Today's Potluck Quotes (4 of 10): Richard Nixon

Greetings to those of you enjoying your lunch break at the New Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant in Salt Lake City, Utah, where it is almost noon now, or any of you who are a taking a break from the 2016 Rio Olympics where Team USA is now playing Team Japan in women's volleyball.

One of the fun aspects of these Olympics has been following former American Olympic gymnast and UCLA Bruins standout gymnast Samantha Peszek use social media to document her experiences in Brazil covering the games, which have included sharing a ride with former gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi whom our friend blogger Chris Knight from Reidsville, NC, ran into in an airport once.

Ok that's enough digression; here's today's quote of the day from the late Richard Nixon (1913-1994); yes. of course, we are doing this because it's also an election year here in les etats unis:

"If you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But, if you take no risks, you win no victories."

Wow! Even though he is no longer alive, it seems like Nixon would have been a perfect spokesperson for match.com

According to the web site for the Nixon Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif., CIA director John Brennan will speak there on Aug. 24th at 1:00 p.m. about how intelligence was gathered during the Cold War when Nixon was president.

http://www.slcnewdragon.com

http://www.uclabruins.com

https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/

10 for 10 (3rd Entry): Love Those Zoo Animals

Greetings to our blog readers in Saudi Arabia, India, and France....

Alas, we are running way, way behind in our efforts to post 10 entries in honor of our 10th anniversary of blogging, which is on Sept. 21st.

Life has been crazy and zany lately, and I promise our good friend Chris Knight of Reidsville, NC, that it is not due to watching hours of the '70s English sitcom "Are You Being Served?" on Youtube.

Here is a link to the Denver Zoo, the Philadelphia Zoo and the North Carolina Zoo (in Asheboro, NC, near Greensboro) in case you want to see a giraffe or another zoo animal of your choice in real life.

http://www.denverzoo.org/

http://www.philadelphiazoo.org/

http://www.nczoo.org/

http://www.zoo.com.sg/ (A link to the Singapore Zoo for our world audience)

Things To Do List Satire: Calling the Baltimore Sun

It's a Sunday night here in Roanoke, Va., and that only means one thing: Listening to music from the '30s and '40s on our local NPR radio station (to the folks at WVTF, just kidding, we love what you do for us and I am actually listening to '30s and '40s music........even though Steely Dan and Supertramp are really my speed)......

Oh, about our last entry, yeah, that was an April Fool's Joke, but we did watch the Final 4 games on tv. And, we didn't tape them, so there was no avoiding the annoying Southwest Airlines ads.

So, since there is not too much going on tonight until "Mad Men" comes on, we thought we would do a satirical things to do list for this coming week:

1. Get the current issue of "Writer's Digest"

2. Actually write something, even a haiku.

3. Drive to Winchester, Va., to find the late country singer Patsy Cline's grave (pict. center)

4. Call "The Baltimore Sun" and ask them to send today's Sunday edition of their newspaper to my address even though I live six hours away from them (the Baltimore Orioles start their season tomorrow....we think)....

5. Mapquest directions to Portland, Maine, so you can see a Portland Sea Dogs minor league baseball team, even though Maine is pretty freaking far from Virginia.

6. Play Ms. Pac-Mac for 6.5 hours

7. Watch the entire first two seasons of the '70s BBC comedy series "Are You Being Served?" (pictured bottom......I think my friend Chris Knight is the only person my age who actually watches this show regularly....)

8. Laundry

9. Carwash

10. Dishes

http://wvtf.org/

http://www.writersdigest.com/

http://www.visitwinchesterva.com/

http://www.baltimoresun.com/

https://www.facebook.com/portlandseadogs

http://www.aybscentral.com/

http://www.theknightshift.com/

Quotes from Off the Beat and Path (5 of 6): Sarah Silverman

Since we fully realize we will never the blog hits that Andrew Sullivan or our good friend Chris Knight will get from their blogs, we hope that by quoting the always brilliant lightning rod  stand-up comedian/actress Sarah Silverman that a few people in Ecuador pay attention to us.

Silverman, 43,  is an agnostic Jew who admits that she likes Jesus; religion is one of her favorite topics to make fun of.

