Man Overboard

                                          The French saying "Chercher la femme"
Crude oil from Australia's Botany Bay,
via Sumatra and Japan,
                                [we'll carry it to LA...

We are being pushed
                  [by the strong Kuroshio Current
suddenly two whistles were heard recurrent,
simultaneous with my order,
                     "Wheel hard to Port."
The ship shakes and comes short ....

Same time the radio operator
                             [sends a report.
 It goes out to all ships in the area,
                                      [while a sailor,
throws a lifeline
               [from an approaching whaler.

The cry of "Man Overboard"
                                 [caused this alert ..


My first thought was for the man
                                     [not to be hurt,

so I turned the wheel

                     [to clear the propeller
from endangering Mike, the yeller,

Flash I remembered

                 [something I learned in school
in a course I found very boring....the fool,
the "curve Boutakov"

                      [a valuable navigation [tool...
So I told the helmsman to notify me
when the ship turned sixty degrees

                              [to the left will be...

Right on the spot, he cried with anxiety,
because the crew is as a family,

                                     [as small society....

Engines "Dead Slow"

             [and the wheel starboard, I ordered,

realizing that I was there where

                             [life with death bordered...

Head it I said......... 

  [when the compass showed the opposite course,
dangerously approaching a rocky coast as Corse*                                    *Corsica

Now the ship was sailing slowly

                                [to the point where Mike fell.

Unfortunately I don't have

                           [something pleasant or good to tell...

Mike the yeller was never found.

Later a rumor

      [was being discussed around....
The French saying

              [“chercher la femme”, again,
said a friend of Mike

              [who was handling the crane...

_______________________________________

* Extract from "The Broken Mooring Line", an experiential
poetic work // page c38 // e-mail: pmataragas@yahoo.com //
Texts and Narration: Odysseus Heavilayias - ROTTERDAM //
Language adjustments and text adaptation: Kellene G Safis - CHICAGO//
Digital adaptation and text editing: Cathy Rapakoulia Mataraga - PIRAEUS//
________________________________________________________________

notes:

* Butakov turn is a maneuver used to bring a ship or boat back to a point it previously passed through, often for the purpose of recovering a man overboard, an emergency situation in almost all circumstances.

___________________________________________

*Corse (Corsica) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea belonging to France. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the Italian island of Sardinia. Mountains make up two-thirds of the island, forming a single chain.


*Port and starboard are nautical and aeronautical terms which refer to the left and right sides, respectively, of a waterborne vessel or aircraft as perceived by a person on board facing the front of the craft. An easy way to remember this is that port and left are both four-letter words, which only leaves starboard as the opposite side.



the tales of a Greek Sailor 

Cupid shot the wrong way

The vast world of fiction

      Once when I was a sailor,
        I boarded for a while in a whaler...

        My free time was limited to ports and sea
        so I was reading in the wee hours,
                                     (yep, the Scottish wee)*            *small

We were in Rio de Janeiro,
when Cupid threw an arrow,                     
for the first time,
                       [in the wrong direction
(while I was asleep) and  "Perfection" 
emerged out from the pages of a book.

Such surprise was felt
                                [by Captain Cook
when he caught sight
                  [of the Botany Bay
in Australia, as we sailors say......

This perfection... this woman... 
                         [this ghost, this beauty,

for a while left the book,
                         [obviously left her duty,
and with her soft warm hand
                                  [touched mine.

That's when reality crossed the line,
sky's color turned to red.....
                [the red of Burgundy wine.

and on the horizon shown
                                 [a vague shine.
A dreamy colorful weird place,
unknown colors,
 [maybe we were somewhere in space !

     We stood both amazed and in silence.

     Suddenly she took her hand
                [from mine almost with violence

     and said between sobs...
      ''please let me face my mistakes without defiance''

     She confessed De Profundis
                                     [ie out of the depths,
     that she was guilty and that she accepts.....

                     "I did not escape from some eminence book,
                   I am guilty of action - of which love you mistook..
                   In a cheap novel I was some woman
                                                           [with alcohol addiction.
                   My crappy life have been tagged as pulp-fiction".
____________________________________________________
                                   

* Extract from "The Broken Mooring Line", an experimential
poetic work // page c37 // e-mail: pmataragas@yahoo.com //
Texts and Narration: Odysseus Heavilayias - ROTTERDAM //
Language adjustments and text adaptation: Kellene G Safis - CHICAGO//
Digital adaptation and text editing: Cathy Rapakoulia Mataraga - PIRAEUS//
________________________________________________________________


* "De Profundis" :   Latin. out of the depths (of sorrow, despair, etc.).

