GOP Debate from Iowa Minus Trump (3 of 3)

Before we get to our final entry on this blog about tonight's GOP debate from Des Moines, Iowa, let's say Gunaydin/ Good Morning to our American Ambassador John Bass in Ankara, Turkey, where it is now 8:30 a.m. Yes, I know there is a less than one percent chance he reads this blog....

For your knowledge, the man at the top is Gov. Chris Christie and the man at the bottom is Sen. Ted Cruz, the state capitol building in Des Mones (not where the Fox News debate took place) is in the middle.

Here are the tweets:

1) Peter Beinart: Chris Christie__ the fact that your wife was near Ground Zero on 9/11 is not a foreign policy credential.

2) David French (conservative): Jeb Bush is right_he's been out front on ISIS strategy__and getting lawyers off the damn backs of the military__Yes!

3) Andrew C. McCarthy (conservative, no not the brat pack actor from the '80s): You think something about Muslims is suspicious.....and Chris Christie says you're a Sharia crazy.

4) Meghan McCain (conservative, daughter of Sen. John McCain): This is a completely different and more substantive debate with Trump off the stage.

5) Patton Oswalt: Mohammad Atta tried to fly a plane into my wife on 9/11........Chris Christie....

6) Spartan Basketball: With 513 wins at Michigan State, Coach Tom Izzo moves ahead of Gene Keady for second-most victories at a Big Ten school (yeah, we did this to play a mind game on you)

7) Zeynep Tufekci: They were trying to out-Trump each other yet they got hit with tough Qs while Trump didn't? Umm.....maybe, I'll read this Art of the Deal book.....

8) Cenk Uygur (liberal): Ben Carson just copied and pasted his closing statement. Too much effort to come up with his own conclusion.

9) Michael Medved (conservative): Maybe Trump's strategy worked....in his absence, chief rival Cruz had his worst debate, by far.....

Today Marks Our Ninth Year of Blogging

Greetings to those of you in Dubai, Singapore and the Republic of Istanbul (forgive the Turkish-American humor).

Yes, we count only candles as well, but today marks the ninth anniversary of our very first blog entry on Sept. 21, 2005, on "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

In 2005, Zappa the Family Cat was still a one-year-old kitten, it had only been four years since Sept. 11th, and gun wackos only had one Uzi per household.

We have frequently mentioned everything from George F. Will to Zippy the Pinhead and from H.R. Puff N Stuff to Alice Cooper as well as everything from Turkish soccer player Burak Yilmaz to Katarina Witt.

Hopefully, we will continue blogging (when we have time) for years to come even though blogging, which is a product of modern tech, might soon be nullified by modern tech as well....

Tweets from Saturday Night_ Middle East Madness

The finger-pointing from Republican presidential team Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, or DynoMutt and Blue Falcon as we call him here in the office towards the Barack Obama administration for catastrophic riots which started in Egypt on Tues., the 11th anniversary of Sept. 11th, and then fostered into a even more horrifying frenzy in Libya, where American Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed along with three other American diplomats and ten Libyans who were providing security to the embassy in Benghazi, which is not actually Libya's capital.

Today, we also learned that a mosque in Harrisonburg, Va., a city that is home to James Madison University, which is a two-hour drive from both Washington, DC, (to the north) and my hometown of Roanoke, Va. (to the south), was vandalized with the words: "This is America." Harrisonburg is also the city where a FBI agent arbitrarily raided the home of a man of Arab heritage during this country's Sept. 11th period.

All of these events are very disturbing to those of us who are Americans of Middle Eastern heritage, as it reminds us of the quote from the late great Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa: "In an insane world, only the mad are sane."

Some of the other tweets of the night dealt with the presidential election here in America.

Here are some tweets from the 20:00 or 8:00 p.m. hour, New York time, this evening:

1) @Wolf Blitzer (CNN host Wolf Blitzer): "So sad to hear US evacuates families and non-emergency personnel from Tunis. I was there last year when things were encouraging."

