The Rabbit Ears Quiz (12 of 12)_ Heidi, Girl of the Alps

Today, we close our series on tv shows which aired from the late '60s to the early '80s, with a segment that is actually dedicated to two Japanese cartoons, which were both based on classic German children's stories (we should point out that Heidi was actually written by Swiss author Johanna Spyris in 1880, but it was first published in German).

We'll start with "Heidi, Girl of the Alps," which was part of the anime "World Masterpiece Theatre" productions, which also included Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer. The Heidi cartoon ran for a full year in 1972; I saw in on the TRT (Turkish Radio Television) some five years later.

The legendary film director Hayao Miayazaki, now age 71, who directed the films "Spirited Away" and "Princess Monoke" was responsible for the Heidi cartoon's screen design and layout.

Isao Takahata, now age 76, who directed another acclaimed Japanese animated film "Grave of the Fireflies" (1998) about the horrors of World War 2, directed many episodes of the Heidi cartoon.

Another popular Anime cartoon was "Maya the Bee," which originally ran in Japan from 1975-76. It was based on the German book of the same name, which was written by Waldena Bansels in 1912.

"Maya the Bee" was also very popular in Europe. I saw in on the TRT, circa 1978, when I was eight years old, where it was known as "Ari Maya" (ari is the Turkish word for bee). The cartoon was also trendy in Greece, Israel and Bulgaria, as well as many other countries.

Both "Heidi" and "Maya the Bee" lasted for the exact same number of episodes. Today, we are asking what that number was.

Is the answer?:

A) 36

B) 42

C) 52

D) 60

http://www.animenews.com

http://www.funimation.com

UPDATE (July 5, 2012): The answer is C) 52

Ten People Who Will Decide the Presidency- (2 of 10) Casino Dealer in Nevada

Today, we continue our series of looking at how individual decisions can greatly affect the outcome of the American presidential election. So far, this year, there have been elections in  some 70 countries, including Egypt, Greece, France and Russia, but the American presidential election receives the most attention and it is conversely the most expensive.Dave Gilson of the liberal publication "Mother Jones" stated in a February column that President Barack Obama spent $730 million to become president in 2008.

Here is a look at today's fictional person who represents a real person who could decide the presidency; please see our disclaimer at the end of the blog_

Name: Linda Garcia

Age: 43

Residency: Las Vegas, Nevada

Will Likely Vote For: Barack Obama

Obama made significant gains over John Kerry to win the Silver State in 2008. Though Nevada has only five electoral votes, it is one of the main swing states. Nevada has chosen the president in every election cycle since 1912 with the exception of 1976 when the state picked Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter.

In the '08 election, Obama garnered 55 percent of the vote in Nevada. Regionally, his biggest win came in the Las Vegas-metro area. In 2004, George W. Bush won over Kerry by a mere 2.6 percent margin. The city of Elko was considered to be the one zip code responsible for the narrow re-election of Bush as the former president won a whopping 78 percent of the vote there. But, Obama trimmed the margins in Nevada's most conservative area by winning 32 percent of the vote in Elko.

Obama also won in the Nevada capital of Carson City and Reno, two areas that just barely went to Bush four years earlier. Many insiders expect the Hispanic vote to decide many western states. In addition to Nevada, the Hispanic vote will be crucial in New Mexico, Colorado and even Arizona, a state that went to John McCain (he is one of the state's two Republican U.S. Senators) in 2008.

According to the Pew Research Center, Hispanics voted for Obama by a 67-31 percent margin in 2008. Obama also became the first Democrat to win Florida's Hispanic vote by a 57-42 percent margin. And, he even made strides with the traditionally Republican Cuban-American vote by gaining 35 percent of the vote in that demographic. Cuban-Americans started becoming partisan Republicans after the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Linda Garcia is a fictional character. There are many people with that name including a Georgetown professor. There is also a Linda Garcia Cubaro, who is a former Air Force officer. But, this fictional Linda Garcia is not based on them in any way. Nor does this character necessarily reflect the politics of any individuals with her name.

While this has consisted of many political satires from a center-left perspective, this series is meant to be informative and non-partisan.

http://www.pewhispanic.org

http://www.capitolhillcubans.com

http://www.miamicubandems.org

http://www.nvdems.com

http://www.nevadagop.org

http://www.visitlasvegas.com

Quote of the Day- Dan Quayle

If Bill O'Reilly is checking us out tonight, as are blog readers from Russia, Greece and Sweden, and he accuses of an arbitrary liberal bias, our response will be: 1) Ok, so what a tea partier is just Peppermint Patty in reverse and 2) our original choice was Charles Fairbanks, who was vice president under Theodore Roosevelt.

