{"id":58948,"date":"2021-08-09T08:04:11","date_gmt":"2021-08-09T13:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58948"},"modified":"2021-08-09T08:04:11","modified_gmt":"2021-08-09T13:04:11","slug":"between-two-fires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58948","title":{"rendered":"Between Two Fires"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Between Two Fires<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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\nCaspar David Friedrich\u00a0Woman before the Rising Sun\u00a0<\/b>1818<\/center>
<\/center>No, I wasn\u2019t going to talk about the wildfires raging outside my hometown of Athens, Greece, though they are bad enough. The skies are anything but blue, and the sun is deep red. Thousands have been evacuated, and hundreds lost their homes. Just so far. As I said earlier, the Monasteraki kitchen, which the Automatic Earth actively supports, is feeding about 2,500 people daily, including firemen, but I have little additional info. They work almost 24 hours a day in the heat and the smoke to do it, and we\u2019ll talk about organizational and financial details later.<\/p>\n

But yeah, it\u2019s a cruel reality that the government doesn\u2019t take care of its own firefighters. Until earlier today, the evacuees from the island of Evia apparently were made to buy a ferry ticket as their homes were burning down. You can\u2019t make it up. A good time to count one\u2019s blessings. The biggest support efforts so far, in manpower and equipment, come from Romania and Poland. Not western Europe. Oh, and: \u201cFor the $3 billion #Greece will pay for 18 French jet fighters, 12 of which are used, #Athens could have bought 100+ state-of-the-art fire fighting aircraft\u201d. Too late now. The politicians call \u201cforce majeure\u201d.<\/p>\n

Evia<\/p>\n