Greek fuel tax policy no gains only losses

Greeks need to stay warm while facing rising fuel costs amid unemployment.

Due to increased fuel costs, Greeks are burning woods to stay warm and this causes air pollution problem in major cities.  The concentration of fine air particles has risen 30 percent since the financial crisis began, leading to potential long-term health effects.

These fine particles, measuring less than 2.5 microns in diameter, are especially dangerous because they can lodge deep into the tissue of lungs.
Read Greek Economic Crisis Leads to Air Pollution Crisis http://pressroom.usc.edu/greek-economic-crisis-leads-to-air-pollution-crisis/

The huge increase in demand for firewood has led to a surge of illegal logging.  Also, funds relating to environmental projects are being channeled away from the environment to cover the national debt.

Even some thousand-year-old ancient olive trees are being chopped down to feed fire places, a great loss for Greece's cultural heritage.  Read Protecting Crete's ancient olive trees from being fed to the fire
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite6_1_24/12/2013_533063

IOBE think-tank showing heating oil consumption has dropped by about three-quarters since 2009. In terms of revenues from heating oil tax, the government was more than 200 million Euros behind its target at the end of November.  Read Smog from fireplaces in Greek cities causes political headache http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_23/12/2013_533591

Read Creditors reject 15 pct reduction on heating oil tax http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite2_1_11/10/2013_522724

The end results are no gains and only losses summarized below:

1. There are no increased tax revenue from collecting heating oil tax, as a matter of fact, it is a disaster policy according to this analysis.  Read Quick and dirty analysis: Greek heating oil tax
http://www.udel.edu/johnmack/apec406/greek_oil_tax_analysis.html

2. During winter there is severe air pollution in major cities all over Greece causing environmental and health problems.

3. The chopping down of thousand-year-old ancient olive trees is a great loss for Greece's cultural heritage.  In Taiwan old trees are respected and protected as 神木 (literally translated as "God" wood).

If you don't believe that most Greeks cannot afford to pay for the heating oil, just remember that one in two companies are not paying employees in time from this link http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite2_1_18/12/2013_532809

This winter I have increased the frequency of food donation delivery to my local church.

Greek Election – Parliament closure may ease austerity

Reforms are the keys to Greece’s survival but Greek politicians are too scared of implementing them.  Most people in Greece welcome reforms carried out by foreign experts with the exception of the privileged groups of politicians and some public servants.

Does democracy work in Greece?  Greek parliamentarians are freely elected; therefore, the political system cannot be classified as undemocratic, but for the past 30 some years many dubious or contradictory laws have been passed in the Greek parliament.

If Greek citizens think that they have fulfilled their responsibilities by simply going to the polls, they have made a big mistake of not having supervised their parliament’s day–to-day operations and after years of un-scrutinization, democracy in this country is in complete failure.

A summary list of the Greek political salaries and perks exempt from austerity; minimum wage was agreed to be reduced by 22%, from €751.39 to €586.08 http://digitaljournal.com/article/319313

Greek MPs indeed cost taxpayers too much money

http://theirategreek.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/salary-and-privileges-of-members-of-parliament-in-greece/

Double Pensions for employees of the parliament, and more…

http://www.grreporter.info/en/€_9869_month_greek_deputies_despite_financial_crisis/4785

Read the last paragraph of the above link:

“To write an article for the free edition Free Sunday the journalist sent a letter requesting information about the operating costs of the parliament, the cost of salaries and other costs of deputies, the number of the administrative employees and the costs for their salaries and about the deputies and employees salaries cutting last year. In response, they sent him from parliament three press releases from last year that respond only to the last question.”

The Greek president (whom I respect) had asked to remove himself from the government’s payroll, but how about the rest of the Greek politicians?

There is also parliamentarian’s immunity from criminal charges.

Are there too many parliamentary seats in the Greek parliament?

Yes, I think there is a BIG problem of over representation on top of the problem of paying each parliamentarian’s fat salary and benefits.

The employed people in Greece have to feed these fat politicians, who have eaten up EU grants for developing this nation, no wonder many middle-class families are hit by yet another new income tax – a surtax based on GROSS income (i.e. income before any deductions, notice this is not surtax based on tax payable like in Canada), and this is on top of what we had paid for the property tax, and the emergency tax, and the rising value-added tax on consumer products, and still not enough to rescue the sovereign debt.

The following is a comparison of the ratio (population to the number of parliamentary seats) for some countries in and outside of the European Union, the population statistics are based on either estimated or census figures for the latest year of a general election (lower house) of a country (except Greece because I didn’t find the 2012 population figure).  

