title, what title?

Hatay'da emperyalist oyunlar oynanıyor ( link ). Bu sefer figüran değil, sahne arkasındayız. Nedense Bob Dylan'ın Highway 61 Revisited şarkısının sözleri aklıma geldi: Bir sonraki Dünya Savaşı'nı çıkarmaya çalışan Gezgin kumarbaz çok sıkılmıştı, "Daha önce böyle birşeye kalkışmadım" diyen Tertipçisi önce koltuğundan düşüyordu, "61. Otobanda, beyazlatıcıları güneşe yaydık mı, Hallederiz kolayca bu işi de!"

What the f!*k should I make of the Opening Ceremony? New York Times describes it aptly as a " Bollywood version of a sixth-grade play. " I call it -excuse me for not being humble- an overblown, self-congratulatory,condescending, revisionist, provincial Eurovision show. New York Times describes my prime discomfort far better than I can: "Britain offered a display of humor and humbleness that can only stem from a deep-rooted sense of superiority." But there were three things that made me write this post, rather than ignoring the opening ceremony like the Eurovisions. First and foremost: The elephants in the room, which go by the name of Colonialism and Imperialism. They define the celebrated "achievements" of UK as much as Industrial Revolution. At least in Sydney the Aborigines played an important part. In London, it was as if the hardworking people of the Great Britain achieved everything by their bare hands... Sorry, but placing some actors of Afric...

Ayhan Sicimoğlu Türkiye'nin en az deodorant kullanan Avrupa ülkesi olmasına karşı haklı bir kampanya başlattı (Link: https://twitter.com/ayhansicimoglu/status/218245972868870145 ). Dün tweetlerini okurken 2 Temmuz olduğu gerçeği kafama dank etti ve tüm ülkeyi saran iç bulandırıcı bir koku sardı her yanımı (link: https://twitter.com/actoker/status/219754790912131072 ): Yanmış çocuk cesedi kokusu . Bu kokuyu çıkarmak için yetkili tek organ olan meclisde ise ağız kokusu hakimdi dün. AKP İzmir Milletvekili Ali Aşlık Sivas sanıklarının en az yananlar kadar masum olduğunu buyurmuş. Kimsenin masumiyeti için konuşmak haddime değil ama emin olduğum iki şey var; kimse Sivas'ta yakılan 15 yaşındaki Menekse ve 13 yaşındaki Koray Kaya kadar masum değildi ve bu ülke ağız, barut ve ceset kokuyor.

My goal is to finish Joyce's magnum opus before the next Bloomsday. The Germans got it right once again. "Know thy self!."

"Six Four" - "23" - "Candle" - "Never Forget." These words does not exists on the Chinese side of the internet. In these wild days of the Internet, it seems like what does not show up in your search results, is simply not there. So the Chinese authorities are using the very same routers and servers that made the so-called "social-web revolution" possible to erase an authentic People's revolution in the Peoples Republic of China... In case you have forgotten, in the middle ages before Twitter and Facebook "revolutionized" the "way we interact" or before the "Arab Spring" brought fresh winds of "democracy" to the "suppressed" people of the world the fire  it was still possible to gather hundreds of thousands of people around the common cause of ending repression. In case you have forgotten, or never heard of it, its name was Tianenmen: Source: (Catherine Henriette/AFP/Getty Im...

On world poetry day I listed some of my favorite poets. To my shame I forgot to add the great American poet Allen Ginsberg to the list. In my biannual "I've-got-to-update-my-mobile-playlist" routine, I format my mobile memory -I am sooo happy not being shackled to itunes btw-  and sift through my music library, looking for new discoveries and re-affirm the classics which are always included in the list. The unusual, one-time duet of the Clash and Allen Ginsberg titled "The Capitol Air" is one of those classics. Ginsberg sings one of his acerbic social critiques with the Clash in the background. I found out recently that this delightful punk rock-poetry coming together was not one time. In 1982 movie Poetry in Motion 20 contemporary American poets sang their poems. Ginsberg was once again reciting his poems with punk rock in the background. I had quoted the Turkish singer/songwriter Sezen Aksu in my entry for World Poetry day: Poetry is dying out...

This is so gruesome and disgusting that I want to puke. Some researcher in Switzerland proposes caressing the new born calves for few hours every day, so that they become accustomed to humans. This supposedly reduces the stress the animals suffer when they undergo otherwise pleasant tasks like castration, earmarking, getting burnt with numbers that calves go through as they grow up. What for? So that their low level of stress makes their meat more tender and more tasty when they are brutally murdered by the same people who caressed them as a calf. Surely, meat is murder . ( Original Article in German )

Does he look like the composer of not one but two of the most famous bass lines in popular music? Well, he does not. Rather, he is the composer of of three of them.

