more new photos on Flickr (click here)

from skykhan.net

"Democracy has its own remedies"

An interview with Murat Belge, a leading left intellectual in Turkey, discussing the prospects for Turkish democracy.

push back on Fox

Dear Friends,

Right now, Fox News is trying to paint Barack Obama as foreign, un-American, suspicious, and scary. They're trying to send Americans the message that our country's first viable Black candidate for President is not "one of us."

I've joined on to ColorOfChange.org's campaign to push back on Fox, publicly demanding they stop their race-baiting and fear mongering. If that doesn't work, then we'll go to their advertisers and the FCC. I wanted to invite you to sign on as well. It takes only a moment:

http://www.colorofchange.org/foxobama/?id=1840-490882

Here's what happened recently:

After Senator Obama won the nomination, he and his wife gave each other a "pound" in front of the cameras. Fox anchor E.D. Hill called the act of celebration a "terrorist fist jab." Then last week, a Fox News on-screen graphic referred to Michelle Obama as "Obama's baby mama"--slang used to describe the unmarried mother of a man's child. It was a clear attempt to associate the Obamas with negative cultural stereotypes about Black people, an insult not only to Michelle Obama but to women and Black people everywhere.

After each of the incidents mentioned, Fox issued some form of weak apology. But what does it mean when you slap someone in the face, apologize the next day, then slap them again on the third? It means the apology is meaningless.

These aren't one-time incidents--they're part of a pattern that continues no matter how often Fox is forced to apologize. Fox has a clear record of attacking and undermining Black institutions, Black leaders, and Black people in general.

If we don't push back now, we will see more of the same from now until November. Please join me in helping to bring an end to Fox's behavior.

http://www.colorofchange.org/foxobama/?id=1840-490882

Thanks.

Burcu's jewelry designs

On the flight from New York to Istanbul, I sat next to a jewelry artist named Burcu Büyükünal. I just now got around to looking at her webpage, and her designs are lovely. (Click the headline to see them.)

The image below is cut in half apparently to dissuade people like me from copying her work without permission, but I hope she won't mind ...

moonrise

Full moon rises, burning dark orange through the city’s smog.
Does the sight take my breath away,
or is this just my lungs aching?

Where are you from?

Last year at a party in Seattle, someone asked me where I was from. California. What part? San Luis Obispo, a town halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

“And what are you doing in Seattle? she asked. “Are you visiting family or friends or something?” No, I explained, I have lived in Seattle for a dozen years, and I work for the county health department.

“But you just said that you are from California!”

For a few seconds, we just stared at each other over our drinks. We were speaking two different languages. To me, where you are from is where you grew up. I wasn’t born there, but I lived in San Luis from the time I was five until I was twenty. I might live elsewhere for the rest of my life, but I will always be from central California.

Could this woman possibly mean what she seemed to imply, that if a person picks up and lives somewhere a while, if she makes friends in a new place and receives mail there and has a favorite place to take a walk or have coffee, that she is from there?

I was reminded of this the other day in Ankara. My cousin Gülrü and I went shopping recently along the steep cobblestone streets that lead to the castle. In a jewelry store we met a young man named Yusuf, who was friendly and helpful as a salesman and not at all pushy. We chatted a bit, Gülrü bought some earrings, and as we left, he said, “We’ll be waiting for you another day. Come back, we'll drink tea.” A week later I had another opportunity to visit the castle and I took him up on his invitation, arriving with simit, smelling freshly baked and covered in golden sesame. Yusuf cheerfully called from the doorway for a neighborhood boy to fetch tea for us. As we touched on the the standard topics of small talk, I asked him where he was from.

“I am from Erzurum,” he said. “I mean, I was born in Ankara, and I have never been to Erzurum, but that’s where my family’s village is. That’s where we’re from.”

How dare you not love Atatürk?!

After Parliament recently amended the Turkish Constitution to allow women to wear headscarves into public universities, and the Constitutional Court exceeded its powers by annulling this amendment, the battle continues, between those who value the freedoms of religion and expression, and those who want to maintain the Kemalist stranglehold.

