Article  by Nikos Kotzambasakis

 

UN – FAO – Crete Link

 

http://www.fao.org/mountain-partnership/news/news-detail/en/c/1270100/

 

 

The dictatorship of mandatory happiness – website www.protagon.gr

 

Electrospun silk biomaterial scaffolds for regenerative medicine www.elsevier.com

 

Silk proteins for biomedical applications: Bioengineering perspectives www.elsevier.com

 

Link: Honorary Doctor of the Military Academy of the Hellenic Army, Rector Eleni Glykatzi Arveler

Warp and weft newspaper TA N EA.gr –  Kostas Georgousopoulos

http://www.tanea.gr/old-page-categories/books/article/5468705/sthmoni-kai-yfadi/

 

https://avarchives.icrc.org/Film/5446

 

https://avarchives.icrc.org/Film/5446

 

Mrs. Eleni Glykatzi Arveler speaks to Cretalive about her beliefs, her life, the history of the country, Europe, but also about what she wanted to do and couldn’t do…

 

Meeting of Young Creators & Ancient Drama – V. Terzakis Pallikari, 5 Jul. 2017 Delphi

 

“Growth through… poverty!” – Protagon, July 9, 2017 – Ioannis Pallikaris

       The Penelope Gandhi Mission participates in the Meeting of Young Creators on the theme “Delphi Festivals & Ancient Drama” organized by the European Cultural Center of Delphi, from June 30 to July 5, 2017 in Delphi.

Program

Information

Presentation by Mr. V. Terzakis Pallikaris

 

Indigo sheep & colorless protests – Aboubakar Fofana, ed. LIFO

 

http://www.documenta14.de/gr/notes-and-works/13201/aboubakar-fofana-text-ile

Translation/edited by: Panos Sakkas

Website www.skai.gr 05.12.2016

Heraklion, November 5, 2012

A supplementary article to the Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations (UN) in December 1948, concerns the right of every people to freely enjoy the benefits of their culture (this article was unfortunately not accepted).

So the problem immediately arises: what do the goods of a culture consist of, especially one specifically recognized as a particular achievement of certain groups, peoples, and individuals?

In other words, what is culture? Is it only a legacy that the past bequeaths to us, or is it also a dynamic of the future (i.e. a proposal to create a future).

Let me say right away that the heritage of the past is twofold: it consists of material heritage (monuments and material goods of every nature, e.g. works of art or crafts), but also of the goods provided by intangible culture (e.g. monuments of speech – songs, proverbs – dance acts and steps and all the know-how, that is, the practical knowledge associated with the traditional, ancestral practice of craft professions and not only.

I should note that the French declared French cuisine a cultural monument (something that UNESCO also recognized as a world monument). And of course, with this in mind, we can classify medical wisdom, love potions, spells, cooking recipes, etc., as intangible culture.

But in the dynamics of the culture of the future, we must include all learning. With the reflective (it is what mainly guides Americans); I teach, I touch the future (I teach, therefore I touch the future).

After all, the infamous Silicon Valley has as its motto “the best way to tame the future is to create it.”

So let me put it more simply that the use of the old model, but applied to new conditions, constitutes the basis of every kind of civilization. In other words, this civilization is based on the certainties of the past for the creation of a better future.

But let’s come to our topic: Cretan weaving. And here you will allow me to tell you an event related to the traditional Greek weaving.
We are in the early 80s when the Parisian chancellery of the Universities of which I was then the rector, decides to make one of its old, but classical buildings available (after it has been renovated of course) for the hospitality of distinguished foreign scientists.

This is the Suger Center, which has been operating excellently since then without interruption.) For the equipment and furnishings of his hostel, one of the most important sponsors was Mrs. Anette Schlumberger, (I think the stepmother of our own Kafatos). However, Anette set a condition for the sponsorship that alienated the French: All bed linen, she said, must be woven by Greek, if possible Cretan, weavers. That is, they must be Cretan patanias.

I hastened to declare that I was not the originator of this strange term, as the French believed because of my origin, but I accepted it and tried to meet the requirement. The sequel was expected.

We did not find weavers ready to undertake the project and Mrs. Schlumberger, who had gifted Greece with a bunch of provincial libraries, entrusted me with it, after of course accepting that we use her donation according to the needs of the hostel (i.e. French bed linens were purchased). So Anette confided in me her question: Why do the Greeks let their entire folk culture, their entire ancestral craftsmanship, which has produced true masterpieces, decline?

I am sure that today, if she were alive, she would hasten to congratulate Mrs. Varvara Terzakis-Pallikari for her effort. So I do so, almost on her behalf, wishing every success to the national, artistic and cultural work of the University of the Mountains, which with the Penelope-Gandhi program revives the effort of the a/worker Florentini Kaloutsi-Skouloudi.

I will begin my contribution to today’s gathering here in Crete, for Penelope Gandhi, by saying that I would like to enjoy Cretan hospitality one day, in a home that will be dressed, both on the floor and in the living rooms and on the walls, with textiles from the island, textiles that could even be window curtains. I am talking, of course, among other things, about the long wall hangings or the tablecloths of festive tables, which Rodoula Koumari studied so carefully.

I would also like to see with my own eyes what the books say, namely that the colors and patterns that are prevalent in the mountainous areas are different, and the aesthetic standards in Omalos are different, and certainly different on the beaches, where the elaborate patanias with ship decorations are also presented.

As for the purely Cretan creation, I would like to see in reality, something that I suspect without having any relevant evidence, namely that the Minoan vases, the palace frescoes of Knossos that Florentine Kaloutsi had studied as well as the representations of the Phaistos sarcophagus, among others, would somehow, I think, influence the Cretan weavers, like an aesthetic cryptomnesia, in the choice of colors and perhaps thematic textile depiction. An example is the double axe that adorns a multitude of Cretan weavers.

But why am I talking about weavers, when it is now proven that (as Gandhi taught, to whom Mrs. Barbara Terzaki Pallikari, the inspirer of this Mission, refers) at least in Asia (Asia Minor not excluded) male weavers practice this predominantly female art with greater talent. Female, at least this is made clear by traditions, vocabulary and ancient mythology, but also by the revival of Cretan weaving by Florentine and its numerous female workers.

After all, she had to devote herself to the knowledge and execution of this noble profession, an American one, in order to become, at least for a month, the weaving of fashion and the trend, within the bosom of the so-called high society.

I am talking, of course, about Eva Palmer Sikelianou, whose work, along with Angelos, of course, enlivened the Delphic festivals in the years after the Asia Minor disaster, and whose loom is preserved almost intact in the Sikelianou Museum in Delphi, which anyone can visit.

But since I mentioned, even briefly, the Asia Minor catastrophe, let me note in passing that the settlement of Asia Minor refugees in Greece gave an exceptional boost to carpet weaving, the craft that the Greeks of mainly central and eastern Asia Minor practiced with particular success.

Let me say in this regard that the poor neighborhood of the refugee settlement where I was born is still ashamed of the existence of an imposing building, the very tapestry factory of Byron.

And here perhaps I should ask myself whether the Turkish Cretans, while they were on the island, had their own weaving habits and methods, which they would perhaps now transfer to the Asia Minor homes that they inherited with the exodus, the expulsion of the Greeks. In the same way, we should see whether the long-standing Venetian presence on the island left its mark on the weaving habits. That is, if there is, let’s say, weaving of complete wall decoration and if so with what motifs, perhaps only imported ones.

I should add that it would not be out of place to wonder whether Cretan literature, Erotokritos or Eriphyle, left their traces on the themes of weavers, since it became so well-known and beloved throughout Greece, despite the Western European elements it contains, which will certainly be studied by anthropologists and ethnographers, much more than I (I see, for example, my friend Louisa Karapidaki in the room). Those who have certainly already been recruited, for the success of the work of this suis generis university, with the name of the University of the Mountains.

It would be laborious and certainly unnecessary to point out that the study of the art of weaving has many facets. They concern the materials used (wool, cotton, linen, etc.) in the preparation of the threads, their coloring, and of course the designs, both those chosen to cover the floors (kilims and rugs) which perhaps once also served as sleeping mats, as well as those chosen for the use of bedspreads, pillows, covers, seats and beds, or even clothing.

The study, among other things, of the size of each woven item, can reveal a lot about its use, but also, I would say indirectly, about the way of life, according to the seasons. It is also obvious how indicative of the household economy, I would say, the production of woven items is, when it is done either for personal use or for local alternative or non-small trade.

And here, of course, I am not talking about the industrialization of weavers, which I consider foreign from the artistic perspective of weaving that interests us here.

But I think I went astray, talking about the obvious or about things and topics that I have little (if not no) knowledge of.

However, I want to emphasize the need for scientific research on Greek weaving, in order to show its uniqueness, if any, in a sector that has certainly received inter-Balkan influences.

This at least shows me a thorough research on Albanian carpet weaving, promoted and carried out by the University of Tirana with the title (I translate: “Albanian Kilims and Carpets”). I simply recognize without effort, motifs that made me familiar, that made me familiar, let’s say the Arachovite, but also the northern Hellenic woven fabrics, I recognize them in the rich photographic material of this publication. Of course, the Albanian study does not hesitate to present (among other things) variations of the double-headed eagle motif, a motif that it considers to be inspired by Albanian.

Let us consider the observation as a remnant of the Byzantine presence in Albania (the Illyria of the Byzantines), although we must not forget that the Double-Headed Eagle is today the National symbol of the neighboring country.

It would certainly be a good idea if part of the Greek study of weaving was to include its possible Byzantine origins. Let me just remind you that hexamità, diblatta and triblatta are the terms, among others, that characterize the types of Byzantine weavers (not only of course the official kekolymmeni, those that are forbidden to leave the country (such as the precious Palia), but also the simple creations of anonymous artists, who worked to decorate with vellum (that is, with curtains) the openings between the columns of perhaps poor churches, but also that of Hagia Sophia.

Since we are talking about Byzantium, let me remind you here in passing that Byzantine fabric, that is, woven fabric, was a product of high technique, whose works were examples of unparalleled art.

Imperial workshops in Constantinople and the provinces (e.g. in Egypt and Syria before the Arab conquest), but also in Corinth and Thebes, produced the famous veiled despotic, those intended for the emperor and the court, works of art with religious and secular depictions (hunts, lions, eagles on rosettes: aetaria, gryparia, etc.).

These precious fabrics, made from colored silk threads, embroidered with gold threads, were state property that the emperor often used as gifts to foreign rulers.

The museums of Europe, as well as its cathedrals, are filled with these precious items, which enriched the countries of Europe, mainly after the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by the Crusaders.

The gold-colored Byzantine textiles were intended, apart from the court, for the rich churches (of course those that depicted religious themes) but also for the rulers. Asterius of Amaseias (who lived in the 6th century) scathingly mentions that many rich people, because of their garments decorated with depictions (I copy): “Painted, story-filled walls”.

The names of these weavers sometimes reveal their type and color. Indicatively, I mention the sentes, the linomalotaria, the acid megalozila, the green-folded and semi-apple-folded fabrics, which are sought after. These valuable fabrics, known throughout the world, since the fabric travels easily, became an object of plunder that indicates the technological superiority of Byzantium.

Let me remind you that the Normans, in a raid against Greece in 1185, captured the workers of the workshops of Corinth and Thebes (there were also private workshops such as those of Danielis in Patras). From these captured weaving workers, the Normans, and later Western Europe, learned the production of the famous brocards.

However, the habit of weaving religious themes should certainly be considered a Byzantine survival. We find them on bedspreads (the so-called patanias) but also on the numerous towels that the young girls of Crete wove for their dowries. Moreover, one of the themes that adorn these towels is the psiqui, that is, the nymphic procession, the word psiqui is a highly Byzantine term opsikion (it has exactly the same meaning), a term that gave the name to the region (opposite Constantinople) where the imperial procession originally went (this is the theme opsikion, in Bithynia)

Weaving has always been an art, a divine basis for universal artistic achievement, for the Greeks. Its tool, the loom, as its etymological origin shows, is the tool of civilization par excellence. In Crete it is the workshop of art and civilization.

And regarding the divine quality of weaving, I will recall here the contrast between Arachne and the goddess Athena, whose characteristics, moreover, one of her numerous epithets (it reminds him of the other Virgin, the Virgin Mary) and therefore an epithet of Athena, was Ergane (i.e. the protector of domestic life and creation, as shown by the myth of Pandora, whom Athena endowed with domestic skill).

It is not without significance that at the Panathenaic Games, in a formal procession, the Athenians offered to their patron goddess a veil woven by the virgins of their city.

Let me remind you of the dispute between Arachne and Athena, as Ovid recounts it for us in his Metamorphoses.

Arachne, known for her skill in weaving and embroidery (mainly in Lydia), was the daughter of Idmon, who specialized in dyeing threads.

Arachne’s fame turned into arrogance, so much so that Arachne asked to compete in weaving skill with Athena herself, although the goddess tried to dissuade her.

In the competition, Arachne chose the works of the gods and especially their love adventures as the subject of her weaving, which provoked the wrath of the Virgin Athena.

So the goddess tore the spider’s web and the Spider committed suicide out of despair. Then Athena transformed her into the familiar wingless insect and cursed her to weave while hanging.

Conclusion: no one can outdo the gods in anything. (Prometheus knows something about this, let’s say) but we, as a tribute to the skill of the unfortunate daughter Arachne, kept her name as a synthetic of select textile creation. I am talking of course about the sought-after spider webs.

It is time to conclude, perhaps with a parallel. Just as in Homer, Penelope’s constantly unfinished weaving is the symbol of the future and the instrument, rather, of marital fidelity, let me wish that the newly established University of the Mountains, which has a reference precisely to Penelope, will make the unceasing effort to revive every ancestral cultural folk experience, with perseverance and faith in the future.

And of course, above all, I would like to wish that the divine art of weaving will flourish on the island of Crete and progressively throughout the country, as long as its old servants and maids still live and know its best secrets.
The University of Crete, following in this footsteps of the University of Ioannina, where a thesis on the weaving of Metsovo was recently defended, must collaborate for the success of this purpose of the University of the Mountains, for the weaving of Crete, the Penelope Gandhi Mission.

I will emphasize it again, in conclusion. The knowledge of weaving is a valuable element of intangible culture. That which UNESCO is trying to rescue internationally today, while the products of this unparalleled craft are brilliant examples of the material folk culture of the country. In other words, weaving participates in the dual cultural creation that I mentioned at the beginning.

I will put it more simply: every woven item is undoubtedly a work of art, both traditional and technical. Weaving is a combination of past and future artistic art, it is worth writing its history, listening to its secrets and appropriating its irrigated teaching for a more authentic and beautiful tomorrow, what the place so needs, especially today.
I congratulate Mrs. Barbara Terzakis Pallikari and her team
for their pioneering thinking and initiative, for the resurrection of the sacred weaving art of great Crete.

 

The Daughter of the Mountains invites Europe

 

Hier webt man seit grauer vorzeit, E. Sapouna Sakellaraki mag. Merian Kreta

 

 

From: Nikos Stampolidis
Date: 2 June 2016 at 08:30:47 EEST
To: “ panoreon@panoreon.gr ” < panoreon@panoreon.gr >
Subject: Reply: Penelope Gandhi Mission – Heraklion Archaeological Museum

My Barbara!!! my beloved!!! good evening,

Today, finally the carpenter brought me my loom!!!!!!!!
How much joy I have!!! It is indescribable, like a little child, who is brought the most expensive gift in the world, that’s how I feel!
My Barbara, I thank you very much, if it weren’t for you, this would never have happened.
I thank God, that I met you in Ziro, on that blessed day and the memories of
my grandmother’s loom, which were hidden for so many years, woke up in me.
I put my loom (I say it and I don’t believe it) in the room where my sweet mother was.
I decorated the space with some weavings from the hands of my beloved grandmother, Agapi.
You don’t know how much I begged many carpenters to fix my grandmother’s loom, which I brought from the village,
and they didn’t want to, maybe they didn’t know? or I was looking to buy an old one and nothing was happening. Fortunately, Michalis was found,
it took a long time, but he fixed it.
My sweet Varvara, I feel that everyone, my grandmother, my grandfather, my mother are next to my loom and are watching me.
I feel an aura, a sweetness, a magic, a peace flooding my house, as soon as my loom arrived.
My grandmother’s loom, which I grew up with until I went to high school, we lived in the same yard in our village,
is next to me! in my house! I wish I knew her little soul feels it.
Of course, it had a lot of wear and tear from the beetle and it was not visible from the outside and so, the carpenter made me
a copy, but he omitted the details, the carvings on the horseshoe and a few others. He will come to fix the color better
and I begged him and he will do for me what he omitted. But I have from my grandmother, shuttles, ardakto, ardakti, tyligadia,
bobbins, I also found old combs.
I also received the threads for the noses that Elli and I ordered from Athens.
Now, after Easter, first God willing, we will slowly arrange everything, with my teacher, Elli, who is an extraordinary
person, with kindness and gentleness of soul.
I am sending you some photos so you can see my loom and I am also treating you to a little gift, which we made yesterday.
My Barbara!!! My Barbara!!! I am sending you a thousand kisses and all the thanks in the world, from the bottom of my heart.

Julia

Manolis

Vasilis Karapostolis

TO VIMA, 26.03.2016

 

One of the most striking paradoxes of our time is that, although insecure, people avoid taking precautions. There is a pervasive “numbness”, everyone perceives it, everyone feels it. But their thinking avoids asking the question clearly and openly: How is it possible that there are so many dangers around and that the person threatened cannot and almost does not want to become alert?

But the issue has not arisen recently. Its roots go deep into time and anyone who takes the trouble to see where they go will find that they arrive where the new faith begins, the only faith in modern times: the faith that things will finally “work by themselves”. Automation has been elevated to a modern deity. It has been said so many times in vague terms that it has come to mean nothing, to not touch the problem at all at its core. For what else could happen with the deification of automation than to reduce the will to act? And this is precisely what is being observed today. The prolonged trust in the solutions that some “mechanisms” would offer has caused irreparable damage to the very ability of the human mind to be led to decisions, to revise, to repair, to change direction. Human activity was deemed unnecessary, since instead, cables operated, lights flashed, doors opened and closed on their own, and rockets were launched with the push of a button. Fatally, paralysis came.

What a difference with previous times when, because material supplies were fewer, mental reserves were greater. The ancient Greek state seeks its guardians and has no difficulty finding them. Rome also orders legionaries to characteristically hold their finger in front of their mouths to ward off drowsiness during the evening watch. Symbolically, it is an attitude that says: Stay awake, do not rest, listen in the night to what is brewing and act accordingly.

More or less the same rule will apply later, in any case where both states and individuals are surrounded by threats. The medieval knights, the Byzantine akrites, the militiamen in the French Revolution represent only some of the types of this readiness. It is, obviously, foreign to modern customs. Is it because the past was more stigmatized by warlike tensions and imposed on everyone to be combative? But even the relative world peace today, despite the individual conflicts, has long been mined. The war is simmering beneath the surface. But while the vibrations are already being felt, the nerves are finally fading. The population of the Western Hemisphere, although more worried, is still waiting for “something” that can free it from the torment of uncertainty and, above all, from the agony of making decisions. But this “something” is slow to appear. The market does not bring it, technology does not announce it, and science has long since shrugged its shoulders and bent back over its microscopes, tasked with discovering the elixir for extending life.

Meanwhile, life has become excessively wrinkled by its fear. Everyone is afraid of suffering a blow to their income or health and, trembling at the worst possible possibility, they take precautions so that their days become even a little longer. We live for the Little. This means that contrary to what is trumpeted, it is not life and happiness that interests people, it is the avoidance of pain by all means. And not only pain. Of the slightest difficulty, the slightest setback. Anything that comes contrary to desire panics them. Where is the technological weapon, this discovery that would save those threatened? The news reports are sadistically shouting it: the water on the planet is dwindling, energy sources are drying up, fanatical Muslims are becoming even more ferocious, refugees and immigrants are increasing and the Chinese tiger, drunk on French wine, is roaring terribly. What will the West and especially Europe do? In its despair, it withdraws its old expectation that its intellect will find a way out. The “something” will not come. So what else is left but for the “someone” to come? A daredevil with an unyielding political will, contemptuous of all hesitation. The time has come for a new Caesarism, prophesied (German) Spegler. Was he right? The whole issue will be decided soon. And certainly not by a referendum.

 

Mr. Vasilis Karapostolis is a professor of Culture and Communication at the University of Athens.

THE MOUNTAIN STUDIES OR THE VALUES OF THE ERA

The fate of man is linked to earthly action, inscribed on the horizon of time, trained in the decay and clouds of the times. This interaction constitutes a polyphony of speech and actions, like a river flowing in the ocean of history, nourished by many streams. Man is the creator and protagonist, the opponent to the unholy threat, the inspirer and demarcater of tomorrow.

A small group of people with strong hearts and a strong soul began ten years ago to travel the ocean of our lives. Testimonies, excursions, poetry of people with different experiences, medical knowledge and assistance, dozens of pages of humanity and cooperative kindness. People ran before nightfall and caught the next dawn next to the pot with the basil waving happily in the wind, looking at the gnarled hand of the old man and the messenger of life, as he whispered the syllables of his time. People who inspire love and solidarity, fellow human beings and scientists together, with the Rector as leaders, the pride of Chania, our Crete, with the vigilance of medicine and universal offering, Varvara Terzakis Pallikari with the agonizing glory (fame) in the dissemination and upbringing of the times and people who gave birth to our handmade culture, weaves and intertwines her own word and art. Next to them, the elite students of education and training from the Cretan University with spiritual anguish and offering of love.

Meeting many, authentic people in this nature, in the village of levity and proud speech, breathing the fragrance of sage, we do not chase away the swallows of joy that look around the windows of the Kraniotic school. The philanthropic Mayor holds us well with his kindness, the order of his generation with the blessings and the hospitable language and reception of the namesake Fr. Andreas. Today and tomorrow we will also travel as fellow travelers in this peak hour. Nature welcomes the Mountain University, the view of the wilderness ignites us with its wood, the edge of the stone, the flight ladder of the herds, turns white with joy. This place, full of footsteps from the old and footsteps from the new, lives and breathes, like fresh bread on the board, like the trembling cheese waiting for the Mousterians. The loom of time weaves a new song that will be sung on the board of experiential education that the master craftsmen of the PtO set up with knowledge and manner. And as Elytis used to say: “Over the ruins the first Hesperus and elsewhere” my foundations are the mountains and the mountains are lifted by the people on their shoulders and above them the memory burns”. A worthy life. Memory of the righteous!

Manolis G. Androulidakis, Dr. F. (Orthes-member of the Greek Academy of Sciences)- 2/3/16

 

The PtO was born one dawn in the thoughts of a few people, nourished by knowledge and contribution, it walked quickly through the streets and neighborhoods of people of labor and creation, it listened to their speech. Then it sat next to those who stayed up all night out of love for life, the creatures of nature, following the day’s path. It looked at their hands full of labor and took care to compare them next to the new ones, those who came from another place, born in the world of the city, moving among the anonymous crowd.

In front of them, a school, a company of swallows, a heart of people with a basket full of household waste, next to and at the root of Krana’s stand, the aori. Everything is blooming and blossoming!

These fraternal hands touched every joy of creation, they rose up so that the moon would grow, they held each other tightly in the dance. Opposite and always vigilant was their inspirer, the spiritual sponsor, the visitor of love and the guide of knowledge.

The PtO matured and gave joy to its first creators, it spread the wings of people, it set up a school of hope and primitive creation with the incorruptible folk culture and its little gods as its master. Nature, as the generator of the winds, the joy and the sorrows of life, did not leave them unprotected. It opened its roads wide, where the mitato became a workshop of life, the flax climbed, as in the old days, on the grandmother’s wheel for the diasimo. The vein and the water of life for those who are still thirsty…

And the company holds together well, as long as the ardachti is heard in the wind, as long as the volunteer doctors “look people in the eye”, making a wish: that the PtO may live, may it grow old uninhibited.

With our love.

Your hard work is worthwhile!

Only a burning vision can give life to such a text of soul, heart, truth. Bright thoughts, earthly colors, harmony of nature, balance of the soul in a world divided between matter and spirit. The PtO is the bridge of spirit and matter, which is why it captures health and harmony in all its glory. I wish you well and enjoy the long journey of the development and evolution of the PtO.