2) @BillMaher (Outspoken liberal comedian Bill Maher): "These middle east protestors r different these days- taking pics of themselves throwing rocks and yelling: 'hashtag down with America."

3) @NPRInskeep (Steve Inskeep): "Top religious authority lists reasons why murder of US ambassador was against Islam."

4) @TheMuslimGuy (Arsalan Iftikhar): "TV ALERT: I will be on 'CNN Sunday Morning' tomorrow @ 8:30 a.m. EST on anti-Islam movie and protests around the world...Fun Stuff, I know...Sigh."

5) @Terry-McAuliffe (former Democratic strategist Terry McAuliffe): "Met some llamas for Obama at the Albermale Dems BBQ."

6) @Coffeepartyusa (Coffee Party): "The man who made the anti-Muslim video has a foreign-sounding name. Let's hire Trump and Kobach to declare he's not American."

7) @WSOC-TV (WSOC is Charlotte, NC's ABC affiliate): "Mitt Romney's son goes door to door for his dad in Charlotte."

Remembering Sept. 11th ...on Its' 11th Anniversary

Today, we remember the 2,977 people who died on Sept. 11th. We have decided to include an image of a Hassidic Jew and Arsalan Iftikhar aka 'The Muslim Guy,' 35, who is a leading progressive Muslim advocate in the United States, to show that as cliched as it may seem America's greatest strength is its diversity, and even the atrocities of 9-11 have not changed that.


http://www.jewishtimes.com

http://www.themuslimguy.com

http://www.911memorial.org

http://www.nyc.gov/nypd

http://www.flight93crash.com

Ten Years Later- September 11th (Part 2 of 2)

The scope of what happened ten years ago is quite garganutuan in nature, and there is no conceivable way to cover all the victims of Sept. 11th, not in "The New York Times," not in "The Washington Post," and certainly not on this blog.

One story I wanted to cover was one of the El Salvadoran immigrants who were working at The Window of the Worlds Cafe in the North Tower. By percentage of its population, El Salvador had the highest casualty rate from the September 11th attacks.

At the time, I also read a moving story about a Pakistani immigrant firefigther who was working for the FCDY, who went into the remnants of the Twin Towers to help save lives. He talked about how he was so unsettled at the thought a member of his Muslim faith had performed this heinous action as an act of faith that he was almost unable to concentrate effectively and do his job. In total, 343 firefighters died on Sept. 11th, and many more died from lung disease in the ensuing years due to the smoke inhalation at Ground Zero.

But, in addition to the story of Mari-Rae Soppard, who was going to be the women's gymnastics coach at UC-Santa Barbara which we covered on Friday on our other blog (www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com), we are going to discuss three of the victims of 9-11 here.

Donald Greene was 52 when he died on September 11th. He was traveling on Flight 97 which crashed in Shanksille, Pa., and later became the basis for a critically-accalimed film "Uinted 97." Greene was a resident of Grenwich, Conn., and he left behind a wife and two children.

According to one memorial site, Greene emphaisized eating together as a family every night, and he coached children's soccer in his spare time.

His sister Terry Anne Greene of Massachussetts is an active member of the group September 11th Families for a Peaceful Tomorrow, and he spoke against a state bill in 2007 that would have reinstated the death penalty in Massachussetts.

Zuhtu Ibis, of Clifton, NJ, was 25 when he died as a result of the attacks on the Twin Towers. Ibis, an immigrant from the Turkish village of Sari Yaprak (which means yellow leaf) near the central Anatolian city of Yozgat, was working on the 103rd floor that day. His death was widely covered in the Turkish media.

His brother Mehmet Ibis was also a New Jersey resident and he tried desperately to find his brother. As a result of feeling overwhelmed from the day's events, Mehmet parked his car outside the Hoboken train station which stood in clear view of Ground Zero. In the process, Mehmet fell asleep. Some police officers knocked on his window as they questioned what he was doing. When it was realized that he was a Turkish person, the FBI and search dogs came in, and Mehmet was even arrested. The police officers, to their credit, apologized for the incident, but in a 2006 interview Mehmet Ibis said he was still angry about the way he had been treated.

