Dedicated to Hrant Dink's Memory

by freeman5153
(views:26)

Links about Hrant Dink (1954-2007)

62nd assassinated journalist.... : these people REALLY believe in freedom of expression.

What Did Turkish Columnists Write About Hrant Dink's Murder? : self-explanatory


Leaders Fail the Test : profound analysis by M.Ali Birand

“Significant...” : portrait of a couple of pathetic leaders

How to pray in Turkish after a deceased Turkish citizen... : a humanistic form of Islam

Hrant Dink is murdered : Who is responsible ?

And they have caught the 16 year old who pulled the trigger. But the real story now has to be the evil man Kemal Kerinçsiz.

He is the lawyer who has used the infamous "insulting turkishness" law (article 301) to bring Dink to trial at least three times thus turning him into a target for extremists.

His other targets have been Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and also Christians.

In other countries, actions of this sort would be considered incitement to hatred and murder and those engaging in them would be prosecuted not given the freedom to operate as self-styled prosecutors harassing innocent people.

The shameless Kerinçsiz even called a television station while it was covering the Hrant murder.

The two young newscasters who took Kerinçsiz's call did an excellent job of pointing out to Kerinçsiz his very own real responsibility in the death of this man.

Clips of the exchange (in Turkish) with each presenter can be viewed HERE and HERE. A transcript of the exchange (also in Turkish) can be found HERE .

Kerinçsiz was agitated while the presenters were calm giving exceptional and reasoned responses and rebuttals to each and every futile attempt by Kerinçsiz to explain himself.

Kerinçsiz was finally reduced to the point where all he could do was meekly put down the phone.

Linkestan 2007 01 19

Bilingualism postpones onset of dementia : good news for me then.

Tributes to Ahmet Ertegun by Mick Jagger, Neil Young, Aretha Franklin, Robert Plant... : candid and personal memories of a significant Turkish-American

China: The next science superpower? and Analysis of Chinese R&D

Turkish American Hour website: content / on-demand turkish-american tv

Plantinga reviews Dawkins The God Delusion : top Christian philosopher on "top" atheist's book

America's Rose Bowl Parade Economy

I was intrigued by the Rose Bowl Parade being broadcast live from Pasadena, California on New Year's day.

We were watching it on HGTV where there were no commercials. And, believe me when it comes to American TV "no commercials" is a real blessing !

You can watch just over 7 minutes of the Rose Bowl Parade HERE to give you an idea of what this is if you've never heard of it before.

For a few seconds on camera (anywhere from 15 seconds to 3 minutes) an army of mostly volunteers have spent some 12-14 months designing, fund raising and building these elaborate floats.

I could not help thinking of the vast amount of resources which were being diverted to such an ephemeral enterprise.

And to what end ?

As far as I can tell, after getting paraded through, these floats have fulfilled their purpose and so have no other fate than being discarded.

What vanity ! What waste !

How much vanity ? How much waste ?

Well. let's see if we can put some numbers together :

" (...)Flowers begin arriving at the Pasadena float barns the week of Christmas via refrigerated semi trucks. They are stowed in temperature-controlled tents each the size of half a football field. Each float-building company maintains one or two of these flower tents. The flowers sit in buckets, racks, stacks and cases grouped according to the float for which they’re destined. When it’s time to decorate the floats, volunteer decorators move the flowers from these flower-prep areas to the float-building barns. ... it takes 60 volunteers working 10 hours a day for 10 days to decorate a single float (@$17/ hour =$6,000) ."

"The Tournament of Roses has become such a large event that it requires 65,000 hours of combined manpower each year (@$17/hr=$1,050,000)"

"Phoenix Decorating Co. is building 21 floats for the upcoming parade - and the following is just a partial list of materials Phoenix alone is using ... :

Steel 300 tons. (@$700/ton=$210,000) used to create the chassis, basic structure and sculpted figures on each float.

Plywood 70,000 square feet. (@$12/ft2=$840,000) used to form some elements of the base upon which flowers and dry elements are pasted.

Chicken Wire 225,000 square feet. (@$0.30/square foot=$67,500) used to form large areas for floral decoration.

