Guess who is hiding behind Greece's monetary failure?

Guess. Because that's what it is - only a guess.
It is, however, informed by decades of reflexion on the vicissitudes of history.

For their - and consequently our - economic troubles, the Greeks have no one to blame but themselves.
There is no need to go into detail at this point.
What matters is that they appear to be unusually keen on leaving the Euro-zone and the EU altogether, at least judging by assorted media reports and articles.

Or are they?
True to their nature, Greeks are not the best of team players.
They are also (and quite understandably, up to a point) cynical about governments in general, and their own goverment in particular.

This is always a dangerous situation, because despondency can lead to apathy, and apathy naturally makes place for more active players to take over.

Which is why Greece is the perfect tinder box for power-hungry forces, both inside and outside the country. All they have to do is to encourage and fuel the most destructive of attitudes, hoping the situation will eventually spiral into a desperate need for a "saviour".

Can Greece survive "alone", i.e. outside the European Union?
It is debatable. What does "survive" mean?

Would it fare better, at the very least?
Again, it is doubtful.

A more likely scenario is that it would partner with some other country who could offer - if not necessarily deliver - the security and "respect" that Greece apparently feels it lacks in the EU.

Now ask yourself: who on Earth could have an interest in a would-be renegade member of the European Union, a country in the deep south of Europe, with ports on the Mediterranean, and conveniently close to that other tinder box, which is also the "gateway" to the Middle East, that is Turkey?

And who would this same would-be renegade member of the EU be likely to accept, perhaps even invite (not publicly, of course), as its "saviour", for historical and religion-based cultural reasons?

Could it be the same power that remains hidden behind the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, to name just one major global mess?

Think about it.
Someone has to.

VOTE FOR THY NEIGHBOURS AND THY BRETHREN IN FAITH (not to mention thy guest workers' homelands)

The text below is borrowed verbatim from a sister - well, "cousin" - blog. The post was written more than a year ago - and yet everything said in it still applies... (duh!)

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I've always wondered how many people actually watch (I hesitate to use the word "listen to") the dinosaur called the Eurosong.

It is my suspicion that most people only watch the final voting (which has long since become a self-parody, noticeable to everyone except the voters and the votees, it seems).

But even that has become tedious and boring beyond ridiculousness. After all, anyone who has ever watched it more than two or three times, knows by heart how each country will vote: Andorra will always vote for Spain and for France. Greece will vote for its neighbouring countries (except Macedonia, which it doesn't recognise as a country), with the highest number of votes going to Cyprus (the Greek part, of course), and viceversa. Russia will vote for all its surrounding neighbours and for countries which claim adherence to the Orthodox faith. Turkey will vote for Armenia (oh yeah, that'll take the sting out of the genocide of 1916!), Germany will vote for Turkey, no matter what: it's the country whence most of its foreign »guest workers« come from.

And so on.

The endurance of the cretinous anomaly called the Eurosong is one of the great mysteries of our time. I am pretty sure you have no idea who won last year, even if you did listen to the... ehm, music. With very few exceptions, none of the winners – not to mention the non-winners (who were more often than not actually better than the winners) – faded back into international obscurity whence they had emerged for that single night.

It's the debutante ball for »new democracies« - a sort of Vienna Ball, minus the music. In other words, it's tacky, wasteful, has no discernible social or even political purpose (even though voting is done almost exclusively on the basis of current politics).

Bring in the clowns already...
They are way more entertaining and they certainly have more political relevance, free thought - and more durable musical influence.

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N.B.

And the clowns ARE in... :)

The Consciousness Button

Sounds like an exciting, very "quantum" new gadget, eh...? ;)

But I am simply referring to the button on your right side: the one that supposedly registers the current "state of consciousness" of the world.

I just noticed, a few minutes ago, that it changed colour rather suddenly: it went from dark orange/red to light orange/yellow. In other words, the "cohesion" of the world consciousness, as measured by the website, just dropped considerably.

Assuming the measurements are at least coherent, I can see only one major reason for such a drop: a huge portion of the territories within the ex-Soviet Union, notably Russia (or at least a part of it) just entered the new year.
In other words, a huge chunk of the world population just said: "Midnight is over, 2007 is done with - can we go to bed now?" (Even if they don't go to bed, the "expectation" is over.)

I think it's a likely scenario.
What do you think?

Anyway, I know I won't be celebrating.
And I am not expecting anything.
I never do; but this year even less so.

The year 2007 is - or has been - beyond words.
My life disappeared: brutally, suddenly (only not really) - it all went poof.

Beyond words.

It's a year that never should have been.
(I know many of you feel the same way.)

And yet I cannot celebrate its passing.
I cannot celebrate another separation, as artificial and trivial as it may seem.
I cannot - do not want to - walk into a future, when my future is behind me.

Unless I rewrite it.

Until I rewrite it.