Too much of a good thing? No such thing.

This past Wednesday, I took another step towards convalescence and turned 23. A number that seems far too big to hold my still childlike spirit. However, when I look around at my friends and coworkers, here, it turns out Taylor and I are still at the very young end of the spectrum. No matter though, because if anything makes you feel elderly and sluggish, it is eating six cakes.

My birthday affirmed many of impressions I had about Turkish Hospitality. It seems, no one could let a birthday slip by without offering a celebration, complete with cake. It began on Sunday, when my weekend class surprised me with a cake and celebration in class. The Turks have a mastery of many foods, but none so perfect as their deserts. Baklava, sutlac, kunefe, and an assortment of others have become staples of my weekly diet. But, I hadn’t had the best of them until I tasted my first Turkish cake. It was the Cadillac of cake, the Dom Perignon of desert, and I wolfed it down in a hurry.

When my second cake came from my weekday morning class on Wednesday, I again savored every bite. After waking from my sugar coma I returned to school that night to find as I entered my classroom, surprise, another cake! This time from my weekday night class. By this time, my gut had its fill of sugar for the month, let alone the day.

With 15 minutes left in class, I received a shock my sugar-clogged heart could barely take. One of my former students, now in Taylor’s class burst through my door, sounding scared and rushed. She told me, brokenly, that there was a problem in the class and Taylor was crying. Well, of course I scampered out the door and up the stairs and crashed though her door, prepared for the worst. Of course, when I entered out of breath and panicked, they began singing happy birthday and cut another cake. It seems, despite Taylor’s opposition, that my former students could not resist getting me a cake. After this point, I barely had an appetite for the beer I planned to drink that night.

Like the young man I am, I still drank the beer. After two beers, I could barely believe my eyes when my fifth cake arrived at the bar. In Taylor’s hands. The one person who I had told all day, “please, no more cake!” had brought a cake to the bar. This time, I cut the cake and distributed it amongst our friends, taking only a small slice. After all, it was past 11 p.m. and the odds of getting another cake seemed low.

So imagine my surprise when I received a few phone calls from my friend, former student, and sometimes contributor to this blog, Halil. He had been walking through Taksim, trying to get a hold of me, in order to give me a surprise. In addition to a beautiful set of cuff links and ties in an ornate tavla board package, he brought cake. Although I couldn’t handle the cake then and five minutes prior had sworn I wouldn’t touch the stuff again, the pistachio and chocolate confection has since been devoured from my refrigerator.

Turkish hospitality and Turkish deserts. Some say you can have too much of a good thing. I say, never.

New Program to Help Disabled in Istanbul

From left to right: My brother Jason, myself, Taylor and Carl, taking in a Mariners game at Safeco field last summer.

I have a disabled younger brother. Jason was born a year and a half after me, and three months prematurely. He, and my family, are lucky that he survived those first few months. However, because of his early birth, he is legally blind, prone to seizures, struck with an array of learning disabilities and some smaller physical disabilities as well. He has spent most of his life playing sports in leagues and competitions dedicated to the disabled. In 2008, he graduated from High School, an accomplishment we are all proud of. Jason has been able to accomplish a lot both despite and because of his condition. Part of this is due, not only to the love and support of family, but to our community’s attitude toward the disabled. There are sports leagues for him. In school, he was fortunate to have classes that integrated him into the normal classroom environment while still giving him the individual attention he needed to grasp math, reading and other standard subjects.

Jason is now in his second and final year at the Transition Academy, a post-high school learning center provided by the public school district to help make kids like Jason as self-sufficient as possible. This includes learning to use the public transportation system, learning to grocery shop for himself, and most importantly learning how to find a job. The Transition Academy has given Jason plenty of work opportunities. He was been a bagger at a grocery store and a stock boy at a large outdoor sporting goods store. The last few months, though, Jason has taken a strong interest in working at the hospital he and I were born at. When asked why exactly he was taken a fascination in working there, he responds with his standard catch-all answer, complete with beaming smile and enthusiastic jubilation, “I don’t know… I just do!”

Last week, Jason finally had a job interview with the hospital and was offered a position. Now, he must take that enthusiasm and apply it to taking a class and passing a test before he can begin. He also had to make a doctor visit to get the required shots and tests, a test of his passion as he hates doctors and needles.