But, since no quotes from Fairbanks were anywhere to be found we went with a more recent Republican vice president in Dan Quayle, 65, who was veep under George H.W. Bush.

In spite of his now dubious political reputation, Quayle actually served in both houses of Congress for many years prior to becoming vice president. In 1976, at the age of 29, Quayle was elected into the House of Representatives and from 1981-89, he was a U.S. Senator for Indiana.

His son Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.), 35, is following the family's political tradition as he was elected to represent his district in Arizona. Quayle is one of many freshman Congressional reps who were elected in November of 2010; a class which is now the subject of a book from seasoned reporters at "Politico" (we need to ask Javier the Intern* to bing the author's names when he gets back from the Salt Lake City Library**).

As for Vice President Charles Fairbanks (1852-1918), he had a similar background to Quayle as he once a U.S. Senator before becoming Theodore Roosevelt's veep, but he got stabbed in the back by his boss as Teddy decided to support William Howard Taft instead, and Taft did indeed become president back in....where's Javier? But, we do know that it was 66 degrees in Fairbanks, Alaska, today.

As for the photo, we are not sure what the context is. This salute in Turkey is for the far, far-right Grey Wolves political movement; and at North Carolina State University, nicknamed the Wolfpack, it is the school's partisan salute at athletic events.

Here is Quayle's quote, and we are NOT making this one up:

"A low voter turn-out is an indication of fewer people going to the polls."

Links: 1) Dan Quayle's official home page, 2) Politico, 3) NC State U, 4) SLC, Utah Public Library and 5) Turkishpoliticsinaction.com, a site which is not in any way linked to far-right political movements in Turkey or anywhere else.

http://www.vicepresidentquayle.com

http://www.politico.com

http://www.ncsu.edu

http://www.slcpl.org

http://www.turkishpoliticsinaction.com

*-Javier the Intern is a fictional person; one day we will have to post a Wikipedia entry about him

**- We are not in Salt Lake City, Utah, but we hear the city's public library is among the best in the country.

Olympic Cities Distance Quiz (1 of 6) Athens to London

Today, we begin a six-part series on the distances between various cities which have hosting the Olympic Games. As of this summer, London, England/U.K., will be the first city to host the games three times. The previous two times were in 1900 and 1948.

Athens, Greece, has hosted the modern summer Olympics twice, including the initial games in 1896 and in 2004.

American swimmer Ann Curtis who won gold in women's 400 meter free-style swimming back during the 1948 Olympics is still alive at age 86.

The American delegation sent 300 athletes to the 1948 Olympics.

In 2004, there were significantly more American athletes in the field as 536 athletes were sent to Greece. Among them were Misty May and Kerri Walsh who won gold in women's beach volleyball.

So, what is the distance between Athens, Greece, and London, England; is the answer:

A) 1,466 miles

B) 1,476 miles

C) 1,486 miles

D) 1,496 miles

Several airlines travel the Athens-London route; they include British Airways and Olympic Air (Greece).

http://www.bbc.co.uk

http://www.london2012.com

http://www.britishairways.com


http://www.olympicair.com




SIDEBAR: The answer to our quiz question regarding "The Flintstones" is A) 1960.

Quote of the Day/Week- Bernardo Bertolucci

Bernardo Bertolucci, one of Italy's greatest living directors, is an Academy-Award winner who has also directed the Italian film "The Conformist" (1971) and the highly controversial film "Last Tango in Paris" (1973). He Oscared for "The Last Emperor" (1987).

My friend New York-based film critic Bilge Ebiri has an exceptional profile of Bertolucci in the Australian web journal "Senses of Cinema."

Here is Bertolucci's quip:

"I don't think you can in any way export culture with guns and tanks."

SIDEBAR: We were aware that Greece, obviously a country going through a very hard time right now, had a thriving heavy metal scene with bands like Acid Death, Black Winter and Rotting Christ.

But, there is apparently an all girls punk rock band which formed in Crete called Barbed Wire Dolls. The band is now based in Los Angeles, and they perform in my hometown of Roanoke, Va., at the Horseshoe tomorrow night.