Here is one of her quotes:

"I have a ton of Holocaust stuff, and some of it is hard core."

http://www.andrewsullivan.com

Tweets from Sunday Night: Scientists Study Crabs

We were hoping to get a blog post in yesterday as July 20th is the date when the late American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man on the moon 45 years ago yesterday; conversely, also on July 20th, the late Turkish prime minister Bulent Ecevit decided to send Turkish troops to Cyprus to protect the Turkish Cypriot residents of the island 40 years ago yesterday. This started a short, but bloody war between Turkey and Greece over the island nation, which remains divided to this day.

Since we had a tweet from an actor pretending to be God, we wanted to use an image of George Burns, but when we couldn't find one that was suitable, we chose instead to go with the fringe minister Rev. Johnny Robertson in Martinsville, Va., who was once in a public feud with our friend and fellow blogger Chris Knight of Reidsville, NC.

Here are last night's tweets:

1. Ali Spignola (an electronics musician): I've never seen an owl that wasn't pissed off (top image).

2. WNYC (New York NPR station): A black woman (Mikki Kendell) disguised herself online to see what the Internet was like as a white man.

3) J. Freedom du Lac (features writer for The Washington Post): Can discarded sea containers help create more affordable housing, or is this mostly a gimmick?

4) Washington Post: Babies start mentally rehearsing speech long before they actually say their first words.

5) Tweet of God: I have absolutely no plan for your life (middle image, read second paragraph)

6) Charlotte Observer: :School starts Monday for 2,500 Charlotte students.

7) Baltimore Sun: Scientists tally crabs and see how reef building affects them.

The Sunday Washington Post Comics Survey: Lio Gets the Gold in the Giant Slalom

We were initially going to use an image of the Rev. Johnny Robertson from Martinsville, Va., which is some six  hours south of Washington, DC., a person whom my friend Chris Knight has made fun of quite well, but we are going with some little green men instead.

Today, Mark Tatulli's "Lio" comic strip, our personal favorite comic strip from the Sunday "Washington Post" featured the title character enjoying what seemed to be a radical preacher on an old tv with an antenna!

Second place goes to "The Argyle Sweater" in which a familiar Popeye character is at the center of the strip, in a police lineup no place. And, third-place finisher "Brewster Rockit," which is also carried by the "News and Record" in Greensboro, NC, had a great parody of selfies!

Keith Knight's strip "Knight Life" (Keith and Chris are not related; in fact Keith is African-American and Chris is white) poked fun of the 'most interesting man in the world' ads on commercials for the Mexican beer Dos Equis also made it into our survey at #5.

Here is our top ten:

1. Lio

2. The Argyle Sweater

3. Brewster Rockit

4. Sherman's Lagoon

5. Knight Life

6. Pearls Before Swine

7. Reply All

8. Dustin

9. Candorville

10. Prickly City

http://www.gocomics.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.knightshift.blogspot.com

No Blog Entry Today as I am Sick as a Cat (we couldn't resist)

We believe this is a Van cat or an Angoran cat both of which are native to Turkey. We also think this image is from a cat club in Ankara, Turkey, which is the capital.

I suppose this is a good time to mention that The Beatles' tribute band Abbey Road Live, our of Athens, Ga., will play at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro (Chapel Hill), NC, on Jan. 17th at 9:00 p.m., and they are offering a matinee show on Saturday at 3:00 p.m. Prices for the Friday show range from $10-12 and the Saturday matiness is $8 for children and $10 for adults.

We also want to salute our good friend Chris Knight of Reidsville, NC, for both the 10th anniversary of his blog (he is two years ahead of us) and his 5,000th blog entry. The latest entry is a moving tribute to Bill Overstreet, a World War II fighter pilot, from Roanoke, Va., our hometown, who died this week.

Knight is not to be confused with our other friend (well, in the Facebook sense) Keith Knight, who is an award-winning cartoonist for his work with "K-Chronicles" and his daily comic strip "Knight Life."

http://www.theknightshift.blogspot.com

http://www.kchronicles.com


http://www.catchannel.com

http://www.catscradle.com

http://www.catchannel.com

The Weekly Grocery List

In the early days of our blogging ventures, we used to simply post grocery lists as we couldn't conjure up anything else back in that stone age era of 2005.

Today, there are simply too many things going on at once and we have more competition thanks to Facebook, Twitter and my friend Chris Knight, who reportedly has the most popular blog in the world (that is a joke, but he gets more hits than we get).