Over the years, Jason has taught me more than I could ever teach him, by sheer force of his personality. His joy at the small things has always struck me. When he was younger it was going to the mall, riding escalators, pushing the elevator buttons and eating popcorn. Now that he is a bit older, he brings that same spirit to every frame he bowls, every minute he spends with his friends and still, every piece of popcorn he eats. It’s hard to imagine how Jason would have turned out, how I would have turned out, if our situation had been different. We are lucky we don’t have to know the answer to this question, but I can’t help but ask what would have been had we lived in a place without the support and acceptance for the disabled that exists in our community.

And this leads me to Turkey. In my first few weeks here in Turkey, I asked many questions about the disabled community here. Most of the answers I found broke down to “there isn’t one.” I was told people who are disabled, whether physically or mentally, tend to stay out of public, by their own choice or by their family’s. Having no patience for people who have no patience for the disabled, I quickly stopped asking about it, not wanting to awaken my temper. Since then, I have found answers to these question in what I haven’t seen in Istanbul. Occasionally, I will see a person with Down Syndrome walking the streets of Istanbul. And that is about it. I have not seen anyone with more severe disability anywhere. Also, as I found myself walking up and down the spiraling stairs of most buildings, or riding an elevator fit for a toothpick, I began to realize this is a city without ramps or any necessary wheelchair access. Which explains why I never see a person cruising down the street without the use of their legs. When I think of Jason and his crew of friends, some in wheelchairs, some mentally handicapped, and most somewhere in between, I wonder how they would survive had they been born in Turkey. At home, they play baseball and run the bases to cheering crowds. Here, though, I can’t even imagine where they would be.

The Multicultural Disability Advocacy Association has this to say about Turkey:

“ Disability is still seen as a medical condition, which needs medical treatment and rehabilitation to be cured or eased. While there have been legislative changes, the social dimension of disability is still not understood and people with disability are often segregated and excluded from social, political and economic activities. Only a small percentage of children with disability attend school and there are limited resources such as day care and respite care.

“While the Turkish constitution enshrines the rights of people with disability the reality falls a long way short of this. High unemployment rates among people with disability reflect the lack of training and education opportunities as well as access to facilities. Many people with disability work in sheltered workshops. Although the outlook has improved greatly, nevertheless to a large extent people with disability remain isolated and excluded in Turkish society.”

I abhor the thought of Jason and his friends not attending school or being ostracized from society simply for being different. Because of this, I simply try not to think about the issue too much. Turkey has a lot to offer and gives me a lot to learn from. This is simply not one of those things. However, in today’s newspaper, I has given a bit of hope. Reported in today’s Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review the city of Istanbul has teamed with several company’s in the tourism industry to give employment to disabled people (read it here). The vocational training program is aimed to give its students all the skills necessary to work in the industry, thereby gaining financial independence. The course is open to those with physical disabilities and the first class had 20 students. It is a small step to fixing a large problem, but one that is worth cheering, I believe. Said one student quoted in the story, “Much has been done so far, but there is still much to be done for citizens with disabilities to integrate into the business world.”

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The People

Name of Country Turkish

Population Approx. 69,660,559 people (July 2005 estimate)

Government Republican parliamentary democracy

Ethnic Groups 80% of the population is Turkish and 20% are Kurdish.

Religions 99.8% of the population is Muslim (mostly Sunni), while the remaining 0.2% are mostly Christians and Jews.

Languages Turkish is the official and most widely spoken language, with others such as Kurdish, Arabic, Armenian and Greek also spoken.

Background

Turkey lies across two continents: 3% of the country is in Europe (Thrace) and 97% in Asia (Anatolia). Turkey controls the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, the vital sea links between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Its strategic position has made Turkey an area of prime importance through history.

Turkish history extends as far back as 7,500 BCE when the first known human inhabitants lived in this region. Turkey was dominated by many different civilizations starting off under the Hittites who fell to the Persians who in turn were conquered by Alexander the Great. Turkey was then eventually incorporated into the Roman Empire, which adopted Christianity. In the 11th century the Great Seljuk Turks were the first to rule what is now modern Turkey. They introduced Islam and eventually lost their power to the Ottoman Turks.

Turkey as we know it today was created in 1923 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the War of Independence. In October 1923 it was declared a Republic and Mustafa Kemal became President of Turkey. He was given the surname Ataturk (‘The father of Turkey’). Ataturk changed Turkish society and culture. During his presidency a constitution was adopted, polygamy abolished, Islam was removed as the state religion and women were given the right to vote. Ataturk died in 1938 but remains a true hero in Turkey today.

