Turkey continues to purge higher education

July 20, 2016 • 9:45 am

It really distresses me to see Recep Ergoan use the excuse of a military coup to exact retribution against all his enemies, real or imagined. If the coup was real—and I still think it is—it’s justifiable to fire the military who were involved, but reinstating the death penalty (abolished in 2004), as Erdogan wants to do, is out of line.

On top of that we have the mass arrest of judges, the mass firing of 15,000 officials of the state Ministry of Education and state governors, and the mass suspension of 21,000 teachers. That’s at least 45,000 people. There’s no excuse for that: it’s clear to everyone that Erdogan is using the coup as a convenient excuse to solidify his autocratic grasp on Turkey.

In fact, he’s said as much. The BBC reports this statement;

“We will continue to cleanse the virus from all state institutions, because this virus has spread. Unfortunately like a cancer, this virus has enveloped the state,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan told mourners at a funeral in Istanbul for victims of the coup.

“Virus” is of course the word Hitler used to refer to the Jews, and the Final Solution was the elimination of that virus.

Now the purge of academics and intellectuals has worsened, as Turkey just suspended every dean of every college in the country, private or public. That amounts to 1,577 deans, including those at the finest secular institutions in the land. And if that wasn’t enough, the Washington Post reports that there is now a blanket travel ban on every academic in the country.

A senior Turkish official described the travel ban on academics as just a “temporary measure.”

“As you surely know, universities have always been crucial for military juntas in Turkey, and certain individuals are believed to be in contact with cells within military,” he said.

Yeah, all 1577 deans are subversives! I don’t think so. As Inside Higher Ed reports, this is a blatant move to get rid of academics and create a system of higher education formed in Erdogan’s image:

A.Kadir Yildirim, a research scholar at the Center for the Middle East at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, described Tuesday’s actions as “part of the effort of the government to basically redesign all the major institutions, all the major agencies, in its own image. Those who are not party loyalists, those who are not Erdoğan loyalists, are basically being dismissed.”

Yildirim asked how the government could have come up so quickly after the failed coup with a list of 9,000 people to dismiss from the police force and more than 1,500 deans. “This is just an opportunity, an excuse for the government to expand its control of various government agencies, especially those historically [which] they have been unable to infiltrate, so to speak,” he said. Historically, he explained, higher education has been a stronghold of liberals and secularists, while conservatives and Islamists have been less well represented in positions of power.

This all smacks of the same kind of tactics Hitler used after the Reichstag fire, which the Nazi party may well have set as an excuse to solidify its power.

What’s happening in Turkey is execrable, and it’s even worse given the thousands of Turkish people demonstrate in the streets in favor of Erdogan. It’s like chickens demonstrating in favor of the fox! While many good people are unjustly detained, I feel especially strongly about my academic colleagues in Turkey, for those are the people I know. Many will be suffering in silence, and, like everyone else in that Erdogan-cursed land, they know that the worst is yet to come. Turkey is about to be cut off from the Western world, and is going on a path that will make it like many other benighted Middle Eastern nation.

The “My Little Pony” defense: GOP tarnishes its image further by refusing to admit plagiarism

July 20, 2016 • 9:00 am

Given the perfidy and bigotry of the Republican party, and the odious candidate they’ve chosen in Donald Trump, I’m not overly concerned about his wife’s plagiarism of Michelle Obama’s speech. Yes, it was wrong, yes, they should have fired whoever wrote that speech, and yes, they all deserved opprobrium. (Imagine the rancor the Republicans would have displayed had Bill Clinton done the same thing in support of his wife Hillary!) What makes it really bad is that the party and Trump’s flacks are refusing to admit it’s plagiarism. But any thinking person—and yes, even some Trump supporters are sentient—won’t buy that. Have a listen to the blatant cribbing:

What to do? Admit that it was a cribbing by the speechwriter, suggest that it was inadvertent, and apologize. But the GOP won’t do that, and their excuses are simply silly. They’re not even credible enough to fool the average Trump supporter:

“To think that she would do something like that knowing how scrutinized her speech was going to be last night is just really absurd,” Manafort said.

Manafort said the words Melania used were not “cribbed” but are common words.

“There’s no cribbing of Michelle Obama’s speech. These were common words and values. She cares about her family,” Manafort said. “To think that she’d be cribbing Michelle Obama’s words is crazy.”

