Τις τελευταίες εβδομάδες ξυπνάω νωρίς και πάω για ύπνο σχετικά νωρίς. Μπορώ να πω ότι η ολοκληρωτική αλλαγή στον βιορυθμό μου είχε θετικές επιδράσεις στην διάθεση μου. Το προτείνω ανεπιφύλακτα σε όλους τους ξενύχτιδες. (τώρα ξυπνάω την ίδια ώρα που πριν 4 μήνες έπεφτα για ύπνο).
Το φθινόπωρο έχει μπει για τα καλά. Είναι 8:30 και ο ήλιος δεν έχει ανατείλει ακόμα. Όπως κάνω κάθε πρωί, ανοίγω το πισί πρώτο και διαβάζω τα νέα της ημέρας. Αυτό έκανα και σήμερα. Διάβασα τα μεγάλα νέα της ημέρας. Αποφάσισα πως ήταν ώρα για πρωινό. Συνήθως τρώω γιαούρτι (το πολύ υγρό, που είναι στην συσκευασία του γάλατος, είτε με γεύση μπανάνα/αχλάδι, είτε με φρούτα του δάσους — κοινώς αποδεκτά ως φράουλα και βατόμουρο — είτε με γεύση πορτοκάλι) με μούσλι, όμως το γιαούρτι μου τέλειωσε χτες. Πάω στην κουζίνα να μου φτιάξω ένα σάντουιτς.
Ανοίγοντας την πόρτα και βγαίνοντας στο κοινόχρηστο σαλόνι, ανοίγει την πόρτα και ο τυπάς από το δωμάτιο νο. 5, ένας από τους έξι Δανούς που μένουν στο κτίριο (οι υπόλοιποι έξι εκ των δώδεκα είναι ένας Έλληνας — εγώ –, ένας Βόσνιος, μια Ιαπωνέζα, ένας Ισπανός, μια Ουγγαρέζα και ένας τυπάς αγνώστου υπηκοότητας, μάλλον Ιταλός, ο οποίος φοράει καρέ παντελόνια, μαγειρεύει κάτι περίεργα πράγματα και παίζει Νeed for Speed και ακούει Red Hot Chili Peppers στον κοινόχρηστο χώρο). , ευτυχώς όχι ο πραγματικά εκνευριστικός, σχεδόν επικίνδυνος ούγκανος γορίλλας που μόνο από το όνομα καταλαβαίνεις ότι είναι Δανός, τρέφεται με πρωτείνες της συσκευασίας απορρυπαντικού και κάνει πουσ-απς στο σαλόνι βαρώντας παλαμάκια. Δεν ήταν αυτός που ξύπνησε την ίδια ώρα με μένα, ήταν ο άλλος, ο πιο συγκρατημένος, αυτός με την μηχανή έξω στην είσοδο, αυτός ο οποίος συνήθως παίρνει τον ρόλο του διαμεσολαβητή και μεταφραστή για τις άναρθρες κραυγές του γορίλλα που θυμίζουν Δανέζικα (κάποιοι θα υποστήριζαν με ζήλο ότι τα Δανέζικα ήδη δεν απέχουν και πολύ από άναρθρες κραυγές) όταν έχει εκνευριστεί που η κουζίνα δεν είναι στην εντέλεια της καθαριότητας και σπάει τοστιέρες πετώντας τις στο πάτωμα επειδή “ξανά, κανείς δεν πέταξε τα σκουπίδια”.
Μετά τις καλημέρες στις οποίες συνήθως περιορίζεται η επικοινωνία μας, έσπασε την αναμενόμενη σιωπή σήμερα λέγοντας «Η Ευρωπαική Ένωση σήμερα έσωσε την χώρα σου, τώρα δεν πρέπει να πληρώσετε όλα σας τα χρέη». Τον κοίταξα και με έναν αναστεναγμό του απάντησα: «το ξέρω, μόλις το διάβασα» και πήρα τον δρόμο για την κουζίνα, θέλοντας να δείξω ότι θα προτιμούσα να μην μιλήσω για το συγκεκριμένο θέμα. Εκείνος συνέχισε, με ένα ύφος λες και εγώ προσωπικά έφταιγα για το χρέος: «Τώρα ελπίζω τα πράγματα να μην ξανακυλίσουν. Η Άνγκελα Μέρκελ είπε επίσης ότι άλλες χώρες από την ανατολική Ευρώπη θα πρέπει να πάρουν τις ευθύνες τους στα σοβαρά . Αυτό πρέπει να γίνει αν θέλουμε η ΕΕ να πετύχει και να μην χρειαστεί η Γερμανία να τις βοηθάει όλες να κάνουν ό,τι θα έπρεπε να έχουν την σοβαρότητα να κάνουν μόνες τους!»
«Δεν είναι βοήθεια αυτό. Το χρέος μας θα διπλασιαστεί μέσα σε λίγα χρόνια. Το κούρεμα είναι απλά ένα τέχνασμα των μέσων για να μην πουν στα ίσια ότι είναι χρεωκοπία και πλήρης παραχώρηση των εξουσιαστικών δικαιωμάτων».
