You know how Greek people are. You don't? OK, let me tell you. We are historically quite few in numbers. We never breeded enough, unlike our eastern neighbours, and that accounts for much of our troubles in History. Also, due to the Odysseus particle living inside of us, we are scattered around the globe, always curious for new lands and new adventures, and always nostalgic of our own little piece of dirt to which we want to come back one day.
We thus feel that, when one Greek succeeds in something, we all share in his victory. That is until jealousy gets the better of us and we begin finding flaws in the lucky bastard. But we are not there yet. For now, let us rejoyce in last night's Oscar Awards, when The Cove directed by Louie Psyhoyos won in the Best Documentary Feature category.
The film, narrates the annual slaughter of dolphins inside Japan's Taiji National Park. According to official estimates by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, a
total of 13,080 cetaceans were killed throughout Japan in 2007, the year many portions of the film were shot, using underwater microphones and high-definition cameras disguised as rocks, although the numbers are estimated to be closer to 23,000. The migrating dolphins are herded into a hidden cove where they are netted and killed by means of spears and knives over the side of small fishing boats. Quite barbaric by any standards, except perhaps kosher which is less of a hunt, but equally disgusting as the poor victim is left in agony, bleeding to its death.
Hopefully the Oscar Awards will make people more sensitive as to what goes on around them.
Louie Psihoyos was born in Dubuque, Iowa in 1957, the son of a Greek immigrant who fled communist occupation of the Peloponnesos region near Sparta after World War II. Psihoyos took an interest in photography at the age of fourteen. He attended the University of Missouri, majoring in photojournalism. In 1980, at the age of twenty-three, he was hired by Natioanl Georgraphic and remained with the magazine for seventeen years. During this time he married his wife, who danced ballet with George Balanchine's NY City Ballet and had two children. Psihoyos received multiple awards for his photography, including first place in the World Press Contest and the Hearst Award. In addition, he has worked with magazines such as Smithsonian, Discover, GEO, and Time.
See the official The Cove website
here. Read more about Louie Psyhoyos and view his photography
here.
P.S. The name Psyhoyos runs in my maternal grand-mother's family. We also come from the same region. And our ancestors were anti-communists. What are the chances of us being related?
