the book: Sailing from Byzantium

by Colin Wells
A gripping intellectual adventure story, Sailing from Byzantium sweeps you from the deserts of Arabia to the dark forests of northern Russia, from the colorful towns of Renaissance Italy to the final moments of a millennial city under siege....

Byzantium: the successor of Greece and Rome, this magnificent empire bridged the ancient and modern worlds for more than a thousand years. Without Byzantium, the works of Homer and Herodotus, Plato and Aristotle, Sophocles and Aeschylus, would never have survived. Yet very few of us have any idea of the enormous debt we owe them.

The story of Byzantium is a real-life adventure of electrifying ideas, high drama, colorful characters, and inspiring feats of daring. In Sailing from Byzantium, Colin Wells tells of the missionaries, mystics, philosophers, and artists who against great odds and often at peril of their own lives spread Greek ideas to the Italians, the Arabs, and the Slavs.

Their heroic efforts inspired the Renaissance, the golden age of Islamic learning, and Russian Orthodox Christianity, which came complete with a new alphabet, architecture, and one of the world´s greatest artistic traditions.

The story´s central reference point is an arcane squabble called the Hesychast controversy that pitted humanist scholars led by the brilliant, acerbic intellectual Barlaam against the powerful monks of Mount Athos led by the stern Gregory Palamas, who denounced "pagan" rationalism in favor of Christian mysticism.

Within a few decades, the light of Byzantium would be extinguished forever by the invading Turks, but not before the humanists found a safe haven for Greekliterature. The controversy of rationalism versus faith would continue to be argued by some of history´s greatest minds.

This is rather cute but amazing at the same time:

Robot love story

Leonardo DiCaprio interview with his German grandmother


http://www.germanhollywood.com/dicaprio_2.html

How many mods we have here now.

Turkish Language
Moderators: mltm, erdinc, Deli_kizin, Müjde, uzeyir, caliptrix)
Turkey
(Moderators: Deli_kizin, lady in red)
Turkish culture and literature
(Moderators: libralady, Deli_kizin)
Classifieds
(Moderators: erdinc, Müjde)
Other
(Moderators: Deli_kizin, KeithL, lady in red, mltm, CANLI)

İf this can help

Ashes and Snow


http://www.ashesandsnow.org/en/flash-popup.php#exhibition|critical-acclaim

The worlds most expensive box of chocolate!
The ultimate sweet experience in the guise of the worlds most expensive box of chocolates has gone on sale at Harrods for £5,000 . Made by the renowned Lebanese chocolatier Patchi , every part of the box has been made using the finest materials . The box is wrapped with genuine leather and refined hand made silk design originating from India and China . Inside the box the forty nine hand wrapped chocolates are , separated by gold and platinum linings. Every piece of chocolate is produced with the finest ingredients , and decorated with , a gold and Crystal flower and a handmade silk rose .

Boyfriend of woman stuck to toilet gets 6 months probation

I bet she was a lazy woman who did not want to leave the toilet..

A man whose girlfriend sat on a toilet so long that the seat stuck to her body has been sentenced to six months on probation.

Babcock’s extremely reclusive behaviour first made headlines in February 2008 when McFarren called the local sheriff in Ness County, Kansas explaining that Babcock, his live-in girlfriend, had not left their bathroom for two years.

When the police arrived at McFarren’s trailer, they found Babcock stuck to the lavatory. Medics discovered that the toilet seat had become affixed to sores on her body and later estimated she had been sat on the loo for at least four weeks.




http://news.uk.msn.com/odd-news/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=9079046