a lightweight discussion of WW2 aerial ops and the like

[r16]

santa Turgut's freedoms are supposed to be groundbreakin' earthshatterin' achievements . And the Nation is supposed to have embraced them , with all the election victories he had over the years . People of today even claim he was the embodiment of Democracy with his solid performance against the instruments of the coup-plotters . Ah yes .

a couple of posts above ı have the basic outlay of the Elections of '83 . Two State parties with one Democratic institution . And not a fourth ? Why , everybody knew Özal was running the economy in 1980 . How he would be supposed to win with an actual competitor ? In the Turkish slang of the time , the price increases in any field would be termed a stake , that wooden shaft with a pointed tip . If you think the notion also involved the stake pushed through a certain body part that you certainly do not see exhibited in the streets , you would be entirely correct . Özal's stakes , especially the ones of the January 1980 , were spectacularly big .

plus , more to the point the coup was popular . We were never a monolithic identity , as diverse as anybody else and the fighting of the streets were an anathema to the great majority of the population , who had learned to respect the neighbour over hundreds of years . But then this would be the exact reason of why there were so many outrages , wouldn't it ? An entire country was relieved when the disaster was averted ; people wouldn't exactly care when slapped by the sergeant of the Military patrol when it turned they had forgotten their ID cards at home . Everybody knew there were hundreds of Anarchists on the run , and they were Anarchists no matter what their political affiliation might have been . Not many knew what an Anarchist would exactly be , but then there was no need to care , they were the enemies of the State and for a great majority , of the people . And Anarchists certainly wouldn't want to show an ID , right ? Santa Turgut needed help , and the coup provided it .

the State provided two sphinxes to run the respective parties . The one for the Left was a former bureaucrat . He faced Santa Turgut in a TV debate where the economist guy promised the Moon to the people and the Sphinx asked how all these grandioese schemes were supposed to be financed . Özal came up with the notion of selling the state assets , even the bridge on the Bosphorus . A row ensued and the Sphinx talked the talk . But the thing was this : Özal , with the permission of coup plotters under American supervision , was aiming for a one party state ; all the activists of the 1970s were already approached , those who saw politics as a career and stuff . There was money to be made , the kind of money that couldn't made under the Leftist Sphinx . The Rightist Sphinx was a former general , recently accused of extra-judiciary killings . ı think ; these days you can't follow which general did what . And ı actually saw this guy . Was walking home from school on a rainy day and the traffic police at the intersection stopped the all the cars and allowed the tour bus to make a turn at a point where all such turns were banned . An old guy sitting tired and dejected on the right front of the bus on his way to yet another pointless meeting where everybody in the "Protocol" of the city will be yapping about the how great the things were . But then ı wouldn't know anything about that . That being how boring the protocol can be and actually has to be . ı was only and simply scandalized by the Police allowing a turn at a banned location and more by the thing that the bus actually made the turn . Was about 12 at the time and dumb as always .

compared to them Özal was alive , talked as all the politicians of these times do , with lots of numbers the Public had no actual idea about ; though they were sure to sound nice compared to the generalities put forward by the Sphinxes . And the final deal , a well thought out and played move ; though considering the 30 years that has passed since ı might be wrong in my recollection . Yep , the Sphinxes were named Necdet Canalp and Turgut Sunalp . Not much difference in names and you could hardly tell them apart , too ...

and the newlies of today laud the way he handled technology . According to this all the career activists already enlisted -in the one party thing to come- would tour the tea-houses . We call them Coffeehouses in Turkish , but tea is the major item of consumption . Or was . ı haven't been in one for years . Anyhow , the activists would arrive with a car and take a Video from the back . Now the Video is the thing that plays Video cassettes , am not sure if it's called a VCR in English . And all the folks watch Santa Turgut speak , in freaking colour , in case the activists also have a colour TV set to carry around . The first time ı saw a colour TV must be in late 1970s , in the City Fair . With the TV mounted inside a column at least 5 meters tall for all the crowd to watch and admire . One show had a singer who is still famous , other had Renault 12s racing through some desert environment with explosions and stuff ; must have been a French movie on the Dakar Rally on a bad day . And me completely mystified with how they worked . ı knew TVs needed an antenna to work , but ı was sure like hell nobody was broadcasting in colour in Turkey and movies were huge complexes and there certainly was no tell tale projection light overhead . As a 7 or 8 years old ı did really look around ... This is here to stress that videos were "big" in the 1980s , an instrument of prestige .

my family wasn't rich enough to see it as a need and ı have never touched a video in my life . Lest ı break it someway ; if it's broken how the hell ı am going to pay it ? Even to the extent that ı think ı remember all the movies ı saw on the Video . Mostly at the language learning audiovisual lab in school , where the KITT as in the Knightrider series was a staple . Teachers would be on alert for the ads integrated to the show . No way of editing a videotape for the common folk ; and the commercials would be about Americans in life with gorgeous girls in skimpy skirts and shorts and alcoholic beverages and stuff . The sounds of approval from the class , especially about the skimpy stuff , could be really detestable . ı saw The Day After in school , the teacher cut it halfway where some guy takes a bleeding girl around looking for any kind of medical assistance and she is really really bleeding all over . That's really X 2 . No doubt she -our teacher ı mean- had seen the entire movie , no reason for us 14-15 year olds to actually suffer . Anyhow ı saw the B-52s . Then one day ı was invited to a classmate's house to watch the Top Gun , he would rent the cassette . Turned out it hadn't come back to shop on that day , got the Red Dawn . What can ı say , the walk back home was good sport . ı am not sure if ı saw Rambo I , the First Blood , at school but then ı still like that movie and can't count the times ı have seen it . Then a horror , watching the Return of the Jedi . In 1987 or was it '86 ? Was expecting it to the theaters one of those years and had much enjoyed the Empire in 1982 in a hugely crowded hall . Didn't want to waste the expection on a 31 inch screen 10 meters ahead ; ı should have made a scene to be left out of the lab . And my discomfort was so apparent that a girl in the class actually smiled . In 1987 ı was really expected to be loosing it , people would be showing respect and ignore me . And ı should have really made that scene ; for when ı walked into the theater in the middle of the film to see the Top Gun where Maverick chases Viper all day long and Jester sneaks up on Maverick's Six , man , those Tomcats were like 10 meters tall .

 

[r16]

you takin' me seriously ? You shouldn't . My source of info is almost entirely that weird Turkish language forum where half of the time ı have no idea what the people are talking . And my solid record in claiming this or that wouldn't happen is solely due to a basic fact ; as strong and as unbreakable as two plus two makes four . America and the West will never allow this country to be a real item ; anything that supposes they lost the touch and the nerve and it's all up for grabs is a pipedream that will cause nothing but trouble .

take this . All the newspapers and stuff make that our manhood is without peer and European girls just prefer us to anything else , including their boyfriends -who are actually gays and stuff . Mind you , Özal's reforms included tabloid press that printed Page 3 girls scissored out of British dailies for the front , inside and the back . Invariably to be named Helga in the caption with full praise of the performance she received here . Then something like 2006 ı read it in a monthly magazine ... The shocking truth : A Turkish woman , a former professional that sold her body by the hour was interviewed and she made it absolutely clear . The Europeans were faaaaar better , since they would be experienced like hell while ours had no idea of what to do with a woman's body . Mentioned this once when it came up ; in a context where my 40 year old virginity was a daily topic of jokes , though obviously ı wasn't 40 at the time . ı understand it made into my record : ı reportedly think Europeans and stuff are better because ı detest my country .

am a slow typer , even slower in thinking as ı draft these posts . Had time to ask online whether it would be OK to call this brilliance -in which our smarties think America can't and they can- as the Helga . Turned out Someone was around ; he liked it , pending approval from the rest of Capital Letters , Helga it is . We , Someone and ı , hope Lady Vader will not hear about it ...

and unfortunately it's like 100% relevant . On Sunday , after watching the Clone Wars , ı came across a debate programme where these guys were busy telling each other that the American Media attacks on the intelligence chief would actually work in favour of the Goverment , by proving that America disliked the newly elites for they were not under America's orders . Though the there was a mess out there which surely could turn right in 5 to 10 years time . Followed by mumblings about that the current leadership might have even failed ... Hinting new people even , in 5 to 10 years !?!!

now , in 2010 or so the PM told Obama that he would be around for the next decade . Depending on the length of Presidential terms and he would be the President for at least one term , he would retire sometime between 2019 and 2022 , maybe '24 . And the Party would be there , like forever . The A-K-P references anything to 2023 , the centenniary of the Republic and their second decade in power . Though there has already been slight re-adjustments . 2007 and afterwards was the period a certain notion exploded amongst the ranks of the newly elites ; that the Great Britain had given Ismet 90 years in the Laussanne discussions . So that it would be widely disseminated and the Seculars would have given up all hope . The end of Kemal's Republic to be signified by Istanbul becoming the Capital instead of Ankara . Through a change in the Constitution that specifically mentions Ankara . Bah , them perfidious Brits , they haven't showed up yet .

