It was a very hot day and the cats were spread out on the street like butter on hot bread.
Bluesky
BEBINA BUNNY free download here
-
The Towel Movement
We first started coming to Paros, an island in the Aegean Sea, about 20 years ago. At the time, there was a more traditional Greek atmosphere compared to better known and more commercially developed islands. But over the years, that has dramatically changed. Paros has lost much of its charm due to greed.
Mykonos and Santorini, the two better known Aegean islands, have become excessively expensive and crowded so much tourism is being redirected towards Paros. And this has caused much discomfort for locals. One of the biggest problems is that of the beaches. In Greece, beaches cannot be privatized. However, the state can, at a cost, give permission to businesses for beach bars with sunbeds. But even then 50% of the beach must remain public.
Unfortunately, greed has taken over and unscrupulous businesses have taken over more of the beach that they are entitled to. As a result, the public beaches have been gobbled up by illegal sunbeds making it difficult to find a place to stay on the beach if you are not able or not willing to pay the exorbitant prices to rent a sunbed.
The locals now find it difficult to enjoy a day at the beach on their own island. Exasperated, a group of Parian residents organized The Towel Movement—a movement determined to reclaim the beaches that legally belong to the citizens and not to greedy businessmen
The group went to the city registry to obtain copies of beach bar permits and related “floor plans” to see how much space the bar was legally permitted to have. Most bars had greatly exceeded the space permitted. And since authorities weren’t doing anything to change the situation, residents got organized. For four Sundays in a row, they would arrive at a designated beach. Armed with beach towels, residents began occupying all the space they could. Imagine being a tourist who paid E60 for a sunbed only to find yourself surrounded by people laying out their towels ready to spend the rest of the day glued to your expensive sunbed. And the beach bar owner couldn’t do anything about it as his sunbeds were there illegally.
The Towel Movement has gotten much press encouraging residents from other islands with the same problem to do the same thing. Because as a result of this movement, many beach bars were fined and dismantled.
One reason why this exploitation was so rampant was, in part, due to lax oversight and bureaucratic delays by authorities. With all the publicity the movement has received, authorities were forced to wake up to take action.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if similar movements took off elsewhere and not just regarding beach bars? How many injustices is the normal citizen subjected to every day? How many times have we wanted to protest but without the pertinent skills to do so?
Beaches are ecosystems and, as such, should be respected.
-30-
Related: Greeks yearn for an Aegean islands escape, but even before this hellish summer we were being priced out + SAVE PAROS BEACHES Facebook page + POPULAR holiday islands in Greece are facing a crackdown on sunbeds after the “Towel Movement” campaign has declared war +
As lounge chairs that rent for up to $130 pop up across the islands, local people have decided they won’t take it lying down + Greek locals go to war against expensive sunbeds on beaches +
The Power Of Grassroots Movement In Political Change: How Ordinary People Can Make a Difference +
Posted in art, Paros
Tagged Aegean, beaches, grassroots politics, sunbathe, tourism, Towel Movement
2 Comments
Cooling Off
Extreme heat stresses the body. It can throw our cardiovascular system into tilt, cause cognitive dysfunction as well as organ failure and thrombosis.
When the body is no longer able to control it temperature, a heat stroke can happen. So, when it is extremely hot, the most obvious thing to do is to keep from getting dehydrated. But it is also important to cool down the body when body temperatures rise quickly.
Here, on Paros, the heat has been overwhelming. There were days when I felt like a roasted marshmallow with no energy whatsoever. It is especially bad in the afternoon when there’s no air flow. But I’ve found a way to lower my body temperature when I start feeling weak.
I keep a small bottle of water in the freezer. Whenever I feel my body temperature going out of control, I take my little ice bottle and rub it on my forehead, on my neck, under my arms, and in the groin area. And almost immediately I feel better.
-30-
Posted in Ecofeminism
Tagged body temperature, climate change, heat exhaustion, heatstroke, HEATWAVE
Leave a comment
Bouillabaisse
Where to go to cool off? Once a quick jump into the sea would do it. But now water temperatures are so high that the sea is turning into fish soup.
The heatwaves continues.
