The Dormition of the Virgin has come and gone here on Paros. In the next few days the ecological disaster that is summer tourism will begin to slowly fade away and by the first week in September the island and its inhabitants will breathe a huge sigh of relief. What to do about the rise of tourism and its accompanying stress on the people and natural resources? I have no solutions that would be seen by any as humanistic or even nice but I do know what would not help:
A larger landing strip on the local airport allowing for larger planes from big cities will not help. More vehicle rental agencies (cars/quads/scooters) will not help. Building more holiday homes in otherwise pristine areas will not help. Converting long-term housing into AirBnB rentals, driving up the cost for local residents, etc…this will not help. These are not solutions. These are the problems. That is my opinion and I’m sticking to it.
I am growing more and more despondent with the news from America. TFitWH really wants to be an oligarchical ruler, like his Russian man-crush, like his Hungarian buddy, his North Korean BFF and his new pal in Turkey. Once again, I have no solutions. Well, actually, I have hope. I am not advocating this, by the way. Just a quick disclaimer!
On a personal front I have decided that I don’t want to smoke cigarettes anymore. I woke up last Saturday, had a couple of rollies and thought, “Man, these are stupid.” So I have quit. I had no health issues. I don’t get out of breath when exercising; my BP is 122/78 with a resting HR of 64. This is all good.
So I went to the pharmacy and they put me on ‘the patch’ which is keeping me from losing my mind while the nicotine gets out of my system. This will be a 3-month process,gradually reducing the nicotine to almost zero. I’m into it, a day at time. I want to stop. That is half the battle. I will admit I had 7 on Saturday, 3 Sunday and Monday and 1 on Tuesday. Wednesday morning I woke up, cleaned my flat really well and threw out all my tobacco paraphernalia. That helped a lot. So none yesterday or today. If I want one, I have to go buy the crap. I have noticed that I suddenly have a lot more free time on my hands. Also, my apartment is cleaner. All that ash and smoke created a lot of dust. I am already feeling better. I have a lot of energy. So that’s that.
There we go.
–JDCM
PS: I haven’t changed the header because I am too lazy to do so. Hope no one cares. I don’t.