In his June 14th commentary, Mustafa Aykol writes:

"Love cannot be imposed. If you want all citizens to appreciate Atatürk as The Father of All Turks, then you should make him the symbol of freedom and justice for all."


Click on the headline to see his column in the Turkish Daily News.

how to find your way.

Ankara, June 6, 2008

Today I went looking for somewhere with wireless internet where I could sit for a spell, drink tea, and read and write online for as long as I liked, without tying up my cousin's phone line. One of Ezo's cousins suggested a place in busy busy Kızılay, a downtown neighborhood thronged with students and other youth, and lots of cafes.

Once I knew I was within a block or two of the place she described, I asked a man on the street where Leman Kultur was. He led scratched his head, smiled, took me by the arm, and led me to two youth sitting outside the bookshop where they work. They didn't know where the place was either, so all three took me indoors to ask someone else, who asked someone else. Soon a browsing customer gave her two cents, and half a dozen people were discussing where this place was and the best way to get there.

(This happens all the time, and not just to tourists, mind you -- the same thing occurs whenever I'm out with my cousins and we are unsure of our route. As my traveler friend Gus observed, street signs are are rarely posted in Turkey, and no one EVER uses a map. The people-centered culture here assumes that if you need to know something, you consult a person. Not a piece of paper.)

Slow

Flag sways in the breeze, heavy
like a blanket for Goliath,
dipped in blood.

Cargo ship inches
through the narrow strait
from Ukraine
to god knows where.

Late-day sunlight burnishes the stones
of Sultan Ahmet’s mosque, moving
from spire
to golden spire.

Trees lean this way
and that,

Seagull chicks
shuffle along dry raingutters, waiting
for a meal.




after spending seven hours on the cafe terrace of the Arcadia Hotel (Istanbul)
June 10, 2008

speaking of transportation ...

My last post made me think of Carla "Bus Chick" Saulter, whose road-smart column in Real Change I adore. If you don't know know about her writing already, check it out: http://www.buschick.com/

adventures in transportation

Ankara, June 2, 2008

I have had some humbling experiences riding the buses. It is one thing to be a foreigner asking for directions or making a purchase -- people are generally very helpful and patient here, so there is time to hobble through a conversation. But with a bus, it's different, especially when it is the last bus of the night. Tonight I hurried from a dinner with my cousin Gülrü to catch the last bus, at 11 my aunt told me, from dowtown (Kızılay) to Konutkent, at the city's edge. Just as I arrived to the stop, at 10:50, a bus pulled up with a sign that said "Konutkent." I asked two men standing nearby whether it went to where I wanted to go, and they said yes. I hopped on board and asked the driver if he was going to the *second* addition to the sprawling Konutkent development, to confirm. He rattled back at me something that included the phrase "I don't know." When I said I didn't understand and repeated my question, "do you go to second Konutkent?" he seemed to say the same thing, with a couldn't-care-less expression. I hopped off and asked an old woman in a headscarf (the traditional, loosely-worn rural style, not the modern, tightly-tied one that has more religious and/or political meaning). She said yes, it would go where I wanted to go, but it would take the long route, and that I should wait for another bus, coming soon.

The first bus drove off in a cloud of diesel smoke, and the two men I had first consulted began to argue with the woman, pointing in different directions and clucking their tongues. Turns out I had just missed the last bus of the night that went directly to where I was going. Instead, I caught the last bus of all, which looped around one suburban development after another, but at least it was heading west on the Eskişehir road. At nearly the last stop, the two men and the old woman all got off, scowling, and walked in three different directions, fading from the streetlight into the shadows, where the sidewalks end and the city dissipates into dry hills. At very nearly the last stop, I finally recognized where I was -- just minutes from home -- and breathed a sigh of relief.

fashion report

Ankara, May 29, 2008


Like elsewhere in the world, many people in Turkey sport t-shirts and accessories emblazoned with English text, often touting the brand's "authentic and original design." It can say anything, really -- as long as it's English, it's hip.