*  Pulp Fiction :  Term originated from the magazines of the first half of the 20th century which were printed on cheap "pulp" paper and published fantastic, escapist fiction for the general entertainment of the mass audiences. The pulp fiction era provided a breeding ground for creative talent which would influence all forms of entertainment for decades to come. The hardboiled detective and science fiction genres were created by the freedom that the pulp fiction magazines provided.


the tales of a Greek Sailor 

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche* gives a unique answer ..

                

     Why such a fury around people with a glorious history ?        

     The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche gives a unique answer ..
______________________________________________________

     
     We are tourists who stayed in Athens 
                                                     [for two weeks
     and unfortunately we felt like barbaric freaks...

     What justifies the word "freaks" most,
     is that we ignore the human cost
     while we mock and ridicule the Greeks...


Unemployed and soup kitchens,
                                     [these past two weeks,
was the permanent spectacle, anyone
                                            [who dare speaks
would first need to have visited this
                                                   [place before.

Easily we forgot that we took by force
                           [their money and even more,

    we took their ancient treasures and 

                               [many thousands of souls...

Our civilization which, the great thinker 
                                            [Nietzsche extols,
should indicate to the authors of "Focus"
                                                             [to read
the grounds where the philosopher explains
                                     [why the Greeks bleed ...

Maybe we have destroyed this land ...
History, our right to deride banned...

Maybe we are the reason that today 

                                  [the Greeks have bled?

Τhink a little and ask other to think 

                                [about what I have said.


       ps. Ludwig Zacaro and Nina Lahge
       did a proud movement, as life large...

German couple pay Greece £630 'war reparations'

A German couple visiting Greece walked into a town hall and handed over €875 (£630) in what they said were second world war reparations.
Dimitris Kotsouros, the mayor of Nafplio, a seaport in the Peloponnese, said: “They came to my office yesterday morning, saying they wanted to make up for their government’s attitude.
They made their calculations and said each German owed €875 for what Greece had to pay during world war two.”
The mayor of the historic town where the tourists deposited their cheque said the money had since been donated to a local charity. The couple chose his town “because it was the first capital of Greece in the 19th century”, he added.
Greek media reports named the pair as Ludwig Zacaro and Nina Lahge. They say Zacaro is retired and Lahge works a 30-hour week. They did not have enough money to pay for two, one paper said.
Athens is struggling under a debt mountain that amounts to about 175% of the country’s annual economic output. The country has long claimed that Germany owes it payment for a forced wartime loan and other reparations, and the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, recently said Greece had a “moral obligation” to claim payment.
Several senior Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens in Germany have also said their nation should consider paying reparations. But Germany’s economy minister last week rejected the calls. “The likelihood is zero,” said Sigmar Gabriel.
Nearly 70 years have passed since the end of the war during which the Nazis occupied Greece for four years and forced the Greek central bank to give the Third Reich a loan that financially ruined the country.
The dispute has grown in intensity because of tensions between Athens and the rest of the eurozone as Germany leads demands for economic austerity that Greece and other southern European countries are struggling to handle.
Figures from some sources in Athens put the amount still owed by Germany at around €162bn (£117bn), or more than half the level of debt that Greece is struggling with.
_____________________________________________

* The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche gives a unique answer ...

"Proven in every period of its development, the western European culture has tried to rid himself of the Greeks. 
This work is imbued with deep disappointment, because whatever we create, seemingly original and worthy of admiration, lose color and life in comparison with the Greek mode, came to resemble a cheap copy, a caricature.
So again and again soaked in a rage erupts hatred against the Greeks, against this small and arrogant nation, who had the nerve to call it barbaric whatever that had not been established in its territory ...
None of the recurrent enemies had the fortune to discover the hemlock, which could forever be rid of them. All poisons of envy, of hubris, hatred, have been insufficient to disturb the great beauty.
Thus, people continue to feel shame and fear of the Greeks. Of course, occasionally, someone appears to recognize intact truth, truth which teaches that the Greeks are the charioteers of any upcoming culture and almost always as the chariots and horses of the upcoming cultures is very low quality compared to the charioteer, who eventually work out driving his chariot into the abyss, which are beyond the Achilles 'Leap'

