Tag Archives: Socrates

History, Tourism

Visiting Athens: Part Two – 10 Days

In the first part of this story, I talked about my desire to go to Athens, gave a historical overview of the city’s Classical era and looked at some DNA research that suggests the ancestors of most people of European descent had a small part in Greece’s history. 

Our AirBnB was in the Plaka district, which has been inhabited for the past 5,000 years. The remains of a Roman bath house were in our basement and backyard. It seems to extend into the neighbouring property, where two men were at work throughout our stay. This does not seem to be exceptional. There are ruins throughout the older neighbourhoods of Athens. Only a block to the northeast of us, the remains of an ancient neighbourhood, with streets, houses, bath houses, public latrines and workshops dating from the 5th century BC to the 12th century AD, are on display underneath the Acropolis Museum. No one knew anything about them until construction on the museum began in the 1980s.

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Environment

Thoughts for young activists

Originally published on Greenpeace International

As a young anti-war activist in the 1960s, I met older radical Ira Sandperl at the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence, in California, which he had founded with pacifist folk singer Joan Baez. One evening, Sandperl asked me, “Do you want to know the secret to organizing?” 

“Yes,” I replied. 

“Be organized,” he said. 

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Community

Learning To Die – As A Planet, As A person

“Truth-filled meditations about grace in the face of mortality.” @MargaretAtwood

By Francesca Gesualdi

“Learning to Die”: In this powerful little book, two leading intellectuals illuminate the truth about where our environmental crisis is taking us. Writing from an island on Canada’s Northwest coast, Robert Bringhurst and Jan Zwicky weigh in on the death of the planet versus the death of the individual. For Zwicky, awareness and humility are the foundation of the equanimity with which Socrates faced his death: he makes a good model when facing the death of the planet, as well as facing our own mortality. Bringhurst urges readers to tune their minds to the wild. The wild has healed the world before, and it is the only thing that stands any chance of healing the world now – though it is unlikely to save Homo sapiens in the process. 

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