Carpetblogger

Carpetblogger's Mixed Feelings About Turkish Airlines

We don't care much for plane crashes around here, particularly by airlines on which we are of practically elite status (translation: we enjoy benefits woefully disproportionate to the effort expended to achieve those benefits, such as traveling to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan). We especially don't like them when people die, despite  Captain Sully-esque efforts to prevent greater loss of life.

For us, Turkish Airlines has always been an island of competence in a sea of Turknology. The planes are new and clean, we never have to get to the airport more than 90 minutes before a flight because the lines move quickly, delays are rare, the food and service are acceptable, we can be home 50 minutes after landing, (memo to American air travelers: it doesn't have to be that way!), there are never people vomiting in the aisles and we have never once heard of drunk pilots (memo to FSU air travelers: it doesn't have to be that way!).

Most importantly, the red and white Turkish Airlines logo at an airport in some post-Soviet shithole always communicates an important and reassuring message to us: "You can get out here with a minimum of hassle and likelihood of death or dismemberment."  This inspires a degree of brand loyalty that we don't bestow on many products, particularly airlines. Crashes tend to undermine this perception, however. We're pretty sure that Turkish Airlines didn't take our brand image into consideration when it developed its current marketing campaign "Feel Like a Star" featuring Kevin Costner, since none of the ads' shots are from airports that look like concrete refugee camps.

So to see a Turkish 737 lying in pieces in a muddy Dutch field makes us sad and question whether perhaps our loyalty is misplaced. Alternatively, it also makes us think "at least it didn't happen in Bishkek."

For Those In NJ Who Are Ready To Rock...

After months of hanging around Istanbul, waiting in endless lines and worrying about having to return to Iraq, our friends, musicians and stars of the documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad have left the building. All four members of Acrassicauda, Baghdad's only heavy metal band, have arrived in metal heaven -- Elizabeth, New Jersey. They received refugee status from the US and will be eligible to apply for green cards in a few years.

Here's how we met the band and although we haven't provided many updates lately, this is where they were a year ago.

Since arriving in the US, they've attended their second heavy metal show (the first was Testament, in Turkey) and met Metallica's guitarist backstage (in the photo), who gave them one of his guitars. That's already a big improvement over playing to Turkish biker gangs and unappreciative drunk yabancis in Kemanci.

There were lots of times when the bureaucratic obstacles seemed insurmountable and the money impossible to find. It's also easy to imagine the problems that lie ahead. But these boys have balls the size of cantaloupes, proven perseverance, charm, wit and despite everything, phenomenal luck. They're gonna do just fine and we admire them tremendously.

Marwan, Faisal, Tony and Firas -- maşallah from İstanbul! We wish you the best and expect you to play Meadowlands someday.

Carpetblog Pre-Departure Briefing for David Plouffe's Trip to Baku

 No one knows better than Carpetblogger how to ingratiate oneself to an obscure, corrupt dictator with oil, so we're a little miffed Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe didn't call us before his upcoming trip to Azerbaijan.  Who hearts Baku more than Carpetblogger?

Anyhow, since he's visiting at the invitation of the Association for Civil Society Development, a government-created lobbying organization masquerading as an NGO and, as RFE/RL tactfully puts it, "government mouthpiece," he may not need our advice after all. We wonder if he might be there to discuss the fake exit poll the group commissioned for the 2005 parliamentary election that did so much to enhance Warren Mitofsky's reputation (it completely annoys us that Daria Vaisman's excellent TNR article about this story isn't online) and support the government line that it doesn't steal elections. Or maybe, even a Chicago political consultant can learn something about election stealing from the pros. But! We digress.

Here's our advice.*

• Azeris have the biggest poles.
• Watch out for Camel Toes!
• Be sure to check out the hip-hop scene.
• Maybe you might want to plan another junket after Disneyland-Azerbaijan and the Death Star/Caspian Asshole hotel opens.
• Azerbaijan is democratic and lawful. The signs say so.
• Azerbaijan has a thriving fashion industry. Maybe you can suggest Michelle chose something from the Atilla collection for the White House Correspondents' dinner.
• Obviously there are no hard feelings about the whole Chicago vs. Baku in 2016 thing.
• Don't miss Sumgayit. Bring your gas mask.

Remember, David, it's not selling out, it's buying in! We're glad GovAZ is establishing links with the new administration and we hope you're presented with some quality investment opportunities while there. Democracy is for chumps!

Ken Silverstein at Harpers has written at length about ASCD. He has updated his blog.

*If you think this post was just an excuse to link to old posts, you might be right. Those were the days when we actually liked this blog.

Word of the Day: Buzcu

Our favorite construction in the Turkish language (other than the brilliant "miş" tense, which allows one to disassociate oneself from the information one is relaying) is designating an occupation by adding the suffix -ci/-cu/-cı/-cü to a noun. By using this construction, you create a new word that means "guy who does X" or "X guy" (and it is always a guy, though the word itself is gender neutral).

There is no occupation too small or insignificant to warrant a "-cu" ending. For example, our new favorite word is "buzcu" (booze-joo) or "ice guy."  In fact, we just discovered the existence of buzcular, which doesn't make a lot of sense. If there are yağcilar (olive oil guys), karpuzcular (watermelon guys), turşucular (pickle guys), hurdacılar (junk guys), tavukcılar (chicken guys), balıkcılar (fish guys), a davulcusu (Ramazan drummer guy) of course there will be buzcular.  Turks are logical like that.

In Istanbul, you can't just go to your local market guy (your bakkalcı) or even the Carrefour for a bag of ice for a party. They don't sell it. You have to go to Buzcu Sokak Now, there is no such alley, as far as we know, called Buzcu Sokak*, so don't go asking around for it (and we're sure it's probably accusative too, but, seriously, we've stopped even trying). But since Turks also tend to name alleys after the types of businesses and the -cis clustered there and we don't know the actual name of the street, it's become known as Buzcu Sokak in the parlance of the day.

That doesn't mean there's not some mystery associated with the buzcular. Most of the buzcular on Buzcu Sokak are also çamaşırhanes (full service laundromats. Someday we might explore how putting the ending -hane to a noun means "place."). We cannot explain why the çamaşırhanes and the buzcular are the same enterprises, but it makes them easy to find. We're also not at all sure why all the buzcular we've seen are also çamaşırhanes but not all çamaşırhanes are buzcular. We're pretty confident that someone will explain this all to us.

*Buzcu Sokak runs parallel and in between Tarlabaşı Bulvarı and Nevizade/Balık Bazaar, if you need ice this weekend.