Τhe European anti-Greek sentiments : More timely than ever is Friedrich Nietzsche, arguably one of the most important German philosophers, namely one of the first "existentialist" philosophers. His first book, entitled "The Birth of Tragedy" (1872), in particular Chapter 15, Nietzsche made a special reference to the Greek nation by showing that Nietzsche is far ahead of its time.
The attitude of certain circles in Europe toward the Greeks in conjunction with the mistrust that exists around the Greeks have made scepticals from time to time the most severe judges of Greeks.
"The Greeks are lazy and fraudsters" are just some decorative comments heard internationally in recent months by many to wonder why such a fury around people with a glorious history and an enviable culture.


*Focus is a German weekly news magazine published in Munich and distributed throughout Germany. It is the third-largest weekly news magazine in Germany. It is considered conservative and leans towards economic liberalism.
Ιn the period of 2001-2002 Focus Money had a circulation of 149,000 copies.

____________________________________________________

* Extract from "The Broken Mooring Line", an experiential
poetic work // page c36 // e-mail: pmataragas@yahoo.com //
Texts and Narration: Odysseus Heavilayias - ROTTERDAM //
Language adjustments and text adaptation: Kellene G Safis - CHICAGO//
Digital adaptation and text editing: Cathy Rapakoulia Mataraga - PIRAEUS
________________________________________________________________


the tales of a Greek Sailor 

A few hours before we all shall die

April 10, 1826. A few hours before his death,

editor Meyer wrote to a friend: Makes me proud 

of the idea that the blood of a Swiss, a grandson 

of William Tell, to mix with the blood of the 

{ heroes of Greece.

    I am proud that my Swiss blood,
    will be mixed up on Messolonghi's* mud
    along with the Greek hero's blood,
    and even if the fight will be a dud,
    I John Mayer, the grandson of William Tell,
    I heard, as William did, the freedom bell..

    Meyer* is part of the story that I will tell.
    A story which I read in the newspaper
    "Missolonghi Greek Chronicles" 1824 and later...

                             Chronicles 

Some years after the American Revolutionary War,

another nation with Messolonghi as its central core,
was fighting for freedom and independence,
bringing in worldwide volunteers was an unexpected attendance ..

A few hours before we all shall die,

I am writing these words prior to my last goodbye.

For a year our city was besieged by the armies
                                                 {of two countries,*      *Turkey & Egypt
and we overcame resistance and hunger boundaries ...

Just before we were occupied by the enemy, our bastion,
a small island where 350 Greek fought with passion
and refusing to surrender, were killed one by one.

We were told to hand over the city and no one wanted to, literally none...
The Greeks answered that their history was their gun
and reiterated "Molon labe"* in a different way     *come and take it
"City keys are hanging from our cannons, night and day"..

So we, the few, decided to attack the two barbarian armies
and may the "Messenger God" the Greek Hermes

be sent to convey to you our decision "Freedom or Death".
Perhaps few will survive, but I'm not holding my breath....

                           __________________

       Alas the plan was betrayed and we lost the surprise attack ..
             Half attacked trying to break through and half turn back....

             From the beginning many were killed, a few survived,
             In the city looked like Leonidas and the 300 Spartans 
                                                                                      [were revived...  

              Each house was converted into a fort
              and should the enemy enter, the last resort,
              to blow the gunpowder warehouse
              along with the enemy, the family and the house ...

        Meyer and his family were killed in the attack,
             as well as five thousand Greeks, a black day 
                                                      [for Greece, really black ..
____________________________________________



Texts and Narration: Odysseus Heavilayias - ROTTERDAM //
Language adjustments and text adaptation: Kellene G Safis - CHICAGO//
Digital adaptation and text editing: Cathy Rapakoulia Mataraga - PIRAEUS
Νο: 35

______________________________________________________________

*Messolonghi is a town in western Greece. Is known as the site of a dramatic siege during the Greek War of Independence, and of the death of poet Lord Byron.

*Johann Jakob Meyer (born December 30, 1798 in Zurich, † 1826), was a Swiss editor. He is one of the most popular philhellenes in Greece.

*Wilhelm Tell is a folk hero of Switzerland. His legend is recorded in a late 15th-century Swiss illustrated chronicles.