then the stinking White Turks rolled onto the streets , tired of kids being beaten up for a couple of stinking trees . The time-table changed ; certain institutions were to be allowed to live until 2071 , the thousand year anniversary of the Battle of Malazgirt . With some 60 years that gives a natural life-span to the secular kids and stuff , if nothing else . Meanwhile smarties were talking with the Americans face to face ; promised 20 years to them starting from this summer ; this involves the entire line of commanders for the Military , the goverment generals will have no challengers . After 2030s America can act to its heart's content , by permitting the remaining Seculars to be something . Which the said smarties will not allow to happen as they intend to follow the American way to decrease the numbers of the Armed Forces and making allowance for armed contractors ; hoping for a period of 50 years which they have entirely mapped . As such Seculars will be pressed out of service for there will no troops left for them to command . Yeah , it was so insulting for fresh Lieutenants to think they could be the President of the country someday for the presidents were always former soldiers ; certain students in Imam-Hatips now know they will be commanding armies sometime in the future ... An Admiral resigned from the service in protest of the cangoroo courts' recent successes and the Goverment is hard in work to stop further resignations , Police hasn't been able to field submarines yet and private security corporations got a bad rep recently . So bad , real bad they have been saddled by such a miserable Army which can't even invade Syria .

and now since American Media seems to be out for blood , they are even offering a hostile goverment under the PM's Presidency . Though am not exactly sure if this is vetted by the Party , or is it from the Congregation only ... And afterall there is no need for me to be sure of anything . Am a Starfleet Admiral , my forte is claiming that Barack Hussein is cheating with secret transfer of funds from the Trade Federation to survive until February . And how smart to work with the guys who get listed between Reptiles and Repulsive to delay and pass the deal on the last moment , when we are on the holidays of Eid ... Won't work , am blockading all , Trade Federation , Banking Clan , the whole lot at Neimoidia .

with that in mind and respect to Ms Fisher , ı categorically reject Leia Organa as an X-Wing pilot , let alone a squadron commander .

[wannabe historian speakin' here ... Do not make it look like it has been vetted for suitability after all those articles in the American press , Lord Vader's sparring partners / enemies in the idiot's war have made high ranks -in America . No point in arising interest . ]

 

[r16]

meanwhile ... In October or November 1980 , after the coup , an Army Colonel dropped by . Considering Ankara had or would have a PR problem , he was asking Somebody to lend a hand . The Colonel naturally got a ten minute lecture on the certain aspects pertaining to the Lobby biz . Now , Somebody , too , is said to be really capable of inducing drowsiness across his whole audience when he starts goin' but he insists he cut it short that day and definitely mentioned Lusitania and stuff .

first things first ... It seems quite widespread in countries "foreign to US" that the Americans are a bunch of fools , morons actually , that can be swayed by this way or that way according to the whims of a couple of journalists who carefully weave a narrative , and that narratives are regularly beneficial to those with bulging check-books . Which then obviously leads to a counter attack of sorts , by the people whom such narratives hurt . If they are ready to fork out the same kind of money the said whimsical journalists can be bought to re-arrange the things or make them shut up if they are unable to change the story . Yet another aspect of Lobbying business is that there are some "National" units ; and it turns out those whimsical journalists happen to be either in such pressure groups or greatly influenced by the such : They need to be countered by others . Absolutely so if you are an enemy of such "National Lobbies" . It's a bottomless well : To counter Journalist A , you have to pay Journalist B and they are not only close friends but also business associates ; B will measure you and tell A to attack or back off as required . Overall , a great scheme as far as scams go .

buying opinion (in business contracts and internal affairs of a country) does work . In the Foreign Relations area it does not . There is this continious debate in every state and Americans have it and lobbies are a great way of measuring what your actual intentions are , considering you are paying folding money to get something done . America will do its thing after the internal debate ends and a decision is reached . Robbing you to your bones is only a sideshow . And the Lusitania affair is a prime example . Despite the efforts of both sides to exploit the sinking , America didn't go to war over Lusitania , nor Berlin was spared in the end . Despite all the efforts of the British , the Germans were allowed to present their side which implicitly stated the casualties would never be that high if the ship had not been carrying massive amounts of explosives against the "convention" ; they had even taken ads in the newspapers that travelling in that ship was to be dangerous in the extreme before the ship had sailed . London for its part was looking for something like a glorified bunch of Hessian mercenaries , right now : American troops in Europe in 1915 . Americans opted to make a Navy and used the chance to justify the expenditure , evil Germans sinking women and babies on the high seas . The British backed off and that would be it .

until the Battle of Jutland . The escape of the German Battlefleet and the RN losses cracked the mystique and the spell of invincibility as implied by Brittania ruling the waves . Before anybody hits me with the statistics of prizes during 1812-15 , even that war ended with RN finally sweeping USN out of the seas . Would have been real interesting to see a 44 gun US Heavy Frigate duking it out with HMS Victory or something , since the demise of Napoleon had also meant the rest of the Europeans had agreed this was to be a time of consolidation after the upheavals of the French Revolution , meaning the British heavy hitters could descend on the Atlantic Coast . Nobody questioned the naval might of London , which finally translated into unquantifiable powers on part of the British . American attempts to become being -out of London's control- were easily crushed until the RN once again proved it was not what it was taken to be and the American Naval Programme soon reached a colossal size . As befitting an industrial capacity that was colossal in itself . Jutland regularly gets to be reported as a tactical win for the Germans and a strategic one for London . Not exactly so . Had British Battlecruisers been more like HMS Warspite or had the then Navy Minister pad more attention to mundane matters like the available large caliber gun ammunition was not that amenable to flash effects , the US , by the time Churchill died , would possibly still remain a sleeping giant .

 

[r16]

is this to say Public Opinion doesn't matter ? Yes and no , in their tiny little ways as applicable to each case at hand . What gets bandied as Public Opinion most of the time tends to be the position the respective sides have in a debate ; the shifts in Public Opinion tends to be bargains offered and accepted in ongoing negotiations . Individual feelings do not enter at all , unless it's deemed useful to present them to the masses according to the aims of the day . We all live in societies and learn quickly that we can't exactly influence the society we live in ; it takes organized efforts to do that . It's a simply a sheep herd , we all have to follow the shepherd . In extreme cases when people can't take it anymore and say so and it's proven that there are more who don't like the situation and people see they are not alone ? Yeah , such stuff happens and it's so chaotic and blah blah . Yet soon enough the revolution will be stolen by organized efforts and it will be back to square one . You don't matter one bit , if you aren't backed and you don't back . ı am from a country which prided itself on Nationalism and military prowess and all the kinds of trappings of mentality one can conjure ; we would rather all die before surrendering a single pebble . This same country is now ready give away a quarter , only because everybody that's on TV -hence matters- says so . Yes , there are who claim that they don't agree and they are on TV , too ; even if everybody already knows such opponents too -in private- accept the "inevitable" . The mass goes one way and the individual doesn't count . It leads to very high levels of importance attached to Public Relations .

which in the end can detach people from reality .

the Army Colonel wasn't offended at all when Somebody told him the forthcoming lobbying would do nothing for the country ; it was simply a US approved Military handled preparation for Özal to usurp yet another thing for his "personal" aims . All the effort , all the meals the Americans hired for the duration would have with the Americans in decision making , all the contacts established in Washington D.C. would soon be used for glorification of Santa Turgut . An oxymoron in that he was pushed on by the US and he had to spend money in the US for his own reputation ? Why not ? People in the beginning of such actions always know they are easily replaceable in the eyes of Uncle Sam .

should have been on the American arms embargo of 1975-78 , which had made the Military wince , hence the lend-a-hand thing . Alas , can't help it . As ı have even more daunting examples of where too much PR gets people ... The current Goverment and the entire establishment , before mesmerized by such "large" amount of successes , knew they had to perform well or the US would have them replaced . Mesmerization took place and everybody came to believe that they were a real deal . Well , you get the drift . American media outlets have been on a couple of times about the stuff that happens and we are like having a stroke . Have engaged El Kaide once . Who , whenever gets too pressed in Syria still fires a mortar round or two on border towns , asking when the intervention will be ... Maliki of Iraq is not an enemy anymore . Even clamped a bit on insulting the West on being so lenient on the Egyptian Military . All the experts are now once again on TVs and saying nothing can come out of this . Although the Congregation's heart is broken , the leader of the Main Opposition has been invited to America . Instead of knocking heads and making the Party surrender to the Congregation . Like a repeat of what the American Ambrassador in Ankara did to the Goverment of 1999-2002 . You know , giving them 6 months to cover all the financial irregularities in their robbery of the State assets , before the early elections they were to call and (with the financial crisis of the time) sure to lose .

there has been stuff even for the chief of goverment generals . He was openly accused of currying favouritism with the goverment for release some of the Army Generals in jail , those who might still have useful contacts around and doing nothing for the Navy and Air Force flag ranks . Soon after that charge it was also noticed among all the Military School Commanders of the time , he is the only one not in jail for coup plotting . He was finally cleared to comment that he was but a servant of the Public and he was not supposed to talk in fields pertaining to anything except his job . Goverment feeling that America might soon decide he is a risk (for actual antagonization of the Armed Forces) actually kinda stabbed him in the back with press releases that all the other ranks in the Military were in the dark about this "loyalty to Public" statement . They wouldn't want to lose all the generals , right ? Not only that , but some stupid Military court has even re-opened the case where the Army is accused of using gas against the seperatists ; it turns out the dead bodies were even mutilated ... And there he was on the anniversary of the 90th Anniversary of the Republic , which in itself is an incredible success for the Republic . Speaking of how they would , the Army and all , continue to serve in the honourable uniform . "Vatan , Millet , Sakarya" is the thing to say ... Not only that , but during the parade he was shown in such angles that it looked like it was him saluting the troops and the kids to march ; and not the President standing right next to him . PR solves anything afterall .