-30-
Related: As Florida ocean temperatures soar, a race to salvage imperiled corals + Joe Biden must declare a climate emergency. And he must do so now +
Pretty Propaganda
The Longstone Lighthouse, located on one of the Farne Islands, was built in 1826. In 1838 a paddle steamer crashed off the Northumberland coast. From her bedroom window, Grace Darling, the lighthouse keeper’s daughter, could see the wreck and some of its survivors on a nearby rocky island. Grace and her father rowed out into the rough sea to rescue them.
News of Grace’s bravery reached the newspapers. Overnight she became a national hero. Queen Victoria praised her and artists from all over England sailed to the lighthouse island hoping to paint her portrait. Other admirers sent money and gifts. But life on a pedestal did not last long for Grace. Just a few years later, she died of tuberculosis. Grace was only 26 years old. The Heroine of the Farne Islands was now a part of national mythology.
Heroes are important in a society. They act as inspiration and as examples in overcoming adversity. They help glorify man and thus elevate the human spirit. But most importantly, they give us hope. And what is hope if not belief in the future?
Heroes inspire us to be heroes, too, even if just for one day.
Heroes are also useful for propaganda. Propaganda has been utilized throughout history to move the minds of the masses in a particular direction.
During the 1930s, Germans made many Nazi propaganda films. The most notable were those directed by Leni Riefenstahl. Mussolini had the Cinecittà* movie studios constructed just for the sake of promoting Fascist ideals. The British government, realizing that it needed a psychological commitment on the part of its citizens, began orchestrating their own propaganda. In her novel, The Finest Hour and a Half, Lissa Evans affronts this need.
It’s 1940 and France has fallen to the Nazis. Bombs are falling on London and the people are frightened and confused. What is needed is a morale boosting movie to inspire courage. But also to attract American interest.
So the Brits decide to make propaganda films of their own. But the war has dislocated the movie industry’s top talents. Nevertheless, a film production company is improvised by the Ministry of Information. Part of this new milieu is Catrin Cole conscripted by the ministry to go from writing ads to writing dialogue for propaganda films.
Now all they needed was a “true” story on which to base their film. This need was met when news broke out about twin sisters, Lily and Rose Starling, who supposedly helped to evacuate soldiers fallen at Dunkirk. Their story was similar to that of Grace Darling and no doubt would move the public.
Catrin takes a long train ride to interview the sisters only to learn that they had never reached Dunkirk because their boat broke down. But the propaganda machine had already been set in motion. And, for her own survival, Catrin helped embellish a lie—propaganda is not about truth in as much as it’s about truth as we would like it to be.
Evans’ book evolves mainly around the comic absurdity of making a film in that way at that time and how war influences the actions and interactions of those involved.
The book gets its name from a speech by Winston Churchill known as “This was their finest hour”. It was June of 1940 and Churchill had been Prime Minister for just a little over a month. What he wanted to do with the speech was convince the brits of the need to continue the war and that there was a reasonable hope for victory. Furthermore, it was up to Britain to save the world. Because “if we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed” otherwise the world “will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Ages…” that’s why the British must brace themselves to their duties then even a thousand years later of them will be said “this was their finest hour.”
We are all governed by propaganda in some way. Being an autonomous thinker can be very fatiguing. So we often seek narrations to refer to. Many groups (cultural, religious, political) are united by a common narration of reference. Many people are often united not by personal creeds but by common propaganda. Many people base their ideologies on convincing propaganda.
How many identities are formed not by personal thought but on just wanting to belong somewhere?
*After WWII, Cinecittà was used as a refugee camp. Then in the 1950s, because of its location and low production costs, it became popular with foreign film makers earning it the name of Hollywood on the Tiber.
Related:
Rear Face Rowing
Wreck of the ‘Forfarshire’, 7 September 1838 by T L Leitch + ‘Their finest hour’ speech by Winston Churchill, 1940 +
Bibliography:
Evans, Lissa. Their finest hour and a half. Doubleday. London. 2009. Read on Internet Archive HERE
Posted in Books, storytelling
Tagged Grace Darling, Lissa Evans, propaganda, Their Finest Hour, Winston Churchill, WWII
Leave a comment
The Narrative Within 
