Tuesday, October 30, 2007

%52



"Resmen ve açıkça tırsıyoruz. Eli kanlı ve parası bol iktidarlar, medyalarından okullarına, sokaklarından meydanlarına “kap bayrağı çık sokağa” kampanyası düzenliyor, hiçbir gelecek veremediklerini bayrak altında kütleleştirip “sivil militarist seferberlik” ilan ediyor, ortalık “vur kır parçala” tezahüratlarından geçilmiyor. Paketlenip askere götürülen gencecik kardeşlerimiz tüm tarafların silahlarını Amerika’dan aldığı savaşlarda öldürtülüp, sonra da devletli-ordulu-şirketli iktidarların timsah gözyaşlarına meze yapılıyor, ama ölmeyip de tezkeresiyle geri dönenlerin aynı gün işsizler-geleceksizler ordusuna teslim olacağından hiç bahsedilmiyor. Apoletli generaller karargâhlarında savaşçılık oynamaya hazırlanıyor, medyalı generaller her gün Irak’a çıkartma yapıp artık kırmızı şarap yerine kan kırmızısı üzerine yazılar yazıyor, cüppeli generaller üniversite-kışlalarında “uygun adım marş marş” yürüyüşleri düzenliyor. Anlaşılan o ki, hakiki çıkartma hayatlarımıza yapılıyor! Eline bayrağını alan neye niye ne sebeple salladığını bilmeden faşist kütleleşmelerin içerisinde “hain düşman al sana bayrak” narasıyla sokağa çıkıyor. Salyalar akıyor... “Yahu şöyle düşman müşman bi şeyler bulsak da saldırsak linç etsek, olmadı şurda bi Kürt biliyorum, ona dalalım”a bir kelime daha ekleyemeyecek bir ideoloji, her gün her gün yürüyüşler yapıyor. Ordu, her şehirden özellikle seçmiş gibi, birkaç genci canlı teslim alıp tabutta geri gönderiyor. Tırsıyoruz, “her şehre bir tabut” kampanyası mı başlatıldı? Irak’a girmek için II. Bush’un ve kutsal piyasaların icazetini bekleyenler, sokaklarımızda savaşı çoktan başlattı. Türkü Kürde, Kürdü Türke kırdırma harekatı başladı, o da yetmez, kendisinden olmayan herkese ve her şeye saldıran linç sürüleri gündüzleri ve geceleri şehre iniyor! Herkesler ellerinde o genç ölümlerin kefenini taşıyor! Biz bu terörün ortasında tırsak kaldık! Tırsıyoruz, tırstıkça sıra bize gelecek diye daha çok tırsıyoruz. Çok fazla “Yaşasın Ölüm” sloganı var ortalıkta, ama biz hayatı seviyoruz. Hayatı boğuntuya getiren bayraklı-linçli-salyalı kütleleşmenin karşısında kem küm etmiyoruz, alttan almıyoruz, sağdan soldan kıvırmıyoruz, direkt söylüyoruz: biz harbiden tırsıyoruz. Bu terörün ortasında tırsak kalmışların da az olmadığını biliyoruz. O sebeple BİZ KAÇ TIRSAĞIZ kampanyamızı başlatıyoruz."

BÜTÜN TIRSAKLAR SAFLARI SIKLAŞTIRIN! (TIKLA!)

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

I don't want operations abroad...


tezkereye ve operasyonlara hayir kampanyasina katilmak icin tiklayin.
TEZKEREYE VE OPERASYONLARA HAYIR

Savaşı çözüm olarak görmeyip barış isteyenler olarak;

Savaşa karşı barış, Irkçılığa karşı kardeşlik, Ayrımcılığa karşı eşitlik diyenler;

Askeri değil siyasi çözümden, Hamasetten değil insaniyetten yana olanlar;

Akan kanın durmasını isteyenler, sesimizin kısılmasına sessiz kalmak istemeyenler olarak Türkiye’nin Kuzey Irak’ta askeri operasyonlar yapmasına yasal zemin sağlayan ve TBMM’de onaylanan Tezkereye ve sınır ötesi operasyonlara hayır diyoruz.

