This is one of the most moving things I’ve seen

Recent Posts

• Iason Athanasiadis on Christmas in Greece, my comments and Kotsovolos’ Black Friday November 26, 2020
• “Islamophobia”: blah blah… Yasmine Mohammed November 26, 2020
• Onion’s suggested lockdown recipes November 26, 2020
• Trans species man… November 25, 2020
• International Men’s Day!?!? — such a thing really exists? November 25, 2020
• Aliyev: Erdoğan’s mini-me November 25, 2020
• Photos: Hutsuls! November 25, 2020
• New header image: Paradzhanov’s “Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors” November 25, 2020
• 12 rules for life: The Serbian way, from twitter friend Pelagia in Belgrade November 25, 2020
• Erdie in the Twilight Zone November 25, 2020
• Photos: missing New York November 25, 2020
• Photos: Athens can still be so beautiful November 25, 2020
• Photo: Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shusha, Nagorno-Karabakh / Artsakh November 25, 2020
• Photo: Naples, 2017 November 25, 2020
• Photo: St. Petersburg, 1962 November 25, 2020
• Slavoj Žižek: Why white liberals love identity politics November 25, 2020
• Turkey pardon p.s.: Lisa Montgomery November 25, 2020
• Presidential turkey pardon: when does this completely tasteless tradition stop? November 25, 2020
• Francis Bacon November 25, 2020
• Photo: Hagioi Douloi, Corfu November 24, 2020
• Erdoğan, Cyprus: “Mr Erdoğan’s vulgarity has no limits.” November 24, 2020
• Benjamin Haddad in Foreign Policy: “France’s War on Islamism Isn’t Populism. It’s Reality.” November 24, 2020
• Salonica and the myth of the Olympus view November 23, 2020
• P.S. Bicentennial kitsch — Parliament video November 22, 2020
• Bravo coffee’s silly Politisses commercial November 22, 2020
• Next year marks the 200-year anniversary of Greece’s secession from the Ottoman Empire: here’s the first of the bicentennial kitsch November 22, 2020
• Photo: Madhuri Dixit aging splendidly November 22, 2020
• Mohamad Rahed was a promising student at Kabul University. November 22, 2020
• From Duvar: Turkish parliament speaker rejects draft bill to declare 1955 Istanbul pogrom a day of mourning November 22, 2020
• DasandazBand – Hey Joseph دسندازبند – هی جوزف November 22, 2020
• Wait…you mean, the KLA committed war crimes too? November 22, 2020
• Photos: the Sistine Chapel with its original tapestries November 22, 2020
• Photos: The Synagogue of Aleppo, from Ben Judah November 22, 2020
• Photo: Moscow, a perfect palimpsest of said city November 22, 2020
• Photo: Euzones, Greek (Royal?) Guard, in Covid Masks November 22, 2020
• Wait…you mean, Kosovars can be racists too? And to their fellow Muslims? November 22, 2020
• November 21st: the feast of the Presentation of the Virgin; the Virgin in the Crossroad in C-town; and, November 8th: feast of the Archangels, Слава/Slava of the Ђоковићи/Đokovići November 22, 2020
• “How a legacy of crises inspired Greeks’ compassionate response to COVID-19” — National Geographic November 21, 2020
• Who started this fashion of balding, paunchy, late middle-aged political leaders playing with military dress? November 20, 2020
• Photo: Γιάννης Αποστολάκης November 19, 2020
• ¡Santiago y cierra, España! November 19, 2020
• Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece on Twitter November 17, 2020
• Retelling of medieval epic material from Kievan Rus’ as modern rap — The Tale of Igor’s Campaign November 16, 2020
• “İstanbullu Rumlar” — Greeks of Istanbul; and a Politike Kouzina addendum November 15, 2020
• Photo: Armenian clergy in the church of the Holy Sepulcre in Jerusalem November 15, 2020
• More beautiful Diwali images November 14, 2020
• Photo: Enes Kanter is a class act: “Thank you for supporting innocent people in Turkey…” November 14, 2020
• Photo: Sophia Loren p.s. November 14, 2020
• Photos: Sophia Loren, a lush baroque beauty from a lush, baroque city November 14, 2020
• “No picnic over others’ pain” — Turkish Cypriots protest Erdoğan’s planned trip to Cyprus November 14, 2020
• Hazrat Nizamudin Dargah on Diwali November 14, 2020
• Photo: dome of St. Peter’s basilica, interior: combined design of Bramante, Sagallo, Michelangelo and Giacomo della Porta, and part of Bernini’s baldacchino; “…theater and audacious confidence…” November 13, 2020
• Diwali photos from the Guardian (re-post) November 13, 2020
• Shubh Diwali folks November 13, 2020
• Walter Dalrymple in 1985 — να ‘σαν τα νιάτα δυο φορές, τα γηρατειά καμμία November 13, 2020
• Photos: Armenians, when does it end? November 12, 2020
• Photo: Roman Bondarenko… November 12, 2020