Greek population 2011 census 10,787,690 (and is reducing because people got fed up with the situations and are leaving the country)

Greek parliamentary seats 300, i.e. 1 seat per 35,959 persons

German population in 2009 was 82,002,356

Elected German parliamentary seats 622, i.e. 1 seat per 131,837 persons

France population in 2007 was 63,645,065

Elected National Assembly 577 seats, Senate indirectly elected 348 seats, a total of 925 seats, i.e. 1 seat per 68,805 persons

United Kingdom population in 2010 was 62,262,000

Elected members of the House of Commons 650, plus 788 appointed members of the House of Lords, total seats 1438 i.e. 1 seat per 95,788 persons based on elected members or 1 seat per 43,298 persons based on a combined upper and lower chambers (notice that this figure is still higher than Greece)

Italy population in 2008 was 59,619,290

Elected Chamber of Deputies 630 seats, plus Senate 322 seats (of which 315 were elected inside Italy, 6 representing abroad and 1 appointed), a total combined 952 seats, i.e. 1 seat per 62,625 persons

Spain population in 2011 was 46,152,926

Elected Congress of Deputies 350 seats, Senate 266 seats (208 elected by popular vote, 58 appointed by regional legislaturs), a total of 616 seats, i.e. 1 seat per 74,924 pesons

Canada population in 2011 was 34,278,406

Elected members of parliament 308, but if including non-elected senators the total is 413, i.e. 1 seat per 111,294 persons based on elected members, or 1 seat per 82,999 persons based on a combined upper and lower chambers

Australia population in 2010 was 22,342,400

House of Representatives 150 seats, Senate 76 seats of proportional representation, a combined total of 226 seats i.e. 1 seat per 98,860 persons

Portugal population in 2011 was 10,636,979

Elected Assembly of the Republic 230 seats, i.e. 1 seat per 46,248 persons

Conclusion, Greece has the lowest population to parliamentary seat ratio of the above countries, pointing to the problem of over representation. 

Sadly, by closing the Greek parliament and inviting foreign experts to manage Greek laws and Greek sovereign debt will make Greece more competitive and will ease some unfair austerity bills passed by the Greek parliament.

Other interesting links:

Richard Koo’s prescription for Greece (and Germany)

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2012/05/30/1022281/richard-koos-prescription-for-greece-and-germany/

Comparing sovereignty debt charts

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/01/daily-chart-8?fb_ref=activity

Greek poll results since the last election (scroll further down the link to view a chart)

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2012/06/01/1026731/greece-still-cant-decide-how-to-vote/

Dictionary definition of 'siphon' has been wrong for nearly a century

http://m.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/may/10/dictionary-definition-siphon-wrong?cat=science&type=article

It is the gravity and not the difference in atmospheric pressure that makes siphon works as Dr. Stephen W Hughes clarified.

http://eprints.qut.edu.au/31098/25/A_practical_example_of_a_siphon_at_work_eprint_(2).pdf

Structural reform should start from riot control in downtown Athens

Why after the lesson learned from the riot of December 2008, Greek police still fight street rioters with tear gas and not trying some alternative ways of control measures such as using water cannons?  Is it because the government has spent money for politicians’ armored cars to protect themselves from occasional personal attacks and therefore there was no budget allocated for purchasing crowd control vehicles such as water cannons to disperse anarchists / looters and protect downtown business?

Last night's destruction in downtown Athens is predictable and simply pours salt on the already wounded economy.  A neo-classical building home to the Attikon cinema dating from 1870 was also among the 45+ buildings burned.  I think water cannons should have come to disperse the potential looters after an initial warning from the police, sending fire trucks to put off the fires after buildings are set ablaze is a step too late.

New austerity measures are too harsh with its effectiveness to be evaluated in a few months, so far it causes recession and hardship on honest people who have paid enough shares of the tax burden, crime rate soared, plus many homeless people sought refuge under recent severe weather conditions.  On the contrast, did the IMF, part of the Troika, pay tax on its vehicles used in Athens?

Recently Balkan states are freezing, northern Greece has more snow than usual, and Pyrgos Ilias in the west Peloponnesos Greece was flooded, one Taiwanese Greek's home was affected by the flood in that region.  We pray that the bad weather will soon end.

Upcoming events:

The 2012 Athens Tourism Symposium, the international scientific congress on current trends in tourism management and tourism policy, will open at the Athens Ledra Marriott Hotel (115 Syngrou) on Feb 15 &16, 2012.