  ____________________________________________________________________

Title page of Ellinika Chronika (1824), the first newspaper to appear in Greece, published in Missolonghi under the editorship of Swiss Philhellene Johann Jakob
Meyer who was killed during the sortie.

 Ibrahim attacks Missolonghi by Giuseppe Pietro Mazzola.

The Greek War for Independence

Volunteers :     Germans 342
                          French    196,
                          Italian     137
                          British      99
                          Swiss        35

The Greek Revolution was gaining support among the American philhellene citizens and many were collecting money to help the Greek cause. Through the fundraising efforts of New York philhellenes, the amount of 6,600 sterling pounds was collected in 1824 and was forwarded to the Greek government via London, England.
During a fundraiser in New York City, Nicholas Biddle, a banker, offered the then largest personal donation of $300 to the "New York Greek Relief Committee", while US president John Adams in a letter to the same committee encouraged the fundraising efforts.
Captain Jonathan P. Miller through the efforts of the Greek Philhellenic Committee of New York, he was able to collect $17,500 worth of various relief supplies, which he took back to Greece onboard the ship "Chancellor", on March 5th, 1827.
The same year two more ships, "Jane" and "Six Brothers", left New York harbor bound for Greece carrying various relief supplies of $25,000 in the aggregate.
At about the same time, two more shiploads of supplies totaling about $22,500 left the port of Philadelphia onboard the ships "Tontine" and "Levant", while from Boston the ship "Statesman" carried to Greece cargo worth over $11,500.

source

the tales of a greek sailor

Beauty and the Minister

 

             "Go get 'em tiger".

   From a letter to my American sister in law Clarice...
   He recently came to visit Greece,
   the German minister and friend of peace,
   Schäuble,* whose attacks on us 
                                        [have yet to cease.   *Germany's  Minister of Finance

   Dr. Schäuble studied law and economics,
   and probably ergonomics and macroeconomics...
   One minister, very impressive,
   but with a face ugly and depressive.....

   Sky, the TV station sent the most                                                                                           [beautiful reporter,

   for a brief interview, from the German 
                                                        [hoarder...
__________________________________________                     

          ''Μinister, are you righteous -  demands 

                                                     [the supporter ?

          If you do want,  do not answer,
          but our people by force became your financier,
          financier of the German state during the big war.

         Hitler paid back three installments, or four...''
         and she added, ''your government, 
                                    [why have they not paid the rest ?''

        while she was seeing him as an outlaw 
                                                               [in the Wild West.



        Until this point the interview had been 
                                     [friendly on the various topics..

       Suddenly the reporter was transformed 
                                      [into a tiger from the tropics.


The minister replied:  ''For that loan 

                [you gave to us, you have signed

that it's a gift to Germans, to us..

                                  [you signed on a blind,

having no other choice, 

obeying the more powerful countries voice.

____________

That moment.. it was said you could hear screams from 
                                                 an unknown celestial lat-lon.*          *latitude & longitude

It was the cries of the seven hundred thousand dead Greeks, 
                                           (victims of German occupation.

       Head of this ghostly demonstration
       was my father, who was executed by 
                                                           [the invaders
       and they all shouted to them, to the bad 
                                                                   [traders,
       that everyone was killed by them and 
                                                       [not by unknowns,
        adding: ''You, who took our lives, go ahead, 
                                                  [now take our bones''.

                                                                                           War crimes of the Wehrmacht
____________________________________________

* Extract from "The Broken Mooring Line", an experiential
poetic work // page c34 // e-mail: pmataragas@yahoo.com //
Texts and Narration: Odysseus Heavilayias - ROTTERDAM //
Language adjustments and text adaptation: Kellene G Safis - CHICAGO//
Digital adaptation and text editing: Cathy Rapakoulia Mataraga - PIRAEUS
______________________________________________________________


* Wolfgang Schäuble :   I was born in 1942.....my personal moral responsibility is limited.....   Legal issues, closed down sometime. The Greece agreed to this and all other nations of the world and this matter has expired.

* Those killed :   Germany has brought immense suffering to the Greek people and caused incalculable damage. The casualties of Greece during World War II are estimated at 700,000 civilians and soldiers. Were incalculable and material destruction, which led to a complete collapse of the Greek economy.

Πηγή

             The Interview

Albrecht Ritschl is Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics. He studied at the University of Munich, and previously taught at the Pompeu Fabra University, the University of Zurich and the Humboldt University of Berlin.]