Hence, we are returning to the grocery list. And, these are items that we either need to get at the grocery store or we added to fill space; here we go:

1. Tomatoes (Our friend Bruce Piephoff from Greensboro, NC, has a great song called "Home Grown Tomatoes")

2. Oatmeal

3. Milk

4. Nutella (we went with an image of the Turkish equivalent Cokokrem to be original)

5. ice cream

6. bananas (America's favorite Costa Rican import, after coffee)

7. Sunday Washington Post (Love 'Date Lab' and Keith Knight's Comic Strip "Knight Life")

8. shaving cream

9. apples

10. cat toys

..........There you go!

http://www.theknightshit.blogspot.com

http://www.ulker.com.tr

http://www.facebook.com/brucepiephoff

Tilly Gokbudak is NOT Moving to Bulgaria (It was an April Fool's Prank)

For those of you in El Salvador, Dubai and Sri Lanka who read this blog on a daily basis, it is time to fully fess up. Though the American College of Sofia in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia is a real place, I have not accepted a job as an English teacher there. In fact, I have not been to Bulgaria since our family traveled through there en route from Belgrade, Serbia (it was the capital of Yugoslavia then) to Istanbul, Turkey, when I was a child in the 1970s.


We also need to add a correction to yesterday's piece as the national airlines of Bulgaria is actually called Balkan Bulgarian Airlines; perhaps they can find you a flight from JFK or Dulles to Sofia or Varna (another Bulgarian city).

Approximately 11-14 people fell for my prank yesterday, but it is nothing compared to what my good friend and fellow blogger Chris Knight of Reidsville, NC, did for April Fool's Day of 2009.

For that prank, Knight convinced people all over the globe that a radical minister named the Rev. Johnny Robertson from the Church of Christ in Martinsville, Va., created an unholy scene in Vatican City, of all places!

Here is a sample of that entry (we will post a link bellow):

"Johnny Robertson has been arrested in Vatican City following what is being called a 'coordinated and persistent' attempt to threaten Pope Benedict XVI within the very Papal Apartments of the Apostolic Palace."

Knight said in a April 9, 2009, entry that he received messages from both the State Department and Vatican City expressing concern about the 'incident.'

http://theknightshift.blogspot.com/2009/04/breaking-hard-johnny-robertson-arrested.html

http://www.theknightshift.blogspot.com


http://www.air.bg/en (Balkan Bulgarian Airlines)

http://www.acs.bg (American College of Sofia)

http://www.bulgaria_embassy.org (Bulgarian Embassy in Washington, DC)

http://www.allaboutclowns.com

Silly Image to Fill Space- Apathy

Hmmmmmmm..............

Yeah............

I thought about going back to our quotes from Sunday comic strips, especially since we love "Knight Life" by Keith Knight, which is awesome today as it always is, and, it is funnier than "Hagar the Horrible," but............

I'm just not in the mood.

By the way, Keith Knight is not related to my friend Chris Knight, who has a birthday today.

One is an African-American living in Los Angeles, the other is a white guy living in Reidsville, NC.

If you wanna know who is who or whom is who, well.............

Just Google it (or, maybe Bing it)........................

Virtual Postcard from Kentucky-Mammoth Cave

We are featuring a Virtual Postcard from Kentucky (we featured another VP from the Bluegrass State last November) with an image of the world-famous Mammoth Cave National Park,which is 87 miles away from its nearest airport in Owensboro, Ky.

Kentucky is one of the eight states we are featuring in regards to our rather lengthy Thanksgiving road trip (which concluded yesterday, but we go back on Tues.) was from Roanoke, Virginia, to Denver, Colorado.

Among the highlights of the day was a discussion about food dishes which are actually made from the super-sweet Captain Crunch cereal which all of us who grew up in the '70s are well-acquainted with; these dishes include Captain Crunch fried chicken and Captain Crunch french toast. Somehow, I suspect that Dr. Mehmet Oz (Dr. Oz), a fellow Turkish-American who has reached celebrity status as a good health advocate, would not recommend either of those platters.

It was also fun to watch the Macy's Thankgiving Day Parade from New York on tv this morning, among the highlights were seeing Kermit the Frog, Sonic the Hedgehog and McKayla Maroney, the American Olympic gymnast who has now become a meme for her famous disappointed facial squint.

And, we are happy to report that our good friend Chris Knight of Reidsville, NC, deep-fried a turkey for the tenth year in a row without doing bodily harm to himself. That is indeed something to be thankful for!http://www.kentuckytourism.com

http://www.theknightshift.blogspot.com

http://www.mckaylamaroney.com

Tweets of the Night_ Politics, Sports and Religion

AAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! This just in: The Washington Nationals have lost in the deciding Game 5 to the St. Louis Cardinals by a 9-7 score.