The “Tourism and Gastronomy in the Spotlight” event will also open at the Athens Ledra Marriott Hotel (115 Syngrou) on Feb 15 &16, 2012.

Some links:

Fire protection engineering is a field of study that we need to have in Greek universities.

A very interesting bird wiki site: videos, photos, and sounds at the Internet Bird Collection.

2011 Christmas in Athens Metro Mall

This year the city of Athens is said to spend no more than 200,000 Euros for Christmas decorations and fireworks, this figure is 1/10 of the amount spent in 2008.

Late November I happened to be near the new (1+ year old) Athens Metro Mall, so I went in to check out what shops it has in this mall, instead of looking at the shops I was very impressed with the Christmas decorations. I accidentally saw in the internet an interesting video on how this Christmas tree and deco were put up.

The large candy canes are quite cute!

Beside the tree is a penguin band, which has motion and sound (click to see the motion)

The snowflakes on the upper floor are beautiful

For tourists info, the Athens Metro Mall is at the terminal station of the red Metro (subway) line, called Aghios Dimitrios, the mall's Level 0 has a big supermarket AB Vasilopoulos, very convenient for tourists since it is only 5 stops from the Acropolis station, or 6 stops from the Syntagma station

On the contrast, this is a photo from a different mall called "The Mall", it is Athens first mall and it has been in operation for a number of years now, people like to shop and go to see movies there, but I find the accessibility between floors not well designed for coping with emergency situations (no stairs in between or near the escalators)

Nevertheless, I did find an attractive COSMOTE (a Greek mobile operator) advertisement, which says: I would like to fix a world that brings happiness to children's faces.  I suppose they must have held a drawing competition for this ad, or for the submission of wish phrases from children.

Greek politicians should take note of this phrase, substituting the word "world" for "country".

Greek people are not interested in an early election if a capable and honest leader does not emerge to guide the country out of financial trouble.

Those politicians who put their personal and party interests ahead of their country's survival will be soon eliminated if more Greeks demand governmental administrative transparency and the Pirate Party movement gains popularity here.

Free borders but expensive local roads

Although Europeans are allowed to travel freely between their national boundaries (See Note 1 below), and Taiwanese have just started to enjoy the convenience of the EU 90-day visa-free entry, yet there are known safety and other issues for travelers as one moves further south or east in the European continent.
 
One example of such concern is in southern Italy, a car may suddenly stop in front of you blocking your way and demanding a payment, if you don’t cooperate, you will be encountering all kinds of problems further down the road.

Tour operators are quite familiar with the problem and do give their coach drivers some money for paying the road-side bandits (mafia?) in order to have safe passage guarantee along the road, and I guess many tour operators must have added the hidden expense in their package tour price (if it is €100 per coach with 30 passengers, it's merely €3.3 per person).  Private car owners or renters are no exceptions to the road-side "robbery".

However, a tourist is at liberty to avoid visiting places whose police are out of sight and local mafias are in charge.

Another example, during Christmas and Easter holidays many Romanian migration workers in Greece travel back home for holidays.  They need to cross the Bulgarian border and drive on Bulgarian highways before reaching Romania.  According to many of my Romanian friends, the Bulgarian police may stop a driver even if he drives within the speed limit and obeys all the traffic signs.  If a person is not lucky, he may be stopped by the police without any traffic violations at several different sections of the road before reaching the Romania border.

Usually the Bulgarian police check your driver’s license, insurance paper or whatever document deemed necessary to operate the car legally and safely.  Even if all the documents are in proper order and with no traffic violations, they will start writing a ticket, but as soon as sufficient money (usually between 10 to 20 Euros) is paid on the spot, they will stop issuing the ticket and let you continue your journey.

People travelling on this route usually make sure that they carry enough 10 or 20 Euro denominations; the 5 Euro denomination may not satisfy the greedy police whereas you won’t get any change back if you happen to have only the 50 Euro denomination.

Why the Bulgarian police are highway “robbers” instead of law enforcement officers?  Here is what I found in the internet that explains:

The average monthly salary of young Bulgarian policemen is about €250 and €450 for those with extensive professional experience. The average salary in Bulgaria is some 600 lev (€300).  So the starting salary for a policeman is about 50 Euro less than the national average salary of all trade.  Work-related expenses such as gasoline, office supplies are sometimes paid out of police’s own pockets, or brought from home as in laptop computers.  (Ref: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/bulgarian-romanian-policemen-plan-joint-protest)

As a comparison, a full-time migration worker working in domestic help in Greece may earn in the range of €600 to €800 monthly, so they are considered quite “rich” from the Bulgarian police’s point of view.