Aluminum Screen 350,000 square feet. (@$0.35/square foot=$122,500) utilized to cover detailed areas of sculpted figures and serve as the base for pasted flowers and dry decoration..

(...).Flowers 20 million, including 400,000 roses (@$0.67 each=$268,000) and 550,000 carnations (@$0.10 each=$55,000).

With these numbers and assuming about 60 floats in each year's parade, I cost these floats at around $6 million per annum.

And that is a conservative estimate which does not take into account all of the flowers that get used nor the storage of the flowers in refrigerated tents nor their transport to the parade grounds on the day of the parade.

Put that in contrast with the $50 million per year David Beckham is reportedly being offered to play soccer (football) with the LA Galaxy.

Which is more wasteful ?

Before you answer, remember that Mr. Beckham has to perform in his job 365 days of the year and may possibly raise the profile of the sport in America getting many new youngster to play soccer etc.

The Rose Bowl parade, on the other hand, is a 6 million dollar sinkhole for a ONE DAY EVENT with no wider impact on society for the remaing 364 days of the year.

What gives ?

Is it just that Californians have more money than sense ?

Sorry, I don't see any other explanation.



Footnotes :

1 Average Hourly Wage

2 Number of floats in the parade

3 Price of chicken wire

4 Price of carnations

5 Price of roses

copyright 2007 Celal Birader

Linkestan 2007 01 12 (with homage to www.eyeranian.net)

Stefan Karlsson's blog: Keith Ellison's Misinterpretation of Thomas Jefferson's Quran

Black Lion: Yes, Practicing Muslims do think like this

SciGuy: We sure live on a teensy, tiny world

SciGuy: Are robots the next transforming technology?

My No.1 Absolute Favourite Pop Song

I recently decided that the song

Ventura Highway

was, is and

probably will remain my number 1 favourite pop song of all time.

Do you have an absolute favourite pop song of all time ?

If so, I’d like to know what it is.

Please use the comments feature to this post to let me (and the world) know what it is.

S.T.O.P. not S.L.O.W. is key to ending AIDS

"Only the church has the authority to completely eradicate AIDS," said Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church. (...) Recapping the four most popular methods to combating AIDS using the acrostic “SLOW,” Warren said the S stands for supply condoms.(...)[t]he L in SLOW stands for limiting the number of partners,(...) [t]he O in SLOW is offer needle exchange,(...) [and t]he W in SLOW is wait [i.e. delay] for the first onset of sex, Warren noted.“Those are the four most popular methods to AIDS prevention, and they will work to a degree,” he said.

“But if you want to stop it, now you have to bring in the church.”Warren proposed a new acrostic in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Using the word “STOP,” : (...) “S is save sex for marriage,(...) “T is teach men to respect women and children.

The O in STOP is to offer treatment through churches, Warren said. Calling on his experiences in setting up AIDS ministries in Rwanda, he said there are only three hospitals(...) two of which are church-based. Out of the 16 clinics in Rwanda, only two of them are government-based. Yet, the country has 836 churches.“So even in the hospitals, the churches were doing most of the work,” Warren said. “Which is the most likely –- if you have to get your refills, wouldn’t you like to get them at the closest church rather than a two-days’ walk? There are millions of villages where all they have in it is a church. And so we would have to offer treatment through churches.”

The P in STOP is pledge yourself to one partner for life, Warren said. (...) "

To Be Rich Is Not a Sin . . .

. . . but

"to die rich is to die disgraced"

-- Andrew Carnegie

Verse for 2007 : John 1:16

Well, it's that time of the year again.

If you're wondering what I'm talking about then read what I wrote last year HERE . The Lord Jesus Christ who is the Living Word continued to use our text for 2006 to prepare me for what could have been the shock of redundancy which came knocking last October.

The thing about trials is that unpleasant as they are, they ALL come from a God who is sovereign - which means He is in control over everything that happens and nothing happens anywhere at any time without His knowledge, permission and timing.

And He is also a God who is loving. This is not just a theoretical idea but proven in the fact that God became man to die on a cross to suffer the punishment for the sins of those who will receive Him (see John 1:12 and Romans 8:32)

So now a few words about this year's verse :

"From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another." (John 1:16, NIV)

If you compare the translation of this verse with others you will soon realise that it is not a strictly literal rendering of the original Greek. When I notice that I get extremely sceptical. Why ? Because it means that the translator or the translating committee is making an interpretation in the very act of translation. It nearly always strikes me something like eating pre-digested food.