“And this is a pebble, at the edge of the wave in a stormy sea” – Prof. Ioannis Pallikaris

The Pebbles … An amazing collection of works by Syrian Artist
– Sculptor Nizar Ali Badar depicting Life in
Syria today … “All these pebbles are part of my life and they are here …
The people, the love, the children, the joy … The sadness, the misery, the
war, the death and the exile too …’ The artist herself writes.

 

 

 

Aphrodite of Milos with a skein and arugula

A possible solution to the mystery of what the marble statue of the “Venus of Melos” was holding in its hands seems to have been provided by American author  Virginia Postrel , with the help of 3D printing artist  Cosmo Venman . “It’s an enigma ,” says Postrel.

” She looks serenely at something we do not see, something that, we assume, her hands were holding .” According to the author’s assumptions, “Aphrodite” spun wool.

Postrel believes this activity is connected to the women who offered their sexual services. ” It was a way for them to spend their time productively while waiting for customers.” I thought the ball on the rocket wouldn’t have been made of marble because it would have been too heavy, so I painted it gold as if it were made of wood or a hollow gilded bronze sphere. The thread wouldn’t actually be wool, so I used a gold chain,”  says Venman.

The artist believes that the activity of the hands of “Aphrodite” is the only one that could be connected to the specific and particular pose of the statue. The Aphrodite of Milos is one of the best-known original ancient Greek sculptures worldwide. It was created in the late 2nd century BC, perhaps by an Asia Minor sculptor, and is part of the movement of the revival of the values ​​of classical art at the end of the Hellenistic era.

The statue was discovered on April 8, 1820, by a Greek peasant, in a place identified with the ancient Gymnasium of Milos. Today, it is kept in the Louvre Museum. At times, other art critics have imagined the statue holding a mirror or an apple or lulling a baby.

 

http://www.tovima.gr/culture/article/?aid=703055

 

 

It’s becoming a school without lessons.

ARTICLE in Protagon

Andreas Zamboukas

 

The latest news from Finnish schools is about abolishing the subjects! They haven’t decided yet, but the direction is right. The questions that arise for us here in the peculiar south are two: What makes these people experiment without constraints and how is it possible to design a school without classical subjects?

The answers are as simple as a smart elementary school student could come up with before losing his spontaneity. They experiment out of necessity. Because they constantly try to “play” with the new so they don’t get bored. And yet, they see what’s around them and teach it in schools.

Finns can and do discuss without making fun of each other. A great privilege. So some people noticed that in life people experience phenomena, systems and situations and not cognitive subjects. That Mathematics, Language, Physics and Biology are knowledge bases but they are not life. And that it would be more functional for students to integrate all classical scientific knowledge into studies of phenomena.

Here are some examples of phenomena and systems that exist in the reality that surrounds us. Economy, political discourse, ecology, cultural environment, media discourse, advertising, technology and construction, natural phenomena, entrepreneurship. All of these can be choices for a school as action topics for the entire season. So, the cognitive subjects could be included there, revealing their experiential use in reality. First the example and then the theory. First the contact with practice and then the practice of theory.

Go ahead and say these things here. Everyone will find something to isolate you so that you lose your focus. They are ready to say no. They are looking for an opportunity. And here is the great sorrow for the complex Greece that resists everyone and everything. The apotheosis of the partial and the case study.

Our students finish high school and forget all the fragmentary knowledge they learned in their twelve years of school. I’m not talking about the excellent ones, I’m talking about the many. They don’t know what business or web banking means, they don’t know how to read an article, interpret a political speech, make a transaction, evaluate a movie or understand a natural phenomenon. Mathematical operations, paragraphs, the laws of physics were lost in the endless hours of boredom in the dull school classes. In other words, they are functionally “illiterate” and inadequate in the experiential understanding of social happenings.

New schools need topics and phenomena and the Finns will be the first to do it. They didn’t think of it first but they will be the first to do it. Because they have been freed from the disease of conservatism and the phobia of evolution. They will make the modern teacher manage knowledge within reality and not reality within knowledge!

But our difference from the Finns is qualitative and immorally provocative. Observation, research and action require courage, acceptance and consensus. No irony and snobbery from the unfortunate little people who have filled the schools and the educational committees of the Ministry of Education. We have a society that fights for pensioners and is indifferent to the young. There is little room for ideas and original thoughts in schools. Only for grades, marches and parades…

The mistake is that the primitivism and “fundamentalism” we experience considers man more as an idea than as a phenomenon. We need enlightenment to change. And in schools. And in our democracy…

Life as a teacher

eff. NEWS 28.02.2015

By Kostas Georgousopoulos

 

In a tragic time, we met teachers who left their mark on us. They didn’t bring their hunger to the classroom, but they carried an air of freedom and pride.

Today I want to talk about some of my teachers, and it will be like talking about the teachers of an entire generation. A traumatic generation, since we were born under the Metaxas dictatorship and experienced the Albanian War, the Occupation, the Civil War, and the Right of the Truman Plan, military courts, political ideologies, and a higher education after our adolescence where we paid tuition and university textbooks cost a fortune.

And yet, during this tragic era, those of us who grew up in the countryside, and especially on the outskirts of the two homelands, since at night you often heard gunfire and mortar fire, in the extreme neighborhoods, from whomever camp they were being fired, we met teachers who marked us for our entire lives with the seal of a beneficial aura and a knowledge of the foundations. We had teachers during the Occupation who did not bring into the elementary school classroom their poverty, their hunger, and the illnesses of their children who had no medicine, but conveyed an air of freedom and pride that came from that old school of teaching with the pen and the squid.

We had teachers who arrived in our province in rags and had studied pedagogy in the great centers of Europe. They knew the Decroly method and other methods of initiation into knowledge that came from Rousseau’s “On Education or Emile”. We learned to write with improvised printing presses, where we composed our first texts with small pieces of paper with the letters, tones, spirits and punctuation marks printed on them.

We learned arithmetic by “shopping” at the grocer, the greengrocer, the convenience store, converting large coins into lianas, cubits into meters, ocadas into kilograms, miles into kilometers, going out to the market, into the countryside, and into large public places.

We visited our farmer relatives in the fields with corn, wheat, tobacco, cotton, chickpeas, vegetables, watermelons, melons. We shook the olive trees with the cane together with our aunts and grandmothers, accompanied the cart with olives to the oil press, harvested the vineyard, crushed the grapes in the winepress, filled the vats with green olives, the jugs with oil, the barrels with must.

We sat cross-legged on the tristrata and helped mothers, aunts, and brides shear the sheep, collect the wool, comb it, make it into thread, and thread it through the loom. And next to the weaver, we learned about warp and weft, how domestic economy transforms rags into rags, and how she designs and weaves curtains, mats, towels, and carpets with Genoveses and Erotokritos.

We gathered in groups in the courtyards and “passed” tobacco, spread it out to dry, and when it was dry, we made the packages for the merchant to come and pick them up…

 

We always went out with our teachers to the fruit fields, we talked with the producers about tree diseases, worms, bad winds, frost. We learned to graft the wild pear tree and enjoy pears the next year.

We planted bushes, pulled up weeds, cut wood for the fireplace and gathered mulberry leaves. It was then that in every house on the table of the guest room that was rarely opened, we spread mulberry leaves and the silkworms grazed. And there were nights when in our wakefulness we heard the crunch of their teeth as they devoured the mulberry leaves.

At school and in our homes, we had comfortable cages with rabbits, we fed them, mated them, observed their courtship and witnessed their births.

We visited the large farms where we saw pigs in the mud that had reached a ton. Motionless. We saw them slaughtered by the specialist butchers and watched the utilization of the animal’s products. We tasted its fat, learned how the fat is made, how the syglinas are preserved in brine, how sausages are made, how even the pig’s tail was used as a fly swatter. Many of us who had a pig slaughtered at our grandmother’s house took its skin to the shoemaker and for a long time had beautiful boots with studs on the soles so that we wouldn’t melt them while playing and hiking.

Our teachers guided us to study the ceremonies, the customs, the holidays. Thus, with eyes and ears open, we observed the preparations for a wedding, the washing of the dowries, the yuko where the dowries were displayed so that people could boast of the bride’s beauty. We saw the groom’s shaving and the feasting with friends and the bridegrooms.

Then we learned about the effects of the wedding ceremony and the three-day feast with the instruments and the wishes in the appropriate order: father, mother, mother-in-law, best man, brides, grooms, bridesmaids, groomsmen, friends, girlfriends. And the dances in the same order.

But we were also present at births. We would run to call the midwife or the doctor when our mother, aunt, older sister, or cousin’s waters broke. With eager eyes, we would watch the older women and neighbors boiling water in large cauldrons, preparing the towels. And with open ears, we would listen to the groans of the woman about to give birth and then the crying of the baby and the wishes that he would live and be happy.

 

Our teacher once made us lift our clothes and show each other, boys and girls, our navels, so she could talk to us about the umbilical cord and lift us up by praising our mother, who through this cord we are flesh from her flesh.

Death at that time was a shared experience. There were no refrigerators or funeral homes. The beloved deceased dominated the large room of the house for twenty-four hours. The women mourned, the mothers and neighbors served cognac and coffee, and the men in another room smoked and told stories sometimes shared with the deceased, sometimes about the harvest and sometimes about expectations for the future. And we children under the tables, in some corner, tried to understand the mystery of death and get used to loss.

After the eulogy, the table of consolation, of bliss, was laid, where relatives, friends, neighbors and often even enemies came with their food (pasta, pies, pilaf, fish soup – never meat) and then one could see how LIFE claimed its rights. The widow, the overjoyed mother, the wife, the sister who had kept the deceased awake had accompanied the coffin on foot to the cemetery and had returned, now dry from tears, reentering the dance of everyday life to serve wine, bring tableware, make coffee, and often remember happy events of life with the departed.

Oh! yes, the teachers of our time have taught us well the book of nature and life.

 

DPM 51 PDEA Cultural Activities of Active Perception Athens Video Art Festival (AVAF) | Maria Tsoukidou Alexiou – Academia.edu

See below in the file that follows the paper on the examination and development of cultural activities in the era of economic crisis

 

Work Cultural Activities Active Perception Athens Video Art Festival (AVAF) | Maria Tsoukidou Alexiou 

 

 

 

 

A timeless topicality

 

Kathimerini, 12.10.2014

By Stelios Ramfos

 

 

Divisions and quarrels are a timeless reality of our social and political life. They systematically thwart the march towards the future, which calls us to share it with our fellow human beings. Self-destructive discord and futility are fueled by a poisonous suspicion, a source of intense negativity. Distrust is combined with confinement to identity conventions (bonds of kinship, locality, unity) and constitutes a negative form of faith. If faith is a spiritual tradition (unconditional) in a certain certainty, there is also its positive version, after reason, outside identity conventions. In the latter case, we speak of trust. Distrust and trust are forms of faith in relation to the future. Hope connects them to the future as passive resistance or as effort and openness. In persistence, desire is substituted for things, illusions are cultivated and self-confidence is wounded. In effort, we attempt in the present with reality before our eyes and the inner stability that the spirit of reliability evokes.

Distrust stems largely from insecurity towards the unusual and the different. The skeptic sees them as a threat and therefore understands his identity as a lifeline and not as a springboard, so he is inspired by the familiar and the given, never by the coming and the creative! The past dominates his soul as eternity and therefore nothing in his life and his action is surprising. The desire for stability is imposed on the need for reality to move, while its subject experiences the expectation of the future as an obsession with its inactive self as its content.

We Greeks are gullible and suspicious. How is it possible for some to believe blindly, being inherently skeptical? To be gullible and continually deceived? This can happen when faith is exhausted in wishful hope as a passive obsession. Then disbelief gives in to the fantasies of passive desire, which is surrounded by a halo of religious truth, regardless of where it ends. In order to further preserve the psychological superiority of desire over reality, we unconsciously do everything not to disturb our illusions and we ask politicians to lull us to sleep with fairy tales. We, the large popular audiences, do not want the truth; politicians, in order to seize power in one way or another, respond. When the pressure of things forces some of them to face the harsh reality, then we revolt and look for a new, “indestructible” liar.

The crucial thing is that we get an image of ourselves from the desiring hope, that we exist for it by idealizing our anguish and our futility. Precisely because it is not our actions that give us identity but our pious desires, it would be legitimate to ask ourselves whether this is where the secret of our anarchic sentimentality lies. However, with our visionary fantasies we kill the future. If, for example, I replace in immediate life the unconscious radical insecurity with the feeling of an unparalleled national greatness, then I have nothing to learn from anyone and nowhere, nor is there anything in me to correct. I do not need reflection and self-knowledge; the idea I have of myself is enough for me. This idea-mentality cannot be covered in depth by any institution because it is a “word” eroded by imagination.

The great idea for ourselves was behind the great idea for Greece. And behind the current test of the construction of values ​​with the victims par excellence being credibility, meritocracy, evaluation – the coherent functioning of the state. The crisis is first us and then everything else. We will overcome it when we assume our responsibilities, instead of burdening them on others.

We will learn from the crisis if the spirit of trust and reliability acquires special weight in our lives. If it shapes consciousnesses and behaviors that will give place to suspicion and claustrophobic negativity in a way of perpetual transcendence in the field of values. When the content of hope instead of passive waiting becomes the transcendence. Values ​​do not refer to things; they refer to the meaning of things. They place above material conditions and their irreversible historical time, the criterion of people’s concern for their own lives and the lives of others. Hence, when I say “value” I do not think of some abstract model of perfection, such as virtue or goodness, but a spiritual factor that activates individuals and the whole in an uplifting way (e.g., the establishment of research as a way of working in AEI, instead of memorizing a single script). When, again, I say “transcendence” I think not of some mechanical overcoming but of the rebirth of things in their openness, their existence and functioning in concern for fellow human beings and the natural world. In its perspective, I understand the conquests of science and technology as a broadly coherent good, with meritocratic energy #certainly, but not one that discriminates people into privileged and pariahs. There is no point in restoring values ​​in a world that trivializes them. The crisis of values ​​is not primarily due to malignancy: It is linked to the adventure of individuality. The individual’s consciousness initially developed for a long time in the field of group psyche (family, race, ethnicity) integrated into the security of community life, while after the 17th century and especially after the mid-20th, it began to develop on its own without institutional systems watching its flight. A heartbreaking and fascinating era.

With this achievement comes the challenge. What is required is to leave behind the spirit of partiality and confrontation, so that we can actively participate in the project of shaping a field of relations of surrounding coexistence of distances and differences with the aim of the good of all. We are united by the work of justice in a condition of freedom and not by the idea of ​​unity. In the age of the Internet and Information Technology, this in turn implies as a first step a language of communication with otherness, an idiom and ethos of mutual trust, with the awareness that when the good does not reach everyone, we are doomed.

 

* Mr. Stelios Ramfos is a philosopher. Full text of his talk at TED-X Academy.

Bliss or pleasure

by TA NEA, 10.10.2014

By Natassa Bastea

 

 

Psychology has taken a step forward with new research on happiness and our genes. In the past, genes were thought to influence our bodies in a fixed and one-size-fits-all way. But now that the human genome has been mapped, that view appears to be changing. The chemical activity of genes, known as gene expression, is influenced by many factors. It is highly likely, scientists say, that our genes are so fluid that genetic expression changes according to our thoughts, feelings, and moods.

This is highlighted in the first major study on genes and happiness. Researchers from the universities of Los Angeles and North Carolina found that the genetic link to happiness runs in two directions. Those who feel happy because they have a sense of purpose and meaning in their lives had positive gene expression in their immune cells, particularly in terms of inflammation and response to viruses. This type of happiness has been called “eudemic.” In contrast, people whose happiness depends on consumerism and outbursts of pleasure showed much worse results than unhappy people in terms of the genetic expression of their immune cells – a greater tendency for inflammation and a limited ability to deal with viruses. This type of happiness has been called “hedonic.” The strange thing is that in both cases the person feels the same. As one of the researchers commented, “the person has the same levels of positive emotions in both cases, but the genome seems to react very differently.” In other words, we can fool ourselves into thinking we are happy, but our genes know better…

The scientific findings are consistent with the Indian tradition of describing two paths to well-being, the path of wisdom and the path of pleasure, with the latter considered inferior. Aristotle was the first thinker in the West to explore the roots of happiness, which he linked to a life of action based on virtue – a life with purpose and meaning. He also emphasized that happiness is not something abstract, it affects the things we do every day. After all, genetics and philosophy seem to converge.

Happiness is as important to human existence today as it was thousands of years ago. Perhaps a genetic study is not enough to make us reconsider our pursuit of it. But at least it confirms that ancient wisdom had the right approach. But to moderns…

 

‘Individual will in wild bee colonies’ Kathimerini 15.8.14

Kathimerini newspaper article

‘Experts divided on the future of robots’ – Kathimerini 8.8.2014

Article in Kathimerini newspaper

E’ Meeting with Alexandros of Lefkada

 

Text by Ms. Kassiani Kourti-Panagopoulou, philologist

Business Universities are not just connected to the market…

…it is the market in its most advanced and sophisticated version, knowledge of consumption and consumption of knowledge.

See the full article at the link below.

http://www.tovima.gr/opinions/article/?aid=615083

 

T

Yannis Metzikov, ‘The Three Chambers: A Confession’

 

How imposing and at the same time familiar the art of weaving!!!

Iris Tzachili, Professor of History and Archaeology, University of Crete 10 June 2014

Writing by hand benefits the mind

Article from the newspaper “Kathimerini” 04.06.2014

We are living in a critical century for the climate

 Article from the newspaper “Kathimerini” 04.06.2014

Craftsmen who keep tradition alive

TO ETHNOS Newspaper Website

Eleftherna for modern Pausanias

Article from KATHIMERINI newspaper, 20/05/2014

Our gorgeous girl was wearing a wedding dress, reports TA NEA May 16, 2014

 

Archives

• Our gorgeous girl was wearing a wedding dress, reports TA NEA May 16, 2014 1.55 MB

The Call of Africa, TA NEA newspaper, May 3, 2014

 

Archives

• The Call of Africa, TA NEA newspaper, May 3, 2014 204.84 KB

When fashion teaches history

 

The weaving art of Crete traveled to Volos

Event of the “Penelope Gandhi” Mission of the University of the Mountains

Archives

• Publication 2/4/2014 TO VIMA Newspaper 310.64 KB

The Rise of Capitalism

The Hellenic Center London | Venue Hire & Greek Cultural Center – Patterns of Magnificence: Tradition and Reinvention in Greek Women’s Costume

Patterns of Magnificence: Tradition and Reinvention in Greek Women’s Costume
Tuesday 4 February to Sunday 2 March – Great Hall, Hellenic Center The multiform traditions of Greek women’s dress are among the richest and most splendid in the world. This exhibition brings together over forty superb originals from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century, many of which will be on display in London for the first time. They include the richly embroidered costume from Astypalaia in the Dodecanese, the astonishing assembly of fabrics, colors and jewelery from Stefanoviki in Thessaly and the sumptuously brocaded dress from Janina in Epirus. The exhibition will also illustrate the interplay of native tradition and western aesthetic by displaying the court dress of the first queen of the independent Greek state, Amalia of Oldenburg and that of her successor at the end of the nineteenth century, Olga, the Russian-born consort of George I. These costumes represent a synthesis that is emblematic of 19th century nation building. Along with these costumes the exhibition will display for the first time in public two original dolls from a series commissioned by Queen Olga to form a miniature gallery of local costumes. All but two of the costumes come from the superb collection of the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation in Nafplio. The other two are being lent by the Benaki Museum of Athens and the dolls by the Lyceum Club of Greek Women, Athens. The curator of the exhibition is the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation’s founder and renowned expert, Ioanna Papantoniou. The designer is Stamatis Zannos. A fully illustrated catalog with seven essays by specialists in the field will be available for sale as will a variety of exciting design items created especially for the exhibition. During the period of the exhibition the Hellenic Center will hold lectures on costume, textiles, the reception of the indigenous tradition and the history and culture of Greece after independence. Some events, parallel to the exhibition, will also take place at the British Museum. The exhibition is open daily Monday to Friday, 10am-5pm and Saturday and Sunday, 12-6pm. Free entry. Lectures during the period of the exhibitions :-Wednesday 5 February – From Loom and Needle to Canvas and Paintbrush: Images of Greek Costume in 19th and 20th Century Painting. More… -Friday 7 February – Dressed to kill or Dressed to rule? More… – Wednesday 12 February – What Lord Byron Saw in Greece (1809-1811) More…

– Tuesday 18 February – Traces and influences of Greek Local Dress in Contemporary Fashion and Costume Design. More…

– Tuesday 25 February – Athena’s Craft: Greek Textiles and their Meaning. More…

-Friday 28 February – “Old embroideries of the Greek Islands and Turkey” An Exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club 1914: A Celebration and Commemoration. More…

 

Further information on 020 7487 5060 or at www.helleniccentre.org , www.patternsofmagnificence.org.

Guided Tours by the curator of the exhibition on Tuesdays & Thursdays, 12-12.45pm. Further guided tours for groups available on request.

Special Workshops modeled by the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation available on request on Saturdays & Sundays, 12-6pm.

The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Koula Lemos who gave so much for the Hellenic Centre.

Sponsored by George & Natasha Lemos and Dinos & Calliope Caroussis.

Organized by the Hellenic Centre.

The Penelope Gandhi Mission at the Benaki Museum November 2 – December 29, 2013

Mission Penelope Gandhi

The sacred art of weaving in Crete

 

Duration: November 2 – December 29, 2013

Lectures: Every Saturday, 6:30 PM & Sunday, 12:30 PM

(except 16 & 17.11.2013)

Special event: November 10, 2013

 

Benaki Museum | Main Building

Koumbari 1, Athens

 

 

PRESS RELEASE

 

On the occasion of the official celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the Union of Crete with Greece, the Benaki Museum is hosting the “Penelope Gandhi Mission – the Sacred Art of Weaving in Crete ” with a series of events.

This Mission is an innovative, voluntary, non-subsidized initiative of the University of the Mountains of Crete. It aims to save and revive the sacred art of Weaving in Crete, with the aim of transmitting it from the last initiated weavers to the younger generation and the aim of establishing a small-scale, high-value economy.

Weavers from different areas of Crete come to the Main Building of the Benaki Museum and, during its opening hours, revive the “unweaving” art.

WEAVERS:

Georgia Alygizaki (Kasteli Kissamos, Chania), Eftychia Motaki (Palea Roumata, Chania), Kalliopi Kourinou (Kroustas, Lasithi), Maria Xylouri (Heraklion), Nitsa Haireti (Anogia, Rethymno), Archontia Bouze (Alicarnassos, Heraklion), Katina Dramitinou (Amari, Rethymno), Stella Touli (Alicarnassos, Heraklion), Despina Mavraki (Heraklion), Malamatenia Ploumi (Sitia. Lasithi), Maria Mastrogiorgaki (Viannos, Heraklion), Androniki Marnelaki (Palea Roumata, Chania), Katerina Lempidaki (Elounda, Lasithi), Maria Arnaoutaki (Elounda, Lasithi), Stefania Modatsou (Aemonas, Rethymno) and Katerina Karampa (Rethymno).

At the same time, every Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning (except the weekend of 16 and 17/11/2013), Small Studies of Thread…Meaning are held in the exhibition space of the Benaki Museum, where visitors have the opportunity to watch the art of Weaving on the loom (argastiri) by weavers of Crete. The end of each presentation is followed by a 15-minute speech by experts (educators, archaeologists, historians, ethnographers, etc.) and a discussion with the audience. The speeches take place every Saturday at 18:30 and Sunday at 12:30, with the exception of the speech by Iris Tzachili, on Sunday 10 November, which took place at 13:00.

 

On Sunday, November 10, a special event was held in the restaurant of the Central Building for the launch of the “Penelope Gandhi Mission”.

At the same time, until the end of December, evenings with herbs, flavors and tsikoudies from Crete are organized.

The events will be accompanied by a specially designed Educational Program, which will be aimed at primary and secondary school groups.

