alpha scorpii

she has the posture of a scorpion
ever ready to strike down if you
show the slightest sign of weakness

yet you felt for her forearms
always scarred, fighting off monsters
in dreams with no apparent end in sight
in dreams you could never be a part of
you fell for those scars, which somehow
you felt on your heart, and a pure white
terra incognita - with a sting on rear end

a ship, with sails of the purest white
which created a chain reaction, which
ended up with a craving for salt and water
and a wish for smothering pressures, for hadal depths
-take away this false hope off of me, ah, it burns-
waves beating like thunder in the most silent night
a pointy topmast you see from time to time

yet rolls the night sky, leaving its place
to a new day, ah, i must believe in second chances
let's try it again, this time with feeling
may the numbness, the relic of the sting go away
dear sun, my favorite g-type star, my favorite burning orb
burn me with all your might, burn me to my core
leave nothing but what always is, what is true
venom be gone, monsters be gone, shadows be gone

she still trots around like a scorpion
a constellation on some stranger night sky
a forgotten memory, a distant pain
or a childhood lullaby

Pinar Selek - A case of persecution in Turkey

It is hardly a secret that Turkey is a country where freedom of speech only applies if you are strong or if you side with the strong. Although one of the current administration's (AKP, whose A incidentally stands for "justice") main selling points has been the freedom of speech (Tayyip Erdoğan was sent to jail in 1999 for a poem he recited in one of his speeches) since 2002, there has hardly been an improvement on the issue; only the color of the issue has changed: now you do not get sent to jail for reciting religious-militaristic poetry, but no guarantees for anything else. Just keep it to yourself, and you will be fine. Unless some trigger-happy prosecutor somewhere singles you out that is. You will be linked to some organization or some crime at their whim. Evidence? Evidence schmevidence, mere details...

There are a high number of journalists in prison in Turkey: http://www.cpj.org/europe/turkey/ . And then some... There is one sad case that came to the headlines recently, the case of Pinar Selek, a sociologist and writer. The more you read into her case, the more you feel nauseous from all the stench that comes from her prosecution; there are so many wrong things on so many different levels. There is an explosion somewhere in Istanbul, which experts say is from the accidental ignition of a gas cylinder. Pinar Selek gets arrested on unrelated charges around the time (for being a member of PKK, a terrorist group in Turkey). She gets tortured (proven by medical reports) and at some point, they decide to charge her with the said explosion. The witness against her recants his statement, another witness cannot have given the statement as she cannot speak Turkish language and she says she does not know Pinar Selek. But that does not stop Turkish justice system (or whoever singled out Pinar Selek) and she goes to trial. She gets acquitted three times on lack of evidence as well as because of the fact that the blast is not a terrorist attack. The prosecution puts her on a retrial for the 4th time, and with some gerrymandering with the judge panel (one of the original judges is on leave, and the new judges seem to hasten her trial not to leave it to the judge who actually knows the case) they give her a lifelong sentence. You can read more about her case here: http://www.pinarselek.com/public/page_item.aspx?id=1810

There are times you feel helpless against an injustice that is being done right in front of your eyes. Many times it is only the tip of the iceberg: who knows how many similar cases there are we do not hear about. It is sickening and saddening when you think about it.  I really want to believe this story will not end here and I want to believe that justice will be served to those who perpetrated unjustice in this case. Pinar Selek, we might be silent but we are not powerless, and we are with you.

An early locked position in a Scrabble game

In a Scrabble game, towards the end of the game the board can get locked, i.e. no player can play any more words no matter how many times they exchange their tiles. I tried to come up with a locked postion early in the game, and I came up with a solution with 9 tiles on the board. The following position's lockedness comes from these facts:

• No other word starts or ends with QIS 
• No other word starts with XU
• No other word starts with SOX (and only one other word ends with it: BOBBYSOX, and that doesn't help here)
• There are words that end with Q, but it is not possible to write them in this position since there is no 2 letter word that ends with Q

I'm referring to the TWL (Tournament Word List) here, since I play Scrabble mainly on Facebook. Also one Q and one X in the diagram are produced using the two blank tiles.

Please let me know if there is a solution with fewer tiles.

Here is the locked position:

haiku

 dog paw prints 

on the base of the dirty pool

winter's dusk in cyprus

(thanks to google translate, might be off)

Hayde (Kazım Koyuncu) - lyrics & translation

This is a beautiful song belonging to the late Kazım Koyuncu. Every departure is early, but his was especially so. The lyrics are in the Black Sea region's local dialect, hence might be foreign to a beginner of Turkish. The song is in that region's musical style, which is popular throughout Turkey. One especially enjoys the tulum solos in the song.



My translation -which is quite crude- follows:

Come on let's go, come on
To the mountain for blackberries*
To someone who is engaged to another
How can I say come on

I climbed and pruned the pine
Dropped it to half of what it was
How does one call this love
May the ground swallow it

One shouldn't prune
Alder sapling off the top
One shouldn't shy away from
The beloved lover this much

I climbed down to the flat of the brook
And grafted the engraftment
Being in love is a good thing
And I have just started doing it

* karayemiş: literally "blackberry", but refers to cherry laurel.

