How do we stop another Virginia Tech-like Shooting?
The horrible shootings at Virginia Tech on April 16th, 2007 left me with a lot of questions; I struggled (and am struggling) to come up with answers to them. The most pertinent being “How do we stop another Virginia Tech-like Massacre?”
The most obvious first thing that came to my mind was gun control. I know that Virginia, my home state, has some fairly relaxed laws on obtaining guns. But I had no idea that anyone could walk into a gun store, and after passing an instantaneous criminal background check, walk out with your firearm. You don’t even have to register the weapon. I thought there was a waiting period of at least a week or something. On the other hand, even if there was a week-long or more waiting period, that wouldn’t have stopped this lunatic. He would have just waited and gotten his gun and done the same thing.
I had a short discussion with a coworker about this, declaring that somehow we have to tighten up our gun control laws to make it harder for anyone to get guns. My friend replied “Tell that to a friend of my family who shot a man as he was breaking into his house and about to rape his daughter.” I had no comeback for that one. Nothing at all. I know that this is an oft-used argument by proponents of the right to bear arms.
While I will never own a firearm, stories such as my friend’s above are very hard to argue against in terms of gun control. Defending your family from harm is the ultimate pathos argument; appealing to a person’s emotions by putting them in yours (or someone else’s) shoes.
My friend also had another strong point to make in saying that even if this guy had been denied the guns he sought, he could have made even more damaging and lethal weapons, like a bomb, out of ingredients bought from a grocery store and/or a hardware store. Indeed, the online magazine Slate published an article recently titled “Thank God the Blacksburg killer only had guns.” Can you imagine how many lives would have been lost had he produced something even remotely like the bomb used in say, the Oklahoma City bombing? And if all he really wanted was to use guns, I imagine it can’t be that hard to get them off of the black market.
All that being said, steps should be taken to tighten up gun control in this weapon-saturated nation of ours. While that will do some good, the reality is that terrible tragedies like this are very difficult to stop. The only way to effectively reduce their number is reaching these deeply disturbed individuals before they act on their twisted thoughts. This guy at Virginia Tech put out the warning signs, with one of his professors referring him to counseling because of his macabre and twisted writings; the police being called about him stalking a girl, etc.
So what can be done about this? Our country has many, nay far too many school shootings (and regular street shootings) every year. No other country in the developed world has anywhere near as many. Why? That is the question at the root of the matter. It’s not the easy access to weapons, although that doesn’t help. No, there is something askew deep within the psyche of American society. I only wish I knew what it was.
Any thoughts?
It’s snowing again….
I don’t know if anyone remembers, but when we got here in January, it snowed for what seemed like 2 months straight. Well, here it is November 5th and we have over 5 inches on the ground….
Basketball in Turkey
As many of you know, basketball has always been my favorite sport. I play it as much as I can, (which isn’t as often as I’d like), I root for my hometown team, the Washington Wizards, and the only video game I’ll play is NBA 2K6 on my PlayStation. So when my buddy Kevin told me that he went to a game and met a few Americans who are playing for some Turkish teams here in Ankara, I got pretty excited. Then he got me a free ticket to the next game, which was today.
The arena wasn’t too bad, if in a little disrepair. It was kind of dark in there, not quite as well lit as the arenas and gyms I’m used to from playing back in the states. The teams that were playing were Turk Telekom and Darussafaka. The Turk Telekom team is based in Ankara, so I guess you could consider it our home team. We sat right next to the court, with 2 of the wives of the American players. Apparently, each team is only allowed to have at most 3 American players on their team; the rest must be Turkish. Turk Telekom has 2 Americans: Erwin Dudley, who played Division 1 College ball at Alabama and averaged 15 ppg and 10 rebs. a game his last year there; and Derrick Alston, who played his college ball at Duquesne and was drafted 33rd overall in the 1994 NBA draft by the 76ers. Also sitting with us were a few players from the other team based in Ankara, fresh off of a victory. I chatted with one of them for a bit, his name is Marques Green. He played at St. Bonaventure where one year he averaged 22 ppg and 8 assists a game. Not too shabby! He had scored 31 points in the victory I referred to above, which makes him the league leader. He had some interesting things to say about playing ball overseas. He had played for 2 years in France before coming to Turkey, and surprisingly enough, he says that he likes Turkey a lot more than France. He cited the friendliness of the Turkish people, and that Ankara has a lot more going for it than the little town he played in in France. He also gets paid more in Turkey, mostly because they don’t have to pay any taxes. These guys are set, man. If you have any NBA experience, your salary will go up exponentially. Some guys are making upwards of a million dollars a year. That’s chump change compared to the NBA, but this isn’t the NBA; it’s not nearly as developed a league, and Turkey just isn’t as wealthy as the US. Also, these guys are like us in the Foreign Service – they get their housing paid for, and some of them get cars, too. So that money is almost pure profit. Sounds like a good deal to me…
Anyway, back to the game; it ended up being a blow out – 93 to 71, with Turk Telekom winning. Most of the game the deficit was hovering around 30 points. As far as the style of game, it’s European; lots of guys jacking up 3s whenever they can. Any kind of low post play was provided by the Americans like Erwin Dudley, who comes in at 6′8″ 240 lbs. It was entertaining though. The Turks definitely know how to play, and can stroke those 3s.
