Category Archives: International news

International news

A critique of a great city

ATHENS, Greece — Consider this brief blog post a critique of one of the world’s great cities.

I am near Athens for the fourth time in my life and I have concluded something important about this city of about 3 million residents. I depart from the city’s airport in the morning, heading for my house near Dallas.

It isn’t very pretty.

I have had the pleasure of seeing some marvelous cities around the world. Nuremberg, London, Copenhagen, Taipei, Tokyo … to name just five. They’re all different. Yet they all celebrate their personalities by offering beautiful streets lined with homes that sparkle.

Athens? Hmm. It offers crowded streets, not a skyscraper to be seen anywhere … and sone of the best eatin’ one will find on this good Earth.

It also offers something else that lends to its personality: ancient antiquities. One can walk around virtually any street corner in central Athens and find a nearly 3,000-year-old ruin. I am not going to sell that quality short. The ruins are worth seeing and their age puts into huge perspective just how old sone civilizations are compared to what we have in the U.S.A.

I only wish that Athens could boast of a tree-lined boulevard. It they’re out there, I haven’t seen them.

All that said, I love coming here. Athens is the capital city of the country of my ancestors. When I walk among the horde of people, I feel as though I am among family members. They all look like me.

International news

Two kitties have arrived

MIKRI VIGLA, Greece — On my final day in paradise, I got an unexpected treat in the form of a furry pal.

I’ll call him Two-Tone, who happens to be a kitty who joined Calico in sharing their love with me.

I’ve told you already about Calico, a feral cat who doesn’t act like one. The same can be said of Two-Tone, who showed up on the patio this afternoon to talk loudly to me. I think he was asking if I had a little extra love I could send his way. Sure! So, I did.

I will have to leave them both in the morning. I have my own kitties waiting for me at the house, Actually, they’re my son’s kitties, but Macy and Marlowe know I love them, too.

What they don’t know is that I might have a new puppy to join our family. More on that later. I hope.

International news

All good things must end

NAXOS, Greece — My all-too-brief visit to Paradise is coming to an end and I am beginning to prepare for my return to what I call “normal” life in North Texas.

It won’t be easy.

Normally, I am usually ready to go home at the tail end of vacations. I’m good for a limited amount of fun and good times. This stint far from the crowds, noise, hassles and pressure is different.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time away, so much so in fact that I want to continue to enjoy it for a little while longer.

Naxos is a special place, to be abundantly clear. I have enjoyed some marvelous conversations with strangers. The locals have welcomed my cousin, her son and me with warmth … which shouldn’t surprise anyone, given how dependent this island community is on tourists and the money they spend.

But it’s almost over. The grind awaits. I am more ready for it now than I was when I arrived here.

Mission accomplished!

International news

He is ‘seeing someone else’

NAXOS, Greece — One of two people with whom I am visiting Greece offered a quip today that expressed the instant love he felt upon arriving in this paradise in the middle of the Cyclades Islands.

“Athens, I love ya,” said my cousin’s grown son, “but the truth is, I am seeing someone else.”

The “someone else” happens to be the largest island among the Cyclades and truth be told, I share Aaron’s love of the place.

Man, oh man. It is quiet here, As in stone-cold silent. The Aegean Sea water is crystal clear/blue. It’s not overly warm, but it is, so very swimmable.

We arrived by “ferry,” which is a misnomer describing the ship that carried hundreds of passengers and dozens of vehicles from Pireaus to Naxos. It’s more like a cruise ship than a ferry.

We intend to enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of this idyllic island. I’ll be here six days total before I head back to Athens, the capital city of 3 million residents who seemingly make enough noise to be heard across the Aegean ,,.. to Naxos.

I do hate to say this, and it’s not often that I do: As much as I love my North Texas home and my family that awaits me … it will be difficult to leave this tiny portion of paradise,

International news

Parthenon’s permanent scaffolding

ATHENS, Greece — I have concluded that one of tbe world’s ancient wonders is permanently “scarred” by the presence of scaffolding.

The Parthenon was built in Athens five centuries before Jesus’s birth. It has been bombarded, used as a depot for explosive ordnance and has fallen victim to the ravages of time.

Today I made my fourth trip to see Parthenon and was disappointed yet again by the site of scaffolding inside and outside the structure.

None of the guides showing the antiquity to the public could answer my question: Does the scaffolding ever come down? Ever?

I know that a 2,800-year-old structure needs humankind’s TLC. I am now believing the love and care it gets from humanity is a permanent fixture among the ruins.

International news

‘Old country’ beckons

In about three weeks, I am going to drive to a parking lot near Dallas-Fort Worth airport, park my truck and then get ready to board an airplane for a lengthy flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

I will land eventually at Eleftherios Venizelos airport in Athens and will begin 10 days of total relaxation in my ancestral homeland. I will stay in a bed and breakfast place near the Acropolis. Then I get on the metro train bound for the port city of Pireaus, where I will board a ferry for a five-hour ride across the Aegean Sea to Noxos, an island resort.

I will meet my cousin and her grown son in Greece, and we will bask in the late-summer Mediterranean heat.

I also will carry with me the memory of someone who once told me that of all the 20 or so countries she had seen, Greece is the only place that she could “visit over and over and over again.”

My beloved bride Kathy Anne traveled to Greece twice with me, in 2000 and 2001; I made a third trip there in 2003, but traveled by myself. All three of those earlier visits were media trips, at the invitation of the Greek press ministry. This fourth visit will be strictly to relax and to do damn near nothing during my entire stay in the country.

I will have plenty of down time, plenty of time to be alone with my thoughts., And you are entitled to bet every penny in the piggy bank that those thoughts likely will involve my bride, who I lost to cancer in February 2023.

