I want a word ...

Tonight's class was my advanced students and the classroom format is fun.

We have no text book and the curriculum is articles I select each week based on current events. We read them together, learn new words and then discuss the events.

One week we read about the United States elections and the very next about the Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes wedding.

The following lesson we discussed Cruise's religion, Scientology, which was great because I taught the expressions, "Con Artist" for Scientology founder and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard, as well as the word "hogwash."

Tonight, we talked about every body's favorite former member of the Hitler Youth, Pope Benedict XVI, and his visit to Turkey. (Rumor has it that the Pope asked to stop at an elementary school and the prime minister told him no.)

One of my students asked about the word "Papal" and what it meant. I explained "the word Papal means anything to do with the pope. If the Pope visits somewhere it's a Papal Visit. If the Pope meets with people it's a Papal Meeting. If the Pope sits in a chair, it becomes the Papal Chair."

Then it struck me. The Pope has his own freaking word. Not just Pope, but Papal. That is so cool. Just think about power for a second and how much of it comes with having your own word.

And not just a word, but a word describing anything you do.

I want a word. That is my new mission for life. To acquire the fame, power and Martyrs blood for my own word.

Here's where you come in dear readers. What should my word be? Loughriesque is OK, but then anyone with the surname Loughrie gets a piece of it. And I want the word all to myself.

Help me coin a word for myself, something that will go down in the pages of history as a word describing anything I do. But don't come up with your own word, because if everyone has their own word, my mission is pointless.

yes, Yes, OH YES

The mighty Trojans conquer the Irish, who must have been hitting the whiskey the night before and the morning of the game.

It's 6:10 a.m. here in Turkey and I've been up listening to the game via the internet with the Trojans up 37-17 in the fourth quarter with seven minutes to go. Thank God for the internet.

One more game to go and if the Trojans can handle the Bruins, which they should be able to, it's on to the Tostitos BCS National Championship Game.

Now the real challenge: who the hell can I talk to in Turkey that knows about USC, the Tostitos BCS National Championship Game or even college football (not that Goddamned waste of a sport soccer).

Yes, they have Turkeys in Turkey ...

After receiving the fourth one of these questions today via e-mail, I figured I would let everyone know.
Except they obviously don't celebrate Thanksgiving and they don't call the bird Turkey.
They call it Hindi, which I assume is a crack at the Indians, (dots, not feathers, but feel free to make fun of those Indians too, I know I do).

But in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am going to get drunk and start berating all of you over the Internet, since I cannot be with my family this year.

Just Kidding.

Actually, I am going to cook the best possible Thanksgiving dinner I can this weekend for a few other teachers and friends. I'm making Turkey, but not a whole one, because they don't sell the whole ones here.

Instead, I'm buying some Turkey breasts and legs at the store, then cooking a few side dishes. A big thank you to Sefton for getting me recipes so quickly. Sefton's people come from the south and a few years ago, I sampled some of "those people's" cuisine. It was fantastic. I never thought oysters were a Thanksgiving food until I ate at his place.

So in closing, what am I thankful for?
Being in a country with a cheap supply of tobacco that lets me smoke where ever I want.
And Midgets. I'm always thankful for midgets.

Vindication, sort of ...

Yahoo! Sports published a fantastic investigation this week showing officials blew at least two critical calls in the 2006 Rose Bowl National Championship Game presented by Citi.

"The biggest fumble in last season's epic national championship game between Texas and Southern California didn't occur on the field. It happened in the instant replay booth," Yahoo! Sports Josh Peter wrote.

"The error at the Rose Bowl was not mechanical, as the supervisor of officials told ABC broadcaster Keith Jackson. It was a human blunder, one that might have impacted the outcome of Texas' 41-38 victory, a game decided in the final seconds."

Check out the rest of the article and two others. Rush to Judgement

Which leads my to today's word: I knew it. OK, that's three words, but I still feel a sense of vindication because I knew there was shennanagins afoot.

However, it does little good to point out the shennanagins now seeing as how the game is over and has been over for 10 months.

A BIG wag of the finger to The Big Ten for stealing a National Championship from the Trojans.

So how do we obtain sweet justice for January's crime against humanity? A two-point plan that starts with Trojans winning out this season, and going to the 2007 Tostitos BCS National Championship Game.

The second part of my plan is burning down every Big-Ten University so they get the picture not to fuck up another team's mojo. The second part will also include making 1970 Kent State look like MTV's Spring Break in Cabo.

What does everyone think? Who's with me?

***

On a separate note, football season hasn't been the same this year. Every Saturday I don Cardinal and Gold and root for the old Alma Mater, but since there's no one else around me who knows there's a football other than that Gay sport soccer, it's not the same.

There's a good side to that as I didn't want to cry or kill anything when SC lost to Oregon State.

This weekend, however, I will be back in my obsessed gameday mode listening to the big game, USC versus Notre Dame, over the internet at 3:30 a.m., Sunday, my local time for the game.

I will fry up some snacks and of courses, have plenty of ice cold beer ready as the Trojans hopefully rout the Fighting Irish. Hopefully it will be Bloody Sunday Part II.