I will definitely be going back to see some more games; I want to see Marques Green play; all the things I’ve heard is that he’s the real deal. He’s a point guard, only 5′7″ tall, so he must be lightning quick. He’s also a really nice guy. I also learned from this website http://tblstat.net, that Will Solomon, who played at Clemson while I was there, is on the Fenerbahce team from Istanbul. It’d be cool to see him play here in Ankara at some point. What a small world.
The Frustration of Living in Turkey (or, there’s too much to see!)
We have a lot of friends here in Ankara who have been in the Foreign Service for a while, and some who have not. Most of these people, just by taking this job, are inherently adventurous and unafraid of new things. So, they take every advantage and travel everywhere they can. In some countries, there’s just not a whole lot to see, or maybe it’s difficult or unsafe to get around. Turkey, however, is so full of interesting, amazing places and things to see, you could almost go somewhere every weekend and still not exhaust everything in the country after your tour ends. Many people at the embassy take advantage of this and go somewhere every weekend. On Monday of every week I hear from somebody about the trip they took over the weekend and how Mer and I need to go to where ever they’ve been.
I have been here for 9 months now, and I feel like I have missed out on going places. I still (I’m embarrassed to say) have yet to get to Istanbul, which so many people just gush about once they’ve been, Meredith included. I’m dying to get there, and I actually have a 3 day weekend coming up where Mer and I could get up there; of course, it’s during the weekend when people are throwing Halloween parties, which are always a blast. I know that Mer wants to go to them, and so do I… but I really want to go to Istanbul. Can you tell I’m frustrated? I know that for people back home, this probably seems like a stupid problem, or maybe even a great problem to have, but man, I’m frustrated with it. There’s too much to see in this country! I was supposed to get to Capadoccia, and then Israel had to go and invade Lebanon, forcing me to cancel my trip there! Arghh!! Winter is on the way, and judging from the last winter, it’s not very easy to get anywhere… I guess we’ll just have to go somewhere every weekend next year…
OK, I’ve vented.. We still have over a year left and will probably get to most places we want to go.. but it’s agony listening to all the places people go every weekend!
A Bachelor with too much time on his hands
Meredith has gone back to the States for 11 days to attend one of her friend’s weddings, leaving me here in our apartment in Ankara to fend for myself. I like to think that I am not completely helpless, however since we’ve lived in Turkey, with her not working, there’s only so much that I need to do around the house when she’s here. She has the time and gets most of it done while I’m at work.
I have now assumed charge of our humble abode, and will try to keep it up as well as I can. She left Friday morning on the eve a 3 day weekend – I got home on Friday after work, and promptly sat my butt down on the couch and started watching tv and drinking beer. One area in which I will definitely not do very well while Mer’s gone is cooking. She is a wonderful chef; I only help a little bit here and there. My dinner on Friday consisted of one frozen chicken burrito. Man was it good. I did grill some steaks on the grill last night, which were quite delicious. I have had my fill of meat for a while…
Of course I’ve been playing around on the computers, playing video games, etc. The last time Mer left, I took it upon myself to install Ubuntu Linux on our really nice Apple G4 Powerbook; in the process I did something and fried one of the RAM slots. We had to send it back to the states to get repaired. I learned my lesson – never mess with your main computer – especially the one that your wife uses all the time 
So this time around I’m staying away from the laptop. I instead installed Linux on my crappy Dell laptop…. This post is quickly turning into a mess – kind of a stream of conciousness dump. Sorry to anyone who’s reading it.
I have played a few video games as well; I used to be able to play video games non-stop for hours. Now I can only play maybe one game of basketball or soccer, then I just lose interest. I guess that it’s a good thing – considering I’m 27 years old and married, and will probably have kids in the next 5 years… It seems as though my interests have shifted – I now just want to play around on the internet or with computers, doing constructive things. Can you tell that I’m bored? This post is a piece of crap.
‘On Golden Pond’ is on AFN Movie right now, I hear it’s not a bad flick….
Turkish Anti-American Popular Culture
This article is very disturbing to me. Living in Turkey, I get no hostile feelings from any Turks that I encounter during the day… But then the sentiments described in that article are supported by this survey. In talking with some of my peers here in Turkey who look at this kind of stuff for a living, they are of the opinion that most people in other countries are just waiting for Bush to leave office…. Go figure.
