Thebes was one of about 1,000 poleis (city-states) spread all over the mainland of classical Greece, the islands of the Aegean and Ionian seas, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, north Africa, southern France, eastern Spain and southern Italy and Sicily.    There were so many Greeks and Greek city-states in Italy and Sicily the Romans described the region as Magna Graecia. Plato used to joke that the Greeks were like frogs playing in a pond, the Mediterranean. He ignored the Black Sea pond.   Surrounded by Athens and Sparta   Thebes, along with Athens and Sparta, was unusual. It was a relatively strong polis in central Greece or Boeotia, continuously inhabited for five millennia. Yet Thebes’ more powerful neighbors, Sparta and Athens, and, in the fourth century BCE, Macedonia, made the life, the historical life of Thebes unpleasant to the extreme. Thebes almost disappeared from history. Athenians often called Thebans Boeotian swine.   But the Thebans...

Congratulations Mr. President-Elect. I am delighted the American people voted for you in the midst of a Trump and Republican Party onslaught on the integrity of elections and American democracy.    Trump’s attack on nature    Trump and his followers have damaged the country at home and abroad. It will take enormous time and talent from your administration to reverse this decline.   Trump denied climate change, thus he diminished the international standing of America. Indirectly, by encouraging oligarchy and the rejection of science, he influenced the leader of Brazil who encouraged the burning of the Amazon and its  conversion to soybean fields.    Trump and his EPA nearly wiped out domestic environmental and public health protection. This dangerous and immoral policy empowered polluters to inflict even more damage to the natural world and public health. The coronavirus plague is one of the unexpected consequences of abusing nature.   Re...

Sacred Earth   The Greeks thought the Earth was the oldest of the gods. Demeter, sister of Zeus, was the closest of the Olympian deities that resembled Gaia (Earth). Every fall the Athenians sponsored the Eleusinian Mysteries in Eleusis, a small polis near Athens. Greeks from all over the Greek world participated in the Eleusinian celebration of Demeter, goddess of wheat and agriculture. Those who entered the place of worship took an oath not to reveal the secrets of the mysteries. None did.   However, what has come down to us is that Demeter-Earth blessed the wheat seeds in the ground for a prosperous harvest. The Greeks were convinced that the land and the natural world were sacred and indispensable for civilization.   The Greeks were not alone in worshipping the natural world. Other civilizations like the Egyptian, the Babylonian, the Persian and the Chinese considered the natural world and the Earth sacred.   Clash of civilizations   The blow against this vi...

President John Kennedy   I have been in the United States since the Kennedy administration. Not that I followed the personal behavior or policies of Kennedy. I was then starting college and my English was elementary. But I was shocked and terrified by his brutal murder. I kept saying to myself this must have been a terrible accident. To this day, I don’t understand why that handsome and rich and visionary politician was gunned down like an escaped criminal.   President Jimmy Carter   My interest in other presidents became more serious, starting with Jimmy Carter when I joined the US EPA in 1979. Carter reviewed agriculture and, probably, he might have favored a sustainable version of family farming. He was amenable to change, like preparing the country to face global warming.    President Ronald Reagan   Roland Reagan heightened my concerns because his political appointees at EPA violated the law, offended decency, and harmed the health of Americans and dam...

 The battle of Salamis of 480 BCE and the Greek Revolution of 1821 had this in common: In Salamis, Greeks defeated the invading Persians of Xerxes and, in 1821, the descendands of the ancient Greeks defeated Ottoman Turks and won political independence. Both battles were struggles between liberty and despotism. Freedom won and the Greeks had a chance to invent science and create the civilization that made us who we are. The link to the video is here:  https://youtu.be/ 9UPLACBSJYA   

  Protesting austerity in Athens, 2010, left, and 2011, right: in front of the Greek parliament at the center of Athens. Photo: Wikipedia. Alexandros Hahalis   Alexandros Hahalis is a distinguished musician, music composer, and poet. He read some of my articles and, immediately, invited me to participate in a celebration he organized for honoring the 2,500 anniversary of the battle of Salamis of 480 BCE. The virus plague, however, wrecked the celebration.    Alexandros and I spent several hours talking to each other through the computer. He talked about himself and about Greece. This is a man thoroughly immersed in Greek mythology, history, and politics. I listened to him patiently because of his wisdom and thirst for knowledge.   He studied music at New York University and classical composition at the Aaron Copland School of Music. He has been excelling in  composing  and directing music all over the world.    After living in New York for ni...