Word: cretan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Convincing Nuances. Piccus called in his old friend Gordon, a language detective famous for his identification of an ancient Cretan script known as Linear A. Long a proponent of the theory that ancient civilizations of South America were somehow influenced by Middle Eastern culture, Gordon carefully compared the Paraíba inscription with the latest work on Phoenician writing. He found that it contained nuances and quirks of Phoenician style that could not have been known to a 19th century forger. "The alternatives are either that the inscription is genuine," said Gordon, "or that the guy was a great prophet...
...interior, I walk into a coffee-shop for a shot of raki, the local brandy. A huge poster on the wall extols the "National Revolution" of the colonels. But above it, illuminated by a devotional oil lamp, like the holy icons, I see three photographs: E. Venizelos, the fiery Cretan liberal of the 1900's, John F. Kennedy, and George Papandreou! Gingerly, I steer the conversation into politics...
...jail. Don't you know it was written by Theodorakis? It's strictly forbidden. Later on, after we leave the banquet, the same friends roll up the car windows and softly sing the song. Warmed up, they continue with "The Rebel," the centuries-old anthem of the Cretan revolutions against the Turks. That is also forbidden, because of its suggestive language: "When will the stars break through the clouds, when will spring come...
...content to reign as figureheads; they like to rule too. Resentment over the Greek King's penchant for mixing in politics boiled over at the start of World War I, when the first Constantine exerted his influence on behalf of Greek neutrality. Constantine was forced into exile by a Cretan political wizard named Eleutherios Venizelos, and the feud went on for decades. The monarchy's popularity plummeted even further when George II backed the military dictatorship of General John Metaxas, who ruled Greece from 1936 until the Germans and Italians overran the country...
What TIME had done to Evanghelos Georgakakis was to tell his story, "The Losing Winner," in our March 3 issue. It was the story of the deep inner powers of a man, a onetime Cretan shepherd lad, blind, with an artificial right hand and only one finger with any sense of touch on the left. Yet, at 33, using Braille and tape recorders, he had topped all 361 candidates in the Athens bar examinations. Despite this, as the story told, he was unable to find a job. No one, it seemed, wanted a blind and crippled lawyer...