After east European countries joined the EU, their people’s salaries haven't quite caught up with the rising cost of living.  Some government officials found other ways to earn extra incomings to the extent that they became greedy, some custom officers in Romania have been accused of engaging in cigarette smuggling. This is the faster way for them to get rich and catch up with the west I guess.  But I respect governmenmt officials that care about their people's daily living, their future generation, and their national image and not just their own pockets.  Unfortunately, in the southeast Europe this kind of government officials are rare.

Slightly off topic but worth mentioning is that a friend of mine who is an elementary school teacher told me that now the Greek government has no money, the teachers have to buy supplies of chalks for the black boards out of their own pockets, but in the west many countries are probably using the Smart Board now.  Cut on retirement pensions, capped salaries, rising taxes, plus possible rising food prices this year will make average people's life even more difficult.

One Europe, one union but indeed very different ways of life as one travels from west to east.

Note 1:

With the exception of Bulgarians & Romanians who are not yet allowed to travel visa-free to Shengen countries.

Reference:

Searching for European statistics? Eurostat explained

March 25th is a national holiday in Greece

March 25th is a national holiday in Greece. It is a day the country celebrates the beginning of eviction of the Turkish Ottoman Empire in 1821. It is also a religious holiday celebrated by the Orthodox Church for this day the message was passed on to Virgin Mary by an angel that she would give birth to Jesus.

Many school children participated in local parades or watched the national parade on TV.

The traditional food eaten by Greeks today are fried salted cod fish, mashed potatoes garnished with garlic, but I cooked fresh sea bass (Τα λαβράκια) instead because my children won't eat salted cod.

The weather was not very stable this time of the year, but before it rained in the afternoon, we were able to take a hike.

And here are some photos we took from hiking in the Ymittos Mountain.

Earth Hour: Lights off on Saturday March 28th between 8:30 and 9:30 pm

If the weather allowed, cuddling up with your loved ones and admiring the stars in the night sky. http://www.earthhour.org/news/

Greece leads Earth Hour Race http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_100010_19/03/2009_105642

Note for tourists: On Saturday, March 28, between 8.30 and 9.30 p.m., the lights will go out on the Parthenon in Athens, Thessaloniki’s White Tower and several other prominent landmarks as thousands of citizens and businesses join in, flicking off light switches in their homes and stores.

Read 5 really educative stories in the world about how global warming is affecting our environment and our daily lives http://www.earthhour.org/supporters/

Whether it's for business or pleasure, once you reach your destination there are lots of things you can do to reduce the impact of your trip:

Rather than hiring a car at the airport choose other ways to get around like public transportation, or hotel minibus airport pick-up service.

Limit energy use, including your use of air-conditioning and hot water. Turn off all lights and taps when you leave hotel rooms.

Conserve water and take showers rather than baths.

Use your hotel towels and bed linen the same way you do at home to minimize washing.

Recycle newspapers, magazines, paper waste, and your beverage containers (many can be returned for refunds), leading hotels should provide recycling depot for their guests to deposit their recyclable waste.

A great option for sightseeing is by biking, or hiking, this avoids emissions and yet let you discover things that you may otherwise just drive-by.

Useful Greek info for hiking:
Walking the Greek islands (serious walkers reference) http://www.islandwalking.com/
Greek Backpacking info http://www.greekbackpack.com/general.shtml

Hiking info http://www.greecetravel.com/hiking/index.htm

http://gogreece.about.com/od/hikingbackpacking/Hiking_and_Backpacking_in_Greece.htm

Useful Taiwan info for hiking and biking:
http://hikingtaiwan.blogspot.com/

http://crooksteven.blogspot.com/2009/01/adventure-abounds-on-world-class-hiking.html
http://bikingintaiwan.theforgetful.com/
http://neilwade.wordpress.com/category/hiking/
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2008/12/16/2003431284

I think by turning lights off for an hour is not enough to campaign for our environment, we should educate our children to always switch off lights, or TVs etc. as soon as they walk away and are not planning to come back immediately.

Engage ourselves in more weekend outdoor activities with our children, so our children will learn to appreciate the nature more than the video games.

And as far as transportation is concerned, I had a chance to visit Amsterdam a couple of years ago, and was very impressed with the Dutch people’s enthusiasm on bicycling to carry out their daily activities.