In 1980 political infighting and civil unrest caused havoc in the country, supported on the one hand by the Soviet block and on the other by fanatical Muslim groups. The military took control and established a military government, keeping strict control and committing various human rights abuses. In 1983 Turgut Özal’s centre-right party won the free elections and throughout the 1980s the economy boomed.

Turkey’s aspirations to join the European Union (EU) are impeded by its human rights record, a shaky economy, ongoing conflict with its Kurdish population and refusal to recognise the Greek Cypriot government in Cyprus (which represents the whole island of Cyprus in the EU). Turkey continues to discuss membership with the EU.

Turkey’s sparsely populated eastern and south-eastern regions are home to 6 million Kurds. 4 million Kurds live elsewhere throughout the country, more or less integrated into Turkish society. Kurdish separatism and the relationship between Turks and Kurds is a real issue in Turkey. The government’s attempts to assimilate Kurds included outlawing the Kurdish language and other aspects of Kurdish culture. In 1999 the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan was arrested and the nation went on red alert. Today the situation has improved. Ocalan’s group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (the PKK), declared a ceasefire and there has been some liberalisation of official attitudes to the Kurds.

Early in 2001, the Turkish economy collapsed spectacularly, more than 1 million people lost their jobs and the International Monetary Fund provided financial support. Since then the economy has grown erratically, with a mix of modern commerce and industry and traditional agriculture.

History of Migration to Australia

Turkish migration to Australia in a structured way began in the late 1960s. Hence most Turkish people living in Australia have been living here for several decades and have raised their children here. After WW II Turkish migrants were the first major Muslim group to arrive in Australia.

Until 1967 Turkish migration to Australia was limited and many Turks living here at that time were Turkish Cypriots. In 1967, however, with increasing Turkish interest in employment opportunities outside Turkey, the Turkish and Australian governments made an agreement resulting in assisted migration for Turks. 30,000 Turkish people migrated to Australia over the next 30 years. This early Turkish migration to Australia was intended to be a short-term working migration, as nearly all immigrants actually wanted to return to Turkey within two or three years. Their biggest concern in Australia was to find work and save money.

In the mid 1970s and early 1980s the Australian government reduced the levels of assisted migration for unskilled workers, as a result of economic recession and decreased availability of jobs. The number of Turkish immigrants decreased. Attitudes of Turkish immigrants to their Australian migration started to change and resulted in longer residence and a commitment to staying in Australia. In the 1990s, the numbers of Turkish immigrants were relatively small and mainly characterised by educated and skilled professional groups or relatives and spouses of earlier immigrants to Australia. Fewer than 1,000 Turkish people are now migrating to Australia each year. There are over 75,000 people in Australia who were born in Turkey or are of Turkish background or who speak Turkish.

Turkish communities in Australia today have been established largely in Victoria and NSW and they live mainly in Melbourne and Sydney. In Sydney the Turkish community lives mainly in western suburbs such as Auburn, Fairfield, Marrickville and Blacktown. In these areas, services relevant to Turkish people have been set up over a period of time, such as Turkish delicatessens and Halal meat from local butchers. Furthermore, the education departments in Victoria and NSW have made provisions for Turkish students through adding more extensive bilingual support programmes within the schools and the communities have also set up Saturday community language classes.

Turkish Community in NSW

Approximately 12,150 people or 0.2% of the population living in NSW were born in Turkey.

Approximately 19,153 people or 0.3% of the NSW population spoke Turkish. Turkish speaking people make up the 15th largest language group in NSW.

(2001 Census)

Some Cultural Aspects of Turkish Life

Turkey lies where East and West meet and has had many cultural influences over the centuries, giving Turkey its own rich, distinctive cultural flavour.

Art is a big part of Turkish culture: its museums contain many delicate artworks such as, coloured tiles, graceful glass vases, carved wooden mosque doors, illustrated Korans, intricate jewellery and sumptuous costumes. A lot of Turkey’s heritage and culture can be seen in its museums. The former Sultan’s palace Topkapi Saryi has been turned into a museum where the imperial treasures and relics of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) are kept. The museum of Anatolian civilisations in Ankara has outstanding exhibits of Phrygian, Hittite and other civilisations. Visual arts in Turkey were curtailed by Muslim dictum, which forbids representation of any being with ‘immortal soul’. Consequently Islamic artists produced many non-representative arts and most public monuments are heroic depictions of Ataturk and events from the war of independence. Carpet weaving is also a big part of Turkish culture and recently a resurgence of Ottoman art has appeared including paper marbling and shadow puppet plays.

