A Citizen’s Guide to Greece 2015
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Greek urban warriors
Posted February 26, 2015 by DW
The Michael and Kitty Dukakis Center for Public and Humanitarian Service and Ianos Bookstore Cordially invite you to a presentation of Greek Urban Warriors: resistance and terrorism 1967-2014 by John Brady Kiesling Athens: Lycabettus Press, 2014 Monday, March 2, 2015, 7 PM Ianos Bookstore, Aristotelous 7, Thessaloniki Moderator: David Wisner The event will take place […]
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Here’s to your health
Posted April 14, 2015 by DW
I recently found myself obliged to spend some time in a public hospital. Aside from the obvious benefits to my health, it was a most revealing experience. Ihave no complaints about my treatment. The rather negative opinion I had formed previously about this particular hospital, based largely on the impression of utter chaos and lack […]
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More on the youth vote
Posted June 5, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner Excerpts below from a post by Andrew Rosenthal in yesterday’s New York Times about the youth vote in the 2012 US Presidential election. The interesting thing is that Republican youth groups were heavily involved in producing the initial report. I wonder what the results would be if Greek youth expressed themselves systematically […]
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The Athena project to reform Greek universities: creating a new generation of citizens?
Posted February 3, 2013 by Politis
Politis posted yesterday a note on the potential of online course delivery to revolutionize the face of university teaching in the years to come. Here in Greece the focus is on reform of the existing system. According to a report filed in Greek Reporter, the current government’s Athena project is aimed at both upgrading and […]
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The Crisis of the EU and the future of Greece
Posted December 9, 2012 by DW
By David Wisner Lecture given at Hamilton College, New York, September 2012 The title of my talk is: «The Crisis of the EU and the Future of Greece». It might well have been the inverse: «The Crisis in Greece and the Future of the EU». Semantics aside, the core problem I will address is whether […]
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Sharks in the Aegean?
Posted April 13, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Livingston T. Merchant For one who loves Greece, at least the way it was five years, or even better, before it entered the candy shop of the Euro zone, there is nothing at all in the news to cause optimism about the future. The country is being systematically destroyed by very clever people who […]
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Dealing with Golden Dawn
Posted February 27, 2013 by pdcadmin
By John Psaropoulos Not for the first time, the spokesman for Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn party was in the spotlight for unbecoming conduct last Wednesday. He used profanity in parliament against a fellow member, who suggested that Golden Dawn did not suffer from a lack of invitations to televised debates, but failed to show up […]
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Citizen walkers, walking citizens
Posted March 13, 2014 by DW
By David Wisner This past Sunday I finally had an opportunity to experience a car-free waterfront. I went down to Leoforos Nikis and sat with some students — young people who were born and raised in Thessaloniki — to enjoy the hush and feel the energy of citadins taking their morning promenade. We got to […]
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Center right, center right
Posted March 19, 2013 by Politis
We all know the two rules of business, according to which 1) the boss is always right, and 2) if the boss is wrong, see rule number one. In American politics it would appear that the Republican Party has replaced the boss. Bloomberg has been investigating the phenomenon in US electoral politics according to which […]
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Inspiration Xchange: activism, creative participation, and democracy
Posted April 9, 2013 by RS
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Privatization woes
Posted January 28, 2013 by Politis
Excerpts from Vangelis Mandravelis’ analysis of the myriad difficulties faced by Greek authorities seeking to move ahead with Greece’s privatization program, from today’s Kathimerini English pages. “Although Greece has been discussing its privatization program for almost three years, precious little has materialized to date. In essence, the sell-off program is yet to start, given that […]
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The European response to the global migration crisis
Posted November 10, 2016 by Politis
By Lauren Rothschild NB Lauren Rothschild is a Freshman at Northeastern University majoring in international relations and political science and studying abroad at ACT and interning at the Dukakis Center during the Fall 2016 semester. On Saturday October 22nd, the Olympion Theater in Thessaloniki hosted the 5th annual symposium on World Affairs, with this year’s […]
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How simple it is to know who’s who
Posted July 29, 2013 by DW
Fact checkers and vote counters are legion in the US. Here is site that prides itself for being up on the latest in IT developments. No hiding behind the anonymity of an electronic vote. At issue in this instance is an amendment to cut off funding the the recently divulged NSA spying program. Now, who […]
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Center right, center left: the original
Posted March 24, 2013 by Politis
“The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) drives principled solutions through rigorous analysis, reasoned negotiation, and respectful dialogue. Founded in 2007 by former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and George Mitchell, BPC combines politically-balanced policymaking with strong, proactive advocacy and outreach. As the only Washington, DC-based think tank that actively promotes bipartisanship, BPC […]
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What do these young people really want?
Posted December 17, 2015 by KK
By Krysta I am commenting on a recent article on the site Ανιχνεύσεις (“Η Νεολαία του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ ζητά να καταργηθεί η πρωινή προσευχή στα σχολεία“). I first asked myself, what is more interesting, the question of prayer in school or the activity of Syriza youth. Apart from the fact that the title is completely misleading […]
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The Citizenship we need now is about transforming institutions
Posted March 27, 2012 by pdcadmin
By Ian Kehoe In these unprecedented times in Greece, it is more important than ever to question the purposes and outcomes of social projects and institutions in order to make sure we are really tackling the underlying causes and behaviours that led us to this crisis. Recently, there has been a renewed interest in alternative […]
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Creativity sentenced to death
Posted February 8, 2013 by M P
By Maria Patsarika I never thought academic writing could be that frustrating until I started practicing it. And it’s not because I prefer live dialogue to print dialogue (although I do); writing is a pleasure, whether you are the author or the reader. It can be as natural, direct and emotive as a conversation between […]
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Public Service 101
Posted October 17, 2016 by Politis
By Lydia Richards. Nailing down a definition of public and humanitarian service is difficult. It is one of those tricky phrases that means something different depending on the context in which it is examined. I think it is important to explore the implications of the definition, especially for me as an intern for an organization […]
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Among the first inhabitants of Thessaloniki
Posted March 1, 2013 by Politis
The remains of one of the earliest inhabitants of the city of Thessaloniki, those of a young woman, roughly twenty-five years of age, adorned with a gold crown, have been uncovered and published in a tomb dating from the third century BC, during excavations coinciding with digging for the Thessaloniki Metro, near the Stathmos Dimocratias. […]
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Crisis, what crisis?
Posted October 23, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner Some years ago, when I first settled permanently in Thessaloniki, I met another ex-patriot who had been here for decades already. How long? I asked her. “Long enough to think the Greek way of doing things is the normal way,” she replied. Won’t happen to me, I thought, naively. And continued to […]