About Ramblings of a Hopeless Khowaga
Welcome to my Web site. My name is Chris, and I’ll be your host. I\'m an opinionated, snarky, gay academic with a predilection for the history, the Arab world, languages, photography, food, and music. I live in Austin, Texas. You can read more about me, learn 100 random things about me, and if you’re wondering what the heck a khowaga is, click here. Feel free to browse, read, and leave comments!
Too tired to post anything detailed tonight …
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Fireworks over the Bosphorus tonight. Unfortunately, I was on a moving ferry so no photos, but a nice view all the same.
Happy (belated) 4th of July to everyone in the states!
I’m currently sitting in seat 5B on an AnadoluJet flight from Ankara to Sanli Urfa in the southeast part of Turkey. We’ve been moving rather quickly these past couple of days — while we were sitting in the airport in Antalya, from whence we departed just a couple of hours ago, we had to take a moment to reflect on the fact that we have been in the country all of three days. It feels like we’ve been here much longer.
In all honesty, this program has gone much better than I had let myself hope. The organization that I’m working with is somewhat legendary for packing the itineraries on these trips so full that at least half of the participants wind up having to sit out a day or two due to illness incurred from lack of sleep. Hence, I’m rather pleased that it does appear that they listened to my pleas not to overschedule the program, even if at first glance it may not have appeared as such.
When last I checked in, I was on an early morning flight to Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city. I’ve never actually been to Izmir, and that, unfortunately, didn’t really change this time either. We were met at Adnan Menderes airport and boarded a bus from which we went directly to the Greco-Roman city of Ephesus, an hour south.
This was the group photo that we took that somehow I never wound up actually being in. (“Hang on, I’m going to use my timer … where are you all going?”) Oh, well.
There are, for the record, a lot more photos on my Flickr account. As I’m doing most of my blogging offline, it’s very difficult for me to link to them from here, but check them out, OK?
Where was I? Ephesus. It’s a large old city, and I’ve been there before. Still looks old. The new attractions this time around were that the very large amphitheater was open (last time it was closed), although I walked in, took one look, and realized that I would have given myself heatstroke walking up to the top. Instead, I discovered the other new attraction: Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises pay local people to dress up like Romans and act out cheese-tastic skits for their passengers coming in from the nearby port of Kusadasi.
This appeared to be a swordfighting match – it was kind of hard to tell, since the two fighters just yelled a lot a la Conan the Barbarian. I guess that’s what you have to do with such a multilingual crowd.
After Ephesus, we went up the hill to the Meryamane Evi, the house where it is reputed where the Virgin Mary lived her last years in this earthy existence. Most of you probably do not recall (as I don’t think I blogged it at the time), but the last time I was at Meryamane, one of the people in my group pitched a complete and utter fit in the parking lot because one of the interpretive signs at the site said that Mary lived there “until she died.” As good Catholics know (and this woman was a better Catholic than you, and wanted everyone to know it) Mary did not die — she fell asleep and was lifted into heaven by angels. The fact that she had earlier sneered that Eastern Orthodoxy was still full of superstitious beliefs that had been removed from Catholicism was an irony lost only on her.
Anyway, as pieces of real estate went, Mary had a pretty nice one. It’s set on a hilltop just outside where the walls of the city of Ephesus would have been located amongst the fir trees and pleasant flowering vines, and it catches a nice sea breeze coming in off of the Aegean Sea. I should be so lucky.
Then came the visit to the pottery factory. I’m always resistant to these sorts of “quick visits to a local factory” because they inevitably turn into sales pitches, but it wasn’t bad as these things go … and it turns out that membership has its privileges. She knew the group we were with and offered us a 50% discount on the spot. Unfortunately, that means that most of it was still out of my price range, but …
Purdy, ain’t it?
After that, lunch at a ranch … that turned out to just be a ranch. No actual house there — we thought we had been invited to someone’s home for lunch, and that turned out not to be the case. They did, however, have a random yurt in the yard, which got us going on at length about words that are fun to say — “yurt” being one of them.
Yurt!
So, after the yurt excursion, we did a double-shot in Selcuk to the site of the Basilica of St. John and the so-called Jesus Mosque. The problem with the first is that they don’t actually know who St. John was — they’re not sure if it’s the Apostle, the one who wrote the Gospels, the one who wrote Revelation, or a completely different John.