Stephen Mulderry, 33, an equity trader, worked 14 floors beneath Zuhtu Ibis on the
89th floor of the World Trade Center. He would say goodbye to his family along with 30 co-workers in a conference call. One friend left the following message regarding Mulderry on a victims memorial page: "Will be thinking about you on Sunday. The world misses your smile."

Anne Mulderry told the public program "Interfaith Voices" that her Catholic faith has help guide her through the loss of her son. His mother also told his hometown newspaper "The Times-Union" in Albany, NY, that Stephen had just completed a deck over Labor Day where the whole family had gathered to spend the holiday weekend together.

Mulderry, who had since become a resident of New York City, was also the co-captain of his college basketball team at The University of Albany.

PERSONAL NOTE: Both part of this series and the conclusion of my two-part series on Amanda Rigg, a 22-year-old Australian tourist, who was killed during the Sept. 10, 2001, bombing in Istanbul, Tukey, by far-left militants that killed three people, are on my sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" (www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com).

Ten Years Later- Remembering the Australian Tourist (Part One of Two)

"She died alone and all her family got was a letter" was the headline of a story that ran in the Aug. 7, 2007, edition of "The Brisbane Times," which had published a "Sydney Morning News" story from that day about Amanda Rigg.

I had never met Rigg, who was a 22-year-old Australian tourist traveling in Istanbul. But, we walked down the same street in the busy Taksim district of Istanbul near a Chinese restaurant on Sept. 10, 2001, some 10-15 minutes apart.

I was in my since-deceased aunt's apartment that we heard the blast around 5:00 p.m. At the time, we were packing to go Buyukada, an island off the coast of Istanbul. The blast would turn out to be from a suicide bomber, though we weren't entirely positive of that at the time. In fact, I had read in a Turkish newspaper the next day, a mere 20 minutes before I found out about the Twin Towers, that the suicide bomber was a woman. While researching this piece, I found out that the bomber was actually a man named Ugur Bumbul.

Bumbul died in the blast as did two Turkish police officers whom I had seen alive just a quarter-hour before their untimely, unexpected deaths.

Rigg turned out to be the third victim of the blast, but she did not die on the moment of impact. She had lost one of her arms, and she went to a hospital. I would not know of Rigg's death which happened a few days after Sept. 10th until a shopkeeper in ther resort town of Kusadasi, some seven hours south of Istanbul, informed me of the tragic news.

Long before arriving in Turkey, we had planned to go to Kusadasi. And even in the nice tranquil Aegean beaches of Kusadasi, it was hard not to think about what happened and then what happened next.

PERSONAL NOTE: This is the end of Part One. For the sake of the privacy of my family members and brevity, some personal details, such as the fact that we were at a bank before going to my aunt's apartment, were not included.

Tomorrow, I hope to post information about the struggles that Rigg's family faced in Australia in the aftermath of the Sept. 10th Istanbul bomb blast through Internet research.

Initially, this was planned to be a three-part series, but I've decided to shorten it to two simpler entries.

Things We Learned on Google Today- Juventus FC's Star Player Is...

While researching this piece which is continuing to look at famous soccer teams from around the globe, we learned that current Juventus FC star Alessandro Del Piero, 36, holds the team record for most appearances in a team uniform at 635 and team goals scored at 281. Del Pietro is also the team's captain. Juventus FC will face rival Parma on Sept. 11th.

The Italian powerhouse Juventus FC plays its home games in Turin, and the team has a new stadium which is one of the main subjects of discussion amongst European soccer fans.

Del Pietro's teammates include fellow Italians Simone Pepe and Fabio Grosso as well as Serbian star soccer player Milos Krasic.

But, Del Pietro will have to continue playing for five more years to be the oldest player ever to wear a Juventus FC uniform. That distinction belongs to goalie legend Dina Zoff who played until age 41 when he retired from soccer in 1983. Zoff was also the oldest player ever to captain a World Cup-winning team. When he was 40, he tended goal for the 1982 Italian team which won it all in Spain.

Juventus FC won the UEFA Champions League by defeating Ajax Amsterdam in 1996.