Case in point: the other day I noticed a teenager in Ulus wearing a shirt with shiny silver text, all capitalized. From a distance, the design and typeface immediately made me think it would say something like NEW YORK LONDON PARIS TOKYO OUR BRAND IS THE LEADER IN AUTHENTIC FASHION. Instead, it said:

BE FRESH WEAR SMALL PIGS ON YOUR SHIRT IN BRIGHT COLORS.

And sure enough, sandwiched between all those capitalized letters were little piggies in fluorescent pink, green, yellow and blue.

(If the kid saw me trying to supress a giggle, I hope he didn't take it badly.)

Kara Güneş - a great band I saw play on İstiklal Street the other day.

notes from Konutkent

Ankara, June 4, 2008

Mornings are cool and crisp. Skies cloudless.
Magpies hop and flap about the tended lawns, black feathers, gray feathers, hoarse cries.
Sprinklers stutter and click.
Roses, cut grass, water mist.
Cool shadows, concrete.
Voices echo in stairwells, elevators hum.
Breakfast at auntie Ulku's: cucumber, tomato, cheeses,
olives, bread, homemade jam,
talk-show TVwith a wise doctor promoting broccoli and avocado.
Tang infomercial, the host mixing mixing, smiling smiling,
then lip-synched arabesque singers and a belly dancer.
Afternoons turn hot, dusty, smoggy.
Sun shines bright on the high plain.
Buses and cars grumble nine stories below.
The call to prayer,recorded, plays from the minaret nearby, mournfully, ecstatically.
Evenings again cool and beautiful.
People of all ages walk and chat among beneath tree canopıes and identical apartment towers.
Basketball. Soccer. Bicycle bells ring.
Old men argue on a park bench.
A young couple flirts in the trees' shade.

Anatolian road

Stone ridge across the valley—
tinned mosque roof gleams on distant hill.

Trees blur by, the colors of olive,
mint, young lemon fruit, dusty sage,
some sheened yellow with small flowers.
I wonder about their names,
like the words, the syllables
I hear around me,

I reach for them, run my fingers
through the branches slipping through,
catch a few leaves between cupped palms.
I wonder at their colors, the determined route
of their veins.

Sand and rock, lonesome pines
give way to green grasses
of the fertile plain. Sparse trees
gather more together, moving west.
Violets and poppies gather.

Beside me, a young man
has cellphones, two, on his folding tray,
ears plugged into the radio,
into the very wiring of the machine.
Song after song,
the same bass and tick,
the rhythm that quickens hearts
worldwide—
the beat of glamour, broadcast.
His sigh falls heavy on my arm.

Across the aisle, a woman
traces a line of brown hair
behind the ear
of her daughter,
sixteen years old.

Two attendants pace the aisle
in starched white shirts,
bushy brows and adam’s apples.
Every little while they offer something--
Çay, bey effendi?
Nescafe, soda?
A sandwich crinkled in plastic,
newspapers of every stripe.
More tea,
and “refreshing moist towelettes.”

(Sadly, the lemon cologne,
the ritual offering
poured from bottles
into open hands,
is disappearing.)

Towns nestle at the feet of stony hills—
red roofs, faces white and gray,
weathered wood, cinderblock and brick,
some just skeletons,
silent, until the money’s saved
to continue building.

Trucks muscle past,
onions and potatoes
bound in plastic sacks.

A driver from Iran
stops by the watermelon vendor
still yelling karpuz! karpuz!
over the highway’s roar.

Cows, brown and white, black—

dust, stormcloud—

Oases sell hot meals and trinkets
on either side of the road,
declare their names on billboards:

Gülpınar,
Alabalık,
İsmailoğlu.

Rosy Spring,
Speckled Fish,
Son of Ismail.

At every turn, crimson
waves the flag
for the Republic
and the football team.

Muddy river curves,
laundry on the line, waving.

Auto factories, train tracks,
the Marmara Sea opens up.

Row crops,
power lines,
vines of rusty leaves, waving.






This is draft number five of a work in progress. Critique is most welcome.

Unfortunately, this daft blogger.com refuses to display the dozen or more lines that are irregularly indented, especially near the end. Try imagining some of the lines shifting horizontally across the page. Or if you would like to see the original, I can email the Word file to you.

