Erdowie, Erdowo, Erdoğ(w)a(h)n

With English subtitles:



And for Turkish speaking connoisseurs:

Cash as cash can ...

[...]
European agriculture ministers approved the sale of milk and meat from the direct offspring of cloned animals on Monday. Germany had long opposed the move, but finally changed its position.

Full article here.

Well, and in case you do not already know where once again corks will be popping - just check amongst the labels for this post.

Monsanto-soybeans for Monsanto-pigs

It was a small step for the EU, but a great one for the bosses of Monsanto on their 'mission' to win the global food monopoly.

Good night, and good luck!

In case you've forgotten

Maniacs won't die off

Prologue:
The title does not refer to Messrs. Ahamadinejahd, Berlusconi, Brzezinski, Bush, Cheney, Gadaffi, Hu, McCain, Mugabe, Obama, Pofalla, Putin, any scalpers, masters of Monsanto & Co., members of any sect, secret and/or surveillance service etc. etc..

However, in case any person mentioned above feels fancy to feel addressed by the title: Very welcome.

And in case anybody misses her/his name and/or the name of her/his organisation: Just let me know, and your name will immediately be added.

End of the beforegoing.

Actually, the title does nothing but mirror the dominating thought while I was reading this article.

Milliband's spreading democracy militarily

The United Kingdom's foreign secretary, David Miliband, will today set out the clearest exposition yet of Labour's recast foreign policy when he will argue that mistakes made in Iraq and Afghanistan must not cloud the moral imperative to intervene - sometimes militarily - to help spread democracy throughout the world.

He will warn that the rise of China means that the world can no longer take "the forward march of democracy for granted", and that Britain must unambiguously be on the side of what he describes as "civilian surges" for democracy. Continued here.

Interesting that the Milliband would mention China, but not Zimbabwe, isn't it?

Well, having received my Valentine's Day present by reading the world's most intelligent and peace-loving leader saying '"Prosperity and peace are in the balance", I shall neither write this man suffers from stupidity and megalomania nor comment his words, but leave this to Archbishop Cranmer, in whose piece you will find following nice anecdote, which I shall soon - in a other context - find the opportunity to recall:

'When Sir Charles James Napier [in the India of the early 19th century] was confronted with Hindu demands for a lifting of the ban on suttee. And the general famously replied: ‘You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.’

And now's your turn, His Grace.

"Pearls" before the swine?

From the Monsanto-pigs to the wheat and soya prices.

May I remind you of we are still on the topic (worldwide) food-monopoly?

Thank you very much. :)

Rather a Dandy than a pig

Well, Brummel, d'Orsay, Baudelaire, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Wilde and des Esseintes (the protagonist in Huysman's À Rebours) kept me busy for a while.
A work about Dandysm in the English and the French literature of the late 19th century.
Work? Rather a pleasure; except for those moments, minutes, hours a chosen word, a phrase, a metapher would not fit, or a smooth transition to the next aspect not be found. At times, no doubt, the master in the devil's kitchen would have demonically smiled about this polite blogger knowing so many wonderful swearwords. :)
By the way, although Dandysm is pronounced dead, when reading this or that detail I'd immediately think of this and that contemporary.

And now - with thanks to the Monty Pythons - for something completely different: Pigs.


to be definitively continued

Another self-styled elite

Nothing is as old as yesterday's news, unless you would not find it in "your" media.

Alright, a conference titled "Muslim World in Transition: Contributions of the Gülen Movement" being hold, let's say in Erzurum would probably not attract many media to send a reporter team to Anatolia.

But when above mentioned conference takes place in London and is being inaugurated at The House of Lords one might think this would attract some interest in times when the Labour Party's "favourite think-tank" favours the idea of downgrading Christmas in favour of festivals from other religions to improve race relations.

No?

Well, it's good for Fethullah Gülen to have a Journalists and Writers Foundation spreading his words and running his own newspaper.

In Today's Zaman - by the way, a nice little gem: Reading Zaman (Times) backwards you get Namaz (Prayer) -, October 27th one could find following headline: "Gülen Movement forms supranational new elite".

Two days later, Fethullah Gülen's most eloquent mouthpiece, Mustafa Akyol, in the Turkish Daily News let follow this column.

The final sentences: "Alas, if the Islamic world will be able to breed a “dynamic” interpretation of its faith, then Turkey, it seems, will be one of its main architects. So, keep watching."

So be it!

For a beginning, apropos watching: what one would neither find in the articles above nor in this opulent file, you will find in this enlightening article by ... ? ... by ... ? right: by Mustafa Akyol.


Postscriptum:
Lots of links, dear readers?

Ah, it's just but a shortlist. :)

There are many more. Too many for one post.

More about this issue as soon as my closest friend is back. Today he sent a message.
"Am in Erzurum. The
worshippers of dead
sardines' heads are
forming a
supranational elite.
Until soon,
kind regards,
Tetrapilotomos."