«Δεν ξέρω, τι άλλο θα έπρεπε να έχουν κάνει;»
Θα μπορούσα να έχω πει πολλά πράγματα εκείνη την στιγμή. Πολλά πέρασαν από το μυαλό μου. Αλλά απλά είπα ένα
I can’t remember for how long it’s been a dream of mine to see the Northern Lights. To be overwhelmed by their sheer other-worldliness, to lose myself in this phantasmagoria, the proof that magic is nothing supernatural, nothing more “super” than nature at its very best.
This dream of mine was never closer to being fulfilled than now. From the moment I learned that I would be coming to Denmark I started planning my Great Pilgrimage to Hyperborea. The cheapest, if by far the most time-consuming, way to get as close to the Arctic Circle as possible was, I soon found out, to InterRail all the way up from Denmark to Northern Norway. It was not hard to find two other people that shared my dream and felt like joining me. These are some of our stories, of three travellers hungry for adventure, out to see the magic of the world and finding it. Even if not exactly as we expected it when we first set off…
Ana and me woke up early on the 13th day of October. We had a train to catch — the first of many. We packed our bags full of food like bread, carrots, apples, La Vache Qui Rit-type cheese, baked beans… we had heard legends of people going to Norway and dying of starvation because supermarkets were too expensive. We definitely did not want to suffer the same fate. After we made sure that our bags would weigh less than half as much on our way back, we set off. We saw the sun rise over the lazy cow-dotted plains of Jutland, passed to Fyn and before we knew it we had already crossed Zealand and were in Copenhagen Central Station. This was our rendezvous point with Cedric. We didn’t have difficulty spotting him coming out from the train from Hamburg, he was sporting a backpack almost one and a half times larger than my own. If my own bag contained roughly equal parts clothes and food, Cedric’s was almost bursting at the seems from the weight of several tins of ravioli, bottles of wine and beer. We would soon be very thankful he had been extra mindful when it came to food… And so it began.
What will stay with me from this trip:
• We did not see the Northern Lights. Mission failed. All of our nights north of the Arctic Circle were beautifully overcast. But even if they hadn’t been, people told us that it wasn’t a good time of the year to see them. “The aurora is at its most impressive after a big drop in temperature… The best time is in January or February, when it’s really cold and there aren’t so many clouds”. Then why do so many sites say that October is a good time? As far as the Lights go, this is indeed our theme song for the trip.
Play us off Keyboard Cat!
• Cedric’s cool. Riding from Malmö to Göteborg, the city in which, in a parallel universe, we would have changed trains for Oslo, Cedric realised that something was missing from his otherwise stuffed backpack. It was his wallet. Of all places, it had to be Sweden where we would find our pick-pocket. How many of us think of Sweden when we hear about pick-pocketing? I’m beginning to get tired of Nordic nimble fingers. Of course we couldn’t just leave Göteborg and ride into the unknown before Cedric had exhausted all possibilities regarding the whereabouts of his wallet and, most importantly, its contents. He had lost his money, his bank card and his ID. What would you, dear reader, do if this had happened to you on the first day of a long-awaited trip? Ana and I agreed that, for one, we would be freaking out badly. Cedric, however, kept his characteristic cool during all stages of grief. “I’ll get by, I’ll survive. I’m just annoyed that we had to miss the train to Oslo and our plans got messed up”. The next day, in Oslo, when the German embassy told him that at least he could take the next train back home, he didn’t hesitate even for a minute to follow us through. Again, “what’s the worst thing they can do to me? At most they’ll just send me back to Germany. It’s where I’m going eventually anyway.”
• Jan. He was our host in Bodø, the small town we stayed the longest in Norway. He took us to lots of very Norwegian places around the town in his car (including Saltstraumen, even though it was at high tide and wasn’t at all impressive), showed us some new for us electronic music (he was a big fan!) and some documentaries about Life, the Universe and Everything with him, one of them he had made himself. W even talked a little bit about video games.
He helped us a lot by taking us to Fauske where we begun our…
• Hitch-hiking. On the 5th day, we had to hitch-hike from Fauske to Narvik (οur CouchHost Jan was so good as to drive us from Bodø to Fauske. In retrospect, if he hadn’t done so we might not have made it through to Narvik at all). With good spirits we prepared our cardboard sign. On one side it read “NARVIK” and on the other “N↑”. For hours we tried and tried on the side of the E6, aka the Arctic Highway — a name that makes it sound much more majestic than it really is. We jumped around at incoming cars, thumbs outstretched, our best smiles as bright as tiny flashlights in the afternoon light.
Tens, hundreds of cars passed us by, few drivers gave us any kind of sign, let alone stopped. Later, we realised that the reason was probably because no-one wanted, or had enough space to carry three extra passengers. We were in the middle of nowhere, 100klm north of the Arctic Circle, moose crossing signs around us, Narvik was 250klm away. Disappointment set in. We began to make our way back to Fauske where we would make our way back to Bodø by train, our ultimate Plan B. And then the unexpected, the unreal happened. A car stopped in front of us after we had already started walking back. A big man in a blue sweater came out.