Many new photos online

I have just posted more than 50 photos and one video from Turkey at
http://flickr.com/photos/49944331@N00/sets/72157605550275432/. I hope to post more in the coming weeks as I explore Istanbul and visit the Aegean coast, and perhaps other places.

(There are also some recent photos from New York, the northwest coast of Washington state, and of friends in Seattle.)

marketplace in Ulus

Ankara, May 29, 2008

My sister's last day in Turkey, we went shopping in Ulus, a historic neighborhood in north-central Ankara, where from the broad, grimy, cacophonous Ataturk Boulevard, smaller streets and alleyways spread up toward the castle. At the base of the hill is a typical urban marketplace, with an indoor area dedicated to food ringed by small shops, shoulder to shoulder, selling baby clothes, teapots, drill bits, nuts and spices, and any other household item you might want. With the clock ticking toward our date with auntie Turkan and uncle Faruk across town, and the list of people to buy gifts for glaring at her, Kate got down to business. In the kitchen shop, she bargained like a pro with a short, balding, tight-lipped man. A true professional, he held his own in the haggling, but Kate came away with a good deal on tea pots, glasses, saucers and spoons.

She spoke, and I interpreted. Mind you, I speak Turkish poorly. It helps that I have pactice working profesionally as a Spanish interpreter, but interpreting Turkish feels like batting practice, with baseballs flying at me from two machines set to super-fast.

Meanwhile, the salesman's coworker shuffled between us and the door, where called out the shop's wares, prices for soup pots and such. He was taller, thin, mustachioed, smoking, wearing a straw cowboy hat. He smirked as he sized us up and asked us where we were from, then turned to help an elderly couple wearing Muslim skullcap and headscarf. Soon he bounced back to where we were, tapping a few piles of tea saucers. When Kate looked up to see what the racket was, he opened his eyes wide, pointed to one as if to say "check this out," then banged dozen saucer piles in quick succession, like a xylophone. We chuckled, his coworker scowled. Later he came up to me, grabbed my forearm, pointed at my sea star tattoo, and in the simplest of body language, he asked, "what's all this about?" I answered in kind, "who knows?" Looking at me in the eye, up close, he smiled, and went back to yelling for customers at the door.

too cool for Istanbul

Bebek, May 23, 2008

In this chic neighborhood, a young man walks alone past yachts and scrappy fishing boats. His t-shirt says, in English of course: Define girlfriend.

Bursa

May 26, 2008

Today we toured the Green Mosque. Four years ago, my friend Gus was there, and had a similar experience:

"Went to the fabulously beautiful Yeşil Camii just as 20 year old İsmil was opening the place. He spoke some english (a rarity here) and we talked about the early Sultans. He took me to the usually closed Sultan's balcony booth and helped me find the spinable vertical cylinders that were installed by the original architects to test the "health" of the building. If they spin, all is well. If not, the supports are bearing too much pressure. The cylinders became unspinable about four years ago. The mosque was built by Mehmet I in the early 15th Century after he had salvaged the Empire following the rampage of Tamerlane (one of the most interesting figures in history). "

The man who guided us around explained the fountain inside the mosque -- very unusual -- was built so that when the Sultan held secret meetings in his balcony rooms, the water's sound would cover the conversations. Also that the ground-level shelves in the mosque's center were for people to discreetly leave food, if they could, or take food, if they needed.


Outside the mosque my father joked with a handful vendors selling trinkets. I only caught snippets of the conversation, but it ranged from bragging about his father the Congressman, about his grandfather, the pasha who owned the entire state of İzmit, and about himself, claiming to be something like the Godfather back in the States. (Yes, as in Marlon Brando.) These and other tall tales had everyone laughing and shouting back, but hardly matching his silliness and pomp.

Later in the day, Judy, Kate (or Suzan, as she insisted we call her) and took a taxi up the hill to the castle and Tophane area to see the tombs of Osman, founder of the Ottoman empire, and his son Orhan, who conquered Bursa, made it the empire's first capital, and during whose reign many elements of modern Turkish culture (such as architecture) were established. In Osman's tomb, although its size and design reminded me of a chapel, I was surprised to see an older couple praying, as if they had gone there to pay homage. What did that mean for them, exactly, that their prayers include the return of the Empire?