We first heard of the Greek heavy metal bands through the North Carolina State student-run college radio station WKNC (88.1-Raleigh) which airs "Chainsaw Rock" with host Lucreita tonight at midnight.

In Greece's neighboring country of Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country where my late father Mehmet Gokbudak hailed from, heavy metal is also surprisingly popular, and there are local bands, such as Pentagram, which have large followings.

Even more astonishing is the fact that the Israeli-based heavy metal band Orphaned Land is also very popular in Turkey.

Quote of the Day/Week- Vaclav Havel

Today, we conclude our month-long series of quotes from famous people who died in 2011 with a quip from Vaclav Havel, a Czech playwright/essayist who also became the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic when they formally divorced from Slovakia. Havel was also a dedicated opposition human rights leader when Czechoslovakia was under communism.

There are seemingly few writers who go on to become political leaders. The only one we can think of at the moment is the late Bulent Ecevit, a poet and journalist who became prime minister and president of Turkey. Ecevit is most-known for being the Turkish prime minister in 1974 when Turkey and Greece fought a brief, but ugly war in Cyprus.

Havel died on Dec. 18, 2011, at the age of 75; here is his quote:

"Hope is a feeling that life and work have meaning. You either have it or you don't, regardless of the state of the world around you."

Happy New Year from Karagoz and Hacivat

For complicated reasons that we went into greater deal with on our other blog "The Daily Vampire," Turkey and France are not getting along well these days. For the entry on our sister blog, we sent New Year's greetings from the beloved French comic book character Asterix the Gaul. Here, we shall go with a much older entity in the Turkish shadow puppet figures of Karagoz and Hacivat, whom we believe may actually be in the public domain as Turkey has traditionally had more lax copyright laws than Europe and America.

Karagoz, the one with the beard, and Hacivat, the one with the mustache, are the lead characters in Turkish shadow puppet theatre. There is considerable dispute as to when the plays were first performed. According to Wikipedia, it was long believed that Karagoz and Hacivat first appeared during the reign of Sultan Selim (1512-1520), but there is historical evidence to suggest they go back even further in time than the 16th century.

Karagoz represents the semi-literate village dwellers while Hacivat symbolizes educated intellectuals. The plays remain very timely to this day because children can be entertained by them while adults can observe how these two characters represent the deep divides in Turkey, which exist to this very day. Conversely, Karagoz and Hacivat are the best of friends, yet they also can't stand each other.

Secondary characters in the plays, which usually run about ten minutes each, include the Drunkard, Zeybek and the old woman. The plays always conclude with Karagoz and Hacivat having a major argument. There is a similar Greek shadow puppet character named Karagiozis. In both Turkey and Greece, there has always been a concern that each passing generation will be less interested in traditional shadow puppet theatre than the previous one. And, tourists have been known to take a greater interest in shadow puppet theatre than the natives.

In Turkey, Karagoz and Hacivat have long been associated with Bursa, Turkey's fourth largest city and former Ottoman capital, before Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror came to the Bosporus shores of Constantinople/Istanbul in 1453.

Happy New Year to everyone, and we hope you keep reading this blog in 2012.


SIDEBAR: The answer to our Road Trip Quiz from last week was "C" and the answer to the Rabbit Ears Quiz question about "The Brady Bunch" was "A."

Sports Desk- Updates on Turkish, Greek and English Futbol

Since we congratulated the UCLA Bruins for winning the NCAA women's volleyball title last night, we are putting together all the soccer info we've gathered from weekend action here in this one entry.

Let's start in the Turkish Premier League where two of the three Istanbul powerhouses sitting on top of the league standings once again Galatasaray and Fenerbahce won their matches. The third powerhouse team Besiktas drew a 1-1 tie.

For Galatasaray, in the team's 2-0 victory over Orduspor, the goals came from Milan Baros (22nd minute) and Kazim Kazim (67th min.).

In Fenerbahce's 1-0 win over Trabzonspor, the lone goal in the match came from Mehmet Topuz (pictured). He scored in the 24th minute of play, and it was yet another shut-out for Volkan Demirel, the star goalie for Fenerbahce who plays the same position for the Turkish national team.

In Sunday action in England, Russian player Roman Palychenko, who should make our next long and difficult names list, scored the lone in the 61st minute to lead Tottenham past Sunderland 1-0. The Russian came into the match as a substitute in the 22nd minute of the game.