When the name of the great Mexican Revolutionary Zapata is the name of the production company that promotes a once-popular Turkish Schlager- arabesque singer.

To celebrate World Poetry Day, here are some of my favorite poets an their poems: Rainer Maria Rilke - Der Ölbaumgarten - The Olive Garden   Pablo Neruda - Ode to the Onion   Federico Garcia Lorca   - Romance Sonámbulo - Sonambulo Romance   Ezra Pound  - Cino   T.S. Eliot  - The Wasteland   Bob Dylan Visions of Johanna Poetry deserves celebration. As the Turkish poet Sezen Aksu wrote 19 years ago: Eyvah şiirler azalmış, günümüz perişan Yanıyor içimizdeki koskoca orman -- Poetry is dying out, How miserable is our day, The great forest in our hearts, Is burning out

This is very good by the way, thank you. It's a coffee latte? What is that, milk and coffee? Milk and coffee! Who would have thought? Milk and coffee, oh my god! What a drink! It's milk and coffee mixed together. We gotta go there, sit down, have a donut, have a bagel!! After the first two seasons I can say with confidence that this is almost as good as the real thing .

Chicken döner from the look of it. For more hilarious pictures of the Great Leader looking at things: http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/

Geçen Cumartesi bir aile büyüğünden şu kısa hikayeyi dinledim: Tanrı'ya şeytan ile insanı sormuşlar: İkisini de ben yarattım, Şeytan'dan değil İnsan'dan korkarım demiş. Şans eseri bir gün sonra yayınlanan Behzat Ç'nin yaratılanların en canisi, en vahşisi insanların ülkemizdeki vukuatlarından 80li yıllara denk gelenlerini konu etmişti. Kurtlar Vadisi, Yıldız Masalı, Kuzey Güney, Fatmagül'ün Suçu Ne gibi "gerçekçi" ve "değerli" dizilerin yapımcıları alınmasın ama Türk televizyonlarında belki de sinemalarında görmeye alışmadığımız gerçeklikte işkence görüntülerinin arasında insan doğasının vahşet kadar ayrılmaz parçası olan evlat sevgisi üzerinden ilerledi hikaye. Aklıma U2 İstanbul konseri sonrası blog'a eklediğim ve U2'nun beni en çok etkileyen şarkısı geldi: Kaybolanların Anneleri. Kaybolanlarin Anneleri U2 Geceyarisi, Ogullarimizi, kizlarimizi kopardilar aldilar bizden. Hala kalp atislarini duyariz, Kalp atislarini... ...

Christopher Hitchens 1949–2011 He did not go gently into the that good night...

Things are about to get even rougher for Europe. And no, I do not feel any Schadenfreude. Just feeling sad as my cynicism about politics grows and grows and grows .

Avrupa Futbol Şampiyonası öncesi canlı canlı ateşe atılan ya da yavrularını emzirirken başından vurulan köpeklerin fotoğraflarını görmüşsünüzdür. Ülkeye para akıtacak Batı Avrupalı turistçikler korkmasın diye yaşanan bu vahşeti önlemek için dinleyecekleri her ne kadar şaibeli olsa da Ukrayna hükümetinin dikkatine açılan bu imza kampanyasını destekleyebilirsiniz. Eğer köpeklerin öldürülmesi sizi üzüyorsa, bir seferliğine de neden köpeklere misal kuzulardan, tavuklardan ya da buzağılardan daha fazla değer verdiğinizi sorgulamanızı rica ederim. Süt kuzusu demişken etin nerden geldiğini de unutmamak gerek.

Being the geek I am, I insisted on our library to be arranged alphabetically. Randomly, two books about Sean Penn and Caravaggio landed next to each other. So to celebrate two great artists, here is my favorite Carravagio painting: And my favorite Sean Penn film:

"Bana hep insanın akli bir varlık olduğu ögretildi, Ama bundan hep kuşku duydum, Çünkü aşk var hayatta, özveri var, feragat var, Acı çekmek var, kısacası nedensizlik var, Ve bunların en iyi ifadesi akıl dışılıktır, Beşiktaş, Futbolun akıldışı yanlarıyla övünmek, Bunlarla gurur duymaktır." "I was taught that man is a rational creation, But I was always skeptical, Since there are things in life like Love, devotion, sacrifice, pain All without a reason, And all of these things are best expressed as irrationality, Beşiktaş is to praise the irrationality in football, Beşiktaş is to be proud of the irrationality in football." Zeki Demirkubuz - Director Link to the video.

... who replied my prayers yesterday... If you watch this without a tear in your eyes, you gotta reconsider your love for football...