özal must be turning in his grave , for he had started the taming of the Turkish Military by having the intelligence service taping the generals demanding women from p_mps and stuff ... 30 years and people still talking about the traditions of thousands of years and if he -the chief- is removed , his replacements would be even worse . Tsk , tsk ...

 

[r16]

recently received a PM from a CFC member . Well , first of all my veteran PC with 9 years on the clock decided to take a break . Even if still carrying the kicks ı have applied over the years , by fist and feet , it's only a break and not an end . For ı have already hated Windows8 in 10 minutes ; with all kinds of appropriate curses although the new lap-top looks good enough . Chosen with specific intent to play one single game . And , naturally failed to load it (Civ III) , have been inquiring elsewhere .

returning to the PM received , ı better answer it here . Not as a PM and not even in the thread that probably inspired the nice comment and general curiosity -if you will . Am somewhat tolerated in Civfanatics ; it would be shame to misuse that (again) with a full blown account of what got me to places ı am currently in and the kind of the things ı while away my useless-anyhow time . With that clarification in mind , the thing to stress is ı don't do E-mails and PMs if possible . Not that am a superior being , some exalted personality that can't be bothered by the whinings of lessers . A few years back on an aviation forum ı had a post -and a quite positive one at that- about the conduct of Indian Su-30 pilots at a Red Flag exercise in America . Something on why they might have been using an interval of a full minute between planes in mass takeoffs while Americans were averaging 15 seconds . Nothing serious , just a bunch of banal "explanations" from a simpleton . Got a PM from an Indian , and he was like totally India #1 , judging from the tone of his posts over there . Opened it , read it , closed it . And within 5 minutes almost half of the computers in the web cafe (ı was in) crashed . The owners felt like getting me physically beaten for a week or two . There is this weird Turkish language only forum ı am allowed to login with limited rights . The forum admin advised me no PMs and ı am not the guy that can find a fault with that . No PMs it is ; unless ı get infracted and have to explain myself ... ı have been told if it's not worth saying in public ı shouldn't say it anyways . Considering the days we live in , ı must say it's actually decent of me .

with all that out of my chest an apology is in order for the delay in response . When something gets into the cycle for this thread , stuff has to wait a bit . The thread is a clear violation of a couple of forum rules but to the best of my knowledge ı haven't harmed anybody , keeps other threads free of my random gibberish and it seems once or twice a year there must be something that can be slightly useful for historians , of future or the budding ones of today . Fortunately the seeming peak of interest has gone away ; for fear of my own vanity ı couldn't stand it being read a thousand times each month . Real fearful of having a compunction to act like some magazine editor who has to keep up the circulation numbers or else get his bag and get out ... It might have led to horrors like articles that every magazine seems to have : "The 50 ways of making most of the Klingon chicks" ( Rule #1 ? Don't make 'em angry. You might get her head on your face with suborbital velocity. Those scales do hurt, and make the impression, too! )

finally the point ... ı don't take myself to be knowledgeable in any field . Take the three consecutive posts (#852 , #853 , #854 ) that in all probability were the reason for the PM . My only reference for an entire era was one movie , the Message . A few nights back , while on surfing on the satellite channels , ı came upon the Arabic version . The one filmed at the same time with the Quinn /Papas / English language edition . Can't speak Arabic , but ı could follow the action entirely with the whole movie being so ingrained into my conciousness . Every Ramadan , expect it to be shown in Turkey , on at least one channel , in either version dubbed into Turkish . It must be like ı have been watching that movie some 30 years now . Though ı must also say the English version's Bilal-ı Habeşi is better considering the other guy looks just like a dark skinned Arab ; lacks the striking power of the Black slave accepted into the society as an equal . And even honoured with the first ever call to prayers . Sincerely doubt Muhammed advised him before ; with Bilal memorizing the words . A slave's work becoming a defining Islamic tradition and all ... When everbody is but a subject to but one God .

it must be obvious that ı have so much time to waste . Have been served with quite a few lemons in life ; the sad thing is of course ı have a particularly poor aptitude in lemonade sales . Legally the 1838 posts as of now in Civfanatics is my greatest achievement in life . As shaped by the bunch of weird rules that govern my pitiful existence . Say , ı won't name the town ı live in , and ı can only bore people to death with how it ever came to be referenced as Cirith Ungol ...

 

[r16]

not for my own protection or anything like that . The US Goverment knows where ı live . Considering back in time ı was widely pointed at openly in the street as an enemy of this country ; and on one such day ı was on my way to the city center . ı tend to walk as sport and alas on this day ı made a decision to take a different route . A huge traffic jam had stopped everybody where they were and ı first noticed the police escort on his bike . Then the car . Then this bearded Turkish guy in the front Right seat quickly turned back to say something to the females in the back seat . ı imagine along the lines that ı couldn't dare ... ı still don't know what ı couldn't dare . The Starfleet is not for scaring 3 chicks in their 20s with causing traffic jams by using electromagnetic beams to make a mess of traffic lights . All blondes they might be , but they would still have enough wits among them to know they might have been zapped into their atoms already on the way in ...

the old hands in CFC will remember that some 1000 posts back ı had already explained it as America's fault . Why some bearded guy would have to assure some younglings on their first day as diplomats or something ... My entire reputation as "an actually can do in real life type of guy" is solely a joke where this female US Federal Agent didn't like the way ı looked as ı was walking by and kept her charge or charges in the car that was parked in front of an hairdresser's . The Turkish escorts readily told ı was an idiot , nothing to be concerned of , surprised by her smile and insistence to stay at the door of the car , adding her kevlar to the kevlars of the car . Am positive she was a Fed or something similar , because ı had already seen the then US Ambrassador to the country in a car few hundred meters down the road . Made the reputation for me ...

the city ı live in is important enough to get travelling US diplomats . As such it was termed to be the Cirith Ungol in one particularly harebrained scheme of 1970s , even if it has an early start from 1965 with a most tenous relation to reality , in the eyes of the casual or professional observer . America always has a plot against the Turks , you might remember the Helga from the top of the page . Well , Lady Vader caught us . She doesn't like such trivialization of existential threats which might lead to a million deaths if we are lucky , ten million and more if we are not . ı had to make amends . Someone got off lightly , almost unscathed . Turns out Lady Vader was in complete "Whooaaaaaa" class back then when Someone would be on people with serious intent in any case of too long a stare . ı hear the two , Somebody and Someone , were a class act with baseball bats if local varieties of wooden sticks were in short supply .

to explain the context , the plot before Helga was about getting an Islamist Goverment elected so that it could be toppled a la Algeria . So that the political fallout would be enough to engineer an armed uprising that would be both supported by and be in support of the seperatist actions . Yeah , there was a whole Hizbullah movement that was doing Dirty War classics on the cities in the East , but they were the Nusra of the day , to see the wrongs of their ways and join the right cause once the Western media had deduced it was the Military that had raised the Islamists as a counter to the seperatists . Actually they have a whole load of "volunteers" as of now with the Nusra but why would that be a surprise ? Anyhow as soon as the pain threshold would have been crossed and people started to question what the hell the Military was doing , the Cavalry would have arrived in the form of an air campaign . A Kosovo II , and all the foreign newspapers of the day never hesitated to say that Ankara was supporting Belgrade in their oppression of the Muslim Albanians ... Oh yeah , all sorts of revelations on how unprincipled murderous thugs the Turks are and ergo here cometh the USAF as some comet . Once wargamed to 7 million deaths . Bush II was still in the future with his wrecking of the US economy ; Pentagon would have money to prosecute the Turkey shoot . With initial attacks destroying more of the standing forces , before they could run to the rural areas to hide in the fields and caves like the vermin they were , we would have rather less in the Civil War to follow . Would have made it rather shorter .

it's quite common to paint Dabya of somewhat empty of cranium , like some wags translated the name Keanu Reeves as "wind blows between the ears" ... Dabya took one look at the plans as concocted during Dem Clintonite Democrats and threw them out . We are Turks , useless , toothless and mindless . The single project of the Bushes as they returned to the White House was an invasion of Iraq which would have also solved the Eastern Question for once and all . They would stare us in the face and we would roll over and die . The only change the 911 might have done is going into Afghanistan , which by the way perfectly suited the new American visions of being the only superpower for the next century , during which they would also starve China of strategic expansion and make the Middle Kingdom fall . Had the Taliban attempted to turn over Bin Ladin they would most likely fail and would have been insulted in hundred other ways even in the case they succeded . America invaded Afghanistan not because of being rebuffed by some village chiefs purporting to be Statesmen . But to win where Russia had failed ; American victory would prove they were without peer . With such strategic vision and ı can hardly make fun of it , Bush II would make us crawl . Though he soon got embroiled and lost in the minutea of blitzing across countries and flying to USN Carriers to declare victories .

and the pre-Helga conception lived on , for a while . One retired CIA officer would make a valiant case with his memoires that asserted our betrayal of America in the last minute (with the Parliament vote that rejected transit rights to American troops , which meant possibly one third of the Army units could not effectively take part in the invasion phase) El Kaide found an opening in the disintegration of the Baas Regime and invaded Musul . Their early lead in building up a support base in that city would supposedly prolong the Insurgency for two years . Though , at the time of the book Helga was in full play -supported by the fake anti-Semitizm that made Ankara "popular" in the Arab Street and in a general context of the Third World . Even the vote , which America had been busy rigging , was taken to be an independent action by the new Goverment of Turkey ...