Amsterdam, the capital city of bicycling in Europe, a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk6YxhKH590 and a text to read http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009450.html and for any city planning committee’s reference to reduce bike-related accidents, a bike box space like this here.

希臘農夫的示威最令大眾傷腦筋 Greek farmers' roadblocks quite a scary weapon

把國家的主要通道塞滿拖拉機 (tractors)，再把不太值錢的農產品倒在公路上，整個國家的主要幹線被切斷，運輸線大亂，已經進入第七天，參考希臘新聞，不必過幾天，超市可能缺貨，東西大概會上漲，如果再過幾天農夫與政府達成協議後，交通恢復正常，恐怕一些產品不新鮮，真是在希臘生活不方便再加一篇。

但是我始終尊敬農夫，尤其是台灣的農夫，因為他們還得與颱風搏闘，真辛苦，也令我讚佩其敬業精神。

希望這牛年，上帝永遠照顧社會的弱勢，政府有誠意檢討政策失當之處加以改善，去除因社會不公、生活困苦而走上絕路的情形。

這是我一個離鄉30 年的台僑的舊曆新年願望。

祝大家新年快樂，身心健康！

Greece is catching up on recycling – but we need to do more and faster

When it comes to recycling, I can be proud that I do it more than the native Greeks. I have two 40-50 cm diameter pots (γλάστρες) and other smaller ones in the balcony plus the soil downstairs from the building’s shared garden in which I bury all my vegetable wastes.

The idea of burying vegetable wastes initially came at a time when the garbage workers went on strikes a few years back, and I didn’t want to take the garbage out to make the streets stink. Now, I have been burying vegetable wastes for years, and God has actually rewarded me with cherry-size tomatoes, green peppers, tiny potatoes from the seeds that were buried accidentally and grew up to give little but worth mentioning joyful harvest.

A while ago, I remember reading news report of EU commission’s warning on Athens about its garbage disposal / land-fill program because our people are not doing enough on recycling wastes. I think the supermarket should start charging plastic bags, this is something that other western European countries have been doing for years.

Once I paid a short visit to Edinburgh, Scotland and I chose to buy a re-useable bag for my quick shopping for fruits instead of a plastic bag, I still carry it to the supermarkets here. As a matter of fact I have many different ones of various sizes (Praktiker very large, Carrefour and AB Vasilopoulos, medium, and Marks & Spencer of Edinburgh smaller, the store has many different sizes to buy from but I was a visitor so I chose a small sized one), and I put meat in one, veggies in another, cold cuts and cheese in the small bag, and chemicals and detergents in another, etc.

Some websites that help us learn to recycle are http://www.herrco.gr/ (choose UK flag for English) and http://www.recyclenow.com/ , I am sure there must be some other sites about recycling, I will update them when I find, or you can update me before I have time to search.

Vandalism (βανδαλισμός)

Graffiti could be a form of art expression, but in Athens most of these are nothing but vandalism to public properties.

Graffiti are often seen on road signs thus blocking some words giving directions, or on bus / metro train’s seats, or its glass windows or doors. In the case of glass surface, the glass is usually scratched with some sharp object.

I have visited many European cities (Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Düsseldorf, Vienna, Milan, Prague, Bucharest), but only in Athens I found road signs been covered up by graffiti. Maybe the other cities do have some graffiti but are not so frequent like in Athens to be noticeable?

I hope the city of Athens impose heavy fines when one is caught for vandalism before the situation becomes worse.

The photo was taken on the metro train (subway).

My wish for 2009 - A State of Good Law and Order (Μια ευνομούμενη Πολιτεία)

This time the police were out on the street gathering in front of the Red Cross Hospital in support of their injured colleague. A few days ago, about 500 police showed up in a protest in support of a young colleague, Διαμαντή Μαντζούνη (Diamantis Matzouni), a 21 year-old policeman who was shot and seriously injured while patrolling in Exsarhia area. Earlier, other police complained to TV station stating that during the riot period just before Christmas, they were working 17 hours a day non-stop, and as a result were too exhausted to fight the rioters. The Greek police were also not properly-equipped with modern equipment to deal with violent protesters, for example, shooting water to disperse the rioters instead of tear gas. The TV reported that the police patrols had no bullet-proof vests to carry out their duties. I hope the Greek government will learn from recent lessons and properly allocate budget to equip their public security officers, otherwise the angry youths may soon be joined by urban terrorists and former inmates, who will be released by April due to over-crowded prisons. See the Kathimerini news report of last November below. I don't think letting out inmates early is the best solution to over-crowded prisons because the already tired police force may face more dangerous tasks more frequently.