 

 

SPEAK PROGRAM Small studies of the thread…meaning

 

02/11/2013, 18:30

Angelos Delivorrias , Director of the Benaki Museum

“The Penelope Gandhi  Mission at the Benaki Museum”

03/11/2013, 12:30

Ioannis Pallikaris , Professor of Ophthalmology, University of Crete

“University of the Mountains: actions and prospects”

09/11/2013, 18:30

Varvara Terzakis-Pallikaris, inspirer and coordinator of the Penelope Gandhi Mission 

“Penelope Gandhi , philosophy and identity”

10/11/2013, 1:00 PM

Iris Tzachili , Professor of Archaeology, University of Crete

“The multifaceted importance of weaving”

23/11/2013, 18:30

Louiza Karapidaki , Head of the Museum Collection of the Folklore Center of the Academy of Athens

“1963-2013: Cretan textiles, from use to decoration”

24/11/2013, 12:30

Rodoula Stathakis , folklorist

“The Woven Fabrics of Crete, Decoration and Symbols”

30/11/2013, 18:30

Theocharis Detorakis , professor emeritus of Byzantine Philology,

University of Crete

“The whole sea is a loom and Crete sits and weaves”

01/12/2013, 12:30

Helene Glykatzi-Arveler, Rector of Sorbonne University

“Cretan weaving”

07/12/2013, 18:30

Pella Kalogiannaki , Professor of Pedagogy, University of Crete
” The Teaching of Weaving in the Schools of Crete in the Context of the Penelope Gandhi Mission “

08/12/2013, 12:30

Aikaterini Kamilaki , Director of the Folklore Center of the Academy of Athens

“Wrecker, carpenter, tool”

14/12/2013, 18:30

Virginia Matseli,  Deputy Director of Modern Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture

15/12/2013, 12:30

Nikos Stampolidis , Professor of Archaeology, University of Crete, Director of the Museum of Cycladic Art

« Noblewomen Weavers in Homer and the Early Iron Age»

21/12/2013, 18:30

Xenia Politou , Curator of the Modern Greek Culture Collection of the Benaki Museum

“Cretan textiles and modern Greek weaving through the collections of the Benaki Museum”

22/12/2013, 12:30

Nikos Karapidakis, Professor of History at the Ionian University, Superintendent of the General State Archives

“The colors and their history”

28/12/2013, 18:30

Tasos Sakellaropoulos , Head of Historical Archives of the Benaki Museum

“The Union, Cretan volunteerism and mountain societies”

29/12/2013, 12:30

Tina Daskalantonaki, Member of the Penelope Gandhi Mission

“The perfection of Megalonisos”

Closing of the events of the Penelope Gandhi Mission at the Benaki Museum:

Varvara Terzakis-Pallikaris “Crete was weaving masterpieces on the loom long before the world discovered coins.”

Extreme poverty is apartheid

Publication in: TA NEA.gr

Gandhi, Christ and Churchill

Publication in: TA NEA.gr

The city as a starting point for culture and art

Ef. KATHIMERINI, 27.10.2013

 

International conference in Athens with disruptive ideas and proposals

By Margarita Pournara

The conclusion in one sentence? There is money. However, both the possible sources of financial support and the way of accessing the financiers have changed. The international conference held last week in Athens, with 500 participating artists and representatives of state or independent performing arts institutions from all over Europe, confirmed the new data: whether we like it or not, the state is abandoning its role as the main financial blood donor of culture in the Old Continent. So instead of wasting time on pointless protests and manifestos about what the state should do, all that remains for us is to adapt rapidly to the new, demanding reality. And who will lead this effort? Young Europeans, the age group that is currently between 25 and 45 years old, that is, people who know how to use new technology and social media, who have innovative and disruptive ideas, who are not afraid to dare even if they fail.

Interventions

It is the first time that the International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts (IETM) and its members visited our country, in an interesting three-day meeting that took place thanks to the cooperation of many Greek organizations and foreign institutions, such as the British Council, etc. Its title, “Tomorrow”, with a program of discussions and artistic actions, which spread, from October 17 to 20, throughout the city. The most important thing was the exchange of views on what is happening in each country, but also the reference to specific initiatives that show us the way. We are listing some of them because they reflect a pioneering spirit.

Budapest: A theater group is looking for space, but is short on funds. It occupies an old theater in the Buda area and co-locates with lawyers, who offer it free legal coverage for the new operating regime.

Berlin: An old printing factory is being transformed into a cultural center, but it also brings in other young professionals who are not related to art. The artists shared the space with merchants and hairdressers, expanding their audience and ensuring revenue for their financial sustainability.

Britain: A budding writer decides to take a long trip to Europe to write a book, without a penny in his pocket. He advertises his idea through the Internet, finds free accommodation in the various cities he plans to visit, while raising his expenses through crowdfunding. Specifically, he sends postcards to his sponsors, with his travel experiences, in exchange for 10 euros.

Life does not stop, nor does art become paralyzed in the face of the crisis. But nothing can be done if we continue to think like in the era when state subsidies were the water in the mill of culture and artistic creation. The period when cultural policy was part of the broader formulation of public policy or when it was simply enough – in cases like our country – to have the appropriate connections with power to get your hands on the funds has passed irrevocably. Today, on the contrary, we must seek new collectives, synergies with the private sector and penetration with actions into the urban fabric. One of the most basic axes of the conference was precisely the parameter, namely that the city is the starting point for the formation of a new mentality in the management of cultural events. Author John Kiefer, an independent cultural policy consultant with big names like Tate Modern on his resume and a book on culture and crisis in 2011, explains the reasons to “K”.

Interesting experiment

“If we focus only on art, we have lost. If we think of culture in relation to the city and the improvement of our daily lives, then, yes, we will find allies to achieve our goal. The city of Medellin in Colombia was the largest “territory” of Pablo Escobar with terrible crime. The authorities did an interesting experiment. They built amazing libraries in elegant buildings in the most degraded and dangerous neighborhoods. Within a short time, they became the hangouts of students and college students and life changed from one day to the next. Let’s take Greece now. You should not think about how to find money for culture, but how to make Athens a better place, with the help of cultural activities and creative people. The message is simple: whatever you do in the urban fabric is immediately visible, quickly bears fruit and brings citizens together at a time when they themselves are struggling to grasp something positive around them.”

Great. And how can one proceed with self-organization models when everything is collapsing? Andy Field, also British, who has extensive experience in the field of independent actions and coordinated the relevant discussion at the conference, has the answer: “When there is a crisis, many buildings that housed commercial businesses, factories, etc. are abandoned and are available for other uses. But it is not enough for an artistic collective to rent them cheaply or simply occupy them. The most difficult thing is to attract the public, to turn them into popular hangouts, to address not only people interested in art, but a larger part of society. So synergies, open platforms, communication, extroversion, the use of new media are essential, otherwise these initiatives will not last long. The hardest battle is not to find solutions, but to change minds and leave behind the old tried and tested and failed models. Many artists are afraid of joint actions with private sector entities because they think this will bring a discount on aesthetic values. However, in order to move forward, we must learn to negotiate and impose our terms, without rejecting someone in advance because they are, for example, a company.

Artists equal active citizens

As Berliner Johann Sandig stated from the conference podium, he made a “beautiful mistake” a few years ago. He decided to establish a cultural center, Radialsystem V. “Even today, seven years later, it is not certain that we will be able to make ends meet financially, even though we now have our own audience. But we have no regrets at all and we learn from our mistakes every day. I think the biggest shift in the cultural sector is that its people have finally understood that they must open up to society and listen to it. To let go of their ego, their narcissism and see the collective issue. Imagine, for example, a theater that, when it is not performing, invites the residents of the area to an open assembly on neighborhood issues. People turn their backs and distrust the political system, seeking new forms of expression. Why shouldn’t artists serve this pressing social need? We’re not talking about parties, but about a new political discourse that has to do with urban development.

Besides, in both politics and art, you cannot exist without the participation of the people…”

Crete and Globalization

 

Crete and Globalization by Stylianos Alexiou

Students advise businesses

Ef. TO VIMA, 13.10.2013

By Marnie Papamattheou

Ten businesses on the one hand, mostly family-run, with roots dating back decades and several employees hoping for their survival and growth; forty students and eight professors on the other. These two parties will participate from the positions of “trainee” and “trainer” respectively in the first cycle of the Social Contribution Network of the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB), which is expected to have borne fruit by Christmas.

Taking the lead, the administration of the University of Economics and Business has designed a major social contribution program, setting an example to follow. Speaking to “Vima,” the Rector of the University of Athens, Mr. Konstantinos Gatsios , expressed his certainty that the program will have immediate and positive results in the field of small and medium-sized enterprises that will participate.

Ten businesses, in the first phase, will receive business advice and a comprehensive financial and technical plan for their next moves from scientists at the University of Economics. The advice is provided free of charge and the aim of the authorities is to help entrepreneurs survive in difficult conditions, overcome the obstacles of recent years, and serve the long-term but extremely important national goal of development.

“Our action was announced last May, inviting participation from both students and small and medium-sized enterprises,” says AUEB professor Mr. Sergios Dimitriadis , who is part of the group of professors running these unique courses. “From the initial applications for participation of 25 companies and 140 students, we are starting today with ten companies that will be supported by 40 students in ten corresponding groups who will help them in their plans with the supervision of eight university professors .” By Christmas, the first “trainees” will have completed their business plans and the next cycle will begin in March 2014.

“These studies require funds”

“The help is invaluable,” says Mr. Orpheus Athanasiou , a representative of The Writing Fields, a company that holds a global patent for bookbinding and is now attempting to open its operations abroad. The request for Mr. Athanasiou, who runs a family business, is to be able to connect with a sales network abroad.

As he explains, this is a business with several employees that publishes note products, diaries, notebooks and has been active in the market since 1960. The marketing part and the possibility of developing his business into an export one will be analyzed by representatives of the University of Economics, so that they can quickly provide him with an efficient solution. “These studies usually require business consultants, for whom many companies do not have the necessary funds to hire,” says Mr. Athanasiou, mentioning that his business’s products are already in demand by similar companies abroad.

A group of ten students from the institution will work on this, presenting the appropriate business plan under the supervision of a professor.

“We have already organized our team and will focus on the fact that this particular company has an innovative patent abroad,” says Konstantina Dimoka , a student in the Department of Marketing and Communication.

“For us, this work we have started is very important, as we will help businesses that have a deficit in the marketing sector to survive the difficult period we are going through and to expand,” he points out. “I believe that we are sending a message to other universities and students to become aware, to design corresponding programs, so that we can all get through this period together with the least possible losses,” he adds.

“Students are fresh minds”

The University of Economics program covers the entire spectrum of small and medium-sized enterprises, where advisory support services will be provided.

Mr. Anastasios Lozos runs a family business that has been active in the wholesale trade and repair of household appliances for 110 years. “The economic crisis we are going through has made us understand that we now need to organize, new opportunities so that we can expand,” he tells “Vima.” “In essence, this is the only way not to make salary cuts or reduce staff. We simply have to increase our efficiency in a period in which market traffic is decreasing,” he says. The issue from the perspective of his business is how to increase sales without increasing its fixed costs.

“Many times if you don’t have a third eye to see your mistakes, you can’t identify the problem,” says Mr. Lozos characteristically. “The students of the University of Economics have a very good theoretical background, they are fresh minds, with new ideas, and that is exactly what a business that often doesn’t look ahead needs,” he points out. His business is expecting the results of the collaboration by Christmas so that it can “restart” the engine.

 

Experience and knowledge
From theory to practice
The program of the University of Economics has been enthusiastically received by the students, especially the older ones. “I really want to help,” Nikolaos Bougioukas , a fourth-year student at the Department of Administrative Science and Technology, tells “Vima.” As he explains, the student groups have already been formed, the professors who will supervise them, and the program begins immediately. “We will have results in December. We want to help and our professors thought of this action,” he states.

“The SSB (Supporting Small Businesses) social service network is an initiative of the University of Economics and Business and concerns the presentation of solutions to business problems that will have been declared by businesses,” says Professor Mr. St. Dimitriadis . “Our goal is to educate students, strengthening their knowledge and experience with the appropriate tools for future professional development, but also to highlight volunteerism in the economic life of our country,” he concludes.

The provision of support services will be for a total duration of 100-120 hours (by all team members) over a period of no more than two to two and a half months. The students will visit the company, and representatives of the company will be able to visit the AUEB for a meeting with the team and the head professor. At the end of the work, a presentation with the team’s proposals will be delivered to the company.

“Indicative examples of topics include the preparation of a business plan, pricing policy issues, product costing, logistics, information systems, etc. The work may also involve the implementation of some actions (i.e. not only be supportive), e.g. creating an Excel file for costing, creating an account/website on social networks, and so on. There will be a selection process for corporate requests. Each request will be checked to match the level of the students,” say university representatives.

 

Creative activism

 

 

by TA NEA, 17.08.2013

New Eras: Why is the world “boiling”?

Sunday Vima, 07.07.2013
By Ioanna Laliouti

A week ago, the image on the cover of the “Economist” caused a lot of discussion: next to Liberty Leading the People from Delacroix’s painting, a typical youthful figure from the 1968 uprisings, a man with the features of Lech Walesa – a reference to the labor mobilizations of the 1980s in Poland – and finally a young woman holding a mobile phone.

“The Onslaught of Protest” is the title chosen by the magazine to describe a phenomenon that is taking on global proportions. The mainly youthful uprising from Istanbul to Rio de Janeiro and from Wall Street to Tahrir Square.

What are the characteristics of this invasion and how strong a mark will it leave on History?

Today’s Cretans are descendants of the Minoans

Sunday’s Vima, 19.05.2013

By Ioanna Soufleri

 

London 

 

When Sir Arthur Evans discovered the remains of the civilization he named “Minoan” in the early twentieth century, he was amazed. Trying to explain the origin of such an advanced civilization, he believed that the Minoans were descendants of the advanced Egyptians. Evans’ idea remains valid today, although other proposals have been made from time to time.

 

The final answer to this archaeological question is now being given not by the archaeological hoe, but by genetics. A team of researchers led by George Stamatogiannopoulos, a professor of Medicine and Genomic Sciences at Washington University, analyzed DNA samples from skeletons found in a cave on the Lassithi plateau in Crete, which they compared with samples from 135 other modern and ancient human populations.

 

As the researchers report in their article published in today’s issue of the journal “Nature Communications”, the Minoan civilization developed during the Bronze Age by indigenous inhabitants of Crete, who were descendants of the first people who colonized the island, approximately 9,000 years ago.

 

DNA reveals

 

The study used mitochondrial DNA, i.e. the DNA present in cellular organelles called mitochondria, which are the energy-producing factories of the cell. Mitochondria are passed on to offspring through the mother. It was found that the mitochondrial DNA of the Minoans did not bear similarities to that of the Egyptians or other African populations. On the contrary, great genetic similarities were identified with modern and ancient European populations. Finally, the analysis showed the highest percentage of kinship of the Minoans with the modern population of Crete and modern Greeks from the rest of the country.

 

According to Mr. Stamatogiannopoulos, the scenario of the origin of the Minoans is as follows: “About 9,000 years ago, there was an extensive migration of Neolithic people from areas of Anatolia that today correspond to parts of Turkey and the Middle East. At that time, the first inhabitants of the island also arrived in Crete. The mitochondrial DNA analysis that we carried out and the comparison with other populations show that the Minoans have the strongest genetic correlation with populations of the Neolithic Age as well as with ancient and modern Europeans and especially with the population of Crete. According to our results, the Minoan population developed 5,000 years ago in Crete from ancestors who already inhabited the island and had arrived there 4,000 years earlier.”

 

The Greek professor also noted that “genetic analyses play an increasingly important role in predicting and protecting human health. Our study highlights the fact that DNA analysis can help us not only have a healthier future but also understand our history. Similar research will help us discover the genetic relationships between Minoans and Mycenaeans and between the Greek tribes of Classical Greece.”

 

Fruit of cooperation

 

The work is the fruit of a large team of scientists from different specialties. Responsible for the statistical analysis of the data, which was based on extremely advanced algorithms, are Ms. Peristera Paschou, Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics of the Democritus University of Thrace, and Mr. Petros Drineas, Professor in the Department of Computer Science of Rensselaer University in the USA.

 

Mr. Manolis Michalodimitrakis, Professor of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology at the University of Crete, coordinated the identification and collection of the ancient bones used for DNA extraction. Archaeologist Dr. Vassilakis and anthropologist Dr. McGeorge provided the bones that were the subject of the research. The late archaeologist Nikos Papadakis, who as director of the Archaeological Service of Agios Nikolaos, was a strong supporter of the study, which began more than ten years ago, made a great contribution.

“Clean Clothes” Company

16. NEWS 16.05.2013

By Pericles Dimitrolopoulos

 

The Clean Clothes operation was opened in Bangladesh by the death of 1,127 workers in the fire at the Rana Plaza factory near Dhaka and its subsequent collapse. Italy’s Benetton, Spain’s Zara, Britain’s Mark & ​​Spencer and Sweden’s H&M are some of the clothing giants that use cheap Bangladeshi labor to sew their clothes and yesterday signed an agreement to improve safety conditions in factories in this Asian country. The agreement that was signed introduces the institution of an independent inspector of companies and unions who will be responsible for implementing “credible and effective” fire safety measures. It also provides for strict and continuous inspections to ensure that safety rules are implemented. “We said it and we did it. “With this initiative we will protect our people in Bangladesh,” said a Benetton spokesperson, while his colleague from Marks & Spencer emphasized that “we can no longer pretend that nothing is happening.”

The list of brands participating in the Clean Clothes operation has not been made public. However, the American PVH, which owns the Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein brands, the German Tchibo.sq, the British Tesco and Primark have also signed on. On the contrary, the American Gap appeared cautious. “Certain legal issues need to be clarified. But what we mainly want is a universal agreement and not just European companies,” said a spokesperson. The also American Walmart, for its part, moved unilaterally by announcing that it would carry out inspections of its 279 units in Bangladesh that manufacture products on its behalf, while committing to sharing the results of its investigations. The first idea for the agreement had been dropped two years ago. Negotiations had begun between company management and the two main unions, IndustriAll and Uni Global Union, which represent some 70 million workers in 200 countries. Until the tragedy of April 24, negotiations were proceeding at a snail’s pace. It took the death of more than a thousand people in Dhaka and the raising of public awareness with one million signatures on the relevant appeal to give the green light. Inspections to ensure compliance with safety rules are the first step. Later, training seminars will be held for workers, while companies will have to invest millions of dollars to modernize their facilities according to Western standards. “They can’t do otherwise. They have to give their customers a clear answer. “The tragedy was the number one topic on Western television for days,” Steve Hawk, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, explained to the American media. “The message that reached businesses is one: ‘You can’t continue to make money this way and without taking into account the death of innocent people,’” he added.

“We are asking them to do what is right,” said Philip Jennings, general secretary of Uni Global Union. “There is no time for much discussion. It is a matter of life and death.” Things were not easy, however, when in the background there was a turnover of 20 billion dollars and a society in poverty. 4.5 million Bangladeshis work in 5,000 garment factories, while 80% of the staff are women. Many of them come from the province where they faced a problem of survival. Under these conditions, they were forced to choose a dangerous job. However, the continuous industrial accidents led the workers to the streets in 2010. In addition to businesses, the Bangladesh government also began to feel the pressure. And in her case, however, it took a tragedy for Textile Minister Abdul Latif Siddiqui to announce the creation of a committee to examine the issue of increasing the minimum wage, which is currently around 30 euros.

Education in the 21st century

Kathimerini / The New York Times 07.04.2013

By Thomas Friedan

 

When Tony Wagner, an education expert at Harvard University, describes his job, he says he is “an interpreter between two hostile tribes” – the world of education and the world of business, those who teach our children and those who give them jobs. Wagner’s argument in his book “Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World” is that our education system is failing to consistently “add value and teach the skills that matter most in the job market.”

This is dangerous at a time when there are fewer and fewer high-paying, low-skill jobs—the kind of work that sustained the middle class a generation ago. Now, every “middle-class” job is being pulled up, down, or out, at breakneck speed. That is, it either requires greater skill or can be done by far more people around the world, or it is being “buried”—made obsolete—faster than ever before.

That’s why the goal of education today shouldn’t be how to make every child “college-ready,” but “innovation-ready” – ready to add value to everything they do.

A difficult task. I sought out Tony Wagner and asked him to elaborate. “Today,” he replied by e-mail, “as knowledge is available on every device connected to the Internet, what you know counts less than what you can do with what you know. The capacity for innovation—the ability to creatively solve problems or bring new possibilities to light—and skills such as critical thinking, communication, and collaboration are far more important than academic knowledge.”

For our generation, it was easy. We had to “find” a job. But our children will have to “invent” a job. Sure, the luckiest ones will find their first job, but even they will have to reinvent and reorganize that job much more often than their parents did if they want to advance in their chosen field. If that’s the case, I asked Wagner, what should young people be taught today?

“Every young person will still need basic knowledge, of course,” he said. “But they will need, even more, skills and motivation, which are particularly critical. Young people who are intrinsically motivated – curious, persistent, willing to take risks – will be constantly learning new knowledge and skills. They will be able to find new opportunities or create their own – something that will be increasingly important as traditional careers disappear.”

So where should education reform focus today? “We are teaching and testing things that most students are not interested in, and information that they can Google and forget about once exams are over,” Wagner argues. “Over a century ago, we created schools that were factories for the industrial economy. Reimagining schools for the 21st century must be one of our top priorities. We need to focus more on teaching the ability and will to learn, but also on bringing the three most powerful ingredients of intrinsic motivation into the classroom: play, passion, purpose.”

The dialectic of Hestia

Kathimerini, 07.04.2013

By Nikos Xydakis

 

The closure of the historic Estia bookstore, after 130 years of operation in the center of Athens, signifies more than just a financial crisis and managerial failure. Of course, no business lasts forever, and the resulting gaps are always somehow filled. But on the occasion of the funeral on a street already full of “for-rent” funeral papers and dark storefronts, it is worth considering what the recent loss signifies.

Locally. For many decades, Solonos was a mythical river of books. Although it flows from the boutique-filled Kolonaki, a few vertical steps down its morphology changed: antique shops, picture frame shops, art, and immediately after that, Estia, a clearing before the Law School. There, the whole river changed: it was now carrying books, students, tutors, professors, publishers, poets and scholars. The Home, the Inland, the Law, the second-hand bookstores, the law bookstores, the Themelio, on Asklipiou the old Dodoni, now the State, Grigoris, Tolidis, Livanis, on Ippokratous Christakis, Papadimas, Kardamitsas, and here is the Chemistry, here the young-old Nautilus, we enter softly into Exarchia; lower down Protoporia and Enaltaktiko, and everywhere in Exarchia publishing houses, printing houses, tutoring centers.

That was the case. Not anymore. The closure of Hestia not only deprives Solonos of its initial signal of letters and arts, but also means the drying up of one of the last sources of the river. Long before the bankruptcy, Solonos had become poorer and changed; bookstores were closing and bakeries and cafes were opening. Ambitious hypermarkets were attracting the book-buying public, distracting it from traditional booksellers. Eleftheroudakis rose up as huge as Disneyland on Panepistimiou, franchised and modernized, bankrupted all the publishers, financially ruined his landlord, the Michelis Foundation, and continues to decay by bankrupting the Athenian Club on Amerikis Street.

What else does the dead Home mean? That the bourgeoisie of Athens cannot maintain even a single bookstore. Not as a hangout, not as a source of information, not as a center of knowledge and culture. Perhaps because there is no bourgeoisie that reads and seeks such a hangout. Or because the new upper class, the economically and politically dominant one, does not need a bookstore-hangout and point of reference, it does not need a historical center, it does not need literary and political cafes, it does not need a Pop 11 record store, dialogue, friction, exchanges. It does not need the elegant Orphanidis ouzo: in its place it puts a jewelry store. It does not need Apotso, Brazil and Brazilian with odes by poets. It does not need Michalis Katsaros, Dimitris Christodoulou and Eleni Vakalos in the cafes nor the Hadjidakis-Gatsos at Zonars. The new upper class is represented by the occasional Makaro in the cafes of the square and by domestic gold diggers in the tennis clubs of the northern suburbs; its educational needs are satisfied with “glossy” periodicals, popcorn, malls and multiplexes.

The desolation of the historic center from urban landmarks goes hand in hand with the anthropological and class restructuring of Athens. Those with wealth and power are not only withdrawing from the center, but they are also withdrawing from the urban ethos; they do not need, do not appreciate, and do not tolerate having Michalis Gana as a bookseller and Tasos Falireas as a record seller.

The few remaining hangouts are maintained by the middle class of the Post-Revolution period: they are not rich, they are mostly of petty bourgeois origin, but they still feed on conversation and various cultural goods. Filion-Dolce, for example: the last open, democratic cafe in the center that is a hangout, attracts a motley crowd of intellectuals, artists, politicians, media people, residents, debutantes, grieving relatives from the memorial services of Saint Dionysius, ladies with shopping bags. Filion is the upper limit of the radical-plebeian Exarchia, as they extend towards the conservative-urban Kolonaki; it defines the post-political axis, which starts from the classic Floral cafe of the Blue Apartment Building and ends halfway down Skoufa. In between there are many shops, but few can be characterized as hangouts. Most of them last as long as their fashion.