Dabya ! O , Dabya acting so surprised and non-plussed ... While reading to the kids . So , Billy the Goat it is , with projected 7 million deaths . Preceding the Helga ... Lady Vader approves and proposes Dabya should get an Emmy or something to balance Barack Hussein's Nobel . Undeserved in either case , right ?

 

[r16]

that everything in life is controlled by a conspiracy is a conspiracy in itself . And yes , conspiracies exist . But very rare to have an umbrella that covers "all" and guides them into one specific goal . Life is of extreme complexity ; different situations lead to different problems , leaving aside the even more troublesome roots of conflict that merely depend on the ego of the people involved . In time any problems and actions/reactions revolving around them get to interact with each other . Imagine a river -which tends to be a sum of the streams that joined each other the course of the waterflow . And it's indeed possible the dissolve the components into even smaller parts . The river then can be taken back as far as a single raindrop that fell on a mountain . Following the Law of Gravity , there is hardly any other option for the raindrop , it either starts sliding down the slope or maybe gets into the soil to drop down and down . Until finding an unpermeable layer to still slide downwards until bubbling out as a spring , that might soon become a stream ... Pointless garbage ? Tracking everything is as hard as following raindrops , but then everything will sooner or later will come to you ...

so , where does the Cirith Ungol thing start ? It starts with the Lord of the Rings and where does the Lord of the Rings start ? It starts right here :

'You laid your trust in magic and mummery,' answered Ascalante carelessly. 'I trust my wits and my sword.'

'Wits and swords are as straws against the wisdom of the Darkness,' growled the Stygian, his dark eyes flickering with menacing lights and shadows. 'Had I not lost the Ring...

let's just set that scene apart , shall we ? The scene that involves the line "I find your lack of Faith..." Actually after seeing the passage ı was given to thinking the whole Sith master-apprentice dynamics were also inspired by this intercourse which goes on with Ascalante slapping Thoth-Amon for talking too much and not knowing his place ... Then ı saw the commentary of the artists that had been involved with a Conan publication from the early 2000s that the temple of the Oracle in Delphi was protected by a single swordsman that remained on the job until he was killed by anyone who wanted to replace him and that was a 24/7/365 job , until death -which could be real quick in coming .

yeah , the basic concept of the LotR is right from the first ever story of Conan the Barbarian . And not from the Nibelungenlied . Can't say whether Howard took it from Wagner . ı was quite surprised to notice that and that led to a kinda burning desire to write a comparative analysis of the Rings and the Barbarian ; led to an avalanche of questions from me generally revolving around the author drawn and no doubt "once-authentic" maps . People over a certain place like to teach me stuff and they also like to teach me to do it myself . Got nothing much apart from Koth matches Rohan and that only after figuring out the basic "outlay" of the maps are Europe and Western Asia . Robert E. Howard includes Africa as a section and adds India and China only as an afterthought , Tolkien leaves Africa completely out .

a charge of pligiarism ? Not at all ... Howard drew the map and the created the Hyborian Age to make his life easier - as per all the resources that you will find . Writing is never easy . Inspiration , real inspiration is a very rare commodity . Had once tried to write a Sci-Fi story , when ı was maybe 14 or 15 . Took Ergenekon as ı have already mentioned a couple of times ... Not only the ancient tale when we get massacred and have to run away but ı took it into future with the dynamics of you know exactly what . But then Battlestar Galactica would have been too obvious and what did ı do ? ı replaced the Battlestar with a Star Wars Stardestroyer and had 10 of them instead of a single surviving capital ship . Yeah , original in the extreme ! ı have no doubts that Howard would be reading fiction or non-fiction and find a strand of inspiration , mentally debate the story line and the background before carrying the entire plot to the Hyborian Age . Say , Howard's Turan has been explained as the Byzantinian Empire by web sites that specializes in Conan , even with him declaring the Turanians to be Hyrkanian in origin . And Hykanians are Iranians with slanted eyes or whatever . But then ı had already been given an idea that the Rings "came" first . Led to a surprise on my part to notice once again that the Conan came out in 1932 compared to Hobbit's publication in 1937 , let alone the 1950s of the Ring .

well , Somebody told me ı wasn't reading and was not paying attention when ı was reading . After making me see that Tolkien once needed a whole campaign to as a road map . Or perhaps as a street that ran in a certain direction , substories were then houses along that road to be build or torn down to requirements of the overall story . When the houses were full there was no more a need for the street to exist on its own . The houses already defined it in a way . As such the 1176 campaign no longer had to be there -even if any Tolkien expert by now would be asserting that there is absolutely no trace of that anyhow . Which would be because of the specific thing Tolkien was busy with over all those years , which he even declared to be a desire to create an English Mythology . A Turkish victory in a kinda global war long past serves this "Howard like approach" well , considering we were part and parcel of the Orcs as he explained when questioned about the basic outlay of the Hobbit II , in something like 1937ish . Orcs were bad , and they were to be like totally smothered in the war for the Middle Earth , made it even thougher to find the real story . Basing in on a campaign closer to home made it possible for people to figure out that the antagonists were actually The Tigerpawed Richard XXXVIII and Le Sacre Bleu Louis LXIV and the whole war that defined the whole future of the mankind was actually just a cattle-raid , as people in the CFC say ... And of course in 1937 , the Turks as Muslim Warriors par excellence were almost ancient history , with all the Kemalist reforms taking a turn for the worse since Kemal was the Captain of a ship where the crew were not much into caring for orders from the Captain . Trust me , Tolkien would have known people who knew ...

 

[r16]

he might even be aware of the plight of Mehmet Akif Ersoy , the poet wrote the words to our National Anthem . A member of the Ittihad just like Kemal was and far more religious than Kemal ever was , Akif just couldn't refuse the wish of Kemal that he should translate the Kuran into Turkish . It's always mentioned that he left the country for Egypt to make it feasible for him not to finish the task at hand ; and he had all the manuscripts burned as soon as possible . It's a sin to try to match God's Word . Must have looked a First Class ticket to Hell in Atatürk's Turkey where Ezan was already in Turkish instead of traditional Arabic . Akif would have hated his translation to be taken as a replacement for Kuran .

and this was a Turkey which was re-writing its history that would have put Howard to shame . We were responsible for the Pyramids and all the Sumerian achievements to begin with . But then this was not a Nationalistic thing that we were the best and nothing the rest and all . It simply implied -to those who cared- that we had lots of folks who descended from the Caspian People who had to emigrate all over Europe after their inner sea dried up to a large extent . We were part of Europe and there was no need for a Crusade . Again ... As far as conspiracies go Kemal was proud that he had been in the Ittihad and he had done good -despite all the non-stop efforts of Ittihad to like utterly destroy the country . And him time to time . He was double crossing lots of people no-doubt , in that he was promising to fight the Old Turks / Islam and he was at the same time trying to develop the capabilities to resist the trouble looming ahead . Which of course was the titanic clash between the Soviets and the Europeans ; certainly Germany and perhaps the Democracies . After the conclusion -or even before it all began- the old accounts were still to be settled , Europeans being Europeans with too long a memory that forgot nothing and remembered nothing at the same time . War for Turkey was certain and almost imminent and Kemal was doing all sorts of infamy to get his trains .

the newly elites really hate that they must still heed Mustafa Kemal . Their sugary tales of the past combined with a whole load of horrible disasters of Kemalism haven't much dented the perception of the Opposition ; on the 75th anniversary of his death some 1 087 000 people visited his mauseleum in one day . Serves them kinda right : After America told them to bury the replacement of Ankara with Istanbul as the capital , they had to laud the wise choice of Ankara back in the day , but of course it wasn't a Kemalist decision . Certainly not -as they tell with a firmness that brings tears to one's eyes . It was Enver who chose the central Anatolian city . As if they can convince . The Capital of Enverland was always Istanbul , when saw he couldn't have that anymore Enver turned around for Enveristan -as ı might term his Central Asia ambitions henceforth . And the capital for Enveristan would have been Buhara or Semerkand ... It's certainly not over , Atatürk still lives on and on , to the detriment of this new Turkey which simply operates on an utterly unfounded belief that the Westerners and the Easterners will love them eternally if they totally wreck the Old . The newly elites even have to still repeat that the false prophet's , that pharoah's last words before he went into the final coma were the "very old" Aleyküm selam , returning the doctor's questions about how he felt . His first ever "reform" being that as an Ottoman Commander he had banned the centuries old Salutation in the Arabic style in Inspections and replaced it with a fully Turkish version . And he got away with it , since it was seriously obvious that there was stuff going on and the Ottoman Empire would have to rely on the Turkish component alone .

too recent to get into Tolkien's . But then the Oxford professor was doing something somewhat similar . And certainly gives a hint on how comfortable he would be in taking the ring from Howard and carry on .

thoth-Amon snatches the ring from Dion , the fat Baron of Attalus . "A fool to the end" he would die "in mad terror, not knowing why" because he had not even listened one bit while the slave of Ascalante lamented his loss of the Serpent Ring of Set and how Ascalante would soon kill everyone in the conspiracy to remove King Conan and claim the throne for himself and how Thoth-Amon could help Dion and so on . All Dion could do was bragging about a ring he had once bought from a Shemitish thief . "We hates Hobbits" Gollum was smarter than that !