2008-11-28
Gov’t: Some 5,500 inmates to get early release by April
Reforms tabled in Parliament earlier this week will lead to the early release of 5,500 inmates from prisons across the country by April, Justice Ministry sources said yesterday. If these releases are realized, prison numbers will be virtually halved from the 12,000 inmates currently in jail, while overcrowding will be drastically reduced. Ministry sources said a hunger strike by prisoners protesting detention conditions was slackening but conceded that some 4,000 are still refusing meals.

A little bit of tradition:

On January 6th the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates this day by having priest(s) throwing a cross into water (whichever kind is near-by, river, port, lake, or sea), the cross is tied to a rope and the priest(s) and celebrities (or local politicians) are usually taken away by a boat to a distance (say about 100 to 200 meters away from the shore gathering swimmers), the rope is held tight by a person or secured by something on the boat on one end, while the cross on the other end is thrown into water, the swimmers compete for speed and vision, diving in cold water and searching to catch the cross. The first swimmer to get the cross usually go around spectators (after he changes) to let them kiss the cross, and people usually give the winner some money. I find it a bit commercialized and away from the true spirit of Christianity, but this is their tradition.

People of Orthodox religion attended church service today (Jan. 6th) and many of them were not regular church goers, after priests performed special service sanctifying the water, people drank sanctified water 3 times (3 sips), and most people also brought bottles to collect the water for relatives who could not make it to the church or for later use.

January 7th is celebrated by people whose name is John ( Γιάννης, pronounced yia-nis with stress on a ), this is probably the most common name in Greece, people jokingly say that half of the country is celebrating the name day today. I went to my neighbor to congratulate him because his name is John, his friends and relatives were in heated discussion about politics, they asked me in the next election if I would support the Pasok or the New Democracy (current government), I told them neither because I’d prefer to see a new face. Why Greek politicians almost always come from the families of old politicians who used to be in power? I believe prolonged power holding corrupts a small group of people who know how to play games in the political arena, and these incumbents may not be politicians who love their country and people.

A state with new politicians who are hard-working citizens that care about the total wellbeing of the society is what we need, a government with fair laws and protects the common interests and rights (human, economic, health, education, etc.) of ordinary citizens.

How many demonstrations per day in downtown Athens?

The answer is to rotate the number 8 ninety degrees!
If there is no need for you to go downtown, just stay away from it because it’s hard these days to track the number of demonstrations per day. When there are demos, the flow of traffic must be terribly affected.
How can I describe the capital of Greece, only this word, chaos!
“There was one protest march in central Athens yesterday, drawing around 5,000 people. Several more are planned today, including a student protest starting outside the gates of Athens University at noon and a workers’ rally at Omonia Square at 6 p.m. Two rallies are planned to begin outside Parliament, a workers’ protest and an anti-racist rally.” Read the entire text from the English Kathimerini.
So, according to the newspaper, there was 1 yesterday with 5000 people, and at least 4 today, that is, 1 student protest at 12:00, 1 worker’s rally at 18:00 at Omonia, 1 other worker’s protest outside Parliament at unknown time , 1 anti-racist rally outside Parliament (Syntagma square) at unknown time.
C'est la vie!

Again some high schools were closed by students

What was said earlier about the police officer shooting directly at the crowd may be over turned. The investigation is still on-going and some source has suggested that the bullet might have been reflected from an object (such as the ground) before hitting the boy…as the Kathimerini newspaper reported contrary to previous day’s report…
“The results of the ballistics tests on the bullet that killed 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos and sparked the rioting were to be handed to an investigating magistrate late yesterday. Sources told Kathimerini that the results may support the claims of the accused officer that the bullet had ricocheted before hitting the boy.” and “At least 100 but possibly as many as 400 high schools have been shut down by pupils and it remains unclear if they will return to classes next week. University students are also holding sit-in protests at schools in Athens, Thessaloniki and Patras.”