Day three, Part I - Wow, did Jesus come here?

October 22, 2006
Bergama, Turkey - For the Bible literate out there (which I now consider myself after a Google Search) you might have heard about the Church of Pergamon (which is also spelled Pergamum).

The Church of Pergamon was listed as one of the seven churches in the book of Revelation, the book at the end when everything catches fire. Apparantly, when the world ends Pergamon will have to send a letter or something.

I think there's also a verse about how the Devil lives there. I'm not sure if the bible predicted my visit, but it was the most impressive site of the tour.

Pergamon was one of the Ancient Kingdoms of the Greek Empire and a very influential part of the Hellenistic period. The sites that remain there are the Acroplis (which consists of an upper and lower city built on a mountain) and the Asklepion.

The first stop for Sunday, October 22, was the Acropolis.

The site was magnificent. The outsides of buildings remain intact as lines of columns. The amphitheatre there is estimated to be the tallest in the Ancient Greek world. It seats 10,000 normal size people, 7,000 fat people and 20,000 midgets.

I've been scouring the Internet for dimensions on this thing, especially the incline, but I can't find one. Help me out on this one. Google Pergamon and amphitheatre and get back to me.


This is the amphitheatre, with the modern day city of Bergama in the background.

I had a photo from the top of the mountain (above) and I had one from sitting in the top right corner of the theatre, but I wanted to see if I could get a good photo from the bottom to the top, really showing how big this damn thing was.

So as my tour group had 15 minutes of free time before we headed to the bus, I jolted down the theatre steps to get the shot. Getting down was a breeze and I complimented myself on how quickly I negotiated the steep steps.

Then came the climb back up. I started with a brisk walk up the steps. I didn't want to run because I knew I needed to pace myself. My brisk walk slowed to a walk. That's OK, I thought, because the tour group will not leave without me.

Then my walk slowed to a sluggish pace. This was killing my thighs.

I began walking like a snail up the steps. I originally thought I should try and walk up the entire amphitheatre, just to say I did it.

Screw that. Just get me to the halfway point where I can exit to the right and take a nice flat trail around the hill.

I almost began crawling. "No," I said to myself, "I will remain on my two legs."

This was one of the worst inclines I've ever felt.

Eventually I made it. I made it to the half way point of this theatre and felt like the king of the world.

I took the cigarette out of my mouth I had been smoking and stomped it out on the step. I made it.

Coming up in Day Three Part II - There WAS something in the water.

When you're right 52 percent of the time ...

you're wrong 48 percent of the time. I called some of them correctly and I was dead wrong in some races.

Let's take a quick look at my predictions from the Tuesday, Nov. 7 edition of LoughrieDoesTurkey:

"I think the GOP and America will say goodbye to Senators Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine in Ohio, Lincoln Chaffee in Rhode Island and Conrad Burns in Montana."

WOW!. Four-for-four. Look at that readers. 5,000 miles from Washington D.C. and I can still call the American races.

Unfortunately, I called Michael Steele winning Maryland, Jim Talent keeping Missouri and George Allen holding on for dear life in Virginia. All three of them lost, however I did call Tennessee for Corker, who replaced retiring Senate Leader Bill Frist.

Talk about timing by the way. There's nothing like leaving before people can blame you for this. Good job Fristy!

My Senate Prediction Record: 5-3, 62 Percent!

I was close in the house. Oh so close to hitting the number square on the peg. On Tuesday morning I wrote, "At the end of the day it will be Dems 226, GOP 209 in the house. A 23 seat pick up for Democrats. Not bad, but beyond what some media analysts are calling for."

Well, the Dems did even better than I thought they would, picking up 231 seats, a net victory of 28. But I was close, damn close. Maybe I should have seen the whole Mark Foley thing backfiring in Florida.
Considering constituents in his district probably have enough problems remembering where they live, I figured they wouldn't remember the whole gay e-mails to boys thing.

What an election.

Finally, a special thank you to the millions of Californians who voted yes on liberty and personal freedom, by voting no on a needless sin tax against cigarettes. By standing up for an adults decision to consume a legal product, you also made it clear that the government should stick to running a government, rather than your life.

Thank you. God Bless You and God Bless America.

Election Day Special Edition

I'm taking a break from recounting my tales of the Aegean to bring you my predictions and analysis on Election day.

There is a time stamp on this post, so you know that this is being written around 7:30 p.m. Turkish time and 9:30 a.m. California time.

I'm calling the house, senate and California races.

The House
At the end of the day, Democrats will win the house and the score for seats with key victories in the Pennsylvania and Ohio seats. Increased turnout for senate candidates like Robert Casey in Pennsylvania and Sherrod Brown in Ohio coupled with low GOP turnout will make these seats available.

At the end of the day it will be Dems 226, GOP 209 in the house. A 23 seat pick up for Democrats. Not bad, but beyond what some media analysts are calling for.

Races to watch: If Republican John Doolittle loses in the California second, the Democrats will win in far greater numbers than I predict.

The Senate
The Senate's not going to be such a route, but there will be some Democrat gains. I think the GOP and America will say goodbye to Senators Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine in Ohio, Lincoln Chaffee in Rhode Island and Conrad Burns in Montana.