Music is listened to and appreciated widely in Turkey. Today much of Turkish music is based on traditional folk music, a source of inspiration for longer symphonic works. Another form of Turkish music also incorporates traditional folk music, adding an urban slant to create Turku. Although the thousand year old tradition of Turkish Troubadours has largely been replaced by television and cassettes it still continues to be appreciated and is often performed and recorded. Ataturk is largely responsible for Turkish culture as it is today, encouraging representative painting, sculpture and literature. Ataturk also loved opera and introduced it to Turkey along with western dance and drama. Today Turkey maintains State operas in Istanbul and Ankara. Another variety of Turkish music is Ottoman court music, which is mainly religious.

The Turkish film industry began early, doing well in the 1920s and expanding rapidly after World War II. Throughout the 1960s-70s Turkish film delved into political and social issues. Today Turkish cinema is driven by honesty, naturalism, and dry humour.

Literature is highly regarded in Turkish culture and is considered by some the most advanced of contemporary Turkish arts. The introduction of a new Latin based alphabet brought literacy to many more Turkish citizens as Ottoman gave way to the vernacular. The Turkish language has been described as ‘elegantly simple’ however it differs greatly from Indo-European languages in its rules of word order and verb formation. Verbs can be so complex that they constitute entire sentences in themselves, making it a challenging language to learn.

Many Turkish traditions and customs derive from Islamic practices as 99% of the country is Muslim. Christian Churches built by famous 16th century Turkish architect Sinan have been converted to mosques lin Istanbul, Edirne, Bursa and other cities.

It is etiquette in Turkey to wear modest clothing especially in areas not frequented by tourists, where women should have their heads, arms, and shoulders covered, wearing either modest dresses or skirts which reach the knees. Many Turkish customs relate generally to politeness.

Meat is very popular in Turkish cuisine, lamb and fish are staple restaurant food and eggplant is used widely. Turkey is the home of shish kebabs which are found everywhere throughout Turkey. Turkish desserts are often soaked in honey and tend to be very sweet; fruit, nut and pastry blends are very common.

Attitudes towards People with Disability

The response to disability in Turkey varies enormously among individuals and different groups in the community. During the Ottoman Empire people with mental illness were valued and treated with very progressive techniques including music, peaceful environments and recitations of the Koran. In more recent times having a family member with disability was generally not considered as something that people and families could talk about. For a long time families would take their family member to see a religious person to be healed or cured. There was a lack of other services and a feeling of being stigmatised. Parents would sometimes blame each other for causing the disability and families had difficulty accepting disability as part of their lives. This was especially so for people with mental illness and intellectual disability. One consequence was that many people with disability were put into institutions, especially people with more complex support needs.

After the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 and after the years of hardship caused by WW II, people’s attitudes toward disability started to change slowly. Since then many reforms in science and society have taken place.

Awareness of and attitudes towards people with disability have changed with the influence of international contacts, the internet and the media. These have all worked to influence Turkey to change its legislation, to foster the rights of people with disability and to expand the service system. In 1994 the Turkish Parliament adopted the UN Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disability, to set certain standards for people with disability. Ongoing efforts to join the EU have also played an important role.

Two devastating earthquakes in the Marmara Region in 1999 had huge effects on everyone’s life. They killed thousands of people and left many injured and with permanent disability. Disability became more visible in the community and new services and centres for people with disability were developed in the Marmara region for therapy and rehabilitation for people affected by the earthquakes.

Since 2000 a new community based rehabilitation approach has been implemented across Turkey. This has encouraged forming relationships between people with disability, their families and institutions. This approach tries to provide equal opportunities for people with disability, integrating people with disability into the community, giving people with disability more autonomy and raising awareness and sensibility about disability within the community. The language used to describe disability is changing, describing disability in a more positive way, although terms such as ‘handicapped’ and ‘disabled’ are still common in everyday use.

There is still a lot of variation in people’s beliefs about disability and in the way people respond to disability. For some, disability is a blessing because it reminds us of our humanity. Others believe it is God’s will or that God is testing our belief, our compassion or our patience. Some find there is enormous respect in the community for people with disability.

