Apparently Greek real estate developers take a somewhat aggressive approach to the free market.

More than 60 dead. $1.5 billion in damage. Freakin’ Olympia damn near went up.

Not that the Olympia should be particularly important to, y’know, Greek real estate values. It’s only a World Heritage Site and all.

Sometimes you watch the news and just feel helpless and horrified.  (OK, most of the time.)  Visiting Greece was one of the most wonderful trips of my life. My friend Leslie and I went to the 2004 Olympics in Athens, and we couldn’t have been more both impressed by not just  the genuine friendliness of our hosts, but their surprising (and widely unanticipated) organization and efficiency.  Which, given this last week, seems not to have lasted much past the closing ceremonies.

Olympia itself was an incredible place.  (So was everywhere else we went.)  Even the ancient stone finish line is still there.

(Come on, I had to. Wouldn’t you?)

And I was only there for a couple of weeks.  Imagine living your whole life like this, among some of the greatest treasures of antiquity, and then seeing half the place threatened with destruction.

I cannot imagine what ordinary Greeks must be feeling right now.