It’s a prettier site than I remembered, though:
Next door is the mosque of Isabey. Isa is the Islamic name of Jesus, but despite the fact that everyone said it was the Jesus mosque, it turns out that it was named for some guy who lived in the thirteenth century named — you guessed it, Isabey. Close, but no cigar.
After that was our first visit to a school on this trip, which was interesting. As of now, we’ve had three with a fourth pending.
Shortly after the school visit, it was back to Adnan Menderes airport for a flight to Antalya that arrived at 11:30 pm. Exhausted,we trundled off to the Marmara Hotel, which turned out to be a five star deluxe on the coast (not to be confused with “the beach”). But when your coast looks like this, who cares?
The day was fraught with various ventures: morning visit to the Antalya Museum, followed by lunch at a local school, followed by a walking tour of old Antalya that lasted for three whole blocks. Again, when the blocks look like this, who am I to complain?
This was followed by the inevitable shopping excursion to a carpet store. The guide was very sneaky on that front — after consulting with our hosts, the four of us had unanimously decided that there would be no carpet shopping. Then prayer time came and the three of them went into a nearby mosque to pray …and so the tour guide suggested that a nice place to wait for them might be the carpet shop. Ha ha! I went into the mosque and sat in the air conditioning instead. If I buy a carpet — and that’s a big if — I’ll do it in Istanbul at the end. I’m flirting with overweight luggage flying domestically in Turkey and I don’t need that weighing on my conscious.
I’m going to wrap up this narrative here. At the moment it’s half past midnight in Sanliurfa (see map), and although I’m wide awake, balancing a hot laptop on my stomach isn’t the best thing to do to get ready for bed. More later …
Yesterday, I took a road-trip (for biz purposes, naturally) out to a little hamlet about an hour east of where I live. We used to have a little hamlet like this right up the road. When we moved into the house we currently occupy, we glanced out there because there were promises of new subdivisions, but we both balked at being in a town of 845 people. Any money we saved, we reasoned, by buying out there would be offset by the cost of getting to the nearest grocery (10 miles). It used to be the sort of place where you could give directions in reference to the traffic light, there being only one in town.
Needless to say, the little hamlet in question is now one of the fastest growing towns in the United States. It’s now got over 17,000 people and driving through takes forever because the many traffic lights are all timed for traffic going the opposite direction from the way you’re going (it’s interesting how they always manage to work it that way!).
The drive out was pretty – there were about as many rolling hills as one can expect in that part of Texas (there’s a fault line running through Austin that separates the flat, flat plain on the east from the hill country to the west). And then we arrived in the little town, which was little, and made our appearance at the high school. As is the case with many of the school districts in that part of the state, the high school draws from 293 square miles. There are students who ride the bus nearly two hours in each direction on a daily basis.
Our hosts took us to lunch at the restaurant in town. There’s just one. It serves a bewildering mishmash of food that is clearly prepared without any awareness of the ongoing cholestorol or obesity epidemics in the country. You want Mexican? They got it. Also, anything fried: burgers, fries, steak fingers, chicken fingers, onion rings, fries, catfish.
It was at said restaurant that I had a moment of politically incorrect weakness and thought that the local clientele was a bit … frightening. There were more than a few mullets, and several years’ quota worth of front butts *shudder* Can I eat with the Mexicans? I thought. They’re the most normal looking people in here … Needless to say, the Mexicans were eating off in a corner by themselves. I’ve mentioned before that I get nervous in places that are homogeneous (and not homo-geneous).
Our host then took us on a tour of the town, “Not that there’s much to show you,” she chirped, after pulling out of the parking lot and nearly getting us into a full on wreck by not paying attention to the pickup barreling down the road.
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The thing that struck me about our little tour was that nearly all of the narration consisted of “used to be”s. This used to be the active downtown, but all of the stores and small businesses have closed. In this entire row, there’s only one active enterprise.
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It was also a little unsettling that the bar had people hanging around outside at 3 in the afternoon. The gas station around the corner was straight out of Bubbaville. Two men in denim overalls sat out front in plastic lawnchairs, watching the traffic go by, such as it was. Traffic doesn’t go through town since the main road was put in … thirty or forty years ago.