“Do you want to go to Narvik?”
“Yes!”, I said. This was strange. We were going to the opposite direction, with Narvik facing our backsides and already half-empty backpacks. How did he know that we wanted to go there?
“We will take you there. We will take you to Narvik!”
I froze. I did not know what to make of it. These two people — this man and his wife — were obviously not going to Narvik. However, they wanted to make a detour, a 10-hour one both ways at that, to help us out. In my mind appeared a pair of scales. Weighing down the one side was fear, disbelief, the kind of feeling that would never let you hitch-hike, the feeling people transmit to you when they tell you that in every CouchSurfer lies a hidden serial killer just waiting to kill you in the most tortuous of ways; on the other side there was trust, willingness, adventure, the sense that everything can happen if you just give it a chance. It didn’t take long at all for the latter side to win this recurring internal battle.
Enter Lisbeth and Finn-Ove. They saw us trying to hitch a ride while they were going back home after shopping. “I feel sorry for them”, said Finn-Ove. “How sorry?”, asked Lisbeth. They turned around, picked us up, filled the tanks in Fauske and stopped home to leave the stuff they had just bought before setting out for the road trip. What they had just went out to shop were huge boxes of kitty litter. Turned out that Lisbeth and Finn-Ove are professional cat-breeders. My cat-loving side went a little awry at the thought (mind: it’s the same side that feeds my distaste for small dogs) but once I saw the care they put into their pocket felines, my heart melted. Their house was situated in a small Norwegian village under craggy mountains, over delicious fjords and next to deep forest that serves as a home for curious moose… AND a houseful of beautiful and tame cats, a large home cinema and a fresh box-set of Star Wars in Blu-ray (Finn-Ove’s been a fan “ever since he saw the films on Norwegian TV”). What else might a man want?
The next five hours we spent in their car, talking about life, hitch-hiking, cats and their group hierarchy (“fertile females are the leaders”), Star Wars and Norway while outside the windows, fantastic mountains, forests and fjords (and a few moose we stopped to see) were being greeted by the Arctic October dusk that slowly but surely painted the skies black…
Finn-Ove and Lisbeth saved us out of nowhere. We hitched a ride with them for over 250klm of Norwegian countryside. They were an inspiration and a delight to meet and helped me add another experience to fight my fearful and cynic side, a much-needed one: semi long-distance hitch-hiking.
• Betty and her Brain Balancing. Day 7 found us in Stockholm. As usual, nowhere to stay, hey, at least we had a train station to fall back to if all else failed, or at least we hoped that a train station in a capital city would stay open through the night. We sent out an SOS to the world, aka a Last Minute CouchRequest. And voila, one hour later Betty sent us a message telling us she can host us. Off we went to meet this lady that was to be our host in Stockholm, a city which from the two nights we spent there I can say that I loved. It’s a city made of bridges connecting its many islands, with parks and cliffs right next to the river/lake/sea in between. And would you imagine? We saw deer grazing in Betty’s backyard in the morning. Stockholm: breath-taking to walk around in, both at night and during the day.
Back to Betty. Born in Sweden by Hungarian parents, had a daughter (our age) with a man from The Gambia. And I thought I was a child of multi-culturalism… After a much-needed dinner consisting of bread, butter, raspberry jam and Nugatti (read: Norwegian Nutella, only like 10 times better than Nutella), Betty revealed her current profession to us. She is a Brain Balancer. “A psychologist?”, ready to ask was I, but she was quick to add: “Literally, what I do is balance brains. Every brain is to some extent unbalanced. What I do is let the brain listen to its own brainwaves and correct itself in order to move out of ruts and behavioural vicious cycles that activate in situations of stress and fear. This balancing will not alter your personality whatsoever, just open up your possibilities and allow you to step back from your own behaviour in order to be able to observe and modify it.” She invited us to try it ourselves. There is a system monitoring and recording your brainwaves and playing tones into earphones that create a feedback loop for the brain. It is actually very hard to put into words but from what Betty described and from what I can see it looks like a mighty interesting idea. It might sound completely crazy but if I had the money I would try it (ten 90-minute sessions that should be enough to have a permanent effect carry a price tag of close to €2000). I asked her if there is a way to obtain the same results for free and without the brain balancer. She answered that if I purposefully observe myself in weird or dangerous situations and the way I react in order to first be able to witness behaviours programmed into me (do I freeze or go into fight and flight mode?), with some meditation and inner silence I should be able to create the same effects as brain balancing would. Read more here. The interesting thing is that Betty found about this a few years ago through a CouchSurfer of hers and was obviously thrilled. Before that she was a textile designer. Now we learned about this also through CouchSurfing… Around, goes the world.