ı can quote all that because ı have The Complete Chronicles of Conan in front of me ... It's a brick size book first published in 2006 and which my niece bought for my nephew . He was born in '93 and was enthralled by the movies of the Triology , developing a very strong interest in fantasy and Conan seems just right . Although she had misgivings about the level of English . Both of them are in university to become engineers . And the language can be really imposing , not only because we in Turkey do not have exactly much in English lessons at school , but Literature is weaving with the words , following the events can be a problem . She asked me whether if ı was OK with the text ; ı told her ı was enjoying it greatly . Not that ı was twice their age with almost a decade of failed attempts to become an English Language teacher but since ı knew the stories from comics ... Out of maybe 21 stories in the book , ı was previously familiar with up to 11 or 12 . And ı still cringe when ı see those old comics ı so loved in Black and White were all actually in colour and hideously at that . Simply because ı saw them in B&W first ...

 

[r16]

so , where this goes ? Even r16 things that nobody can make anything of to bother to disprove need a context to make sense . And that context into this whole thing that nobody will certainly loose sleep over is a feeling of alarm at the early quarter of the 20th Century . The establishment of the Soviet Union was not the issue , but a warning of sorts . The entire system was at an unease .

to get into it , ı must go deeper in history . For millennia Religion shaped every endevour of man , not as orders from God but as the basis of culture and discourse . Even as a non-believer you had to use Religion to be . Then within the specific context of European Christianity which turned local clashes of interests into an enormous fight between increasingly hostile factions empowered with global reach and ever increasing amassing of wealth , new problems developed . Religious "authority" was becoming an issue in itself . Every religion demands honour and justice from those who follow the precepts , one way or the other . Lip-service to such ideals is standart through out the ages and the odd true believer could be accommodated unless he and in rare cases she becomes a total hindrance .

jean D'arc ( whose only miracle must be convincing the French authorities that she could lead and who was no doubt seen as a PR project by the said authorities) was busy fighting the English while the French were busy repeating "true" accounts that her troops were seeing her breasts regularly , no doubt hinting she was taking part in the "knightly" affairs as well , where she being a woman couldn't be active but she would conform to the boys no matter what , in their exact ways . Things one wouldn't hear in the France of 20th Century that needed something to hold on to , after the mind wrecking experience of the Great War . Before Orleans the French environment was based on getting defeated by the British . She didn't last long after proving that didn't have to be ... Kinda lucky to have died in the hands of the British , the French version could have been preceeded by a complete character assasination .

then as ages passed and new ideas were hatched the curse of Capitalism came into existence , immediately after Capitalism itself . Capitalism needs markets and markets imply people with money to buy . Expansion of wealth is possible with either new markets -which then means war and war gets ever bloody and expensive- or increased size for local markets , which then means more people "allowed in" . Not only elites of the day have to contend with newcomers but the numbers of true believers increase . With demands of confirming to the precepts of religion whatever that might be and treating everybody with respect and dignity . Respect and dignity tend to mean lesser profits , if any . That Charles Darwin did not burn at the stake is an indication of the size of the problem by the time of the Industrial Revolution . The Capitalists couldn't kill the market so they allowed an assasination of the concept of God ... There was no need to allow workers more than bare substinance if they descended from lesser monkeys compared to the smartest of all apes who no doubt were now evolved into the leaders of all stripes . The lower classes deserved where they were and henceforth there would be no more babblings about God and justice and equality ... Ugly ? Sure . True story ? Well , tell me if it's not ...


and how is that related to Howard or Tolkien ? Leave that to one side , is there anything that even links the two ? Tolkien especially left a complete chronicle of his thought process , a link in the Wikipedia page of the Rings leads to a .pdf file that follows the history of writing to make it real clear that it took some eight years for the exact role of the ring to be put in concrete . Haven't read or even seen the Hobbit , but the Wikipedia page says the original Hobbit was also edited to stress the "fact" : Sauron's life depended on it ... In contrast it's already there in The hour of the Dragon : The Heart of the Ahriman brings Xaltotun back to life , he is a great wizard dead for 3 000 years . The jewel would allow Xaltotun great things back in the day :

'While I held it, none could stand before me. But it was stolen from me... and I fled to exile ...'

his fall must be real hurting cause later in the story there will be a mention of a coin carved 500 years before his exile and he is on it as the true ruler of Acheron . All in all , the set up for a great adventure . It will take Conan on a long perilous voyage with almost everything , there is the wolf which kills for the good witch though wargs were possibly already written for the Hobbit , zombies -as ı picture them in my mind- between Zingara and Argos , a vampire in a Stygian tomb before getting into a meeting of priests uninvited where Thutothmes plans to use the Heart in a rebellion against Thoth-Amon who has returned to take control with the Serpent Ring of Set , for

Thoth-Amon is not the only Lord of the Black Ring.

the Black Ring here is a group of man who are at the very top of evil , wizards well versed in dark secrets that strike fear into the hearts of Stygians who appear to live in the clutches of Dark Magic in everyday of their lives ; they should have been used to such grimm events , but then the Black Ring is so terrific ...

all from parts of a single story that appeared between December 1935 and April 36' . And Tolkien b_tched for years to wait for Howard's novel to appear first , finally in 1953 in America . The British edition , too , possibly beat the first book of the Rings into publication . Tolkien would personally be involved in a kinda bitter fight with Ace Books -the American publisher of The Hour of the Dragon- a decade later on copyrights but he had no reason or intention to be ashamed . Another .pdf from the Rings' Wikipedia page works on the publication history of the book in America over the years and observes that

a substantial proportion of recent books and favorable press devoted to Tolkien has appeared under the imprint of Christian publishers or in explicitly Christian media outlets.

don't want to give the impression of insulting anyone , but the Lord of the Rings is tough to get ...

 

[r16]

can there really be anything common between the two , the English Professor and the "idiot savant" , as Wikipedia notes a description of Howard ? Apart from the thing that one officially started an entire branch of writing ; this Sorcery and Swords and the other wrote such an eminent example of the genre , if ı am allowed to consider the LotR in the genre , that it happens to be 2nd best seller of all time ? Both writers have their avid fans and critics who don't shirk from heaviest blows . Stephen King says Howard's "work [except Conan] was either unremarkable or just abysmal." In a review ı found through the Wikipedia page , in examining a book -written solely to defend Tolkien- the reviewer says " In a somewhat disconcerting way, Tolkien seems to have come to live in the world of his own imagining." Just the charge King lays at the door of Howard in that the genre mentioned : is not fantasy at its lowest, but it still has a pretty tacky feel. ... Sword and sorcery novels and stories are tales of power for the powerless. The fellow who is afraid of being rousted by those young punks who hang around his bus stop can go home at night and imagine himself wielding a sword, his potbelly miraculously gone, his slack muscles magically transmuted into those "iron thews" which have been sung and storied in the pulps for the last fifty years.