Professor Ritschl at Spiegel in tough language for Germany. ''If Greece attack us, takes it all!''
For the Greek debt spoke German Professor of history and Economics at Spiegel in tough language for Germany.
The German Professor of the history of Economics Albrecht Ritschl (LSE) says out for Greek debt at Coco Loco anthelliniko Spiegel, whose reporter does not believe his ears.Spiegel: Mr Ritschl, the German Government is acting with stiffness in the matter of Greece, in logic "money will get only if you do what we tell you." Judge fair this behavior?
Ritschl: no, it is absolutely unjustified. The Germany lived the greatest failures of modern history. The current economic independence and the role of Europe's ' Teacher ' the Germany the owes... in the u.s., which after the first and the second world war have resigned from their right for huge sums of money. Forget all this.

Spiegel: would you tell us what exactly happened then?

Ritschl: the Weimar Republic managed to survive from 1924 until 1929 solely with borrowed. For damages of World War I borrowed from the USA. It was a "Pyramid" loan, which collapsed with the crisis of 1931. The u.s. loan money had disappeared, the damage to the u.s. was huge, the consequences for the world economy is devastating. After World War II the US cared not to put anyone from the allies claims for compensation. Apart from a few exceptions, thwarted all claims until a future reunification of East Germany with the West. This was very vital for Germany. In essence this was the famous German postwar miracle! At the same time, however, the victims of the German occupation, like the Greeks, were forced to relinquish their rights to compensation.

Spiegel: How big were the amounts of German bankruptcies?

Ritschl: based on the financial standing of the USA during that era, analog German debts of the 1930s equivalent to the cost of the crisis of 2008. If the compare well with the Greek debts, then, believe me, with Greece's debts are minimal. In relation to the financial standing of the country, Germany is the biggest sinner of the 20th century, and perhaps of modern economic history.

Spiegel: how many times has bankrupted Germany?

Ritschl: Depends how one calculates. In the last century at least three times. After the last stop paying in the 30s, the Germany was relieved by the us with the known longer haircut, like converting an afro look to baldness. Since holding the country economic luster. At the same time, however, other Europeans worked like dogs to lift head from the ravages of war and the German occupation. And even in 1990 we also had a stop payment.

Spiegel: are you sure?

Ritschl: Of Course! It was when the then Chancellor Kohl refused to implement the agreement of London, 1953. The agreement said that the German reparations in the case of the reunification of the two Germanies, will be put under renegotiation. The elachistotates paid reparations but Germany after 1990, nor necessarily loans concluded, nor the costs of occupation. Greece is one of the States that did not get a dime. Not hide! The Germany in the 20th century started two wars, the second was even war annihilation and extermination. Then the enemies of renounced their rights partially or globally for compensation. The famous "German miracle" made up on the backs of other Europeans. We do not forget the Greeks.

Spiegel: is currently the rescue of Greece through an extension of time for payment of government bonds, i.e. a controlled adjustment of debts. We are here to talk about threat of bankruptcy?

Ritschl: Of Course! Even if a State is not completely unable to satisfy his creditors, may be in bankruptcy. As in the case of Germany in the 1950s. It is an illusion to believe that Greece will be able to pay its own debts. Therefore it is by definition bankrupt. Finally you will need to determine what amounts are ready to sacrifice the creditors.

Spiegel: Yes, but the State pays most is Germany.

Ritschl: I think so it should be done. We have been in the past too anemeloi. Our industrial production gained a lot from the excessive exports. The anthellinikes posts that promote German SMEs are very dangerous. Don't forget that we live in a glass house: our economic miracle was possible solely because they had to pay damages. The Greeks are well aware of the hostile attitude of the German SMES. If the mood of the Greeks become more aggressive, can revive old claims! If you start the Greece and if ever forced Germany to pay, then we get them all.

Spiegel: what do you recommend to do in GREECE?

Ritschl: we should be thankful and sanitise the Greece with our money. If we continue the game of SMEs, in the guise of the coarse Emil, who smokes his cigar and refuses to pay, maybe some people send us their old accounts. The bankruptcies of Germany in past years suggests the solution: we must now agree on a reduction of debt. Anyone who lent money to Greece, must lose a large part of them! I know that this would be disastrous for the banks, so we need a helper. Unfortunately, this solution is expensive for Germany, but we must understand that it will eventually have to pay. Just so I had and Greece a chance for a new beginning.

the tales of a greek sailor