Every once in a while you find a statement from someone far away that captures the universality of the life we live in these modern times…I found this gem from Fikirbaz.com, who lives in Istanbul:

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for – in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.

And now for the rest of this week's Turkish postings…..American Turk posts this week in honor of the anniversary of the synagogue bombings last year in Istanbul. Ignore me if you can posts about sickness at work. Phanja from The Need to Know writes about recent coverage of her blog and gives a thanks to Global Voices. And Mavi Boncuk posts a short bio of famed Turkish cartoonist Necmi Riza Ayca.

Mustafa Akyol from The White Path writes a response to Dennis Prager's recent piece in the Los Angeles Times titled “Five questions non-Muslims would like answered”. His answers are quite precisent for our modern times, here is a short excerpt:

So, when he waits an answer from us such as “Yes, we have real problems in Islam,” Mr. Prager gets it wrong. We don't have a problem with Islam, but we have a problem with the current Islamic world and how it interprets this faith. The solution will come from earthly progress — the spread of democracy, human rights, free markets and free ideas — and a re-interpretation of Islam in the modern milieu.

And as for those who kill innocents in the name of Islam; the killers of American, Israeli, European, Iraqi or say, Jordanian civilians… As a committed Muslim, I denounce them with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my might. I wish I could do more. For now I can only tell where the problem is. And it is not with Islam, but with the Dark Ages of its civilization.

Turkish Torque has an interesting post comparing the hot button issues between Turkey and the United States in this post entitled Intelligent Design is America's Turban issue, he goes further into the intelligent design debate by discussing irreducible complexity. He also writes a wonderful and insightful post comparing the American Abrahim Lincoln to Turkey's Ataturk. Turkish Torque posts several times a day, which almost makes it impossible to note every post made.

The same goes for Erkan's Field Diary which posts so many interesting things that it would encompass many many articles. The majority of posts focus on various aspects of the negioations of Turkey with the EU, Erkan gives a link to a new online magazine that gives commentaries on the ongoings of the EU. Other EU related items include this link to the Centre for European Reform's Report on Turkey and this commentary on internet controls advocated by the EU.

Metroblogging: Istanbul writes about the violence/fighting that broke out last Wednesday against the Swiss soccer team when they knocked Turkey out of the world cup bid, current news reports suggest that the FIFA is considering a permanent ban of Turkey's national team in the World Cup. Many bloggers have already commented on this situation, such as Phanja from The Need to Know. This will be an interesting story to watch.

Interesting finds of the week:
1. R2-D2 a blog about Robots in entertainment, in Turkish.
2. Ev Cini (House Genie), a food blog in Turkish.
3. Tea Time Blog, another food blog in Turkish and German.