Athens!

I need to start this post by apologizing to Rhodes. I was really angry while I was writing about Rhodes and I just didn't give the place a fair shake. Between the Lyme disease and the crazy photosensitivity I have from the antibiotics, the sprained ankle, and somehow losing 200 euro, I just needed to be pissed off at something, and the best thing I could come up with was Rhodes (and Greece in general). This is of course irrational, as all of the above could or would have happened to me no matter where in the world I might have been. I really ought to have been thankful for certain things. For instance, I have now had first-hand experience with medical care in a country with nationalized medicine. When it was apparent to me that I had a Lyme disease, i had a choice to go to either a public clinic or a private one. I wasn't picky, and just went to the first one we could find which happened to be a private clinic with a orthopedist and a dermatologist. I was expecting that I would have to rack up about 500$ or so on my credit card for private care, but at that point I was desperate and didn't feel like inquiring about whether I would be treated at a public clinic (as a non-tax-paying foreigner). So, after the diagnosis was done and the prescription was written, I asked, "How much do I owe you and do you take Visa?" He replied, "The charge is 60 euro, and I can take Visa but I don't usually, it will take a moment." I dazedly responded to this by handing him 60 euro in cash and walked out of the clinic to go next door to the pharmacy, where I purchased my 10 day, prescribed supply of doxycyline antibiotic for, drum roll please, 6.35 euro. That's it. For 66.35 euro and about 20 minutes of my time, I had a diagnosis and prompt treatment for Lyme disease from a private clinic. Nationalized health care is obviously putting pricing pressure on the private clinics. I am supposing that the private clinics would provide free or nominally costly care for the trade-off of a potentially longer wait, and I also suppose that there is a certain income tax burden that must be shouldered by Greek citizens, but fuck it. I still think it is totally worth it. In this instance, I am quite happy to tolerate government price controls. Besides, if highly skilled, one-of-a-kind, so-called "specialist", super-doctors really want to make the crazy money, they can move their practice to the Cayman Islands and still see all their same patients. For routine, basic care though, I think this nationalization scheme is the way to go. I think capitalism works best for goods and services where demand may be elastic (like televisions and Internet access), but for inelasticly demanded things (like food and drugs) I really think that some kind of government regulation of prices or distribution is the best way to go. The reason I say so, is because people will pay any price for life, and I think it just creates to damn much potential for predatory trade practices. I think that is the right way to characterize the USA's current, mostly-capitalized system of providing health care - predatory. It has gotten to the point where it is starting to look like war profiteering, except in the "war on cancer". (Most of that above diatribe was for Tom and Spike's benefit, have at it boys.)

Anyway, back on the subject. I don't feel particularly compelled to talk much about Athens, since we already did all the Athens touristy-stuff at the beginning of this vacation, and because we just got off the plane, and because we intend to just spend our last few days here just shopping for knick-knacks and chilling out.

Instead I think I'll see if I can continue on and give Rhodes a better review. The only other really interesting archaeological destination (besides the city of Rhodes itself) is the Acropolis at Lindos. I know I mentioned it before, but it really is worth a visit. The hike up the plateau is a decent one if you are looking for a work-out, but if you aren't, they have donkey rides for 5 euro which are a ton of fun. I say so only with a slight sense guilt about it though, as my particular steed was clearly straining under the weight of my fat ass, particularly on the last switch-back. The view from the top of the acropolis is really sweet.

The old town of Rhodes (in Greek it is "Rhodos") is packed in behind some well-preserved walls, and being inside them among the various shops and restaurants felt a little bit like living in an alternate dimension, where architectural advances were frozen in the dark ages but electronics and chemistry had still advanced enough to produce cheap digital watches, tacky sequined T-shirts, and tons of plastic refrigerator magnets. In the center of the old town is the "Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes", but for some bullshit reason ("an administrative conference") it was closed on Monday when we went to visit it. However, there was also a clock-tower nearby and this was open, so we paid our fee and went to the top to survey the old-city and beyond. It was only from this vantage did I notice how many ancient (and I suspect mostly unused and purely historical) mosques are in Rhodes. I had read about how Rhodes was under the control of the Ottoman empire for some 400 years (until around 1912 when the Italians invaded), and so it was obvious to me that many remnants of Islamic culture should remain, but seeing it really made me connect to that fact a little more and now I have a slew of other questions regarding the history of this place (for instance, why do all the guidebooks I read here refer to the period between 1523 and 1912 as a time of "decline and darkness and oblivion" for Rhodes? surely something good must have come from Ottoman occupation?) On a less complex level, I also noticed that many (all of?) the mosques had not only crescent moon symbols but also stars decorating their characteristic towers. I understand the whole symbolism of the crescent moon in Islam, but I hadn't previously known about the stars, which were incidentally, the exact same shape as the stars of our own American flag. It had me wondering if there may be a connection between the star symbols of our flag and the star symbols of Islam, and if Muslims feel on some level like the "stars and stripes" and what it represents somehow co-opt the symbols of Islam? Readers? Any thoughts? Might it be anything like how fundamentalist Christians would act if the porn industry started using crosses instead of "XXX" as their identifying symbol? I'm not trying to imply that this overlapping symbol-use might be the root of all east-west tensions. I'm just wondering if Muslims have noted this overlap and if any even care about it.

OK that's enough for now. I'm glad to back back in a happy mood again.

Opa!

Update June 22, 2007: Wikipedia and a couple of other sources have some good info regarding the star and crescent musings.