ouch ! ı say , though in Turkish we write and spell the cry of pain as Ah in various lenghts and stresses ... Another passage from Howard's Wikipedia page mentions " he was apparently bullied by his schoolmates. ... Howard's heroes were consequently wish-projections of himself. All of the frustrations of his own life were conquered in a dream world of magic and heroic carnage." Or "Conan the Barbarian... most closely [represents] the kind of person Howard, home-bound, mother-worshipping, suspicious of big cities, would in his dreams most like to be." Leading to some speculation later on the same page that world he created around himself led to a few missing marbles and finally the suicide that ended his life . As in "Mr. Howard's heroes project the immature fantasy of a split mind and logically pave the way to schizophrenia." The final word on Howard then would be something like The bulk of Howard's fiction is subliterary hackwork that does not even begin to approach genuine literature" and "The simple fact is, however, that his views are not of any great substance or profundity and that Howard's style is crude, slip-shod, and unwieldy. It is all just pulp—although, perhaps, a somewhat superior grade of pulp than the average." . Try this kind of commentary with the Professor and there will be enough defenders of Tolkien to suggest the detractors are full of " snobbery, elitism, professional jealousy, and other kinds of bad faith." and with full use of the English language with a force that just falls short of physical presense. In a "very lively... a clear, forceful, engaging, ingenious, sometimes wrongheaded" style . Being a professor in Oxford helps a lot to deflect charges of lunaticism , no doubt ... Nobody can much dare to define Tolkien in the same terms that apply to Howard , even if one can quickly discern that both mothers in question were responsible for the love of words in their sons . Possibly because Tolkien didn't commit suicide . E. Hoffman Price , a friend who had visited Howard in Texas , kept contact with his father after the suicide and would later write Whenever I think of Dr Howard, well into his seventy-fourth year, and with failing eyesight, having for these past eight years faced alone and single handed a home and a world from which both wife and son were taken in one day, I can't help but say, "I wish Robert had had more of his father's courage."'


a word on Howard's courage then . Considering he is most unlikely to have mentioned this to Price or even his date-of-sorts Novalyne Price and ı don't know whether the two Prices are related . Anyways , a word on Howard's courage ... When told to "Cry or Die" the number or people who won't cry is rather limited , despite all the chest banging that might accompany the wows of manhood and unshakeable determination to keep it unsullied . It's rather hard to be consistent on a such claim when surrounded and outnumbered by pistol brandishing gorillas . Even harder if you know that your tormentor is rich enough to have every single policeman in America in his pocket . For a guy who had once told his father that when he was in school I had to take a lot because I was alone and no one to take my part, so I intend to build my body until when anybody crosses me up, I can with my bare hands tear him to pieces, double him up, and break his back with my hands alone. The humiliation could be extreme . Years of effort for nought ; for money buys brawn immediately . Howard would have shot or hanged himself the very night , but his mother was sick ; it would have equated to treason , for lack of a better word .

the venue ? Well , the rich guy had decided to patronise arts in the manner the Renaissance potentates would have done ; he was in desire of a story written ... For a sports magazine with clear indications of whom the rich guy was and with full glory of his manhood and courage . James Mitchener would take up the story when "he retired from the CIA" as the speculation goes , yet without any mention of the rich guy . The tale of Mabel Fichter and the construction of a court house in rural Texas somewhat before the turn of the Century . With an Italian artist "imported" to make those gargoyles or whatever those stone monsters are called , the ones on the corners of buildings the Westerners would do back then . Caught in a spat between different power structures , Miss Fichter would watch in horror as every new statue resembled her more and nobody would care for her . Since the Italian artist was also vividly describing his conquest of her and a whole lot of repeat performances . Finally the court house was finished ; the final statue was 100% Fichter with a nice body and so ugly a face since she lacked character and had turned down the artist's proposal for marriage after so many nights ; he would soon commit suicide . Well , the rich guy wanted himself portrayed in a chance encounter with a descendant of Miss Fichter , the story would come up over drinks and the descendant would be offended , it would be a fight and the rich guy would have shown mettle in fighting and incredible courage . For the suicide apparently included horse hooves , two blackened eyes and a broken arm on part of the Italian artist when the spat ended and those power structures were like "What! Non-Anglo swine!" The rich guy would have been taking on power structures that weren't there for decades . Exact reason actually , the decades thing ... As heard by the man who smoked too much from his boss sometime like 1952 , when he was in the US Service . At a time Hughes was makin' many a mischief for nuthin' 'gain ...

 

[r16]

while on it let's also mention the courage of Howard Hughes . It's always easy to rent pistol brandishing gorillas but what of personal risk in life and not in sports magazines ? Yeah , kinda plenty . Say , he would design a very long range reconnaissance plane to fly over Tokyo personally . When Doolittle did do a little bombing in April 1942 , he gave it up immediately , nothing newsworthy unless he had done first , before anybody else . And refused to do it over Berlin as well . Forcefully too , since Germans were sure to have interceptors that would be capable of shooting him down . USAAF wanted its money back or at least something that could be utilized before the war's end . Hughes wanted production facilities of a major corporation -stuff he had no intention of returning once the project was over . When denied he started talking , and kept talking . Also soon referencing what he had done to some pulp writer , irritated by all those newspaper articles questioning the Spruce Goose , his mighty big set of wings and how all those journalists deserved the same , and perhaps a couple more . And maybe not just Journalists . Despite Roosevelt the President long dead and Roosevelt the Air Force officer with a finger in the pie long sidelined . Was to become a legend , with the major corporation board of directors hearing what would happen ...

swinging from the ceiling or pulling the trigger , too , requires a determination of sorts . Hughes lived on milk bottles he drank from and filled with urine since he couldn't leave his movie theater . Finally Katharine Hepburn took pity on her as far as that movie , The Aviator shows -or maybe doesn't , considering the years passed since ı last saw it . Hepburn was / would be famous for tantrums she could throw at anybody with wild abandon and the man who smoked too much heard it from his boss who had personally talked to Hepburn with some difficulty . So that she could pass the word that the it was the US Goverment alone that had the power to assign Federal factory floors to companies and every company owned what it owned ; Hughes could go buy some shares if wanted the stuff that badly and everybody knew Hughes had the coming electronics contracts almost cornered and he should stop this infantile behaviour . Hepburn accused the boss man being a lackey and stuff of Hoover the FBI chief , far beyond the badge he carried would have bade him to . So the boss man warned her for her own good that she should really forget that Hughes had once shown her a picture of a certainly younger FBI Director with too much lipstick ; to make her see the reach of power Hughes wielded and become more accommodating to more "refined" wants , being scared and all . Hoover was nastier than Hughes and this wasn't the 1930s ... Not that Hepburn had mentioned the picture ; she knew there were things you wouldn't speak in company of people you didn't know very closely and beyond . It was simply that the boss man knew Hoover knew she had laughed at the photo and would soon be hearing about the current talk too ; there was no point in re-kindling the hate ...

but how does Hughes exactly fit into this narrative ? Say , how did he just decide to get hold of Howard the writer to get a good yarn ? Remember the curse of Capitalism of the last page ? Wikipedia can certainly be a hodge podge of different editing . Take two articles that give links to each other . The Lovecraft Circle is a central theme of both and the two articles mention Howard was a pen pal of Lovecraft , and it seems beyond any doubt that he was greatly influenced by the writer of Cthulthu and the "creator" of something called the Elder gods . Yet , one page says Howard initially deferred to Lovecraft but gradually asserted his own views, even coming to deride Lovecraft's opinions (such as his support for fascism) and the Lovecraft page will be like "What Fascism?" Hughes would then be a superior ape , one of those who decided things had to be re-arranged for the greater glory of superior apes and with a wry smile at those pathetic loosers of writers trying to make do with a whole new invented mythology and serving the interests of their betters who were after a new world where the strong ruled by strength and not by guile . Of an illusion of respect to Democracy and Equality and similar banal cliches of all stripes and colours . There were betters and lessers and Howard was writing boxing stories and he was a minor cog in a mechanism being run by a just slightly less minor cog named Lovecraft . Cogs had to to do what was expected of them , write the fiction as they were told . If they declined , for some obscure reason or even offering an alternative storyline of say , the rich guy does the fighting without any mention of gargoyles or whatever those stone monsters are called , they would be put right . If putting them right made them angry in the eyes and still respectful in the speech , they would be put right even more forcefully . When tears formed at the edges of the eyes , it was the superior apes' pleasure to allow the cowardly lessers to cry , if they wanted to be babies and stuff .

I had to take a lot because I was alone and no one to take my part, so I intend to build my body until when anybody crosses me up, I can with my bare hands tear him to pieces, double him up, and break his back with my hands alone.

didn't happen , 'cause Robert E. Howard wasn't born on a battlefield and he wasn't in Venarium when he was 15 . He simply wasn't Conan . He cried . You would too , unless you are Conan . Are you ?

