#newlines

The pretense of democracy (during but also before the pandemic) was experienced as intensely alienating and frustrating. Employees felt like they were being lied to and manipulated. In these circumstances, open authoritarianism can feel like a relief. If you are going to be told what to do and can’t discuss or offer feedback that someone will actually listen to, maybe it is better not to even have the pretense of democracy. Open authoritarianism is, of course, what Trump offers. Like many employees, Trump is contemptuous of decision-making by committee. Even before he began his second term, he was arguing that he should be allowed to make recess Cabinet appointments to circumvent the Senate confirmation process. And, of course, on his reality show The Apprentice, Trump was marketed as a decisive boss who made firm, abrupt decisions about hiring and firing, all on his own. The buck, supposedly, stopped with him, for better or worse. As on television, so in the White House: Trump is good at acting as if he has the answers, and providing simple explanations for his decisions, which can feel satisfying to his followers even if those decisions are nonsense or based on lies.

After he received the call, Spyros Diamantis put down his coffee and left the cafe. “Let’s go, kids,” he shouted to his mates sitting outside, seven local lads dressed in T-shirts and the military fatigues they kept after completing national military service. Kamatriades, a village on the Greek island of Evia, is on fire. “They are afraid that it will move downwards,” Spyros said. They clambered onto the back of a battered green pickup truck, and Spyros started the engine. Hurtling down winding roads, through ashen smoke, we drove toward the inferno that has been blazing for a week on the island of Evia, a two-hour drive north of the Greek capital, Athens.

Wildfires are common in Greece. In 2018, high winds drove a fire through Mati, a seaside resort town northeast of Athens, killing 102 people, the highest recorded death toll in a Greek wildfire. I was there, and I remember the promises from authorities that lessons would be learned. Three years later, Greece burns once more. As the country sweats through its worst heatwave in 40 years, the forests that make up nearly a third of the country have become tinderboxes. Thanks to human-caused climate change, fires, like those seen here, will become a familiar sight to many across the globe.

This was not an average day for Spyros, a 26-year-old with a handsome face that could be on television. He normally works in his family’s supermarket in Istiaia, a hardscrabble town in northern Evia. Years of austerity, which has drained public resources and undermined governmental preparedness, combined with climate change has led to the worst wildfires since the 1980s, and everything has changed.

We went back to The Burnap Boulder again! Ben and Ji found interesting new lines! watch the video about "Bouldering Under 32°F | New Lines | The Burnap Boulder"get for more videos.