Since we use the NIV in our church, I was simultaneously quite sceptical but also listening quite intently when our Pastor was preaching on this passage last Sunday (and can be listened again HERE ).

I have to report that while the passage is a paraphrase, in my opinion it does help better understand the text which is quite densely packed and requires a lot of unpacking in its literal state.

For example, John 1:16 reads as follows in the ESV (English Standard Version) which is a literal translation :

"And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace."

We must first ask ourselves what "fullness" is being spoken of here before we can ever hope to understand what we are dealing with. Since context is nearly always decisive in answering questions such as this we find the answer in verse 14 where it says that Jesus was "full of grace and truth".

And "grace upon grace" means the same thing as "blessing after blessing". The Pastor's sermon has an excellent illustration which explains this quite vividly and helpfully. (UPDATE: In addition to our Pastor's excellent illustration I give you the following elaboration of the expression " grace upon grace" :

" Those who are Christ's receive of His fulness. This fulness comes to expression in the lives of believers in terms of “grace upon grace” (1:16, Greek: charin anti charitos) Literally, this means “grace in the place of grace” — like one wave rolling in after another endlessly on the shore.

John then immediately reflects upon what characterized the past age, and what now characterizes the new age. “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (1:17). A reign of condemnation (2 Corinthians 3:9) has been succeeded by a reign of grace. This does not mean that there was no “grace” under Moses, and no “law” in Christ. But it does mean that the coming of Christ ushered in grace in such a decisive way that it is as though grace is only now in the fulness of time bursting into human history (just as Paul marks the appearance of “law” with the time of Moses, Romans 5:13-14).

Can you now better understand what Paul means when he states that
Christians are “not under law, but under grace” (6:14)? In the new age, “grace”is now our teacher (Titus 2 11-14)."

Haleluia ! Thank you, Jesus. Bless you Name. It is fitting to praise You always.

The power of BECAUSE

"(...) The power of 'because' has actually been documented by social psychologist Ellen Langer. Langer performed an experiment where she asked to cut in line to use a copy machine. She tested three different ways of asking, and recorded the results(...)"

(Read more)

Gerald R. Ford Jr. (1913-2006)

I was well into my teenage years when Mr. Ford became the 38th president of the United States.

I can say he made little if any impression upon me at that time.

How time can change things !

Because he has now passed on, reviews of his own life and the impact he has had within what is for me living memory has really touched me.

The following is from Newsweek magazine.

What I have highlighted from that piece demonstrates to me the man's integrity in that even as he faced deep personal hurt his private and public personas seem to fit together without guile into a single high-minded unit.

All of which, it turns out was for the good of the country even though many if not most people held to the opposite view at the time.

"( . . . ) Gerald R. Ford Jr. was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. His real father was a handsome, wealthy, blond-haired wife-beater who first struck his bride on the first night of their honeymoon for smiling at a stranger in the elevator.

Later, Leslie King Sr. held a knife over his wife as she lay in bed with her newborn baby; she then fled to Grand Rapids, Mich., and married a paint salesman named Gerald Ford, who gave her baby boy his name.

At 16, young Jerry, by then a high-school football hero, was tending a lunch counter when Leslie King Sr. sauntered in. "I'm your father," he announced. "I'd like to take you to lunch." King was passing through town on his way to pick up an expensive new car, a Lincoln. King asked Ford if he would like to move back to live with his true father in Wyoming.

"It was a hell of a shock," Ford later recalled. He went to lunch, but was shaking with resentment. "Nothing could erase the image I gained of my real father that day—a carefree, well-to-do man who really didn't give a damn about the hopes and dreams of his son." In bed that night, Ford wept "tears of anger."

He tried to remember verses from Proverbs his mother had taught him: Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.

...[H]is personal history contains, at the very least, a foreshadowing of his decision to end what he called "the long national nightmare" of Watergate with a presidential pardon.

