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.

The BBC, the Queen & God and his wife

As everybody knows 218 years ago a few French stormed the Bastille because they were sick to death of their king and wanted to get what they deserved.15 years later they got an emperor.
For sure a grand reason for a national holiday.
I could go on and on to praise the French, but topicality has priority. Let’s therefore speak about the BBC, the Queen, God and his wife.
Ten million readers of the braking news I posted July 12^th – whilst in Ulster Orangemen were celebrating their (sic) victory in a battle which took place 99 years and two days before the French started their (sic) Revolution, the latter of which is another term for replacing a king by an emperor – have asked, why the BBC somehow gave away the greatest story for the past 2020 or even 10.000 years, by mentioning it in a subordinate clause.
I confess I had no idea. This afternoon, though, I had just finished mowing the meadow, and relaxed by supporting the fight against terror (not my definition for smoking, but my former Chancellor’s of the Exchequer), when my closest friend entered the peaceful scenery.

And this was the dialogue designing itself intelligently.

- Sean. ... Heureka!
- What did you find out, Tetrapilotomos?
- Well, actually it is unfortunately not me who deserves the laurel wreath, but my source. And, of course, I should never write about.
- Your source?
- Absolutely honest, trustworthy and of an august lineage.
- Hear ye! And this middle of July.
- I shall ignore your attempt to mock me. To cut it short, let’s start this way: You watched Her Majesty in this so-called trailer, in which the BBC allegedly mixed end and beginning?
- Hm.
- Guess, why she was in such a hurry.
- They made a big fuss of it. Meanwhile everyone knows that ...
- Ha. Everybody thinks he knows. You know I am far from taking any conspiracy theory ...
- Tetrapilotomos, what is what your source found out!
- Patience, Sean, is a tree the roots of which taste bitter, but ...
- Did you ever read “With Burning Patience”?
- Skármeta’s homage to Neruda, who would not know? By the way, July 12th was Neruda’s 103rd birthday.
- Yes, yes, and Thoreau’s 190th. And July 8th everybody celebrated the 185th anniversary of Shelley’s dead, ...
- Celebrated?
- Tetrapilotomos!
- Be it, no poetry! Primitive prosa to extinguish your burning patience,
1.: Intelligent designed primate confirms he received foregiveness by God and his wife.
2.: Her Majesty immediately measuring the dimension intervenes.

HM: You must not write this. Imagine the Redeemer knocking at Vatican’s doors, saying “It’s me, Jesus!” - Benedict would order to take this deranged brother of the Lord to the loony bin.
BBC: But if we don’t write others will do. What will people say? Everybody knows we are simply the best!? But in such a ...
HM: All right gentleman. We allow you to hide the message by using ambiguous syntax.
BBC: Majesty, you are the Queen, but we do never use ambiguous syntax.
HM: Quod licet Iovi non licet bovi. And now arrange a date: Carpe diem.
And so – according to the motto “If you can’t beat them confuse them”, 3. the time-all conspiracy was set rolling.
They did not even stop from quoting the intelligent designed primate wrongly in the third but last paragraph, by now untruly and misleadingly writing my instead of his.

At this point I was completely confused and therefore asked: But why?

- Well, BBC readers would not notice the hidden sensation; at the most they would smile, shrug their shoulders and think it’s due to ambiguous syntax. Her majesty, though, knew better. And that’s why one could see her in damn a hurry in this trailer.
She was to give an audience ten minutes later - to God and his wife.

The Peace of the Night!

From Privilege to Prejudice

It's the blogger's privilege not to write. Thanks to God and his wife. To tell what I am used to tell (the truth): I am still too excited about the essential inherent interior essence which was hidden in the lead of an article published by BBC, and surprised that it did not yet receive the befitted worldwide attention.
In case you happened to not read yesterday's post you may feel free to catch up with what you haphazardly missed.

And now for something completely different:
It's a citizen's right to criticise politicians; at least it should be. The more as many of the latter are doing their best to deserve being punished in Devil's kitchen.
It's not just a journalist's right but duty to objectively criticise politicians; at least it should be taken as a duty.

As for myself, I do not seldom get close to ecstasy once I have started to grumble or even shout unseemy words at this or that politician; not, of course, in this blog. :) Only the TV and Schrödinger (our cat) could appear as witness. And I do feel at my best when it comes to generalize!!

Therefore - you wouldn't believe I could be serious? - I know it's good and even necessary at least sometimes to have someone who offers the chance to catch one's reflexion. For this reason tonight I recommend this column by Mehmed Ali Birand.
May you ponder his thoughts.

