Linda Ronstadt Tossed From Las Vegas Casino

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demokratia was an experiment when the greeks first got the notion..

Greece in those times was not a single political entity but rather a collection of some 1500 separate poleis or 'cities' scattered round the Mediterranean and Black Sea shores 'like frogs around a pond', as Plato once charmingly put it. Those cities that were not democracies were either oligarchies - where power was in the hands of the few richest citizens - or monarchies, called 'tyrannies' in cases where the sole ruler had usurped power by force rather than inheritance. Of the democracies, the oldest, the most stable, the most long-lived, but also the most radical, was Athens.
more..

i guess you are quite aware of all that..
i find this interesting..anyway

The equality of justice was secured by the jury system, which ensured that slaves and resident aliens were represented through their patrons. The equality of opportunity did not mean that every man has the right to everything. What it did mean is that the criteria for choosing citizens for office was merit and efficiency and not wealth. Whereas Solon had used the criterion of birth for his officials and Cleisthenes had used wealth, Pericles now used merit. This was the ideal for Pericles. What indeed happened in practice was quite different. The Greek historian Thucydides (c.460-c.400 B.C.) commented on the reality of democracy under Pericles when he wrote: "It was in theory, a democracy but in fact it became the rule of the first Athenian." And the historian Herodotus (c.485-425 B.C.) added that "nothing could be found better than the one man, the best." This "one man, the best," was the aristoi, the word from which we get the expression aristocracy. So, what began as Greek democracy under Cleisthenes around 500 B.C., became an aristocracy under Pericles by 430 B.C.
http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/lecture6b.html

i sometimes wonder how athenian US democracy is...and how much more spartan like it appears to be