Bu amaçla kamuoyunun bilgisine sunulan aşağıdaki deklarasyona katılıyorsanız siz de imza verebilirsiniz.
SINIR ÖTESİ OPERASYONA HAYIR!

Biz aşağıda imzası olanlar,

1- Sınır ötesi operasyonların akan kanı durdurmadığını, sadece daha çok kan akmasına neden olduğunu görüyoruz.

2- “Terör”e karşı mücadele olarak meşrulaştırılan bu tür sınır ötesi operasyonların halklar arasındaki kardeşlik bağlarını zayıflatıp, nefret, düşmanlık ve ırkçılığı körüklediğini biliyoruz.

3- Kürt sorununun barışçıl siyasi çözümünü zorlaştıran çatışma ortamını körükleyen bütün operasyon ve eylemlerin son bulmasını talep ediyoruz.

4- DTP ve demokratik olarak seçilmiş milletvekillerinin barışın inşa edilmesi için muhatap alınmalarını, üzerlerindeki baskının kaldırılmasını istiyoruz.

5- Yukarıdaki nedenlerle sınır ötesi operasyonlara yasal zemin sağlayan tezkereye ve sınır ötesi askeri operasyonlara hayır diyoruz.

İmza atmak için imza@tezkereyeveoperasyonlarahayir.net

War always coincides with censorship

Zaaf imajı yayan ve moral bozan yayınlara yasak
24 Ekim 2007 Çarşamba, NTVMSNBC

Hükümet Hakkari’deki saldırılarla ilgili “güvenlik güçlerine dönük zaaf imajı yayan, toplumsal psikolojiyi olumsuz etkileyen” radyo ve TV yayınlarını durdurma kararı aldı. RTÜK kararı tüm yayın kuruluşlarına tebliğ etti.

Radyo ve Televizyon Üst Kurulu’ndan yapılan açıklamada, 3984 Sayılı Yasanın “Yayınların Men Edilmesi” başlıklı 25. maddesinin, “Yargı kararları saklı kalmak kaydıyla yayınlar önceden denetlenemez ve durdurulamaz. Ancak, milli güvenliğin açıkça gerekli kıldığı hallerde yahut kamu düzeninin ciddi şekilde bozulması kuvvetle ihtimal dahilinde ise Başbakan veya görevlendireceği bakan yayını durdurabilir” hükmü hatırlatıldı.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Strange bedfellows? NOT AT ALL!


(Sometimes working at an institute for environmental studies, as I do, gets depressing: Particularly when you figure that even your close colleagues have a fundementally different reasoning than yourself. My favourite colleague thinks it is ok to be christian and climate-friendly. He even seems to suggest that one should be environmentally friendly to obey their god. Anyway, without further ado, here is an article from Fortune Magazine, that suggests that a coalition among Evangelists and CEOs is "strange". I don't think so. So long as the "call to action" is about business leaders agreeing to "cost-effective, market-based" regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, I don't see anything strange about it at all... Read it, it is a farce!)

Strange bedfellows: Evangelical Christians, FORTUNE 500 execs and environmentalists band together to curb global warming.

Marc Gunther, Fortune Magazine
February 8, 2006

An unlikely coalition of evangelical Christians, FORTUNE 500 executives and environmentalists is coming together to press the U.S. government to take action to curb global warming.

The latest example: Evangelical leaders Wednesday announced a "call to action" asking government and business leaders to agree to "cost-effective, market-based" regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, which are mostly caused by burning fossil fuels.

The new initiative, two years in the making, includes modest buys of print, radio and TV ads, with an initial budget of about $200,000. The TV commercial, which will run on Fox News, CNN and local stations, shows images of hybrid cars and windmills and says: "We can stop global warming for our kids, our world and for our Lord." Radio ads will run on stations owned by Salem Communications (Research), a Christian firm.