In case you are wondering, the third image is of an Armenian Orthodox priest. Since I am a Turkish-American, I thought of no greater irony, my favorite word in the English language, than to use an image of him for this entry. Above him is the American vice president Joe Biden and a kid playing little league baseball.

Here are 12 tweets from about 2.5 hours ago:

1) @MLBJesus (Major League Baseball Jesus): Thou shall pitch Strasburg in Game 5.

2) @JournalNow (Winston-Salem Journal): High Point University poll shows post-deabte bump for Romney among North Carolina voters.

3) @cnni (CNN International): Report says Turkey to avoid Syrian airspace.

4) @_faris (Faris): Saturday morning, the life version of "The Walking Dead."

5) @timesland (Roanoke Times Sports): Halifax County comes back from 20-0 and defeats Franklin county 37-36 in double over-time.

6) @seattletimes (Seattle Times): "Arrest in Seattle Tour de Banks robberies."

7) @katrinanation (Katrina vanden Heuvel, managing editor of the liberal journal "The Nation"): "Joe Biden may have bracing set of old teeth but Paul Ryan lying through his young teeth."

8) @sesameworkshop (Sesame Workshop): "We are a non-partisan, non-profit organization. We do not comment on campaigns, but we're happy we can agree that everyone likes Big Bird!"

9) @thekinghtshift (Chris Knight, blogger from Reidsville, NC): "Big Bird is a monument to all your sins #obama #romney."

10) @mtaibbi (Matt Taibbi, liberal reporter for "Rolling Stone"): "Apparently, Obama needs to rush the passer more."

11) @BigBird (a liberal blogger who is not related to "Sesame Street"): "GOPer sent me an email why Obama's out of touch with times, using an AOL account"

12) @BaltSunSports ("Baltimore Sun" sports, alas the Baltimore Orioles also lost tonight): "Memorable season will have #Orioles aiming even higher in 2013."

And Now a Word from Our Sponsors, Ipana Toothpaste, etc.

Since we were hit over the head with the commercials during the 2012 London Olympics, including everyone running for political office except Chris Knight, my friend who ran for school board office in North Carolina in 2006, I thought I would do a satirical entry dedicated to ads. If you'll notice, we don't have any ads here at "The Daily Vampire" as we don't want ads for things that irk us to appear on here, but well, if the price is right that might change.

We also want to thank American Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney, who appears on David Letterman tonight with the other members of the Fab Five, for finally letting us know what meme means. The photo of her disappointed look for not getting a gold medal on vault has now been attached to everything from art work to NBC's Olympic coverage.

Here are the products we are promoting tonight; we believe only one is relatively easy to find here in the United States unless you reside in War, West Virginia:

1) Carlsberg: This is a popular beer in Denmark which reportedly doesn't sell well in Qom, Iran, especially during Ramadan (which is now),  but it can be found in Turkey, a much moderate Muslim country (yes, I'm a Turkish-American, but I think even Greeks and Armenians have to admit Iran is a bit more conservative).

2) Ipana: Speaking of Turkey, we presumed this brand which started in the good ole USA was only available in Turkey, but further research indicates the product featuring ads with Bucky Beaver here in the States back in the day, is once again available on the American market though in limited quantities. Ipana has been featured in at least one "Zippy the Pinhead" comic strip.

3) Orangina: Hopefully, none of you will mispronounce this French orange drink now readily available in most parts of America. One time, I pronounced it like the a certain word in a certain Eve Ensler play at The Green Bean Coffeehouse in Greensboro, NC. Yeah, it was embarrassing.

http://www.usagym.org

http://www.zippythepinhead.com

http://www.eczaonline.com

http://www.greensborobean.com

http://www.carlsberg.com

http://www.orangina.com

http://www.theknightshift.blogspot.com

Special Report-Controversial Amendment Passes in North Carolina

On May 3rd, just three days before North Carolina was to pass the politically charged Amendment One which effectively makes gay marriage illegal in the state constitution, Chris Knight, a blogger from Reidsville, NC, (a personal friend), said: "I'm a Christian. I'm called a 'conservative.' I'm not voting for Amendment One."

