Irregular update
Jun. 18th, 2013 03:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bktheirregularUp-down-sideway sort of time. A lot has been happening, but not too much of note. Parents came for their annual vacation, staying at my place for a few days before heading to the islands, but there was a bit of excitement. Thankfully, it seems to have all turned out OK.
To wit:
My uncle's sister - uncle by marriage to my aunt, so that wouldn't make her my aunt ... or would it? anyway - died last month, so there was a memorial service held on Sunday, and my folks had planned their schedule around that.
Except that on Friday, the day after they landed in Athens, my mother missed a step while visiting a friend and stumbled and fell and banged up her right knee pretty badly. It got worse Saturday morning, which meant she had to go to the hospital to get it x-rayed, which meant I had to go along with her, which meant suddenly my weekend was getting very busy. Luckily, nothing was broken, but the advice from the doctor was to take it easy, not move around too much for a day or two. That wiped out the plans to go to the memorial service on Sunday, but she was moving around with fewer problems by Sunday afternoon, so by yesterday, when they hopped the boat to the islands, all was essentially well.
Aside from my falling behind on my laundry and housework, but what are you going to do?
In more general news, there's been a kerfuffle around here concerning the state-run television network, ERT (Hellenic Radio and Television), which got shut down without warning by government decree.
OK, a little background.
Back when I first was exposed to Greece, there were only two TV stations - ERT and YENED, which was run by the army, a holdover from the military junta. YENED got merged into ERT in the 80's, and ERT became a place where politically-connected people could be hired for sinecure jobs. Meanwhile, the government opened up the airwaves to private broadcasters, so by now, there are at least half a dozen independent TV networks in Greece, probably more - I've lost count, having sort of given up on broadcast TV a few years back. ERT presumably got some money from advertising, but it was primarily funded by taxpayers, a lot of that money coming from surcharges to people's electric bills.
So, Greece being in a financial corner, needing to cut back jobs, and running a television network employing thousands more people than it needed and bleeding money, with labor-law restrictions on how many people can be let go in a particular period of time (apparently the legal pace of standard layoffs is such that it would have taken close to a decade to pare down ERT's payroll to a reasonable number), the government decided that a quick-and-dirty tactic was best, and ordered ERT to cease broadcasting and close up shop.
I've heard screams about "government censorship", despite the rather glaring fact that all of the independent networks are still on the air, with their own news and entertainment programming. I've heard complaints that the measures were illegal and unconstitutional, and in fact, the courts have already ordered the government to put ERT back on the air.
So I suppose it's yet another example of people trying to solve a very real problem in a lousy manner.
There were protests last night, which got noisy, but didn't rise to the level of civil unrest. The unions are up in arms, of course, and while it's very possible they've got a legitimate point this time around, they've gone out so many times and screamed bloody murder about so many other, lesser issues, that there's a bit of a credibility problem.
Credibility problems seem to be epidemic hereabouts, these days.
To wit:
My uncle's sister - uncle by marriage to my aunt, so that wouldn't make her my aunt ... or would it? anyway - died last month, so there was a memorial service held on Sunday, and my folks had planned their schedule around that.
Except that on Friday, the day after they landed in Athens, my mother missed a step while visiting a friend and stumbled and fell and banged up her right knee pretty badly. It got worse Saturday morning, which meant she had to go to the hospital to get it x-rayed, which meant I had to go along with her, which meant suddenly my weekend was getting very busy. Luckily, nothing was broken, but the advice from the doctor was to take it easy, not move around too much for a day or two. That wiped out the plans to go to the memorial service on Sunday, but she was moving around with fewer problems by Sunday afternoon, so by yesterday, when they hopped the boat to the islands, all was essentially well.
Aside from my falling behind on my laundry and housework, but what are you going to do?
In more general news, there's been a kerfuffle around here concerning the state-run television network, ERT (Hellenic Radio and Television), which got shut down without warning by government decree.
OK, a little background.
Back when I first was exposed to Greece, there were only two TV stations - ERT and YENED, which was run by the army, a holdover from the military junta. YENED got merged into ERT in the 80's, and ERT became a place where politically-connected people could be hired for sinecure jobs. Meanwhile, the government opened up the airwaves to private broadcasters, so by now, there are at least half a dozen independent TV networks in Greece, probably more - I've lost count, having sort of given up on broadcast TV a few years back. ERT presumably got some money from advertising, but it was primarily funded by taxpayers, a lot of that money coming from surcharges to people's electric bills.
So, Greece being in a financial corner, needing to cut back jobs, and running a television network employing thousands more people than it needed and bleeding money, with labor-law restrictions on how many people can be let go in a particular period of time (apparently the legal pace of standard layoffs is such that it would have taken close to a decade to pare down ERT's payroll to a reasonable number), the government decided that a quick-and-dirty tactic was best, and ordered ERT to cease broadcasting and close up shop.
I've heard screams about "government censorship", despite the rather glaring fact that all of the independent networks are still on the air, with their own news and entertainment programming. I've heard complaints that the measures were illegal and unconstitutional, and in fact, the courts have already ordered the government to put ERT back on the air.
So I suppose it's yet another example of people trying to solve a very real problem in a lousy manner.
There were protests last night, which got noisy, but didn't rise to the level of civil unrest. The unions are up in arms, of course, and while it's very possible they've got a legitimate point this time around, they've gone out so many times and screamed bloody murder about so many other, lesser issues, that there's a bit of a credibility problem.
Credibility problems seem to be epidemic hereabouts, these days.
