Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.
Last night Rich called and during the conversation he mentioned the Turks are trying to resolve differences of opinion he doesn’t know what are. Evidently their methods of persuading one another have drawn some attention.
I swan. Those Turks are always full of surprises. One day they’re running around everyone wearing a fez, next day wearing a fez is a criminal offense. They sit off there during WWI looking as though they’re just some little country getting in the way of progress, end up whipping the socks off the entire British Empire.
Everything went so bad the history writers for WWI barely allowed Turkey into the history books because of them not getting the socks whipped off them the way they were supposed to.
So, what then? City goes along being Constantanople 15 centuries or so, centerpoint for crusaders, Byzantine Empire, home of Janisaries [some of the more dedicated empire builders in human history] and the Cold War comes along, suddenly they’re Istanbul and more-or-less European.
Best just leave the whole matter alone. As the Four Lads observed in 1953, it’s nobody’s business but the Turks.
So Far From Heaven 
Loved reading your viewpoint of the matter. If you were a little closer to the action, you might be tempted to put your hand over your heart and say at least half of the ‘pledge of allegiance’, but from afar, one can enjoy the humor.
ShimonZ: The part of the world you live in is beyond my ken, probably beyond the understanding of whatever part of the US population could find it on the map. But even from here it’s apparent not much humor can be found in any of it if a person looks closely, as far back as he might wish to go. Thanks for the visit and observation. gracias, J
It’s a shame that the history of the Ottoman Empire is brushed over, if it’s even mentioned, in American public schools. In that the Ottoman Turks played major roles in world and European events is hardly ever mentioned. I was introduced to the history of the Ottoman Empire finally as a college sophomore. I found it to be an incredibly fascinating empire from its beginnings all the way to its demise after its alliance with the Central Powers during the Great War.
Hi Swabby. Yeah, I’ve sometimes wondered why that’s so. But western history’s mostly biased in favor of the places they were stopped and the people who stopped them. They came nigh onto having a lot more influence on European history than they turned out to have. Maybe people never got much joy thinking about that side of things. A twist here and a turn there and we’d all be bowing to Mecca more than we are prone to do. Gracias, J
http://youtu.be/xo0X77OBJUg And again, in 1990.