 

[r16]

ı draft these nonsense before putting them to electrons and my new laptop scares me regularly with strange noises informing me that there is some update that ı can currently download ; never explaining that how could that be now that ı have no connection at home . And more to the point it can't download the stuff whenever ı click yes . Maybe it's programmed to search daily on the web , connection or no connection ...

but then my personal misery is always there . Honest to God , on the night after drafting the post that ends with mischief of Hughes , ı had a dream that ı remembered on the morning . You know , dreams are supposed to be our daily concerns and issues spilling over the lid . And there ı was , back in my High School of some 25 years back , in my dark blue school jacket , campaigning against those shiny grey sweaters and ı don't even know they wear anything like that . Anyhow ı saw this gorgeous who asked me to carry out some errand and ı don't know her one bit , nor recognize as any kind of people ı might have seen on the TV , in a magazine or the web ... . For the record , the errand was obviously related to me being a nerd of some sort . And after the errand we would talk making a baby . Really ? So , ı was still me even in a dream state . Seeing immediately that she was mocking me , ı was looking for a one-liner to trump her and fortunately she closed some door on me . Thank God , ı would have hated to make a scene , even in my dreams ...

though real life can be even riskier . To my bad luck , the spiritual leader of the Congregation made some speech that mentions kicks , teardrops and even horse hooves . This last probably implies during the coup of Feb 28 they were kicked by some donkeys Military dudes and they survive supple and strong ... Since the Congregation is at arms against Party moves to close their studying centers , where kids prepare for all sorts of exams , chief among being the ones for entering universities . The said centres also being spectacularly good brain washing institutions where all these mighty warriors of Democracy were raised . Who , according to the Congregation , have been dispersed to the 4 corners of the wind . Real pity everybody one day needs democracy . The Congregation even says the supposed hackers and stuff were all neutralised by the Party ... The Standarts require keeping both sides in play so that in 50 years everybody will be tired of fighting and a balance will form and people will be allowed to be , but then Turkey doesn't have 50 weeks left . Don't expect trench digging though , America is bankrupt , wants targets concentrated ...

and did you hear the latest from the El Kaide ? Jihadist gets wounded , wakes up in hospital , thinking he is captured by the Goverment and remembering what El Kaide does to prisoners , he starts shouting Ali and Hüseyin ... Acting like a wounded Hizbullah member he is trying to survive . Alas he is in a Jihadist facility and they naturally behead him . A week passes and some Jihadist web-Jihadist see the online video and recognizes him . So , El Kaide offers an apology and some prayers for his soul .

not against Islam , not against Arabs , Brown people , Coloured people , even people . But all those mighty efforts in the name of Counter-revolution simply aims to make this country a battleground in which anybody who speaks Turkish can't win . The study centers thing was preceded by some quality troubles that might be mentioned when ı get out of this LotR binge .

maybe justifiable because of the case where the Orcs and their relationship to Turkish politics have been mentioned in real life TV debates . According to this as mentioned by a former advisor to PM , now the dean of an university , the Old in Turkey see the newly elites as Orcs . As alien , as destructive , as dangerous ... And the reality after the well justified Bwaahhhaaahhhhaa ? Couldn't find words to describe it apart from as a call to see the light and surrender to the reality . Never minding the reality is transient ... As learned by some 50% of the newly elites . He could have used the whole Grima Wormtongue and the King Theoden episode to stress the Old had served to sabotage the interests of this great nation but then Theoden and his Horse Lords would immediately cause an inspiration in the wags all around to remember that the PM fell off an horse 2007ish during a political rally .

says the couch potato with potbelly still in place and no "iron thews" in sight ... Am not even a Conan O'Brien , he seems quite tall and in shape ...

 

[r16]

by now ı expect anyone that might have been tempted to check The Hour of the Dragon would done that , although by all counts the number of people who might been inspired to do so is less than the digits in a single hand . And ı am so sure that they are ready to think that ı have shot myself in the foot . With the idiot's conviction of the fact -which sane people can't see at all- ı have been mentioning the Helm's Deep backs to 1176 , though Howard's lines makes it abundantly clear . The Valley of Lions is a very strong defensive position , situated in the Goralian Hills , the last refuge for many an Aquilonian King , as it was for Conan ...

But if his position was hard to shake, it was equally hard to escape from. It was a trap as well as a fortress for the defenders, a desperate last stand of men who did not expect to survive unless they were victorious. The only line of retreat was through the narrow valley at their rear.

a deviation then , with Aragorn rallying Theoden's spirits to allow the "civilians" to escape and their horseback charge finds its echo in the Aquilonian knights' irresistible attack that breaks the Nemedian ranks . Soon to be combined by Tolkien as Gandalf and the Rohirrim going downhill at the sunrise . ı am a Starfleet Admiral ; ı don't have the werewithal to prove that he was writing the sequel to the Hobbit before it was in print . Although it's indeed common knowledge that the LotR is just a chapter compared to the Silmarillon . Conan's hardy Gunderman mercenaries with spears and a shield wall might have been replaced by the old and the young on the stone walls but the Bossonian archers get matched by the Elves and the Elven accuracy in arrowplay has never been a joke . Though Howard saw them only as a replacement for the quite deservedly famous British Longbow .

and the narrow defile at the rear of the Valley of Lions ? Well , the enemies of Conan send some 5000 knights there , led by Valerius , a puppet with Royal Blood and some sort of a nihilist who knows he won't survive long in the imperial politics of Nemedia to come ; he has laid waste to his native country to make most of his days . And people hate him . One of them leads Valerius into a clearing within hills with no exit but lots of men already lying in ambush:

We are the rabble who followed [Conan], the wolves who skulked in these hills, the homeless men, the hopeless men... Look at them, Valerius! Each bears the mark of your hand, on his body or on his heart! ...Almighty gods, if I had a thousand lives I would give them all to buy your doom!

none of the 5000 will make it out . The Homeless / Hopeless will become the Dead Aragorn mobilizes to save Minas Tirith .

and of course there is the case of 4 Khitans . Magicians by trade , they were saved by Valerius from certain doom by starvation . They owe it to the new bloodthirsty king of Aquilonia and they are deadly . "Bad" enough to kill a Lord of the Black Ring in magic combat . Though the fight also costs them dearly , so that only one survives . Howard is careful in "realism" ; the lightning reflexes of Conan can not work if there is more than one magician ... They are of course clad in all black , with hoods yet with open faces ... Not the full match for the Nazgul .

for that we will have check The Drums of Tombalku , unfinished by Howard's death . Having set his heart on writing a proper Western , which would have also helped a great deal to slide out of the "task at hand" , Howard was recycling characters and we meet Amalric the mercenary again : previously in the Black Colussus he was the commanding officer of the Cimmerian and he had been the first to say that Conan really looked the part of a king . Though in the Drums this is still in the future as he comes upon a girl in the desert to take her back to Gazal , a lonely and naturally haunted city lost among the sands . Fearing she was abducted by the supernatural , Amalric enters the crimson tower that's the only undamaged structure in the sleepy town and kills a being that could become unvisible . Knowing he is in trouble , Amalric runs with the girl and :

From a breach in the wall rode seven horsemen; their steeds were black, and the riders were cloaked in black from head to foot. Horror swept over Amalric as he had realized there had been no horses in Gazal.

apart from the two he and the girl had arrived in the city and were now mounted in escape . How many Orcs we have seen on horses ? The chase goes on a whole day until they chance upon Conan who hits one black rider to no effect ... Tolkien never claimed to "write" the Lord of the Rings , he had merely translated it . Though this doesn't suggest at all that he merely sat in front of his typewriter to plunder the work of others ... Apart from the honesty in the man , that's also a reference to the days he had started the Silmarillon . Besides there's a whole host of influences on Tolkien with tons of writing on the subject for the serious student . Plus , check the echo line about Howard ... He had written that battle before in the Red Citadel , the story line of which was re-cycled for the Dragon ; where the description gains a touch of Battle of Hastings with the Nemedian charges meant to get the Aquilonians breaking their static defence at higher positions to come down . It works both ways in many cases .

 

[r16]

ı had long planned to use an image from a comic to aid in the discussion . Shades of the magazine editor ... When the material is weak , bring in the pictures ... Writing such stuff always goes in fits and starts and ı am kinda still distant from where ı would have used this to explain Tolkien's oft reported care for the nerds and geeks and the anoraks that showed an intense interest in the LotR , at times much to his annoyance . And not exactly because of the difference in the timezones . Oh yes , this is going to be a picture post ... (The image is an edited version of a bigger drawing found online . Copyright for it belongs to Bluewater Comics and the application here hopefully falls within Fair Use clauses . The rest mostly originate in the relevant Wikipedia articles unless referenced . ı don't like risk taking at all and the images are all simply touched, maybe to the extreme or something . The Magazine covers have the breasts covered but ı edited them out anyhow .)


the teaching value of the images can be surprising at times . ı was "always" giving a date of publication of 1937 to the Rings , after a too fast reading of the Wikipedia page . The series of pictures apparently from "J.R.R. Tolkien -The True Lord of the Rings(2012)" was an eye opener of sorts with the image of Christopher Tolkien sitting on the wing of what must be a Spitfire , reading the letters that told of the latest in the story . With that in mind let's see what was happening to Conan almost at the same time .

first of all the cover of the Weird Tales magazine that started the serialization of The Hour of the Dragon .

that's Zenobia , a girl in the seraglio of the Tarascus -the king of Nemedia- saving Conan from the dungeons . She has been hopelessly in love with him ever since she saw the Cimmerian once on a state visit some years back . Yeah , that's Zenobia . Is she ?

