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.

Superb!!

O mio Babbino caro


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUE2zG3R-hc

I never realized that it would come to that:

Last week, a court agreed to try more than 80 suspects - including two retired generals – who are allegedly linked to an ultra-nationalist plot to overthrow the government.

The suspects, from a group known as Ergenekon, are accused of planning a series of explosions and assassinations to create chaos in Turkey and force a military takeover meant to "save the republic".

Some wonder whether elements linked to that plot who are not yet in custody could be behind Sunday´s attack.

"If the country is out of control with no proper governance, if bombs explode here and there, then it´s impossible to know what might happen," mused Sedat Laciner of the think tank Usak.

"That might create the atmosphere for a coup, when they say ´forget the closure case, and the Ergenekon plot - the priority is security and the fight against terror.´"

PKK or otherwise, no hard evidence has yet been made public. But if this is the work of Kurdish rebels, commentators worry it may not be an isolated attack.

"This can mark the start of more unstable days," Mr Laciner says. "The PKK is carrying out more and more wild operations. The smaller they get, the more out of control they become."

http://news.bbc.co.uk:80/2/low/europe/7530118.stm

With the help of parents, siblings and teachers, the children of immigrants in Germany are becoming upwardly mobile – By Wolf Schmidt

They verbally harass others, fight, drop out of school and end up unemployed or even in jail. This image of the children of immigrants in Germany is widespread in the German media. Still, many have become very successful. How?

Berlin sociologist Ulrich Raiser examined the resumes of 24 successful children of immigrants. His conclusion: Parents are the main factor in paving the way to success. “You are here to make something of yourself,” they told their children. He says, this is “like an engine that helps them clear the hurdles in the German educational system.”

Gülperi Atalay, 26, is a good example. Her parents came to Berlin from Mersin in southern Turkey at the end of the 1960s. Her father assembled motorcycles for BMW before retiring while her mother still works for a cleaning service. “The attitude that girls don’t need a good education is still prevalent in some Turkish families,” said Atalay. “Luckily, that was very different in my family.”

For Atalay’s parents, there was no question: Our daughter will qualify to go to university and get her degree. And she did better: The young German-Turk completed law school when she was only 23. Atalay will finish her clerkship soon and then wants to start working in an accountancy. Atalay herself calls her career “unspectacular.” Her high school and law studies “went smoothly,” she says – not any different from many others in Germany.

If one looks at the statistics, careers like Atalay’s are anything but ordinary. Children of immigrant families clearly have to perform better in order to make the college-bound track. And the higher the level within the educational system, the lower their participation in it, according to the latest government report on immigrants. Only 8 percent of all university students have an immigrant background but they make up almost 20 percent of the total population in Germany.

http://www.atlantic-times.com/archive_detail.php?recordID=1346

What I like are paintings by the European Orientalist:

Have a look at Lynn Thornton´s art books of Painters and Travellers: these art books are a delight to the eye and a balm to the artistic soul.

Really? Let´s wait and see....

Turkey´s top court convened Monday to decide whether the country´s popular ruling party must be banned on charges that it is steering the secular nation toward Islamic rule. Turkey´s chief prosecutor asked the Constitutional Court in March to disband Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan´s Justice and Development Party and bar him and 70 other party members from joining a political party for five years. President Abdullah Gul is also on the prosecutor´s list. The case highlights the political rift between Turkey´s secularist circles - mostly active in judiciary and the military - and the ruling party, whose many members are devout Muslims with ties to the country´s Islamic movement. The judges began hearing the case a day after two bomb explosions at a packed Istanbul square killed 17 people and injured more than 150 others. It was the deadliest attack in Turkey in almost five years.The ruling party and the secularist opposition were locked last year in a dispute over who should be Turkey´s president, a largely symbolic post. The ruling party won by easily winning a quick election.


REUTERS: AK Party case, bombings give Turkish markets jitters
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Senior judges ‘targeted for high-profile assassinations´ by Ergenekon terror gang (Zaman

Normally the attackers wait with their second stronger blast to injure the police and ambulance helpes and gathering crowds who come running to assist the injured



Witnesses said the second explosion was more powerful than the first. Ramazan Ekici, present at the scene but uninjured, said: "The first explosion occurred at about 9:45 p.m. Then, we heard a second and stronger blast some eight to 10 minutes later. Many people were injured in the second blast after they rushed to the area to help those hurt in the first explosion. The avenue where the explosions occurred was closed to traffic and there were many people walking around."

Oh, thank you, Doudi and here are the uses for the Bukhoor

- To Perfume the house.
- On special occasions like wedding.
- To create a romantic atmosphere in bedrooms.
- For welcoming guests and a gesture of hospitality.
- Used to boost positive energy and dismiss bad sprits.
- Used in commercial shops and stores (specially that´s related to clothes) to attract customers and to enhance their buying experience.
- It´s used after a meal cooking or cigarettes smoke to quickly discard the bad smells and perfume the place.
- Bakhoor can enhance the mood and motivate creativity.