Additionally, EPL-leading Manchester City scored a 1-0 win over Arsenal thanks to goal from Spanish superstar David Silva in the 53rd minute of play.

In the UEFA Champions League, two English teams will be in the knock-out round of
16, including Chelsea as they face Napoli. Arsenal, the other English team in that particular group, will play an Italian team as well in AC Milan.

Ironically, neither Turkey nor Greece has a team in the Champions League round of
16, but there will be two teams each from both countries in the UEFA Europa League, but Cyprus, a tiny island country that lead Turkey and Greece to fight a brief, but ugly war in 1974, has a team in the Champions round as APOEL will face the French power Lyon.

While researching this piece, we were also stunned to learn that there is a Turkish player named Erol Bulut (born in Germany) who plays for the Greek team OFI Crete.

Here are the results of weekend play;

Turkey:

Galatasaray 2 Orduspor 0
Ankaragucu 0 Gaziantepspor 0, tie
Idman Yurdu (Mersin) 5 Karabukspor 3
Eskisehir 1 Kayseri 0
Bursaspor 0 Antalyaspor 0, tie
Istanbul BB 1 Sivasspor 1, tie
Ankara GB 1 Manisa 0
Besiktas 1 Samsunspor 1, tie
Fenerbahce 1 Trabzonspor 0

Greece (partial list):

Panathinaikos (Athens) 3 Asteras 1
PAOK Salonika 2 Doxa Dramas 0
Atromitos 1 AEK Athens 0
Olympiacos 2 PAS Giannia 0
OFI Crete 0 Kerkyra 0, tie

England (Sunday games only):

Manchester United 2 Queens Park 0
Liverpool 2 Aston Villa 0
Tottenham 1 Sunderland 0
Manchester City 1 Arsenal 0

Turkish, Greek and English teams in the Europa League and their match-ups, with games starting in mid-February:

FC Porto (Portugal) vs. Manchester City

Machester United vs. Ajax Amsterdam (Holland)

Rubin Kazan (Russia) vs. Olympiacos

PAOK vs. Udinese (Italy)

Besiktas vs. Braga (Portugal)

Trabzonspor vs. PSV Eindhoven (Holland)

Quote of the Week- Elizabeth Manley

As we continue to quote famous Canadians this month, we turn our focus to women's figure skating legend Elizabeth Manley, 46, who won silver at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary.

Manley, who hails from Trenton, Ontario, is the Canadian spokesperson for Ovarian Cancer Awareness as the illness claimed her mother's life.

Here is her quote, despite efforts to find out who 'she' is, we were unable to pinpoint it, but this seems like a nifty quote as it is:

"If she keeps her nerves under control....she could easily be the one to upset the apple cart."

SIDEBAR: My friend Chris Knight in North Carolina has promised to once again take part in his annual Thanksgiving tradition of deep-frying, which he will almost certainly discuss on his blog "The Knight Shift" (http://www.theknightshift.blogspot.com); while I am very interested how things turn out for Knight, I would not try this myself.

I recall reading a story from a Kansas City news source via Twitter that many people in the metro area were injured from turkey deep-frying efforts over Thanksgiving last year. But, we wish Chris well!

SIDEBAR 2: We were surprised to find out that the Greek Cypriot team APOEL Nicosia became the first team from their country to qualify for the knock-out round of the UEFA Cup tournament by tying the Russian team Zenit St.Petersburg 0-0. Though, we try to avoid putting ethnic politics into sports, I was amused to read (I am a Turkish-American) that APOEL was suspended from UEFA play back in 1986 because the government in Nicosia refused to let the team play the Turkish soccer power Besiktas (Istanbul) in UEFA play. Turkey and Greece tragically went to war over Cyprus in July of 1974.

It was also a good day for the Greek team Olympiakos FC from Piraeus as they defeated the French team Marseilles 1-0 thanks to a goal in the 81st minute from Ioannis Fetfazidis, aka 'the Greek Messi' in the 81st minute of play.

In other soccer games today, the Spanish team Valencia decked the Belgian squad Genk 7-0, and the Portuguese team FC Porto beat out the Ukrainian champs Shakhtar Donetsk 2-0.