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There was also the place where the train station used to be. There’s a rusting grain silo next to it that, I hope, hasn’t held actual grain for years.
Finally, after another few “used to be” comments, I had to ask, “Is the town shrinking?”
“Well, no, it’s the same size it used to be,” she said. “It’s just that a lot of people are moving out here who still work in Austin. No one’s paying attention to the town anymore. They’re not invested in it.”
So, it’s us city folk.
I have to admit, I felt kind of sad for the place. Everyone was certainly very nice, and it’s the sort of place where everyone knows everyone else. But it’s the sort of place that needs gentrification — but, at the same time, I don’t imagine there’s much chance of that … at least not through the usual means. Not with a Baptist church that size (and the slogan on the marquee out front left little doubt as to where they fall in the broader spectrum).
It was something to contemplate. I drive through little towns on a relatively frequent basis and always wonder about what life is like there. It was interesting getting a glimpse for once.
OK, I’ll admit it: I’m really irritated with the headline currently on the home page of the University of Texas–”Gay Couples View Marriage as Legal Protection, Not Commitment Symbol, Study Shows.”
The story describes a study undertaken by researchers in the Department of Sociology, and includes this little tidbit:
According to the study, more than half of the respondents deemed commitment ceremonies as unimportant and pointless. However, all except for one of the participants said they would legally marry if they could, indicating the importance of legality for same-sex couples.
“Although trends regarding acceptability of ceremonies have shifted, most of the couples in our sample find at this point in their lives, formal public ceremonies are not practical or substantial enough in legal and social meaning to warrant their participation,” Reczek said. “However, if legal marriage were accessible, nearly all couples would participate for the legal, financial and social benefits.”
That may be the most romantic thing I’ve heard since a long-departed colleague married her longterm fiance because they were moving to another state and it would have been too much trouble to prove their common-law status so that she could get on his insurance.
I know that the spirit of the article is basically this: because of the newness of the idea of gay marriage, most couples have made a committment to each other in some way, either formally or informally. Ray and I haven’t ever done anything formal, and we don’t wear rings, but I feel like we’ve made some sort of commitment to each other (haven’t we, honey?). So, yes, among a certain subset of the gay population who’ve already made that commitment, the act of marriage really is just about making it official in the eyes of the law.
However, I’m waiting for someone out there–let’s say, a Bauer or a Dobson–will pick up this survey and wave it around as “proof” that gays are just trying to “redefine marriage” for the insurance benefits! (I have the same problem with the phrase “redefine marriage” that I do with right wing Christians who proclaim that “Islam is trying to take over the world”–their real concern isn’t that gays will redefine marriage or Islam will take over the world; it’s that they’ll do it first, before they have a chance to do it themselves.)
Fortunately, Michael Steele (dear God, is that a porn star name or what?) has already decried gay marriage as a threat to small business for that very reason, so we don’t have to worry about the Republican party pushing civil unions anytime soon.
While, I suppose the survey isn’t saying anything that a lot of us don’t already know–but it doesn’t take into account the next generation who aren’t partnered up yet (the survey specifically looked at couples) who are looking at the gay marriage movement and are planning their lives accordingly. I guarantee that a good number of them aren’t going to be looking at marriage solely for the insurance benefits. Perhaps the next time our Sociology Department does a study on gay marriage, they could do well to remember that.
As it is, I have to wonder if they’ve done a bit of a disservice to the gay marriage movement. Marriage may be about formalizing a relationship and gaining legal status before the law, but let’s not discount the notion of “relationship” in that equation. After all, it’s the foundation upon which everything else is built.
There are some times that I am less OK living in Texas than others. The passage of the state’s second Defense of Marriage Act was one of them. I fear we’re coming up on another, and I feel like I should be able to do something about it, but I don’t know what.
It’s come to the attention of just about everyone that the State Board of Education has been taken over by a bunch of radical loonies. These are the sorts of conservatives who make conservatives uncomfortable, and somehow they managed to take over the body that’s charged with revising and implementing educational standards at the K-12 level. (Thank Bob it’s only K-12.)
