Get money get jailed

The now-ubiquitous shoe-hero alleges a severe prison beating as the case reverberates through the Iraqi Parliament.  Meanwhile, the American media jerks itself off laughing about those ungrateful A-Rabs.  Either way, someone’s gettin’ paid.  The previously anonymous “Model 271,” a standard-issue black leather Oxford, is flying off the shelves of its Turkish maker.  Orders have skyrocketed [...]

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Humanizing Ataturk

The Times has a video feature today on Mustafa, a controversial new Turkish film portraying the life of national hero Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.  Ataturk, founder of the modern Turkish Republic, is revered in a way not normally seen outside of countries ending in “-stan.”  His image as a war hero, statesman, and ideological guide is [...]

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Historically literate bigotry

A Catholic church in Midlands, Texas has made the news with an inflammatory sign.  The message outside St. Michael’s chapel reads:
“Lepanto 1571:  Mary and her Rosary, Annihilate Islam.”

When asked to comment, church officials stuck to their cannons:
“Islam is a false religion, it cannot offer eternal life,” Michael Banschbach, with St. Michael the Archangel Chapel, Inc, [...]

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Your Turkish judiciary update

Yesterday, 86 people went up on trial in Turkey in what the Telegraph called the country’s “most important political trial in a decade.”  The mass of defendants, including journalists and former generals, are charged with assassinations and bombings in an effort to overthrow the government.  The case focuses on a shadowy ultra-nationalist organization called Ergenekon, [...]

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