The Rabbit Ears Quiz- Space 1999 (2 of 12)

It just dawned on me that two future Academy Award-winners for Best Supporting Actor came to prominence thanks to two science-fiction oriented tv show. The two actors I'm thinking of are Robin Williams ("Mork and Mindy" is one of the few sci-fi sitcoms one can think of) and Martin Landau, who starred in the British tv cult classic "Space 1999," who won an Oscar for playing Bela Lugosi in "Ed Wood."

I first came across "Space 1999," which ran for two seasons from 1975 until 1978, in a very unusual way. When I saw the show, it was actually called "Uzay 1999" and it aired on the TRT, Turkish Radio and Television. When I saw the show in the fall of 1977, there was only one channel of tv in Turkey and it only came on at certain hours of the day. Plus, virtually all of the tvs were in black and white. Of course, now one can watch hundreds of channels of tv in Turkey, which I would presume has posed challenged for the TRT, which was a state-run media monopoly at the time.

For its time, "Space 1999" was the most expensive television ever made. It drew inspiration from Stanley Kubrick's cinematic masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey"
(1968). In addition to Landau, the show featured his then-wife Barabara Bain.

So, for today's quiz, since it's a safe assumption that most science fiction fans are good at math (well, I'm certainly not!), we are going to ask what is mathematical difference between the number of episodes for "Space 1999" and "Star Trek," which was called "Uzay Yolu" in Turkey.

Is the answer:

A) 28
B) 29
C) 31
D) 33

SIDEBAR: While researching this piece, we learned that German television will air a 1968 episode of the original "Star Trek" series entitled "The Patterns of Force" for the very first time. The reason why the episode is being aired in Germany only now is fairly obvious: Captain Kirk and Mister Spock dress like Nazis to breech the third reich.

SIDEBAR TWO: Ironically, we found out today that this blog is apparently more popular in Greece as of late than Turkey (I happen to be a Turkish-American). Hmmmmm.....In all seriousness, we wish our followers in Greece good luck during this trying economic time. Of course, this doesn't mean that we recognize Kardak as being 'your island.'*

*- Kardak, which is called Imia in Greek, is an uninhabited goat island which actually caused a foreign relations fiasco between Turkey and Greece some years ago. It does in fact belong to Greece, and I hope this is ok with the goats!

Quote of the Day- Tarkan

We conclude our month-long series on quotes from famous Turkish people past and present with a quip from Tarkan, the pop mega-star, who has sold millions of records not only in Turkey, but also in Argentina, Germany, France, Greece and just about every place else except the United States. He is best-known for songs like "Simarik," "Dudu" and "Kuzu Kuzu."

The fact that he usually sings in Turkish has a lot to do with this, though on the advice of the late, great Turkish-American record producer Ahmet Ertegun, Tarkan did try to sing some songs in English. And, alas, it did sound like William Shatner's ("Star Trek"'s original Captain Kirk, for those of you born after Bush 41 was president) version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhadsopy," which is in record stores now (we are actually not making that up!).



Here is Tarkan's quote:

"Dancing and singing are always like games to me. I sang constantly."

Quote of the Day- Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Today's quote of the day comes from the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) who was ironically born in what is now Greece, which has been Turkey's long-standing rival for many centuries. In fact, there has even been a brewhaha over Cyprus in recent weeks.

Here is Ataturk's quote:

"Unless a nation faces peril, war is murder."

Happy Birthday, Cuneyt Arkin

Today, we celebrate the 74th birthday of '70s Turkish action movie icon Cuneyt Arkin who turned 74 on September 7th. Arkin was born on this date in 1934 in Eskisehir, Turkey.

While he has over 300 films to his credit, we only have time to mention four here.

The first one is "Hayatim Sana Feda/My Life is For You, Feda" (1970),a romantic comedy, melodrama which was likely influenced by 1950s Hollywood melodramas, which were often directed by Douglas Sirk and starred Rock Hudson.

In this film, a Romeo who has burned his bridges has a chance to reclaim his Juliet, a female Turkish lounge singer played by Turkan Soray, the queen of Turkish cinema who often starred with Arkin, after she goes blind.

In 1973, Arkin starred in the first of what would be several films based on the popular "Kara Murat" comics, including "Kara Murat Versus the Black Knight" (pictured here). The basic plot is that Kara Murat, an ancient warrior in the days of the huns, goes after the bad guys and kicks some major ass in the process.

