More Internet Troubles

For the past week now I've been trying to upload pictures to a blog I wrote about cooking, but for some reason the pictures refuse to appear. I'm working on the problem, but until then there's nothing much I can do.

That's my excuse.

Censorship Update (Again)

After talking to my Turkish friends, I found out that the recent censorship of my blog in Turkey has nothing to do whatsoever with the content. As it turns out, DigiTurk, the TV station that carries Istanbul's soccer games, got the government to block all Blogspot blogs because some were illegally broadcasting the games (though I can still see this one, thank goodness!). So it turns out I'm not the leftist rebel I thought I was. And that big leftist rant I made yesterday seems to completely lack merit now.

Heh!

New TV On The Radio Again!

The newest single off the new TV On The Radio upcoming record is here, and it's a heavy one! A hard rocking song that sounds very different from the band that I know and yet somehow still keeps to the roots. You might have to sign up to the mailing list to get the download... I'll find out soon enough. For all you folks who either don't care or have a spam email, enjoy! It's great!

Also, next week I'm back to the endless şök meetings where all the teachers meet and discuss each student individually. This means I'll be at the school until about 7:00 pm each night Monday through Wednesday next week, so you might not hear much from me. Wish me luck and endurance!

Update: I'm Censored

As long as I'm a leftist rabble-rouser, I should probably make some comment about what's going on in Wisconsin right now. Honestly I don't know much about it besides what I read here, but it seems totally despicable what's going on right now in that state. Blaming middle class people for the economic downturn is just plain silly. I'm amazed intelligent people seriously think this, especially as the gap between rich and poor continually spirals out of control. Do we really think the rich worked harder than everyone else to earn that money?

Maybe now I'll get banned from China, too. Hell, I can barely tell what I'm saying, I'm so out of touch with current events out here in Turkey.

And as I learned today, that's not a coincidence.

As long as I'm banned in the entire country of Turkey, I might as well pull out all my guns: recently there has been a huge crackdown on journalists here in Turkey. While the harsh treatment of foreign journalists in China has been getting a lot of press lately, the internal imprisonment of many Turkish journalists has been hard to find in the American news (perhaps they waited for China so they wouldn't be covered in International news and lose US favor?). Turks writing negatively about the Erdoğan government have been finding themselves in jail lately in a horrible expression of censorship.

As you might know, about 6 months ago I provided the link for what I called a good source for Turkish news, a blog call The Istanbulian, that was very critical of the current right-wing government; after I linked his blog we had a short email exchange - he was very kind. Sure enough, that site has been blocked as well - I don't even know if the link I provided works. The writer, who worked for the Hürriyet (trans: "freedom, liberty, or independence), has been performing his military service since late November so I haven't seen any updates from him for a long time. Perhaps he's in jail right now. We'll never know for sure until May when his term ends and we see if he gets back to blogging. You Americans will have to keep tabs on that for me until I get back!

So that must be the reason my blog has been blocked in Turkey. The Internet robots saw that I had linked this flagged website and then automatically flagged me. As I am not currently in jail because of my blog (maybe the government figured private school is worse), there's hope for my journalist acquaintance, though his being a full-fledged journalist probably doesn't help his case. I'm tempted to email him and find out if he's okay, but maybe that would give authorities an excuse to arrest him. I don't know. What I do know is something very scary is going on with this very right wing government that the USA doesn't understand at all, thinking that its anti-military and mildly secular government makes it a beacon for democracy in the Middle East. We have no idea what's really going on here.

Now block my site, Erdoğan! Oh, wait - you can't! It's already blocked!

Now I can write some of the more flippant opinions I've kept safe since moving here. Though now that I know the back story the whole thing's a little less cool than I originally thought.

Internet Difficulties

It turns out that, for some reason, I can't view my blog anymore. The browser gives me some message in Turkish that I can't quite understand. Google translate says: "1Access has been disabled because of a court decision." Does this mean I'm being censored? If so, then 1) Cool! 2) What'd I say that was so important to censor? and 3) Why does this Turkish court still allow me to update the blog even if I can't view it? Only a matter of time until I'm restricted from blogging at all, I suppose. So if I suddenly stop writing, know that the Turkish Internet Police have finally caught up with me for whatever I did.

In the meantime, I see that I got a comment on my last post about the hidden museum, but I can't see what it was. Sorry, folks, but if you want to write to me or comment on the blog you should email me for now, at least until I get back to the States. I'm pretty sure my email address is on the blog, and if you don't know it already I don't want you emailing me anyway, so everything's perfect.

Now, to stir up the masses with flaming progressive eloquence!

Update: One of my coworkers says the notice I see when I try to load my blog says that someone complained about my site, so they shut it down. So cool, right? I wonder if I inadvertently said something negative about Atatürk...

Hidden Museum

Today I found the Pera Museum, which had been hard to find for some reason (it's not in a difficult location to get to) and had a great time in their galleries. There was an exhibit on historical weights and measures, featuring measuring tools that were used from pre-Roman times and other used in the Ottoman Empire. Another exhibit chronicled Western depictions of Istanbul with a focus on the Orientalization of Turkish women. And the gem of the collection was a temporary exhibit of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera works. There were also photographs, a documentary, and pages from Frida's journal, which she apparently edited many times throughout her life and sometimes wrote/drew over, so it doesn't help much as a historical document.

The coolest thing about the museum was that I used all four languages - English, Italian, Spanish, and Turkish - that I have some knowledge of at different parts of the museum. It made me feel so cool!

Also, the forecast says there's a big storm coming (today was beautiful, but, according to a Turkish phrase, a winter's sun is calling the snow) and hopefully with it a snow day! If we get one I'll make a post as I watch snowflakes fall on my surprise vacation. I can't wait!