Lust Reaper's blog: "The SRoscope"

ATHENS, Greece – Deadly riots over harsh new austerity measures engulfed the streets of Athens on Wednesday, killing three bank workers as angry protesters tried to storm parliament, hurled Molotov cocktails at police and torched buildings.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets as part of nationwide strikes to protest new taxes and government spending cuts demanded by the International Monetary Fund and other European nations before heavily indebted Greece gets a euro110 billion ($141 billion) bailout package of loans to keep it from defaulting.

The three bank workers — a man and two women — died after demonstrators set their bank on fire along the main demonstration route in central Athens. As their colleagues sobbed in the street, five other bank workers were rescued from the balcony of the burning building.

from yahoonews: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100505/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_greece_financial_crisis

 

Riots in Greece, and Athens in particular are a common thing, as commonas tzatziki, and ouzo and coffee.

Even the burnings are pretty standard,and we are used to those. Although the storming of parliament was something new, considering the repeated austerity measure its not unexpected.

but what the news haven't said here is something I hope is uncommon and is shocking in its arrogance, indifference and callousness.

Eye witnesses, report the following incident:

Protestors, many of which were of the molotov flinging, property crahing persuasion, had congregated outside the burning building were the bank employees were working.

The firemen at the scene, needing space, announced to the people present that 3 people in the bank had died because of the fire they caused.

The response of the crowd assembled was the following:

Let them burn. They are bank employees.

 

That anyone could say this, especially when this is happening right in fron of you, and you dont actually hear it on the news, simply boggles the mind.

The indifference. The hate. The sheer appetite for destruction.

I feel ashamed for my people.

One of the women, was 33 years old, and 4 months pregnant.

Edit:

Further news, A guy jumped out of one of the burning buildings, the first floor apparently, , trying to save himself. He lies seriously injured. in critical condition in hospital.

Words. They are a tool we use to describe because we have no more effective way to share, to portray, to illustrate. Wether it is an idea, an event, an emotion, an object.

I find that evolved as they may be, as much as we have created intricate ones to describe, they are cannot even begin to decribe something, anything in its entirety.

Since time is a finite resource, and to truly describe anything, even as simple as a rock, we would need ages, we simplify.

And thus in repetition, lessen whatever it is we describe , until it becomes but a shell, a tiny fracture, of what it really is.

That may be a small sacrifice, or loss when it applies to ,say, a rock. Or a chair.

But what about love? Hate? Loss?Joy?. Whole sonnets, Whole libraries cannot begin to illustrate these. So too much dependance on them blinds us to what things really are. They deafen us to the enormity of a feeling or an idea.

Can you distill and orgasm into a paragraph? The first kiss into a sentence. Love into a word?

No we cannot. And its only experiencing them that reawakens us to how enormous, how awe inspiring, how intense things can be.

It is simply amazing, how a second a minute can stretch, and deepen until, it seems like, time is frozen.

How a kiss can contain within it the promise, and yearning, of a lifetime. How sadness, can broaden, to such size than it feels like the whole world is erased before it, rendering the whole of creation insubstantial, like a dream.

We toil, in the mundane, we struggle in the banal. Our sight fading more and more every day, until, a word, a voice, a look explodes across our senses and cuts right through us.

The world, changes in a split second. We awake, and soar or fall. Yet, irrespective of if this leads us into an abyss of sadness so great it seems the world is drained of every last smidgeon of color. Or we erupt into a cosmos soaring so high it seems our mind cannot handle the enormity of joy and pleasure we are in. It is good either way, because we are living with all of ourself. Every cell, Every fiber of our being is alive! it's singing, moaning, to the very depth of our core.

If that is not the goal of Life, to embrace those moments completely, and consume every last of it, then I do not know what is.

The gift of living is having the ability to experience that. Good or bad, high or low.

That is my humble opinion.