SIDEBAR: Starting tomorrow, I will start a three part series on an Australian tourist named Amanda Rigg, who was killed as a result of a suicide bombing by far-left terrorists in Istanbul, Turkey, on Sept. 10, 2001. I happened to walk on the exact same street that she did on that fateful afternoon, which was alas sadly forgotten because of the even more horrific events of the next day.

The series will also discuss my feelings about being so close to one terrorist act as another one happened in my home country the very next day.

SIDEBAR TWO: They were finally able to play tennis today at the U.S. Open in New York. We had mentioned Russian up and comer Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who has perhaps the longest surname in the tennis world. Today, she lost to Serena Williams. But, we wish her well in her seemingly very promising career.

Quote of the Moment- Jay McInerney

Today, we continue our series of quotes from famous people from New England with a quip by Jay McInerney (b.1955, Hartford, Conn.) who is best-known for his break-through novel "Bright Ligths, Big City," a contemporary literary classic which was published when he was only 29 years old in 1984. The film became the basis for a Michael J. Fox movie of the same name is 1988, which wasn't successful partly because Fox was miscast as Robert Redford has been for the 1974 film version of "The Great Gatsby."

Other McInerney novels include "The Story of My Life" (1988) and "The Good Life"
(2006). "The Story of Life" is noteable because it features the character of Alison Poole, who is based on Rielle Hunter, the John Edwards mistress who once dated McInerney.

McInerney is also a contemporary of fellow novelist Bret Easton Ellis ("Less Than Zero," "American Psycho") and Tama Janowitz ("Slaves of New York"), who happens to be an alumnus of Hollins University, which is one of my two collegiate alma maters.

While researching this, we learned that McInerney is now on his fourth marriage, and he is a wine columnist for "The Wall Street Journal," which is having a very bad week due to Rupert Murdoch phone-hacking scandal.

Here is the quote from McInerney; we imagine it is in reference to "The Good Life" which is about the effects of 9/11 on America, ironically the Twin Towers were on the cover of "Bright Ligths, Big City":

"I've always written about the larger social events of the moment. It just seemed like I had to confront this one."

Things We Learned on Twitter Today- Angelina Condemns Koran Burning Project

It may not be often that a liberal movie star like Angelina Jolie would agree with a leading member of the U.S. military brass like Gen. David Patraeus, but they are on the same page when it comes to being against the Rev. Terry Jones' dubious plans to burn copies of the Koran at his radical church in Gainesville, Fla., this weekend.

Jones has said that he is going to burn the Korans to protest Sept. 11th even though virtually the entire Muslim world, including an imam from Iznik, Turkey, who I spoke while visiting his historic village just days after the terrorist attacks, condemned the events of 9-11.

"The Gainesville Sun" (gainesville.com) tweeted that the star of "Salt" was agast with the news of Jones' proposition.

Jolie, 35, said the following to members of the media about the Koran burning project in Islamabad, Pakistan, where she is visiting after a trip to nothwest Pakistan where the movie star talked to refugees of the recent horrific flooding that occured in that region:

"I have hardly the words that somebody would do that to somebody's religious book."

Jolie's trip is part of her mission as a goodwill ambassador for The United Nations' refugee agency. The U.N. has issued a $460 million pledge to help the flood victims.

The Koran burning project, which has also been condemned by Vatican officials, has been the buzz of Twitter and other chatrooms/discussion boards.

On Twitter, Nathan Tabor, a Christian conservative activist in Winston-Salem, NC, asked his followers on Twitter if they thought the Koran burning project was a good idea or not.

The film critic Roger Ebert, also on Twitter, compared Rev. Jones to Satan for his actions.

I will simply add my two cents and say that as the son of a Muslim immigrant, I think Rev. Jones is a 'budala,' that's the Turkish word for idiot.

Rev. Jones is with the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, which contrary to its name is not a progressive religious organization. His efforts also come as Muslims around the world are concluding the month-long Ramadan holiday.

