Today was a national holiday - Atatürk Commemoration & Youth and Sport Day. It seems like that’s enough to squeeze into one day, but I’m happy to say this year also marked the beginning of a comprehensive smoking ban in public places.
An article in the English-language Zaman newspaper lays out the details, including the myriad [...]
Entries from May 2008 ↓
Smoking ban begins today in Turkey
May 19th, 2008 — Turkey
A stranger just loaned me his laptop for two hours
May 16th, 2008 — Research in Turkey
After observing meetings and interviewing muftis in various provinces I always have a lot I want to write down, but my laptop battery doesn’t last long and I have one of those lemony MacBooks that likes to shut down randomly. This usually leaves me scrawling notes on a legal pad that I have to type [...]
Istanbul music in the NYT
May 14th, 2008 — Turkey
The NYT home page currently has a link to an article about live music venues in Istanbul that made me smile and reminisce.
My first taste of Istanbul night life was a concert by jazz trombonist Ray Anderson in 1999 at a club called Babylon, which is pictured in the article. I met a bartender there, [...]
I can sleep in tomorrow thanks to the Queen
May 13th, 2008 — Research in Turkey
My weekly trip to Bursa has been preempted by the Queen of England. She’ll be visiting Bursa tomorrow, and as part of her trip she’ll visit the Green Mosque and listen to recitation of a sura from the Koran, which means the folks I usually observe at the mufti building will be up to their [...]
This nut is no longer blocking me from your blog
May 3rd, 2008 — Blogging, Turkey
The ban on Wordpress blogs in Turkey is over. I realized this when I saw my feedreader automatically updating the Wordpress blogs I read. For the last seven months I’ve had to connect to Princeton servers first in order to get around the ban, all because the nutty creationist Adnan Oktar convinced a civil court [...]