It was a girl who stood grasping the bars with her slender fingers. ... Her dark eyes gleamed in the shadows... Her hair was a mass of dark foam...

now , this is also Zenobia ... This time from the 2013 adaptation of the The Hour of the Dragon by Dark Horse Comics . She is from the harem of Tarascus . Because you know in the 21st Century nobody knows what a seraglio is ; for my part ı must say ı am not sure if it's means harem in the first place . Although it's also kinda off compared to what Howard wrote . Howard's Zenobia is less than one of the dogs that gnaw the bones in Tarascus' palace . 21st Century likes strong women characters . With "proper" acceptance of the "facts" ... This one says the same line with a later tilt that changes the whole dynamic : She is a keen observer of everything around her for One doesn't survive Tarascus' evil by being a mere painted plaything. The operative phrase is the painted plaything , this Zenobia is a play-thing . While you can bet the entire town on Howard's being a virgin . For in the 1930s "virtue" is still a requirement to become a queen . To make this possible Howard makes it certain that Tarascus has never glanced at me, and probably never will. I am less than one of the dogs that gnaw the bones in his banquet hall. King's property , King shows no interest and nobody else can touch her . She is an Easterner in a Western kingdom of Hyboria . She's not beautiful at all . In practical terms , and ı am not insulting anybody , she's a Mexican .

has practical relevance to the cover of the Weird Tales . With Howard being a cog in the creation of an American mythology that would have had to extend back to the Mother country , this certainly lesser character can not happen . As such Margaret Brundage , the artist , gives the audience an all American girl . The Complete Chronicles have a few of her drawings she did for Conan and ı must say the almost 21st century slenderness for her subjects must be her signature style , even if the pathetic depiction of the Cimmerian drew protest even at the time . Well , the Brundage Conan could only be a toothpick for this Buscema Conan ...

howard defended the cover , and he was the favourite writer of Brundage as well . Hearing he had died , she and the editor of the Weird Tales would cry together , almost the entire day . The magazine owed Howard something like 800 $ at one point in 1935. A great sum considering the Wikipedia mentions he made a respectable 2000 $ in that year by writing . Howard's outstanding unpaid earnings would reach 1350 $ by the time of his suicide . To give some perspective to this the Wikipedia page on Brundage mentions she would make 90 $ per cover . An amount enough to keep her , her son and her mother afloat for a month , as far as ı understand it .

outside influence , apart from the Depression era economics . Partly because Howard had been patronized again and had to provide something extra and not only for The Hour of the Dragon . Unprinted or something , that was first supposed to involve Zenobia being ravished after her assistance to Conan was discovered . With a certain blonde in mind of this patron of arts ; descriptions to be detailed to the extreme . Howard stuck to his guns and created Countess Albiona , a soul stirring beauty who refused to become a mistress of Valerius in the depraved debauchery of his palace . The Dark Horse comic depicts her with too much breasts and other curves , but then the published story hence the source does not describe exactly why she would be revolting even at thinking of a touch of a hand by Valerius . Or the extent the Nemedian occupiers would go onto to impose their will on their unwilling Aquilonian subjects . And it appears it was not the first or the last time . The Chronicles mentions a letter Howard wrote to the editor of the Weird Tales about the Red Nails , the final story he wrote on Conan and asking an idea on the l_sbianism presented -would it suffice or not ? While the story as published offers just the notion and considering the extremes the subjects of the tale go through , you just wash it away as an another oddity . No doubt , the story would have been thicker if ...

 

[r16]

howard did resist . The attempts to sully his printed work . Conan rushed to the aid of an old woman , because she was his subject and her tormentors were invaders in his kingdom . Not his fault that she turned out to be a witch that would side with him . Albiona might have suffered hell in the single copy , but in the magazine series Conan is so fed up with the devastation of his adopted country , (his kingdom at least) that he simply can not cope with that she will lose her head for refusing a pig like Valerius . And certainly nothing like Conan getting relieved of his long standing stress with what legally constitutes rape , even in the 1930s . Conan was all about chivalry in an age where the knights were worse than bandits .


and the Mexican angle ? Zenobia as Howard created her would be sold into slavery after a harsh life in the lands of the East , naturally East being lesser than the West and would have a clear idea of what was needed to survive , even if she didn't have the power to survive on her own . Allow me to say <Bah> to Dark Horse's variant in she attacks the ape of the dungeons of Tarascus with a broken bone -for she is supposed to be a proxy for Sonya as well ... Conan already appreciated the short sword Zenobia gave him , the feeling grew even more with the horse she had chosen . The Barbarian would settle down , with the perfect woman of sorts , his sons would be implecably loved and cared for . And she would never be a problem for him in the affairs of the state . The second class nature of womenfolk would be more apparent in the Hispanics of the era and it worked when it worked . Howard went to the extent of wearing those odd Mexican hats , something the Chronicles explains as odd behaviour by him ... When it wasn't Hughes , words could be employed and resistance offered .


the blonde thing stuck . As far as &#305; remember any depiction of her in the comics would be non-black . Can't say blonde , it's hard to tell in Black and White . Was repeated too , with consideration of the blonde addiction in certain quarters . A Witch Shall be Borne -the perfect vehicle one would say- has the twins as black haired , the Brundage cover also matches . Adaptation into comics , they were blondes and we are talking about the 70s ... Happens to be a thing &#305; remember from the early 1980s . Didn't know what a birth mark was , with the crescent shaped one on the good sister . Must be definitely before Gorbachev when &#305; read that particular issue and even then it took me years to deduce that scar was this birth mark thing .

as said the printing in Turkey had colour only on the cover . Actually &#305; long thought that Sonya was a blonde and always looked at askance at the coloured covers that were Red all over . Which is wrong , but anyways ...

the British , away from the action , did what they read in the text . Their oddity in the 1950s was insisting on Conan as a Roman Centurion ...

which is almost a match for the book edition of 1954 for the Dragon . The Chronicles has it and it's so terrible ... Couldn't find it online but &#305; could say that depiction is actually a Middle Easterner , if not an Italian .

 

[r16]

so far have been talking for Howard . Tolkien doesn't need anything of the kind . When we are all dead , say like 2100 the Roman Catholic Church will be in discussion on remembering him officially . Though since miracles get rarer by the year it will be a small scale affair . And 2100s since it will take some time for the brohoura to die . You know , when &#305; become the Starfleet Commander there is a list of things for me to do . First , ordering the orbital bombardment of the US . Second , a cup of coffee . Though there are people who have bet money on my orderly beating me to it , in coffee first . Hah , we will see ! Third , a demand on France to withdraw the sainthood of Jean D'arc -considering they sold her for 30 silver . You know &#305; must be evil ...

this is certainly not a veiled effort for the French bringing in Armenian claims . Oh yeah , 2015 comes after 2014 . Turks will be all dead anyhow . And there are a lot of things to rant on . The esteemed guest of Eyecandy , the colourful guy who was some Druid when it suited the State has died of cancer . Discovered a month ago , developed into terminal state within two weeks . His daughters know he was killed as the speed seems breathtaking . An anachronism today , he could have survived any court with a mere flash of a ID card in the days when he was not .

or in the poor taste that a couple of guys discussed local politics with a simile that said any plane that took off must land . In view of the Boeing crash in Russia .

or the glorious President of the newest 'stan in the Middle East meeting the Turkish PM in the capital of the 'stan to be . Hand in hand they been together in opening ceremonies for municipial facilities in Diyarbak&#305;r , concerts and a wedding for 400 couples . All the media outlets harping on it one way or the other . The President said Freedom in Turkish and the PM called the area as 'stan . Guess what , no surprises . And no surprises in that it gets described as an election campaign by the Party against the political wing of the seperatists . It's always OK when it's politics .


and the most visible of it ? In the name of reform all the Red carpets in the country will be changed . Not with new red carpets ; such tricks for the purposes of protocol affairs are like useless . The new carpets will be turquoise . The Deputy PM says it means something . Guess what , everybody has an idea on that as well . He actually said "turquoise is a beautiful colour of ours and its choice is very wise." Immediately after the pronounciation of the 'stan , the Cabinet Ministers all walking on the beautiful colour of ours ... Don't expect anybody even saying anything . The Main Opposition immediately agreed . Any word on it would have been the reason for a long diatribe on people opposing Democracy for being pro-status quo . Like this insistence on Red proves . Giving a quarter of the country takes time and lots of sweat , they instead give incredibly cool pictures of turquoise carpets .

back to the Rings ? Sure ... Just by coincidence &#305; saw a newspaper editorial from late October . The author is a proffessor from the Hülya Koçyi&#287;it and just a few are not traitors committee ; and he is neither Hülya Koçyi&#287;it nor among the few . He said opposition to the Goverment has been so ineffectual , yet the trees of Gezi are still haunting the new establishment . Pay attention people , the Ents are here in Turkey . Yep . Must mean Isengard is on the side of the Counter revolution . Wonder what Saruman did to deserve this insult ? And a further wonder ; is this what the Little Imperialist aka the Turkish FM telling the White Wabbit aka Chuck Hagel ?

 

[Tahuti]

o/

Hello! Just wondering how you were doing!

 

[r16]

am still alive . Thank you for the interest . Discovered my new shiny lap-top is much better in reading pdf and epub files . Continuation might continue with editing this post .

 

[Wrymouth3]

am still alive . Thank you for the interest . Discovered my new shiny lap-top is much better in reading pdf and epub files . Continuation might continue with editing this post .

You are the best poster in the WH forum just to let you know. Nobody can deny your greatness with even a single word.

 

[r16]

thanks for that as well, though &#305; would be a lot safer without the use of superlatives in any positive sense .