The Home, just like the Filion even now, signified the dynamic dialectical relationship between the Kolonaki of power and the Exarchia of the intelligentsia. This relationship is falling apart, everything is going elsewhere.

“Arrrgh!”: A… cry of Greek creativity in Paris

Ef. TA NEA, 28.03.2013

By Efi Falida

 

A look at entities that do not resemble any of our ordinary, everyday selves. A set of different beings that emerged from artists’ concerns, creators’ experimentations, graphic design-inspired collages, craft exercises, mixtures of sounds, images and digital data spread out in a new space in the French capital and attempt with pop honesty and technological excellence to converse with the world about the question of diversity through a contemporary fashion phenomenon.

This is the exhibition “Arrrgh! Monsters of Fashion” by the Greek artistic collective Atopos CVC, hosted by the Gaite Lyric venue in the central Marais area of ​​Paris.

The main contributors of Atopos, Vassilis Zidianakis and Stamos Fafalios, worked on the idea of ​​this exhibition years ago and presented it at the Benaki Museum on Pireos Street in May 2011. The exhibition hosts creations by 58 designers and artists from all over the world, as well as loans from the ModeMuseum, Antwerp, destefashioncollection and the Opéra national de Paris.

“Fashion monsters” are a phenomenon of modern characters. It has influenced a new generation of pioneering fashion designers. Among them are creators from Greece and Cyprus. Who, with their work, constantly redefine the relationship between the body and clothing, the possibilities of the human figure and the inexhaustible mutations in imaginary beings, mixing visual and clothing communication codes.

Since then, the monsters of “Arrrgh!” have added other members to their ranks, and the Gaîté Lyric, the new meeting place in Paris for digital art (art numérique), welcomed Atopos’ work for three months. And enriched it with other parallel events of screenings of new films, talks, music, and programs for children.

“The possibilities of Goethe Lyric did not limit the subject only within the boundaries of fashion. From the beginning, “Arrrgh!” was against fashion. I argued that people do not need so many clothes to constantly consume what luxury houses presented to them. The fashion system simply exploits the human instinct for constantly changing their image. Therefore, the monsters of “Arrrgh!” question this artificial desire for successive purchases.” Vasilis Zidianakis explains to “NEA” the success of the “monsters” which is approaching 20,000 tickets.

The Queen of Doubt

THE BHMA, 24.02.2013

By Dimitris Sotiropoulos

 

Every society accepts as “normal” social perceptions and behaviors that are generally considered inherent in human nature. Social anthropologists, assisted by historians and other social scientists, believe that what we consider “normal” is valid only within limited temporal and spatial contexts and is open to more than one interpretation.

If the social sciences are the initiators of creative doubt about the “normal” way our societies are organized, social anthropology is the queen of doubt. Nothing is obvious to it, nor is it a given. Anthropology even doubts that football is a competitive sport. The most important anthropologist of the 20th century, Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009), writes about the tribes of New Guinea who learned to play football from missionaries : “Instead of seeking the victory of one of the two teams, they multiply the games until the victories and defeats of the opposing teams are equal. The game ends… when they are sure that there will be no loser.”

Anthropology is not surprised by the actions of humans because, as he writes, it studies the “human phenomenon” in all cultures, old and new, keeping in mind that “the advanced cultures of the West and the East are exceptions.” As a rule, most people lived and live in other, non-Western cultures. It is also wrong to believe that anthropology deals with outdated topics because it studies pre-industrial cultures or communities in danger of extinction.

By studying non-Western societies, anthropologists have even gathered evidence on issues that arose in the Western world in the postmodern era, such as who is recognized as the parent of a child born through artificial reproduction. This type of reproduction is a recent Western achievement, but anthropologists have documented a variety of solutions to a similar issue, inspired by the institutions of surrogacy and polygamy in African tribes, Brazilian Indian communities, and Tibetan villages.

 

The “third humanism”

Anthropology, according to Lévi-Strauss, constitutes the “third humanism.” The first, the “classical” humanism of the Renaissance, was limited to the Mediterranean world and the privileged class, the only one that enjoyed its fruits. The second, the “bourgeois” humanism of the 19th century, was intertwined with commercial and industrial interests that supported it. Anthropology marks the advent of a third humanism which is inspired by the “ most humble and long-discredited societies, proclaims that nothing human could be alien to man. It thus establishes a democratic humanism [and] calls for the reconciliation of man with nature within the framework of a generalized humanism.”

An important consequence of “generalized humanism” is the containment of productivism. This is the ideology of the most extensive and efficient exploitation of natural resources possible, which was shared by the great ideological opponents, capitalism and existing socialism. Lévi-Strauss emphasizes the destructive consequences of productivism for the fate of humanity and highlights them equally with the harmful consequences of the homogenization of lifestyles on a global scale. Humanism is opposed to the reduction of the diversity of cultures, a result of the Westernization of more and more societies.

 

Arguments from an “innocent” era

Lévi-Strauss’s legitimate concern about the disappearance of biodiversity in the social world leads him to an expected but problematic cultural relativism, in favor of which he advances three arguments. First, there is no indisputable progress of humanity on the basis of which we will judge which societies have not progressed enough. Progress does not exclude “stagnation or even regression in places.”

Secondly, the anthropologist, studying pre-industrial societies, “is not in a position to derive criteria that would allow him to classify them all on a common scale.” And thirdly, ethical criteria are not timeless and supra-local, but “ constitute a function of the specific society that has adopted them.”

These arguments reflect the comparatively “innocent” era in which the book was written. (Lévi-Strauss wrote the three chapters in 1986, in order to give a series of general lectures on anthropology in Japan.) Today, the baton of the relevant reflection has been taken up by modern political theory, since we are not called upon to judge or not to judge other societies from a distance, but to live with them. Other societies, very different from our own, have already been established in miniature, in the form of ethnic or religious “communities”, within our multicultural societies.

Cultural relativism does not answer thorny questions that polarize liberal and communitarian political thinkers, such as whether “communal rights” based on particular traditions regarding marriage, inheritance, and the social position of women are allowed to limit individual rights. In this regard, Lévi-Strauss’s humanism may have been in a dilemma. The book has been very well translated, and is accompanied by a biography and works of the author.

 

Mr. Dimitris A. Sotiropoulos is an associate professor of Political Science at the University of Athens.

 

‘Michael’s’ lecture

Ef. Ta Nea, February 22, 2013

Michael Hertzfeld’s studies in Crete earned him a nickname. At his lecture yesterday on “Crisis and Creativity,” it was his reputation that attracted the audience.

No, it didn’t look like a Cretan party, even though Harvard Anthropology Professor Michael Hertzfeld is beloved in Crete (in Zoniana to be precise) because of his anthropological research there, dating back to the 1970s. Instead of men with stilettos, the audience at yesterday’s event at the International Center for Hellenic and Mediterranean Studies, the local representative of College Year in Athens, was made up of students with glasses. Professors and just interested people.

The power of colors

TO VIMA, 10.02.2013

By Irene Veniou

Our life is like a kaleidoscope full of images and their color seems to hold our emotions hostage, influencing by extension our actions. In recent years, many researchers have tried to explain the mechanism of color perception and their effect on human psychology, but many unanswered questions still remain. Other studies have dealt with the therapeutic power of the “rainbow”, analyzing chromatology or investigating the effectiveness of phototherapy. Colors surround us, in the form of products, advertising messages, favorite objects or even experiences – pleasant or unpleasant. At the moment when some of them “throw” us, others can instantly make our heart beat like crazy… Some of these reactions have a biological basis, others stem from personal experiences.

Imagine a daily life where your coffee cup has no color, the orange juice is gray, the sky is colorless, the clothes are boring and the surrounding environment is simply indifferent. Horror? Now imagine that you are in a lush green meadow full of blooming flowers and colorful butterflies that “dance” to the rhythm of colors and aromas. It is truly impressive the way in which colors can “play” with our psychology, making us happy or ruining our mood respectively.

But are things that simple or is there a more complex background? Based on what criteria do we call a color our “favorite” and why do we end up choosing a specific color when we are asked to choose an object among many? In search of answers to these questions, we spoke with psychologist Dr. Karen Sloss from the University of California, Berkeley, who, together with Professor Steven Palmer, tried to explain the mechanism behind our color preferences.

” Our color preferences seem to drive our decisions. Regardless of color, our clothes keep us warm, our iPods play music, and our cars get us to our destinations. The same object can be produced in every color of the rainbow, yet we each spend time and energy choosing the perfect one for us personally. So given that colors mean so much to each of us, we decided to explore why we like certain colors and why we have color preferences in the first place,” Dr. Sloss explains to “Vima.”

 

Stereotypes and experiences

Based on the scientists’ findings, it appeared that each person’s personal experiences play a decisive role in choosing a color or an object of a specific color. What each color represents and what concepts it is associated with also seemed to play an important role.

” We believe that people generally tend to prefer colors, such as blue, that are associated with positive concepts (e.g. clear sky, clean water, etc.) and to abhor colors such as dark yellow, that refer to unpleasant things (e.g. vomiting). Of course, there are also unpleasant things in blue and correspondingly pleasant things in yellow. In our studies, however, we saw that 80% of our color choices are directly related to the preference we have for objects and concepts of the same colors. These specific preferences seemed to guide the volunteers to approach positive things and concepts (e.g. a ripe fruit, members of a social networking group) and to avoid negative ones (e.g. a rotten fruit, members of a competitive social networking group), ” the psychologist specifically states.

Other experiments conducted by Americans showed that the experiences (negative – positive) that one has had related to colored objects or living beings directly influence color preferences.

” During our tests, we saw that color preferences can change, e.g. by viewing a pleasant/unpleasant photo depicting a colored object. For example, the sight of a bright red juicy strawberry enhances the preference for the color red, while the sight of a bleeding wound leads to the aversion of that particular color, ” says Dr. Sloss.

 

Colored “camps”

“ In another experiment we conducted among students at the rival universities of California, Berkeley (with a blue logo) and Stanford (with a red logo), we saw that young people showed a greater preference for the color of their university compared to their “rivals”. In fact, how much they liked the color of their university seemed to be directly related to how much they declared that they loved their school. These findings show that our reaction to “color” experiences can lead to a change in our color preferences – because it is unlikely that anyone would choose the institution where they will study based on their favorite color.”

“Finally, based on our recent findings, we saw that political beliefs can influence voters’ preference for the color that represents their party. On the day of the last election (November 6, 2012) we saw that by watching the US map being colored with the election results, Republican voters showed a greater preference for the color red than Democrats, despite the fact that this was not observed during the previous or following days of voting,” the researcher adds.

 

Experiences “color” life

The experiences we add to our personal “journal” of experiences related to colored objects also seem to play a role in shaping our color palette of preference. According to the researchers, a negative experience in which, for example, there was a blue car could predispose us negatively towards that particular color.

” We all share basic things: e.g. the blue sky and yellow vomit. However, many of our experiences are strictly personal, such as the color of the room we had as children. In other words, it is a combination of our shared experiences and our personal experiences that determines our final color preferences, ” adds Dr. Schloss.

How a color affects our psyche is partly due to our aesthetic perception. ” Clearly, the colors that surround us can cause our positive or negative aesthetic reaction. Colors in general, depending on their intensity and purity, are accompanied by a fairly strong emotional “charge”. For example, bright and intense colors are usually associated with feelings of joy, while on the contrary, darker and less vibrant colors are associated with feelings of sadness. Nevertheless, whether colors can effectively influence our emotional world remains a big and open question,” the expert argues, pointing to the tangle of emotions, experiences, perception and colors that scientists are called upon to unravel.

 

WHAT DISEASES ARE TREATED BY
IRIS COLOR PHOTOTHERAPY ?

It may sound like a fairly “alternative” form of treatment, but many experts say that light therapy with specific colors can provide relief from health problems ranging from insomnia to back pain. “It’s a very interesting topic, but one that needs further study,” says Dr. Schloss.

Researchers who apply the light form of therapy are of the opinion that exposure to different wavelengths of light, that is, different colors, offers different health benefits. “In the past, the effect of phototherapy on the body was not yet known, which was a big problem as some wavelengths were linked to the appearance of skin cancer,” dermatologist Dr. Bav Shergill had argued in a British publication some time ago . “Today we have phototherapies of specific wavelengths, which make these specific non-invasive treatments even more tempting . ”

There are many “doubting Thomases” regarding the effectiveness of this particular method, but there are also just as many studies that have presented impressive results, while just as many others are in progress.

 

Blue

• In clinical trials, experts at Massachusetts General Hospital in the US found that shining blue light into the stomachs of patients with Helicobacter pylori reduced the infection by up to 99%. In such cases, the antibiotic treatment that is usually followed can lead to the eradication of the bacterium, although not 100%, but also to the appearance of side effects, as well as to the increase in the resistance of the bacterium to antibiotic substances. According to American scientists, blue light has a strong antibacterial effect and can kill the cells of the bacteria while leaving healthy tissues intact.

• Researchers from the Forsyth Institute in Boston discovered that a few seconds of blue light were enough to both prevent and treat periodontitis and gingivitis, as the flash of light appeared to kill the “culpable” bacteria in the mouth.

• Researchers at the University of Missouri have found that blue light is an effective “weapon” against acne. As they published in June 2011 in the scientific journal “Journal of Drugs in Dermatology”, volunteers who had undergone the blue light treatment showed improvement in their condition as early as the first week, while after two months, over 90% of the participants had shown visible improvement. They argue that such a treatment could help people who do not tolerate conventional acne treatments.

 

Red

• Red light speeds up the healing process of wounds, according to findings by Chinese researchers from Yao Tong University in Shanghai. In a test conducted by the experts, it was shown that the wounds of patients who underwent 30 minutes of daily LED phototherapy healed on average two days earlier compared to those of other patients who did not follow the same treatment. According to them, exposure to light enhances blood circulation and therefore the transport of oxygen and nutrients to the wound area – elements necessary for its healing. It is also believed to activate the production of collagen.

 

Orange

• A study by experts at Stanford University in the US has shown that orange light is a “medicine” against insomnia, especially in older people. According to their results, elderly volunteers who were exposed to orange light for 30 minutes successfully coped with their sleep problems. Researchers believe that orange light affects the balance mechanism hidden in the inner ear.

 

Green

• A non-invasive treatment for prostate cancer is green laser therapy, according to researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles. As the scientists saw, this form of light, which reaches the prostate through the urethra with the help of an optical fiber, can successfully remove excess tissue. The Americans even claim that the results of the bloodless approach are comparable to those of surgery, but without the side effects and risks of surgery. Green phototherapy could help people with prostate cancer who are taking hemolytic drugs and who, in the event of surgery, must stop taking these substances

Euro-brake on pesticides

Kathimerini, 09.02.2013

By Yannis Elafros

In recent years, the phenomenon of bee colony collapse has caused great concern, as bees are not only an important part of agricultural production, but also a critical link in biodiversity.

A bee colony collapse disorder occurs when bees lose their orientation, thus being unable to return to their hive, resulting in their death. The consequences are truly great. For example, 10% – 35% of beehives in Greece are lost on an annual basis. The causes that lead to the failure of the bees’ GPS are many and not all have been identified and correlated. However, scientific research has shown that insecticides, called “neonicotins”, are responsible for the disorientation of bees.

What came before?

On 31 January 2013, the European Commission announced that it would “propose a two-year EU-wide ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides on three crops that attract bees.” This was preceded by a letter from 85 MEPs (following an initiative by Green MEPs) to Health Commissioner Borg. And of course, an opinion from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) on 16 January, according to which neonicotinoid insecticides pose an “acute” risk to bees.

It is worth noting that Germany, France, Slovenia and Italy have already banned the use of neonicotinoid pesticides. In Italy, after a six-year ban on seed treatment with these pesticides, there are signs of a recovery in bee populations.

After this positive step, with the Commission’s announcement, the battle to decide on a ban, without loopholes, begins. The Commission seeks to have a decision made within the next two months and for the ban to come into effect from July this year. Obviously, a reaction is expected from the chemical industry lobby, which is very powerful in Brussels, but also in many member states.

“It must be made clear that the problem does not only concern beekeepers, as the mass death of bees is a danger signal for the health of the entire ecosystem. Moreover, the services that bees provide to agriculture are worth more than 25 billion euros in the EU. If bees were lost, that is how much technical solutions for pollination would cost,” said MEP Nikos Chrysogelos.

The stance of our country is a critical issue. The Federation of Beekeeping Associations of Greece is conducting a campaign for the banning of destructive insecticides in Greece. “Approximately 20,000 of our fellow citizens are engaged in beekeeping, with our country ranking among the top in honey production (16,000 tons) in the EU. Beekeepers have been experiencing massive losses of their beehives in recent years, unable, in the midst of an economic crisis, to repair the damage,” MEP Kriton Arsenis emphasizes in a statement, even calling for immediate intervention by the Ministry of Rural Development. “The argument of the ministry’s services regarding the impossibility of replacing these pesticides is refuted by the fact that large agricultural countries (France, Italy) have banned neonicotinoids,” he emphasizes.

In order for bees not to lose their orientation, it is essential that we do not lose it either…

What does it mean to live by avoiding living?

Kathimerini, 03.02.2013

By Vasilis Karapostolis*

“First we must survive and then… we will see.” The dogma of our days is spreading everywhere, whispered or spoken. It infiltrates offices, homes, shops, even where there should normally be a special – but what? – insulation to prevent it: schools. And yet, it invades there too. How can one stop the air of a society from passing through the cracks in doors and windows and how can one put a filter on the minds to protect them, if this air smells of something irreparably polluted? Because as paradoxical as it may seem, saying that there is great value in surviving is not at all healthy.

I know that especially today we have a hard time discerning what lies behind what is pressing us so urgently. We are pressured to act quickly to prevent the worst. It is necessary to gather what is left of us, to make quick calculations, to grit our teeth, not to drown in our own indignation. All of these are actions that must be taken. But imagine: Would these rules be enough to establish a guide for the younger generation? Let’s put it differently. If today, in the situation we find ourselves in, the country’s leadership decided that it would be useful to teach an emergency course in schools, what would this course include? Let’s call it “Education in self-rescue” (the “Citizen Education” is already a thing of the past anyway).

In this lesson, therefore, we could, in principle, include knowledge, techniques and methods that enhance students’ ability to cope in harsh and unexpected conditions. Self-concentration, self-discipline, and energy conservation would be taught. The program would be supplemented with physical exercises, which would be something more active and “operational” than ordinary gymnastics.

It was assumed that the children would acquire in a short time such equipment that would make them real soldiers, not for a real war nor for a real peace. They would be minors enlisted in the preservation of “life”. The child who would progress well in his studies would be the one who would prove that he had good reflexes, that he was not surprised and that he knew how to avoid bad situations. At the end, the best would also receive the relevant distinction: “The best young survivors”.

Do you think that would be the end of the matter? Do you really think that the teaching of such a lesson would go smoothly and that the children would quietly assimilate all the tricks and wiles of a consciousness – the consciousness of the elders – which has at its center nothing but the fear of existence? For, indeed, the children might be taught how to acquire adaptive skills, but the spirit of the teaching would not cease to be a spirit of pettiness. It would reduce life to the dimensions of a biological fact: “I am alive, as long as I am still breathing.”

Let us not think that a child is incapable of protesting against such degradation. In fact, it is more likely that his instinctive logic will react at some stage of this training. And then, the teacher will hear the most difficult question addressed to him: “So, sir, can we do everything to survive?” It seems that in times of crisis, moral questions can only be raised by minors. And here, really, the question that arises is whether what needs to be done (in order for a man to prevent his physical extinction) precedes what needs to be done (in order for a man to remain a man).

Dispute

The child is essentially asking whether floating is so valuable that everything else is sacrificed for it. Beyond that, however, his question already challenges the dominant dogma: that once the problem of food, clothing, and shelter has been settled, once one begins to feel full and warm, only then is one allowed to think about whether food, clothing, and shelter are there for a purpose and what that purpose would be and what a full person could do other than be full and even, since he is full and others are hungry, whether or not he will feel a new emptiness within himself.

Perhaps in some books that the child may read later, he will find that this emptying is called “guilt” and that one of the ways to avoid guilt is precisely to shout that things have forced him to be so consumed by himself, by himself alone, and to be deaf and blind to anyone else. The survivors, therefore, are those who choose to remain isolated.

The school lesson can only end there. That is the conclusion, that is the suggestion. At first, the children will react (no child likes being told to shut themselves up in their shell, to vent now and then and to eat crumbs wherever they find them and not to trust anyone, not even to play with them), but inevitably, if the elders insist, the younger ones will submit. A generation or two will be lost like this. They will live only for the thrill of “saving”. They will not even have time to be tempted to test their strength, because the dangers will frighten them much more than they provoke them, and they will thus withdraw from the field of the only battle that excites them deeply: to take risks for something that is superior to yourself.

Small skirmishes

These generations will live and die in petty skirmishes. They will be hunted by envy, worry, their creditors, and their reward will be so fleeting—a sense that where others have collapsed, I am still standing—that they will often feel like the victims of an invisible global sadist; they suspect that the universe is mocking them by taking back what it gives them.

Other generations will have to come to put an end to this decline. It is by no means certain that the desired reformers will eventually appear. If they do, however, the old education for precaution against dangers will be an unbearably rough and at the same time servile solution for them. Its replacement is an immediate imperative. Instead of it, education in generosity will then be chosen. A new program will be drawn up that will be accompanied by a new method. In the first chapter of the textbook, the student will read some basic sentences: “Generosity is generosity and generosity is self-affirmation. Whoever gives, receives strength. Whoever gives, increases his life. I give means that I have what I thought I did not have to give.” From there, the discussion in the classroom will begin. And then the entire class will be thrown into action. An action that will make the country begin to live, to live beyond simply keeping itself alive.

*Mr. Vasilis Karapostolis is a professor of Culture and Communication at the University of Athens.

 

An ambitious report on human nutrition

Ef. TA NEA – insert Weekend 12-13.01.2013

by Kiki Triantafylli

Download the file in pdf format.

 

Culture is an economic tool

Kathimerini of Sunday, 09.12.2012
By Olga Sella

 

Edoardo Nesi describes in his book the unconditional subordination of industry to globalized Chinese production.

Edoardo Nesi from Prato, Tuscany, did not start his life as a writer. He had to manage an old family manufacturing business, but it fell victim to the globalization of consumer patterns and closed.

Edoardo Nesi, having the education and training of his bourgeois background, continued his path by another route. He became a writer. And with his latest book “My Own People” (published in Greek by Kastaniotis Publications, translated by Antei Chrysostomidis) he received last year’s prestigious Strega Award.

It is a short book, somewhere between an essay, an autobiography, and an economic analysis, about the unconditional surrender of European industry to globalized Chinese production. And in it he recounts, sometimes with humor and sometimes with bitterness, how Europe’s industrial tradition was lost.

The beginning of the new industrial revolution

Kathimerini 09.12.2012

PETER MARSH

Leaps in product manufacturing
The New Industrial Revolution: Consumers, Globalisation and the End of Mass Production,
Yale University Press, p. 312

Something very important is happening in the manufacturing industry, in the manufacturing of things. Those who want to understand it will find perhaps no better guide than Peter Marsh. A columnist for the Financial Times, he has spent many years visiting factories that make useful things in clever ways. His observations are crucial, and his book provides useful answers to those who associate the word “industry” with “decline.”

Silk is reviving in Soufli

Ef. TA NEA, 17.12.2012

By George Fintikakis

The leadership of the Ministry of Rural Development is considering the creation in Soufli of a modern unit for the production of yarn from Greek silk, which is considered one of the best in Europe, but for the time being remains unexploited.

A characteristic of the development potential of sericulture, as the cultivation of the mulberry tree from which natural silk is produced is called, is the interest shown by the Bulgarian side for joint investments in this sector, as the soil and climatic conditions of the wider area, on both sides of the border, are ideal.

