10 Things to Know for Today and This Week: Children's Day in Turkey

Here are 10 Things To Know for April 23rd, 2015:

1) Today is National Children's Day in Turkey (top image from Kusadasi, Turkey)

2) Today is William Shakespeare's 451th birthday (center image)

3) Arda Turan (Turkey, pict. bottom) got a red card for Atletico Madrid late in yesterday's Champions League game versus Real Madrid.

4) Bayern Munich (Germany),  Juventus (Italy), Barcelona and Real Madrid (Spain) advanced to the semi-finals in Champions League play.

5) Freddie Gray's death after an arrest by the Baltimore Police Department has sparked city-wide protests in Baltimore, Maryland.

6) Michael Moore, America's leading liberal documentary filmmaker, turns 61 today.

7) Popeye is called Temel Reis in Turkey.

8) The original pilot episode for "Mister Ed," an American tv comedy about a talking horse, cost a mere $70,000 to produce in 1961.

9) Odense is the third largest city in Denmark.

10) Claudio Bisogneiro is the Italian ambassador to the United States.

Happy Children's Day, It's a National Holiday in Turkey

We are wishing everyone in Turkey a Happy Children's Day. 23 Nisan/April 23rd was first recognized by modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1920.

While figuring out which image to use, we stumbled across an image of this children's magazine with the Smurfs on the cover.

It was through another children's magazine "Tercuman Cocuk" (Cocuk is the Turkish word for children) that I first heard of the Smurfs, which were actually created in Belgium. In early editions, the Smurfs accompanied the Little Prince.

We recently found that particular magazine which came out on Feb. 25, 1978, some ten days before my eighth birthday.

Some right-wingers, perhaps someone like Cal Thomas or Newt Gingrich, has theorized that the Smurfs are a Marxist entity because they encourage community building.

Yeah, we think they are reading too much into it too.

Since Monday was National Children's Day in Turkey, the country of my late father Mehmet Gokbudak, we thought we'd feature this image of a Turkish girl that we believe was taken at a large holiday festival in the resort town of Kusadasi.

During the last year when I lived in Turkey (we resided in Zonguldak province in the western Black Sea from 1977-79) Turkish Radio Television, also known as the TRT, started an international children's festival with delegations from other countries around the world.

This year, the participating countries included Egypt, Finland and South Korea.

Here in the United States, individual Turkish-American organizations, such as ATA-NC in Cary (Raleigh), NC, hold local events in honor of Children's Day.http://www.ata-nc.org

While researching this piece, we discovered that the most-celebrated Children's Day is actually on June 1st. It is celebrated in many former Soviet republics, including Armenia, Azerbaijan and (of course) Russia as well as former communist country, including Turkey's neighbor Bulgaria.

Quote of the Week- Jean Paul Sartre

While putting this piece together, I was struck by the irony that my late Turkish father and the late French Marxist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) both enjoyed smoking pipes even though my father was a bit of a right-wing Turkish nationalist!

Sartre, who was also among the leading atheist intellectuals in France, is known for his widely-read short story collection "Le Mur/The Road" (1938) and his philosophy collection "Being and Nothingness" (1943).

I found a copy of a book called "Sartre for Beginners" (1998), written by Philip Thordy and Howard Reed and published by Icon Books, at the Internationalist Bookstore in Chapel Hill, NC.

Icon Books recently published a book by English author Kate Munro called "The First Time" about modern sexuality, which also sounds like an interesting read.

Due to time constraints are quote today is going to be extremely short; we are planning to have quotes from many French people past and present in July. This entry is part of our month-long series on quotes from left-wing, radical figures. Here is the quip from Sartre:

"Hell is other people."

SIDEBAR: While I was trying to put this entry together at the Wilson, NC, public library (not really where I am at!), a group of children came through the doors and they really annoyed me. As the late American comic actor W.C. Fields once said: "No one qho hate dogs and children can be all that bad."

I don't dislike children as individuals, but when there are large groups of them, they get on my last nerve, which is perhaps why it is a good thing that I am not a father.

But, I found this interesting disclosure from someone who did not give their name or hometown on myworstsecret.com who professes an even more profound distaste for children than I do. This person and I are probably very different in other aspects of life, which I will go into after showing what he or she said:

"I hate children. I really do. Oddly enough, I'm pro-life and have a 2 year old. I don't want kids to DIE, I just can't stand them."

Personally, I am a moderate liberal (though I love to quote socialists; it must come from being surrounded by Yosemite Sam Republicans) and I am pro-choice. Also, I would not use the word hate for how I feel about children, but in groups of two or more, they do tend to profoundly annoy me!

Ironically, I had a post on this blog for Children's Day in Turkey, which is on April 23rd....

Hapy Children's Day in Turkey

Saturday, April 23rd, will be Children's Day in Turkey. It was officially started in 1927 as an idea by the Republic of Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

For more info on the date and its origins, visit our sister blog "The Daily Vampire."

Here in America, many local Turkish-American associations, including the one in the Chicago metro area, have their own events for the occasion.

Dr. Mehmet Oz (known more commonly as Dr. Oz), Cenk Uygur of MSNBC, a fellow progressive Turkish-American and author/writer Elif Batuman whose work has appeared in "The New Yorker" are among the most notable of Turkish-Americans who were born in the United States. Uygur, who turned 41 last month, and I have birthdays that are two and a half weeks apart!

April 23 was Children's Day in Turkey

Today was Children's Day in Turkey, where it is now circa 11 a.m. (Saturday), so this entry is already a bit dated but we hope the children in Turkey, my late father Mehmet Gokbudak's country had a festive holiday.

This picture is from the resort town of Kushadasi where tourists have perhaps already started flocking to. I know Kushadasi is very popular with Swedes and Norwegians, perhaps because the water is significantly warmer in Turkey. We hope that they are also able to get home without any Icelandic volcano fiascoes.

I heard a BBC reporter who was vacationing in Istanbul decide to take a bus to France to eventually get back to England, and she was stranded on the Bulgarian-Macedonian border because of a bureaucratic problem with her passport!

There is also a major soccer match this weekend as league leaders GalataSaray (Istanbul) and BursaSpor clash in a key game. They just happen to be my favorite teams, but I get to watch Turkish futbol as often as I get to go out on a date with Jennifer Love Hewitt!

Today is Children's Day in Turkey

This image is of Turkish children in school. Children's Day has been celebrated in Turkey, my late father's country, since 1935.

Children from all over the world come to Turkey for the occasion.

I actually marched in a Children's Day Parade in Zonguldak Eregli back in 1978 when I was 8 years old.

Though I grew up in Roanoke, Va., we did live in Turkey for two years from 1977-1979.