Knight said the choice was a tough one for him at many levels, but ultimately he felt uncomfortable with the politicizing of morality: "I've no doubt that there are many well-meaning people who will be voting for Amendment One because they sincerely believe that marriage is something that 'must be protected.' (But) It's not. It's really not. Not by a political gimmick anyway."

Unlike Knight, many North Carolina conservatives voted for Amendment One, which "The Charlotte Observer" called 'a Bible Belt showdown,' which pitted two elements of the Tarheel State against one another. The first being conservative rural and small-town North Carolina from places like Eden, Burlington and Salisbury against urban and college-town progressives in places like Asheville, Chapel Hill and Greensboro.

Amendment One passed by a 61-39 margin on May 8th, in a day in which Tea Party activists also tried to challenge congressional representatives from the right even within the Republican Party with one such effort by arch-conservative Billy Yow to upset Cong. Howard Cobel (R-NC) ending up in futility.

In his May 3rd blog spot, Knight also talked about the root origins of the Amendment One movement which progressed when Republicans took over the House of Delegates in the fall elections of 2010. According to Knight, the movement was started by the Rev. Ron Baity of the Berean Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, and that during one service the minister referred to Pres. Barack Obama as 'Hussein Obama.'

One church in Winston-Salem, Edgewood Baptist Church openly encouraged people to vote for Amendment One both with its church sign and on its web site. The church said there was bipartisan support for the measure, but many prominent Democrats, such as Cong. Brad Miller (D-NC) opposed it.

The opposition was quite vocal about the matter as well as 10,000 people gathered on Fayetville Street in downtown Raleigh on the day of the vote, according to "Indy Weekly."

The Unitarian Fellowship of Raleigh also expressed opposition to the initiative by stating it would be a clear civil rights violation for gays and lesbians across North Carolina.

(For more on this story, including how it was viewed by African-Americans and how the Bert and Ernie are gay suggestion actually originated in North Carolina, visit our sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

http://www.knightshift.blogspot.com

http://www.uufr.org

http://www.theedgebc.com

Pictured above: 1) Two gay grooms on a wedding cake 2) Welcome to North Carolina sign 3) The Rev. Franklin Graham, though not mentioned in this piece, he is the leading conservative evangelical activist in the state of North Carolina.

Quote of the Week- William Shatner

Admitedly, us Americans tend to overlook our neighbors to the north. In fact, my last entry dedicated to a Canadian may have been when I wished former UCLA gymnast and Canadian Olympian Yvonne Tousek a happy 30th birthday (on our other blog) last year.

But, this month, I am quoting all sorts of famous Canadians. And, perhaps no Canadian is as famous as William Shatner, who turned 80 earlier this year. He is, of course, known for playing Captain Kirk on "Star Trek" on tv in the '60s, and again with a series of films starting in 1979.

Recently, Shatner stunned the world by releasing a music album with his covers of songs like "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. Having heard a snipet of the song on NPR, I can vouch that listening to the Oak Ridge Boys' song "Elvira" on an AM country radio station in Kentucky might be slightly less painful.

So, here is our quote from Shatner:

"How do I so healthy and boyishly handsome? It's simple. I drink the blood of young runaways."

SIDEBAR: Our good friend and fellow blogger Chris Knight took on Shatner in a spoof of "Priceline" commercials with the help of Addy Miller, who is the little zombie girl in AMC's "The Walking Dead." And, Shatner himself actually tweeted about the matter!

A similar thing occured several months ago when Harry Shearer, the voice of Principal Skinner on "The Simpsons," tweeted that my friend Jason Garnett was showing Shearer's documentary film about the Hurrican Katrina fiasco "The Big Uneasy" at the Shadowbox Microcinema in Roanoke, Va. That film is now out on dvd.

SIDEBAR TWO: Much focus has been on the futile marriage between Armenian-American model/celebrity/reality tv show star Kim Kardashian and Kris Humpries of the New Jersey Nets. For those who have been hanging out in Buddhist monastaries in Bhutan, the marriage ended after a mere 72 days on Monday. A Twitter site for the Nets actually asked fans if Kardashian should give her gifts back?

But, a more interesting thing appears to be happening in the Kardashian family's ethnic homeland. Of course, it is perhaps fittingly ironic that I am mentioning this, since I am a Turkish-American, but the NPR show "The World" ran an amazing story on Tuesday by reporter Shanti Shahrigian about an effort to educate Armenian school children about the game of chess.

