Big News For Turkey: Dear Turkish Readers, Please Read!!

My Dear Readers, and Especially my Turkish Readers; ğ
   As you all know about the failed coup attempt this past weekend, I must say, we all know where this beautiful country of Turkey will be headed. 
Let's not think of that right now. Just a couple of hours ago, Recip Tayyip Erdoğan madae a speech and said he is announcing something big on Wednesday. 
If you want to know what it is, please read further. 

I have friends in the U.S. Military who are stationed in Incirlik. They are no more. The Turkish President had just Three hours and 40 minutes ago told the U.S. Government and all her Allies to leave Turkey immediately for face prison. One German is detained in prison presently, and there are two more who are suspected to be detained, yet I can not confirm that. What I DO know is that the Nuclear Weapons are currently being removed in an undisclosed location and All the Troops who were helping Turkey (namely the US, but there were Germans, Dutch, Norwegian and other Military Soldiers)to defead ISIL, and Syrian Government, as well as all the other Political unrest in the region. 
Do not be fooled by Erdoğan. he is cunning, charismatic, and can be highly emotional. He is not to be trusted. 
What other news he will be announcing on Wednesday, we will have to see, but pay attention, my Readers, American Soliders have been forced to evacute TODAY and they have left as we speak, to Kuwait. 
I will bring more information as I have it. 

Please be safe. I love my Turkish country. I am so sad to see all the suffering there. I hope my former students (Exactly the ages of the soldiers) are safe, and did not die in the hands of this great weekend of terror and sorrow. 

Peace Be Upon you

Istanbul News

This morning I woke up to my husband calling me on Facetime and it was really nice to talk to him. I worked on the documents I am sending to the NVC and he was simultaneously doing the things he needed to send me. It was about 9 a.m. for me about 6p.m. for him. About 10 p.m. his time his father came in the living room and said to turn on the T.V. quickly, there was an attack at the Ataturk International Airport. How grievous. So, what the news got there is different than here. Let me tell you what happened.  

According to reports from eye witnesses, and employees of the airport (who were also eye witnesses) A man was in the International Arrivals leaving the airport, and had to check in his baggage through airport security. He was getting aggitated because he wanted to get through quickly. However, the airport security asked for him to please be paitent as they were looking in the scanner in his bag. The man threw some hand grenades into the where his bag was (the bag was a bomb inside,) and burst through the security line yelling and throwing more hand grenades.He had an assult weapon and was firing it as well.  He had strapped to himself a bomb and as he was yelling and throwing hand grenades, he blew himself up. Others at the scene said there were two people, and one was firing assult weapon while the other was throwing hand grenades.The one who was firing the A-K 47, ran around, and would try to shoot anyone he could see. There was no method of whom he was shooting at. Eye witnesses said when he was done shooting, he simply turned, walked down the escalator, and went out of the airport (there is a metro in the lowest floor the airport, most likely to catch a metro?)  One man tried to grab, and threw down the suicide bomber who had explosives under his vest.  60 (count may go higher) people died, and more than 125 people were severely injured, more than several people were in critically injured. The largest marjority amoung the dead were Turkish Citizens. 

Within 30 minutes of this taken place, a Government Offical (Husband recognized him as the Secretary of State for Turkey) was already on the scene and addressing the situation, and many people were on their phones with what happened as well. 

This act of terror is one of so many, it is hard to count now, in Turkey. I hope that we stop giving notice to those terrorist groups, and call htem for what they are. Cowards. They are terrorists, but don't deserve for the media to say who they are. So far, people are specualting, but thinking that Da'esh is responsible. 

One man that spoke to the camera, in turkish said that he was going to the Duty Free store to buy some alcohol, when all the sudden he heard the bombs go off, and most of the bottles in the store came crashing to the floor, everyone in the store was terrified, and they knew it was bombs going off. 

This is one of the many terrorists attacks, whose lives have been taken (most over 150 lives) in the past year, and this year alone Turkey has been suffering so far, 5 attacks before this one on the 28th of June 2016. Of course those are reported attacks, and who is to say there have been more. 

Turkish Citizens: Our heart and prayers are with you and your family at this horrible time in history.  

Dear Turkey: I Will Be Blogging A LOT about you!

This is not a threat, it is a promise and it is not a warning. (unless you take it that way)
I will wait until my husband is at my side and boom... Stay tuned. I have a lot to say about Turkey. I have a lot to say about "work ethics", how women are treated, how Doctors are not allowed to use all their resources and how students are treated and how University students are not inspired by greatness but forced to study "according to their intelligence" so in other words, poorer kids get less opportunities for education but rich kids get lots of opportunities. I will blog about racism and how prejudism is a live and working here. So, go right ahead, Mr Prime Minister of Turkey, I welcome you to keep doing and saying what you do and say. Because us really informed and educated people do not blame foreingers for the problems of your own decisions and country. 

**Stepping off my soap box... For now**

More News From Turkey

So, over the past couple of weeks, the Turkish Government in all their Wisdom, had decided to obtain more money in the Economic Crisis. Their answer?

  Charge a forced and mandated Government Insurance to all foreigners who will be staying longer than one consecutive year in Turkey, whether working, going to school, not working... Whatever the reason for staying longer than one year, you must pay the government for Mandatory Government Health Care. If you do not pay you will be fined an out rageous amount of money, and the rates of said insurance a month goes wayyyy up.

If you think about it, this is brilliant. I say to Reciyyip Erdoğan ... KUDOS! I will tell you why. We in USA need this. We in America love LOVE people visiting, but, this will get rid of everyone that wants to stay illegally in the USA.

 The downside?