In Orhan's tomb, just a few steps away, across a shady patio, I first shooed away a kid insistenly selling packets of facial tissue, but after reflecting on the place and taking a photo, I reconsidered my automatic reaction. I called him over and gave him a coin, calling him "little brother," one of the many affectionate and respectful forms of address people use for strangers all the time. Soon he was out the door, buying simit, a ring of sesame bread, from a white-haired man with a wooden-glass cart that looked like a carriage.

Looking for Necip Bey

Bursa, May 27, 2008

Over breakfast, shortly before we are to leave Bursa, my father mentions that his father's birthplace lies not far from the hotel. Now he tells us. Local foks offer various estimations of the distance -- a few blocks away, a 35 minute drive -- so we decide we can't go, but it's nice to know we have a lead in case I come back here.

With an hour to spare, I walk through the covered market. It seems stories saturate every stone, every shop as narrow as two broom handles, every glance and voice of vendors and shoppers, chidren and beggars. I come to the Great Mosque, leave my shoes at the entrance. Scaffolding blocks some of the colums and decorations, and temporary walls hide construction equipment, but the solemnity and cool air still feel soothing. A few men and women pray in different sections; a Japanese tour group listens to their guide.

Outside, I request a shoe shine from a dark-skinned man who is missing a tooth. He speaks like a drum roll. After asking him to slow down and clarify certain words I almost understood, I give up and just nod, repeating the two or three Turkish affirmations I know: yes, true, of course, ah hah.

I return to the hotel a few minutes late; the taxi driver has already arrived. He knows the old village off Chelik and takes us straight there, chatting amiably with my father in the front seat. Leaving behind the city's busy boulevards, we pass apricot groves, crumbling plaster homes, a new mosque under construction. My father tells us about visiting his grandfather here as a child, recalling the peach trees, the sheep and goats, and the silkworm hut, where the little critters ate mulberry leaves all day long, "making a sound like crunch crunch crunch." At the roadside, between tilled fields, red poppies grow in batches like bright flames, like blood.

We come to a graveyard that spans both sides of the lane to look for the grave of my great-grandfather. It's quiet, no cars, a breeze in the tall creekside grove. At the driver's suggestion, we split up and work toward each other from either end.

There are many graves grouped by family name, none of them our own. According to many headstones, the person was born in the 1300's and lived into the mid-twentieth century. I scratch my head for a minute and realize this is because the new Turkish Republic adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1925.

My father starts getting anxious, saying we should go. He speaks Turkish, losing track of which language is which. We cross the road to search the other section, and again he calls for us to leave. I ask for a few more minutes and walk gingerly around graves.

Then the driver calls out: "Look! Necip Simer!" Sure enough, there it was, a gravestone bearing the same name as my father. Inscribed with graceful Arabic calligraphy at the top, the dates and birthplace follow in modern Turkish. We gather watering cans and empty them in the weeds atop his resting place. My dad cries a little, swears he will come back one day and fix the whole place up. We take some photos and return quietly to the taxi.

Prospect Park on a sunny day

Brooklyn, 5/21/08

At the entrance, two farmers chat beside their large truck, in the shade of an umbrella, a stone's throw from a massive traffic circle. Their folding tables boast potatoes, bell peppers red and green, apples, tomatoes.

A grandmother reads a letter aloud, in Russian, to a baby, hidden in a stroller.

Three Latina nannies call out with accents to white children, spinning dizzy on the grass.

Six Hassidic men at a picnic bench, beneath the tallest tree, at the edge of a large field, discussing.

A teenage girl straddles her boyfriend on a bench, like a horse, whispering.

Beneath shadowy trees, a small blond boy quietly marvels at a waterfall.

The sound of streams running.
Tennis balls bonked by rackets.
Two birds take turns: a bold and melancholic melody, then a shrill whistle.
Sirens.
A Haitian woman sings woefully, eyes closed, one palm up to the cloudless sky.