• Faiz Ahmed Faiz: Tum mere bas raho November 12, 2020
• Arabs and the classics: “Am I gonna have to put up with this preposterous idea forever?” Probably yes… November 12, 2020
• JFK: Once upon a time, when journalists were reasonably smart and presidents were funny and smarter. November 11, 2020
• Pompeo heads to C-town, and makes a bee-line to the Greek Patriarchate November 11, 2020
• If “hayde siktir” is something you’ve been dying to say to someone, here are the countries where you’ll be understood. November 11, 2020
• Trump and Iran: all the damage the creep can still do in the next two months, in the US and around the world. November 9, 2020
• Do we all agree that Kamala is kinda a MILF? November 8, 2020
• Biden wins… November 7, 2020
• The Atlantic: S-P-E-C-T-A-C-U-L-A-R photos by Amos Chapple — shepherds’ autumn descent to the plains in Georgia November 6, 2020
• “На Лубянке сейчас так” — wish more Russians felt this way. November 6, 2020
• From Al Hudud: “Arabs await emergence of their new leader in tight US election race” November 4, 2020
• October 31: Luna Llena, when merengue was slow and full and lilting and beautiful… November 1, 2020
• Да хватет уже… October 29, 2020
• Photo: A peasant girl in Nikol’skoe village in the Petersburg region October 29, 2020
• Kathemerine, Papachelas & Turkey October 29, 2020
• Slate: “Why It’s So Hard for Men to Look at Joe Biden Kissing His Son” — It’s hard ’cause White people are weird October 27, 2020
• Chora, niqabbed… October 27, 2020
• Photo: Metsovo, 1950, from Takis Tloupas October 27, 2020
• Fahrettin Altun: only AKP politician I’ve seen that doesn’t look like he buys his suits in a bargain basement in Laleli October 26, 2020
• October 26th, feast of Saint Demetrios October 26, 2020
• Byz on Puritanism October 20, 2020
• Word Press clicking for larger photos has returned October 20, 2020
• Durga Puja October 20, 2020
• “I am a Muslim…I stand with France…” October 19, 2020
• France: the sanctity of the teacher’s métier… October 18, 2020
• Big Brother: an epic Cretan kavga about toilet paper; Cretans being a massive pain-in-the-*ss October 18, 2020
• Erdie in the Black Sea: good to have no sense of irony… October 18, 2020
• Mohammad Reza Shajarian — “When Mr. Shajarian sang his lyrical version of that poem, fused in his voice were not only thousands of years of civilization and a storied musical and poetic tradition, but a century-long arc of a modern political struggle for freedom.” October 18, 2020
• Melina October 18, 2020
• Photo: Durga Ma and children, Calcutta October 18, 2020
• (no title) October 17, 2020
• Nicholas Danforth pillories “feel-good” histories of Middle Eastern coexistence like Ussama Makdisi’s October 17, 2020
• We’ll always have Sicily III: the Cathedral of Cefalù — “the art of our ancestors safe from the plaster, whitewash, eye-gouging — and drapes — of the hysterics and puritans of monotheism…” October 17, 2020
• Demetres Kikles — “La Foule” on the Voice of Greece October 17, 2020
• Samuel Paty October 17, 2020
• The Massacre of Aleppo, 1850 October 17, 2020
• Laïci–F*CKING–té! Get it through your heads. The rest of humanity is not ever going to accommodate you. October 17, 2020
• Serbia: “и Бог је са Балкана”, “God is from the Balkans.” Saša Matić: “Sto Svirača” October 15, 2020
• From @filmfare…Ranbir Kapoor in “Wake up Sid” October 2, 2020
• I’m not sure I like the new Acropolis lighting — why such positive response from so many people? October 2, 2020
• Turks and Azeris October 2, 2020
• New Yorker cover: how beautiful September 28, 2020
• Moishe Oysher: Hineni and Kol Nidre September 27, 2020
• Yugoslavia: Yeah, you found a very cool stamp. Do you have any clue what it means? (repost from November 2019) September 24, 2020
• Wait…I thought there was “no compulsion in religion”. September 24, 2020
• Madhuri Dixit: an ageless, timeless knockout, a Madhubala for our age September 24, 2020
• We’ll always have Sicily II, the Cathedral of Monreale — “the art of our ancestors safe from the plaster, whitewash, eye-gouging — and drapes — of the hysterics and puritans of monotheism…” September 22, 2020
• We’ll always have Sicily I: the church of the Martorana in Palermo — the art of our ancestors safe from the plaster, whitewash, eye-gouging — and drapes — of the hysterics and puritans of monotheism… September 21, 2020
• Iason Athanasiadis: from Karatepe in Mytilene September 21, 2020