Ironically, the actor Terry Jones, as a member of Monty Python, appeared in the highly controversial 1979 satire film "Life of Brian," which was considered to be blasphemous by many Christian groups at the time.

Eid Mubarak (Happy Ramadan) To All Our Muslim Friends

Since there has been a lot of bickering about a Muslim group trying to build a mosque in central Manhattan in the shadow of where the Sept. 11th tragedy took place, I thought I would voice my support for the greater Muslim community in the United States.

Though I haven't talked much about this, I was a Muslim as a child. My late father Mehmet Gokbudak was from Turkey, and this was simply the way I was raised.

After his death on my 13th birthday from a heart attack, I began to openly question and sincerely doubt God's existence. My views have more or less remained the same since that awful personal event in 1983 as I now see myself as a human secularist.

And, while I equally disdain all forms of radical or fervent fundamentalism, whether they originate in a church, synagogue or mosque, I have respect for those Muslims who merely wish to practice their faith and try to make the world a better place for themselves and those around them.

Thus, I wish the Muslim community a Happy Ramadan season. The holiday lasts for 10 days, and it is approaching its final stages this week.

The image I have chosen is that of the beloved Turkish shadow pupetts Karagoz (the one with the beard) and Hacivat. Though the characters are secular in nature, they symbolically represent the cultural divide in Turkey between the intellectual urban-dwellers (Hacivat) and the rural common man who generally tends to be more religious than secular (Karagoz).

The divide has remained in tact since the characters were developed centuries ago during the Ottoman Empire. Greece has a similar shadow puppet named Karagoisi, which has actually recently caused a mild cultural/political rift between the two countries who almost went to war over an uninhabited goat island in The Aegean Sea in the 1990s.

My friend Ugur Celikkol of Bursa, Turkey, and his family run a semi-annual Karagoz festival in Bursa which has attracted tourists from other parts of Turkey and around the world. It is generally held around November.

Closer to home, The Divan Cultural Center in Cary, NC (Raleigh), is sponsoring many Iftar meals which are given when the sun goes down during the Ramadan season. We imagine there will be plenty of good lamb and rice at the table for those in attendance!

UPDATE- According to "The Hill," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is opposing President Barack Obama's support of the mosque project in New York. Many political insiders suspect that this is for political reasons as Reid faces an election this November. His opponent Sharon Angle has been dubbed a right-wing quack even from non-partisan observers.

Thing We Learned on the BBC Today- Iranian Lawyer Trying to Defect to Turkey

The Iranian lawyer Mohammed Mostafaei is seeking political asylum Turkey, where he is now residing. Mostafaie has been a diligent human rights activists, and he has recently been defending Sakineh Mohammed Ashtiani, 43, (pictured here) who was initially sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery.

Ashtiani, a mother of two, still faces the possibility of execution by hanging. Her case has provoked international outrage which has even involved the president of Brazil, one of Iran's diplomatic allies. Protesters in Sweden have also petitioned for Ashtiani's release. The woman has already recieved 99 lashes from Iranian authorities.

Mostafei's asylum appears to be held up by Turkish bureacracy though human rights activists in Turkey are trying to expeditate the process.

SIDEBAR: (Editorial Comment) Personally, I think the Muslim group trying to build a controversial mosque at Ground Zero in New York should move the building thousands of miles away---to Wasilla, Alaska. Along with Newt Gingrich, former vice presidential candidate and Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has been the most vocal opponent of the move saying it would be a 'stab in the heart to all victims of
9-11.' The most irritating part of this bally-hoo is that people like Palin always seem to forget is that many 9-11 victims were in fact Muslims. And, though my late Turkish father was a Muslim, I say his as somehow who is a human secularist.

Quote of the Week- Neil Simon

Since last week marked the eight anniversary of Septermber 11th, I thought I would continue the annual tradition of quoting famous New Yorkers to mark the occasion.

Today, we have quips from playwright Neil Simon and film director Martin Scorsese on our two respective blogs.

This quote is from Simon, I wonder if he was talking about Woody Allen:

"He's too nervous to kill himself. He wears his seat belt in a drive-in movie."