Saturday, July 25, 2015

An August Moment


FaceTime is messing up my life.  Last Monday I left Greece, making 2015 the first time in a decade I won’t be spending August on Mykonos.  That alone is a downer.  But then I have my Mykonian buddies making sure not to pass up any opportunity of reminding me of my misfortune. 

As if endless barrages of photos and film clips showing quintessential Aegean island scenes were not insidious enough, there is now the daily FaceTime call, with happy faces popping up posed against familiar Mykonos haunts, and cheery voices (orchestrated for sure) asking me, “So tell us, Jeffrey, how’s the weather in New York?”






Brutal, simply brutal.

No, not the weather (at least not yet), I’m talking about those callous FaceTiming souls I need not name in order for them to know the error of their ways.  And believe me, summers on Mykonos offer oodles of err to attribute to their ways.


I guess I should be flattered and take all their attention as a sign that they miss me—rather than as the cautious among them merely seeking confirmation that I’m finally off the island, like plague. :)

I must admit FaceTime is a godsend of a way to stay in touch.  My daughter and two-year-old granddaughter did it practically everyday I was away, making the baby’s jump to two and a half not all that startling.  Proximity helps keep events in perspective. 

Which got me to thinking about my feelings on leaving Greece. I felt as if I’d walked out on my family in the midst of a crisis, if not a full-blown disaster.  Though my return to the USA had nothing to do with events in Greece, and my remaining behind would not have made an iota of difference, I still felt deeply uncomfortable at leaving.

But a strange process has taken hold.  I’m not sure if it’s sheer physical distance or a burst of insight that’s responsible for my thinking, but what I sense is that a good many Greeks in Greece and I share the same perspective at the moment:  We have absolutely no idea what the future will bring—and are taking a time out. 


We just don’t want to think about the hard realities.  We’ve been stunned, if not shocked, by a government doing the direct opposite of what it so often solemnly promised to do, a Parliament passing measures with the far left, center, and far right aligned in common cause on matters literally unimaginable a blink of an eye ago (and denounced as wrong by practically every lawmaker voting for them), ministers now welcoming with open arms (?) the very same foreign financial “overseers” they once denounced as occupiers (though due to “security concerns” they’ve not yet found a suitable place in Athens for the reunion), a barely functioning banking system, a 400% increase in illegal immigrants flooding across the nation’s borders, etcetera, etcetera—all amid political egos far more comfortable with displays of public masturbation than in doing what they must in private to assure the chance of a better future for the people they’ve sworn to serve.

It’s almost too much to take.  And so Greeks in Greece are suspending serious thinking on the subject. Instead, they’re focusing on getting through August, the month at the very heart of the nation’s tourism—the biggest driver of Greece’s economy.  September will be here soon enough.
   


The question is, will the government?  And, if so, in what shape?  Oh, and let’s not forget the 3.2 billion euro payment due the European Central Bank on August 20th.

But I digress. 

Happy August everyone…no matter where you’re enjoying it.  Kalo mina.


Jeff—Saturday

15 comments:

  1. I've been keeping up with the news on Greece, Jeff, and it seems a hopelessly complicated situation. How on earth can a country teetering on the edge of financial ruin expect to find 3.2 billion in less than a month? I fear a rummage down the back of the sofa may not yield anywhere near enough ...

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    1. Oh, and I like the word play on 'august', btw. Nicely done, sir.

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    2. The reality is, Zoë, Greece can't without a new bailout package...and there's the rub. "Negotiations" were supposed to start Friday, but "logistical" problems delayed commencement until (hopefully) next week. It looks like were in for another another improvised performance of Punch and Judy take it on the road...and the chin...and the....

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    3. As for the title, I though it more politically correct than "A July Moment."

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  2. Or you could have called it, "They May March in August"...

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    1. But that would be a wild March hare up someone's ...perspicacity.

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  3. Yikes. Here's hoping Greece is able to find a way through the thicket that actually ends up (sooner or later...) stabilizing both the political situation and the economy. (Then maybe they can help us...)

    As for not staying over August--I feel your pain, even though I have the opposite "issue." I'm normally in Sacramento, where the heat is beyond brutal. This year, though...I'll be in Ireland, teaching at a writing retreat.

    However, I promise not to FaceTime with my condolences.

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    1. Thank you for consoling me, Susan. :) I'll be in Scotland at the beginning of September for Bloody Scotland, so maybe if you take the high road and I take the low...

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  5. Read Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz's article in today's New York Times Sunday Review entitled, "Greece, the Sacrificial Lamb."

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  6. All my icons are stumbling. Greece seems to be their Waterloo, to mix a metaphor. First Paul Krugman admitted in an interview that he'd "misjudged" the capacity of the Greek government to achieve what he'd thought they could, and now Stiglitz speaks out based upon one week in Athens. I respect his background and skill, but when he cited to the price of milk as an example of how unfair the EU requirements will be to the Greek people, I almost spilled my own. The price of milk in Greece is notoriously among the highest in the EU! Protectionist legislation at work. Then he praised Papandreou the son without reflecting on the ways of the father (widely regarded as the creator of the very environment Stiglitz claims the son sought to go after), and lost me. Much of what he said is undoubtedly true, but he seemed more advocative than analytical...if I may say that about a nobel laureate.

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  7. Nobel Laureates and New York Times columnists are permitted to advocate, along with analyzing.

    I do believe that prices of some essential goods, i.e.,foods, are supposed to rise. There is that tax. But some things that bother me are that the poorest pensioners will suffer even more, and that collective bargaining rights were apparently up for grabs in those negotiations. How does any government representative negotiate away people's democratic rights? It's like Scott Walker was meeting with the Troika and happily signing away union rights. That is horrific, along with the cuts in pensions and more economic assaults.
    I wonder what will happen as the tougher cutbacks hit people. I hope there are mass protests.

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    1. Kathy, I agree they can advocate. I just wish they did it with facts that made them look plausible to the people who live with the truth, and didn't cite as heroes of transparency folks whose legacy is linked to pampers boxes filled with cash. The problems are real and there is no white knight savior to be found. It will require reconciliation, not more recriminations. Saying one side is good and the other is bad only plays into the same curse that's haunted Greek politics for generations and has allowed the corrupt to prosper because "they're our corrupt."

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  8. Spoke to a young woman who works near my house, and I asked her about the bailout agreement. Her parents are retirees who live on a Greek island in the Ionian Sea.
    She said it's terrible for small businesses, retirees, youth, the unemployed, people without money. She sounded very upset about it as if it will be the ruin of many Greeks.
    Also, from what I'm reading, 92% of previous bailout funds went to Greek and other European banks and 8% actually went to the Greek people.
    Journalists, economics and regular folks can have opinions and take sides. We don't have to be impartial, not when human beings' lives and quality of lives are at stake.
    As a retired person myself who, along with millions of others here, has to budget and worry about expenses, I can relate to the pensioners in Greece and they're in worse shape than we are here. Social Security is continuing and so is Medicare.

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  9. You and your neighbor are absolutely correct, Kathy. It's a horrendous human tragedy and a potentially indelible black mark against Europe's claim to civilization cariing for its weakest.

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