| The Nest of the Hellenic Mind __________________________________________________________________________ LETTERS PUBLISHED IN THE AMERICAN PRESS May 14, 2004 St. Louis Post-Dispatch The Kosovo Catch-22 To the Editor: The world grew by one more nation. Kosovo proclaimed its INDEPENDENCE! Imagine the Mexican migrants with steady population increase form a majority in California. What then if these folks asked for a plebiscite and wanted to make California an independent country. Gradually, this new country would merge into Mexico. Naturally, our Federal Government would nix this notion. But, the Latinos go on protests and violence to the point of deaths. Our Federal Government sends in the National Guard and crushes the protesters. Upon that terrible crime, China sends in its air force and annihilates Los Angeles and San Francisco. Genocide would be China’s justification. Ultimately, the migrant Mexicans proclaim California as an independent nation, which is then recognized by England, Germany, France and Italy. “What an injustice,” we would plead, “to lose California!” That is exactly what has been happening whereas California is Kosovo, the United States is Yugoslavia and China is the savior of the Mexicans. To clarify this analogy, the Albanian Muslims could not accept the repressive Communist regime prior to the break up of the Iron Curtain, and escaped over the border to Yugoslavia. They settled in the nearest area which is called Kosovo. Over a couple of decades of fighting, the Yugoslavian residents were displaced and the Albanian Muslims have formed a majority. Christian Yugoslavia lost 15% of its territory to migrants from Albania. In fact, the Albanian Muslims have been on a rampage in the destruction of historical Christian Churches. This is a clear scenario of this dangerous move that the United States has supported. It has been founded on the premise of "divide and conquer." To add insult to the injury, NPR was interviewing some official on February 18, 2008. A part of his commentary on the issues of Kosovo was something to the effect that : Now that we helped the Muslims gain Kosovo (territory-land), we expect the world Muslims will show appreciation and stop their international terrorism activities. Thus, the United States Government once again stands for injustice to one member of the international community to gain favor for its ill conceived foreign policies in Iraq, Cyprus and elsewhere around the world. Some State Department eh? Should we follow suit and parcel out more land for peace? Costas Miliotis, Florissant, MO 63031 A Greek perspective on our struggle St. Petersburg Times, published October 27, 2001 A Greek perspective on our struggle On Sunday, Hellenism celebrates the 61st anniversary of Greece's resistance to the totalitarian Axis powers in World War II. Six decades ago, Greece had to endure death, destruction and pain, both physical and mental. As a consequence of these hardships, Greece had to go through a metamorphosis. The sneak attack on Oct. 28, 1940, was startling and was followed by vast loss of life. Greece valiantly defended its borders and people. After several setbacks, the heroic Greek people repelled the invaders, resisted the Nazis and triumphantly brought the country back to freedom and democracy when it was liberated in October 1944. Similarly, America is sustaining catastrophic events as we witnessed on Sept. 11 and subsequently. The entire psyche of America is going through traumatic changes, a metamorphosis that was unthinkable only a couple of months ago. Those of us who have seen wars, catastrophic events, loss of innocent life, curtailment of some civil freedoms, as we have known them, are better prepared for this metamorphosis. It behooves us to impart a bit of advice in the form of "do's" and "don'ts": Don'ts: Do not make yourselves paranoid or imagine cataclysmic events. Do not think this transformation is short term. Do not alter your usual lifestyle, excepting some minor inconveniences. Do not forsake your faith in God and our democratic institutions. Do's: Learn how to endure adversity, as in usual life. Learn to accept improved security norms. Do have trust in our national and local leaders, as they are the best qualified in the world and need our support. We depend on each other! Have faith in our armed forces and security agencies. They are entrusted with our safety and we should cooperate with them. The Greek people sacrificed plenty to stand up to the Nazis. Similarly, the American people are expected to make the necessary sacrifices to defeat the evil of Osama bin Laden, his al-Qaida gang and all those who support his vitriolic principles around the world. As Greece paid a heavy price in 1940 for the defense of freedom and democracy, so is America today asked to pay a price for the identical goals -- freedom and democracy. The United States and the entire world must prepare for a long struggle similar to that of the Cold War, with vigilance and resilience! Simultaneously, our policies must be revamped toward the Middle East, the Arab world, Cyprus, China, Russia, Africa and all the poor regions of the world. The people of