Hatice
Hatice has a physical disability and uses a wheelchair to get around. She lives with her family, who include Hatice in all parts of family life and believe in her right to a good education and an active life. Hatice’s family take her everywhere and expect other people to accept her for who she is.

When a child with disability is born the family find it very hard to adjust and accept the disability, and sometimes they never come to terms with it. Some families withdraw from community life and isolate themselves. Families are still the main carers for their family member with disability and many see it as their duty and responsibility.

Suheyla and her family
Suheyla is the youngest daughter of Fatma and Hasan. Suheyla has an intellectual and physical disability. Before Suheyla was born, Fatma and Hasan and Yunus their son were a gregarious family, very active in the life of the community, often having family and friends to visit in their home. After Suheyla was born they stopped inviting friends over and became less and less involved in the community.

People’s beliefs and location can influence where they seek help. There are more services and parents are more likely to seek professional help in the city than in rural areas. In rural areas in the past people often sought help from religious leaders and were also more likely to use traditional herbal formulas for health care. In rural areas communities are very close and there is more informal social support, so it is easier for people with disability to participate in the community, particularly people with intellectual disability. This is much more difficult to do in the city as people don’t often know their neighbours and local community and city life is much faster, with not so much time for neighbourhood relationships and with access to buildings and transport still patchy.

Huseyin
Huseyin was a young man with a brain injury who lived with his family in a small town. He was able to participate in community life and all the townsfolk knew him and watched out for him. Huseyin’s family had to move to Istanbul for work and a short time after they moved Huseyin went for a walk as he often had in the past. Huseyin disappeared and has never been seen again.

Disability is still seen as a medical condition, which needs medical treatment and rehabilitation to be cured or eased. While there have been legislative changes, the social dimension of disability is still not understood and people with disability are often segregated and excluded from social, political and economic activities. Only a small percentage of children with disability attend school and there are limited resources such as day care and respite care.

While the Turkish constitution enshrines the rights of people with disability the reality falls a long way short of this. High unemployment rates among people with disability reflect the lack of training and education opportunities as well as access to facilities. Many people with disability work in sheltered workshops. Although the outlook has improved greatly, nevertheless to a large extent people with disability remain isolated and excluded in Turkish society.

Chicken Soup for the Civil Disobedient’s Soul

A policeman heads to confront protesters during the IMF/World Bank protests in October, 2009.

There is a lot to learn from living in Istanbul. Besides learning about Islam, history and architecture, one could learn a lot about protesting. Living in Beyoglu means that our backyard is the place protesters, rioters and anyone who wants to further a cause goes to be seen. Usually, there are peaceful protests on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. On Valentines Day, I was caught in a march of women protesting the practice of honor killings, carrying signs with the photos of victims down Istiklal Street. Another day last week, a few people hung signs and shouted chants from the rooftop of the Burger King in Taksim Square. As I said, usually these protests are peaceful, but this week they became, not exactly violent, but shall we say unpeaceful.

Monday marked the anniversary of the outlawed PKK’s (Kurdish Workers Party) leader Abdullah Ocalan capture and incarceration. This meant that hundreds of Kurds, mostly from our Tarlabasi neighborhood it seemed, met and protested in Taksim Square. Its hard to tell exactly what happened from there, but as the group left the square and headed home to Tarlabasi, police followed. It was impossible to tell who incited who, the police or the protesters, but there were small skirmished, some rocks thrown, and of course tear gas canisters launched into our neighborhood. Both the police and the protesters presence was small compared to the IMF/World Bank riots in October, and the event received little attention. It seems it is almost a tradition for PKK and police to clash on this day in Taksim and Tarlabasi.

Then, on Wednesday, the Cervantes Institute, a large, five-story Spanish language school two blocks from our apartment was taken over by the Socialist Party. They were trying to draw attention and support for 10,000 tobacco workers laid off when a Turkish company, Tekel, was recently sold. The 50 or so protesters entered, reportedly unarmed, and removed all students and teachers and locked themselves inside. They hung banners from the balconies and led chants from above as police watched from below. I am not a proponent of their means and am generally uninformed of the workers’ plight, but I have to admire there planning here. See, the Cervantes Institute is run by the Spanish government, and technically their property. Therefore, the police could not break up the protest or enter the building until representatives of the Spanish Consulate arrived on scene. This gave them plenty of time to get the attention they wanted.

