Worry Dolls

Saturday night, a sweet friend gave me a Guatemalan worry doll..

Didn't know the existence of those dolls..but apparently a legend says that when you have a problem, before you go to sleep you share it with a worry doll. You place the doll underneath your pillow and while you are asleep, the doll will take all your worries away..

Thank you so much O.

The Greek Birdcage

the last month Greece experiences a parody!

The country which was always liberal to the private life of its politicians, recently appears troubled with a scandal full of sex, DVDs and suicide attempts.

It seems to be a political scandal and not a pink one...who actually cares for a pink one?

we are not an Agglosaxon country, we resemble to France.It's another issue that the current french President exposed his life to the media..

The thing that really surprises me though is the wooden language of our right wing government speaking of Τάξη και Ηθική!That means Order and Morality...

I refer you to the movie La Cage aux Folles or the English version, The Birdcage...

The Man with the Carnation

One year since the assassination of Hrant Dink, the ethic Armenian Turk journalist and editor of the newspaper Agos.

A year after 19 Turkish celebrities made a tape collection of his articles.This tape together with photos, are part of an audio exhibition in Istanbul to remind people of his ideas and dreams.

Hrant Dink was accused based on art.301 of the penal code on insulting turkishness, like Orhan Pamouk and other prominent intellectuals of Turkey.

The photo with the red carnation reminded me of Nikos Belogiannis, a Greek communist,leader of the anti Nazi resistance who was sentenced to death in 1951 by a court martial as a traiter!

Ironic enough,one of "ultra patriotic" members of the court was George Papadopoulos, the future dictator( 1967-1974). Beloyannis was executed in 1952

Belogiannis is known as the Man with the Carnation, by a poem of Nazim Hikmet and a sketch by Pablo Picasso.

It was the last execution due to political reasons in Greece...

Differentiation v. oμογενοποίηση

The last days I'm surprised negatively by lack of tolerance of anything different.
Event among groups who claim to be open minded.
In Greek we have a word "ομογενοποίηση"which all English speakers understand.

You have to become homogeneous in order to be accepted and liked by others!
To adopt the same dress code, same ideas and life style
and i wonder where are the limits between individuality and collectivity...

some thoughts from a persistent objector to anything simple, easy, mass..
better alone and self-contained than part of a low quality....

manu chao la colifata 2007

Last December Manu Chao pasticipated in a live radio broadcast with patients from the Borda Hospital, in Buenos Aires.
The station's name is La Colifata and it's the first station in the world, running by patients of a phychiatric hospital.
Colifata means Crazy in a local idiom and according to the director of the program is a creative way for the patients to reconstruct their language

craziness?oh no definitely no!

Homeless,Identity and social justice

News:
Two homeless men in Athens, beat to death another homeless man.
Reason?they wanted his shelter
What was the shelter?the yard of a closed cafeteria exposed to air, rain, cold.
Headlines:Immigrants kill a greek man.....

2 years ago in New York I had the chance to attend a lecture of Amartya Sen on his book, Identity and Violence.He claims that if the multifaceted identity of each person prevails, then there will be less violence.

The way the assassination was presented, made me think of the book.

These men were all homeless,regardless of nationality.
But what if there was social justice?Maybe there would be less violence...

To my dad who first told me about social justice..a real socialist man !

Numbers: 12.000 homeless in Athens
Available shelters: 500
Average age: younger than 50 years old
Main Reason: Unemployment

Source:http://www.klimaka.org.gr/newsite/index.htm
http://www.klimaka-cosmos.net/

1 Million Signatures Campaign

In Iran a group of women activists launched the so called 1 Million Signatures Campaign.

They demand the change/end of all the discriminatory laws againt women via the collection of 1 million signatures.

This is the website, where you can find the relevant petition

http://www.we-change.org/english/

the logo of the campaign says the rest!

Thank you R. once more for updating me on this crucial human rights issue..

Derin ve Serin

This is the facebook link of the band of a friend from Turkey,
means "deep and cool"
http://nyu.facebook.com/profile.php?id=6267944333&ref=share

Have a look and listen to the songs!
tesekur Levent

Zaha Hadid, an iraqi free mind

If I started studying now, that would be architecture and preferably in Firenze, the city I need no special reason to visit!
I was always faschinated by the perspective of creativity..
Zaha Hadid, an iraqi architect very controversial as every genious mind..
I visited an exhibition on her work with 2 loved friends, at Guggenheim Museum in NY and I felt jealous I'm not an architect myself.

even her website is worth visiting..
http://www.zaha-hadid.com/

How many times have I said:I wish I was something else than a lawyer????????

Make It Right!

As a former resident of New Orleans( NOLA) I cannot describe my feelings when I saw the destruction after Katrina..
Most of my friends have left the Big Ease whereas parts of the city are totally abandoned.
Brad Pitt initiated a project to build houses for displaced residents determined to return..
This time it should be made right!

Made in Tehran

Iran: 70% of the population under 30 years old
Up to 1.000.000 blogs!
Iranian women: simply gorgeous!
Tehran: the nose job capital of the world...
Berlin-Cicero Gallery: Photo Exhibititon by 6 Iranian female photographers on modern iranian woman...
http://http//universes-in-universe.org/eng/islamic_world/articles/2007/news_tips/made_in_tehran

A faschinating country with amazing history full of poetry,literature, science..
To my beautiful friend R. who always wonders about my knowledge on Iran!

21 grams

According to the Iraq Body Count the death toll of iraqi civilians since 2003 is approximately 87.000.
The project itself is very controversial and the numbers are debatable.
Sounds wierd but my first thought was the movie 21 grams..the weight of soul after death.
tried to multiply with 87.000 and got scared....

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

Kenya...see Rwanda
Numbers: 250.000 displaced
350 casualties

Clowns without borders

So far I knew doctors without borders, lawyers without borders, journalists without borders...never heard of clowns without borders!

Then I came across a UNHCR newsletter about the positive impact of clowns performances on iraqi refugee children in Syria...and I found out that there is an international organisation, working in several parts of the world, bringing the smile back to clowdy little faces and souls who have experienced pain, terror, abuse...

and for first time I wished I was a clown and not a lawyer...

http://www.clownswithoutborders.org/