Greece and we, the Greek-Americans, stand side by side with America and the free world! These sentiments are expressed on behalf of Greek-Americans through the Umbrella Organization: the Council of Hellenes Abroad. -- Costas Gus Miliotis, Palm Harbor , FL One man's monument to his culture A Dunedin neighborhood stands as a testament to a developer's love of Greek history and learning. By KAREN LACHENAUER © St. Petersburg Times, published December 31, 2000 DUNEDIN -- Kostas Miliotis had never heard of New Athens City, a neighborhood on the eastern edge of Dunedin, before last summer, when a neighbor invited him to a softball game. Driving toward the Englebert Recreation Complex on Solon Avenue, Miliotis noticed a side street named for President John F. Kennedy. Then four more streets -- each named for an ancient Greek philosopher or statesman. "I see Kennedy -- boom -- then I see the next, and the next and the next, and I started slowing down," said Miliotis, a student of the classics. "I say, 'What is this?' This is a monument. There is a legacy here, something that wants to speak." The next day, Miliotis returned with his family and learned enough to fire his imagination. The neighborhood, full of older, generally well-kept mobile homes, was called New Athens City. Except for J.F. Kennedy Street, the streets all were named for famous Greek thinkers and leaders. The main street, which connects Belcher Road to the Toronto Blue Jays' winter training home, is named for Solon, the lawgiving statesman known as the father of democracy. Other streets were named for mathematician and inventor Archimedes, philosopher Aristotle and statesman Aristides. He also found Platon Avenue, the Greek name for the philosopher Plato. And, written in the concrete of a gutter on Diogenes Street, there was a little essay. "New Athens City. Diogenes, the 'honest,' once was walking in the streets of old Athens city on the middle of a bright day with his lantern up. So his neighbors asked him why was he walking with his lantern up? Diogenes answered he was looking for an honest man!" The inscription is signed: "Arthur Kerry, the developer, May, 1967." Miliotis, a retiree who splits his time between East Lake and St. Louis, began asking around about Kerry. Eventually, he devoted a section of his Web site, , to the history and mystery of New Athens City. "This is a fascinating discovery of unknown significance," he wrote on the site. "Who is or was Arthur Kerry?" As it turns out, the answer had been close at hand for some time. Arthur Kerry's adopted daughter lives in New Port Richey and only recently returned to the scene of her father's legacy. Kerry was Greek, but he shortened his name to blend into the business world, she said. He died in 1970. "My daddy loved the philosophers; he lived by the philosophers," said Anastasia Kerry Smith, 48. "He felt they were put on this earth to guide us with their preachings and outlook, and not to get lost in the material things in business." Arthur Kerry was born Athanasios Kyriazopolous in 1891 in Aristomenis, in the Peloponnesian region of Greece. His wife, Zarahoula, was one of five sisters. Her father was an Eastern Orthodox priest who could not afford to give her a dowry, so Kerry struck out for the New World about 1920. In a typical tale of immigrant grit, he worked two or three jobs at a time and was not above cleaning toilets. Kerry went to night school to finish his education. A teacher impressed with his initiative took him into the house she shared with her husband, where he lived rent-free until he could send for his wife the year after he arrived. After she arrived, Zarahoula augmented the couple's income by selling embroidery for dresses. Later, Kerry dabbled in many fields, including running a hotel, which was uninsured and burned down, said Smith, whom he adopted in 1964. He gained and lost a fortune several times. "He taught me if you fail at one thing, pick yourself up and go on," she said. But when he discovered real estate, it seems he tapped a steady resource. He saw that people who couldn't afford a house might buy a mobile home. Worth close to $1-million in today's dollars at his death in 1970, Smith said, Kerry lived humbly, his one indulgence a new Buick Electra every few years. A story from when Smith was about 12 illustrates the generosity she said characterized Kerry. A young couple approached him about buying a lot but lacked the $100 down payment. Always eager to help industrious people and with a soft spot for newlyweds, he agreed to let them pay it later. As security, they insisted on taking off their wedding bands and leaving them as security. Several months later, they returned with the money. It was shortly before Christmas. "I remember distinctly he took the money and the rings and gave it all back to them and said, 'Merry Christmas. I hope you two will be as happy as my wife and I have been,' " Smith said. The last of five children -- and also of a long line of young people Kerry sponsored in the United States -- Smith was sent to live with Arthur Kerry, who was her grand-uncle, at age 8. Collecting the remaining mortgage payments from New Athens