In 1937, when Ford was at Yale, his delinquent father turned up again—this time with a quid pro quo. For years, Leslie King had been embroiled with Ford's mother regarding unpaid alimony and child-support payments. Now King was offering Ford a deal: if he would get his mother to back off her legal claims, King would make sure his son was not forgotten in his will.

Ford was cool to his father's approach, but ultimately worked out a settlement that won his mother $4,000. She sent her son a check for more than $2,000, which he promptly returned to her. "I was simply acting as a peacemaker," Ford testified in a 1939 court proceeding.

Duke history professor Peter Wood has speculated that when Ford pardoned Nixon, he was re-enacting the drama of trying to bring peace between his mother and father. This interpretation may be stretching the bounds of psychohistory.

Still, Ford's language, when he announced the pardon that September Sunday in 1974, does suggest that he was obeying what Wood calls "a submerged but controlling personal logic."

Ford told the nation: "My conscience tells me clearly and certainly that I cannot continue to prolong the bad dreams that continue to reopen a chapter that is closed ... My conscience tells me it is my duty to not merely proclaim domestic tranquillity but to use every means that I have to ensure it."

Source : The 38th President: More Than Met the Eye by Evan Thomas

Jesus the Jew and Christian Practice

"(. . .) What all of this gets at (...) is how difficult it is for Christians to simply take the "Jesus of history" (itself a problematic notion) as normative for their faith and practice in any straightforward way.

First, as Derek also points out, the church has never confined Jesus' influence to the example set by a historical figure 2,000 years ago, much less to the latest scholarly reconstruction.

For Christian faith Jesus is first and foremost the living Lord whose Spirit continues to guide the church. Of course, that faith would be a mirage if the Jesus of history didn't do and say the kinds of things recorded in the gospel accounts.

But Christians aren't committed to slavishly imitating all the details of Jesus' life, even the religious details. That much was made clear at the Council of Jerusalem. (. . .)"

Read more of this quality posting at verbum ipsum .

The truth of the final paragraph above can also be seen in the Risen Lord Jesus's message to the Seven Churches of Asia Minor (all located within the borders of modern Turkey). More particularly see 2:9, 2:14, 2:20, and 3:9 .

Christmas in Iran

H/T
The Spirit of Man

Rick Warren on Meet the Press (Psalm 72)

The TV was on this morning while we were waiting to go to church. So while flicking the channels I came upon a programme called "Meet the Press". It's one of those political interview programmes they have on Sunday mornings, a bit like the one David Frost used to have (and maybe he still does?).

I decided to stop there in my channel surfing mainly because I was intrigued that Rick Warren (Pastor of a mega-church and author of a mega best seller called "The Purpose Driven Life") was the guest.

The programme became even more intriguing when, in the context of explaining what he called the stewardship of influence, he referred to Psalm 72 . It was a mini sermon. And as you rarely get that on such Sunday morning political programmes I was listening even more intently.

He pointed out that in Psalm 72 Solomon prayed that God would magnify his influence throughout the world so that he might help the helpless. His point was that he was taking this as his model for social action.

It was time to go to church. When we got there can you guess which passage the preacher introduced as his text ? Yep, that's right : Psalm 72.

So now was my chance to get a fuller exposition.

We learn that this is a messianic psalm so that the person who will have the expansive influence and do all the great things is in fact the Messiah Himself. Solomon in this Psalm functions as the type of the Messiah.

I'm not saying that Warren was wrong in making a personal application of Scripture for his own situation but of course the primary focus of the passage is not Warren or even Solomon but the Messiah.

Christian Anarchism

". . . Instead, Clark adopts what he calls "anarcho-conservatism," an anti-revolutionary commitment to expanding the organization of the civil or economic means of social cooperation, side-by-side with, and gradually replacing coercive means. He concedes that such a conservative stance risks being insufficiently sensitive to present injustice, but argues that change which grows organically out of a people's past is preferable to the kind of sharp break with it that revolution often brings. Nevertheless, he admits that the anarcho-conservative requires a certain kind of patience:

and that may be easiest for those who can trust in God. If the God of justice will bring the Empire down, and we, God's people, will be there to see it fall (even if I, in this mortal body, never do), we can afford to wait, and not attempt to rule the world by force. (p. 90)

This last quote reminds me of John Howard Yoder's argument that Christians aren't called to make sure that history comes out right. That's God's business. The job of Christians is to be faithful to a certain way of life in the midst of the dawning of the new creation and the death-throes of the old. And certainly non-coercion looms large in Yoder's vision of what the Christian life is about. "

(Read More)

FAQ - Sunnis & Shiites

H/T Hugh Hewitt

Ayman Al-Zawahiri Christmas Message

Why Keep a Diary ?

