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The endangered refugee housing complex...
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EDITORIAL |
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Kicking the habit
The first couple of days after the end of the Athens Olympics were not very promising with respect to a number of the bad habits we seemed to have kicked during the Summer Games. These are the Athenians' self-discipline and the remarkable shift toward public means of transport. Almost 90 percent of visitors to the Olympic sites used public transport, simply because car access was forbidden in most cases. Similarly, 50 percent of all transport was carried out by buses, trains and trams - a high percentage compared to the situation before the Games. |
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COMMENTARY |
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The Greek ‘filotimo’
The success of the Athens Games is to a large degree owed to the Greeks' «filotimo,» a sense of national pride, an intense feeling of honor and dignity that unfortunately only awakens in difficult times, when superhuman effort is demanded of us to meet some national challenge.
Our sense of national pride helped us finish the Olympic projects on time. It was responsible for a record number of volunteers for the Games, in a country that is a laggard in blood and organ donors. The venues hosting the softball, hockey, trampoline and badminton competitions were all packed with Greek fans who knew little, if anything at all, about these Games. |
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