time as noone can start to eat if the whole group is not present. At a particular experiment, chimps had to put a coin in a slot in order to get their foods. The majority of the subjects found out easily how to do it. There was this new female that didn't. An older more experience male chimp did it for her and gave her the food without attempting to steal it.
Dr. Bekov was so amazed with his experiments that he feels that we should learn from animals and be tought life lessons. There is respect between animals and although they all need to survive, they realize that they have a better chance to survive together and there is a very strong sense of collaboration, teamwork, and rules to be respected. In addition, different societies of the same species have their own rules, just like human societies.
But it is not just the collaboration and teamwork. Between animals there is a lot of love, compassion, empathy, and justice. Animals are smart, emotional, they distinguish right from wrong, they think before they act as they evaluate every situation they find themselves in.
Dr Bekov is already working on his second book: Animal Manifesto out in March 2010
You can obtain a copy of Wild Justice from the University of Chicago Press (http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?isbn=9780226041667) but only an e-book at this time as there was a huge demand of the book. It is also retailed at amazon.com

Fire day 3

Today the skies are not orange or grey. They are dark, but you can see the blue
The fires have eaten all the mountain of Penteli, everything that I hold dear as it is part of the place I grew up.
Penteli is hollow due to the wonderful marbles it had since ancient times. The majority of the Parthenon marbles came from Pendeli and Paros.
The mountain also had created many myths, some having some truth since the revolution against the Ottoman Empire about 200 years ago. It was a hiding place for the gorillas against the Turks.
It is a place with rich magnetic ability. On the way to Nea Makri somewhere mid-mountain, there is a location where the road is downhill and then uphill again. What is amazing is if you switch off the engine the car will go backwards uphill. There are some locations on earth that manifest this phenomenon and Pendeli is one of them.
In addition Pendeli has been a place where in the begining of the century, well, last century and up until world war II, people with respiratory diseases would come to get cured due to its wonderful climate. Fresh crispy air moist free.
Pendeli has been burnt down many times. Various locations. In 1998 I remember I was one of the volunteers trying to save what I could only to run with new fire fronts exploding behind me with flames reaching more than 40m. I was trying to free the anmals from the abandoned houses. I was trying to water the roofs. Some was saved
Well, not any more. The entire mountain of Pendeli is now gone. From Marathon to Palea Pendeli
Well, the rocks are still there, they will be there till the end of time. Everything else is gone. Everything that has anything to do with life.
Of course I can not say that I did not expect that. But not this byblical catastrophy. Pendeli should not have been inhabited. Some very old neighborhoods, especially the hospitals and the monasteries have good reason to be there. But all these areas should not exist. Pendeli ought to belong to its forrest, to its rabbits, wolves, foxes, eagles, ducks, wildboar etc. None of that exist now as Man has burned it down so many times.
There is speculation that this fire as well was a result of arson. Well the 85 fires that broke out yesterday. Probably. But then again we live in an area (med basin) that is tortured by fires every august. I remember growing up that there were 'karaoulia' in Pendeli and we used to volunteer. These were fire watch points, usually scouts, volunteers or the army would watch. They would operate 24/7 the summer months. Not since I went to high school have I listened to them being operated. Why?
I don't understand. I don't understand many things. For instance I don't understand why there has been so much talk but no walk about creating fire breaking zones - you know zones of dry land throughout the mountain that would stop the fires from taking over the entire land. I don't understand why we don't use all these soldiers that we have to camp in the forrests. But most importantly I don't understand why we don't have an extremely well organized and state of the art equipped Forrest Rangers whose sole purpose would be to protect our forrests. Well, what is left of them. I certainly don't understand.
I am extremely sad with all these people that have lost their houses, property, animals. I don't understand why they were allowed to buy a house in the forest in the first place. I don't understand what kind of government allows its wealth to be deprived from its country for some small personal gain. Because had such construction had been outlawed and punished - in reality not paper - this catastrophy would not have occured. And I bet anything you would like on this

Fire progression: 6pm

New fires have been added to the morning one. All of Athens with any tree left is burning...
This is at 6pm. Please note that the sun sets at 8pm..

Fire progression: 12 noon

You can figure out which way the fire is moving (heavy clouds from northeast)
Note I live about 40km away from the fire front