Among the 86 leaders who signed on to what is being called the Evangelical Climate Initiative include Rick Warren, author of the best-selling book, "The Purpose Driven Life"; the leaders of the Salvation Army and World Vision, two big Christian charities; and about 40 college and seminar presidents including Duane Litfin, the president of Wheaton College, which has been dubbed the evangelical Harvard.

"We will see tens of millions of evangelicals engaged in the work we are talking about today," said the Rev. Dr. Leith Anderson, former president of the National Association of Evangelicals and senior pastor of a Minnesota megachurch.

In its statement on climate change (available at www.christiansandclimate.org) the evangelical group went out of its way to praise big companies such as BP (Research), Shell, General Electric (Research), Cinergy (Research), Duke Energy (Research) and DuPont (Research) which, it said, "have moved ahead of the pace of government action" and "offered timely leadership." In response, Chad Holliday, the president and CEO of DuPont, congratulated the evangelical leaders "for adding their voice to calls for concerted global action on climate change."

The Rev. Jim Ball, who is executive director of the Evangelical Environmental Network, said a conference of business people and evangelicals will be held this fall at the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. "We're going to be all about building relationships," he said.

There will be plenty to talk about. Business and environmental leaders, for example, have voiced concern about the growing cost of natural disasters.

Swiss Re, the world's second largest global reinsurer, is among the sponsors of a big coalition of institutional investors, called the Carbon Disclosure Project, that seeks to identify the business risks of global warming to investors. This month, the coalition (www.cdproject.net) of more than 200 institutions with assets of $28.9 trillion under management wrote to 1,800 of the largest quoted companies in the world by market capitalization, asking for the disclosure of investment-relevant information concerning their greenhouse gas emissions.

Meanwhile, W. Todd Bassett, the commander of the Salvation Army, said hurricanes in the Southeast, tornadoes in the Midwest and fires in the West have put enormous pressure on his organization, which is America's biggest charity. "Few doubt that there has been a significant increase in natural disasters, not just in the U.S. but around the world," Bassett said.

Much of this is designed to turn up the heat -- no pun intended -- on President Bush, who is both an evangelical Christian and an ally of business. So far, the Bush administration has resisted calls for government regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Of course, neither big business nor evangelical Christians are united on the issue. ExxonMobil (Research), the world's biggest oil company, has opposed government rules to control carbon emissions. So have some, but not all, coal-burning utility companies.

About 20 prominent, politically-active evangelical Christian leaders -- including Charles Colson, Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention -- recently urged the National Association of Evangelicals to stay out of the global warming debate. They wrote: "There should be room for Bible-believing evangelicals to disagree about the cause, severity and solutions to the global warming issue."

But with publications ranging from The Economist to Christianity Today urging action to curb global warming, there's little doubt about which way the winds are blowing, in both the business and evangelical worlds.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

how to defend peace when everyone disagrees...

It is becoming increasingly difficult to even suggest peaceful solutions in Turkey these days. Major political parties predominantly claim that the only way out is to wage war against Iraq. Whoever disagrees, become targeted, are labeled as terrorist even when their only claim is a peaceful engagement in this political atmosphere.
The radical nationalist leader Bahceli explicitly suggests to treat the citizens of Turkey that demand peace in the same way that the "enemy" is treated in the approaching war (labeled as 'overseas operation').
(see today's Radikal for details) Is he actually suggesting that I should be killed because I don't want more people to die? Does he mean that the believers of political solutions (which have so far not been tried) should be targeted as well? Isn't he sick and tired of bloodshed? (rhetorical question, as the answer seems obvious...)

Monday, October 15, 2007

my dull weekend (but a great book)...


This weekend was one of trying and failing to work. Instead, I read a good book and had a rather dull visit to the Jewish History Museum in Waterlooplein.

