Having passed a lovely weekend in Vienna, the lovely Nina and I are now in Istanbul. We’ll be back home, and this long-neglected blog will be beginning to get back to normal, early next week.
I must say, there is a certain something about seats of empire. Even when the thing has thoroughly run its course, it stiil gives a place a satisfying kind of heft.
13 Comments
Incidentally, a liberal friend of yours just decried your views but gave your blog a shout-out on Megan McArdle’s blog on Bloomberg View:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-24/dispatch-from-lesbos-syrian-refugees-are-not-defeated#comment-2272439187
from which link I arrived here. I’m glad to find someone else who’s both smart and nonliberal (though like most of McMegan’s readers, I’m closer to libertarian than anything else).
I encourage you to hang out and comment at the above forum. It’s one of the smartest and funniest center-right and libertarian commentariats on the Net, and you’d fit right in.
Perpippity, Antiquarian?
Thanks for the link been awhile since I read the author of the article – something it would appear has affected her view. To her detriment I think but as I say, it’s been awhile.
Read some thirty or so comments – some scrolling hither and thither but I took especial note of *many* of the commentators ignorance of what’s happening on the ground in Turkey. Malcolm I expect to return to regular service in oh, maybe eight or so days – some “upon return to the homefront R&R” I would expect but as a Reader here since, oh I’d guess 2006 Malcolm’s rejuvenation potions have at times astonished me.
Anyway getting back to Turkey I expect Malcolm’s keen eye to have gathered much but I have some small habit of paying attention to what’s known in the US military as the Centcom AOR and have since I first “had occasion to to get acquainted” circa 1978.
I’m admittedly not even close to being at the general intellectual abilities level either of you’ll ordinarily find on these pages, oh perhaps in a rather limited way because here I’d probably be most commonly referred to as a Specialist. (Not so infrequently “The Village Idiot” but I do concur with our host’s opinions in the range of about 90%.)
Perhaps this link will add something to the discussion on the thread Perpippity graciously pointed to;
http://warontherocks.com/2015/09/turkish-winter-is-coming/
JK, I read that link too. A good article but it was emotion driven. Islam counts on the Christian West for that very thing. Thus Islam will simply walk into Europe, build mosques and slowly take over. I scanned maybe a hundred entries on that blog but didn’t catch the one where this blog was mentioned.
I Googled perpippity. It’s a made-up word from the old TV show “Don’t Shoot Me”– meaning “to go behind the back of a superior, or roar like a lion”. I don’t do the first, but you’ll have to decide yourself about the second.
Thanks for the link, although it’s so detailed– to the point of wonkishness– that I didn’t read all of it.
Yeah I know Whitewall, but Burak is himself a Turk (and not so “uninterested” as he might be were he say, Zimbabwean or from maybe Neptune .. or either of say North Carolina or heck even Arkansas) so yeah, I’d agreed emotion driven is a distinct real possibility.
The above Antiquarian, might work as a reply for you too?
Not sure what you mean, JK.
JK, I’m sorry. I meant I read the Bloomberg link from perpippity and described it. I also read your link to Turkey and believe the writer has a solid take on the matter.
Whitewall?
I took another look – had to “load more comments” four times – but the *good mutual friend* from here isn’t posting as he would here meaning, no One-Eyed (sobs onto sleeve).
Posting as “ratiocination” … avatar appears to be a guy about our age holding what appears to be a California-style dog/mutt with as background, looks to be probably north of IB about a hunert miles with the Pacific behind both he and the mutt. Surprisingly (yeah right) given the high-falutin’ tones he uses around these here parts I failed to notice a single individual of color/ethnicity (or even a female for that matter) in his immediate vicinity. And there’s a helluva lot of vicinity ‘pears to me.
________
However Whiters, so you don’t need to do what I just did (notice the difference in the hereon timestamps) I’m gonna pull a David Duff of the aforementioned comment.
Whitewall? You agree that reads like our Pal One-Eyed?
At the time I read that -12:50 am- finding it was easy. No “load more comments” … I can expect the usual plain brown envelope in the mail by Friday next?
Antiquarian?
Might surprise you but I get quite a number of similar responses.
JK thanks. Plain brown envelope being filled as I type. That is indeed “He” who shall be nameless. I didn’t know he could be so funny in a dimly charming way. He writes well as usual. That might be part of Alice’s Wonderland in his avatar’s background..:)
JK:
The good looking guy in the avatar is me. The location is the local doggie park, which is next to San Francisco Bay. Regrettably, the dog is now in the big kennel in the sky, as I had to euthanize her two weeks ago. I remember speaking with our gracious host the day his beloved dog Sophie died, and it is no easy thing.
In the past eighteen months, I buried my father, my dog, and my best friend, who hanged himself. Well, at least they didn’t bury me.
My daughter told me that when I was out of the house, Jenny would wait by the door for me to come home. My mother is very loyal to me, and even she doesn’t wait by the door for my return.
My daughter picked the dog – it’s actually her dog, but her landlord doesn’t allow them – and it’s my choice for a new one. I’m researching breeds. Know anything about the Shiba Inu?
I know something about dogs Peter.
Sadly I know something about slices along the slide of Time sometimes .. very odd thing .. where Loss shares the cab too. The three year slide for me companioned first my father, then two younger sisters, the wife, a child, my dog .. I’m actually though kinda happy I finally discovered I could end that sort of slide (except that it requires perhaps, unintentionality) by placing myself midslope of 17 tons of tumbling steel downslope – the five year slice ending finally with me in a wheelchair.
But as you say, at least they didn’t bury me either. And I can walk now. And even drive. Sometimes. (Before you ask, the latter two years of the three that ended in five was rehab. Seven if including re-learning to drive and legally be on the highways.)
No. I don’t know it all about dogs, never heard of the Shiba Inu – the sorts I “owned” were Dalmatians. My dog’s name was WB.
Don’t believe it Peter when you hear another say, “Time heals.”