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Click HERE

Thanks to Paul for linking to this gem from Bill.

A Christmas message from Celal

Happy Christmas to you all from America where Celal is at a family reunion.

America is seeming more like a foreign country to me now.

I have been identifying myself as Turkish- American and now this identity might be starting to disolve irretrievably from my psyche as a result of this visit.

Hey, maybe the good news is that my identity in Jesus will now outshine them all.

Was just watching CNN where the editors of TIME magazine have declared YOU and ME -- user generated media moguls as we are with our fine blogs as "Persons of the Year" .

On other news Celal is no longer working at Oak Hill College having (finally) been made redundant from a job that was going nowhere. Hope that will not prove to be the case with this fine biblical training institution.

And God has been good to Celal and his family having him back in the saddle with another permanent full time position in less time than it took for his redundancy cheque to clear the bank !!! Halelluia and Amen !!!!

Do me a favour and enjoy some fine mulled wine during my absence from the country.

Love and Blessings to all men and women of good will : the Saviour has come.

Celal

Awesome Snowboarding Video

215,884 views

Turkey : Papal Visits Boosts Beleaguered Catholics

Celebration Outside Holy Spirit Cathedral


“I was very worried by all the negative news,” said Antuan Ilgit, a Turkish Jesuit seminarian studying in Rome who traveled to Turkey for the pontiff’s visit.


“Nobody wanted me to participate in the papal mass, because they thought there would be a bomb,” Turkish Catholic Teresa Tuzun told Compass in the courtyard outside the Holy Spirit Cathedral in Istanbul.


Joining a spontaneous Turkish folk dance in celebration of the pope’s coming, Tuzun said she had thrown caution to the wind. “I told them, ‘If you hear a bomb, know that I exploded with the pope.’”


Recurring anti-Christian media coverage and social discrimination against converts to Christianity from Islam had compounded fears among Turkey’s Catholics that the pope’s trip could end poorly.


“Unfortunately, people aren’t able to accept the fact that we are both Turkish and Catholic,” said one convert from Islam who requested anonymity for fear of losing his job. “They treat us as if we are traitors to our country. But we are Turks and we will stand by our state and our people until the end.”

Full Report

Islam Bashers And The Judgement of Matthew 7:21-23

Islam bashing sites tend to fall into the following categories:

• Base hatred and racism


• Jewish sites uncovering the hypocrisies and lies of their Islamic enemies


• Sites defending ‘western civilisation’ against Islam

In this context I’m thinking more of the third category of which THIS BLOG is a particularly good example.

So what might the people behind such sites have to do with Matthew 7:21-23 ?

In the passage, the people who are standing before the terrible judgement of Jesus Christ appear to have been performing the most visible, the most high profile and even the most spectacular acts of ministry.

Why?

Perhaps it was for personal gain. But I think it is important to note that the Lord is not accusing them for any pecuniary motive in particular.

I think this gives us room, therefore, to think they may have been performing these spectacular acts of ministry in order to convince others of the truth of Christianity.

It’s a bit like the third category of blogs above which actually also use Christian apologetic material against Islam but the person using it has not himself bowed the knee to the Lord Jesus in this life .

It is conceivable to me that such a person might stand before the Lord Jesus and make a similar defense.

It is possible we will see the numbers of such people continue to grow in the current climate of ‘Clash of Civilisations’. Sadly such people will have turned to out have deluded themselves.

Negatively, we have to beware of acting like mercenaries of the Kingdom of God without first having become its’ citizens of good standing.

And more positively this underscores the fact that Christianity is not an ideology or a religion but an individual and personal relationship with the Risen Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

Anything less is subject to terrible judgement.

Quote of the Day

"I know the best deadly sin.
And what do you think that is?
Sloth, because that means lazyness.
And if you're not doing anything, you won't commit any of the other deadly sins." Frank McCourt