The Democrats are going to keep all of their seats, unless California's Diane Feinstein can hold off the juggernaut Dick Mountjoy Campaign. (Insert laughs here.)

But not all Republicans will lose, just most of them. I think Michael Steele, the Republican candidate for the open Maryland Senate seat will win given his campaign's momentum of the last two weeks.

Republicans will hold off some decent challenges in Virginia and Missouri and keep the Tennessee seat being vacated by Bill Frist.

Final Score: GOP 53, Dems 47 (Lieberman counts as a Democrat and he will win by the way.)

California

My native state, the Golden State, with it's unofficial capitol of Palmdale.

Of course Arnold's going to win, but I think John Garamendi is going to join him as Lt. Governor. Incumbent Bruce McPherson will keep his seat as the Secretary of State, while Jerry Brown, good old Governor Moonbeam, will become the Attorney General.

John Chiang will become the state's controller while Bill Lockyer will become the state treasurer (I still can't believe the Antelope Valley Press endorsed Claude Parish. I know it's a Republican paper, but this guy is nuts.)

Steve Poizner will become the state's third Insurance Commissioner, despite Cruz Bustamante's clever commercials about how he promised his family to lose 70 pounds and he promises to lower your insurance rates.

I can't get into the propositions, because I am out of touch with how much ad time has been spent on all of them. I just hope and pray the California pleasure police don't pass Prop. 86, a tobacco tax that will do nothing for Californians looking for lower health care costs. Whether you smoke or not, should one group be punished because their habit or vice is unpopular? Remember, today they go after the smokers, but tomorrow, they go after the junk food industry.

Then they go after (insert name of vice here) until everyone behaves in a manner the alleged powers that be find suitable. That's not American because when you live in a state that determines what are acceptable behaviours and what are not, it's fascism.

Day two - I can't understand a thing.

Alibey, Turkey - It was technically day one of our tour, but felt like day two. After spending 9 hours on a bus to get from Istanbul to our hotel in Ayvalik, we met again at 11 a.m. to take a tour of what I was told is an island.

I think we crossed a bridge to get there. I fell asleep, so I just remember some people on the bus waking me when everyone was getting out.

But Alibey was nice.

It's a former Greek Island that was called Cunda (pronounced Junda in Turkish) and was part of a Turkish and Greek land/population swap. For those who don't know, in 1923 the governments of Greece and Turkey agreed to swap expatriate populations. The Greeks who lived on Cunda were replaced with Turks. The Turks who lived on the Greek Island of Lesbos came to Cunda.

(I assume Lesbians came from Lesbos, though I have absolutely no knowledge of it. I'm not even going to Google it. I'm just going to run with it.)

It's pretty brilliant actually when you think about it.

Imagine two government heads sitting at a table negotiating: "Look, we don't like you people and you people don't like us. Let's just swap Islands so my people and you people can be closer to their countries mainland."

As one man on the boat explained, his grandfather lived on Lesbos and was sent over to Cunda in the swap. Then he said something about how politics is a bad thing, and I didn't have the language capabilities to explain what a great idea I thought the 1923 swap was.

Anyway, the island features a Greek Orthodox Church. I wish I could tell you the historical significance of this church, but the tour was in Turkish. As a woman told a story about the church, I realized that maybe it's not the best idea to travel with a bus full of people who speak a language other than your own.


The signifigance of this church was lost on me.

There were a few other people on the tour who spoke English, but this was day one and I hadn't met them yet.

Oh well, on to the boat tour.

We took off from the Alibey peer on a boat to cruise around the existing Greek Islands. There was some nice scenery there but the best was yet to come.



The boat tour was catered with ALL YOU CAN EAT FISH.

That was some good stuff.

I don't know what kind of fish it was but I can tell it was fried in olive oil (a very common way of serving fish here.) I ate as much as I possibly could because the more I ate, the less each piece of fish costs. In fact if I didn't eat everything in sight, I would have lost money. And then the terrorists win.

So these two events make up the majority of day one. Not really eventful, but I also knew there was much more cool stuff ahead in the tour.

After dinner at the hotel I went up to my room for a quite night and some sleep. I was exhausted from the trip over and barely slept on the bus ride over. With the exception of short naps during our trip to and from Alibey I hadn't had much sleep.

I was sitting on my bed in the hotel room reading when I started hearing music. It was so loud that the noise cut through my closed window. I looked outside, about 20 yards down the hotel's back alley, where I saw the freaking Tropicana Dance Club. A fucking outdoor dance club and it's right by my Goddamn room.

Son of a bitch.

So I sat there in my room, stewing because I couldn't go to sleep, I was too damn angry to go to sleep and the only thing on in English was "Tootsie," a stupid movie if you ask me.

I had a feeling it would be a long week.

Wanna see pictures from this, and other exciting days, get over to http://picasaweb.google.com/jamesloughrie to see the photos. I seperated the pictures from one big folder to a folder for each day so it should be a little bit easier to manage.

Coming next on LoughrieDoesTurkey: Day Three - the biggest piece of crap I've ever seen. Literally.