Our Pictorial Tribute to Istanbul, Turkey.............

This is our 1,800th entry and we are dedicating to the city of Istanbul, Turkey, which was struck by what appears to be an ISIS terrorist. Ten people lost their lives yesterday, including reportedly nine German tourists and a Peruvian tourist. Another 15 people are reportedly injured.

The images from top to bottom are of: 1) A bus stop; 2) a Beyoglu streetcar; 3) simit, the pastry that is sold by hundreds of vendors throughout the city; 4) the gate of Dolmabahce Palace; 5) Burgaz Island, one of the five Princess Islands and 6) The Maiden's Tower in Uskudar.

http://www.kizkulesi.com.tr/

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/turkey/istanbul

https://goturkey.com/

Tweets from Around the Crazy Galaxy: Reactions to the Brutal Execution of American Journalist

As the late Peter Finch declared in Sidney Lumet's film "Netword" (1976): "I am mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more." With the beheading of American journalists Steven Scotloff and James Foley by the terrorist group ISIS or ISIL, it seems everyone is chiming in about what America should do next with regards to what has become a very messy, tense situation in Syria and Iraq.

Here are some tweets from the right, the left and the center as well as views from Muslims and non-Muslims. These are not necessarily views with agree with, especially the supposed right-winger who is cheering remarks by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Though we would like to see justice brought forward, we are not inclined to endorse the most right-wing American senator in decades:

1) Stephen Bright: "1.6 billion Muslims Worldwide per CNN. Why aren't they taking a stand against these extremist group misrepresenting their religion?"

2) New Jersey Hockey: "I like Sen. Ted Cruz's response to the second U.S. beheading in as many weeks: 'Let's Bomb ISIS back to the Stone Age."

3) Slate:"Obama now says the U.S. will 'destroy' ISIS. What does that mean exactly?"

4) Laila Lalami: "WANTED. Fox News experts on Islam. No prior training or experience necessary. Frequent references to sharia and Kenyan socialism a must."

5) Arsalan Iftikhar (The Muslim Guy): "The terrorist group ISIS just killed (and beheaded) my Facebook friend (and American journalist) Steven Sotloff.....ISIS are the dogs of hell."

6) Miami News Now: "To the end, journalist Steven Sotloff kept Jewish identity secret from Islamic state captors."

7) The New Republic: Steven Sotloff was just 31 years old_ a journalist only embarking on what should have been a long career.

http://www.tnr.com

http://www.slate.com

Happy 75th Birthday, Superman

While it is common knowledge that Superman has been played in tv and in film by the likes of Dean Cain, Brandon Routh, the late Christopher Reeve and the late George Reeves, it is not commonly known that he was also played by the late Turkish actor Tayfun Demir  (pictured here) in the 1979 rip-off film "Superman Donuyor/The Return of Superman").

Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1 on April 18, 1938, and according to the Overstreet Comic Book Guide, it is worth (in mint condition) a staggering $1.75 million.

One can find considerably newer "Superman" comic books at places like Acme Comics in Greensboro, NC, or Chapel Hill Comics, which is just down I-40 in Chapel Hill, NC.

One famous quote from "Superman" comic books comes in Justice League or America #4, where Superman tells Wonder Woman: "I can only tell you what I believe, Diana: humankind has to be allowed to climb to its own destiny. We can't carry them there."

SIDEBAR: There is yet another tragic development from the Boston Marathon bombing incident on Monday as a third person Lingzi Lu, a Chinese national who was a student at Boston University, died from injuries sustained in the blast.

Another Chinese student from the school Danling Zhou, who was with Lu near the finish line, was seriously injured. The Boston University web site reported that Robert Hill, the dean of Marsh Chapel at BU, visited Zhou and said that she was successfully recovering from surgery at the Boston Medical Center.