The Black Sea is Incredible
Note: For whatever reason, I completely forgot about this post and left it unpublished and just found it today, May 9th, 2007. I am going to finish it as best as I can remember, but I’ll probably forget a lot of stuff…
(This trip was taken in May, 2006, a year ago)
Meredith, Cathy (our neighbor) and I took a long weekend trip to the Black Sea coast of Turkey a few weeks ago. It was spectacular! I don’t know about anyone else, but before I actually saw the Black Sea, the preconception in my head was not a very nice one. I was thinking that the Black Sea was well, black. Meaning dark water, and kind of foreboding. If there’s one thing that living away from home teaches you, it’s that most of your preconceptions are flat out wrong. And man was that the case when we actually laid our eyes upon the Black Sea, which in Turkish is Karadeniz.
The Black Sea is far from black. The water was crystal clear, and turquoise, like the Caribbean. I was shocked. Of course, the water was extremely cold. We drove from Ankara north to a tourist town called Amasra. Amasra was nice, if a bit crowded being that it was a Saturday. Lots of Turks go to Amasra to get away from Istanbul on the weekends. We stayed in an overpriced, if clean hotel for the night; our room was directly adjacent to the elevator shaft, and we had thin walls, so we could hear everything. Amasra has two harbors, and a citadel. It was very picturesque. Anyway, we walked around town a bit and stopped at a pub for afternoon beers. The waiter, who spoke English, asked me where I was from, and assumed I was Russian. I said “America”, and he walked away. Cathy proceeded to tell us that he thought I was a Russian pimp, and Meredith and Cathy were my “girls”. Apparently the Black Sea coast is a huge prostitution center, especially for Russians. The sight of a man traveling with 2 women is an easy assumption of prostitution. We got a big chuckle out of that and continued drinking, of course. That night we ate dinner at a fish restaurant, and were treated to a show by an older Turk. There was some kind of special occasion, and he was singing away most of the night. It was an experience.
The next morning we jumped in the car and took off on treacherous roads towards Cide, which, if we had gone non-stop, would have taken us all of an hour and a half. When I say treacherous roads, I mean mountain driving on narrow roads on the edge of a cliff, with no guard rails and pot holes. And just to keep you on your toes, there are huge trucks and tour busses coming at you and also going the same way, which means you must pass them, because they’re really slow. Another problem driving was that the scenery was so spectacular, it was hard for me to keep my eyes on the road.
(The rest is written from year-old memories, on May 9th, 2007):
We stopped at an empty beach and laid on the sand for a while, soaking up the sun and dipping our toes into the very cold water. Then we packed up and kept on driving, winding along. We stopped at a strange town to get something to eat. I say strange because it kind of seemed like a ghost town, with only a few people walking around. We certainly drew attention to ourselves with our big, shiny car. We parked, wandered around a little bit and found a restaurant that did not smell very good. It was the kind of place that had the food in a display cabinet, covered in plastic wrap. Meredith promptly nixed the idea of eating there, so we left and found a borek place and happily ate until we were full.
After driving a little further, we found a cool little town that was kind of difficult to get too, but once we figured it out, we were treated to cups of tea on the waterfront, watching men build boats. I don’t know what the name of the town is, but obviously it is known for its boats. The people there were very nice, as was the tea! We got back on the road, and stumbled upon a place that one of our friends had mentioned to us called Gideros. I don’t really think Gideros could be considered a town, but it had a sign on the road, so we took a left and descended very quickly on a very bumpy road to sea level on a picturesque cove where a fish restaurant beckoned us to come down and have a beer. This turned out to be one of our most favorite memories of Turkey yet; we had intended to only have a few drinks and leave; we didn’t know we would be put to work. We were sitting on the shore of this cove which was engulfed by small mountains that dropped straight into the water. The restaurant had a nice arbor above its outdoor seating area, which had plants growing all over it. They had several types of fish, and I had to try some of them, so I ordered what they thought was best and it came out fried in a tasty batter. It was sooooo good. My mouth is watering right now typing this. Anyway, we were sitting there, having a good time, when the matriarch of the family-run restaurant beckoned me to come with her, down a small set of stairs to the rocky beach. Cathy confirmed that she wanted me to help her, so I went. The matriarch’s husband was attempting to pull a water-logged boat away from the incoming tide. I tried to help, but the boat was just too full. Luckily, there was a makeshift winch next to the boat. Meredith and Cathy, who had been back at our table enjoying themselves, felt bad for me (or so they say!) and had decided to come down and check things out. They were both promptly drafted into turning the winch around to pull the boat up the beach. So imagine this scene: the husband and I are pulling and pushing this old boat with all our might while Cathy, Meredith and the matriarch are all pushing this winch around and around in circles, slowly lifting the boat out of the tide’s path. We were all laughing out loud and enjoying every moment. After we had secured the boat, we were thanked profusely and drove on to our final destination: Cide.