I did not witness either of these events, only the aftermath, as I was working as they occurred. Every time these events happen, though, it makes me think of America. Events like this rarely occur in my country, yet occur here often. I admire one thing about these protesters – their passion and self-sacrifice. Whatever their cause may be, these people are always willing to put themselves on the line and face the consequences of furthering their cause. This is a refreshingly raw emotion to see. In America, political activism is limited to bickering and waving signs on the street to illicit the occasional honk of support. No one puts themselves on the line for their beliefs. Whatever the reason for that is, it makes me admire the passion I see in protesters here in Istanbul. However, every time I see one of these protests, I am forced to rethink Turkey, and change the term developed nation back to developing. These events remind me that The Republic of Turkey, as a nation, is less than 100 years old and still fighting to establish its priorities and its identity. Turkey and America, despite infinite similarities I have seen, are different in that respect. Yet, I can’t help but wonder if it would be a bad thing for Americans to show some of the same raw emotion and anger I find here.

Expat Eats: Culinary Fingerpainting

Before I moved to Istanbul, my cooking skills were inadequate at best. When you don’t have a lot of extra cash and you live in a country where its cheaper to eat from a dollar menu than cook at home, your culinary skills tend to be underdeveloped. Taylor swears that for an entire month my senior year in college, I ate nothing but hot dogs. But I know there was some mac ‘n cheese in there somewhere too.

Since moving to Istanbul I have learned to cook. Well, I can cook about four dishes that is. I even discovered a new food group. They’re called vegetables. And, as it turns out, they are dirt cheap here in Turkey. Turkish food is readily available around any corner at any time of day and because kofte and kebabs are pretty cheap, we haven’t been motivated to learn to cook them. However, when we cook at home, we have made a science out of creating dishes which maximize the cheap and available ingredients at any corner store.

Today, for lunch, I made what I refer to as “culinary fingerpainting,” because you splash delicious looking ingredients in a pan the way a child throws paint at a canvas — enthusiastically and without a plan. This hash brown type dish takes the best and cheapest of what Turkey has to offer and splatters it on a plate together. To make it right though, you must cook in the moment with no recipe and toss in whatever looks good. Just because there is no recipe, doesn’t mean there aren’t guidelines though. Here they are, and they make enough food for 4 people or 2 Americans.

The ingredients: green bell peppers, red peppers, spicy green peppers, an onion, potatoes, sausage and cheese.

Start with a trip to your neighborhood market. You’ll need 3 potatoes, 3 red peppers, 3 green bell peppers, 3 small spicy green peppers, an onion, a sausage and some white cheese. This costs about 8 lira at my local market. If you want, you can leave out the sausage and bake chicken breasts or wings separately. After dicing the potatoes and the vegetables, throw some olive oil in a large pan and get cooking. Start with the potatoes. Cooking this many small pieces of potatoes takes a while, so let them go by themselves for around 10 minutes. You should be alternately turning the potatoes and covering the pan throughout the cooking process. During this time, find whatever seasonings and spices you have, decide what you want to use and throw it in with a heavy hand. I usually throw in a combination of Lowry’s seasoning salt, Tabasco sauce, spicy ground pepper and Creole seasoning. I like ‘em spicy.

The beginning.

After about ten minutes add the onion and season them again if you want. The trick to getting the seasoning right is to ask in childlike fashion “what looks good?” and throw it on the canvas. Another five minutes with the potatoes and onion and you can add the sausage. Once the meat is in there, I like to recklessly throw in a paste made of spicy peppers, found at any grocery store.

Taste the potatoes every now and then, when they begin to cook and soften, you can throw in the other chopped peppers. Keep stirring and add more seasoning.  When the potatoes have cooked to a soft point and the peppers have cooked, throw as much of the white cheese on top as you like. Cover the pan to let it melt and bit and then mix it through the meal.

Almost finished. When it looks like this, add cheese.

Serve this meal with beer and bread and perhaps a desert dish made mostly of Tums. I’ll be the first to admit I am no Rachael Ray, but hell, I don’t want to be. It’s really just fun to let your id and your stomach be your guide as you create a flavorful meal from the cheap and easy ingredients available. Enjoy!

The finished product.

A Few Photos For You

The Ortakoy mosque, usually photographed from the water located under the First Bosphorus Bridge. Here, seen from the street side.