I am happy to report, though, that my thoughts won’t bring heaviness to my heart. They will bring back memories of the glorious time my bride and I spent together looking at the antiquities, enjoying the food and pinching ourselves at the thought that we were able to see these sites together.

Do I miss her? Of course I do! I am resolute, though, in pursuing my life as she wanted me to do. “Life is for the living,” Kathy Anne told me. Take this to the bank: I can think of nowhere else I would rather be than the middle of Aegean Sea.

International news, military news

Russia about to gain a WH friend?

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Donald Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as his 2024 Republican Party presidential running mate should send chills up the spine of every “real Republican” out there.

Why is that? Because Vance, a freshman U.S. senator from Ohio, has emerged as Russia’s most vocal ally in the ridiculous debate over whether we should continue to assist Ukraine in its valiant fight against the Russian invaders.

Vance has made it clear: If he has any say in the matter, the United States won’t spend another dollar to assist Ukraine as it fights for its life against the immoral, illegal and unprovoked invasion by the Russian armed forces.

There has been plenty of talk about this election being a fight for democracy. That fight is playing itself out on the battlefields of Ukraine, which is fighting to preserve its democratic government against. the authoritarians in Moscow who want to take Ukraine back as a “Russian state.”

President Biden has been steadfast in his support of Ukraine, vowing to keep the United States engaged by sending money for military hardware essential for Ukraine to defeat the Russian aggressors.

Now, though, Trump and his “friendship” with Vladimir Putin stands in the way. Moreover, Trump now has a vocal running mate who is standing openly and foursquare with Putin’s designs on spreading his dictatorial regime beyond Russia’s borders.

Republican political orthodoxy used to stand against Russian aggression. We engaged in a decades-long cold war with the Soviet Union to keep them from advancing beyond their territorial limit. Two presidents named Bush, and others named Nixon, Eisenhower and Reagan stood strong against the tyrants.

We must not let the Russians win this fight!

International news

Biden restores compassion to immigration

Joe Biden has been vilified unfairly by his critics for what they contend is the president’s so-called “open border policy” on immigration.

The president is seeking, as of today, to strengthen our borders while seeking also to treat immigrants with compassion. He issued an executive order that aims to give undocumented spouses of immigrants a greater pathway to US citizenship.

The Texas Tribune reports: “President Biden has consistently used his executive powers to create additional legal pathways for immigrants, and today’s joyous announcement will help keep many of these mixed-status American families together,” U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar said in a statement. Escobar is a national co-chair of Biden’s reelection campaign and introduced legislation, the American Families United Act, that would offer similar protections for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens.

What is in his plan? Biden wants to make it easier for so-called Dreamers to qualify for work authorization; undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens will have to have lived in the United States for10 years to qualify for the authorization; those who qualify can apply for a three-year work permit.

None of this smacks of an “open border” policy to my eyes.

One of the major beneficiaries of this policy are those who came here as children when their parents entered the country illegally. The United States is the only country they have known. However, many Republicans — such as Donald Trump — want to deport them immediately. The don’t give a damn about keeping families together, or allowing them to continue to prosper in the only country they have known.

Biden announces protections for undocumented spouses of citizens | The Texas Tribune

I refer here to Deferred Action on Childhood Arrival, an executive order issued by President Obama that aims to grant a form of amnesty to those US residents who came here as children. Obama left office in January 2017 and Trump threatened to deport them all. Then Trump got defeated in 2020 and Biden seeks to restore compassion to our immigration policy.

DACA recipients and their spouses deserve to be treated with kindness, not with blind anger.

International news

Bibi is getting ‘fickle’?

No one ever should ascribe the term “fickle” to Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, the fiery and ferocious prime minister of Israel.

He declared war on Hamas, the terrorists who on Oct. 7, 2023 launched the hideous rocket attack from Gaza into Israel. They killed more than 1,000 Israelis. Israel responded with a massive show of force that has killed many times more Gazans. Netanyahu’s stated aim is to “destroy Hamas.”

OK. But now the Israelis have a serious proposal to end the violence on the table. Bibi said it’s a non-starter, even though President Biden said late this past week that Israel had worked out the framework of a permanent peace deal with the United States and Hamas.

What gives?

I get that Netanyahu wants to destroy Hamas. I am with him fully. Hamas is a bloodthirsty terrorist organization whose sole intent is to destroy Israel. At what cost is Israel willing to go before declaring Hamas to be dead and buried?

The bloodbath cannot continue. My hope from afar is that Netanyahu can find it within himself to negotiate an end to this warfare and start cleaning up the damage that his country’s vaunted military has inflicted.

Donald Trump, International news

MAGA misdirects its ‘pride’

How in the name of all that is holy can the MAGA movement justify its political kinship with this nation’s most notorious adversary?

I cannot even begin to comprehend this love affair with Vladimir Putin, his henchmen, his alleged principles and the idea that the MAGA cult in Congress is willing to all but give him a pass on his illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine.

The MAGA cultists, of course, adhere to the blathering of the 45th POTUS, who has acknowledged that Putin “talks nice” about him and, therefore, is a good guy and a “strong leader.”

Let’s unpack briefly something about Russia that doesn’t get much play in the American media.

For starters, Russia is a much more diverse society than what POTUS 45 envisions for this country. He bellows about how he wants this country to become a “Christian nation,” but Russia is home to a far greater percentage of non-Christians than the USA.

And did you know that abortion happens to be legal in Russia? The former Liar in Chief wouldn’t for a nanosecond blink at the notion of abortion becoming illegal in this country.

The MAGA minions continue to cling to the moronic notion that their hero in this country can make nice with a known killer and that their partnership somehow will solve all the world’s problems.

I do not get it. I will go to my grave never understanding how an iteration of Russia — the Soviet Union — was once called an Evil Empire but somehow has become the darling of the radical right wing of this nation.