Turkey and Greece went to far over Cyprus in July of 1974, which lead to the production of many action films with nationalist themes. This would include "Once Vatan/My Country First" (1974) in which Arkin plays a Turkish agent who goes to Cyprus and goes kung fu on the Greek villians. Such films were, to my knowledge, also made in Greece around this era, with the roles reversed. And, yes to answer your question, "Once Vatan" is basically a Turkish Chuck Norris movie.

Lastly, Arkin will always be best known for "Dunayi Kurtaran Adami/The Man Who Saved the World" (1982), which is also known as "The Turkish Star Wars." The film borrows music and actual sequences from the George Lucas classic, but the similarities end there. The plot is a very strange one to summarize, but the film has aliens in muppet-fleece who decide that central Turkey is for unexplained reasons the best place to invade. But, they are no match for Arkin's gymnastics tumbling and kickboxing abilies.

People with Long Names List, Part 2

The last time we featured a People with Long Names List on this blog was April 25 and the names were women's. Today, we go with the men (a women's list is on "The Daily Vampire"). Of course, since my name is (mr) Tilly Gokbudak, I could be on this list as much as these guys.

Here it is, and hopefully everyone's name is spelled correctly!:

1. Novak Djokovic- This 24-year-old Serbian tennis star is the current Wimbledon champion. His countrymen Srdjan Spasojevic, who directed the 2010 shock horror film called "A Serbian Film" (yes, that is the actually name of the film) is longer and harder, but more people are familiar with Novak---yeah, we skipped his last name on purpose!

2. Florian Henckel von Donnersmack- The German director who first gained acclaim with the Oscar-winning film "The Lives of Other" went mainstream last year with the American box office hit "The Tourist" with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. Even PBS talk show host Charlie Rose had trouble pronouncing his arduous last name.

3. Kemal Kilicdaroglu- This Turkish politician who leads the country's center-left People's Republic Party is trying to regain political power from Prime Minister Recep Tayypid Erdogan's conservative AK Party.

4. Nofis Sfakianakis- Of course, whenever you include the name of a Turk, you have to include the name of a Greek, especially if you are a Turk! This pop singer is among the most popular singers ever in Greece.

5. Banjong Pisanthanakun- This horror film director from Thailand has a surname which is quite scary!

6. Gary Shteyngart- The Russian-American author of the great novel "Absurdistan" was going to be on our initial list, but we somehow forgot all about him!

7. Sorunas Marciulionis- A retired Lithunian basketball who was an NBA star must have caused problems for the people putting his name on the jerseys.

8. Alexei Popogrebsky- This Russian filmmaker's 2010 film "How I Ended This Summer" which was acclaimed in art cinema circles is now out on dvd in the United States. (Whoops! We initially spelled his name Poporgrebsky!).

9. Parahamsa Nithyananda- This man is a spiritual guru in India; we initially didn't get his name right either!

10. Alejandro Yemenidjian- This Argentinian-Armenian is the current head of MGM studios. I suppose if he ever goes to a Beverly Hills restaurant with Mark Zuckerberg, he lets the kid pick up the tab!

The Next Ten Films in My Netflix Que

Just in case you were wondering, Humpty Dumpty is for Eliot Spitzer; the Norwegian fiag pin is for the Norwegian horror film "Hidden." We wanted something more flamboyant for the Norwegian film, but oh well!

Here is the list; I have yet to see any of these films yet:

1. "No One Killed Jessica." (2011. Dir-Raj Kumar Gupta. India)

2. "Angel's Fall." (2005. Dir- Semih Kaplangul. Turkey).

3. "Hidden." (2009. Dir- Pal Oie. Norway)

4. "Irreversible" (2002. Dir- Gaspar Noe. France)

5. "A Tale of Springtime." (1990. Dir- Eric Rohmer. France)

6. "Les Bonnes Femmes" (1960. Dir- Claude Chabrol. France).

7. "The Baader Meinhof Complex." (2008. Dir- Uli Edel. Germany.)

8. "Marwencol" (2010. doc. Dir- Jeff Malmberg).

9. "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer." (2010. doc. Dir- Alex Gibney).

10. "Dogtooth." (2009. Dir- Giorgis Lanthios. Greece).

Things We Learned on NPR Last Week-Problems with the Other Neighbor

Greece is making international headlines due to its financial crisis which has caused riots on the streets. Though the events are not quite as violent or dramatic, as the fall-out from the Arab Spring in Syria, Yemen and Libya, the government in Athens is undoubtedly overwhelmed at the moment.

