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Happy Fuehrertodestag*: Hitler's death and conspiracy theories

At about three-thirty in the afternoon of Monday, April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler and his wife of less than two days, Eva Braun, committed suic...

Greek Lessons: Democracy versus Debt-Bondage

It is a truism to say that democracy began with the Greeks – less so to say that it originated in popular rebellion against debt and debt-bo...

The Eleusinian Mysteries

Mother and daughter, the spirits of barleycorn and love, and the queen of the dead, were honored with great and popular celebrations twice a...

The Future of the Euro

The problems of the eurozone are ultimately malinvestments. In Greece these days the struggle continues about who will ultimately foot the...

Nikos Kazantzakis

Five of Kazantzakis's major works have been translated in England, and even more in America, and yet his name remains almost totally unknown...

Is Europe Over?

Europe has always been a rather tenuous concept. A rump continent, Europe represented the barbarous hinterlands for the Greeks and Romans. T...

Happy Fuehrertodestag*: Hitler's death and conspiracy theories
Greek Lessons: Democracy versus Debt-Bondage
The Eleusinian Mysteries
The Future of the Euro
Nikos Kazantzakis
Is Europe Over?

Happy Fuehrertodestag*: Hitler's death and conspiracy theories HISTORY & ARCHAEOLOGY At about three-thirty in the afternoon of Monday, April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler and his wife of less than two days, Eva Braun, committed suicide in Hitler's private suite in the Fuehrerbunker. A half hour later the other inhabitants of the bunker entered the suite to check if Hitler was really dead. While his doctor checked the two bodies, Hitler's valet tidied up a spill made when Eva knocked over a vase full of cut flowers in her death throes. Read more...	Greek Lessons: Democracy versus Debt-Bondage ECONOMY & POLITICS It is a truism to say that democracy began with the Greeks – less so to say that it originated in popular rebellion against debt and debt-bondage. Yet, with the Greek people ensnared once more in the vice-grip of rich debt-holders, it may be useful to recall that fact. For the only hope today of reclaiming democracy in Greece (and elsewhere) resides in the prospect of a mass uprising against modern debt-bondage that extends the rule of the people into the economic sphere. Read more...
The Eleusinian Mysteries HISTORY & ARCHAEOLOGY Mother and daughter, the spirits of barleycorn and love, and the queen of the dead, were honored with great and popular celebrations twice a year, at the time of sowing and the time of reaping. The Eleusinian Mysteries of Greece were the oldest and most revered of all the celebrations of the ancient Mediterranean. Read more...	The Future of the Euro ECONOMY & POLITICS The problems of the eurozone are ultimately malinvestments. In Greece these days the struggle continues about who will ultimately foot the bill for these investments. During the early 2000s an expansionary monetary policy lowered interest rates artificially. Entrepreneurs financed investment projects that only looked profitable due to the low interest rates but were not sustained by real savings. Housing bubbles and consumption booms developed in the periphery. Read more...
Nikos Kazantzakis ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Five of Kazantzakis's major works have been translated in England, and even more in America, and yet his name remains almost totally unknown to the majority of readers. This is a curious situation, which may be due in part to the fact that Kazantzakis wrote in Greek, and that modern readers do not expect to come upon a great Greek writer; even his name has a foreign and discouraging sound. If he had written in Russian and been called Kazantzovsky, his works would no doubt be as universally known and admired as Sholokov's. Read more...	Is Europe Over? ECONOMY & POLITICS Europe has always been a rather tenuous concept. A rump continent, Europe represented the barbarous hinterlands for the Greeks and Romans. The first use of the term "European" occurred in a chronicle describing the forces of Charles the Hammer that turned back the northward advance of Islam at the battle of Tours in 732. Long celebrated in Europe as a victory of civilization over barbarism, the Battle of Tours was, as historian David Levering Lewis reminds us in God's Crucible, actually the opposite: "the victory of Charles the Hammer must be seen as greatly contributing to the creation of an economically retarded, balkanized, fratricidal Europe that, in defining itself in opposition to Islam made virtues out of religious persecution, cultural particularism, and hereditary aristocracy." Read more...
Time to Disband NATO: A Rogue Alliance INTERNATIONAL ISSUES When the Cold War ended, many believed there would be a peace dividend, nuclear disarmament, and dismantling of the war machine with industrial conversion to peaceful technology. Instead, we've witnessed the aggressive expansion of NATO, to include the former Soviet Republics, right up to the Russian border, which should be a wake-up call to many living in the American Empire. Many people still labor under the apparently false impression that the US is exemplary in holding up the rule of law, the sanctity of the United Nations, and human rights. Read more...	The Risk of Sovereign Debt ECONOMY & POLITICS With a 50 percent haircut recently given on the Greek sovereign-debt question, investors are increasingly asking what the real risk of sovereign debt is. It would appear that investors underpriced the risk inherent in sovereign debt, especially that of Europe's periphery. One might even go so far as to say that investors made foolish choices in the past and are now getting their just deserts. Read more...
To each European citizen, personally (A letter in a bottle) ECONOMY & POLITICS I am a simple citizen, this is why, when writing these lines, I ignore whether this text will reach my other co-citizens in Europe. It is a letter in a bottle. Read more...	Will Greece let EU Central Bankers Destroy Democracy? ECONOMY & POLITICS When Greece exchanged its drachma for the euro in 2000, most voters were all for joining the Eurozone. The hope was that it would ensure stability, and that this would promote rising wages and living standards. Few saw that the stumbling point was tax policy. Greece was excluded from the eurozone the previous year as a result of failing to meet the 1992 Maastricht criteria for EU membership, limiting budget deficits to 3 percent of GDP, and government debt to 60 percent. Read more...