I have often thought on how our senses define the world around us, and how more importantly, they affect and determine our view, our relation and interaction to things and more importantly people. Thinking of that ,I remembered of something I did some time ago. One day, I came out of a college I was studying, with two friends of mine. I was wearing sunglasses at the time. As I was walking I noticed that the sky was overcast and it was actually drizzling slightly. I thought to myself, only pompous idiots and blind people would wear sunglasses in this weather. I assume most people, at this point would have taken the sunglasses off if they had this thought at all. Instead I thought: So if I keep wearing them, people will think I am blind. Then I thought, How would it be if I was blind?. I turned around to one of my friends and told him: "I need you to hold my hand and guide me, I will keep my eyes closed and be blind until we get to the cafe we're going to" It took some more explaining before they both understood this unexpected weirdness and accepted. For approximately an hour, I got on a bus, got off it, walked in the center of Athens until we got to the cafe, with my eyes shut, guided by friend. The first thing you realise whn without sight, is how small your world becomes. Sight gives us horizons, distance and perspective. We can see thousands of meters away in greater or lesser detail. Without sight the world constricts into a ball less than ten feet in diameter. If you can't hear it, smell it or feel it, it doesn't exist. All the people, the buildings, the sky, everything, disappears. Everything becomes vague and ethereal. I could sense a woman passing by the smell of perfume, and the sound of heels. I could sense a wall by its rough texture as I leaned into it. I could sense a bus, passing in the distance from the deep sound of its engine. but the moment the sound stopped, and the smell passed, the thing or person, ceased to exist. It was surreal. The world become so small, so transitory. I could feel, crossing a street that we were in a crowd by the sound os shoes hitting the tarmac, and then, like an urban song it passed, and disappeared. When I finally opened my eyes at the cafe, the sun was shining and we ere on the second floor with a couple of tables occupied around us. I had no idea it would have been day. Or that there were other people there. I still consider it one of the best things I did. I want to do it again soon. what I wonder about the most is, if you met a person you know now, without having seen them, would you have thought differently of the person? How would your discussions be different if you were to talk without seeing? It is funny how much we depend on sight and judge things and people by it. If you can, try going without it sometime.

Words. We all use them. Our communicative currency. And like currency, each country has its denomination and value system. And like currency, we all use it but few of us stop to think about it. What this piece of paper is, how it works, where it comes from. Where it goes. An experience yesterday froze me in the middle of such a transaction, and the sense of displacement caused me to look closer at words... We place them in sentences, paragraphs, blogs and letters. We digg them, copy paste them, put them on christmas cards. words and their meaning, that 100 years ago where owned by the few, which pandered them and clung to them like so much intellectual gold. Now with technology available to all, words synonyms and antonyms readily available on online thesauruses, dissected and pinned. It's curious that language of everyday has not become more eloquent but rather, shorter, words diluted to their common denominator, substituted with signs ( & ) or butchered version of themselves. The defining factor being the ease of use, speed rather that content. Like one and five dollar bills we use words that don't require change even though we have the luxury to use 100 dollar ones... Words are used and circulated, in ourselves and in our interactions, and like bills fray and tear. A relationship is born and like a mint, produces words and phrases, I love you, I miss you I want you... and their value is great and their resonance strong. And then from over use, or a loss of relationship value, the words, the same words become flat. A mere reproduction, unable to procure even the smallest of emotional goods. Until as it stutters and ends, there is no longer any need or want to produce them at all. and in our daily activities, we, word mints, produce words in enormous quantities. inexpert craftsmen with inexpert tools we often find ourselves unable to produce the words that reflect our meaning or the value we wish to transmit. and so we embezzle and borrow other people's words. yet so often we find that, for whatever reason, they are not the same when we use them. It has happened to you. When you repeat a joke, and even though it was hilarious when you heard it, when you repeat it, it falls, limp, on deaf ears. Or those millions of pick up lines, and quotes, that sizzle and pop on the ear. Then you replicate them, and as they escape your lips, and they seem lifeless, mere shells, stripped of their content. As they fall, around you you can't help but wonder why, what happened in the journey that cause them to falter. Like currency, words don't have value in and of themselves. Their value is defined but what their use procures. It amazes me how less can be more, how a few words, subtly linked can resonate and move us. So to end this meandering diatribe. The words we make, are our own. They are extensions of us, our cerebral children, floating in the ether or pinned to a page. Take a moment to wonder at them and look at what you produce. It may say more to you than you think.