For centuries upon centuries, Greece's main rival has always been Turkey, my late father's country. I once wore a t-shirt from the Turkish resort of Kusadasi while visiting the Greek island of Rhodes as a teenager in 1985, and yes, the locals noticed!

But, at the moment, Greece seems to having even more of a rift with Macedonia, a former Yugoslav republic that is now its own independent, small nation.

As the always brilliant NPR show "The World" (which we should perhaps listen to more often) reported last week, Macedonia unveiled a towering 92-foot statue of Alexander the Great in the capital city of Skopje. The problem is that the Greeks consider Alexander the Great, who was ironically an inspiration to Sultan Suleyman the Magnificient, as their national hero.

The radio series also said in its report that there are already plenty of tensions between Skopje and Athens as Greece has repeatedly tried to block Macedonia's entrance into the European Union.

All of this brings us to the reason why we chose Karagiozis, a Greek version of the Turkish shadow puppet Karagoz, as our image to go with this entry.

As it turns out, both Turkey and Greece have many cultural overlaps. And, the Greek shadow-puppeteer Sotris Haridimos currently has a traveling Karagiozis roadshow in Greece, which an American travel writer saw in Athens and reported on for his travel blog.

Like Karagoz, his Greek counterpart represents the plight of the average person. And, given Greece's domestic turoil, and Turkey's struggles with an overwhelming influx of refugees from Syria, it seems that both countries are a bit overwhelmed these days. And, very few tourists visiting the resort town of Bodrum, Turkey, and the Greek island of Kos, a mere three miles off Bodrum's coast, are concerned about any of this.

SIDEBAR: It is official. The Wimbledon women's final will be between Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic and Russian superstar Maria Sharapova. If we had John McEnroe's email, we'd ask him who he likes on this one. But, then again, I may say something to tick him off, and that would be like an eruption of Mount Pinatubo.

Special Quote of the Week- Bill Russell

Today's quote comes from Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell, and it is about love, of all things:

"Most people have a harder time letting themselves love than finding someone to love them."

SIDEBAR: We mentioned the Turkish music show on WUVT (90.7-FM), the student-run radio station of Virginia Tech two entries ago. There is also a Greek music show that airs right before it.

I must profess that I thought female Turkish pop singer Nil Karaibrahimgil's name was long enough, but Greece has two popular male pop singers with long names, including Notis Sfakianakis and Michalis Hatzigiannis.

Turkish Soccer Results....

It has been a busy hectic week, and it's only Monday?!

Anyway, it is for this very reason, that we are putting off some other blog entry projects until a day when life is as slow as it on a Sunday afternoon in War, West Virginia, in the far southwestern part of the state which is perhaps a good place to go (aside from an asylum or a prison) if you want to read all 1,225 pages of Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" in its entirety!

So, with that in mind, let's turn to sport as they say on the BBC, and here are the results from weekend action in the Turkish Premiere League. I should note that my late father came from Turkey, and since his favorite team was GalataSaray, I know he would want me to jeer those who root for their arch rival Fenerbahce, but alas those fill-in-the-blank Yellow Canaries** won as well!:


Kayseri 1 Eskisehir 1

Istanbul BB 1 Antalya 1

Gaziantep 1 Manisa 0

Ankara Genclerbrligi 2 Konya 1

Trabzon 2 Bucaspor 1

GalataSaray 3 Kasimpasha 1

Fenerbahce 1 Karabukspor 0

Sivas 1 Ankaragucu 1

It should be noted that the game between the BursaSpor Crocodiles* (yes, we don't think there are any crocs in Turkey, not even at the Ankara Zoo!) and the Besiktash Black Eagles was cancelled. We presume, given the fervent passion of the fans on both sides, it was for security reasons. Elif Batuman, a fellow Turkish-American I've never met, wrote an excellent, haunting piece about Besiktash fans for "The New Yorker" several issues ago. Amazingly enough, Che Guevara is one of the fans' icons! Since many of the most fervent soccer fans in Turkey are a bit right-wing, this came as quite a surprise to me!

And, as a gesture of ethnic political goodwill, which will of course do absolutely nothing to ease tensions between us Turks and our Armenian friends, I will mention that the three teams atop the Armenian Premiere League are Ulisses, Gandzasar and Pyunik.

