Ayla Albayrak, a journalist with the Wall Street Journal has recently been convicted in absentia by the Erdoğan controlled Turkish court system. The trial leading to this conviction came about after she wrote a very fair and truthful article: Urban Warfare Escalates in Turkey’s Kurdish-Majority Southeast. I myself had been there around the same time (As The... Continue Reading →
What saddens me more than anything is that we aren't discussing the reasons why an NFL player would feel strongly enough about something to take a knee despite all the pressure and ridicule he has received.
My heart breaks for Izmir and the victims of this second national tragedy to strike Turkey in a year that is not yet a week old. My heart also breaks for the countless victims caught in the crossfire of the multiple simultaneous conflicts that are ravaging my home of Southeast Turkey as well as Syria and northern Iraq. When will it end?
The fastest goal ever scored in a World Cup Match was eleven seconds. Hasan Şükür was the man who pulled that off in a match against South Korea. While that name might not mean that much to those in the West, anybody here in Turkey would immediately know who I was talking about. Şükür was one of... Continue Reading →
It is not quite 4PM. It is also not quite 40 degrees. For you Americans reading this, the temperature is sitting at a little over 100 degrees. I have just got on a bus (a van, really) that will take me back to Gaziantep. I have spent less than two days here and now I... Continue Reading →
While the people celebrate democracy on the streets...
First of all I want to say thank you. As the world's attention last night was riveted on my back yard, an overwhelming number of you contacted me through the River Walk, facebook, messenger, whatsap, hangouts, and the like to let me know your thoughts and prayers are with me and with my beloved home,... Continue Reading →
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result." Have you ever heard that quote? Most commonly it is attributed to Albert Einstein. Personally, I doubt it. Einstein was a scientist and they tend to do the same thing over and over again all the time to... Continue Reading →
In 2014 thirty-two thousand six hundred seventy-five people were killed in America in fatal car accidents. That same year, thirty-eight people were killed in terrorist attacks in Turkey. I am safer walking the streets in Istanbul than I am driving a car in America. Not only that, I feel safer. I have lived in the Bronx and... Continue Reading →
The only way to describe my experience here so far is to quote two great individuals, Morpheus and Slavoj Zizek: "Welcome to the desert of the real"
Kingdoms Collide 