Digital Wanderer

We live as long as we fly

Crete — 0, Introduction

Right, I'm going to write about Crete. If you're interested in me covering a specific topic, leave your requests in the comments, and make them substantial.

Crete  is a Greek island, the former home of the Minoan civilization, the oldest in Europe. 2600 BC — such antiquity that it gets scary. Modern Cretans consider themselves Greeks. That shouldn't really add to their pride, because Pushkin himself wrote to Vyazemsky:

One may reason about the fate of the Greeks as about the fate of my brothers the Negroes, and one may wish for both to be freed from unendurable slavery. But for all the enlightened European nations to rave about Greece — that is unforgivable childishness. The Jesuits have talked our ears off about Themistocles and Pericles, and we have imagined that a nasty people, consisting of bandits and shopkeepers, is their legitimate descendant and the heir to their textbook glory. You will say I have changed my mind; if only you came to us in Odessa to look at the compatriots of Miltiades, you would agree with me.

However, the inhabitants of the island always emphasize that they are, after all, Cretans, and this is a fact one can actually be proud of, because islanders have always been a bit more lively than mainlanders. For instance, comrade FVL in the comments to the post above goes off about democracy and the principate, and mentions the hot temper of the Cypriots, although not the Cretans.

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Всемирная история борьбы за нефть, деньги и власть

Это подзаголовок книги Даниела Ергина “Добыча”. Во всех отношениях отличная книга,  хотя любители СССР наверняка скажут, что он выставлен там империей зла. Это не так: США там выглядит даже хуже – особенно когда трясётся от страха и унижается перед исламскими странами, и не может принять волевого решения по силовому воздействию.

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Лытдыбр

Холодно у нас, аж зубы сводит. Пью горячий какао-напиток производства Cadbury, привезённый с Крита, про него и пишу.

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