Archimedes in a prayer book
On Line Opinion, November 7, 2008
All Western science is a series of footnotes to Archimedes. He used mathematics to study and understand nature and the cosmos. He invented a variety of machines and fields of science like hydrostatics, combinatorics, and mathematical physics. His writings were essential for the rebirth and evolution of science. Since the Renaissance, scientists have been looking up to Archimedes.
archimedes-in-a-prayer-book2
Hellenism
Christians and the Classics: War against Reason, Mediterranean Quarterly, Summer, 2004.
excerpt- Western people credit the Greeks for their civilization. Yet, despite the
Renaissance, which formally integrated Greek thought into Western culture,
Christianity, an ancient enemy of Greek thought, remains as the core foundation of the Western world. In the best of circumstances, this makes Greek thought an ambivalent value in the Western tradition.
mq015-03-06-vallianatos_fpp.pdf
Is another renaissance possible? Race and Class, April-June 2004, pp. 83-89.
excerpt- But in the absence of a unified Hellas, the monopoly of Greek power
by Athens had other consequences, one of which proved fatal to Greek
liberty. Athens tried her own ‘Athenaisation’ project. She spread her
products and hegemony everywhere. The fertile lands bordering the Black
Sea became her granary. Her military might was felt all over Persia, the
Greek states on the Ionian coast of Asia, those in Italy, Sicily, France, Spain
and North Africa and in Greece proper. Promising students and intellectuals
from all over the Greek world went to Athens to study and teach. Perikles
was right: Athens was the school of Hellas.
Greek Athletics and Ruins, Romans and Western Civilization, The National Herald, May 26, 2007.
excerpt- Greeks used athletics to express their political and religious identity,
including their adoration of manliness as virtue, which they expected of their
athletes. Exercising in the nude out in the open and competing during
religious festivals was both an act of piety towards the gods and a
characteristic of being Greek. Like philosophy, history, literature, science,
democracy and the dramatic theater, athletics was a Greek creation that
distinguished Greeks from non-Greeks.
agamemnon pdf
Aischylos Against War and Savagery: Theater as a window into the world of the Greeks
Review of “Agamemnon in Performance 458 BC to AD 2004.” Edited by Fiona
Macintosh, Pantelis Michelakis, Edith Hall, and Oliver Taplin. Oxford
University Press, 484 pages, $ 125
The National Herald, February 23, 2008.
excerpt: “The message of Aischylos’ “Agamemnon” / “Oresteia” is against war and
savagery, especially among Greeks, allowing the healing and civilizing
power of Greek civilization to do its work. This is especially relevant at this
time of war and rising savagery.”
Speros Vryonis Jr.: The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of
September 6 – 7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul.
New York: Greekworks, 2005. 660 pages. ISBN 978-0-9747660-3-4.
$75. Reviewed by Evaggelos G. Vallianatos. Mediterranean Quarterly: Winter 2006
excerpt- In a few hours in the evening of 6 September and early 7 September 1955, guided
mobs of Turks attacked savagely the Greeks of Istanbul and, by means of fire and the
crowbar, left forty-five Greek communities in ruins. The Turks, in a performance reminiscent
of the 1453 capture of Constantinople by their Ottoman ancestors, terrorized
the Greeks while smashing their homes, businesses, churches, cemeteries, schools,
libraries, newspapers, and medical institutions.
Review of Charles Pena: Winning the Un-War: A New Strategy for the War on
Terrorism. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2007.
Mediterranean Quarterly, 19: 1 (Winter 2008): 107-109.
excerpt: “Despite missing the boat on the current, petroleum-fuelled, crusading
struggles between Islam and American Christianity, Pena’s book is useful
because it deconstructs the Bush administration’s justification for dragging
the country into a non-winnable adventure.”
Why is the West Sacrificing Cyprus on the Turkish Altar? The National Herald, December 2, 2006.
excerpt- The books under review examine how Turkey is taking advantage of the
West to continue its plunder and domination of Cyprus. These books are
telling a story of tragedy in Cyprus, itself a symptom of the declining state of
Western civilization. On 16 May 2006, I heard Michael Jansen lecture on the Turkish plunder of
Cypriot antiquities. The objective of the lecture, which took place on Capitol
Hill, was to enlighten the indifferent American political class to the
destructive consequences of being in bed with Turkey, an enemy of the
Greeks and Western civilization.
nationalheraldbookiivallianatos.pdf
Ecology & Agriculture
“All of Africa’s Gods are Weeping,” Race and Class, July-September 2001, pp. 45-57.
excerpt- The roots of African hunger lie deep in the structure of the most persistent of colonial institutions in the continent — the export out of sub-Saharan Africa of plantation agricultural cash crops to the markets of Europe and North America. Such agricultural exports are bad for democracy and the land, concentrating political power in a few hands and impoverishing Africa’s traditional food and agricultural economy. Scrapping that colonial model of development — cash cropping — for a healthier and stronger peasant economy is bound to invigorate both democracy and the raising of food for local consumption. A peasant-driven development strategy is also certain to heal the land and Africa — give the best land of Africa back to the peasant and bring into the field and the village the fabulous biological and cultural diversity and wisdom of traditional farming.
All of Africa’s Gods Are Weeping
“American Cataclysm,” Race and Class, 44(3), (January-March 2003): 40-57.
excerpt- Goldschmidt believed the family farm was “the classic example” of American small business. He was convinced that its spread over the land “has laid the economic base for the liberties and the democratic institutions which this Nation counts as its greatest asset.”USDA, however, did not see the family farm as a national asset. It fired Goldschmidt and tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress his work. There’s no mistaking, however, Goldschmidt was right. Arvin was not merely a disintegrating rural community in California’s Central Valley but the nightmare of rural America. Agribusiness was killing family farming and industrializing the countryside. Even the government, USDA, was becoming a subsidiary of agribusiness.
“Nature’s Matchless Seeds or Monsanto’s Colonized Crops?” Sowing the Seeds for Sustainability: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Economics and Society, Proceedings of the Eighth Interactive Session held at the Second IUCN World Conservation Congress, Amman, Jordan, 7 October 2000, edited by Rachel Wiseman and Liz Hopkins (Switzerland, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the World Conservation Union, 2001), pp. 127-128.
excerpt- Cash-cropping in developing countries and the use of bioengineered varieties – a system that is accompanied by widespread poverty and hunger – should be abandoned in favor of indigenous crops. These do not require expensive foreign fertilizers, pesticides and heavy machinery. Moreover, the genetic diversity of native crops is a valuable resource for the rest of the world.