It has a detailed and fancy website, and the exhibition is very informative regarding the Jewish history of Amsterdam. (It probably wasn't the museum that is dull, but myself.) It actually was not over-the-top tragic and I highly appreciated the approach.
Moreover it helps you figure a lot of street names in Amsterdam ;)


The only exciting part of my weekend was reading Les Particules Élémentaires (The Elementary Particles, or in "British" Atomised) by Michel Houellebecq. Almost 7 years ago when my by-then boyfriend suggested me to read a favourite book called Atomised, I put it on my top reading list, I even started a few pages and then absolutely forgot. Only now, (thanks to Wiki) I figure that it was the same book as Elementary Particles, and it was a fascinating book. Other than the side effects: nausea, inability to motivate oneself to do anything at all, depression, etc. As the New York Times described it, "a deeply repugnant read."

Follow the links for the plot and co, but shortly put it is about "love", sex, reproduction, molecular biology, existence, humanism contextualised to the last few decades of the western world...

Two fave quotes:
“I know, Bruno continued (..) Huxley’s world is usually described as a totalitarian nightmare, an attempt to pass the book as a vicious accusation. That’s most hypocritical. On all points, genetic control, sexual freedom, the struggle against old age, its culture of leisure – Brave New World is a paradise to us, in essence it is exactly the world we are trying to achieve, until now without success.”
“The belief in the free and rational determination of human actions, in particular, the belief in the free and rational determination of individual political choices, probably resulted from a confusion between the concepts of freedom and unpredictability. The turbulence of a river flowing around the supporting pillars of a bridge is structurally unpredictable, but no one would think to describe it as being free.”

Thursday, October 11, 2007

hortus of Linneaus

I finally had a chance to visit hortus botanicus. If you are visiting amsterdam, you might prefer to skip it as it is not particularly interested unless you like plants as such, but if you live here, it makes perfect sense to have an annual membership, and spend time reading there and looking at the quite impressive diversity that fits in such a small space. The Orangery is a beautiful building, and the fact that Linneaus was once there is exciting in itself.


"Hortus was founded in 1638 by the city to serve as herb garden for doctors and apothecaries. It contains more than six thousand tropical and indigenous trees and plants. The monumental Palm House dates from 1912 and is renowned for its collection of cycads. The initial collection was amassed during the 17th century through plants and seeds brought back by traders of the East India Company (VOC) for use as medicines and for their possibilities for commerce. A single coffee plant, Coffea arabica, in Hortus's collection served as the parent for the entire coffee culture in Central and South America."


What I liked most was the butterfly greenhouse, but also the feeling of being amused with the autumn the stillness of the place. I can imagine that in full bloom the garden would be much more impressive, and yet the tranquility in this town is something rather hard to find and therefore I regard it highly...

Have a look!


Some Info on The Hortus:
The Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam is one of the oldest botanic gardens in the world. Today, there are more than 6,000 plants (>4,000 species) growing in the garden and greenhouses. The Hortus is located in the Plantage district on the edge of the hectic center of Amsterdam. Behind the 300-year-old gates, however, the bustle of the city seems to disappear.

Originally, the Hortus was a medicinal herb garden, founded in 1638 by the Amsterdam City Council. At that time, herbs were of vital importance as the basis of medicines and the city had just experienced a plague epidemic. Doctors and pharmacists trained in the preparation of prescriptions at the Hortus.


Thanks to the ships of the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC), the Hortus expanded quickly in the 17th and 18th Centuries. The VOC ships brought not only herbs and spices, but also exotic ornamental plants. In fact, a few of the Hortus' 'crown jewels' date from that time, e.g. the 300-year-old Eastern Cape giant cycad.