Our thoughts go out to all the victims of this horrible act of terrorism.

http://www.acmecomics.com

http://www.chapelhillcomics.com

http://www.bu.edu

Silly Photo of the Day- Day Without Shoes Day 2013

 

Even though we are politically liberal here at "The Daily Vampire" (apologies to Oak Ridge Boys fans), we are not inclined to take part in Day Without Shoes Day, although we are taking a yoga class at the Northern Arizona Yoga Center in Flagstaff, Ariz., later today (this is a joke: Though there is an actual place called the Northern Arizona Yoga Center, we don't live anywhere near Flagstaff_ not even in the same time zone).

 

The day is meant to recognize starving children in places like Ghana, Guatemala and Tahiti (well, we suppose rich people also go around barefoot there).

 

With this in mind, we are featuring an image of the British women's beach volleyball player Zara Dampney, who has one of the few professions where one can go to work barefoot every day!

 

SIDEBAR: On a more serious note, we want to take a moment to recognize the three people killed and scores more who were injured in yesterday's bomb blast at the Boston Marathon. For me personally, this brings to mind Amanda Rigg, a 22-year-old Australian tourist who was killed in Istanbul, Turkey, on Sept. 10, 2001, the day before September 11th. I was in close proximity to that blast and I will never forget it. We wrote a story about Rigg in a 2011 entry here:

 

http://nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com/2011/09/ten-years-later-remembering-australian.html

 

 

Other links:

 

http://www.northernarizonayogacenter.com

 

http://www.onedaywithoutshoes.com

 

Quote of the Day/Week- Alberto Fujimori

Today, we are continuing our quotes from famous Latin Americans with the former criminally corrupt president of Peru; Alberto Fujimori (b. 1938) is of Japanese descent and feld to Japan though he was extradicted back to Peru to face criminal human rights violations.]

The right-wing leader is credited with creating fujimorism, an anti-terrorist free-market policy. Fujimori is also the subject of the excellent documentary film "The Fall of Fujimori," which has the following tagline: "He risked everything to win Peru's war on terror, but in doing so he became an international fugitive, wanted for corruption, kidnapping, and murder."

His daughter Keiko Fujimori (b. 1975) will be quoted in our sister blog; she ran for president with her father in a Peruvian jail this year. In 2009, the elder Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in jail for human rights violations.

One of the prime challenges that he faced while in office was fighting the Shinning Path terrorist/separatist movement in the mountains of Peru. In 1992, when Fujimori was president, Abimael Guzman (b. 1934) the professor of philosophy who founded the Shinning Path movement was sentenced to life in prison.

Here is the quote from Alberto Fujimori: "Poverty doesn't imply neccesarrily violence."

The Last Ten Films I've Seen

Before I discuss the last ten films I've seen (I actually drew the line at 10 p.m. on Monday and I've seen two other films since), I want to briefly make a few comments.

First of all, five of the films were made by acclaimed directors, including "Mother Kuster Goes to Heaven," "Sleeper" (pictured) and "Husbands.

And, I did see all five and a half hours of "Carlos" (image is of Carlos the Jackal) in virtually one sitting. It's an amzing film/mini-series about one of th emost reclusive terrorists the world has ever known.

George Butler who co-directed "Pumping Iron" (pictured) happens to share my alma mater, Hollins University in Roanoke, Va. (Yes, at the undergrad level it is a female school, but not at the grad school level).

Here is the list:

1. "The Omen" (1976. Dir-Richard Donner. w/Gregory Peck)

2. "Pumping Iron" (1977. documentary. Dirs-George Butler and Robert Fiore.

3. "One Day" (2011. Dir-Lone Scherfig. w/Anne Hathaway)

4. "The Savages" (2007. Dir-Tamara Jenkins. w/Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman)

5. "Husbands" (1970. Dir- John Casavetes. w/Casavetes, Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara)

6. "Sleeper" (1973. Dir- Woody Allen. w/Allen and Diane Keaton)

7. "Mother Kuster Goes to Heaven. (Germany. 1975. Dir- Rainer Werner Fassbinder)

8. "Electra, My Love" (Hungary. 1974. Dir-Miklos Jancso)

9. "The Upsetter" (documentary. 2008. Dirs-Ethan Higbee and Adar Bhula Lagh)

10. "Carlos" (France. 2010. Dir-Olivier Assayas)

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.