---and here are the original lyrics---

Hayde gidelum hayde
Dağa karayemişa
Elun nişanlisina
Ben nasil deyim hayde

Çiktum çami budadum
Endurdum yarisina
Boyle sevda mi olur
Girsun yerun dibina

Kizilağaç fidani
Tepeden budanur mi
İnsan sevduği yardan
Bu kadar utanur mi

Endum dere duzina
Aşlamayi aşladum
Sevdaluk eyi şeydur
Ben da yeni başladum

Power Struggle

When a struggle ends with the victory of one side, watch for a new struggle to emerge soon, among the constituents of the winning side, which were previously forged together with the perceived common threat. The common threat now gone, the alliances dissolve, new opposing ranks are formed. The losing side in the original conflict may join one side, or sit at the bench waiting for its turn to intervene in the correct time during the course of this new struggle. If there is no clear-cut lines among the victorious alliance, there may some emerge soon; for power has the tendency to divide in amoeba-like fashion and create its own antithesis.

A Serbian Movie: A Review

"A Serbian Movie" (Srpski Film) is a very disturbing noir/horror movie with a strong porn theme. A word of caution here, if you have the slighest doubt, just don't watch the movie. Also, there may or may not be spoilers in the following review.

The main character is Milos, a Serbian ex-porn star -one of the best in his line of business-, with a beautiful and loving wife, and a cute lively boy. Everything is perfect, except they have monetary problems. An opportunity comes in his way, a slightly weird porn director, Vukmir offers him main role in one of his artsy-porny films. Though he inquires, the details of the movie are unknown by Milos. He signs the contract regardless because the money is good, but he still has his doubts.

When they start to shoot the movie, we see that the casting location is an orphanage. We see a teenage girl, and then her mother, and some commotion between the mom and the girl and the cameramen (who happen to be dressed in a cop/military outfit) ensues. The first scene to be shot is between Milos and the mom, who had been just beaten by one of the cop/cameramen; and there is some talk about the women being the wife of a dead war-hero, and that she cheated on him. Things start to get weirder around here. During the (oral) sexual act, a movie of the teenage girl, innocently eating ice cream, is projected on the wall.

That night Milos has his doubts about the movie, which he shares with his wife. The next day he goes back to Vukmir, and mentions about his concerns to him. Vukmir tries to convince Milos to go on with the shooting, though unsuccessfully. At some point he shows Milos a weird porn (disturbing scene 1: the newborn porn). Milos runs out. From here on we realize Milos is drugged, with a concoction that makes him sexually very aroused and apparently obedient/zombie-like.

During the rest of the movie we see Milos, horny and mindless, is being herded by Vukmir, according to a master plan. Things go sour for everyone that is involved (except the mastermind of the mastermind), as we see through scenes of disgusting/taboo-breaking/bloodied sexual atrocities.

There's the repetitive theme of Milos coming face to face with the the mention/possibility of a sexual act with an innocent/minor (the new born porn, the tradition of virginal communion, and the most shocking last scene, which I won't mention here), and each time he manages to run away from this, except the last time, when he is tricked into it. Even while under the effect of the drugs, as soon as he realizes the situation he is in, he manages to awaken himself enough to turn the tables on the director and his thugs/cops/cameramen/whatever.

Milos' sexual potency is a metaphor of the power of a man; it makes the people near him happy, and it punishes those that are a threat to him and his kin. His wife asks him "if he does not want to fuck her", and then he shows her he can "fuck her" but he prefers to make love with her, to use his power on his family in a loving way.

Then there is the outside world. The man has to rent his power to the outside world to live. A man has to be like Milos, he has to know to whom he has to not use his power against with a clear and distinct line. And there are people (government?) who for their own benefit wants the man to use his power on those who are innocent.

The man on the street will have hard choices when trying to survive using his power for the benefit of himself and his loved ones, however the outside world will force him to use his power against innocents/his loved ones. He will try to win and gain freedom from this cycle of power, but many times he will lose, end up hurting innocents or losing his soul. And if you somehow try to fight this outside world, they might pull all your teeth and choke you by ramming their power down your throat.

A secondary metaphor in this movie, parallel to the one I just mentioned, is at the level of governments. Milos is Serbia , his wife is Croatia, his kid is Bosnia (as Vukmir proclaims in the movie, "A perfect Serbian Family"). They are a happy family: Yugoslavia (the cop brother who has his eyes on the beautiful wife could be Russia here, a world cop, I don't know). Serbia used his power to make his family happy in the past, but when they had economic problems, he wanted to use his power once more for the good of the family. However, induced in a mad/frenzied state, he is tricked into using his power on his wife and son (fucking as a weapon is no coincidence here of course, see: Mass rapes in the Bosnian War), and as soon as he realizes this, it is too late to go back to being a happy family they once were. He hugs them one last time in the bed, they are all cuddled into each other. And then bang, Yugoslavia is no more (see the map below; the mirror image of the cuddling scene in the movie). In the end we see powers-that-be, exerting their "power" onto the now broken family. The mafioso guy directs his goon to "start from the little one."

I repeat, the movie is very disturbing, and while I understand that it will be very hard to watch, even by the horror/gory savvy; you have to keep in mind that this is a totally different movie than a random pointless teen-slasher, or a hills have eyes type movie (family parallels), or a snuff film (social oppression metaphor?) . Someone who is innocent will be disturbed by the movie, because he or she will not want to know the horrors (government) which actually do exist in the real world. Someone who is used to the regular horror/gory genre will be disappointed and disturbed, because he will get the hint of deeper disturbances other than mere flesh and blood gore. Again, and i'm not saying this to create a reverse psychology and make you watch the movie: Though it is a good movie, just do not watch it if you have the slightest doubt.