A Citizen’s Guide to Greece 2015
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Saying of the day: 5/13/13
Posted May 13, 2013 by Politis
“I learned… that writing is play. So is reading. They are things you do to enjoy yourself. I found out that I enjoyed writing, and I could do it for hours on end, for my own amusement, rather than for any assignment or to get a good grade.” — Elias Kulukundis
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Greece’s state broadcaster and the politics of eternal discontent
Posted June 12, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Kostas A. Lavdas The news is plain and simple. The Greek government has shut down the public broadcaster ERT, calling it a “haven of waste.” While all 2,500 employees would be sacked, the government says they would be paid compensation and would be able to apply for work when the corporation relaunches as a […]
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New media and the future of journalism
Posted June 28, 2013 by KK
By Krysta Kalachani Let me bring to your attention a very interesting discussion (in Greek) about the new media and new types of journalism in the context ERT, as ERT was / is supposed to be. Worth watching, it tackles specifically the situation in the Greek media.
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When push becomes shove: getting citizens to act in their own best interest
Posted August 1, 2013 by DW
It was originally called the “Behavioural Insights Team,” a team of British policy analysts who employed psychological research to persuade citizens in the most subtle of ways to pay their taxes on time, get off unemployment, or insulate their attic. Now Canada has created a “nudge unit,” whose mission is to “nudge citizens into acting […]
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Exostis
Posted October 11, 2013 by KK
By Krysta Kalachani Exostis seems pretty interesting, a “place” where residents of Thessaloniki can find interesting cultural and other types of events. The good things that happen in the city, as they assert. I am not familiar with the site or the magazine (which I understood circulates as well), but it seems a good site […]
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Alex is back, lazier and more hard-working then ever
Posted May 8, 2013 by Politis
Alex is back, thanks to Damian Mac Con Uladh of EnetEnglish. “Alex, the popular animation character that seeks to demolish the negative, crisis-fuelled stereotypes about Greece in his own little way, has returned to YouTube, this time to challenge the “fact” that Greeks are lazy… Part two features Alex, a metaphor for the Greek people, […]
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Illiberal and un-European
Posted October 26, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner A few months ago I filed my Greek tax return, as I have every year since 1995; just recently I payed the first installment of my remaining income tax obligation for 2012. This year, like last, I had to submit all the receipts I had amassed over the course of the calendar […]
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We want out
Posted January 31, 2013 by Politis
As reported yesterday in Greek Reporter, as many as One Greek in three would consider leaving Greece, as the economic situation becomes ever more dire. They report, “The startling statistic came from a a survey carried out on primary and secondary school pupils by the Children’s Ombudsman. Out of 1,211 pupils from 22 schools around […]
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Tax paying as civic duty
Posted April 3, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner I file my tax returns in Greece and in the US. I read this comment by Lawrence A. Zelenak in the New York Times as a welcome counterpoint to all the negative press generated throughout the Western world about tax evasion. “In the next two weeks, Americans rushing to file their returns by […]
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Users trust social media as news source
Posted January 17, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Byron Tau Voter trust in political information from Facebook, Twitter and other social media services is now on par with that in traditional news sources, according to a new survey shared with POLITICO. Recent years have seen candidates increasingly devoting time and resources to developing their social media presences, with President Barack Obama’s reelection […]
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Paideia meets demos
Posted February 1, 2013 by Politis
TechCrunch has announced its pick of Coursera as the 2012 Crunchies’ Best Overall Startup. Their rationale: “because more than anything else our country is heading into a period where higher education and job training is not catching up with the pace of innovation, where the creative part of “creative destruction” has not yet overwhelmingly kicked in.” […]
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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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Why all the talk about revolution now?
Posted November 15, 2013 by Politis
Politis invited regular contributors Krysta Kalachani and Maria Patsarika to comment on two recent blog posts discussing revolution, by Christos Giannaras and Politis’ own David Wisner. Why all this talk about revolution now? Are we getting it right? KK: Why don’t you like it? Love it. One reason that you are not sure about it […]
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Greek radicalism in context
Posted March 15, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Scott Stewart In last week’s Geopolitical Weekly, George Friedman discussed how the global financial crisis has caused a global unemployment crisis and how Europe has become the epicenter of that crisis. He also noted that rampant unemployment will give way to a political crisis as austerity measures galvanize radical political parties opposed to the […]
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Public service: commitment and payback
Posted June 20, 2014 by Politis
By Brian Newby I’m blessed to be in a job that truly feels like it matches against my skills. There are many facets to overseeing elections, from public relations to candidate relations, from high-tech to situations that require a human touch, from logistics to statistics, and everything in between. I have a hard time considering […]
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Coming to grips with children trying to earn money on the streets
Posted July 11, 2013 by Politis
By Alyssa Olivo Even though I’m used to seeing homeless people begging on the streets of New York City, I’ve been surprised at the amount of children trying to earn money on the streets in Greece. I can count on both hands the amount of times I’ve had a child come up to me, play […]
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Protection rackets
Posted May 22, 2013 by Politis
Say you are an eager entrepreneur seeking to launch you own business. In the past, says Alexis Papahelas of Kathimerini, you might have faced “tailor-made amendments, biased legal and standards committees, and odd circulars were all mobilized in an effort to erect obstacles in the path of people outside the loop who wanted to enter […]
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Saying of the day: 1/27/13
Posted January 26, 2013 by Politis
“Neither a life of anarchy nor one beneath a despot should you praise.” — Aeschylus
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Who is to blame?
Posted January 8, 2013 by DW
Two very symptomatic editorials featured in the Sunday news, both tending to focus blame for Greece’s woes on specific elements in Greek society. In the first, an editorial in the New York Times by Kostas Vaxevanis, the editor who published a version of the so-called Lagrarde list with names of Greek citizens having large deposits […]
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The new conventional wisdom on Cyprus?
Posted March 26, 2013 by Politis
The papers were full of analysis on the heels of the EU-Cyprus agreement Monday. Not surprisingly, after some of the hyperbole, there came reflection. The deal, it appears to some, was not as bad as it might have been, and not as bad as it has been made to appear. Hugo Dixon writes in Reuters, […]