As it turns out, even though Armenia has a population of circa three million people, the country has some 30 chess grandmasters. Teacher Grigor Martikian is running the elementary school program, and so far it appears to be quite succesful.

I more or less quit playing chess after losing to an eight-year-old girl who was the reigning Virginia state champ in her age group, an incident which occured some ten years ago. That girl is probably old enough to vote now!

The 1,000th Entry and Remembering a Friend

On Oct. 19, 2008, I launched my second blog "The Daily Vampire" after much deliberation. And, as it turns out, it has become an even grander success than my original "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time," which originated with AOL and remains active.

Many of my fellow blogger friends, with the exception of Chris Knight from Reidsville, NC, who sort of became famous for his over-the-top "Star Wars" themed ad when he ran for county school board in 2006, have either decided to dedicate more time to their wives and families or atually get some office work done.

But, I image Chris and myself will be at this until we are old men in nursing homes who are playing checkers with the staff.

SIDEBAR: On a much more serious note, I want to take a moment to personally recognize my friend and mentor Dr. Klaus Phillips of Hollins University, a man I knew for 24 years since I was a 17-year-old high school student.

He died unexpectedly last week at the age of 64.

In 1987, when we first met, Klaus had orgazined a video and filmmaking program for area high school students in Roanoke, Va. When he showed us a Jim Jarmusch film called "Down By Law," featuring the singer/actor Tom Waits and a then-unknown Roberto Benigni (who later became an Oscar-winner), he opened a whole new world to me. From that day forward, I have taken film very seriously as an art form and as a way to learn how other people live, irregradless if they are coal miners in West Virginia or village dwellers in Mali.

In 2002, I became a student in the Hollins University film studies program, which Klaus founded. The school announced on its web site that a scholarship in Klaus Phillips' name has been established. For more details, one can log onto the school's web site at www.hollins.edu

PSA- I Need a Job

For starters,I must profess huge admiration for my friend and fellow blogger Chris Knight who went public with a personal issue that was afflicting his life several months ago.

Though I have made scathing satirical indictments from people as politically diverse as Nancy Pelosi and Michele Bachmann (full disclosure: we have made more fun of Bachmann), I have been hesitant to discuss my own personal life too much on either of my two blogs.

But, alas, I did lose my teaching job recently, and I am eager to find new opportunities elsewhere. Though my three states of preference for work are North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland, I will consider looking into employment possibilities regardless if it is in Alaska or Brazil.

The three main areas where I am seeking employment are education, as I specialize in teaching developmental English and English as a Second Language (ESL), journalism and translation work as I am 90 percent fluent in Turkish.

If anyone knows of any such opportunites, then feel free to email me at
tango74@aol.com;I am also working to have my resume posted on LinkedIn as well as career-oriented sites, such as highered.com.

For those with a similar predicament, WUNC-FM (91.5 FM-Chapel Hill), the NPR station serving about 40-50 percent of North Carolina, has a show called "The State of Things" hosted by Frank Stasio. Though I was not able to listen to the show myself, yesterday Stasio interviewed state employment experts to discuss ways that people can find in the Tarheel State.

On a ligther note, I chose to go with an image of the classic Leo Tolstoy novel "War and Peace" because if I had time to read the massive circa 880-page epic, well it would be now!

We now resume our regular program schedule.

SIDEBAR: I wanted to update those of you who read the Spartak Moscow entry on here last week. In weekend play, Spartak Moscow defeated Samara 3-0 in what was a farewell game for Andrei Tikhonov, who has been an icon amongst the Spartak Moscow fandom. Samara, which sits on the Volga River, is the sixth largest city in Russia.

And, the Swedish team IFK Goteborg tied cross-town rivals BK Hacken 2-2 today with the two goals for IFK coming from Swedish player Stefan Selakovic. IFK Goteborg is the next team I hope to profile in this blog's on-going soccer team series.

Has It Been Six Years Already?

It was on Sept. 21, 2005, when I posted my first blog entry. It was a simple mini-bio talking about how I grew up in Roanoke,Va., my late father was an immigrant from Turkey, and that I had just seen "The Empire Strikes Back" for the 93rd (whoops! I got my blog mixed with good friend Chris Knight's blog "The Knight Shift;" I've only seen the second Star Wars film twice).

Alas, many of my blogger friends have either discontinued or gone on a long hiatus. But, since I saw that there have been people reading this blog and my other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" from places like Iran, Sri Lanka, the Czech Republic and Israel this week alone, it has certainly been a well worth-while experience.