• Karlstad and Narvik. Two of the nights in the North we had nowhere to stay. No Couchhosts, no money, nothing. I can tell you this: Sweden and Norway are NOT good places to try your life as a homeless person — even though I think that if you have no home, in Denmark at least, the state provides you with shelter. So, in this respect and for a few hours we were far worse off than any Nordic homeless would be. Train stations locked tight, shops and bars closing early, even MacDonald’s providing only temporary shelter and franchise coffee until midnight. A bit of Cinderella magic there. These town were public spaces that after 11PM became non-spaces… In both cases we were outside until the early hours, walking around the city, having our usual incredibly long, deep and often pointless discussions with Cedric (to Ana’s probable annoyance), playing football with plastic coffee cups or trying to sleep at temperatures very close or under 0 °C. Layering clothes didn’t help much to keep warm, nor did running around on the brightly lit but oh, so cold and inhospitable station platforms — the appearance of a semi-friendly fox in Karlstad station, though, at least cheered us up a lot.
But let me tell you, for all the shivering and biting cold, the moments of salvation more than made up for it. When our train from Karlstad to Oslo arrived, all warm and cozy inside, or when the station master in Narvik opened the doors half an hour earlier than we expected, at 6:30 instead of 7AM… It was happiness, the same kind of lizard-brain happiness you see in your dog’s or cat’s face when they lie curled up at your feet.
In Lizbeth’s and Finn-Ove’s car, I told Cedric: “When we get to Narvik, we have nowhere to stay…” -“I know…”, he replied, “I look forward to it.”
• In Oslo, outside the central train station, we asked some police people (how would you call a police man together with a police woman?) where we could find the police station. They kindly drove us there in their police van, putting us in the little cage they have in the trunk reserved for criminals, hand-cuffs and all. We went crazy. Made me want to steal something so that I could travel in this thing again. Guaranteed nice views.
• I had an amazing time with Cedric and Ana. I had never travelled for so long with anyone I had not been romantically involved with before. Many laughs, similar, relaxed and happy attitudes to things going very wrong. It’s true that travelling with people is the ultimate test of friendship and even though I’ve only been friends with these guys a few months I think we passed the test with flying colours.
• Avoid relying on trains if you want to take in the scenery. You will fall asleep more than you would like. You will also read much less than you expect.
• Most of our expenses in this trip were not for food or alcohol, but forcoffee (thank you, Seven Eleven). If you plan to take it cheap (or free), be sure to be able to find or make cheap coffee. We spent €0 on accommodation, if you exclude two of the nights we spent in trains. 5 days of travel in 10 cost us €169 each.
• If you want to go to Scandinavia to drink, you are probably much better off in every way in your own country.
• Catching trains while having a hangover at the same time is very possibly the definition of Not Fun.
• Who’s up for the next travel to Hyperborea? This time to really see the Lights?
I regret this does not exist online in its entirety, I’m sure everyone would love it as much as I did. I still sing “Eg har klina med ein skallamann!” whenever I remember it, not caring about the risk of people misunderstanding me!
Eläimiä eläimille, a deliciously disgusting Finnish short. No trace of it exists online. I hope one day it does so it is available for all to see.
And the one that struck me the most, The Green Wave, on the forged elections of Iran in 2009 and the uprising that followed (click on the link just for the website design excellence, if regrettably you are not interested in the film itself).
Green is the color of hope. Green is the color of Islam. And green was the symbol of recognition among the supporters of presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who became the symbolic figure of the Green Revolution in Iran last year. The presidential elections on June 12th, 2009 were supposed to bring about a change, but contrary to all expectations the ultra-conservative populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was confirmed in office. As clear as was the result, as loud and justified were the accusations of vote-rigging. The on-going Where is my vote? protest demonstrations were again and again worn down and broken up with brutal attacks by government militia. Images taken from private persons with their cell phones or cameras bear witness to this excessive violence: people were beaten, stabbed, shot dead, arrested, kidnapped, some of them disappearing without trace. What remains is the countless number of dead or injured people and victims of torture, and another deep wound in the hearts of the Iranians.
THE GREEN WAVE is a touching documentary-collage illustrating the dramatic events and telling about the feelings of the people behind this revolution. Facebook reports, Twitter messages and videos posted in the internet were included in the film composition, and hundreds of real blog entries served as reference for the experiences and thoughts of two young students, whose story is running through the film as the main thread. The film describes their initial hope and curiosity, their desperate fear, and the courage to yet continue to fight. These fictional ‘storylines’ have been animated as a motion comic – sort of a moving comic – framing the deeply affecting pictures of the revolution and the interviews with prominent human rights campaigners and exiled Iranians. Ali Samadi Ahadi’s documentary is a very contemporary chronicle of the Green Revolution and a memorial for all of those who believed in more freedom and lost their lives for that.