Giant cities, poverty and hunger

Sunday’s STEP, 09.12.2012

By Stathis Efstathiadis

In 2011, more than 88,000 adults in India died of hunger on a daily income of just one dollar. (We do not know how many under the age of 16 died.) In 2041, at least 60,000 adults are predicted to die of hunger in India, even though their daily income will exceed 30 dollars! There is an explanation: because there will not be enough food to feed the country’s population, even if crops are intensified and yield more than three times what they do today.
India’s case is not unique. Countries in Africa and East Asia where the urban population is growing at an impressive rate face the same threat, warns a report by a UN committee based on research, studies and conclusions from the McKinsey Global Institute, an organization specializing in population and urbanization issues.

It is not so much the increase in the population on earth as the “colossal” growth of cities that will create the “great drama of hunger” , writes the report, which “To Vima” has in mind. And it cites as an example the “prescribed hyper-urbanizations”: Shanghai, from 22 million inhabitants today, will reach 31 million in 2025, São Paulo, from 19 million, will have a population of 23.2 million after 13-15 years, Bangalore, India, will swell from 8 million to 13 million in 2025, and Istanbul, from 11 million, will see its population exceed 15 million in the next 12 years. None of these cities – and this is true for several hundred others – has the “biological-productive environment” and broader infrastructure to meet the “basic survival” needs of its residents, the report finds. Beijing, which currently has 18 million people, will exceed 30 million in ten years, but its infrastructure is lagging behind.

Examples abound. Industrialized Tokyo had a vegetable problem in the early 1990s, when its population grew from 28.8 million to 32.4 million. Los Angeles had – and still has – a water supply problem when its population grew from 9.1 million to 12 million at the beginning of this century. Prices for everyday food in Bangkok rose by more than 15% in the mid-1990s compared to the 1990s because the productive areas could not meet the increased consumption, as the city’s population grew sharply from 4.2 million to 5.8 million. The problem, in a milder form, will also be faced by city-regions that have the means, e.g. New York, Moscow, Ankara, etc., which will see their population increase by 8% to 12% in the next 12-15 years.

The report also highlights other problems that will directly or indirectly affect life in megacities and global balances. The economic balance is shifting from Europe and America to the East, and at great speed. The authors of the McKinsey report write that in the next 10-12 years, “the greatest economic transformation (…) will take place, with cities transforming into urbanization giants (…), markets expanding”, without the “parallel development and transformation” keeping pace with time and technology. The result: a shortage of basic food products and “scarcely sufficient water”.
China
“Rocket” of urbanization
Some other changes noted in the McKinsey Global Institute report are interesting – from both an economic and political perspective. Today, 600 urban areas produce 60% of global GDP. After 15 years, in 2025, 600 cities will again produce the same percentage of GDP, with the difference that they will not be the same cities in these 600. And the most impressive thing: 250 of them will be in China! Names of cities unknown today in the West, e.g. Fushou and Wuhan, will have populations of 4 million and 12 million respectively and together with 75 other cities in China they will “produce” one third of the world’s GDP. Of course, this does not mean that today’s megacities and their percentage of “production” will disappear. They will simply give the primacy they currently hold to cities in Asia.

The report devotes four of its 11 chapters to the “China phenomenon .” It is striking from the very first lines: The speed at which China is “urbanizing” is ten times greater than that of the second largest country, Britain. In the past decade, the increase in the urban population was 50%, while ten years earlier it had only reached 36%. It is this population that today “produces” 22% of global GDP – up from 16% ten years ago – and is projected to “produce” 35% in 2025. As James Reams, who presented the McKinsey Institute report currently being prepared by two UN committees, notes, “the future of urban centers and their production will inevitably be written in Chinese characters.”

Culture is an economic tool

Kathimerini 09.12.2012

By Olga Sella

Edoardo Nesi from Prato, Tuscany, did not start his life as a writer. He had to manage an old family manufacturing business, but it fell victim to the globalization of consumer patterns and closed.

Edoardo Nesi, having the education and training of his bourgeois background, continued his path by another route. He became a writer. And with his latest book “My Own People” (published in Greek by Kastaniotis Publications, translated by Antei Chrysostomidis) he received last year’s prestigious Strega Award.

It is a short book, somewhere between an essay, an autobiography, and an economic analysis, about the unconditional surrender of European industry to globalized Chinese production. And in it he recounts, sometimes with humor and sometimes with bitterness, how Europe’s industrial tradition was lost.

Edoardo Nesi came to Athens last week and presented, together with this year’s Strega Prize winner Alessandro Piperno, his award-winning book. We met him at the Italian Institute of Athens shortly before the event. He had his book’s translator, Anteos Chrysostomidis, by his side, who also took on the role of interpreting this conversation. I had before me a charming man, around 50, direct, noble, but who did not mince his words at all.

The workers of Prato

He spoke about his childhood and the economic boom of Prato: “My own life was indeed privileged in the first phase. But one of the first things I was proud of was that I was the son of a businessman, who worked in a system in which those who deserved it were rewarded.

Many poor people came to Prato from the Italian South. After a few years, they had taken out a loan to buy a house, they had a permanent job, which if they lost, they could find another very quickly, and above all, what I call the moral side of capitalism, they could very easily go to the bank, get a loan and become small entrepreneurs.

The prosperity that existed could be shared.

To understand, my father had a Mercedes and a house by the sea, but he didn’t have a helicopter, but all the businessmen of Prato, the most they had was a house by the sea and a Mercedes. Because wealth was shared.

“The workers of Prato were the best paid in Italy. So the feeling of guilt I felt for being the child of a businessman was offset by the fact that others lived well, because there was this good side of capitalism, which no longer exists.”

Edoardo Nesi referred to the initial “advantages” of globalization and its evolution: “It is obvious that globalization also had advantages, e.g. in fashion, as long as we continue to be consumers. For example, we go to large clothing stores and buy much cheaper products than 10 years ago. But when our wife is at home, who is no longer in the production chain that supplied products to the stores, then the problem begins. Very often I am told that I only see a part of reality. You must remember, they tell me, that 1 billion Chinese people now live better. I told them, come and talk to the laid-off workers of Prato and explain to them that 1 billion Chinese people live better. The great mockery was that they made people believe that globalization was a good thing for everyone.”

Victory with quality

In his book, he talks a lot about the creative and romantic role of entrepreneurship. How would he convince today’s young entrepreneurs of this view? “First of all, he would say that the quality that we are forced to use to defeat the Chinese.

In Italy, in Greece, in Spain we have something that we can produce, compared to the Chinese, at a higher price. It is our culture. Today, the way we manage our culture is not good. Culture can become an excellent economic tool.

Is it possible for my mobile phone to show where the best restaurants in Athens are and not show where the works of art are?

“Our greatest wealth is being wasted. And young entrepreneurs need to take advantage of our culture, what their parents taught them.”

– Is there a magic formula for people to learn to discern opportunities?

– I talked to you before about quality, which I consider very important. For example, today, in the fashion sector, people are being pushed into large mass-produced stores. They want to sell us the illusion of luxury for little money. It is a colossal mockery. We are constantly subjected to the blackmail of price. We must learn to live in the world with solutions that are completely new…

– And not include tradition?

– Of course they should include it, but you have to tell these traditions in the most modern ways. The information that is constructed by people is of the lowest level. Anyone who deals with serious culture usually does not know technology. We have to try to combine the old and the new.

No to the prophets of lamentation

– You write in your book about the nightmare of unemployment. What do you say to the generation that is starting to age at the end of the era of abundance? What should they adapt to?

– A good and difficult question. I am usually asked what young people should do. But this is also a serious problem. The point is to accept that the changes that are taking place bring us to a difficulty in understanding the changes.

And the threat is that we become the prophets of lamentation, that we remain in a nostalgia for the past. I lived for several years like this. Now that my children have grown up, I understand that my role is to explain to them that there is more than just this present.

But that there is the possibility of living better and more dignified lives. I try to tell them not to be afraid, because the world belongs to them.

Young people today should not be afraid

– In Greece, in recent years, many businesses have been closing down and there are many more that are underperforming. What kind of response would you suggest to entrepreneurs, one that is also connected to the needs of society?

– One thing that society cannot live without is bank lending. Without bank lending, no business can be born. Debt today is a kind of sin. On the contrary, debt should be the consequence of an agreement between the one who has money and the one who has the capabilities. It is a very old agreement. It is obvious that whoever asks for money, does not have it.

But money must pass from those who have it to those who don’t. Otherwise, there is no other way for the economy to grow. Today, anyone who is in debt is treated like a criminal who doesn’t want to pay back their debt. And this applies to both businesses and states. And it’s something that has never happened before. That’s the problem, that debt today is considered something unnatural.

It is the only way for life to pass from the oldest to the youngest.

I point out to him the major problem of tax evasion that exists in Greece.

“The same thing is happening in Italy and it’s something that needs to be solved,” he replies. “We all have common responsibilities and our politicians have been destroyers. But states cannot go bankrupt because of politicians.”

“Polyphemus” with lace

THE BHMA, 02.12.2012

By Katerina Lymberopoulou

For the first time, a traditional shop, Menti Weaving in Petralona, ​​is being transformed into a museum

From the uniforms of the court and palace guard of Otto to the figurines of French fashion that were copied in post-war Athenian salons and from furniture manufacturers during the residential development of the 1970-1980 period to the Greek woman of the 21st century, the name synonymous with the tress and the tassel was one: Mentis.

The oldest commercial and artisanal enterprise in the country, which operated continuously for about a century and a half – founded in 1867 – offering braids, passementerie, siritia, cords, fringes, brandebourg, elaborate embrasses, silk threads, etc., was forced to close in 2011 due to the problems in the historic center of Athens. And just as it reached its end, a new beginning was visible on the horizon.

In an unexpected move for Greek standards, the Mentis family donated the renovated craft space at 6 Polyphimou Street to the Benaki Museum for the creation of a “living” workshop-museum with the aim of rescuing a know-how that is on the verge of extinction. The Benaki Museum officials responded willingly and the dream became a reality.

From the fermela to Europe

Spyros G. Mentis started the operation of the first thread and silk processing workshop in Nafplio, the then capital of Greece. And when the Bavarian rulers moved the capital to Athens, he followed them, as his main customer was the Court and the royal guard. “My grandfather knew the art of the “kazazi” – the silk worker, that is, who takes cocoons and makes them into a shiny and wonderful thread – from my great-grandfather, Georgios Mentis, who was killed by the Turks in the fight for Greek independence,” his grandson Spyros O. Mentis tells us .

“He preferred the more peaceful art of “kazazi”, therefore, since the way people dressed at the time favored it. Both the islanders and the mountaineers wore fermeles (the embroidered vest worn by the tsoliades) and sigunia (a women’s jacket with wide sleeves). There were few “frankoforemeni”, that is, those who wore a jacket, shirt and trousers, at that time.”

The first Athenian store opened in Mitropoleos Square, while the first workshop, which included a spinning mill, silk mill, weaving mill and dyeing house, was on Kirikiou Street, in Monastiraki. In the 1880s, the store was moved to Kapnikareas Square. During its centuries-long operation, “Mentis” adapted to the demands of each era. “After women threw off their stilettos and began to follow European style, Mentis entered the dance of fashion,” notes Spyros Mentis, adding that it was such a legendary store that Georgios Souris included it in one of his satirical poems.

His clients also included the Presidential Palace, the basilica and later the presidential guard, the Opera House, the National Theater, the Concert Hall, the Greek Women’s High Schools, the “Dora Stratou” Greek Dance Theater, the Royal Welfare, the EOMMEX, and major hotels in Greece and abroad.

Another era, another face

Mentis continued its operation in the 21st century with the store having been moved to Romvis Street and the craft shop to the property on Polyfimou Street in Petralona. “However, the customers were thinning out, the historic center of Athens was almost constantly besieged by marches and demonstrations and we were tired. We decided to stop working but we did not want to sell the business, something mentally difficult and distressing. It was not only the family memories. It was also the customers who for years we felt like relatives. And as if by God’s grace, some customers and the Directorate of Popular Culture of the Ministry of Culture stood by us in full cooperation with the Benaki Museum so that Mentis could reopen, with a different face, in a new era.”

With the generous support of a donor who wishes to remain anonymous, the industrial space has been renovated and the Benaki Museum is inaugurating the “Mentis Donation. Initiative for the preservation of traditional techniques” in the Petralona area. The official opening takes place today at the building on Benaki’s Pireos Street. The “Mentis Donation” space itself will be open on the day of the opening from 11:00 to 18:00.

Shop, exhibition and bazaar
“The goal is for the visitor to get to know the operation of the historical craft. At the same time, the new space aspires to be a nucleus for preserving traditional techniques related to thread processing, weaving and embroidery,” says Xenia Politou , curator of the folklore collections of the Benaki Museum and head of the “Mentis Donation”.

“The space was recreated as a miniature of what was there. There will be a shop with the Mentis spinning mill material and the machines that will continue to produce this material. At the same time, a core group of people will undertake to transmit the relevant know-how, while educational workshops for children will also operate. The proceeds will be allocated to make the space sustainable and to withdraw the sponsor who undertook to finance the project for a few more years,” he concludes.

At the same time, the Benaki Museum Store (Piraeus Street building) is presenting from December 6 to January 13 an exhibition entitled “Mentis Reopens!” with works by 47 artists who use Mentis handicraft products as raw materials to create objects of contemporary aesthetics. Finally, today a product bazaar is operating both at the Benaki Museum and at “Mentis Donation”, while from December 3 to 7 the bazaar will take place at the “Mentis Donation” building.

 

Luxury is fit for ancient princesses

TO VIMA, 02.12.2012

By Maria Thermou

 

More than 500 ancient objects, from vases and utensils to elaborate jewelry, are presented at the Cycladic Museum. A friendly and tasteful female world at the dawn of History

“…these women take special care of their bodies and exercise frequently, sometimes alone and sometimes with men, because it does not seem shameful to them for anyone to see them completely naked… In fact, when they dine, they do not lie on the couches with their husbands, but with whoever happens to be present at the dinner. And the Tyrrhenians raise their newborn children without knowing who their fathers are.”

In the 4th century BC, the historian Theopompus from Chios records, not without surprise, the customs of the Tyrrhenians, that is, the Etruscans. Having grown up, like everyone in Greece, with Homer at his bedside, he cannot help but remember the faithful Penelope, who for years waited for Odysseus from Troy, inventing tricks to avoid the pressing suitors and of course all the anonymous women of his homeland, who remained locked up in the house. In the Mediterranean at the dawn of History and until the 5th century BC, each people held strong the traditions that had already been formed in closed societies since Prehistory, especially with regard to women.

But how is it that archaeologists find women’s tombs filled with jewelry, symbols of power, and cult objects? Who were these women who stood out and enjoyed respect even after death in a purely male-dominated world? And what was their contribution to the development of ancient Mediterranean civilization?

Questions to which the exhibition “Princesses of the Mediterranean at the Dawn of History” organized by the Museum of Cycladic Art attempts to answer, but first after dazzling us with the wealth and luxury of the ancient objects that came from Cyprus, Italy and many Greek museums, 24 unique sets of art and value. The exhibition, moreover, constitutes a daring move by the Museum in the difficult times we are going through, a note of optimism that civilization is holding up well, despite the difficulties.

The faces

Women of antiquity, whose bones were found completely covered by the jewelry they wore in life, the gold-embroidered garments, the symbols denoting their status, their personal belongings, and even the vials with the perfumes that bathed their bodies, compete in the halls of the museum. Some are even identical, as noted by Professor of Archaeology Mr. Nikos Stampolidis , director of the museum. She is “our” “Lady of the Goats” from Macedonia of 500-490 BC, whom archaeologists consider likely to have been a real princess from Lydia, whom the Persian court gave as a bride to King Archelaus, planning war alliances shortly before the Persian campaign in Greece.

The so-called “Prosperous Athenian” probably belonged to the class of the five hundred medimnons, the richest in Athens, a 30-year-old woman who died in the ninth month of pregnancy sometime in the 9th century BC. And it is not excluded, as the study of the findings says, that she was the wife of Ariphron, king of Athens. Moreover, engraved on silver vessels found in the chamber of her tomb in Cerveteri, near Rome, was the name of Larthia. Together with her patronymic, Larthia Velthurus, the findings lead to the identification of an Etruscan princess of the 7th century BC.

The jewel

True princesses or noblewomen, women of prestige by lineage or knowledge, priestesses, healers, perhaps even witches, were the distinguished women of these centuries. The early princess-priestesses of Vergina of the 9th century BC wore bronze. They held their dresses together with buckles made of endless circles and were sometimes accompanied by a small bronze wheel that was threaded on a cord and spun, a device essential for love spells.

Five generations later, the women of Oenotria in Southern Italy were also copper-wearing, with caps that had copper nails, spirals and eight-shaped buckles. Copper, gold, silver and semi-precious stones, but especially amber, were loved above all by the princesses of Tuscany and Etruria. A magical stone, a natural remedy for every disease, which became earrings, necklaces, amulets and belts. Gold was worshipped by the noblewomen of Macedonia from Archontiko, Sindos or Aigai, as was the priestess of Eleusis and the twenty-year-old princess who died in childbirth from Eleutherna of Crete.

The costume

“And she put on divine clothes, made by Athena / with abundant embroidery and with golden brooches on her chest / she fastened them. And she girded herself with her belt / which was decorated with more than a hundred tassels / and put earrings in her pierced ears / three-petaled, whose grace sparkled in abundance / and she wore a veil from head to toe…”.

This is what Homer says, literally painting the costume of Hera, who adorns herself to seduce Zeus. The princesses’ clothes were also similar, fastened with gold safety pins and with gold jewelry sewn onto them.

A large category consists of objects of a symbolic nature, often with an indistinct meaning for the uninitiated, but which mark different worlds, from social life to the magic-religious sphere. Such as the bronze double axe of the Lady of the Goats which, fixed to a wooden shaft, functioned as a scythe, referring to a sacrificial ceremony. Also the bottles, mainly glass, which are found in many tombs and have a purely libational use. Furthermore, the miniature thrones from Greece and Italy – for the first time outside of Italy, the famous wooden throne of the dead princess from a burial in Verruchio will be presented. But also the gold jewelry-engolpia from ancient Eleutherna with helmeted warriors and a solar disk in their center, which indicate a cult related to the Cretan Zeus.

In 24 sections

More than 500 ancient objects are presented in the exhibition, in sections corresponding to each of the 24 burials. From bronze, faience and clay vessels and utensils to small spoons for applying cosmetics, from ivory figurines and the infinite number of elaborate jewelry of all kinds (buckles, heart guards, earrings, wristbands and armbands, necklaces, hair clips, belts to the gold masks that covered the face) and from every precious material (gold, silver, copper, faience votes, beads made of semi-precious stones, amethyst, cornelian, rock crystal, amber, Egyptian blue, faience), all with excellent goldsmithing and silversmithing techniques (with circumcision, with granulation, scyphosed, flat, wire), it is a whole world of art and wealth, of glory, ideas and beliefs from women who lived at the dawn of History.

The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the University of Crete and the Ministry of Education, Religious Affairs, Culture and Sports (DMEEP), and is under the auspices of the Presidency of the Hellenic Republic and the Presidency of the Italian Republic.

Women of ideas and culture

“Often in the tombs of princess-priestesses, objects of a bureaucratic, archival or notarial nature have been found, such as seal stones and scarabs, expressing the appropriation of the past of the deceased’s family but at the same time the practice of sealing agreements and contracts under the protection of the deity that these women served,” says Archaeology Professor Nikos Stampolidis . The proof comes from Cyprus with the depiction of an elderly priestess in full priestly attire and jewelry, wearing seals hanging around her neck.

The inkwell, a small tablet with the alphabet and the accompanying tools, namely pens and scrapers made of wood, ivory and metal, belong to the realm of princess literacy. Around the base of the inkwell is engraved an alphabet with the sequence of the Greek alphabet. It bears 27 anticlockwise letters.

“Although the use of writing is associated in the sources with men, I recall that around the 7th century BC on the northeastern tip of the Aegean, an aristocrat from Lesvos, Sappho, wrote poetry that has survived to this day and I cannot imagine her not knowing how to read and write,” says Mr. Stampolidis. Through the burials that were chosen to be presented in the exhibition, “the concentration of wealth and offerings on the one hand and the kinship of burial customs on the other create an ideological current and a social dimension as it seems that these women, of high prestige in their societies, were carriers of cultural and ideological elements,” he concludes.

when & where:
“Princesses of the Mediterranean at the Dawn of History”. Museum of Cycladic Art. From 12/12 to April 2013.

 

An “experiment” that exceeded expectations

THE BHMA of Sunday, 21.10.2012

By Ioanna Soufleris

Nowadays, being a profitable business or even not being in debt is a feat. So when, while searching for new books, we wandered onto the website of the University Press of Crete (UPC) and read the report on their 28 years of operation, we were impressed: 23 million euros is the total revenue of the UPC from sales throughout this period, while the grants received from the Pancretan Association of America (which was also the first sponsor), and mainly the Foundation for Research and Technology (FORTH) of Crete, total 2.8 million euros! With such financial data, we could not resist the temptation to subject the director of the UPC, Mr. Stefanos Trachanas, to a mini “interrogation”!

The chronicle of a passage through Crete

The STEP

14.09.2012

Crete, charismatic, proud, wounded, is counting its wounds and preparing for the great counterattack. With its quality and uniqueness as its banner.

Animal feed from Greek fields

Kathimerini 04.08.2012

Ioanna Photiadis

Greenpeace campaign for the cultivation of livestock legumes in our country

“The chickpea and the bean” from the popular fairy tale are coming to the fore – this time through the Greenpeace campaign for livestock legumes (chickpea, chickpea, pea and lupine). The aim of the campaign is to promote the cultivation of these legumes in our country and their use as raw material for animal feed. The ambitious initiative, which will bring significant environmental, economic and social benefits, has already found a great response in Greek society. In a very short period of time and already in the middle of summer, 10,000 signatures of citizens were collected and the campaign continues with the aim of collecting 20,000, a number capable of acting as a lever of pressure on the political leadership, as well as on animal product production companies.

The opportunity was hidden in the carob tree

NEWS

24.07.2012

 

Follow the link to the pdf file to download the publication .

Flax cultivation is making a dynamic comeback with great prospects

ETHNOS (insert: Professional Opportunities) 13.08.2012

 

Flax is making a dynamic comeback and its demand in the global market is constantly increasing. This is because it can be used in three ways: as a fiber in the textile industry, as an edible oil, and as an oil for industrial use.

Of course, depending on the use, a different variety needs to be cultivated. Specifically, today linseed oil is the raw material for the manufacture of ecological paints. Also, flax can replace cotton for the production of clothing, while edible linseed oil is extremely beneficial for the body and helps fight bad cholesterol, which is why we find it in all health food stores.

Flax cultivation is particularly satisfactory, as it yields 200 kilos per hectare and the prices are very tempting for producers: the price of linseed oil is 5-7 euros per liter for industrial use and 10-15 euros per liter for edible linseed oil.

Presentation of the philosophy and work of the University of the Mountains

THE STEP 29.07.2012

By Olga Klontza

 

Read the article in pdf format.

Me and My Doctor, Yannis Pallikaris – Michael Hertzfield

14.07.2012

Weekend NEWS

 

Download the file in pdf format

 

The entire interview

All eyes on Africa

Kathimerini 15.07.2012

By Suzy Menkes

The continent is entering the fashion arena and offers the prospect of economic boom

Africa has been in the news a lot lately, for reasons you might not expect. The continent is making waves in the fashion arena, thanks to the quality of its craftsmanship and artistic creation, along with the prospect of economic boom.

Institutions – a “window” into the crisis

By Efi Falida

The NEWS 10.07.2012

Culture is an ally of philanthropy in addressing the socio-economic situation. This is the conclusion of the conference on the role of public benefit foundations organized by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation in Athens.

Time for a global university

NEWS 08.02.2012

Curated by: George Angelopoulos

E-learning will enable students to attend lectures by leading professors

One of the United States’ leading academics and former Treasury Secretary, Lawrence “Larry” Summers, has a bold vision for how higher education should change in the age of high technology. In his brave new world, universities will do away with lectures by local professors in auditoriums; instead, the best experts in each field will address students via video, located anywhere in the world.

[Roads] Some…

TA NEA / THE NEW YORK TIMES, 18.06.2012

By Thomas L. Friedman

A few…

… weeks ago I was in Amman, Jordan, talking to educators, when I met a young American woman who had an impressive job. Her name was Shailene Romney Garrett. She introduced herself by saying that she and her husband, James, were former Peace Corps volunteers in Ireland who had stayed in the country to create a nonprofit organization, Think Unlimited. She helps Jordanian teachers learn how to “teach creative thinking and problem-solving” in their classrooms. “That would be the real Arab Spring,” I said. Because rote memorization is still the dominant educational method in most Arab public schools.