As I jokingly tell my friends who have neither ethnic background, if a Turk and an Armenian happen to come across each other at a Buddhist temple during a mutual tourist visit to Bhutan, yes they would probably go at it!

But, as far as the dispute we have with our Greek comrades over who has the better yogurt and feta cheese, well, of course, it is us Turks! Of course, I'm overlooking the fact that an Egyptian friend of mine said that Bulgarians were actually better at making these products than either of us.


*-There is actually a notorious man-eating crocodile named Gustave in the central African country of Burundi; I wonder how that country's tourism department gets around that!

**- Yes, Turkish soccer teams have nickanmes which are almost as strange as some minor league baseball teams--my favorite nickname is the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers who are based in Appleton, Wisc., where there might be six people of Turkish and Armenian heritage combined!

Strange, but True Things We Learned This Week...

All of these things have been verified through various sources, but if you don't believe me, you can spend hours and hours on Google, and leave a post on here saying: "Ahhh, but you are wrong." Let's get started, and we will get to the African pygmy goat when we can:

1. Osama bin Laden (1957-2011) actually liked many American western tv shows as a kid, including his favorite "Bonanza!" I first read about this in "The Week" magazine some eight years ago. But, this week, I also learned that the sinister terrorist leader also like Bruce Lee kung-fu films. But, none of these things are as disturbing as a report I heard from the TRT (Turkish Radio Television) right after September 11th, when I happened to be in Istanbul. A Turkish man who was a classmate of bin Laden's at a school in Switzerland when they were both children said that this future kingpin of terror was 'a quiet unasuming kid who usually sat in the back.'

2. And speaking of Turkey, as "Mental Floss" reported in a recent issue, one never wants to confuse a Greek with a Turk or vice versa. Since the hip magazine didn't mention the man's name, I had to check the BBC's web site for additional details. As it turns out, Athanasios Varzanakos, 77, who would have definitely qualified for our long, difficult names list, a Greek villager, had been mistaken for a Turk. The Swedish yogurt company Lindahl had put the image of Varzanakos on its Turkish yogurt products. So, the Greek man sued the Swedish company for $7 million; he 'only' got $270,000 in return. This leads us to the goat because if one wants to find Greek yogurt or goat milk yogurt, they can go to the Harvest Moon in Floyd, Va. Alas, they don't sell Turkish yogurt which is very hard to find in America except in New Jersey (where there are a lot of Turks and Turkish-Americans).

3. The BBC reported last night that there is a hip hop craze spreading through Yemen, of all places. There have been similar stories in the international media about this curious pop cultural trend. In 2010, Laura Kasinoff of "The Christian Science Monitor" reported that she had seen 'turbaned men dancing with daggers and rappers donning New York Yankees caps' taking the stage in the capital city of Sana for a hip hop fest. Hagage Masead, an American of Yemeni heritage who should not/never be confused with a radical terrorist in Yemen who grew up in New York state, has been at the heart of this movement.

4. "This American Life," a popular weekly NPR show, featured a story about a "Tuscaloosa News" reporter in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who was fooled into publishing a local story that proved to be false in the wake of last week's deadly tornado rampage in the area. Apparently, the story was that a local man from Tuscaloosa, which is also home to the University of Alabama, was killed at a local tobacco store and people walked all over him to get cigarettes. But, one can hardly fault the reporter as this story was verified by local government officials in Tuscaloosa! As a former newspaper reporter myself, I can see how this can happen all too easily for reasons which are far too complicated to explain here. Besides, the militant librarian here in Mount Airy, NC, (not really where I am) has warned that the Internet goes down in 22 minutes and 35 seconds!

Status Update_ Ah, Macedonia!

Status Update: "I can apparently locate every country in Europe of size on the map, except Macedonia!"


I don't what it is, but I can seemingly never get all the questions right. It doesn't seem to matter if it's a Psychology 101 test or a pop culture quiz on the Internet.

Today, I took a geography quiz on mentalfloss.com and it appears that I can locate every country of size (yeah, Liechtenstein is a problem) except Macedonia, which I somehow mistook for Albania.

The key to not making this mistake again is apparently to remember that Albania has a coast with the Adriatic Sea while Macedonia, which was until a decade ago or so, a republic in the former Yugoslavia.

Greece is also angry with Macedonia for reasons we will not go into because I'm half-Turkish, and we've already talked about Cyprus! (see earlier entry). Macedonia is also famous for its folk dances.........