City, which she inherited when she was about 16, bankrolled Smith's college education, as well as later business ventures. She now runs her own business, Professional Fertilizer and Supply, and co-owns a lawn maintenance company, both in Clearwater. On a sunny Sunday in autumn, Anastasia Kerry Smith returned to New Athens City for the first time in 30 years. She said it had been too painful before, though she often had driven past the old family homestead, not far away on Beltrees Street in Dunedin. There, her father taught her to graft trees and the two of them grew many palms that later were given away. In New Athens City, most of the mobile homes -- and one house -- in the six-block subdivision are well-kept. "Some of these trailers are the originals," she said. She winced at one that appeared run-down. Her father, who constantly quoted to her the precept of "everything in its place," would not have approved. But a moving van was backed up to the door, suggesting that the situation might improve. Listening to the songbirds and seeing the green lawns on Diogenes Street, she was pleased. "This looks nice back in here," she said. "All these palms we planted." Then she ran into retired contractor Robert Gossett, 82. They remembered each other, hugged and swapped stories. Smith asked whether Gossett remembered her father killing a 6-foot rattlesnake. No, he said, but he did recall that Kerry offered to sell him a brace of New Athens City lots for $800 each, with $20 down per lot -- and Gossett turned it down. Later, he had to pay $7,500 for an existing lot and home to get into the development. She commiserated, saying "You would have had a heck of a deal there." The development is a rarity in that it allows mobile homes but does not require homeowners association fees, which is what really defines a mobile home park, according to Mary Brennom, a real estate agent with Palm Harbor's ReMax Action First. The lots, generally measuring 60- by 100-feet, some with existing homes as small as 500 square feet, sell for $30,000 to $70,000 today. No one in New Athens City claims to have been changed by Kerry's engraving about Diogenes' search for an honest man. But residents who knew him say Kerry was such a man. He conducted business on a handshake, Smith said, but lost some faith in mankind with the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy. "That's when he said we killed all the best, like Socrates and Jesus Christ," Smith said. Kerry renamed a street in New Athens City for Kennedy in 1967. Doris Pongetti, 57, whose father worked for Kerry in Connecticut and followed him to New Athens City, said neighborhood children used to borrow her broom to clean the writing on Diogenes Street, just to prove it was still there. Miliotis is happy that the writing has survived. In the gutter of Diogenes Street, he said he sees a "muted voice (that) ought to be brought out." "He was unselfish," Miliotis said of Arthur Kerry. "He could have put his name" on the streets of New Athens City. "No, he wanted to go with his memory and wanted to go with his culture." Miliotis pauses for a moment as he looks for the right words. "He wanted to immortalize -- that's the word -- people who contributed to our culture and civilization." ____________________ Jan. 24, 2010 Post-Dispatch readers sound off with letters to the sports editor : McGwire motto: Money at 'any cost' The recent collapse of America's economic might is attributed to general business failures! However, in a closer look, one cannot doubt that the primary cause has been the lack of ethos. The business motto has become "profit at any cost." Mark McGwire used this motto during his career. To his belated admission, he used steroids to enhance his athletic performance. In the process, he violated personal rules of conduct, sports prohibition on such use, and cheated and lied to us who thought he was competing fairly. He even sat muted in front of our United States Congress. During the same process of McGwire's use of steroids, he acquired great strength, a lot of money and fame. Simultaneously, the St. Louis Cardinals and all of baseball gained financial rewards through his performance. Today, McGwire sadly admits to the illegal use of steroids, and the St. Louis Cardinals hire him as a coach. What are the Cardinals' players going to be coached on? How to use anabolics, or how to conceal anabolic use? Or how to make lots of money at "any cost"? What signals are McGwire, the Cardinal organization and baseball at large going to be sending our society, especially the youth? Ethos is the foundation of a person, a society, a country. The Hellenic concepts of the Olympics, ethics and fair competition are being stumbled and used for financial benefit at "ANY COST!" No wonder we have faced the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression and are breeding an entire generation of professional liars and cheaters that apply this ethic to all aspects of our lives. Costas Miliotis • Florissant http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories. nsf/othersports/story/C20DF531FB3146D0862576B500084FCA?OpenDocument RETURN TO MAIN PAGE PLEASE! |