A Fortune for Talking Blairney

What might, f.e. an engine-driver grossing about 2.100 Euro think when reading this?

500.000 pound plus an offer to give Tony Blair a 2,4 million-villa for "talking Blairney"?!

As one who would not envy a Ronaldinho or any other "star", because being offered such sums I should not deny, I do just ask:

Why would people pay such astronomic sums for ... almost nothing?

Why would - to give just another example - the German power company ENBW while announcing the necessity of rising energy prices, offer Al Gore 180.000 Dollars to appear in front of a handpicked audience?

Why would Al Gore demand: No photos during the event, no quotes, no articles?

Did he tell something different to his handpicked audience?

If not: why did ENBW-chairman Utz Claassen not charter a cinema for his "friends" / clientele? Would have been a tiny bit cheaper, wouldn't it?

Thus: Cui bono?

Who does get what advantage / profit when paying a fortune for ... almost nothing?

Apropos Al Gore: A well deserved laudation on (of? - ah these prepositions!) the "Peace"-Nobel Prize Winner and on the Nobel Prize Committee you will find here.

As for the rest:
Well, it's said the devil would always relieve himself on the biggest heap.

The Peace of the Night!

Does article 301 apply for Erdoğan ?

In an article published by Hürriyet, Bekir Coşkun essentially proclaimed that he would not recognize Abdullah Gül his president.

Obviously filled with deep indignation, in a "direct" response - via TV - (future Ex-) Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (RTE) said: "If he is not your president, then renounce your citizenship of this country."

As one of the politest blogger on this planet one might only say: Sic tacuisses . . .

However, can anybody imagine RTE being a philosopher?

Rather there will be a prosecutor putting his eminent magnificence on trial under article 301 for insulting the Turkishness of 53,41 per cent of all Turkish voters who did not vote for his (sic!) party.

Impossible? Cave Cihan, would-be padişah! Not in Turkey.

Thus, let's wait and . . . meanwhile read comments penned by two most respectable Turkish columnists: Yusuf Kanli and Murat Yetkin.

Who is dumb then?

Amazing coincidence? Two days ago I titled a post "From Privilege to Prejudice".

Reading this article you will be able to understand my surprise.

My first reaction: Raising brows; corners of my mouth starting an expedition to my ear-lobes; rolling a cigarette, entering the balcony and while smoking watching a film made in the studios of my brain, finally sighing: Think of Voltaire, Sean. Don't let this post become an epos. Cut it short.

And here I am. Trying to cut it short, the more as unlike quite a few journalists on this planet I am quite convinced that many if not most readers are wise enough to form an opinion themselves.

Therefore just a few thoughts I find worth to get their own post next week.
1. What is the controverse about? It's about an educational and therefore social problem of (not only!) the Turkish society.
2. Censorship would not change anything for the better.
3. Why would such a reality (?) show become such a "success"?
4. Why would one find in an Turkish English Daily so many Americanisms?
5. Dumb or not dumb ... is not the question! ... Shall we bet the producers of this magnificent show are men?! :-)

The Peace of the Night.

Human beings! What's inanimal?

Recently sitting together with my closest friends - a writer who, as told twice before, would not write for reasons I shall probably never understand - murmered: "Can't understand why Rushdie should be honoured with knighthood."
He got up, grasped the "Satanic Verses" from one of his shelves where the book stood side by side with the Bible and the Koran.
Noticing my brows producing a questionmark, he smilingly said: "My personal little comment."
And seriously he went on: "Unlike the majority of those who are burning flags, I did read it. Not very impressive. Certainly it would not have reached such a circulation without this enormous helpful sales campaign started in Iran."
"Hm, and why do you think, Rushdie will be given the knighthood?" I asked.
"Either a most influental advisor is owner of a big factory producing flags to supply the demand in certain countries, or they want to provoke those a little who have nothing better to do than proving an old Chines saying."
"What Chinese saying?" I asked.
"Those feeling insulted by someone else, confess to their intellectual inferiority."

When reading this article in the Turkish newspaper Zaman, I started to understand my friend who that evening had also recited Heinrich Heine: Where they burn books, they will end in burning human beings.
"While we are at it, guess in what context Heine wrote this."
"No idea."
"1821, in Almansor. It plays at the time of Inquisition in Spain, and the sentence is referring to the burning of the Koran. - You see, peace loving Christians can be as idiotic as Muslims.
"And I do start to have an uneasy sense of why you refuse to write."

Back to this guest-article. There is not much left to comment after what my closest friend somehow seems to have anticipated.
So I shall restrict to just two remarks according a certain diction.
The writer uses the word inhuman. Would he ever call something or someone inanimal?

I thought the writer believes in his God. Thus, I was surprised to read: "I believe Muslim peer Lord Ahmed's declaration is the voice of all Muslims around the word."

I do hope the poor man will not be prosecuted for his belief.

For the rest, reading what the other day I wrote about Subverting Language will do.

And tomorrow I think (sic) I shall write a little about stupidity and megalomania .

The Peace of the Night!