[nomoreheroes]

I visited Constantinople for the first time. all the old Christian neighborhoods seemed like they were taken over by fundamentalist squatters, and the few areas where I saw western looking women like the ones depicted here were in the back alleyways of taksim and beyoglu. I feel sorry for secular and moderate Turks because they seem doomed to be trapped between Islam and military dictatorship.
it was sad to see the loudspeakers from a mosque poured down into the orthodox patriarchates compound. itvwas obvious that the indigenous Christian population is harassed, discriminated against, and persecuted. Christian churches are surrounded by barbwire and broken glass topped walls. the old Armenian neighborhoods were the most depressing because they were abandoned.
the average Turk on the other hand was very kind and hospitable to foreign travelers, but it must be he'll to be a Christian minority there. I don't blame the last Greeks wanting to leave. the patriarch will be the last man standing, god bless.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Yes things are a changin' since I lived in Ankara for a few months.

here and especially here.

Last weekend I heard on San Francisco KSFO Barbara Simpson interview Ms Claire Berlinski about her book There is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters.

Turns out Ms Berlinski is a long-time resident of Istanbul and writes about things Turkish here

Meanwhile American citizen Fethullah Gülen and his "movement" are helping the Islamist AKP suppress freedom, lie, jail, persecute and destroy lives and impose Islamism on the tens of millions who do not want it. That don't make a lick of sense.