The First Bosphorus Bridge across the Bosphorus Strait, linking Europe and Asia.

The view from our apartment of beautiful Tarlabasi at sunset.

Tarlabasi at sunset, from my apartment window.

A Pythagorean Theorem

A^2 + B ^2 = C^2. The Pythagorean Theorem, a mathematical law every algebra student has stumbled over for the past 2500 years. Though we commonly attribute this principle to Pythagoras, we cannot be sure that it he discovered this himself. The Egyptians, the Indians and the Babylonians all seemed to have used this principle at about the same time as the Greeks. Yet, it still bears his name. It is certainly important to learn, and is used everyday by engineers and architects as well as mathematicians and students. However, I can honestly say that I have not used this formula a single time since I left a math class for the last time 4 years ago, despite the assertions of its importance in daily life by the teachers who lodged it in crannies of my cranium. Today, though, I discovered Pythagoras’ greatest work, one which actually belongs to him, and it has very little to do with triangles.

Currently, I am reading The Great Transformation: The World in the Time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Jeremiah. In this book, Karen Armstrong, a former nun, recreates the history that gave birth to profound spiritual insight and our greatest religions: Hinduism and inner spirituality in India, natural harmony and balance in China, monotheism in Israel, and the search for rational understanding in Greece. I am only halfway through this dense text, yet Armstrong has given me a lot to contemplate. Her theory seems to be that out of great violence and distortion of early religions came these achievements that still stand today – for better or worse.

The few short sentences Armstrong devotes to Pythagoras has given me as much to consider as the rest of her book. During the 6^th century BC, at a time when the Greeks were beginning to secularize their political life and gain an understanding of rational and practical pursuits, Pythagoras had a new vision. He devoted himself to the study of mathematics and science, not only as a means to pragmatic improvements, but as a search for divine understanding. He believed that the order of the Gods could be better understood through a exploration of the tangible elements of life. Pythagoras, unfortunately, taught through the oral traditions and we have no first-hand accounts of his teachings. However, it is clear that he influenced many Greeks who followed him including Socrates and Plato. His idea of divine understanding through science, though, was only accepted by a small band of followers. Most who came after him either aligned with his study of math and science or his study of religious philosophy. It seems what he taught as a single subject, what we would now call religious naturalism, was split into two disciplines, defeating his innovative idea entirely.

Pythagoras’ idea was not a new revelation to me, but one I have held for a while. It was only today I discovered it was originally his. To me, the notion came through other great men. Through Copernicus, Darwin, Einstein and others, who all spent their life’s work marveling at the mysticism and magic of the natural order while trying to reconcile the faith’s of their time with their new knowledge.

It should not be surprising that Pythagoras’ vision did not catch on. In his day, the vast majority of the public looked to the established Greek religion and rituals as a way to answer the grander questions of life. Pythagoras, though, was looking forward. Just as many scientific minds have done and still do. They choose to spend their energies searching for the next answer, rather than accepting insufficient ones. Today, too, these scientists live in a time when the world looks backwards, while they eye the future armed with the scientific method, mathematics, logic and reason. There are people out there who are still trying to champion this cause. Scientists and writers, most of whom are a little of both. My favorite being Chet Raymo. Still, though, the Churches, Mosques and Temples fill around the world while religious naturalists’ books and websites receive minimal attention. People still walk this Earth, believing it is only 5000 years old and are filled with wonder at this notion. Yet, the real creation story, the billions of years it took to forge our universe is much more imaginative and inspiring, while still leaving plenty of metaphysical questions to ponder.

I can’t help but feel slighted that in my public high school I spent great lengths of time studying the principles and history of the great religions and was repeatedly told of the importance of the Pythagorean Theorem and other math equations. But not once was Pythagoras’ greatest work, his attempt to meld the spiritual and the scientific, mentioned. Not a single sentence in a textbook or a side note from a teacher. It wasn’t until my last two years of college that I realized this was an established school of thought and not until today, that I realized its origins. Instead, I went through high school and college believing this was just an idealistic notion that I couldn’t shake. That it was somehow strange to feel that that science was our best bet to answering the unanswerable and that this, like religion, could also be transforming, awe-inspiring and magical.

But what can be done? We live in a world where some schools teach creationism in science class as an equal to Darwinism. Where people use the word believe in front of the word evolution. We live in a world where people forcefully push religion as science. Why then, is it so unfathomable and unpopular to push science as religion?