In Greece, the public-funded schools often have student sit-in protests and therefore shut-down problems. The sit-in closure of schools starts at the γυμνάσιο (gymnasio is grade 7 to 9) age, sometimes I believe the students who don’t like to study may have closed down the schools so others who like to study have no choice but to stay homes, other times I wonder if some lazy teachers are behind the bad students? Still other times, the students do have some valid concerns such as the school's building materials are built from cancer-causing materials, and the students demand an immediate improvement of their school environment by sit-in protests. Because of the student-initiated sit-in closures coupled with the teacher-initiated strikes, these leave the number of actual school days in Greece to be very little compared to other countries. Also, the public-funded schools usually finish at 2pm (or 2:30pm?) daily, so the good students must do a lot of self studies at home or many students actually attend those evening φροντιστήριο (prounced fron-tis-TI-ri-o, meaning tutorial) schools. Although the Ministry of Education had asked the teachers who participated in strikes to make up their lost teaching time, there were never any measures to ensure and monitor that the teachers indeed made up their time. My children had 6 consecutive weeks of teacher strikes in the fall of 2006 in which neither teacher made up her lost time. Many children were victimized by the lost education time, and therefore lost learning opportunities. Other parents who both work were forced to hire temporary babysitters during teacher strikes or student sit-in closures when there were no other family member to support.

Generally speaking, I do not support strikes by teachers as a mean to resolve their labor disputes because in Greece the teachers enjoy the longest summer holidays (from mid-June to mid-September) in the world, besides many teachers work as home tutors in the afternoon at people’s homes without paying income tax on the money earned from private lessons. If the teachers think they are underpaid, the Ministry of Education must evaluate the situation, taking into account the total numbers of hours (not just days) worked compared to teachers of other countries.

Those who don't want to put their children's education at risk usually send their children to private schools, but that means extra family expense ranging from about 5,000 to 12,000 Euro per child per year depending on each private school's tuition fees. Many private schools have class size (up to 33 students) much bigger than the public schools (15 to 25 students), so the children may not receive the individual attention needed, therefore there is always pro and cons.

Strong Wind and Rain Pouring Down, Follow-up on Unrest

We woke up to a very stormy raining day this (Friday) morning. After kids went to school, my friend called and among other things we also talked about the previous days’ riots. If the same weather had dropped upon us just 3 or 4 days earlier, the shops in downtown would have been saved from the fire, and the anarchists couldn’t have come out in a cold rainy night to destroy the city…maybe the Orthodox people ought to have prayed harder to God for the right weather at the right time then...(just joking), or was it God's will to let the Greek politicians learn a lesson the hard way?
I suddenly feel too old when I read about what young people can do with the internet these days…
Several Greek websites offer protesters real-time information on the location of clashes, where demonstrators are heading and how riot police are deployed around the city. Protest marches are arranged and announced on the sites, while word is also sent out via text messages on mobile phones. (read the full text from the English Kathimerini)
And the update of the on-going investigation has this quick excerpt: Meanwhile the results of forensic tests indicate that the bullet that killed 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos, and sparked this week’s rioting, appears to have entered the youth’s body directly. This casts doubt on claims by the 37-year-old policeman charged with the boy’s murder that the bullet had been fired as a warning and ricocheted.
I noticed some foreign media such as Agence France-Presse apparently made a mistake on the boy’s Greek name translation, calling the 15 year old Andreas when his name was in fact Alexandros 跟亞歷山大大帝同名 (or Alexis for short). Sometimes even the big news agency can make some mistakes, so always browse many different sources of the same news, and make your own call.

Verifying sources and making own judgments are important especially when you read news from Taiwan’s media, I have learned to read Taiwan’s news also from bloggers because with the rich KMT party’s resources (stolen from the people), they can buy up foreign medias to report news in a way that is in favor of their propaganda. I will discuss this issue in a separate post.

I will also talk about Greek given names and name days on another post.

Let's Build from Scratch Again...

The street battles have gradually died down now, and I believe the kids can go back to school tomorrow. What's left is a country with weaker economy and millions of financial losses to be picked up by taxpayers. The lesson drawn from Greece is that a government (regardless of which party in power) has to be accountable and sensitive to people's needs, corruptions from either current (New Democracy) or past (Pasok was even more severe in corruption) government / politicians left the country in a less developed position compared to the rest of western European countries. When some government officials self-absorbed public funds, people's needs were not met, then social and especially youth problems were elevated. This general discontent became very explosive when an incident could ignite into a non-stoppable destructive force.

Nothing could be gained from a torn apart country with so much wounds to be healed, now we have only a few forests left from the summer fires of 2007, and 322 shops destroyed from the riots. All we can do is to start from scratch, and leave behind vicious party politics and finger-pointing accusations. If the government is transparent and accountable to its people, Greece will be united and strong agian.

If the Greek government fails to care for its people's basic needs, a Greek living abroad will smile at the sign on the way to the Eleftherios Venizelos which says "There is always more to explore." and think but "There is nothing good for me to stay."

Demonstration / Destruction Continues...