After watching The Green Wave in Øst for Paradis, the local cinephile theatre, there was a live Skype discussion with members of Amnesty International (one of them was in Iran in 2009) and Ramy Raoof, an activist from Egypt that leaked info out through Twitter during the “Arab Spring” (and still does). He tried to make clear the point that Facebook and Twitter, often used as the taglines of the Arab Spring by Western media, were not pivotal in organising the revolution; even after Mubarak had cut off the Internet and SMS, people of course used other means along side digital means. Ramy stressed that, even if Twitter and Facebook had not existed, the revolution would still have taken place…
…and added that, in Egypt today, the “temporary military government” after Mubarak has taken too many liberties and is not looking to be all that temporary at all…
This film shook me as few have. Imagine living in a country where you could be tortured or killed just because you were out in the streets demanding your vote to count, where the government would stop at nothing to muff you or your blog. Where merely me posting this could be deemed a crime punishable by… well, any means necessary. Maybe it’s far too easy to imagine other countries having such horrible regimes. Anyone who has read or watched Persepolis will be familiar with Iran’s difficult recent past and to see that things have certainly not improved is at least troubling. It also made me think about our own situation in Greece and how far things could go before spiraling into a similar scenario… When Alex Grigoropoulos was shot in December 2008, Greece was in flames for a couple of days. What would happen if (young) people got shot every day? Would people still go out to protest? Or would our generation freeze in terror, remembering that real protest against governments caught with their pants down could very well mean very real death, or worse? I have to admit that I don’t know how I would act if faced with these options. Looking at all of history’s failed revolutions, I do not want to shed blood for a pre-determinedly lost cause. Hell, even if the cause was not lost, I don’t want to die! Would a successful revolution won with the blood of hopefuls be worth it? Is anything won with blood worth it?
Φόρος από τα 350 ευρώ το μήνα! 300 ευρώ θα παρακρατηθούν από μισθούς ώς τον Ιανουάριο • 4 χρόνια θα πληρώνουμε το τέλος ακινήτων • Αύξηση φόρου πετρελαίου: θα κάνουν 980 ευρώ τα 1.000 λίτρα • Σε θεωρητικό αναβρασμό οι βουλευτές του ΠΑΣΟΚ
ΦΟΡΟ εισοδήματος ακόμη και για όσους ζουν κάτω από το όριο της φτώχειας (6.500 ευρώ, Eurostat) επιφύλαξε η κυβέρνηση, η οποία ρίχνει το αφορολόγητο στα 5.000 ευρώ, κόβει μισθούς και συντάξεις, στέλνει στην ανεργία αμέσως 30.000 δημοσίους υπαλλήλους του στενού και ευρύτερου δημόσιου τομέα μέσω της εργασιακής εφεδρείας, αυξάνει το φόρο στο πετρέλαιο θέρμανσης, που θα μας στοιχίζει 980 ευρώ τα 1.000 λίτρα από τον επόμενο μήνα, και επεκτείνει τον ειδικό φόρο στα ακίνητα μέχρι το 2014. Η τελική συμφωνία θα κλειστεί με την τρόικα την ερχόμενη εβδομάδα. Εντονη δυσαρέσκεια, αγωνία και προβληματισμός, όπως και απόψεις που φτάνουν μέχρι και σε σενάρια κυβέρνησης εθνικής ενότητας ή και πρόωρων εκλογών, υπάρχουν στο εσωτερικό της Κοινοβουλευτικής Ομάδας του ΠΑΣΟΚ, μετά το νέο σοκ των μέτρων.
Mια ματιά σε αυτό το γραφικό από το παραπάνω άρθρο της Ελευθεροτυπίας είναι παραπάνω από ενδεικτική σχετικά με τις προθέσεις των «ψαράδων». Τα υψηλά εισοδήματα δεν έχουν υπωστεί καμία αύξηση στην φορολογία, η οποία παραμένει χαμηλή (κάτω από το 25%). Και τι κάνουν; Μειώνουν το αφορολόγητο στα 5.000 ευρώ. Είναι σαν να πηγαίνεις για ψάρεμα, να πιάνεις ξιφίες και αθερίνα (για να μην πω κριλ και θεωρηθώ υπερβολικός), και να πας σπίτι σου για να ταίσεις την οικογένεια σου με την αθερίνα. Εν τω μεταξύ έχεις και φαλαινοκαρχαρίες σε αυτή την φανταστική θάλασσα, αλλά ούτε καν σκέφτεσαι να τους χρησιμοποιήσεις για τροφή. Αυτοί όχι μόνο θα έτρεφαν την οικογένεια σου για έναν μήνα, αλλά ολόκληρο το ψαροχώρι για τρεις.
