Israeli ad for greek cheese FETA

A Feta-Love accident....



And Australian one ..Why the Olympics-prework had a bit of Delay.....but on time successfully finished)))




Oh..yeah again..feta-cheese crispies to blame!....

The Animated Piano through Memories of Yann Tiersen

Memories

I’ve tried to put down in rhyme

Some memories to stand the pace of time

Things we do, people we’ve met

Often so easy to forget

Memories of when you were little

Can often become so very brittle

Fragmented memories from the past

Memories that I wanted to last

For those of you who may read my book

May want to take a second look

For each page is filled with love

For those on earth and those above.

By Gaynor Llewellyn

The New Yahoo Video service)))) Music from Yann Tiersen)))Comptine d'un autre été,L apres midi(Listen)))))((((the little song of another summer,in afternoon)))from the film "Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain" (The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain)or Amélie))) Video Animation by University of Hertfordshire (UK)team. ((((Maκάρι να κάνανε τέτοιες δουλειές και τα δικάς μας πανεπιστήμια))))

Anna Politovskaya-Анна Политковская-Άννα Πολιτκόφσκαγια.

To the murderer of Anna Politovskaya

You tried to kill the truth and left a body
which rises through newsprint to spread its wings
and cast a shadow over your world of explanation
Do you think you can tear down a world with four bullets?
Even so,your face,tied to the trajectory of her downfall
watches the poison in your water
that you wash Lady Macbeth hands with
Truth lies in a stairwell and in a coroner's report
and the words you tried to bury with her
have escaped into us will speak louder than your defence and silence

~by the blogger -Paul Grimsley-


Προσπάθησες να σκοτώσεις την αλήθεια και άφησες πίσω σου
ένα πτώμα,που ανασταίνεται μέσα απ' το χαρτί των ειδήσεων για να απλώσει τα φτερά του και να ρίξει τη σκιά του πάνω στον δικό σου κόσμο εξηγήσεων.Νομίζεις πως μπορείς να σκίσεις ένα κόσμο με τέσσερις σφαίρες;;Είναι όμως το πρόσωπο σου δεμένο με την τροχιά της δικής της πτώσης.Βλέπει το δηλητήριο στο νερό,που πλένεις τα χέρια σου σαν Λαίδη Μακβεθ. Η Αλήθεια κείτεται σε ενα πηγαδόσκαλο και σε μια αναφορά ιατροδικαστή και τις λέξεις που προσπάθησες να θάψεις μαζί της,έχουν αποδράσει σε μας θα μιλήσουν πιο δυνατά απο την υπεράσπιση και τη σιωπή σου

Grozny before the War

)))))After((((

((((Anna's Articles and Interview about Chechnya War)))
(((Putin's Russia)))(((Dirty War)))Casualties of the
two Chechen Wars(((

Istanbul(Not Constantinople)A multi-name City

Tiny toons version

Constantinople's change of name was the theme for a song made famous by The Four Lads and later covered by They Might Be Giants and many others entitled Istanbul (Not Constantinople).

Istanbul was Constantinople-Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople-Been a long time gone, Constantinople-Now it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night-Every gal in Constantinople Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople-So if you've a date in Constantinople.She'll be waiting in Istanbul-Even old New York was once New Amsterdam.Why they changed it I can't say-People just liked it better that way-So take me back to Constantinople-No, you can't go back to Constantinople-Been a long time gone, Constantinople.Why did Constantinople get the works?-That's nobody's business but the Turks...Even old New York was once New Amsterdam-Why they changed it I can't say.People just liked it better that way-Istanbul was Constantinople.Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople-Been a long time gone, Constantinople.Why did Constantinople get the works?-That's nobody's business but the Turks.So take me back to Constantinople-No, you can't go back to Constantinople.Been a long time gone, Constantinople-Why did Constantinople get the works?That's nobody's business but the Turks.

Εtymology of Istanbul name

In the 13th century Arabs used the appellation Istinpolin, a “name” they heard Byzantines use—eis ten polin—which, in reality, was a Greek phrase that meant “in the city.” Through a series of speech permutations over a span of centuries, this name became Istanbul. Until the Turkish Post Office officially changed the name in 1930.Similar examples of modern Turkish placenames derived from Greek in this fashion are İzmit, earlier İznikmit, from Greek Nicomedia, İznik from Greek Nicaea ([iz nikea]and İstanköy for the Greek island Kos (from is tin Ko)

• Byzantium, c. 667 BC to AD 330, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas or Byzantas (Βύζας or Βύζαντας in Greek). The name "Byzantium" is a Latinization of the original Thracian-Greek name Byzantion.
• Nova Roma (New Rome) c. May 11, AD 330. That particular name enjoyed little common use, and it was as the 'City of Constantine' (Constantinopolis) that it lived through the subsequent centuries.
• Constantinople, AD 330 to March 28, 1930. Constantinople was highly significant as the successor to ancient Rome and the largest and wealthiest city in Europe throughout the Middle Ages, known as the "Queen of Cities".
• Fall of Constantinople on May 29, 1453 by Mehmet II
  
• March 28, 1930 The Republic of Turkey officially renamed the city İstanbul.

