Point of view

Lee has become a non-person or even worse, someone identified with Southern slavery, although there is nothing to suggest that this Christian gentleman favored that institution or that he led the Confederate forces in Virginia for any reason other than the one he gave upon turning down an invitation to command the Union army—to protect his ancestral state against invasion.
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Lest I be accused of being unfair to my subject, let me stress that he was not really responsible for this glorification. As far as I know, King could never have imagined how he would be used after his death, any more than Karl Marx could have imagined that his ideas would be cited to justify Soviet tyranny. He might even have had the decency to blush if he had heard our “conservative” presidential candidate John McCain apologizing last spring in Memphis for having not supported the King public holiday soon enough. McCain characterized this failure as “the single biggest mistake in my political life.”

(Read full article here)
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A potentially important day

So, today is the big day. People either love O because he is new stuff, looks perfect, and looks and speaks honestly, or hate him for the exact same reasons. He is new stuff, he is scarily perfect (to the extent of being thought to be The Antichrist), and speaks to people's hearts-not minds.

The investiture will take place at 6.30 a.m. Greek time. We had a glimpse of the grandeur involved at the inauguration party. Here are some photos from TV.

"Live from Washington"

"The celebration before the inauguration".

Obama speaking.
Two reporters in Washington for Mega, one of Greece's leading TV channels. Here is the coverage of the occasion.
We had two DVDs included in the papers last weekend. One on Obama's life, and one about the Greek American Democrats and Republican representatives. One of Greece's oldest women's magazine, Gynaika, i.e. Woman, was relaunched last Sunday with Michelle O on the front cover.

Now, allow me today some thoughts from my personal point of view. I cannot say I am disappointed that Obama was elected. I don't agree with him on several issues, but I do not vote and I cannot decide on behalf of American citizens. I love the US, and really want to see it represent the values it stands for.
But, honestly, the world can't take any more bullying around, dear friends. One can't sit, hands crossed on their lap, and let themselves be told what to do; and if they don't do as they're told, then have parts of their country cut off, or else be bombarded. It simply does not work that way anymore. It worked in the 50s. And the 60s. It worked for the British Empire for quite some time. But those were times when leaders had the stature to do so. Americans were welcomed. The British were ruthless and feared.

What really makes a great leader? Why do people in the depths of Asia claim to this day to be the offspring of Alexander the Great's soldiers with local women?

Because he cared for the people he conquered; because he tolerated their religious beliefs;because he spared the Persian king's women and children. Because he showed as much mercy as one possibly could, although Greece had been invaded twice by the Persian kings. But then, there was Thermopylae, Marathon and Salamis. And the leaders to make them happen were Pericles, Themistocles and Leonidas, before Alexander. And he was one of a long line of great leaders.

Why was Alexander 'Great' and Bush is not? Didn't he conquer? Didn't he have military might? Didn't he call upon God?
There is a kind of value, my friends, that is called ethical stature. The US leaders by being so indiscriminately intrusive and arrogant have lost it. Obama may bring it back home.

My grandma and then my mom kept in their side table drawer, a bronze link bracelet, depicting on every little oval plaque one of the American Presidents. Would any of modern time Presidents claim to be rightfully added among them? Will Mr. Obama sit among the great leaders of the past? I do not really know, and it remains to be seen.

Here is to better times for the United States of America and the world.

Armistice Day

"If only the United States could be
on the right side of an intelligent war!"

Charles A. Lindbergh

The armistice deal signed on 11 November 1918 brought yearned-for relief to Western Europe. But the same pact has been blamed for the return to conflict in Europe only 20 years later. Does the deal deserve the criticism, asks Professor Gerard De Groot of the University of St Andrews. (BBC article).

A beautiful but moving illustrated post can be found here.

Let us not kill each other, for a change.

Some thoughts on the election

It is over then, isn't it? It does help to think what most of the faithful ladies I managed to visit say, that after all is said and done God is in charge and to His will it will all be done.
I can understand how jubilant the world felt. The thought of a man of peace in the Oval Office after all those years of daggers flying above our heads for no apparent reason, does sound hopeful. Let alone the wording: Change. Andreas Papandreou won the 1981 elections in Greece with the very same word. Of course it was all a masquerade, leading to a complete dismember the notion of family and traditional values, including divorcing his wife and mother of his four grown up children in order to marry his mistress. But by then the knots had been loosened and the people forgave him and made him PM once again.

But after the jubilation , it does make you think, doesn't it, when the leader-to-be of the world's superpower begins to make dubious choices. I mean, who would have thought that the Americans would have rejected an American war veteran one day by fear that he'd be a follow-up to the Bush administration that has stirred up so much hatred around the world, and the next day they'd wake up with someone who has served as a volunteer in a foreign country's army? If we are to believe the pro-Obama Washington Post, his choice of the "Rahmbo" signals "...a potential mood shift away from the serene "no drama" ethos that defined his campaign".

Under those circumstance, I can only smile whenever I think of Berlusconi's assessment of President-elect Obama. After meeting with the Russian president, he called Obama "young, handsome, and even tanned".


If that's all he brings, then that's fine with me. I am afraid it is going to be much worse than that...