Most of the towns we stopped at on our trip that day were not on the map we had. They were just too small. Cide, however, was on the map, but had even less to offer than the small, picturesque towns we discovered. It is a medium-sized city that feels pretty much empty. Stoplights were not working, and the entire place seemed to become pretty dark as we drove in that evening, which probably had something to do with there not being any working street lights. But we found our oasis in the form of our little hotel on the water. It was a spartan place, for sure, but the people were very friendly. We sat down to have dinner and started drinking beer. We had a great Turkish feast and continued to relax and get a little goofy. It’s anyone’s guess as to how many beers we drank that night… We had a ball and slept great, waking up to a sunny day and a delicious Turkish breakfast, which prepared us for our long drive back to Ankara.
This post is getting very long, but I cannot end without writing about our experience attempting to follow a Turkish map to get us home. We figured before we left Ankara in the first place that we would do a big circle, which is what one of our friends had done. We looked at our map, felt comfortable with our route and left. Well, it worked out great until we left Cide to get home. We started going up and up and up into these beautiful mountains, following our map until we got to a town that clearly, according to the map, was past a turn we were supposed to have made. So we shrugged and turned around, fully expecting to easily find our road. It was nowhere to be found. We kept on looking at the map, driving up and down the road where we thought it was supposed to be. We even stopped and asked these guys (with Cathy’s excellent Turkish skills) where it was. They didn’t know either. So after an hour or so of frustration, we threw in the towel and turned back towards Cide, retracing our previous route, still dumbfounded over our phantom road. We made it back to Ankara tired but happy….
The pleasures (and displeasures) of a Turkish Bath
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted, so I have a lot to report. Many people may have heard some of these stories, and maybe they haven’t.
We have passed our 3 month mark now, and things continue to get better and better. The weather in Ankara in the Spring and Summer is very nice; currently it’s about 61 degrees farenheit. This alone has probably contributed the most to the great improvement in the moods of both Meredith and I. The people that we met at first are beginning to become pretty good friends, which of course is wonderful. We also took our first trip outside of Ankara, to a town called Safronbolu, which is known for its well preserved Ottoman era houses. Meredith’s salon has grown to the point where she says she doesn’t want to take too many more clients. Mer is also completely comfortable going out on her own, into stores and other places. That was a very difficult thing at the beginning. She has made friends with other non-working spouses and they love to go shopping together at least once a week. We have two 3 day weekends coming up, and are thinking about taking another trip down south to Kapadokya, which should be quite fun.
Yesterday I went to my first Turkish bath, called a Hamam. The guys I went with unfortunately like to go at 5:30 in the morning, but I felt like this was one experience that I needed to have, so I decided to go for it. The inside of the hamam looks kind of like the inside of an Ottoman house; they have a large courtyard-like area with chairs and a fountain in the middle of it. Surrounding the courtyard are 2 floors of small changing rooms with cots in them. You go in there, disrobe and put a towel around your waist. Then you go across the courtyard into the actual bath house. The bath house itself was kind of dark, with a domed ceiling with holes cut into it, kind of like skylights. Every thing is made of stone, from the floor to the ceiling. I don’t think it was marble, but then I was kind of in a daze… The first thing you do is go sit in a sauna, which was way too hot for me. I was very uncomfortable; it hurt my lungs to breathe the air in there. It did however make me sweat out all the beers I had the night before! Then you go out into the center of the room, which has a raised slab in the center. You lay down on that and are then washed from head to toe by a bath-guy. And no, you’re not completely naked and they stay away from your mid-section! First they use this glove that scrapes away any dead skin that you might have had on your body. Then you get rinsed off, and are then doused in soap, using this weird looking bag that I guess is filled with soap suds. Then you get a simple massage, for about 2 minutes. He also crossed my arms over my chest and pushed, cracking my back what seemed like 10 times. I was then led to these large tubs of water, and he washed my hair. I was rinsed off, and he pointed to another container, which was filled with cold water. I told him yes that I wanted the cold water poured over me, but I’ll tell you what, it was a major shock to my system. Then you leave the bath house and are dried off. We went to those chairs in the middle of the courtyard and sat there, waiting for the other guys. It was a little like a massage in that I was very relaxed, and kind of dazed. Once everyone was out, we then went and had some breakfast around the corner and I was home by 7:15 and back in bed. It was definitely an experience! I can’t quite decide whether or not I want to go again. The sauna was just too hot, but it did clean me off very well and felt very good.
A lot of other stuff has gone on since my last post, but I’ve written too much for one day!
I’ll post again….
So I haven’t posted in a while, but we’ve been really busy. Hopefully this weekend I’ll come up with something to report…