The Orangery is located in the middle of this living museum and possesses one of the most beautiful outdoor cafés in Amsterdam. After an extensive renovation, it reopened late in 2003. Now, in addition to its function as café, the Orangery rents two assembly rooms for exclusive parties and meetings.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Bloggers Unite - Blog Action Day

BLOGGERS TO UNITE ON BLOG ACTION DAY
All Blogs Invited to Take Part in Joining Voices to Help Environment

An international initiative of bloggers known as "Blog Action Day" launched today, with the aim of uniting thousands of blogging voices, talking about one issue for one day. This year on Blog Action Day, which is slated for Oct. 15, 2007, bloggers will be discussing the environment.

Major blogs have signed up to participate, including Lifehacker, Dumb Little Man, Lifehack.org, Get Rich Slowly, Web Worker Daily, GigaOm, The Simple Dollar, Zen Habits, Freelance Switch, LifeClever, Unclutterer, Pronet Advertising, Wise Bread and many more.

"For just one day, we'd like to unite as many of the millions of bloggers around the world and speak about one issue - the environment," said Collis Ta'eed, an Australian blogger from FreelanceSwitch.com, and a cofounder of Blog Action Day. "We want to display the potential and the power of the blogging community, which is a disparate community but one with an amazing size, breadth and diversity. By bringing everyone together for one day, we can see just how much can be achieved, and how much we can be heard."

Blog Action Day is a non-profit initiative, and will be an annual event. As an alternative to blogging about the environment on Blog Action Day, bloggers can opt to participate by donating their blog's proceeds from Oct. 15 to one of several environmental organizations chosen for this purpose: Greenpeace International, The Nature Conservancy, the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), the Conservation Fund, and the Sierra Club.

Bloggers who would like to participate in Blog Action Day should visit BlogActionDay.org or email Collis Ta'eed at collis@eden.cc, so they can be listed on the Blog Action Day site. To participate, a blog just needs to write about the issue of the environment on Oct. 15, 2007, or donate its proceeds for the day to one of the chosen environmental organizations.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Turkey trip: What we skipped

These are from Sam's camera


International Justice in the Dock

By Sylvie Arsever
Le Temps
September 7, 2007

The former spokeswoman to the Chief Prosecutor in the International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Florence Hartmann, reveals that the Tribunal is a victim of political manipulation by foreign powers. The author documents the influence of the US and Britain in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic. According to Hartmann, the big powers restrict the flow of crucial information to the Tribunal, including documents which confirm the active role of Slobodan Milosevic in the war by the Bosnian Serbs in Pale. These "obstructionist strategies" by foreign powers undermines and weakens the operation of the Tribunal.
full text

Mugabe Slams Bush Over Human Rights

By Claudia Parsons
Reuters Africa
September 27, 2007
During a speech in the UN General Assembly, Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe told US President George Bush that it was hypocritical to accuse countries like Iran, Syria, Belarus, North Korea and Zimbabwe of being 'brutal regimes'. He said, "He kills in Iraq. He kills in Afghanistan. And this is supposed to be our master on human rights?" Robert Mugabe's regime itself has a history of human rights violations; however Mugabe points out, the US can hardly point a finger at other countries, as long as Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib exist.
full text

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Books I've been reading recently...


Crome Yellow
by Aldous Huxley

Crome Yellow, published in 1921 was Aldous Huxley’s first novel. In it he satirizes the fads and fashions of the time. It is the witty story of a house party at ‘Crome’ where there is a gathering of bright young things. We hear some of the history of the house from Henry Wimbush, its owner and self appointed historian; Apocylapse is prophesied, virginity is lost, and inspirational aphorisms are gained in a trance. Our hero, Denis, tries to capture it all in poetry and is disappointed in love.
text
zip file
librivox url
amazon URL

Binbogalar Destani
(The legend of the thousand bulls)
by Yasar Kemal

The best book I've read in Turkish in years...
It is about the dissipation of nomadic and peasant life with modernity exerting power in numerous shapes and forms...
Beautifully written. An epic masterpiece of the ones that lost against modern life-style.
From Amazon.com: in German in English