Unguided Blog

Free, my a55! I almost forgot that our beautiful government has been blocking YouTube for more than two months. I was reading a friend’s blog (Hi, SFO), and he linked to a YouTube video of Tito Puento interpreting Dave Brubeck’s famous classic “Take Five”. Naturally I clicked it. And I waited, waited, refreshed, and waited some more. Nope, nothing’s happening. After a few more tries, I almost gave up, thinking the site was down. Then it occurred to me that those beautiful people in the government of ours, the chimpanzees, sorry champions of democracy, who were closer to God (well, they are closer than me, for sure) denied access to YouTube so that no harm would come to 70 million citizens of this country.

I remember the days of military regime. Good old days! Even those, the top brass I mean, were kind enough to let you know what was allowed and what was not. Even censorship must have rules and principles, don’t you think so? They could have smoothly redirected me to a page, telling how censor was good for me and my children, how it was done for the benefit of the many, of the bright days ahead, a secure place in the heavens, etc, etc. No? Is it not my right as a voting and tax paying citizen to know that a site is blocked? Don’t I have a right to know? What happened to the rule of accountability and transparency in government? I am disappointed. I really am.

As a law abiding citizen, of course I did not access YouTube, directly I mean. I watched the video and wanted to share with you. The embedding code was problematic, though. It was not XHTML 1.0 strict but a quick search yielded positive results and after changing the code slightly, the video has taken its place in my non-democratic blog where I am the sole benevolent dictator. Hope you like it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just by co-existing we affect our environment. It will be naive to assume that in order to protect environment every development effort must be stopped or rejected. World population is increasing, recession is on our doorstep, so there will be an increasing pressure to exploit natural resources and habitats. Hence, an optimum has to be sought by all environmentalists. Investment and property development may adversely affect nature but so does unemployment, hunger and poverty.

A few minutes ago I read Greenewalt’s and Ekolof’s names have been given to the meeting room and the main restaurant of Lydia Sardes Hotel which will serve as a thermal resort and congress center in Salihli, Manisa.

Professor Crawford H. Greenewalt is still directing the archaeological research and the digging of course in the ancient city of Sardes and he is not informed of the gesture, yet. Sufi poet Gunnar Ekolof on the other hand, was deeply in love with Sardes. His “Divan for Prince of Emgion” (published in 1965) was written in Sard, the ancient city of Sardes. After his death on 16 March 1968, his ashes were flown over the Sard river near Artemis Temple as per his will.

Although accepting guests since March 2008, the hotel will officially be opened in the Fall of this year and a “guest of honor” card will be given to Prof. Greenewalt (American). A ceremony for Swedish poet Ekolof will also be held in the event.

I consider most if not all of these as marketing pranks, but I have not seen the place, yet. If the management is as half considerate as in their selection of names, I expect something good. It will definitely be on my check list. Until then, I can only thank them for remembering Greenewalt and Ekolof.