A bit later this evening I’m taking the night bus to Aegean Turkey, sometime tomorrow I will get to Assos right on the coast. Assos goes back to Ancient times when it was a Greek colony. Aristotle spend a few years there in exile from the politics in Athens.
Monthly Archives: May 2008
Experimental new parallel home: http://homepage.mac.com/barrystocker/Personal1.html
I have a new experimental home for the blog under the title of Barry Stocker’s Weblog. This is part of my trial period using .mac. .mac is a service available to owners of Apple Macintosh computers, providing a webpage/blog home, online storage of computer files, online photograph albums, an email address amongst other thing. Like most things associated with Apple and Macintosh computers, it is extraordinarily beautiful. However, after a free trial it has to be paid for, so I need time to decide on this. In the meantime posts will appear here and in the link indicated.
AKP Authoritarians Trying to Dominate Higher Eduction: A Threat to Secularism and to Academic Freedom
Today I saw that the AKP government in Turkey is still trying to impose its will on higher education, by appointing the rectors of new public universities in Turkey. A lot of such universities are opening and this is an important issue. It is well established that faculty vote for the Rector in any public university. AKP is trying to encroach on academic autonomy in order to find jobs for its friends and impose its ideology on Turkish society. They are good at flying below the radar, in a stealth approach to increasing the social and political influence of religious conservatism in Turkey.
I would grudgingly vote for Obama Barack: Thoughts on the United States Presidential Election
I am not convinced by Barack’s brand of self-inflating rhetoric of hope and change. In policy terms it seems to mostly mean a growth of spending and regulation. Some proposed regulation is necessary and welcome (on expanding health insurance for example) but there is no sprit of restraint. Despite Obama’s presentation of himself as above politics, his campaigners were caught out assuring the Canadian government that his anti-free trade line will not be followed in office.
Changes to the Blog and my new Mac
Previous layout was too fussy and full of stuff that was of secondary importance at best in the side bar. Present format tries to focus on blog contents, while referring readers to other blogs where they might follow up what I discuss.