Although, I am fully aware that I could have written a novel as long as Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" in the amount of time I've spent composing nearly 3,000 entries on two blogs. But, then again, that classic Russian novel has not been checked out of my local library since 2003!

SIDEBAR: Playmakers Rep Theatre in Chapel Hill, NC, is on the verge of their latest stagest production "In the Next Room" by acclaimed playwright Sarah Ruhl, starting tonight. The production will end on Oct. 9. The 2010 Tony Award nominee has an interesting presmise: it is about a new medical device that was designed in the late 1800s to curb 'female hysteria.' That device was a vibrator. And, that will probably get us banned in Iran.

Correction: We Meant Philip, Not Paul

Since I spent many years working as a journalist where I covered many things like Winston-Salem, NC, city council meetings (I didn't actually work in Winston-Salem, but it seems like a good generic city to plug in for this entry), I go through great lengths to make sure I don't post misinformation here, even if it's about Republicans.

But, I did flub yesterday when I said that my friend and fellow blogger Chris Knight said that the Apostle Paul's tomb was discovered near Denizli, Turkey, recently. As it turns out, it was Apostle Philip's tomb that was discovered. So, to make up for it- especially for all my Catholic friends, I will wish Pope Benedict well as he visits Madrid, Spain, over the next few days. And, hopefully, I will not have to retract and say that he is actually going to Valencia (another city in Spain).

Turkey, which happens to be my late father's country, has been in the news a lot lately. In addition to the discovery of Philip's tomb, the following things have happened there either fairly recently or within the last few days as have been reported in Turkey's two English-language newspapers, "Hurriyet Daily News" and "Today's Zaman:"

1) Israel has refused to apologize for the raid aboard the Marmara flotilla, which killed many Turkish activisits who were attempting to give humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

2) Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on Syria's Bashar Assad to stop the violence against residential protestors throughout Syria, which caused a major influx of refugees into Turkey.

3) Aziz Yildirim, the president of Istanbul soccer power Fenerbahce, has been arrested and charged with match-fixing, a scandal which is involving many teams. Melih Gokcek, the current mayor of the Turkish capital Ankara has also been pulled into the mess as he was once the president of the soccer team Ankaraspor.

4) As of yesterday, Turkish military planes attacked PKK (Kurdish Worker's Party) terrorists in northern Iraq. The PKK guerillas have struck Turkish military headquarters with attacks in the Hakari province in far southeastern Turkey.

All of this is occuring as many religious Turkish people are celebrating the Ramadan holiday!

And, I should retract the statement that I was going on hiatus.

Oh well, we tried!

Quote of the Week- August Wilson

Today's quote of the week comes from the late playwright August Wilson (1945-2005). I had the opportunity to see an excellent production of his award-winning play "Fences" last year performed by PlayMakers Rep in Chapel Hill, NC.

Later this year, PlayMakers will stage Edward Albee's most famous play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" from Nov. 30-Dece. 18.

Here is the quote from Wilson, and in our view truer words have never been spoken:

"The harder you try to hold onto to them, the easier it is for some gal to get away."

SIDEBAR: Speaking of Edward Albee, I found a copy of a book about the playwright simply called "Edward Albee" by Ronald Hayman (b.1932) who has also written about another great playwright George Bernard Shaw.

The book was left at Tanglewood Mall in Roanoke, Va., as part of the online campaign called Book Crossing (www.bookcrossing.com) which lets readers exchange books with complete strangers.

Hayman's book was written back in 1971, but it made for quite an exceptional read and a solid analysis of Albee's early plays.

SIDEBAR TWO: Due to a number of valid reasons, we are planning to go on hiatus from this blog for a one-week period, but we will resume back here on Aug. 22. Our Roanoke vs. Greensboro series is among the planned entries. In the mean time, I highly suggest that one visit the "The Knight Shift" blog (http://www.blogspot.com/theknightlife) from my friend Chris Knight. He is known for, among other things, as 'the guy who dressed like a Jedi Knight' to a Rockingham County (NC) school board meeting to protest proposed changes in the county schools' dress code policy. As of today, Knight's blog feautres interesting entries on how the Apostle Paul's tomb was discovered recently near Denizli, Turkey, a city I've been to several times, and how a Swedish man was arrested for making nuclear explosives in his own apartment.