[Faces] The Unknown India

^{NEWS 23.05.2012}

By George Angelopoulos

^“ My name is Amol. I want to showcase the poor of Mumbai, especially those living in the slums. I live in a slum called Sate Nagar Basti. I feel painfully that they are keeping my community out of the development process of Mumbai. However, I love my city. Mumbai is the city of light, a city that never sleeps. I decided to take up a role in India Unheard because I know the power that community media has in people’s lives. We, the dogs of the slums, have to make our problems known ourselves, otherwise they will distort them. This is what is happening with my community, the mainstream media writes that we are still defecating on the streets and thus polluting the area… They forget to write about the lack of communal facilities. “India Unheard is a way for me to appeal to the people around me. They have been voting enthusiastically for years, without anything changing. The videos we make are a way of telling them that they need to stand up and fight for their rights.”

Life without euros, with obols and beans

NEWS 23.05.2012

Curated by: Sakis Malavakis

Dozens of alternative currencies are now circulating in crisis-ridden Europe, replacing the common currency to some extent. With the aim of social contribution, more and more Europeans are choosing to live better by exchanging goods and services without the mediation of money.

They found the antidote to the crisis

NEWS Weekend, 12-13.05.2012

Report: Evi Saltou

People who changed their lives by making a new start in the face of difficult times speak to “NEA”

Some changed their profession, some changed their place of residence, but all of them made a big change in their daily lives. “There was no other way but to change,” say people who decided to completely change their lives. Of course, the economic crisis played a key role in this decision, forcing some of them to lose their jobs and look for alternative solutions, and others to understand that their previous way of life could not continue. “TA NEA” spoke with people who made a new start. As they explain, the difficulties did not deter them and they support their choice with optimism.

Winery – a model on the barren line

George Manalis

NEWS Weekend 12-13.05.2012

In Sikinos, overlooking the vast blue sea, he produces wine in the traditional way, without drugs

Report: Dimitra Skoufo

In the middle of the Aegean Sea, between Folegandros and Ios, on the small Cycladic island of Sikinos, Giorgos Manalis chose to revive winemaking on the island with a view of the vast blue sea. With his wife Maria and their two children, Kelly and Loukas, by his side, he managed to create an ecological vineyard and a visitable winery that operates exclusively with renewable energy sources and was awarded for this innovation by the Cyclades Chamber of Commerce.

“On a lightning trip to Syros, in 2004, the… seed fell,” says George Manalis. “I had already planted a small plot of vines on my property, on the island, for home consumption. Until then, I had never thought of systematically and professionally engaging in winemaking. It was then that a friend came up with the idea of ​​building a larger vineyard and, why not, a winery.

“At that time, in fact, there were some subsidized programs running for the creation of wineries. I didn’t really want to decide. Besides, the idea fascinated me,” he explains.

Lamb, the Greek

By Stefanos Krikkis

NEWS 13.04.2012

The message sent by the first bell when it began to ring nervously in Grammos said without mincing words that “we’ve got it”. The ewe had her eyes fixed on the border and could not believe what she was seeing. Rams and ewes from Northern Europe and specifically Germany, assisted by weighbridges, were entering our country in an organized manner without anyone putting up the slightest resistance.

“Modern” crops for anxious young farmers

Of the Battle of Tratsa

Sunday’s Vima 01.04.2012

With one to one and a half million young people, most of them highly educated, wanting to leave the large urban centers, the Ministry of Rural Development has… gone wild. Studies carried out by its services on innovative crops (truffles, stevia, aloe, dates, mangoes, etc.) and their adaptation to Greek soil demonstrate that the development of the Greek countryside and agriculture in times of crisis is possible. At the same time, well-known historical crops and productions, undervalued today but valuable and promising, which can offer development prospects to the agricultural economy, are being strengthened, supported and promoted. Such are marine farming (e.g., octopus, mussels, etc.), the production of honey, meat and traditional cheeses and the cultivation of olive oil, grapes, wine and fruit and vegetable crops. The nationwide survey conducted in early March on behalf of the ELGO “Dimitra” organization showed that young people who wish to settle in the province are interested in the production of traditional species but also more… sophisticated and modern alternative crops. The goal of the Ministry of Rural Development is to create the conditions for a return to rural development and production and to free farmers from the captivity of state subsidies.

“Erotokritos” in Turkish

News 

31.03.2012

The first ten verses of the epic poem by Vincenzo Kornaros and their translation by Professor Haki Bilgehan

POET

The turning of the Circle, which goes up and down,

and of the Wheel, which leaps for hours high and for hours in the depths;

and the things of Time, which have no rest,

but in Good and in Evil they walk and run;

and the chariots’ tumults, hostile, and the burdens,

You have the power of Love and the grace of Friendship;

These are what motivated me today,

to stir up and say they did it and they brought it

to a girl and a boy, who were a confused group

in a Philian blend, with no shame.

OZAN

İnişli çikişli olan devranin ıçıkleri,

feleğinkiler de bazen aşaği bazen gider yukari.

In the days of events without rest,

ama iyiliğe ve kötülüğe koşarlar ve giderler.

Ve silâhlarin kargaşasi, tõmufinin ağirliği,

ve aşkin kudreti, dostluğun iyiliği,

bunaru beni beni geçite gédi,

ne yaptiklarini, ne getirdiklerini animsamaya zorladi,

bir young girl and bir toy boy together

kötülüğü ollayan el değmemiş bir dostluğa.

1.5 million Greeks are “flirting” with rural life

By
Maria Youroukeli

Agenda 28.03.2012

More than 1.5 million citizens are flirting with the idea of ​​returning from urban centers to villages , seeking professional
opportunities in the primary sector.

This is shown by
a study by the Ministry of Rural Development, the data of which was presented yesterday
by Minister Costas Skandalidis, who, at the same time, announced the
re-announcement of a program, with a total budget of 60 million euros, for the
premium of young farmers. The aid will reach 10,000 euros for the unemployed,
while 6,000 people will benefit from the program.

Countries with rich subsoil are lacking in… good students

Income from natural sources
“inactivates” skills development

THE NEW YORK TIMES, BY THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN 13/03/2012

I am often asked:
“What is your favorite country, apart from the one you live in?” I always give
the same answer: “Taiwan.” My interlocutor is surprised:
“Taiwan! Why Taiwan?” But, quite simply, because Taiwan is a
barren rock in a sea swept by typhoons, it has no wealth-producing
resources and yet it is the fourth country in financial reserves in the
world. Because instead of selling oil, diamonds or gold, its 23 million
citizens prosper thanks to their talent, energy and intelligence.

How do
Taiwanese do so well? A recent OECD study has shown that
student performance in basic subjects is inversely related to a country’s income from
natural resource exports. This is an
inverse relationship, as demonstrated by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This is a
survey conducted every two years under the auspices of the OECD and concerns the performance of 15-year-old students
in mathematics, science and reading comprehension from 65 different countries.

Crete is betting on green energy

News 10.03.2012

It will be independent of polluting and old PPC units and will gain energy security.

Crete can become energy autonomous, and without the expensive old oil units of the Public Power Company, in the coming years if
the investment plans for its underwater interconnection with the
Peloponnese are implemented and the rich wind and solar potential is thus exploited.

70 bird species winter in Greece

They come to our country in October and return home in
March and April.

News 18.02.2012

Migratory birds that arrived this year in various regions of our country to spend the winter felt at home . Despite the fact that in
recent weeks, especially in Central and Northern Greece, very
low temperatures have prevailed and the snow has not melted, the weather for
migratory birds looks like spring.

When the teachers step down from the podium

By Michalis Mitsos

News 18.02.2012

A billion dollars: that’s how much the United States spends every year
to build new, state-of-the-art university classrooms.
But research shows that students absorb only 20% of the knowledge taught.
That their interest in lectures lasts no more than ten minutes. And
that a third leave the University after two years of study.
So something is wrong with the traditional teaching model, which in addition
to the United States is of course also applied in Europe. In the age of the iPad and smartphones,
teaching from a chair no longer makes sense.

He put Cretan herbs on US shelves

Cretan Herbalchem’s company exports
natural products from thyme, prickly pear, grape and olive

By Maria Vasiliou

News 18.02.2012

“I’m looking for artichoke extracts,” he had told Vangelis Kastrinakis,
the director of a pharmaceutical company in Norway, in the late 1980s. It was at a
time when the Cretan producer of herbal extracts and essential oils was living
for five years in the Scandinavian country, his wife’s homeland.

His work at the time was directly related to his studies. He holds a degree
in economics and a master’s degree in business administration, which he obtained from
American universities in Pennsylvania and Houston. However, his move
to Europe – initially to Norway, later to Brussels and other
European capitals – played an important role in his choice to
engage in the production of natural cosmetics from herbal extracts and
essential oils. He also made acquaintances necessary for
his current activity while looking for an excuse to return to Crete.

They learn the agricultural profession at school.

The Agricultural High School educates those who want a new life close to Nature

By Ioanna Photiadis

Kathimerini 11.02.2012

A short distance from the bustling Kifissias Avenue, the bell rings every morning at nine for fifteen aspiring farmers – the students of the EPAS (Vocational School) of Syngrou. The Agricultural High School opened its doors in September after an eight-year hiatus, in order to train those interested in horticultural businesses and landscape architecture over a period of two years. High school graduates, higher education graduates, the unemployed and family heads are summoning their courage and sitting down at their desks again. “We operate like regular schools, with absences, checks and exams,” the school’s director and agronomist, Mr. Panagiotis Skoteidakis, points out to “K”.

The shift towards agriculture and agricultural schools

By Vasilis Maniou*

Kathimerini 13.02.2012

Agriculture, the second oldest profession in the world, unfortunately, in our country had the fate of the first. Disrespect and rejection. For most indigenous bourgeois, the profession of farmer was never a title of honor and respect. But also for most farmers, due to its harshness and general rejection, it was a “cursed” profession, preventing their children from following it. The aversion of young people from Greek agriculture reached its peak during the artificial prosperity of loans of the last decade. This was certainly contributed to by the shrinkage and further degradation of the role of the agricultural sector in the country’s economy, which was led, mainly, by the clientelistic vote-hunting political system of the post-colonial years. The flood of money that flowed in from the EU and was intended to make our agriculture competitive in the globalized market was dissipated in the ballot box. Party agrarian paternalism ostracized every factor of production and indulged in the hunt for subsidies even for its own benefit. The remaining elderly farmers were transformed from factors of production of primary wealth into poor wage-earning regulars of the countryside. The country’s agricultural production in many sectors was reduced to zero and in others it became uncompetitive. Exports of agricultural products were reduced to a minimum and the internal market is today flooded with imports, which, in the unbridledness of the Greek reality, are “baptized” Greek. Once again, in the history of the country, the crisis in the agricultural sector contributed greatly to the current general economic crisis.

Smell profits in aromatic plants

Foreseeing the end of tobacco, he set up Anthir, which today exports 90% of its production.

By George Fintikakis

News 11.02. 2012

When, in the late 1990s, the then young Epaminondas Kamariaris began experimenting with aromatic plants in his family’s tobacco fields in Agrinio, seeking a realistic way out of the looming tobacco shipwreck, many farmers in the area treated him with distrust.

A new school without classrooms in Sweden

Designed by the creative agency Rosan Bosch

source: lifo.gr

An original school has opened in Sweden, in which the classrooms are not separated by walls, or rather, in essence, there are no classrooms at all in the form we know them, but spaces that resemble a modern amusement park design, where children can learn and play at the same time.

 

Europe without solidarity

The inglorious end of the EU’s food aid program for needy citizens

By Petros Stagos

News 05.01.2012

A bitter taste was left in the European civil society, shortly before the end of 2011, by the political decision taken by the Council of the European Union, which ensured the funding of the food aid program for deprived citizens (PEAD) for two more years: a program that for many years was considered the only embodiment of practical solidarity of the Union towards a portion of its population riddled with poverty and exclusion.

Between the parties and the market

The STEP

By Nikos Mouzelis 

 

Civil society is a concept that plays a central role today both at the level of political practice and that of theoretical discourse. Like all basic concepts in the social sciences, the term civil society (CS) is multifaceted. That is, it has a different meaning depending on the theoretical and historical-social context in which it is inserted. The dominant definition today conceptualizes CS as a third, intermediate space between the partisan system and the market. This space, at least normatively, does not operate on the basis of either the partisan logic or that of the market and profit. In our country, CS, in the above sense of the term, is extremely apathetic. One of the reasons for this apathy has to do with partisanship. That is, with the tendency of parties to penetrate all institutional spaces of society, thus undermining their autonomous logics and values. In the current period of crisis, we see on the one hand the complete depreciation of parties, while on the other hand the consumer culture of the market, due to the poverty of a large part of the population, has been significantly weakened. In this situation, we observe both positive and negative developments in the field of CP.

Starting from the latter (which in a way constitute the dark side of the Communist Party) political apathy, delinquency, social lawlessness and the flight of many young people into the artificial paradises of substances are intensifying. The power of groups and organizations, such as “Golden Dawn”, which promote racist values ​​and mentalities, while resorting to scapegoats to explain the current hardship, is also intensifying.

 

Volunteering

 

In contrast to the above developments, we observe reactions to the crisis that have a much more positive and optimistic character. The shrinking of state social services has led to the activation and proliferation of aid groups for individuals in need of social welfare and protection. From voluntary groups that provide financial assistance, clothing and food to those that offer medical and legal services, we see the development of a culture of solidarity that is not manifested through the state but much more directly and spontaneously “from below”, by citizens who respond to their fellow human beings who ask for help. Thus, another Greece that most of us were unaware of before the crisis is now gradually coming to the fore.

There are, of course, those who view the above developments with a critical eye. As far as voluntary social assistance is concerned, it is considered to encourage a neoliberal strategy that aims, regardless of the crisis, to transfer functions of the welfare state to the private sector. I think that the above criticism is unfounded. Social volunteerism does not want the welfare state to shrink. It simply tries, both in times of crisis and in times when there is no crisis, to complement state social services by offering assistance that does not have the impersonal bureaucratic character of state welfare.

 

The political role

 

Moving now from the social to the political sphere of the CP, here too we observe politicized individuals who turn their backs on parties and decide to participate in the public sphere through non-governmental organizations. Organizations that promote human rights, the democratization of institutions, transparency in politics, the protection of weak groups from state authoritarianism, the fight against widespread corruption in the Public Sector, etc. In this context, one must also mention the independent authorities, which, when truly independent of the government in question, put a stop to both state arbitrariness and the monopolistic unbridledness of the markets. There is no doubt that the crisis creates favorable conditions for the development of such organizations that mitigate the imbalance between state and society.

However, there are also objections to independent authorities. The criticism here is that these organizations lack democratic legitimacy, since they have leaders who are not elected by the people. Therefore, they do not represent anyone but themselves. However, no serious analyst of democratic institutions advocates that the only way to participate in political processes should be exclusively through parties or referendums. In societies where parliamentary democracy has deep roots, citizens participate in the political space also through a multitude of organizations that are part of the CP space. It is precisely when the latter do not exist or are weak that there is a serious democratic deficit, which widens the gap between parties and citizens.

Finally, the political space of the CP also includes the “Indignant” movement, which, as in other European countries, challenged both the ruling parties and the neoliberal policies of the Eurozone – policies that intensify recession, unemployment and socio-economic marginalization. The “Indignant” movements, both in our country and elsewhere, are a continuation of the Seattle and Genoa-type movements. Although these did not lead directly to institutional changes, they have changed the political culture.

They have led to new forms and ways of contestation that develop outside of parties. They lay the foundations of a form of democratic governance in which, in addition to parties, there must be alternative ways of participation in public life. Ways that do not undermine but can revitalize parliamentary democracy in the current context.

I do not have space to refer to non-governmental organizations in the ecological and cultural fields – which are also growing rapidly due to the crisis. All I want to emphasize in conclusion is that the crisis, among the myriad evils it brings, has also created positive conditions that can lead to a more humane, more democratic, more civilized society.

Mr. Nikos Mouzelis is Emeritus  Professor of Sociology at the  London School of Economics. 

A Georgian friend

The News 27.09.2011

By Michalis Modinos

While watching Olympiacos the other day
in a café-bar, I caught up with
a Georgian sitting at the next table during halftime. The occasion was the upcoming
match between the national teams of the two countries in Tbilisi, which
will likely determine our qualification for the next European Championship.
This man, who has been working in Greece as
a painter for thirteen years and speaks excellent Greek, also mentioned the Georgian community here
. In his opinion (
there are no official figures), over a hundred thousand Georgians work in
our country, but only a third have been legalized. The
majority are women and work as domestic helpers. The
specialization of most of them is the care of the elderly
.

The Minoan who emerged from the soil

The Step 04.09.2011

By Maria Thermou

 

The earthquake was great, the entire building moved to one side and then to the other, and while the vibrations continued, the walls began to give way, the wooden beams that supported it broke and at some point the collapse came. The floors fell, the floors of one were on top of the floors of the other, eliminating the gaps between them and a multitude of objects tumbled and became trapped between them.
Approximately 3,600 years have passed since this great disaster occurred in Zominthos of Psiloritis and throughout Minoan Crete. Then one afternoon at the end of last July, at the very time that archaeologist  Efi Sapouna-Sakellaraki  was showing the residents of Anogia to the excavation, a beautiful bronze Minoan emerged from the soil. With a long garment and a belt around the waist, with one hand on his forehead and the other straight on his buttocks, but also with elaborate hair: a bun at the back of his head from which braids spring out.

Private cities in the jungle

Eleftherotypia/Le Monde diplomatique 04.09.2011

By Maurice Lemoine

 

A “brilliant economist” (the expression is not ours), a professor at Stanford University, has been scouring the planet and especially Africa for many years, looking for a country where he can apply his own inspired theory: “What hinders the development of poor countries are the “ugly rules” that states impose on investors, discouraging them in this way.” What needs to be done, therefore, is to find some virgin lands to set up “charter cities”, “model cities” in which these investors, domestic and foreign, will set up their factories and crafts, as well as road networks, housing, shops, schools, clinics and basic services, all thanks to a workforce that will be driven there due to unemployment. It goes without saying that this enclave will have its own laws, courts, police, its own government – ​​and will not pay taxes to the country that hosts it.

Romer arouses only a discreet interest until the day in January 2011 when, at the initiative of Javier Arguello, the Honduran president of the American construction company Inter-Mac International, he meets in Washington with Juan Orlando Hernandez, president of the Congress of this small Central American country. He arranges a meeting with Lobo and some of his associates in Miami. Romer cites the success of Hong Kong, Singapore and the special economic zones in China. Some cynics would counter by saying that the historical, geographical, economic and cultural conditions in which these examples developed place them light years away from Honduras. But these are not enough to shake Lobo and his people. In order to emerge from scratch a “model city” of 1,000 square kilometers, Congress revises on February 17th article 304 of the Constitution – “in no case may bodies with extraordinary jurisdiction be created” to add “with the exception (!) of the legal privileges of Special Development Areas”.

Political bra-de-fer in Honduras

Eleftherotypia/Le Monde diplomatique 04.09.2011

By Maurice Lemoine

 

With this in mind, the government of Porfirio Lobo – which emerged after the June 2009 coup – accepted the return of former President Manuel Zelaya to the country, which was one of the four demands of the Honduran resistance. A scene of misery, three hundred blue plastic huts are lined up under the foliage of a forest of oil palm trees. Insects buzz everywhere, while the air exudes a smell of wet wool. This stifling filth is the kingdom of malaria. There are many old people and children. A villager, wrinkling her nose as she blows it, pronounces a name: Miguel Facuche. “He is a strong man, with his money he moves mountains. We are afraid of him too.”

Nothing goes to waste…

Bartering goods is becoming a way of life for more and more Americans

EDITOR: GEORGE ANGELOPOULOS

PUBLISHED: Wednesday, August 31, 2011

One day a week, in Brunswick, Brooklyn, one of the most “metropolitan” neighborhoods in New York City, fresh eggs from free-range hens raised in traditional Amish coops, basil and rosemary with a Mediterranean aroma, and organic tomatoes arrive from the countryside. The produce is purchased by members of the Brunswick Food Cooperative. Like 29-year-old Ben Rasmussen, a dancer by profession; 30-year-old Shira Shaham; 25-year-old Ariel de Leon. All young and penniless. They are not the typical customers you would find at Whole Foods, the organic supermarket of the rich, where everything costs 30% more. They, on the other hand, have the privilege of filling their refrigerators at truly affordable prices and with top-quality products. The only condition is that they work a few hours each week for the cooperative.

Another typical scene takes place in Somerville, Massachusetts. Hundreds of young people flock there from neighboring Boston for National Swap Day: in an auditorium rented for the occasion, they exchange all kinds of used items, from “designer” clothes and accessories to books and DVDs. Within half an hour, everything is gone. The logic is that just because I don’t need an item anymore, doesn’t mean its only destination is the trash can.

The antidote to the crisis lies in Greek soil

The News 29.07.2011

Report: Petros Stefanis

 

They are the farmers who dare to take the
above step, trying their luck in
less widespread crops or livestock. At least in their beginnings,
most of them take risks. With little or no subsidy, they do not
give up even now, with the general economic squeeze.
On the contrary, they have secured their stable clientele, mainly
in foreign markets…

The University of the Mountains at the heart of Aegean Airlines’ Blue magazine

 

Where scientific knowledge meets the ancient wisdom of the countryside and professors from the University of Crete (along with fellow professors from distinguished universities abroad, such as the well-known anthropologist Michael Herzfeld from Harvard) alternate roles with the inhabitants of the mountainous villages of Crete lies the essence of the University of the Mountains, a pioneering project that has already attracted the attention of the world, through special features on CNN and dozens of publications in the international press.

 

 

Read the full article in pdf format.

‘Don’t throw anything away…’

Of Iphigenia Diamantis

Kathimerini 16.07.2011

 

Return… to the roots, literally and figuratively, scientists propose, highlighting the multiple benefits of agroforestry, at the fifteen-day 3rd International Summer School on the evolution of the ancient art of land cultivation, which concluded yesterday. It was organized by the “Ioannis S. Latsis” Public Benefit Foundation at the group’s offices in Kifissia, in collaboration with the Technological Educational Institute of Lamia, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Universities of Florence and Extremadura. 34 students from 11 countries and 27 professors from 8 countries participated.

A combination of agricultural and arboreal plants and possibly animals, agroforestry makes full use of every natural element. Nothing is thrown away and everything is useful, as in the “grandmother’s garden,” a popular form of agroforestry with various vegetable crops, where the manure of the family’s animals served as fertilizer, while the concept of waste was unknown, since everything was useful and recyclable.

In India, growth overshadows dysfunction

By Jim Yardley

Eleftherotypia / The New York Times 03.07.2011

 

GURGAON, India – In this city that
was almost deserted just two decades ago, today there are 26 shopping
malls, seven golf courses and
luxury stores, Mercedes-Benz and BMWs shine in showrooms,
skyscrapers sprout everywhere like concrete weeds, while
a futuristic commercial hub called Cyber ​​City
houses many of the world’s largest companies.

 

One might think that Gurgaon,
located about 25 km south of New Delhi, has everything,
but in reality it lacks much: a
city-wide sewage system, reliable electricity and
water supply networks, sufficient parking spaces, safe roads, and a network
of any means of public transport that covers the entire
city.

Siblings by choice

The News 08.07.2011

By George Angelopoulos

Michael Mattocks was 7 years old and
homeless, moving from shelter to shelter and living off soup kitchens
in Washington, D.C., when he met 20-year-old John Prendergast,
a volunteer for the Big Brother program. Their relationship lasted
for years and he was an important support for Michael. The boy
became a drug dealer at one point, but he soon found
steady work and is now a husband and father of five
. His story, Prendergast says, is typical
of the impact that small acts of volunteerism can have in
lifting underprivileged children out of poverty and
crime.

German for prospective immigrants

By Natasha Bastea

The News 08.07.2011

 

 

In Spain, where unemployment is
now at record levels, everyone is desperately looking for a way to
survive. A village mayor thinks he has found the
answer: German lessons for residents to
prepare them to immigrate to the country with the largest
economy in Europe. But their teacher tries to
warn them that all is not perfect in the land of beer and
sausages.