It gets worse:

Sean Spicer, the Republican National Committee’s chief strategist, invoked “My Little Pony” in defending the speech in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

“Melania Trump said, ‘the strength of your dreams and willingness to work for them.’ Twilight Sparkle from ‘My Little Pony’ said, ‘This is your dream. Anything you can do in your dreams, you can do now,’ ” Spicer said.

He also compared passages of Trump’s speech with phrases from musicians John Legend and Kid Rock.

“I mean if we want to take a bunch of phrases and run them through a Google and say, ‘Hey, who else has said them,’ I can do that in five minutes,” Spicer said. “And that’s what this is.”

Unfortunately, the cribbing was far more extensive than just “This is your dream. . .” etc. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the plagiarism from CNN:

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If a student gave me an essay with this kind of unattributed cribbing, I’d fail him. Even Jonah Lehrer was fired by the New Yorker for cribbing less extensive than this.  But even Republicans are not that dumb, and the excuses offered by the party—that this was common usage and not plagiarism—isn’t fooling anyone. Trump had a chance to win (which would have depressed me no end, besides ruining the country), but over and over again his campaign has damaged itself. It’s the Death from a Thousand Cuts. And now the GOP may have done themselves fatal damage by telling the public that they think we’re is credulous and stupid.

It reminds me of Hillary’s email kerfuffle. It wasn’t so bad that she used a private server to host official and sometimes sensitive government emails. That might have been inadvertent. But her lying about it afterwards wasn’t. It’s always best to admit the truth up front.

 

Readers’ wildlife photos

July 20, 2016 • 7:30 am

Reader Joe Dickinson has sent us a last batch of photos he took while snorkeling off Moorea. His notes are indented:

A few last shots from Moorea, including fish species it took me a while to identify, some still not identified, and some miscellaneous non-fish.
First, a redfin or oval butterflyfish (Chaetodon lunulatus).

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Orange lined triggerfish (Balistapus undulatus).

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A pair of sail fin tang (Zebrasoma veliferum). I noticed that a number of species seem to travel in sets of two, but I don’t know if they are male/female pairs.

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Blotcheye soldierefish (Myripristis berndti) hung out in large groups along a rock wall where they could retreat into crevices if alarmed.

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The blue spotted toby (Canthigaster solandri) is a species of puffer.

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I believe this is some kind of hawkfish (family Cirrhitidae), but I can’t make a firm identification. It “perches” on a coral head near a hole into which it can retreat.

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Here’s an interesting one that I’ve failed completely to identify.  Any clues from a reader?

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Now for a couple of group shots that give a sense of how diverse and colorful this environment is.

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The resort we stayed at hosts a sea turtle rehabilitation facility.  I believe this is a juvenile green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas).

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They also have a “Dolphin Encounter” with bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncates).  I have mixed feelings about this use of captive animals, but I have to admit that this individual seemed almost as pleased to have a tummy rub as does my d*g.

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Out of the water, this brown booby (Sula leucogaster) perched frequently on the roof of our bungalow, sometimes overnight.

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Finally, I dare say this is one of the most unusual snorkeling photos I’ve taken.  The blurry spot in the center is due to a drop of water on the “window” that covers the lens.  My wife must never know that I shared this.

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Wednesday: Hili dialogue

July 20, 2016 • 6:30 am

It’s July 19 20, and we’re already at midweek, at at the 201st day of the year. It’sIndependence Day in Colombia, too, celebrating the declaration of independence from Spain in 1810. Also on this day, in 1871, British Columbia joined the confederation of Canada. July 19, 1969, humans first walked on the moon; I saw it live and it was a HUGE thrill. Many readers may not be old enough to remember, but like the Kennedy and King assassinations, it was one of the defining moments of the Sixties.  Finally, just one year ago, the U.S. and Cuba resumed diplomatic relations.

Notables born on this day include Richard Owen (1804), Gregor Mendel (1822), Cormac McCarthy (1933; one of my favorite modern writers), Natalie Wood (1938), and Sandra Oh (1971). Those who died on this day include Pancho Villa (1923), Paul Valéry (1945), and Lucian Freud (2011). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili, enjoying the lovely weather, doesn’t want to do her job as editor today:

A: Time to go back to work.
Hili: Have mercy.
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In Polish:
Ja: Wracamy do roboty.
Hili: Miej litość.

