Bombs and Such

You may or may not have seen the news, but three bombs exploded here in Athens early this morning. I didn't know until I read cnn.com, so I'm not any better informed than any of you all. The bombs exploded in front of a bank in the Kallithea area of Athens. The bombs were timed to go off over a period of thirty minutes. A newspaper was alerted ten minutes before the first went off, and fortunately there was enough time to evacuate the area and no one was hurt although the bank was extensively damaged. Experts feel that injuries were intended because of the relatively short notice. No one has taken responsibility, although some suspicion has been cast at the Greek November 17 terrorist group. Others say this group is dead, so who really knows. In case you were wondering, it takes me about half an hour to get to Kallithea, so it's not particularly close to me. I've been there twice, both times for the big flea market held there on Sunday mornings. While the 3 euro shirts are quite a bargain, the best thing you can get there are gyro sandwiches.

Interestingly, the bombings coincide with there being 100 days left until the Olympics begin. You can't help but think that there must be some relation. I am not sure exactly what the intent was, but the most obvious thing to me is that whoever did this simply wanted to display their power and remind us that there is no such thing as perfect security. No matter how much money is spent or technology is used, we can't guarantee safety and security. Life is inherently risky, and certain things come with more risk. Unfortunately it seems that these days the Olympics, which are supposed to be representative of international unity and peace, come with a warning of increased risk. Hopefully all the speculation comes to nothing, and the Olympics go off without a hitch, but regardless, I'm glad that I'm not going to be here for them.

As a side note, I must say that hearing about the bombs didn't affect me much. I hope that doesn't mean that I'm in any way accepting that bombings are simply a condition of modern life or life in a city like this, but I didn't feel threatened or anything like that. I was glad no one was hurt, and I thought it was unfortunate that someone would resort to such an action, but I didn't think about any risk to myself or contemplate changing my lifestyle in any way. It was news. That was all.

On a separate but related note, Despina, Kate and I ran over to the Olympic Stadium this weekend to check it out. We can see it from our house (it's only a few blocks away), but we've never gotten up close and personal with it. Turns out we weren't missing much. It's really quite a mess. The basic structure is there, but it's not at all attractive. Plus the area around it is absolutely filthy. I don't know what the plans are for spiffing it up, but there must be some. I'm quite interested in watching the Olympics on TV to see if they can manage to make Athens look nice and if so, how in the hell they do it.