The curse of the Three Gorges Dam has broken out

By George Tsiaras

For years, Chinese leaders have been touting the Three Gorges Dam as a “modern Great Wall of China.” It is a work of art on a scale of the gods: it took 15 years—and 16 million tons of concrete—to build and tame the rush of the great river, the Yangtze. One in three Chinese lives in the Yangtze basin. For millennia, the third-longest river in the world has followed its natural cycle of droughts and floods—drowning people, but also feeding vast populations with its fertile silt. But not anymore: after an unprecedented drought that caused problems for 40% of crops – a drought that, according to many experts, is largely due to the hubris of mega-dams – the first heavy rains of the summer have brought chaos to vast areas. Many are already talking about the “curse” of the Three Gorges Dam.

Does money create culture?

By Yannis N. Baskozos

“Is there a world without money?”  the author asks. Would we be better off without it, as some young economists claim? Ferguson cites the Jivaro tribe of Ecuador, one of many hunter-gatherer tribes, where deaths among its male members reached 60%, due to the violence that developed. When this tribe encountered another tribe, they preferred to fight each other for the acquisition of scarce resources (food and fertile women) rather than exchange products. Hunter-gatherers do not trade or store, since they consume their food the moment they find it. They do not need money.  “Is something similar  being asked by those today who invoke  a life without money?”  Ferguson wonders.

Fruitful sociological patterns for the future

By Thanasis Vasiliou

Kathimerini Newspaper

03/07/2011

From the dominance of markets and the crisis, to the rebirth of society

With the importance of the “social”, the sociological perspective does not define the crisis only as a “damage” to the capitalist economy. It starts with the assumption that the crisis, wherever and however it breaks out, first destroys society. The French sociologist Alain Touraine, who, in 1971, was one of the proponents of the “post-industrial society”, the society of technology, the possession of knowledge and the control of information, describes here the stage of the “post-social society” – the society characterized by the gap that separates the globalized financial elite from the rest of the world.

The Left should let its imagination run wild

By Olga Sella

Kathimerini Newspaper

26/06/2011

Chilean writer Luis Sepúlveda speaks to “K” about the crisis

A citizen of the world, a leftist activist and an ecologist, but also a realist, a thinking man is the Chilean writer Luis Sepúlveda. In the few days he stayed in Greece, during his fourth visit last week, he did it all: he spoke at the Cervantes Institute as part of the 3rd Ibero-American Book Festival, passed by Syntagma Square to see the people gathered there, signed books at “Eleftheroudakis” and, on his way out, addressed a message of support to the gathered librarians on the duduka. However, this is not a leftist who only stays at the solidarity event. He proposes, presents opinions, does not settle for old, ready-made formats, has no blinders, does not become fanatical, does not excommunicate. And he says things in a very simple way:

Water lilies and horror

Cervantes Institute

With the pen of eight authors, the lens of photographer Juan Carlos Tomasi and the assistance of Doctors Without Borders, the audience of the Cervantes Institute will discover the true face of terror, in countries without a tomorrow. 

The relationship of man with the world around him

By Magdalene Tsevreni

“Democracy is the worst form of government; except for all the others”

As a collection of short stories, with short, self-contained narratives and various forms of writing, this volume combines lectures, presentations, interviews and publications by K. Popper from the 1960s to the mid-1990s. The title of the book, “Life is Problem Solving,” comes from the text of the same name, in which the philosopher argues, in the simple style of writing that he has chosen from the standpoint, that our lives are determined by the problems we face and the efforts – successful or not – to solve them. These problems may concern the democratic system, the teaching of History, everyday decisions, the content of philosophy, the role of intellectuals, natural science or even evolutionary biology. In short, they characterize our world.

Olive Oil Production Award, Tradition and Modernization

Archives

• Biolea and Astarti Win Quality Awards 80.23 KB
• Olive Oil Production Award 2.09 MB

The food we throw away

By George Angelopoulos (Ta Nea)

Tristram Stuart, a Cambridge graduate and freegan activist, is putting food thrown away by supermarkets and restaurants on the table. “While people are starving, we are throwing away a third of the world’s food production,” he says.

Serge Latouche: Simple Abundance, the New Way of Life

Interview with Yannis Elafros (Kathimerini)

“The
river of consumption overflowed, flooded everything and now leaves
the swamp of recession. After societies became sick from excessive
economic growth, they are now “extinguishing” from the bursting of the bubble.
Is it time to think about the prospect of degrowth?”
We met the “prophet” of the utopia of frugal abundance, the French
intellectual Serge Latouche, a prophet without a god. “We are the atheists of the
economy, of the true religion of modernity,” tells us the
emeritus professor at the University of Paris-Sud 11 (Orsais), an expert
in North-South economic and political relations. S. Latouche came
to Greece at the invitation of movements of an alternative social and
ecological approach.

Greece
is currently suffering from recession, crisis and the memorandum
policies of wild cuts. What is the point of talking about degrowth,
we ask. “Let’s not confuse our own project with deprivation. Equally
, what is happening in Greece and throughout Europe are the
terrifying consequences of the crisis of the societies of financialization,
overgrowth and consumption. For many decades the system
told us that we must give everything for development, without
asking about the next day. But the planet is finite,
energy sources, natural reserves need a different management”,
answers the French philosopher.

Interview with Yannis Elafros (Kathimerini)

“The
river of consumption overflowed, flooded everything and now leaves
the swamp of recession. After societies became sick from excessive
economic growth, they are now “extinguishing” from the bursting of the bubble.
Is it time to think about the prospect of degrowth?”
We met the “prophet” of the utopia of frugal abundance, the French
intellectual Serge Latouche, a prophet without a god. “We are the atheists of the
economy, of the true religion of modernity,” tells us the
emeritus professor at the University of Paris-Sud 11 (Orsais), an expert
in North-South economic and political relations. S. Latouche came
to Greece at the invitation of movements of an alternative social and
ecological approach.

Greece
is currently suffering from recession, crisis and the memorandum
policies of wild cuts. What is the point of talking about degrowth,
we ask. “Let’s not confuse our own project with deprivation. Equally
, what is happening in Greece and throughout Europe are the
terrifying consequences of the crisis of the societies of financialization,
overgrowth and consumption. For many decades the system
told us that we must give everything for development, without
asking about the next day. But the planet is finite,
energy sources, natural reserves need a different management”,
answers the French philosopher.

“The
modern tragedy,” according to S. Latouche, “consists in the fact that, while
we are in a hyper-consumer society, we cannot
consume. In the logic of frugal abundance, which we advocate, there
is no deprivation. On the contrary, in today’s market-based society
, the deprivation index is always greater than the
satisfaction index, because only in this way is the need for consumption created.
Advertising reproduces deprivation and creates new, false needs.”

For
the thinker of degrowth, modern societies are
founded on the absolute lack of measure and therefore
“hubris is committed, in the ancient Greek sense of the term. For many
decades, the dominant virtue in the financial sector has been greed.”
Isn’t this how killer managers and stock market
weapons of mass destruction were created?

Σύμφωνα
με τον Γάλλο φιλόσοφο, το πρόταγμα της αποανάπτυξης καλεί σε οικοδόμηση
της κοινωνίας με άλλες αξίες. «Για να βρούμε το μέτρο, αλλάζοντας και
τον άνθρωπο και την κοινωνία». Ο Σ. Λατούς για να δείξει καλύτερα τι
εννοεί, χρησιμοποιεί ένα απόσπασμα από μια παλιά ομιλία του Ρόμπερτ
(Μπομπ) Κένεντι, που εκφωνήθηκε λίγες μέρες πριν από τη δολοφονία του:
«Το δικό μας Ακαθάριστο Εθνικό Προϊόν περιλαμβάνει επίσης την
ατμοσφαιρική ρύπανση, τις διαφημίσεις για τα τσιγάρα και τις διαδρομές
των ασθενοφόρων που μαζεύουν τους τραυματίες από τους δρόμους.
Περιλαμβάνει την καταστροφή των δασών μας και την καταστροφή της φύσης.
Περιλαμβάνει τις ναπάλμ και το κόστος της αποθήκευσης των ραδιενεργών
απορριμμάτων. Από την άλλη, το ΑΕΠ δεν λαμβάνει υπόψη την υγεία των
παιδιών μας, την ποιότητα της μόρφωσης, τη χαρά των παιχνιδιών τους,
την ομορφιά της ποίησής μας ή τη σταθερότητα των γάμων μας. Δεν εκτιμά
το κουράγιο μας, την ακεραιότητά μας, την αντίληψή μας, τη σοφία μας.
Τα μετράει όλα, εκτός απ’ αυτά που δίνουν αξία στη ζωή».

Πώς
όμως μπορούμε να μεταβούμε σε αυτή την άλλη κοινωνική πραγματικότητα;
Το εγχειρίδιο της «συγκεκριμένης ουτοπίας της αποανάπτυξης» περιέχει τη
μέθοδο των οκτώ R: Επαναξιολόγηση (re-evaluation), επανεννοιολόγηση
(re-conceptualization), αναδόμηση (re-structure), αναδιανομή
(re-distribution), επανατοπικοποίηση (re-localization), μείωση
(reduction), επαναχρησιμοποίηση (re-utilization), ανακύκλωση
(recycling). Αν και το πρόσημο είναι στην κατεύθυνση της μείωσης της
ανάπτυξης, υπάρχουν και στοιχεία αναδιανομής, έτσι ώστε να καλυφθούν οι
αποστάσεις μεταξύ Βορρά-Νότου.

«Το
ζητούμενο σήμερα δεν είναι να κατέχουμε περισσότερα, αλλά να
κατακτήσουμε το ευ ζην, όχι μέσω της κατανάλωσης, αλλά μέσω κοινωνικών
δικτύων υποστήριξης και κάλυψης των κοινωνικών αναγκών», μας λέει ο Σ.
Λατούς. «Σήμερα», σημειώνει, «υπάρχουν ορισμένες κοινωνικές τάσεις στις
οποίες εμφανίζονται ανάλογοι προβληματισμοί, όπως είναι οι λεγόμενες
πόλεις σε μετάβαση στην Αγγλία (οι οποίες προσπαθούν να μειώσουν τις
εξαρτήσεις από εισροές ενέργειας και άλλους πόρους και να προασπίσουν
το περιβάλλον) ή το κίνημα για την εξοικονόμηση ενέργειας και την μετά
άνθρακα εποχή στη Γαλλία. Επίσης, σε ατομικό επίπεδο, στη Βόρεια
Αμερική εκατομμύρια άτομα έχουν επιλέξει συνειδητά τη στάση της
ηθελημένης απλότητας. Προσπαθούν να ζουν πιο απλά, πιο λιτά, χωρίς να
σημαίνει ότι στερούνται τα δικαιώματά τους. Αλλά η ατομική στάση, η
ατομική ηθική δεν άλλαξε ποτέ από μόνη της την κοινωνία. Απαιτείται
πολιτική αλλαγή. Δεν αρκούν ατομικές ή και ομαδικές αλλά αποσπασματικές
ενέργειες. Χρειάζεται μια συνολική αλλαγή πλεύσης. Για παράδειγμα, εάν
εγώ δεν καταναλώνω βενζίνη, τίποτα δεν μου λέει ότι ένας άλλος δεν θα
καταναλώσει περισσότερο».

Γι’
αυτό ο Σ. Λατούς εμπνέεται περισσότερο από ολοκληρωμένες πολιτικές
παρεμβάσεις, όπως αυτές που έγιναν στη Βολιβία και στο Εκουαδόρ. «Εκεί,
μέσα από κοινωνικές εξεγέρσεις, προέκυψαν κυβερνήσεις με επικεφαλής
ιθαγενείς, οι οποίοι έχουν μια διαφορετική σχέση με τη Φύση.
Κατοχυρώθηκε, και συνταγματικά, ότι η Φύση δεν μπορεί να κακοποιείται,
καθώς και ότι οι πηγές ενέργειας ανήκουν στην κοινωνία και δεν μπορούν
να ιδιωτικοποιηθούν».

Αποανάπτυξη ή βαρβαρότητα

«Πρέπει
να απελευθερώσουμε το φαντασιακό μας από την αποικιοκρατία της
οικονομίας, όπως τόνιζε και ο Κορνήλιος Καστοριάδης», τονίζει ο Σερζ
Λατούς, σημειώνοντας τη στρέβλωση των αξιών που έχει επιβάλει η κατά
Ντεμπόρ «Κοινωνία του θεάματος».

Ο
Σερζ Λατούς μιλά για την εναλλακτική μιας οικοσοσιαλιστικής δημοκρατίας
και για υπέρβαση του καπιταλισμού, ασκώντας όμως κριτική στον μαρξισμό
και στην Αριστερά. «Η ουσία του καπιταλισμού είναι η ανάπτυξη. Η
Αριστερά έχει πέσει στην παγίδα του παραγωγισμού».

The French philosopher is also critical
of theories of sustainable or green
development: “It seems as if the large multinationals and the giant
interest lobbies have hijacked the concept of the environment,
baptizing meat, fish. Before Fukushima, for example,
they tried to convince us that nuclear energy is
environmentally friendly and opposed to climate change. But can
the protection of the environment be handed over to those who destroyed it?”
Leading sections of the Green parties of Europe do not escape his arrows
, which he accuses of having sunk into management,
governmental or otherwise.

Does
the proposal for degrowth constitute a historical regression, turning
back the clock of social evolution? Does it lead to
isolated societies?

Serge
Latouche predicts that the current crisis will deepen, heralding
chaotic situations, not to mention the possibility of
mega-disasters, such as Fukushima. “It is the crisis of the
consumer society that is holding us back. Today, the dilemma is degrowth
or barbarism.”

He transports books with donkeys

Article from the Sunday Vima

59-year-old Yohannes
Gebregeorgis was born in Negele Borena, a small village in
southern Ethiopia. His father was a cattle herder and was illiterate.
He wanted to learn to read and walked 375 km to the nearest
primary school. He first held an extracurricular book in his hands when he was
nineteen years old.

Fair trade against poverty

By Ioanna Niaoti (Eleftherotypia)

Italian economist and activist Rudi Dalvai, one of the founding members of the movement, speaks to “E”, explaining why fair trade is an effective and efficient response to poverty, contributing to sustainable local and global economic development.

Tell us about the history of the movement and how it has benefited the global community.

Dimensions: The mule refuses to move forward

By Michalis Mitsou (Ta Nea)
The term was coined by a
sociologist and activist from the Philippines, Walden Bello.
The title of the book he published in 2003 is clear evidence:
“Deglobalization. Ideas for a New World Economy”. In the same
year, he said at the World Social Forum: “Globalization
has broken its promise. The forces that represent
human solidarity and community have no choice but to
intervene as quickly as possible to convince the disillusioned masses that “
another world is possible!””. Bello disagreed with
Oxfam’s view that the best way for poor countries to develop is
free access to the markets of the countries of the North. For him,
developing countries should focus on regional
trade and impose tariffs to protect their markets.

Goal of the University of the Mountains: Life in the countryside

Eleni Fountoulaki

Chania News

Published on: 19-04-2011

To bring the villages and the region of Chania back to life. This
is the goal of the creation of the Deanery of the University of Mountains
in Chania, as highlighted yesterday at a meeting held in the
Chania Sub-region. The organization of parallel events in the field of Education and Culture was
also discussed , starting with the Municipality of Kantanos – Selinos. At the same time, the organization of a large meeting was announced, which will take place on May 7 in Omalos, with the subject of livestock farming.

The Greek who conquered Harrods

Archives

• April 7, 2011, University of Crete graduate conquers Harrods, Real News 516.47 KB

Modern-day Robinson Crusoe lives happily in the Texas desert

Interview with K. Tsavalos (To Vima)

A life experience to the extreme. In 2007, he left New York, where he had worked for 25 years as a fashion photographer, sold his house, which he had bought with an unaffordable loan, “cleaned out” for all the money he owed, and escaped, accompanied only by his dog, to the Texas desert. At 51 today, American John Wells is a modern-day Robinson Crusoe. Not because he was washed away by a wave somewhere, but by conscious choice. He bought very cheaply – for just 5,500 euros – 160 “barren” acres near the Mexican border and set about building with his own hands, with little money, his own personal little paradise. Resourceful and solitary, this 21st-century hermit is accountable only to his vision of being self-sufficient with modest means, without luxuries, without family and social commitments. And today, four years later, he declares himself “happier than ever.”

Honorary distinction of Professor I. Pallikaris as a member of the International Academy of Ophthalmology

• 31/03/2011, International Award to G. Pallikaris, PATRIS
• 31/03/2011, Pallikaris Distinction, Nea Crete
• 31/03/2011, Yannis Pallikaris is a member of the International Academy of Ophthalmology, Cretan Review

Indian schools without memorization

Vikas Bajaj
Free Press
PANDAGAR, India – The classrooms of Nagla Primary School and the other 1,500 schools in the Indian state of Uttarakhand have been transformed into a laboratory for an educational approach unusual for Indian standards.

Cosmetics from Symi to the USA

Christina Poutetsi
To Vima
A Greek expatriate creates a company that “packages and sells the best that Greece has to offer” In the well-known department store Barney’s in New York, the corner dedicated to sophisticated luxury cosmetics hosts a line called “Sponge”, with simple packaging on which are written in Latin characters: “ladi avocado”, “krema triantafillo”, “krema mattia”, “aromatotherapia levanta”. “They are from Greece”, explains the unsuspecting saleswoman and adds that the products are particularly popular and the favorites of famous Hollywood stars, due to their plant origin and quality. Their creator is Mr. Markos-Lambros Drakotos, a first-generation Greek expatriate, who was born and raised in New York. The founder and president of the cosmetics company named “Sponge” chose this word because it reminded him of his origins. His parents grew up in Athens, but his mother is from the Sofades of Karditsa and his father’s family emigrated from Santorini to Symi. He tells “Vima” that “like most Greeks, I spent all my summers in Greece.” A lawyer by profession, he studied Law to become active in the family business that manages 40 buildings in New York. “The only reason I became a lawyer was to help manage our portfolio,” he says, explaining that he is involved in every activity, from renovation to construction and design.

The folklore of Carnival

By Walter Puchner
Free Press
The most characteristic feature of Carnival is masquerade and disguise. It is one of the most ancient manifestations of human culture, which signifies the change of identity. The mask is the material expression of an entire theatrical performance with an object, the embodiment of acting. All cultures know the external means of internal transformation. The disguised person is perceived as other, different, changed. Already in Paleolithic cultures, the hunter disguises himself with the skin of the prey and imitates its movements. The goal of this act is magical, the attempt of man to influence and prejudge the events around him by means of “analogous magic”: whatever I can name, I govern, whatever I can imitate or represent, I manipulate. In carnival masquerades, this magical purposefulness has subsided and another element is projected, which could be called “mundus reversus”, the upside-down world.

The “exceptional event”

Maria Katsounaki’s
Kathimerini
Trikouverto feast was set up last Sunday in Avdi Square in Metaxourgeio. It was early in the evening, music was playing, people were gathered, a large group, dancing, clapping, spinning, everyone was participating in their own way. The gathering exuded cheer, energy, joy. I approached. I looked for the orchestra, the singers, the masquerades, the ribbons, the confetti. Nothing. No musical instruments, no disguises, no carnival equipment. People were having fun like that. Making improvised sounds, tunes from an unspecified country of origin. They were there, all together. Residents of the area. Greeks and immigrants. Many young people. Some, a few, in colorful wigs. Wine in plastic glasses, maybe tsipouro, and, above all, a willingness to participate. A desire to celebrate. Halloween seemed to be just the occasion.

End of an era, with clarity

By Nikos G. Xydakis
Athens allied with Nature yesterday afternoon to bid farewell
to the artist. Everything was in harmony at the First Cemetery, as
befits a leading figure of his generation, as befits the talented
painter, the sensitive and bohemian, the master of the unmade, Nikos
Alexiou. Everything was suspended in clarity. The ether: the
sky was cold ash, and cold dry. The color: under the cold sky,
the clear tones of green, pine, cypress,
palm, the off-white roses, the multicolor of flowers shone. The sound:
birdsong, echoes from the funeral procession, fragments
of John of Damascus: “Each shadow is weaker, each dream is
more deceptive… Like a flower it withers, and like a dream it passes away…
Wealth does not remain, glory does not accompany it…”

Scholarships 2011: Opportunities for free studies in Greece and abroad

Ta Nea Newspaper
08/02/2011

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Agricultural Issue: An equation with many unknowns

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The University of the Mountains: A Comprehensive College of Higher Education where everyone learns from everyone

Ioannis Siatitsas
…But

could
you ever, as I did, turn
yourself
inside out,
so that
you all become one mouth?
Come and let me
teach you,…
V. Mayakovsky, The Cloud
with Pants .
Translated by G. Ritsos
The idea is simple: I know something that you don’t know and would like to learn;
you know something that I don’t know and would like to learn. Let’s meet to
exchange our special knowledge; and this exchange alone will make us
better. And for something like that, no money is needed. A little further: you have a
problem that I can solve for you; I have a problem that you can
solve for me. Let’s dedicate some of our time to these problems. And if
perhaps we do not reach commonly accepted or definitive solutions, we will have taken a
step towards each other; we will manage, at least, to share
our problems, to break the isolation that brings exclusion. And that
is not a small thing. Money is not needed for that either. Even further: to change the
relationship between city and village; I, the city man, to go to the village, not only to
enjoy its warmth and warmth, but also to offer goods that
the peasant lacks, to facilitate the peasant’s coming to the city whenever
he wishes and not when need calls for it. And to take: to rediscover the values,
lost to me, alive to him, that keep him in the village,
management with few means and even fewer – and in many cases miserable – services,
survival in nature and coexistence with nature. And let us always remember:
it is the bleeding of the village that feeds the city.

Saint Catherine was resurrected in Heraklion, Crete: Museum of the future in a 10th century temple

By N. KONTRAROU – RUSSIA

Eleftherotypia

Who said that a place of worship that smells of incense and is
charged with centuries of human prayers cannot
also function as a museum with works of art, as well as high-tech multimedia, even
laser beams to project its architectural elements?

Focus on lifelong learning

By Apostolos Lakasas
Kathimerini
11/02/2011
Job insecurity and the fear that technological developments
will make their work obsolete are leading more and more
Greeks to lifelong learning programs. It is, moreover, indicative
that most people no longer associate lifelong learning with
specific social groups, such as the unemployed and young people.
These data emerge from a nationwide survey conducted
in January among 3,050 people over 18 years of age on behalf of the
Ministry of Education, by the company Public Issue with funding from
the National Strategic Reference Framework.

Our daily bread…

Christos Michaelides
I can ONLY INTRODUCE our today’s “guest” – what a guest,
that is, that I saw and suffered until I found him and, above all, convinced him to
meet, get to know each other and talk. His name is Dimitris
Kotsaris and he was born about 75 years ago in the village of Velanidia
in Messinia, to a farmer father, “a very strict man, authoritarian,
rigid, but also impeccable, my brother”, and a mother “holy, what can I say to you,
she raised ten children without wronging anyone, with an excess of love for
all – do you know why? – because she had nothing else to give, only this,
love”.

