All posts by Dimitri C. Michalakis
-
We Are All Refugees
The documentary 4.1 Miles featured in this issue gives just a glimpse into what people are suffering who flee their countries torn apart by war because they need to save their children. And what a country like...
- Posted March 17, 2017
-
A listing of gratitude
Should we stop talking politics and instead talk about what we’re grateful for as we enter 2017? I’m grateful—knock on wood—and my late mother would spit to ward off the evil eye—for my health and hope that...
- Posted December 30, 2016
-
So here we are
We are coming (hopefully—but you never know) to the end of this fraught election season that even after the votes are counted will still leave us deeply divided. Half of us want a popular rebellion because we...
- Posted October 27, 2016
-
JOHN G. RANGOS, SR: CHANGING THE LANDSCAPE OF AMERICA – A kid from a steel town cleans up America and spreads his charity to all
John Rangos learned several things growing up during the Depression in a steel town like Weirton, West Virginia: he learned about the pluck of people like his mother Anna Rizakus who talked herself into a job at...
- Posted September 13, 2016
-
John Brademas: A lifetime of public and private service
John Brademas (1927-2016) In Memoriam A reprint of NEO’s cover story, May 2007 John Brademas is still in a hurry, even more so now. He just celebrated his 80th birthday, but as he leads the way through...
- Posted September 13, 2016
-
Stanley Neamonitis: A Great American success story (May 31, 1939 – July 16, 2016)
Stanley Neamonitis passed away on July 16, 2016 surrounded by his family at his home in Manhasset, New York. Born in the village of Avgonima, Chios on May 31, 1939, he was the fourth of five children...
- Posted September 13, 2016
-
Greek-American success stories
I was speaking to mega-industrialist John Rangos for this issue and I told him I wish I had more time to dig even deeper into the epic and historic circumstances of his life: this is a man...
- Posted September 13, 2016
-
Here and There
When I was a kid living on Chios I remember going to the harbor and the “prokimaia” to see people off on the ship that would take them to Athens and the world beyond. The ship was...
- Posted June 26, 2016
-
Doing business in Greece and getting the business
It’s startling to hear from an oil expert in this issue that Greece has sizable reserves of oil that might help to bail the country out of its economic morass. It’s not anything new to hear about...
- Posted April 30, 2016
-
The Orange Chimera
Of course we have to talk about what’s happening to America in this current presidential election cycle. And it’s not unfathomable. (That doesn’t mean I support him—orange is not my new black.) When you don’t give people...
- Posted March 24, 2016
-
LEADERSHIP 100 CHAIRMAN GEORGE TSANDIKOS: THE SON OF A PRIEST SERVING THE CHURCH IN HIS OWN WAY
by Dimitri C. Michalakis George Tsandikos is the son of a priest who never felt the calling himself but as chairman of Leadership 100 he helps young men join the priesthood and after working with Leadership for years...
- Posted January 10, 2016
-
Moving On
I’ve lived in Brooklyn, New York the majority of my life. I was born in Greece, on the island of Chios, then joined my family in Montreal, Canada when I was seven. Then moved with them to...
- Posted January 10, 2016
-
A Greek and a Turk discover they look alike in HIDDEN MOSAICS: AN AEGEAN TALE by Alexander Billinis
Like the protagonists of his debut novel, life has been an Aegean odyssey and migration for author Alexander Billinis himself. With a lifelong interest in the region, he’s lived and worked in Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia, traveled...
- Posted December 5, 2015
-
Don’t send us your huddled masses yearning to be free?
In the paranoia since the Paris attacks the knee-jerk reaction of the many unfortunate Republican candidates running for president who it seems have hijacked the party (do you people really want a job this intractable—and do we...
- Posted December 5, 2015
-
So It’s Been Ten Years
Ten years ago Dimitri Rhompotis, Kyprianos Bazenikas and I met in Greenpoint, Brooklyn at a printing shop to see if we could get a magazine started. The history of the magazine business is fraught with peril and...
- Posted October 26, 2015
-
BACK IN THE DAY
A friend of mine came to the United States from Greece back in the ‘50s, around the same time my parents came. And they saw the United States in its fat heyday as truly the promised land....
- Posted September 25, 2015
-
Church Lady Extraordinaire, Leadership 100 Executive Director Paulette Poulos
Paulette Poulos has an apartment in White Plains but she’s rarely there. “My brother teases me,” she says. “He tells the pharmacy, whatever vitamins you give my sister give me five bottles. I keep a crazy schedule,...
- Posted June 28, 2015
-
Madam Ambassador: Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis recounts her groundbreaking role as the first Greek American woman to serve as U.S. Ambassador
At age 43, Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis became not only one of the youngest women ever to serve as a U.S. ambassador, but also the very first Greek American woman. A powerhouse businesswoman and mother of two, her...
- Posted June 28, 2015
-
Onassis executive, Greek Aviation and Shipping Pioneer Paul J. Ioannidis tells the epic story of his life in DESTINY PREVAILS
Paul J. Ioannidis, now 91, says the greater purpose of writing the book of his life was “to record some events involving the Onassis family that were heretofore unknown or which were not know to the wider...
- Posted June 28, 2015
-
Public service
In one of his books the great Harry Mark Petrakis described the guile of his mother, the wife of a parish priest with little means, in stretching their own meagre food budget to accommodate all sorts of...
- Posted June 28, 2015
-
Of fascinating lives
I’ve been reading two fascinating books lately: one a stirring account of an epic life in both public and private service; and another a frank and surprisingly-intimate account of an accomplished woman’s service to her country abroad....
- Posted May 18, 2015
-
Altar boys forever
I visited my old church in Brooklyn recently, where I once served as an altar boy, and it pretty much looks the same: only with central air conditioning now (instead of the sauna we had to endure...
- Posted April 11, 2015
-
The Winter of Our Discontent
Is this truly the winter of our discontent? Formal history seems to function in cycles—in America, the Democrats had the House and Senate and the White House and the public thinks they made a mess (or are...
- Posted February 18, 2015
-
Doing business with Filotimo on Wall Street: Michael Psaros of KPS Capital Partners
It took a young Greek of the old school to make filotimo a business model and a kid brought up in the steel mills of West Virginia to co-found a Wall Street private equity firm that has...
- Posted December 24, 2014
-
Christmas past, present, and future
Christmas is a time to celebrate the birth of Christ and new hope in the world and it’s also a time to spend time with family and see kids rejoice not only in their presents but in...
- Posted December 24, 2014