• Flamenco: sometimes “I can’t get enough” of something because it’s just so awful (even with a goddess like Estrella Morente); the limits of fusion; Andalucía to the Caribbean, ida y vuelta, or allez-retour; Spanish casticismo and crappy Greek reality TV September 20, 2020
• Cavafy: “Painted” September 20, 2020
• Greek philosopher theologian Chrestos Giannaras: “If there were a politician with any vision, he would make Classical Greek part of the elementary school curriculum, like a game, and there would be music… September 19, 2020
• Extensive and moving coverage on Ruth Bader Ginsburg from the Forward: check it out — sadness mixed with joy and pride in the Jewish ethical conscience she represented September 19, 2020
• If you die on Rosh Hashanah September 19, 2020
• “We’re off to see the Wizard…” September 18, 2020
• “Fear is growing among the Christian inhabitants of Iraqi Kurdistan along the border with Turkey…” September 18, 2020
• Poland: on this day in 1939 September 18, 2020
• Happy New Year to everyone September 18, 2020
• “Forgotten Bonds: Albanian armed guards protected medieval Serbian churches & monasteries in Kosovo…” (and a short Ayesha Saddiqi addendum) September 17, 2020
• Jews, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Romania and how “the borders kept changing”. September 17, 2020
• Et tu, Professor Dalrymple? Every time I hear the completely flat, biased, overcompensating, simplistic cliché: “Baghdad, Palermo and Córdoba…” September 15, 2020
• NYTimes: “Navalny, Awake and Alert, Plans to Return to Russia, German Official Says” September 15, 2020
• Balkan Insight: Bones of 54 Political Prisoners Found in Romania’s Gulag September 15, 2020
• From DuvaR.english: “The complete removal of legal defense in Turkey” — Ali Duran Topuz September 15, 2020
• “Erdoğan becomes increasingly similar to Muslim Brotherhood leader Banna” — from Ahval September 14, 2020
• Ayesha Siddiqi: how woke, “inclusion”, grievance narratives eventually come full-circle to exclusion and the breakdown of any kind of empathy or conversation. September 14, 2020
• Good news from Russia/Berlin: Navalny is out of coma and improving. September 14, 2020
• Photo: Athens, c. 1865, colorized, and a Beirut addendum September 14, 2020
• Obama era Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes on US media and how stupid and ignorant their reporters are and how easily manipulated it is by US Gov every day. September 14, 2020
• Ussama Makdisi’s Arab fairytale September 13, 2020
• Photo: C-Town, the Grande Rue, Μεγάλη Οδό — Some of the cleaning up that the AKP has done during the process of turning Pera into a garish, overlit, Gulfie, kerchiefed Disneyland, is not all that bad. September 13, 2020
• Iason Athanasiadis, from Moria, Mytilene September 13, 2020
• Photo: Tokyo — great composition September 13, 2020
• Cyrus, Porus, Darius and Alexandros. September 13, 2020
• :) September 13, 2020
• Раиса Щербакова — Raisa Shcherbakova — Kukushka — this song is so beautiful. September 13, 2020
• Pope Francis: Sex and eating are ‘divine’ pleasures sent by God. September 13, 2020
• Turkey is outgunned in the eastern Mediterranean: I can’t believe that things have gotten to a point where I’m posting charts like this September 13, 2020
• Flamenco: I still can’t get enough of Estrella Morente September 13, 2020
• From: Peter Frankopan@peterfrankopan September 12, 2020
• Editing Ayesha A. Siddiqi — I thought she was just a millenial whiner from Dearborn; turns out she’s kind of a big deal, which is even more disappointing. September 12, 2020
• Photo: satellite pic of Iberia September 12, 2020
• “David and Saul”, Julius Kronberg September 12, 2020
• Not nuts about Kyriako… September 12, 2020
• Bre haydi git… : If I were from Kasımpaşa, I would hate a young, worldly, educated, eloquent, well-dressed, visionary, cute Frenchman too — especially with that tan he was sporting in Corsica. September 12, 2020
• Balkan Insight: “Serbia, Kosovo Must Commit to Credible Missing Persons Investigations” September 11, 2020
• The Conversation: “Iran’s secular shift: new survey reveals huge changes in religious beliefs” September 10, 2020
• Gjeraqina – Γερακίνα – Gerakina – Αυτό το “Hellenic” θα μας φάει. September 7, 2020
• “Constantinople’s Greeks, the deportations of 1964…” p.s. September 7, 2020
• Salonica and Izmir are both giant graveyards for me: I dislike them equally. September 7, 2020
• Beirut: this is terrifying September 7, 2020
• Cool photo: Jewish wedding of Avramakis and Annetta Levis in Ioannina (c.1905) September 7, 2020
• Constantinople’s Greeks, the deportations of 1964, the second huge blow after pogrom of 1955, New York Times September 7, 2020