Solidarity against selfishness

Edited – Translated by: Thanasis Gialketsis
Eleftherotypia
19/01/2011
Alain Caillet is a professor of Sociology at the University of Nanterre
and has created the “Anti-Utilitarian Movement in the Social
Sciences” (Mauss), inspired by the ideas of the French anthropologist
Marcel Mauss (1872-1950). Caillet challenges the dominant economic thought,
according to which individuals are motivated only by their selfish
interest. To this “utilitarianism” he contrasts another
fundamental motive of human action, the spirit of generosity
and solidarity. The following text by Alain Caillet was published
in the newspaper “Liberation”. In 1797, Thomas Paine, the main defender and
theorist of the rights of man, dedicated a
libel to the Directory whose argumentation remains more timely than
ever. Asking whether “the state of society has increased or diminished
the happiness of mankind in general”, he concludes that the
primary political question is to learn how to make
civilization preferable to the state of nature in the eyes of the great
majority of human beings. Who can doubt that
this will also be the primary issue of the 21st century: how can we
avoid the possibility that one part of humanity, which is becoming
poorer as the other part becomes
richer, will prefer the “state of nature” – that is, the war of all
against all – to the social state? Beyond the multiple individual answers that
can be given to this challenge, it is important to approach
the problem as it is posed in its most general form. This lies
in the fact that the foundations of our inherited concept of
democracy are revealed to be increasingly unsuitable for the situation of the
globalized world. These utilitarian foundations are organized
around the question: “What good is this to me?”
Democracy is therefore seen as the fruit of a free association of individuals who
are indifferent to one another, as they all try to
maximize their individual advantage. Its purpose is the
pursuit of the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people
, and the means is economic development. Three categories of problems This utilitarian interpretation of democracy poses three categories of problems: 1) To the extent that the democratic ideal is globalized, it makes
inequality and asymmetry between people increasingly intolerable.
old Western rulers – who are often the old colonialists –
and other countries, nations, cultures, civilizations. Without a
recognition of the equal dignity of all peoples and all civilizations
– which is easier said than done – we will not
avoid the war of all against all. 2) The acceptance of market democracy depended
to a large extent on an unprecedented economic growth, which
offered everyone the prospect of upward social
mobility. However, in the West the dynamics of this strong growth
have stopped. The question is whether the democratic
regulatory ideal can remain alive when there is
anemic or almost zero growth. 3) Finally, the whole world sees that where the
dynamics of growth still remain strong (in the cases of
Brazil, Russia, India, China and the emerging
countries), there is no guarantee that it will be a factor of substantial
and stable democratization. And above all, everything leads us to
believe that this development will only be possible for a
relatively short time, at the cost of a dramatic and irreversible
degradation of the ecosystem. As is known, many
planets like Earth would be needed to make the universal spread of the
Western way of life possible. Non-utilitarian democracy All this is summed up in a simple and dramatic question. The utilitarian
hope, of which the West has been the bearer for centuries, was the hope
of overcoming the conflict between people by increasing
material well-being. Such limitless development is already becoming increasingly
problematic. Now that there is no limitless development, will
we manage to find the means to coexist democratically and with dignity, without slaughtering each other? What could the plan to find non-utilitarian or anti-utilitarian foundations in democracy
mean ?
In
“Essay on the Gift” (1924), Marcel Mauss demonstrates that archaic
societies were not based at all on the market or exchange, the
sale or the contract, but on what he calls the triple
obligation of gift, acceptance and reciprocation. In other words,
on the obligation of competing in generosity in order to
recognize subjects as fully human beings. If the gift
has this pacifying power, it has it because it symbolizes the
recognition that conflicting people give to
their mutual human value.

This is what a new type of political ideology, which we can call
“convivialism” (convivialism), must learn to do . Liberalism, socialism or
communism have been versions of a utilitarian political philosophy
that considered the unlimited development of material well-being as the
answer par excellence to democratic expectation. Convivialism poses the
question of learning how to “coexist well” and how to enliven
democracy, even if there is no longer sustained economic growth.
It therefore confronts directly the key question of our time, which
is that of the means of fighting against excess, of “hubris”:
how can humanity learn to limit itself? The basic principle
of convivialism and the fight against the lack of limits lies
in the affirmation of the “common humanity” and the “common sociality”
of all human beings. The principle of common humanity has two
necessary consequences: to prevent some from falling
into a state of degradation of their humanity, into a state of
subhumans, and to prevent others from leaping into a state of superhumans.
In particular, the first consequence converges with the proposition developed by
Thomas Paine in his libel. The only means, he wrote, of converting
the vast majority of people to the certainty that civilization
is preferable to the state of nature is to offer them
without conditions a minimum income that will allow them to
avoid impoverishment.

Unlimited wealth for no one

In the symbiotic society that we must build, the primary source
of legitimacy for states and governments will lie in
their ability to truly ensure to citizens the basic
material conditions of their existence, according to the general situation
of the country or region, whatever their race, religion
or beliefs. Symmetrically, the first measure we must
take to fight against the spirit of excess, which
has prevailed in the world for the last thirty years, is to
institutionalize the fact that no human being is legitimately entitled to
enjoy potentially unlimited wealth.

It is up to democratic debate to
determine what the desirable and acceptable divergence of wealth and
income is. Only the affirmation of the unconditioned principle of common
humanity and the combined institution of a minimum and a
maximum income can give us real opportunities to
prevent the double catastrophe that threatens us in the short term: that
of a dramatic and irreversible degradation of the natural
environment and that of the outbreak of a war of all against all.

Long live, we’ve become seven billion.

Christina Pantzou
Eleftherotypia
16/01/2011
Hopefully, and with five babies born every
second, the world population will reach seven
billion inhabitants this year, according to the United
Nations Population Division, bringing to the surface old fears about how sustainable
the future of the planet can be.

This is the second time in human history that
we have grown by a billion in just 12 years. The
world population has been growing steadily since the 14th century, after the
Black Death, or the plague. But it has never
experienced the huge increase that occurred in the 20th century, mainly due to
the rapid decline in mortality thanks to medical advances and
technological innovations that contributed to the increase in
agricultural production.

It took hundreds of thousands of years to
reach one billion in 1804, while, as
experts estimate, until the Renaissance, the population doubled every 16-17
centuries. But it only took a little over a century to
go from one billion to two (1927), and since then we have not stopped
accelerating: we reached 3 billion in 1960, 4 in 1974, 5
in 1987, and 6 in 1999. If there is any optimistic message, however,
National Geographic magazine points out in a related
tribute, it is certainly that for the first time the rate of
growth of the world’s population has slowed down, which after an impressive peak
in 1963 with 2.2% reached its nadir in 2009 with just 1.1%.

The seventh billion was reached in twelve
years, the same time as the sixth, and this means that between
1999 and 2011 we only increased by one-sixth compared to an increase in the
world population of one-fifth between 1987 and 1999. And
forecasts suggest that the world population will continue to increase, but
at a slower pace, until it stabilizes somewhere around mid-
century.

This is confirmed by developments themselves
, as technological progress and changes in morals lead
from a demographic model of high birth and death rates to one
with lower fertility and mortality rates.
This model of “demographic transition” adopted by the United
Nations has already been achieved in developed countries, where life expectancy
has increased from 35 years at the beginning of the century to 77 and
fertility has decreased from 5-6 children to 2.1 per woman. It is now beginning
to appear in the developing world at a rapid
pace, with life expectancy having almost doubled in many
countries and the fertility rate having fallen drastically in the Far
East, North Africa and Latin America.

However, humanity is growing at a rate of about 80
million per year, but not the Earth, a reality that every
now and then brings back the pessimistic (and repeatedly disproven) predictions of
Thomas Malthus, in the 18th century, that we are headed for extinction because
goods increase in numerical progression while population increases in geometric progression.

Despite repeated denials,
the anxiety about whether the resources are sufficient, whether the
ecosystem can withstand it, remains topical. How will it be possible for all the inhabitants of the planet to have
a decent life? The crucial question is not whether the planet’s resources are sufficient
, but how they are distributed and whether everyone has the opportunity to
access them. The problem is that these resources
are not available where they are needed most. Only
policies can provide the answer.

 

The planet will be youthful in the future

The profile of the Earth’s population, with its 7 billion inhabitants, as outlined by the newspaper “Le temps”:

* 60% will live in Asia. More than four
billion will be Asians, while about a billion will
live in Africa and another billion in the American
continent. As for the European continent as a whole, its population will
reach 750 million. While at the beginning of 1900 Europeans
represented 25% of the world’s population, they will be content with
just 11% by the end of the year. And two out of five inhabitants of the earth will
live in just two countries: China and India.

* The dominance of urban centers. According to
United Nations estimates, city dwellers will surpass
rural dwellers and more than three and a half billion
citizens will now live in urban centers. Especially in colossal
megacities, which host more than ten million
inhabitants. In the 1950s, there were only two cities of this
size. Today, there are more than twenty.

* New migratory flows. 3% of the world’s
population will live in countries where they have chosen or been forced to
migrate. About a third of them will move within
the South, a third from the South to the North, and the remaining third
within the North. And only about ten million will leave the North
to settle in the South.

* Two billion minors. The
world’s population will be younger, with 50% under 29
and more than a quarter under 15.
Only 600 million people, one in twelve, will be over
65. While one in two will be under 15 in
Uganda, in Japan it will be only one in eight, while one in
four will be over 65.

* Fewer women. Humanity will have slightly
more men than women. This difference, of the order of 50
million, is explained by the fact that more
boys are born than girls, while in many areas
selective abortion of female fetuses is practiced. This difference decreases with
age, so that women become more numerous after
a certain age.

New breed of farmers

Eliza Trantafyllou (Eleftherotypia)
16/01/2011
Partly due to fear of the crisis, partly due to love for
nature, a considerable wave of “emigration”
of several Greeks from large urban centers to the countryside has been created in recent years. “K.E.”
came into contact with some of them, the… new-fangled farmers and
livestock breeders. Here are their stories.

The village was brought to life by immigrants

Gioula Zachioti (Eleftherotypia)

16/01/2011

The mayor of Riace, instead of building a wall, built a new society

At a time when illegal immigrants
are becoming increasingly unwelcome, a small corner of southern Italy
has opened its arms to 200 foreign families.

In the villages of Magna Grecia, in the Calabria region
, the mayor of the small village of Riace, Domenico Lucano, has
created over the last six years a model society of immigrants
who coexist peacefully with the locals. That is, the few who
are left after the deportations of Draghetta and the unemployment of
recent decades.

Quinoa: the super nutritious seed

Thanasis Koutsis (Eleftherotypia)
16/01/2011
The gourmet universe’s skeptics already
know it – there is no list of the “superfoods of the future” type that
does not contain it.
Quinoa, of the genus of the legume family, is not a cereal – in
fact, as a plant it is more related to spinach, beetroot and
amaranth – but its seeds are consumed as such, and indeed with
advantages over many similar foods: it does not contain gluten and
is more easily digested than wheat, corn or rye, while
it can replace rice in any of its forms.

Shea S, Lionis C. – Restoring humanity in health care through the art of compassion

An issue for the teaching and research agenda in rural health care.
Historically, the value compassion spans thousands of years,
particularly in a religious context. Despite the historical usage and
interpretations of the term ‘compassion’, there is still discussion on
how to define it, particularly as it may encompass a number of values
​​such as sympathy, empathy, and respect. Speaking at a recent event in
the UK, Jocelyn Cornwell, Director of the Point of Care Program at
the Kings Fund ¹ ,
suggested that compassion in its totality differs from other values ​​in
that it goes beyond simply ‘feeling’ something for another person, and
implies some kind of action and effort as a result of the desire to
‘do’ something for another. Along similar lines, perhaps a most widely
used definition of compassion is that it reflects ‘a deep awareness of
the suffering of another, coupled with the wish to relieve it’ ² .

Slavoj Žižek – The fragile relationship between the market and democracy

The global economic crisis is putting
democratic institutions to a severe test, according to Slovenian philosopher Slavoj
Žižek.

Interview with Petros Papakonstantinou

 

Although he was fired for
his heretical views and political activism in favor of democratic rights by
the Tito regime, Slavoj Žižek remained loyal to left-wing
radicalism.

Balancing deftly on the
tightrope that connects Marxist political economy with the Lacanian
school of psychoanalysis, the Slovenian thinker gained worldwide fame when
his major philosophical work “The Sublime Object
of Ideology” was translated into English (Greek edition: Scripta, 2006).

Today, Žižek is considered a kind of
“superstar” of the humanities. His numerous books
routinely become bestsellers, as confirmed by his latest work,
translated into Greek, “Violence – Six Oblique Reflections” (Scripta, 2010).

The geopolitical game with “rare earths”

Since the time of
Deng Xiaoping, the Asian giant has invested in elements with technological
surplus value and today holds a near monopoly on the global market.

By OLIVER
ZAJEC*

 

There are certain metals essential to
the manufacture of high-tech devices, which are called “rare
earths.” Their global production is dominated by China, which
recently imposed restrictions on their export. The “great geopolitical game” has just
begun. To consolidate its control over these strategically important
minerals, China has implemented what Western capitalism rejects:
long-term industrial policy.

The Athens Dialogues

21/11/2010

Newspaper: VIMA

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Language, the Achilles heel of students

The vocabulary they use, in written or
spoken language, is poor, weak and mainly telegraphic
By Apostolos Lakasas
Greek children feel that they can
communicate well with their parents, friends, teachers, and
social environment. However, unfortunately the language they use is poor. Most
can use a computer, but the
predominant use of English or even Greeklish makes the children’s vocabulary telegraphic, without
the depth that the richness of the Greek language allows. These conclusions
result from a large survey carried out by the Pedagogical Institute
among teachers, professors, and students.

 

The vocabulary they use, in written or
spoken language, is poor, weak and mainly telegraphic.

By Apostolos Lakasas

Sliding tongues

By Michalis Mitsou
Friday, November 19, 2010
It may still be too early to take stock of the year’s events and notable figures. Nevertheless, some writers in France are already rushing to propose the word they believe marked 2010.

We and the “barbarians”

By Alan Shapiro
Friday, November 19, 2010
The American archaeologist is searching for the roots of Greek identity in the context of the major International Conference “Dialogues of Athens” organized by the Alexander Onassis Foundation next week.
When and how was Greek identity built? Archaeologist Alan Shapiro, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, rejects newer views on antiquity, including those of the American-Palestinian literary theorist Edward Said, according to which Greek identity was “forged in the furnace of the Persian Wars.” And based on archaeological finds, mainly amphorae from the Getty Museum, he says that the basic components of Greek identity were accepted in Greece well before the Persian Wars.

The grades are down!

By Michalis Mitsou
Thursday, November 18
, 2010
We complain – and rightly so – about the
situation in Greek schools, the low level of education, the indifference and
the lack of respect. But let’s also take a look at France.

The Unlucky Blacksmith by Georgios Nikiforos

 

 

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They grow exotic fruits. Greek growers turn to tropical flavors

REPORT: Manos Charalampakis Evi Saltou

Thursday, November 11, 2010

It’s called nashi, it’s yellow, it looks like a pear and it’s the… pride of Cyprus. About two weeks ago, the Cypriot Minister of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment, Dimitris Eliades, announced that the exotic Japanese fruit is now also produced in Cyprus and more specifically in the community of Kyperounda.

“I live in the village of volunteers”

Young people talk about their experience of volunteering abroad

REPORT:  Zoe Liaka

Monday, November 1, 2010

 

Knowledge, experience, living in a foreign country, and postponing the stress of work for a year are enough to entice and push young people into volunteering. Food, housing, and a small amount for daily expenses make the idea even more attractive.

An alternative village just outside Vienna became the place of residence for Faye Randou, who was studying Social Anthropology at the University of Athens, for about a year. Shortly before her graduation and while she was thinking about her professional future, she decided to take part in one of Elix’s programs. “I chose the one that was in collaboration with the European Voluntary Service (EVS) because I wouldn’t have any stress about money and living there.” The village where Faye Randou stayed to volunteer her services gave her the opportunity to live close to nature and to engage with the children, whom she loves very much. “The residents have made their own rules, which are connected to the environment and nature. The educational system they follow for their children is Montessori. In this school, children attend their basic education until the age of 14 and then they follow the conventional system. The structure of education in this particular school gives the children the opportunity to choose in a way the subjects that will be taught each day. I was responsible for the craft room. Some children decided to start their day with craft and then, for example, to enter the Math room. It was not all easy from the beginning because I did not speak German and the young children did not speak English. Fortunately, I was able to take intensive German lessons and little by little we solved the issue of communication, which was a main obstacle to our contact,” she says.

Humanity held hostage

From Santiago Alba Rico

The following article by the Spanish philosopher Santiago Alba Rico was published in the Italian magazine “Proteo”.

On the same day that the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) informs us that hunger is currently affecting almost a billion human beings and estimates that the aid needed to save their lives is 30 billion dollars, the coordinated action of six central banks (USA, European Union, Japan, Canada, England and Switzerland) is pouring 180 billion dollars into the financial markets to save private banks. Faced with such a fact, there are only two alternatives left: either we are demagogues or we are realists. If I refer to the natural law of supply and demand and argue that there is much more demand in the world for bread than for cosmetic surgery and much more demand for malaria drugs than for high-fashion clothing; if I call for a Kantian referendum asking European citizens whether they would prefer their country’s savings to be used to save lives or to save banks, I am undoubtedly a demagogue.

Roads <br />Roussos Vranas, 01/10/2010

Is there something… 

… for which we should be grateful to the global economic crisis, which most people on the planet have never experienced worse. It has made us turn our attention to the inequalities that are becoming increasingly deep in Western societies. There is no research that does not reach this conclusion: the rich are getting richer, the poor poorer and the middle class is disappearing.

“Greece is everywhere”… <br /> By PANTELIS BOUKALAS

As soon as I first saw the slogan “Greece is everywhere” written on the bus that our national football team used for its trips to the cities of South Africa, my mind went to the well-traveled Nikos Kavvadias and his “Shift”. So he remembers and tells his companions one of the faces of this exceptional prose:

“I was a sailor then with one of Koupas’s. Nianiaro. We caught a fish on an island of these, for skins. -He scratched his head – I don’t remember what they called it… Koska… Kiska…. Something like that. Cold. You were peeing and it didn’t have time to reach the bottom. It was freezing in the wind. May Porto succeed! Some warehouses covered with tin. A cold night. How can you sleep on the bow… We went out, five or six Kefalonians, in a group. Behind the warehouses we discovered a low house, with a lantern hanging, which read: Spirits and wines, smoke and matches. He didn’t say anything for women. He opened it to us, dressed heavily, like a Scythian. Some huge moustaches were sticking out wildly from his bandaged face. “Sit down Sorrs,” he said to us as if he were cursing us. We sat down on some stools in front of a low table and ordered him a bottle of booze. The floor was covered with shavings. A couple of shelves with dusty bottles on the wall. He stepped on a stool to reach the shelf. He slipped, managing to keep the bottle from slipping out of his hands.

Without knowing it, I was happy<br />By Nikos G. Xydakis

“Just as a dog, tied with a very short rope in its owner’s yard, cannot bark or bite outside the radius and arc described by the short rope, similarly I cannot say or do anything more than the narrow jurisdiction I have in my boss’s office allows me.”

The Papadiamantis narrator describes himself in self-deprecation in “Dream on the Wave.” And he describes the current state of bitter discontent of the Greek, so tied with a short rope that if he were to stretch it, he would risk drowning, being roped off.

There is life outside of development <br />By THANASIS GIALKETSI

Serge Latouche: “A cultural
revolution is needed to be able to remove capitalism from our lives”

The name of the French economist Serge
Latouche has been associated with the idea of ​​“degrowth,” which was considered heretical and
utopian, but is now gaining new interest as a possible political response to the current economic crisis. Serge Latouche gave the following
interview to the Italian newspaper “il Manifesto.”

 

– You talk
about “dedevelopment”, but there are many who object to the
possibility of implementing such a plan.

Critics often highlight the
fact that leaving a development model based on the accumulation
of goods implies a decline in the quality of life. I can say that
degrowth signals the exit from a development model and a profound
change in our way of life. However, this does not mean a worse quality of life
than that which characterizes societies in the North of the planet. What is
certain is that the criteria, the parameters that determine the quality or not of life in a society, must change
. Industrialism meant an
accumulation of goods that had to be consumed, so that they could then be
produced again. This caused environmental pollution and a “consumption”
of natural resources, without the possibility of their reproduction. It is the state of the
planet that dictates that we change direction, because if
we continue on the same path there is a risk that the collapse of capitalism will
coincide with the end of the human race. Degrowth can therefore
be a solution. This does not mean that we need to abandon machines
and tools that have improved our situation. What should be
emphasized is their use value, not their exchange value. This means
using materials that pollute less, with the prospect of
lasting much longer and consuming less energy.
Then there is the issue of lifestyles. Here the change must be radical,
because we need to take into account the natural limits of growth.

 

–
Degrowth also raises questions of democracy. Who decides? And who are
the organizations that control those who decide?

If the problem were summarized in the two
questions you formulated, we would already be in a good place.
That is, we would be in a situation in which we are tasked with
democratically organizing the exit from the “development society”. In all the meetings
I have, this is the problem I pose to my interlocutors, because
degrowth indicates the direction of travel, but does not set barriers to how
we will walk it. We must experiment by establishing forms of life and
democratic social institutions, in which austerity, reduced
consumption and the use of renewable energy sources will play a role
in guiding and orienting choices. In other words, a
prior cultural revolution is needed, which will have as its objective the criticism of the
theology of economic development, that is, of that ideology that
traps people in social relations that do not allow for a
happy life. I use the term happiness as a synonym for freedom,
overcoming the commodification of human relationships, and liberation
from necessity.

– In
your speech, the resonance of Marxist themes is present, such as the criticism of
alienation, but also of theories that identify capitalism or the
market economy with modernity.

I am aware of the criticisms that some
Marxist friends make of degrowth. To them I always reply that the exit from
capitalism is also my goal. But, unlike them,
I pose a primary problem: how can we get capitalism out of
our lives? And here I return to the necessity of a cultural
revolution before the political revolution. I refer to André Gorz, who
in his work clearly says that the labor movement has long been
convinced that the overcoming of capitalism did not necessarily mean a critique
of industrialism. And it was Gorz himself who spoke of existing
socialism as a variant of industrialism, since this socialism was
bound by the fetishization of development and progress. We are in a
situation where we can work to build a free
society without necessarily having to pay the high price of
destroying the environment and natural resources, as happened under existing
socialism.

 

– You
argue that the economic crisis makes degrowth a feasible
political solution for the near future.

Yes, my perception of time
has nothing to do with the current situation. Degrowth is a long-term social
and political process. For now, we need to continue to
denounce the social limits of economic growth. Let us take the
example of China. If industrial-type economic growth continues,
there is a risk of ecological collapse. And indeed, even in
Beijing, strong doubts are beginning to be expressed about the path they have
taken. Then there is a lively interest in the green economy in the United States
. These are encouraging signs that must be
helped and strengthened. Knowing, however, that they are only small
signs of a reversal of the dominant trend. We need to work so
that from small steps, great movements for the transformation
of society are born. *

Roads <br /> Roussos Vranas, ed. Ta Nea, 13-09-2010

Children…
… are once again called upon to communicate with each other and with society essentially
without a language organ. Mute and aphasic. How many words will be lost from
their already meager vocabulary this year? The teachers may be in
their place, but the language has remained in exile for many decades.
Only a few fragments of its historical body remain, which
now resembles a forest cut down by reckless people.
Children struggle to match them to meanings, in an era in which
information is condensed into increasingly smaller and more practical “packages”, with
increasingly limited content.

The dialects…
… and languages ​​of the world are declining in large numbers. Every ten days
one is lost, writes the author Alex Rose in the magazine of the American
University of Drexel. 40% of them are currently in danger of extinction.
C. David Harrison also writes about the death of languages ​​in his book of the same name. And
he expresses his concerns. Because language shows us how the mind works.
Every loss of it means that the door to an immense wealth of knowledge is closed forever
. Knowledge is often embedded within the language itself. When a
culture abandons its native language, as happens with the rise
of globalized languages ​​(English, American, Spanish),
an invaluable wealth of knowledge is lost forever. The Kayapo people, for example, have
85 different words for bee. Each one specifies the infinitesimal
differences between bees in their flight patterns, mating rituals, and
honeycomb construction. If their language is lost, their wealth
of beekeeping knowledge will be lost with it.

Language…
… is a repository of the mythical and historical heritage of a culture.
Stories passed down from generation to generation by oral tradition are
irrevocably lost once the last person who speaks
that language dies. “What would Western culture be today without Olympian
immortals like Zeus and Hera, Apollo and Dionysus, Poseidon,
Mars, Hermes, Aphrodite, or mortals like Narcissus, Endymion,
Pygmalion, Perseus, Electra, Odysseus?” Harrison asks.

“Their legends have inspired countless narratives throughout the centuries. How many
such narratives will manage to be passed down to the next generation today?”

Who are we…
… to tell our children to preserve their linguistic
heritage, even if it costs them access to more practical studies
that lead to more lucrative careers? the counterargument resonates. But as
language studies give way to the practical and
lucrative, the values ​​that are now threatened with extinction are knowledge,
tradition and beauty. Are these things that can be weighed in the
cost-benefit equation?

Checkmate in the crisis with doses of carbonated drinks: The family-owned carbonated drinks business “Kefalos” in Ikaria continues its 65-year journey, Friday, September 24, 2010

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“If you can’t help, you are nothing at all”, Interview: PETROS STEFANIS, Friday, September 24, 2010

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• The Dance of Thorns by Henrikos Skouloudis
• International Symposium ‘Pedagogy of Joy towards an unconventional school.’
• The art of the loom is reviving in Crete, Interview with Mrs. Varvara Terzakis – Pallikari, published by TA NEA, October 6, 2012