Medusa by Caravaggio, 1596. Wikipedia.   Humans thirst for certainty as they do for water. They want to know what to expect for tomorrow. They keep talking to each other to assure understanding, friendship, cooperation, and political, military, and commercial relations.   Wars, bad governments, gross inequalities, and natural upheavals unsettle civilization and personal and national certainty about the present and the future.    The Peloponnesian War   The fifth century BCE Peloponnesian War, for example, disrupted the “golden” age of Athens when everything seemed to be going its way: spreading its democratic culture and advancing science and the good and the beautiful.   However, the rising primacy of Athens rubbed Sparta the wrong way. Here was the Greek superpower outdistanced by Athens. Sparta did not take that kindly. Invincible Sparta did not try to learn why Athens was doing so well, why certainty had gained so much ground in Athens. Like a troubled ...

 Ancient Greek theater, Stratos, Central Greece. Photo: Evaggelos Vallianatos By Evaggelos Vallianatos   The 200-years of modern Greek history mirror the lives of people trying to be free.   The Greek Revolution   After four centuries of degrading Turkish occupation, the Greeks went against the post-Napoleonic “holy alliance” and master-slave order of Europe favoring the Turks and other tyrants. They fought the European-trained and European-armed troops of Turkey to a standstill, defeating them most of the time.    In October 1827, the embarrassed European powers (England, France and Russia) finally intervened and smashed the Turkish-Egyptian fleet at Navarino, Peloponnesos, thus boosting the Greek cause for political independence.    In 1828, Russia went to war against Turkey not on behalf of the Greek revolutionaries but because the Sultan blocked the passage of Russian ships through the Dardanelles. Russia won and, in the terms of the Treaty of...

Lake Mead, 2000, left. and 2021, right, NASA.   Why America ignores climate danger   I keep asking myself why the leaders of America and, to some degree, Americans are so indifferent to climate change: its fires and hurricanes burning forests, smashing small cities, flooding large cities and their subways, throwing cars in the air, and killing people.    These are not insignificant and accidental happenings and damages. These are extensive and destructive blows the ever stronger climate giant has been inflicting on America and the world.   So, why the political apathy that reached its destructive climax under the administrations  of Reagan and Trump? Are Americans and their leaders and the rest of the people of the world and their leaders suicidal?   I don’t think so. The problem is more complicated. It’s laced as it is by the fear of most Americans for maintaining an income, and the greed, money, and power of the billionaire class. Furthermore, s...