Leon and his staff are still house hunting in Southern Poland, but the tabby still gets treats.

Leon: Oh, butter for breakfast. I like it.

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And here are two photos of reader Keira McKenzie’s beloved black cat, Plushie. (Good name!):

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Finally, a gratuitous LOL:

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Words and phrases I can’t stand

July 19, 2016 • 1:45 pm

I’m in Grumpy Old Man mode today, as it’s broiling hot and I was just outside, singeing in my own fur. And there’s lots of noise outside my office because they’re not only redoing the roof, but digging up the sidewalk to replace the ceiling of an underground tunnel to the adjacent building. TONS of annoying and disruptive noise!

So, you get to hear four words or phrases that I can’t stand. I managed to find all four, used in headlines, in about two minutes, just by doing a Google search for the word and adding “Huffington Post.” For if the PuffHo does anything, it tries too hard to be cool and current—or maybe it’s because most of the editors are privileged white women, clearly not long out of school, who have decided to appeal to their readership by using the Young Folk’s Argot.

Now I know I can’t stop the progress of language, whatever that means, but I can highlight words and phrases that rankle. Here are my choices for today.

  • “Epic” should be reserved for things that are related to an epic, i.e., something in the grand scale, preferably related to a poem or tale. Even the Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t sanction its current use: as “something out of the ordinary” (i.e., perhaps a notch above “amazeballs”).  Here PuffHo applies it to a fricking PIE:

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  • The adjectival “genius”: The OED lists its use as an adjective as “colloquial,” and I can almost tolerate that, but NOT when applied to something like how to recycle Parmesan rinds:

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  • “Throwing shade” is a phrase I can’t stand to hear. It means to publicly criticize or denigrate, although it originally referred pejoratively to the shade-thrower, not the throwee. Now, however, it simply means “criticize” or “go after.” It’s used only by those who want to show how hip they are, as here.

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  • “Rocking a ___”. To “rock something” means to use or wear an item in an attractive way; as far as I know, it usually refers to clothing, as in the unbearably au courant headline below.  As George Orwell pointed out in his famous essay on the English language, if you use a metaphor like this, it should convey something tangible, bringing a real image to mind. “Rock” conveys a misguided image. So when I hear of someone “rocking a dress,” I envision them cradling the dress in their arms and rocking it like a baby. When I hear the phrase, the soles of my shoes curl up.

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Can we use them all in one short paragraph? Of course! Here goes: “Don’t throw shade on Professor Ceiling Cat for his genius cowboy boots. They’re epic, d00d*, and he’s rocking ’em!”

 *Another disgusting word, especially when spelled with zeroes instead of “o”s. It’s invariably meant to denigrate men, and by women who would never stand to be referred to as “chicks.”

I know most of you have words or expressions that rankle you just as much. Do share them below.

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Turkey’s purge continues

July 19, 2016 • 11:00 am

Not to compare Turkish President Recep Erdogan to Hitler, but he’s proceeding in remarkably similar ways: using the coup to arrest his opponents—not just the military, but judges as well—to call for reinstatement of the death penalty, and in general to take every chance to become a full-blown autocrat. Although I’m not convinced the coup was orchestrated by Erdogan himself, as some historians say the Reichstag fire was, it’s not beyond belief.

But speculation aside, the purge continues, and, along Hitlerian lines, Erdogan is now getting rid of academics. As the BBC reports, 15,000 “education staff” have been suspended, accused of complicity with the U.S. Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who of course was blamed for the coup.

So the toll mounts:

Turkey’s High Education board has also ordered the resignation of over 1,500 university deans, state media reported.

. . . Thousands of soldiers, police and officials have been detained or sacked since Friday’s coup attempt.

More than two dozen generals, including former air force chief Gen Akin Ozturk, have been remanded in custody pending the setting of trial dates. Gen Ozturk denies any involvement.

Meanwhile, the UN urged Turkey to uphold the rule of law and defend human rights in its response to the attempted coup.

In a statement, High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said the mass suspension or removal of judges was “cause for serious alarm”. He expressed “deep regret” at suggestions the death penalty could be reinstated.

What’s next? Here’s my prediction which is mine: persecution of non-Muslims, who make up about 2% of Turkey’s population, will begin in earnest.

 

h/t: Stephen Q. Muth