This would be the same board chaired by a dentist (!) from College Station who came under fire shortly before the board’s final vote on revised science standards for endorsing a book that referred to supporters of evolution as “monsters,” “atheists,” and “morons.” I want to make it clear that the board currently leans in the direction that believes that if you ain’t their kind of Christian, you’re not a Christian at all. (The fact that this is exactly the kind of logic that Osama bin Laden and his ilk use is the kind of irony that isn’t lost on me, but would be shot down as “totally different” were it brought to their attention.)
Earlier this year, a call went out for people to review the social studies standards. As an historian who works with K-12 educators a lot in my line of work, I put my name in. I didn’t get selected, and it didn’t take long enough to realize why. I didn’t know that the SBOE member who represents my district had sent out an e-mail claiming that Obama was a terrorist sympathizer, and that an attack by said terrorists would take place in the first six months of his administration, followed by the implementation of martial law. (Perhaps we should secede just in case?)
Clearly my passioned e-mail describing my committment to global competencies was a bad idea.
I know several people who did get appointed to the committees (two of them went with me to Egypt in 2005). One of them, a University professor at a rival institution, was appointed to the economics review committee and managed to cause a horrific furor when he had the audacity to suggest that the term “free enterprise system” be replaced with “capitalism” in the standards. “Capitalism,” after all, is what it’s called in every college textbook, and he thought that it would be appropriate for K-12 students to use the same terminology that they would use in college. Why call the same thing two different names?
To say that this was received very badly would be an understatement. As I was told later, when one of the SBOE members saw this proposed change, she stood up and screamed, “What kind of anti-American sonofabitch did this? You should be ashamed! I swear, whoever you are, if you were one of my appointments, you can consider yourself fired!” (note: committee members are unpaid – it’s all volunteer work.)
My other friend wrote me to say that, while her committee was congenial, others were concerned that “too much attention” was being paid to the rest of the world at the expense of “our” history. Another friend told of how someone was appointed to her review committee–which was to oversee one of the years of world studies–whose sole purpose was to state over and over that he had moral objections to students studying other cultures.
For the record, Texas schoolchildren have two years of American history (grades 8 and 11), one year of government (grade 12), one full year of Texas history (grade 7), world cultures (6), world history (10), and world geography (9). More than one board member has stated the desire to replace either the 9th or 10th grade course with a third year of American history, apparently being unaware that the 12th grade government course is entirely American history content.
It gets better.
After the first round of review committee meetings, the board cancelled the second round, apparently afraid that further anti-Americanism might ensue, so they’ve decided to appont an “expert panel” to guide the revision process.
First up? David Barton and the Reverend Peter Marshall.
In his books and teachings, [David Barton] argues that separation of church and state is a myth and that America’s laws should be based solely on Biblical scriptures. His numerous claims include that the Bible forbids income and capitol gains Taxes. Barton’s views are so far right that even such groups as the Texas Baptists Committee and the Baptist Joint Committee have been vocal critics of his interpretations of history and the U.S. Constitution.
Even better: “Marshall has previously suggested that the California wildfires and Hurricane Katrina were divine punishments on society for the tolerance of homosexuality.”
TODAY comes the news that they’re considering LYNNE CHENEY for the expert panel.
Cheney is well-known for crusading against national history and social studies standards in the 1990s, calling the standards–which the National Endowment for the Humanities helped fund while Cheney was its chair–”grim and gloomy.” Cheney also denounced the standards as a monument to political correctness, claimed they gave insufficient attention to Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the Wright brothers and focusing far too much on figures like Harriet Tubman, and worried that they concentrated too much on embarrassing episodes in the nation’s history, such as the Ku Klux Klan and McCarthyism.
Outraged? You should be. The science standards revision made us uncomfortable by flirting with intelligent design–this will make us look like fools. The next revision won’t happen for another decade, by which point our students will be the laughingstock of the country.
I still can’t tell what can be done about this twisted version of Evangelicals Gone Wild! I’ve got half a dozen pleas in my inbox to help find real experts to testify before the SBOE, but it’s obvious they don’t care what people like us think. If you live in Texas, write your state legislator–seriously. The Lege is already moving to restrict the power of the SBOE after the science and English debacles.
I know that there’s probably very little that I can do about this … but I’ll feel better when it’s all over knowing I did what I could.