Ίσως επειδή στην δική μας περίπτωση οι φαλαινοκαρχαρίες δεν είναι τόσο Μεγάλοι Φιλικοί Γίγαντες…
1. Μηνιαίος μισθός 6.100 ευρώ. 2. Σύνταξη μετά από 4 χρόνια βουλευτικής θητείας. Ποσό σύνταξης μηνιαίως 4.880 ευρώ. 3. Για συμμετοχή σε επιτροπές, 250 ευρώ την ώρα… 4. Οι βουλευτές της επαρχίας παίρνουν το μήνα 1.000 ευρώ για ενοίκιο. 5. Όλοι οι βουλευτές παίρνουν άπαξ 1.500 ευρώ για οργάνωση γραφείου και 1.000 ευρώ τις γιορτές λόγω αυξημένης επικοινωνίας με τους ψηφοφόρους τους. Το Δώρο Χριστουγέννων, Πάσχα και επίδομα αδείας είναι ξεχωριστά. … … 6. Δικαιούνται 104 αεροπορικά εισιτήρια ετησίως δωρεάν και απεριόριστες μετακινήσεις με ΟΣΕ και ΚΤΕΛ. 7. Πολυτελές αυτοκίνητο, δωρεάν καύσιμα με επίδομα 600 ευρώ το μήνα, ένα χωροφύλακα για φρουρό, 4 κινητά τηλέφωνα τελευταίας τεχνολογίας και ένα στο σπίτι, σταθερό, όλα δωρεάν. 8. Απολαμβάνουν πλήρους ασυλίας για όποιο αδίκημα διαπράξουν κατά τη διάρκεια της θητείας τους ως βουλευτές. 9. Δεν πληρώνουν φόρο για ένα μέρος του μισθού ή της συντάξεως. 10. Δικαιούνται γραμματειακή υποστήριξη για 4 υπαλλήλους και 1 επιστημονικό συνεργάτη. Όλους αυτούς τους πληρώνει το Δημόσιο. 11. Δικαιούνται άτοκα δάνεια ως βουλευτές και ως επαγγελματίες. 12. Δωρεάν γυμναστήριο, σάουνα, νηπιαγωγείο για τα παιδιά τους. 13. Τηλεφωνική ατέλεια. 14. Δωρεάν επισκέψεις σε αρχαιολογικούς και καλλιτεχνικούς χώρους. 15. Δωρεάν διόδια. 16. Δωρεάν εισιτήρια, ξενοδοχεία, γεύματα όταν ταξιδεύουν στο εξωτερικό ως μέλη επιτροπών κλπ…..ΟΙ ΑΜΟΙΒΕΣ ΤΟΥΣ ΤΗ ΣΤΙΓΜΗ ΠΟΥ ΟΙ ΠΟΛΙΤΕΣ ΣΤΕΡΟΥΝΤΑΙ ΤΑ ΒΑΣΙΚΑ …
English translation for my non-Greek speaking friends:
1. Monthly salary 6.100 euro. 2. Pension after 4 years of parliamentary service. Pension is 4.880 euros per month. 3. For participation in comitees, 250 euros per hour. 4. PMs from rural Greece receive 1.000 euros per month to pay their rent. 5. All PMs receive 1.500 euros to reorganise their office and 1.000 euros during holidays due to increased contact with their voters.Bonus salaries paid at Christmas, Easter and paid leave count separately… 6. PMs are entitled to 104 free air tickets per year, as well as unrestricted transportation by train and intercity bus. 7. Luxury car, free fuel paid for with 600 euros per month, bodyguard, four state-of-the-art mobile phones and a fixed one at home, all for free. 8. They enjoy full parliamentary sanctuary for any legal offense they commit during their work as PMs. 9. They do not pay tax for part of their salary or pension. 10. They are entitled to secretarial support for 4 employees and one scientific adviser. All paid by the state. 11. They can take out 0% interest loans, as PMs and as professionals. 12. Free gym, sauna, kindergarten for their children. 13. –no idea what this is, someone help!– 14. Free visits to archaeological sites and artistic venues. 15. Free tolls. 16. Free tickets, hotels, meals when travelling abroad as parts of delegations etc… THEIR INCOME, WHILE CITIZENS ARE LACKING THE BASICS…
Κι έτσι, οι αθερίνες εξαφανίστηκαν από αυτή την κατα τ’άλλα μαγική θάλασσα, και η τροφική αλυσίδα έσπασε. Κανείς δεν ξέρει τι απέγινε το ψαροχώρι. Κάποιοι λένε ότι ήρθε η πολυεθνική αλιευτική από την διπλανή πλούσια μεγαλούπολη, αυτό θα εξηγούσε τα ιχθυοτροφεία τα οποία βρίσκονται τώρα στο πρώην ψαροχώρι, αλλά κανείς δεν δίνει πολύ μεγάλη σημασία…
“Just when you thought it was safe to be a anarchist, Gunderloy and Ziesing are at it again, asking questions you thought you had answered, or maybe forgot to ask.
This anthology brings together a collection of essays by people who positively relish a good think – about anarchy, themselves, and so what difference does it make anyway?
More than a series of opinions, Gunderloy and Ziesing offer a dialogue among people who see their common ground as the greatest opportunity offering diversity, individualism and personal freedom.
Who are the anarchist? What, why and how are they in the world today? Maybe you’ll find some answers here. Maybe not. What you will find is an opportunity and a chakllenge to think about it!”
And make me think it did. This book could well be an 101 in Anarchy, but with all the advanced and meaningful debate that is going on about it in a completely different kind of depth, questioning at some points the very foundations of anarchy — see there? Anarchy is not something that is supposed to have “foundations”, yet we speak of it as a concrete idea, just like any other theory out there. You’ll encounter many such examples when reading this book if only because it includes texts by so many people. I wish I could find the original paper the replies to which comprise most of this book just so I could post it here and further spark debate myself. It was published in 1991, on the eve of the information age. 20 years later a highly anarchical World Wide Web is dominating our lives. You’d think a lot must have changed, surely it must have. You might be surprised.