Last Saturday night, a 15 year old boy was shot dead by a police officer in downtown Athens, this incident sparked nation-wide unrest in Greece. The background info is here, http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_100002_08/12/2008_102842, and live TV could be viewed here http://netgreece.net/alter_live.html or choose your own channel.
Basically, the day-time demonstrators are young people including students who have discontent with government policies; the night-time trouble makers are true criminals who destroy properties and loot merchandise. Apparently, the police on some isolated cases have used excessive force towards day-time demonstrators, but have not found any effective measures to deal with the night-time criminals.
In Greece, the police is accountable for their wrong-doings, the officer who killed (accidentally or not) the 15 year-old is in custody and will be investigated for possible charge of murder and illegal use of weapon. The Interior Minister and his deputy chief immediately submitted resignations (although not yet accepted) to Premier Karamanlis.

Overnight Destruction in Athens Center 雅典市中心一夜被毀

Greek people woke up this morning to learn about the catastrophe in downtown Athens last night. The anarchists had destructed some 30 shops overnight, and continued to engage police force in smaller scale stone-throwing street fights. Many shops in downtown Athens were burned, and broken glasses scattered everywhere on the streets. It was reported that a 15 year old had been killed by the police earlier last night, which sparked the unrest. The shops’ financial losses from the overnight destruction were estimated to be many million Euros. The English Kathimerini paper does not have a Sunday edition, but its Greek language paper has picture and report of the riot.
Greece is a country where individual rights far exceed social order, whereas Taiwan is the opposite. Ma’s government trampled peaceful demonstrators, and patriotic behavior can make oneself end-up in detention center. Taiwanese who care about their financial affairs are strongly recommended to spare their weekend leisure time to view the analysis of this political talk show 2008-12-05 大話新聞 http://www.taiwanus.net/news/press/200812060754181908.htm.

An ideal society must be one in which individual rights and government authority are well balanced. Over emphasis on government authority may result in personal rights abuse, such is the case in PRC, and unfortunately its pursuer in Taiwan, the current Ma government.

A responsible and transparent government reduces the number of unhappy citizens, which usually translates into a clean government who is able to internally care for its citizens' needs through fair taxation system, well managed health and welfare system, plus good educational and environmental policies. And externally, a responsible government must be a peace maker of the global community, exercising foreign policies that are accountable for bringing peace to its neighbors as well as to the world. Failing this, there will be social unrest internally, such as unfair tax policies deeped the gap between the poor and the rich, poor environmental policies destroy the planet, etc., and externally faulty foreign policies (military competition, bullying, supporting dictorship for own national interests, etc.) cause tension and war among nations.

On the other hand, too much individual rights like in Greece can cause disorderly society and consequently affect normal business operation as described in the article entitled "Right to march under scrutiny" on Nov. 14, 2008 Athens Plus weekly newspaper (on http://www.ekathimerini.com/ click Athens Plus on the bottom left column, and on the current issue of Athens Plus, scroll down to view the past issues, they are arranged in date order). Different parties in Greece must sit down and work together to reduce the number of unhappy citizens through good educational, welfare, and environmental policies, otherwise, there will always be social unrest in the country.

Some Tips on Living in Greece 居住希臘小建言

If you are not so fluent in English, you can use this to translate the text below into Chinese:

My personal experience:

1. If you are too lazy to learn Greek, you should not think about living in Greece because government workers here are not usually fluent in English, and later you will burn enough money to hire home tutors for your kids.
2. If you think travelling in Greece is the same as living in Greece, you are too optimistic because the hotels staffs are courteous, but the majority Greek drivers are not.
3. If you are spoiled back home, many Greek men are much more spoiled by their mothers, and the two of you together will be a disaster.
4. If you are very independent, your in-laws may “prevent” you from being so because Greek families are very “close” in distance and in relationship (including living on different floors of the same building, or keep giving you Greek food that you may be tired of eating).
5. If you like an organized society, this place is full of strikes (including garbage workers, teachers, public transit employees…).
6. If you think you can find work based on your professional training or trade, you are again too optimistic.
7. If you don’t have a sense of humor when you encounter difficulties, you will not like it here either.
8. If you like veggies, you may miss a lot of varieties that Taiwan can offer; but if you like meat, there are always souvlakis and gyros everywhere until late at night.
9. If you like to compare prices before making up your mind on a purchase, you will not like shopping here. (Yes, things are not cheap here, but you still have to live.)
10. If I have scared you away, Greece still boasts to have the best climate in Europe, and the sweetest grapes in the world.