Breaking news: God is married!

If anyone should have doubted: Here you can read the very probable most amazing and miraculous story being told for the past 2020 if not 10.000 years.
And as it has been told by definitively an intelligently designed primate of the species homo sapiens, it's undoubtedly the truth and nothing but the truth.
Before reading some little hints, though, for better understanding.
The miracle does not meet hundred per cent scientific standards, as the intelligent designed primate seems to not have been able to substantiate his great experience.
And the journalist, although one can be sure he tried hard - after all, audiatur et altera pars is a basic principle for all members of this most wonderful of all professions (not to mix principle for maxim, please) - seems to not have been able to verify the miracle claimed by the most intelligently designed primate.
Anyway, in dubeo pro intelligently designed primates, the more as ...

Ah, see for yourself. Read the lead. Very carefully. Don't miss the most thrilling news: The intelligently designed primate received forgiveness by God and his wife!

Postskriptum:
I think I ought not not keep this back. A minute ago my closest friend muttered:
"This intelligently designed primate's statement does not lack of incredibility. When there is no sin, there is nothing to forgive, would you agree?"
"Yes, but ...
"Since two minutes I am cocksure that at least the vast majority of huMAN beings are designed, but this does not necessarily mean the designer and - as we do know from know on - his wife would design their creatures just as intelligent."
"But, ..."
"Doubting Sean, read this!" and he turned the book he had been reading so that I could read the line his erect middlefinger pointed at:

Schopenhauer - Genitals: the sounding-board of brain.

Banquo knew before

And here some lines about one of those creatures*
Banquo anticipated, when using the term
instruments of darkness.

The Peace of the Night!


* the term chosen may be accepted as homage to the increasing number of most intelligent primates who know Omnium has been intelligently designed ten thousand years ago.
Good morning!

Signs an Agnostic God "Accident"?

Today my closest friend who would not write for reasons which I may probably never understand asked me to read this.

I did, and afterwards shrugged my shoulders: "Nothing surprising. The Turkish are living in interesting times. So what?"

Said my closest friend: "According to an increasing number of Knowalls claiming - who would be surprised? - to live in the most wonderful country on this planet, the primate called homo sapiens did not develop by evolution, but is a direct descended of a prototype intelligently designed from loamy soil, ten thousand years ago."
Noticing my brows producing a questionsmark, he went on:
"Therefore one should not dare to ask, if bathing one's nurslings a little too hot is widespread a custom in "God's own created country".
I could not help but nod. "The more as the path to hell is undoubtedly paved with frivolous questions. At most they would shrug their shoulders and praise their Lord's wondrous paths. But now, surely you will let me know to what extent your exquisitely well-shaped words deal with what you asked me to read."
"Well, taking for granted everything is relative, this applies for intelligence, too, doesn't it?"
"Hm."
"So, given a creator's relative intelligence, all such kinds of ruthless idiots ..."
"May I ask for a little more contentance?"
"... okay, would you feel better if I added, in the classical sense?
"Go on."
... mentioned in this very article could be the product of accidental design, couldn't they?"
"You mean all fathers being stoned or drunk while ..."
"Not necessarily. According to Anatol France Accident might perhaps be God's pseudonym when he does not wish to sign with his proper name."
"Would you please come to the inner roots of the kernel?"

And he did.
But who am I to tell that according to my closest friend the other night he had an apparition, and since he knows all and a little more?
All I know is he would never write "God is an agnostic" ...

Make Water, not War!

When reading this my heart rose like a falcon up to the sky!

Smilingly I shall light a candle for these humble people in the cathedral of my heart:
May their dreams come true, and General Büyükanit make water, not war!

The Peace of the Night!

"Hooded Briton" speaks out

Prologue: I am proud of myself. Writing 80 lines, deleting 77, and - bang! - ready is a short post.

Asking the question one should almost always ask (Cui bono?) it is no question why the book being introduced in this article would be published in Turkey first rather than in the United Kingdom and/or the U.S.A..

What about cool(ing) headscarves?

Turkish scientists develop cooling textiles.

Great idea. Unfortunately a little late to cool the temper of certain politicians and thus improve the quality of the election campaign in Turkey..

Imagine: Erdoĝan, Baykal et al. addressing their audience by wearing cool(ing) headscarves . . .

The Infidel and the Hottentots

Following an episode briefly described here, in the TV news one could see a man shouting in despair (quoting literally): "I beg Abdul Rashid Ghazi to let our children go. We shall follow any jihad against the infidel, but here Muslims are fighting against Muslims."