I found this book completely randomly, in a second hand book sale in Aarhus and got it for only 5kr. It might be extremely hard to find, so if you’d like to read it I can lend it to you — yes, whoever you might be, dear reader (BookCrossing might also work well…) It’s a book I’d like to read again though, there’s just so much thought, references and a lot of optimistic ideas distilled in such a small number of pages.
This was the first audiobook I ever, uh, heard. It took me 9 hours of listening to Sean Runnette’s good narration over 3 days and it was a unique experience, just walking around while at the same time reading a book, or should I say, following a story. The added layer of voice and sound effects makes it more of a temporal experience than reading the book, with all the good and bad that fact might imply.
Machine Man tells the story of a thirty-something end-all be-all nerd, the kind of person that wanted to be a train when he was a child (yes, be one), loves describing the world with adjectives like “inefficient”, replies to everyting with an “OK” and manages to score zero at any social skills test thrown at him. Give this guy mad engineering skills and an amputated leg and sit back and watch (or read, or listen).
It was very engaging after the third or so chapter, I could see where this was going, but I’d need Z-specs to see how FAR it might go. The plot follows Charlie Newman’s addiction convincingly. I don’t like giving much away when writing my reviews, but I can’t help but applaud the side characters, they are particularly strong here; the ambitious but unappreciated Cassandra Cautery, Lola Shanks (Charlie’s prosthesiologist) and maybe my favourite character in the book, Carl.
Actually, the side characters are so strong they serve to underline Charlie’s single-dimensionality. So comparatively shallow is he that it’s easy to see him merely as the character carrying the plot’s central idea, its gimmick (I don’t like this word). This is perhaps the book’s single biggest problem for me, Charlie’s actions often seem unrealistic and his thoughts completely alien. I cringed all the time when he spoke, or at least when he attempted to. It’s no accident others — even his own self– compare him to a machine even from the start of the book. Are all labcoat-donning specialists so close-minded and awkward? If so, that might explain a lot about science in our world today.
I should however cut Charles Newman’s tormented existence a little slack. It might very well be that Max Barry wanted him to be so exaggeratedly awkward and obsessive-compulsive for comic relief (the book has many dark, uncomfortably funny moments), but also maybe to indirectly comment in his own way on the very foundation of the book’s premise: “biological vs mechanical”, “inefficient vs superior” and perhaps even “mind vs body”, the kind of dualist dilemma that is very natural to follow such what ifs as the one portrayed in Machine Man. What part of us is “us”, and what isn’t “us”? Is the brain more part of us than the rest of our body? Is it, then, that houses our consciousness? These questions are the delicious driving force of the plot and the thinking it provokes.
For example, in a part of the book, Charles says that when people achieve or pull off something (obviously –but exactly because of its obviousness, often overlooked– using their bodies), it’s we, as in our self, our consciousness, that achieved whatever it is that was achieved, the body shrinking into the tool used by the mind/brain it was and has always been, whereas in our failure or when an uncontrolable situation goes bad, we become disassociated with our bodies, they’re Others, and as all typical Others receive the blame for any problem. It reminds me of Heidegger’s take on how Dasein interact with things, the difference between ready-to-hand and present-at-hand. When our body works well, it’s ready-to-hand, it disappears in the background, too obvious to consider, only working as a tool. When it fails to serve us perfectly, its short-comings made obvious, it breaks, it becomes present-at-hand: welcome for optimization, as if it never belonged to us a tall. Machine Man gives food for many such enjoyable parallels.
In fact, Machine Man is one of the most sophisticated cultural items that deal with cyborgs I have encountered and had the pleasure to dive into. It’s definitely filled with all the appropriate nerdy scientific jargon that would satisfy any sci-fi fan (I wonder how many readers will find themselves identifying, even a little bit, with Charles!). But more interistingly, it goes beyond respecting the deep ontological problems that arise from the idea of cyborgs, prosthetics, implants and bio-enhancements, and their implications, if any, for (Cartesian) dualism. It uses these philosophical connotations and gives an interesting and believable story of what meddling with all this might bring about. In other words: it’s not as simple as it looks — it never is — but this time there’s a realistic, (super)human story behind it.
I almost forgot to mention that it has bits of horror and and it’s sprinkled with romance and action and a lot of suspense. You just keep reading, wondering if Max Barry will go all the way. He goes all the way… and then some.
~ I wonder when that had happened, that we had started making better machines than people.
I was writing the review for Machine Man to appear shortly. And there were several powercuts. Yes, even Danish infrastructure can occasionally fail to cope with storms, apparently. I expected all I had written to disappear. But no, after I recovered my tabs from Firefox, there was my unfinished review, waiting for me. It whispered to my ear “it was so beautiful, the tunnel of light…” Thank you, Goodreads. You have acted in ways to prevent the unfortunate pain of a critical spirit. I wish more sites worked in ways as to prevent unecessary suffering in this already burdened world.