• Turkish:İstanbul-OttomanTurkish:قسطنطنيه(Kostantiniyye)-Greek:Κωνσταντινούπολη
• -Latin Constantinopolis, Nova Roma
• -Hebrew:Kushta-OldChurchSlavonic:Цѣсарьградъ(Tsargrad)
• -Russian:Стамбул-OldNorse:Miklagarðr
• -Albanian:Stamboll-Arabic قسطنطينية (Qustantiniyya)-Armenian: commonly Polis/Bolis"(Պոլիս)-Armenian:Ստամբուլը-Kurdish:Stenbol-Urdu
• قسطنطني(Qustantuniya).
• It also had names and nicknames such as: Islambol(plenty of Islam),Astana,Pah-i-Taht,'Dersaadet' , 'Deraliye',Gosdantnubolis (a variang of Armenian), Tsargrad, Rumiyya al-kubra(New Rome), New Jerusalem, the Eye of the World, the Refuge of the Universe, the Gate of Happiness.Jews often called it "Costa".
  

Who was Manuel II Paleologos and why so violent reactions?

Historical background concerning Manuel II Palaeologus

In his conference in Regensburg University, Pope Benedict XVI quoted a statement of a Dialogue of Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus with a Muslim, and this statement is in the focus of a polemics. The Pope said that he did not adopt the statement he quoted, therefore everybody agrees now in rejecting that the Pope who has responsibility for this this "medieval text of a by-gone age." Now, it is Manuel II who appears as the "naughty boy" of the story.

I am puzzled that in a controversy which concerns a Byzantine Emperor, nobody asked the advice of byzantinists. I happen to know about Manuel II and to have studied this text. For that reason, I believe it is my duty to bring some details to the attention of the public, because in the media, everyone has said just about anything about this text and about Manuel II. For example, somebody said, on the France Culture, channel that he used to burst the eyes of his prisoners. In fact, seven centuries separate Manuel II and Basil II, the emperor who, indeed, burst the eyes of his prisoners.

Context of the quotation
The controversial statement ("Show me that Mohammed brought anything new: you will find nothing, but bad and inhuman, for instance what he states by ordering his faith to be imposed by sword") is taken from the 7th chapter of a book which is composed of 26 chapters.

This 7th book was edited in 1966 by Th. Khoury in Sources Chretiennes 115, and, it seems, it is from this edition that Pope took this statement, since he quotes Th. Khoury. The entire Greek text was edited by E. Trapp in 1966 in the Wiener Byzantinische Studien. A revised edition is being done by K. Forstel in the le Corpus islamo-christianum, series graeca. A German translation of chapters 1, 2, 5, 6 and 7 has been published by R. Senoner in 2003 in Wien.

Context of the discussion

According to a treaty between his father John V Paleologus and the Sultan Bayezid, who had helped him against his rebel grandson, Manuel II has to serve as a vassal in the army of Bayezid. During a campaign in Asia Minor against the Mongols (1391), he held a discussion, as sharp as peaceful, with an ulema of Ankara, with whom he is staying. Some years after, while Bayezid was besieging Constantinople, Manuel wrote this discussion. The title was : "Dialogue of Emperor Manuel with a Persian" ("Persian", in the Byzantine language of this time, meant Turk, to remind people of the ancient conflict between Greeks and Persians).

Contrary to many treatises of anti-Muslim polemics, which we find in Western Christendom as well as in the Byzantine Empire, this text is the written record of a discussion that really took place. Manuel presents his Muslim partner in a positive way, as an host respectful and curious to know the religion of his host. The discussion is as cordial as frank, since neither of the two hesitates to expose what he doesn't like in the religion of the other. The relations between both men are not altered by it. This text is one of the first interreligious dialogues, where each people displays his own truth and looks for dialogue without disavowing anything of what he believes.

The editor, Th. Khoury, writes in his introduction: "The immoderate expressions, relatively rare, which we can read in the text come mostly from the liberties that Manuel took when finally writing his text". The fact that Bayezid was besieging Constantinople when Manuel was writing can explain the hardening of his language.

Violence and Faith

Returning to the quotation, and the issue of violence and faith. Benedict XVI quotes a statement of the 7th Controversy, which concerns Jihad. It is a classical theme of the polemics between Byzantines and muslims. We find it from the first centuries of the arab conquest.

This theme gained importance after the Crusades. At the time of Manuel, when Byzantines objected to the idea of a holy war, they have as a line of sight, in the same time, Muslim Jihad and western crusade. It is an aspect of Byantine mentality that we should never forget, especially at the end of the Empire. By opposing Islam on that point, a Byzantine has always in his mind the trauma of 4th Crusade and all theexpeditions when they saw Christian soldiers with a cross on their dresses and handling a sword on the name of Christ.

We see that this statement, when put into its context, gains a meaning different from the one the media give it.

Byzantiniste Marie Helene Congourdeau

*))))MideastWeb Middle East Web Log(((*
Byzantine 2006 - Putting Quotes Back In Context

Daily Show on the Popes Comments and Muslim Response