This reminds me of a Maghrebinian woman last year complaining about being discriminated although having a French passport: "Why do they do so? We are human beings, too. We are no Hottentots."

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!

Your turn, Lysistrata

Oh dear. Reading this makes really difficult to tame one's fingers not to produce indecent words. So I should like to give over these huMAN judges to the Devil's Kitchen. He would find the right rants. Although I am not sure the letters of alphabet will do. Perhaps it's time to create some more.

But one decent wish should be allowed.
Waking up tomorrow, I should like to hear this breaking news:
"On behalf of and authorised by 28 million Iranian women Lysistrata delivers the very ultimatum!

The Peace of the Night.

P.S. Ah, resorting oneself either to wishful thinking and/or swearing; talking Billingsgate, railing, cursing and execrating: All this is fine from time to time, and - yes - it demonstrates, it can demonstrate solidarity; a kind of solidarity.
Unfortunately, though, it does not change anything. It does, f.e. not help these women.
And that is why sometimes I do ask myself, if what I am writing here and others there is not just a sign of helplessness, of defeatism, of ... loquacious cowardice.

As Heinrich Heine said:
Der Knecht singt gerne Freiheitslieder
des Abends in der Schenke.

The peasant loves singing rebel songs [songs of freedom]
in the pub at night.

Subverting language

"Subverting democracy". Attracting headline. What democracy? Democracy à la Egypt? Hm. Probably not. Not in Al Ahram.
And indeed.
Still, very interesting. It is mostly interesting to read "foreign" newspapers. Widening the horizon. Especially when you are a frog living in a font.

Well ... but this is not about frog-minded people.
Neither it is about the issue, Joseph Massad is writing about.

It is about language and intelligent people. Mr. Massad seems to be intelligent. Otherwise he would not teach at Columbia University; otherwise the idea could suggest itself Mr Massad is being sponsored by the country which he is attacking such vehemently.

Why do so many people who should be able to know better when talking about whatever conflict so often tend to subvert (sic) and deceive their readers, their listeners by telling only one part of the story (not to say truth).
A contribution to solve whatever conflict is not made with such rhetoric.

Ah, to cut it short:
Seems one is getting pretty close to the essential inherent interior essence which is hidden in the root of the kernel, when hazarding to guess that - at least quite a few; and unfortunately too many - intellectuals are intelligent bipeds without brains.

The peace of the night! :)

A mess too late to fix?

There is another article in today's Turkish Daily News (TDN), which is interesting to read.

All facts mentioned seem correct; even the final sentence.

Now there do exist quite a few contradictory, often amusing aphorisms either about optimism/optimists and pessimism/pessimists.
As almost always, one could take the one fitting best to one's own convictions, one's own spirit, one's own mood.

After all, such behaviour seems part of the essentiell inherent interior essence hidden in the root of the kernel of everything.

So let a humble agnostic who deeply respects any form of belief as long as the believers do tolerate his conviction admit that he fears Gwynne Dyer's final sentence could prove true, but that he would rather prefer building a temple for an ISM.

And let's call it/her/him OPTIM. :-)

How amazing: Global Unease with Major World Powers

There are some interesting thoughts to be read in Sylvia Tiryaki's TDN-article about survey datas recently published by Washington based Pew Research Center.

But what is the news?

Rather seems to prove - like so often - as correct what can be found in Henry David Thoreau's "Walden" .

[...] If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? [...] A news which I seriously think a ready wit might write a twelve months or twelve years beforehand with sufficient accuracy."

Lichtenberg knew before

Tonight, June 29th, 2007 second channel of German television, ZDF, presented following story:
"Der wahre Kolumbus" (The true Columbus).

Congratulations!

The so-called news is not as new, though.

It could, f.e., have already been read as a news August 7th, 2006.

News? Really?

Already Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799) knew:

"The first American who discovered Columbus, made a terrible discovery."

After all, he got it

The designated Ex-president of the United States of America, after all, has reportedly found some tiny nuclei of the ingredients, which but are significant parts and parcels of the essential inherent interior essence, in which -as generally known - is hidden the root of the kernel of everything.

Security is security is . . .

Just in case you do think of security when the word is mentioned.

Security is almost omnipresent, f.e. in Iraq where the people day by day more and more are enjoying the sweet fruits of enduring freedom, what may easily be seen in this tiny nutshell.

The murder is out!

Those having been reading "The Third Policeman" will not only know the name of the author (no link needed, therefore); being asked to recite the very last question they would, of course, be able to do so blindfold; moreover, they even could while lying in Morpheus' and respectively or somebody else's arms.
Thus, why repeating what everybody knows?
Those few blissfully ignorant are requested to immediately enter the nearest bookshop and order the master’s piece. After reading they may return and breathe the magically charming cantrip of stand hangstill - the sublime sublimeness of being part of Omnium.