June 15th was a cloudy evening in Mytilini and me and my friends weren’t able to catch the lunar eclipse, much to my extreme disappointment. But now that I see this, I hardly care that I was not able to catch it…
After months of anticipation and exhausting preparations and planning for taking photos of the total lunar eclipse, everything went wrong due to a severe thunderstorm during the phenomenon. Everything? Well…fortunatelly no, because for approximately 10 minutes in the middle of totality, a small window in the sky allowed me to see the Moon in the Earth’s shadow and shoot this unbelievable photo. The shot was taken from Ikaria island at Pezi, an area known as “the planet of the goats”, because of the rough terrain with the strange looking rocks. Source: http://www.greeksky.gr/files/photos/moon/20110615Eclipse.htm
Τα συγχαρητήρια μου στον φωτογράφο, αυτή η εικόνα είναι απλά ύμνος στην ομορφία του ουρανού…
Higher education has been a hot topic for years in Greece. There has been a tug-o-war between the government and the academic community. The latter has been at worst trying to maintain a status-quo and at best seeking some beneficial changes in the educational system in Greece that have, however, thus far been stopped by greater social problems, for example: deep corruption, the constant loss of ground of government-owned services to private companies (the most prominent of which have indeed managed, quite [c]overtly to become caliphs instead of the “democratically-elected” caliphs) and a general collapse of any sense of unity or consensus on any subject among the Greek population, a live-and-let-die, every-man-for-his-own, a rise of absolute individualism that is in tune with the global spirit of the times. The government is under pressure by the powers that be, whoever those may, to act in accord with the spirit of these times: a deep and scary neo-liberalism that seeks to destroy any and all social and consciential conquests of the past few centuries in the name of the “free market”. It is a paradoxical aim, since at the same time this “free” market remains free only for those that already have the means necessary. The rest of the population is carefully prevented from coming close, with more severe taxation, liquid work contracts, lower salaries and worsening social care. A free market for a slave population. It reminds me of the good old tidbit of wisdom: “Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity”…
I decided to write this post today for three reasons. The first is that the Ministry of Education’s reform for Greek universities, a plan born by and completely in agreement with the above spirit of the times, is being discussed, agreed on in the Parliament and being set for immediate enforcement as I’m writing these lines. The second reason is that I have seen the quality of education possible and desirable in Denmark where I’m currently living — here they’re following the same spirit of the times as mentioned above, but at least they’re doing it well, with a straight face and with a clear conscience. The result is a higher education of great standards in every single way (and it’s free). To compare the situation in Greece and in Denmark just because they’re based on theoretically similar economic models would be like comparing a souvlaki bought from Plaka to one bought from your favourite souvlatzidiko. Just because they’re based on the same recipe does not mean they’re one and the same.
The third reason is that I’ve talked to Spanish people a lot about the situation in Spain, where similar laws and measures as the ones being cooked up in Greece as we speak have been in effect for a long time. Students not only have to pay for every single ECTS point they study for, if they fail their subject they have to pay for it again, and again… They have to pay for every single book, they have to pay for their enrollment, they have to pay for pretty much everything. This has neither made studying fairer nor has it upgraded the quality of education, it’s just the government freeing resources for other, presumably more important things (such as the Papal visit). My friend Ana, whenever I tell her that education in Greece is basically free, shakes her head in disbelief, uttering Spanish curses. Whenever I tell her that the Greek government wants to make things just like in Spain at the same time having a huge smile about it and shamelessly blurting out things like “national bet” and “responsible decision”, she cries: “Don’t let them Dimitris! You are so lucky to have free higher education. You must fight for it and defend it. Don’t let them take this away from you! Don’t be like us…” It’s a wake-up call, a sudden change of perspective, even moreso because I’m seeing extraordinary cultural similarities between Spain and Greece and the patterns followed in our economical problems. I can relate to the Spanish people and they can relate to us.
So what are we going to do about all this? Are we going to let them do as they please with our prospects and our lives? Will the spirit of post-modern individualism mark another victory this day? If it is does, I’m afraid it’s going to be another early, black celebration…
If you only know Daft Punk from their high-school-party hit One More Time, you just don’t know them enough. The French duo impressed me a lot once I dug a little deeper into their music. This video is their 2001 album “Discovery” set as the soundtrack to a one-of-a-kind anime film that tells the tale of an alien rock band being abducted to Earth (yes, the other way around from what we’re used to) and the dark secret behind the abduction… You might already be familiar with, indeed, One More Time, Aerodynamics, Harder Better Faster Stronger and others that, for me at least, became personal favourites. There’s no dialogue;the only narrative mediums are Daft Punk’s music and the animation, creating a followable story, a satisfying sync of audio/video that serves the purpose of the music video and an experience open for interpretation all at the same time. What else can I say? Enjoy!
As a sidenote, I might add that I’m sharing this with you despite having no delusion that most about no-one will watch a random video, just because I or indeed anyone said so, if it’s longer than just a few minutes. In this case, it’s 65 minutes. The medium is the message and ours has become the medium of the frighteningly short attentions spans…)
