Greece back in the news

For the the second December in a row, Greece made it on the front page of The Washington Post.  


A year ago, it was coverage of riots in response to the shooting of a 15-year by Greek police. The riots lasted for days, and among other things drew attention to the frustration many Greeks felt with their government and politics in general.


Today's story focuses on another problem challenging the modern Greek state, the amount of debt Ellas is carrying compared to gross national product.  Greece's new Socialist government announced a program to cut spending and increase tax collection, moves that reassured world markets and EU finance ministers.  Tax evasion is a huge problem in Greece, but what do you expect from a country that has valued treachery and cunning for more than 2,500 years, a trait that goes back to the Trojan horse.


It's interesting that Greece's economic woes are a front page story.  In reminds me again that Greece has evolved as a country and is wealthy enough that it's economic woes matter, at least matter to its European neighbors. 


A Few Random Notes

• I am goofily excited about going to see the Wizards take on Tyler Hansbrough and the Indiana Pacers tonight.  We plan to go early to see if we can get at autograph, but I'll be satisfied to be in the same room as the second-greatest Tar Heel player (Dean is the greatest Tar Heel of all time) of all time.
• Odd that tonight's Carolina game versus Presbyterian is NOT on television, at least not available in DC even with the Dish. So we have to settle for watching Hansbrough, Antawn Jamison and Brendan Haywood.
• Psycho T scored a career-high 22 points last night in a Pacers win, and it seems that after missing the preseason he is getting his timing and hoops legs back.
• One person who does not is Gilbert Arenas.  There is lots of hand wringing over the relatively slow start of our home town Wizards.  The 'Zards had three shots to tie or win their loss to the Celtics on Thursday but obviously failed each time. Arenas is still not in the flow yet after missing two full seasons with injuries, and Antawn Jamison is catching up after missing the start of the season with a shoulder injury. However, I fully expect this team to click in a few more weeks once everyone gets healthy and on floor together.  And if that happens this team could make some noise in the playoffs.
• I'm getting tired or the Tiger Woods story; hopefully his announcement that he will stay off the PGA Tour for a while will quiet this story and unclutter the sports pages.  As many of you know, I've never liked Tiger due to his devotion to all things corporate. He's not an athlete but a walking billboard for the world's largest companies. Like Tracee Hamilton said yesterday in the Post, his main function in society is to sell us stuff.
• Finally, regarding Tiger, it's one thing to cheat on your spouse - no one's perfect and people make mistakes - but where Tiger crossed the line is by cheating so often with so many women. If that's what you want to do, get a divorce. But a man, a real man, does not do what Tiger did to his wife or - almost more importantly - to his kids. In a few years his kids are going to Google the dad's name and 'scumbag' and find a million articles. How would like to explain that to your children? 
• One more finally: the other outrage about Tiger should be over the oft-repeated refrain that he is the 'world's first billion-dollar athlete.'  I know he has a school in Orange County for underprivileged kids, a school whose mission he certainly tarnished, but tellingly Tiger no longer lives in California. Like many superstar athletes, he lives in Florida because there is no state income tax.  So for me the outrage is that his billions aren't taxed to fund schools, health insurance, two wars, the salaries of fire fighters and nurse, you know, non-golf things. 
• I'll end this ranty blog with one final one: no one should make more money than the president of the United States.  The market should not be allowed to set the value of someone's salary, so the most important job should have the highest compensation.  We need a nationwide salary cap, an idea that actually passed the House of Representatives in the 1930s.