The Hassids saunter by like it's Shabbat: an elder rabbi among five young men, each with sideburn curls, beards, black suits. Some continue the discussion. One straggles behind, thumbs jumping from key to key on a mobile phone.

Three white guys scratch in their notebooks.



a few other photos from New York: http://www.flickr.com/photos/49944331@N00/sets/72157605550095802/

Sabri Boğday urgently needs your help.

A message from my friend Ezo:

I am writing to ask for your help in saving a life of a Turkish man who has been unjustly sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia. Sabri Bogday is from my home town Hatay, a southeastern Turkish province. He had moved to the Saudi city of Jeddah and was running a barbershop. He was arrested by Saudi officials after being accused by his Egyptian neighbor, a tailor with whom he had a brawl, of “cursing the name of Allah.” Saudi authorities condemned him to death, and an appeal case is in progress. Boğday's family demanded that the president and prime minister intervene to prevent the execution.

Turkish President Abdullah Gül has joined in the efforts to save Turkish barber Sabri Boğday from execution in Saudi Arabia. Gül emphasized the unfairness of the accusation against Boğday, and stressed that Turkey expects the withdrawal of the execution decision. Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan, too, is taking part in the efforts to save Boğday's life. He told reporters that he had contacted Saudi officials, and was waiting for the result. For more information please see:

Turkish Daily News:

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=101684

Los Angeles Times:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/turkey/

Amnesty International USA

http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa10808.pdf

But even though the president and the prime minister are involved there is no guarantee that would be enough and Amnesty international is urging as many as people as possible to contact the Saudi Arabian government and has issued the following urgent action.

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in English, Arabic or your own language:

- expressing concern about Sabri Bogday's death sentence and calling for it to be commuted immediately if it is upheld on appeal;

- reminding the authorities that they are bound by international standards for fair trial, and in capital cases they are also bound by the United Nations safeguards guaranteeing the protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty, which guarantees adequate opportunity for defence and appeal.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Check with the Amnesty International Secretariat, or your section office, if sending appeals after 4 June 2008.

APPEALS TO:

His Majesty King Abdullah Bin ‘Abdul ‘Aziz Al-Saud

The Custodian of the two Holy Mosques

Office of His Majesty the King

Royal Court, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Fax: (via Ministry of the Interior) +966 1 403 1185 (please keep trying)

Salutation: Your Majesty

His Royal Highness Prince Naif bin ‘Abdul ‘Aziz Al-Saud

Minister of the Interior

Ministry of the Interior

P.O. Box 2933

Airport Road, Riyadh 11134

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Fax: +966 1 403 1185 (please keep trying)

Salutation: Your Royal Highness

His Royal Highness Prince Saud al-Faisal bin ‘Abdul ‘Aziz Al-Saud

Minister of Foreign Affairs

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Nasseriya Street

Riyadh 11124

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Fax: +966 1 403 0645

Salutation: Your Royal Highness

COPIES TO:

Mr Turki bin Khaled Al-Sudairy

President

Human Rights Commission

PO Box 58889, Riyadh 11515

King Fahad Road, Building No.373

Riyadh

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Fax: +966 1 4612061

and to diplomatic representatives of Saudi Arabia accredited to your country.

This kid is a genius.

I just learned about Quizlet from my friend Sara's "Spanish for Social Change" vocabulary blog. Quizlet was created by a high school student named Andrew Sutherland to help him learn words for French class. It's a super useful version of flashcards. You can create your own list of things to memorize, or draw on others' lists. The computer program tracks which words you know and which you don't, and repeats words as necessary. I just learned how to say "ceiling" in Turkish, as well as "refrigerator," "wall," and a host of other words, and refreshed my memory about dozens of other terms. (I'm headed to Turkey in two weeks, in case you're wondering.) Check it out – quizlet.com.

Cheat Neutral: just as great as carbon offsets.

Some clever Brits have taken the concept of carbon offsets -- people paying a voluntary fee for their "carbon footprint" so that carbon emissions will be reduced somewhere else -- and applied it to the ethics of cheating on your partner.

[Click on the headline to see how it all works]