End of the beforegoing.

And now to cut a long post short:
About seventy years after being asked, one of the last most brainteasing and riddling conundrums of all mysteriously puzzling enigmas in literature has been solved:
The ominous bicycle has been found.

A Director for Devil's Kitchen

By reading this article by ELİF ŞAFAK published a while ago* in TDN (Turkish Daily News) you will find the Turkish author quoting a Director of Cultural (sic!) Affairs:
"Honor killings apply only to those who run away without informing their families, who deceive their husbands, and not to the innocent."

As this humble blogger's maxime is not to insult any animals, genitals et al. by voicing his disgust - which admittedly proves to be extremely ardous to comply with, at times -, I do ask my readers to carefully study what this huMAN might be called in Devil's Kitchen. [Link may follow, hopefully soon.]

Well, as said, no swearing here, I swear.
But there is one thing I wish:
May this Director of Cultural Affairs lose all his teeth!
Well, may one remain.
For toothache - 59 minutes per hour.

The Peace of the Night!

Wicked WARshippers

What happened to Zakia Zaki and Shokiba Sanga Amaaj, unfortunately, must be taken as another evidence for the deep respect Afghan women are being paid by godlike huMAN beings,

Trying to find the essential inherent interior essence which is hidden in the root of the kernel of everything, one might be inspired to ask:

• Do those huMAN beings not trust in the one's ability to judge they pretend to worship?
• Do those huMAN beings fear the one's judgement could not meet their desires?
  

In other words:

• Do those huMAN beings not believe that "their" god is a bloody killer, and thus are playing god by grace of their own?

At this point my closest friend - a writer who would never write the following for reasons I might probably never understand - murmured: "At least, too many bloody gods on this planet."

Bridging a gap

For all those contemporaries, who do feel their holiday spoilt all inclusive (sic) when f.e. noticing a wheelchair in the opposite corner whilst having breakfast: Here you find a good news.

Those who would not dare to claim money back, as some of those addressed above did in the past, - yet without success - might be inspired to ask themselves, what may have been the root of the kernel in which this very market gap dozed from the very beginning of time, until a homo sapiens sapiens in the labour room of his brains bore an idea to bridge it.

The Peace of the Night!

Final is final is . . .

In respond to an alarming report Australia's Prime Minister John Howard decided to seize control of Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory. Banning alcohol and pornography and sending military seemingly are thought to cure a "national emergency".

Well, there have been quite a few reports in the past 30 years.
One, released by the parliament in 1977 (Parl Paper Number: 299/77) was titled.

Final report on alcohol problems of Aborigines.

Tit for Tat

The Pakistan Ulema Council bestowing the title of Saifullah (Sword of Islam) on Osama Bin Laden in response to a British knighthood for Salman Rushdie let arise three humble questions:
- Where will the inauguration take place? And when?
- Why did none of the purported 2.000 members of these undoubtedly extreme honourable Islamic scholars inform the Leading Source of Pakistan first, so that it readers had to content themselves with 18 lame lines refering to two foreign resources?

Right now my closest friend - a writer who wouldn't write for reasons I shall possibly never understand - murmured:
"When there is no god, there exists no blasphemy, would you agree?"

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

Karl Krauss would probably say:
"Where the sun of wisdom is sinking deepest,
even dwarfs are casting gigantic shades."

Nothing new under the sun :)

Actually, I should like to see Turkey with all their Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Kurds, Laz etc. - entering the EU within my lifetime.
For quite a few reasons.
For the beginning the first:

Such promising politicians are nothing new under the sun.

As the first lesson almost any politician seems to learn:
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur. *

XXIII

I love a girl more fickle than a straw: like other girls there's no relying on her faith more than the word of the mouse that fell from a beam into the beer.

The mouse leaped in the new-brewed beer, and what did the good gray cat do, but spring into the vat where the mouse drowned and lift up its head out of the beer? But the cat did not leap in lest the mouse should drown, but because of the oath he swore, when he was lifted out of the beer, to please the cat before returning up into the thatch. But when the mouse was out, he went up among the laths, and taking refuge in the roof, said noth­ing from up there.

"Mouse, keep your word : you've gone too far!"

"The oath I gave in the vat, does not bind me here: and a creature I trusted when I was drunk, I do not trust next day."
And so, my dear, there is no trust in mice, and so indeed Gwen, he who trusts them is deceived.