The laws right now are ambiguous and no one knows where to pay and who to pay and the price of said insurance is a rumor. Three webpages I have been to said the cost is £2,000 a year, meaning  £166.66 a month and  that if you do not pay it will have a fine of £2000 plus an additional £200 a month for a year. However, the Turkish webpage that The Long Rock was on said that it was 50 TL a month and if you do not pay it was 200TL a month and a fine of 2,000TL. There were two webpages that said that all those from the UK or UK Territories, Netherlands and France, Ukraine and Russia were responible and one webpage said it was only UK Passport holders while The Long Rock said that it was ALL foreigners or anyone with out a Turkish Citizenship, or not married to a Turkish Citizen.

 Apparently there are many Foreigners that come to Turkey, illegally work, get sick or injured, and rely on the Social Government to care for their health care problems. Many people retire and come to live in Turkey.

Turkey is saying Welcome, but we are not paying for your insurance if you are not a Citizen! Way to go, Turkey! I like that a lot. I am not being sarcastic. I like that when you live in a country you are not allowed the same Rights as though you are a Citizen of that country! (Sound Familiar!) I like the idea a lot. Now... Just how to pay...

  We will see as it unfolds. I have a Legal Residence Card, from here. So we will see what happens and I will be sure to update...

YAY!

I posted this a while back and wanted to Thank the Prime Minister of Turkey, Mr Erdoğan for not taking all the webpages I love from me. You Mr Prime Minister, are a Cool Dude. 
I love Turkey again. 

I am so so happy!!!

I am writing in Red to personally give my thanks to the Turkish PM Erdoğan. A few months ago it was announced that he will be shutting down the internet. Many people protested. Many people were so angry. 
But I posted some really nice things about him and I think that is why My internet was not effected by all this hullabaloo. I think that protesting is not what the PM wanted but rather, he wanted to read about how cool he is and how nice he is and how much I like him. How could he resist my sweet words about what a great guy he is???
So, I hope that I continue to have a FB account, and be able to correspond with my family so far from me. And so, from time to time I shall be writing about this wonderful PM of Turkey. This is a great place to live. 
 Just now, We need to get Çorlu in shape. That is going to take more work. The Mayor of this fine city is not so grand. I am not proud to say... 
 I will have to blog that for another time because this is Thanks, MR PM of Turkey for not shutting off my internet!!!

You have been warned Thus-ly

So, I have been saying that the internet will change here in Turkey in August... 
 The Prime Minister of Turkey on the 13th of June just won another session of Power. Many people are happy to have the AK Party of Turkey as the Majority. 
   I do not know. 
 I do know a lot of good is having him be the Prime Minister... Just the internet thing I am kind of thinking about a lot... 
  Anyway... 
If I can not come online after the 22nd of August, 
 You have been warned

Quite a stir!

So, as you all know ergo previous blog about Turkey's internet being closed; There may be a lot of technical difficulties tonight and for the next couple days. The reason for this is because people have decided to protest the fact that there is going to be a shut down of many things pertaining to the internet on the 22nd of August. This means I have to do a lot of preparing. 
   For me it might be the end of the world. 
 Let me give you an idea:
 I speak to my mom and skype about once every month. This is because my mom and dad do not know how to use the internet very well (fear not! When I come this Summer will be teaching them about the internet and I will have complete reference index cards to refer to as well: They are going to LOVE İT!) 
  I email my mom almost on a daily basis and I have my kids that are very important to me that I email all the time. I have friends and family that I email and the best way for me to stay in touch is email. Calling you say? Well, in Turkey to have a landline is hugely expensive just for basic service. Now they have a deal where by you can get internet, landline and mobile phone for a package deal but even that is expensive. The internet effects text messaging too. 
  Yes, this is true. Our little mobile phones although we do not think of them as such are little computers. They need internet in order to send a receive text messages, pictures and voice messages on a "mms" multimedia service message. If we get closed down on the internet it will also effect how we do banking here in Turkey too. (we do not have the checking system I love so much in Utah!)  ATM's are controlled with the internet. Remember the big hype about Y2K scare when we were changing everything to make sure that the computers read 2000?  Well, That is because everything is done from the internet now.
 Is it the end of the world? 
 Well... If I have to go back to snail mailing my mom and dad, not looking at FB and not seeing my family, I admit it will not kill me per say, But HECK YEAH! It will KİLL me! 
 I do my English lesson preparation with the internet. OK. I love LOVE reading real books and touching them and the smell of newly printed books but heck I love reading my friends blogs and looking at what my family is doing also and it makes things easier and less expensive to talk. It costs 2 dollars a minute to call me and then there are fees on top of it to call me. For me to call it is about 3 dollars a minute and plus there are sometimes fees to family members. Some family members said to not call because it is not free for them when I call!!!  Things we can love to live with out but love to live with!!!

The Turkish Prime Minister is a Great Guy

I do not want to cause any fights. I don't want to make anyone upset. I think the Turkish PM is a great guy. He has helped this country a lot. He has brought  the İsrealis and the Middle Easterners together and then influenced them to not talk about peace and then influenced them again to talk about peace. When he is angry, he keeps his head cool. I like that in a Prime Minister. I like him so much, in fact, here is a pic of him.

 See? He loves his country. He has the nice Turkish flag behind him. and he is sitting at his desk ready to pass laws. Like the new internet law. That law is really... Well because I want to keep my blog opened, That law is great. If he does not like something he has a lot of power. He can just block it. For example You Tube. Or, Facebook. Which is not a big deal to many people but it is if you have family far away, and you want to listen to some nice music but you can not afford to buy CD's because pirating is illegal you can go to You Tube to listen to it.
   Now if you are the Turkish PM... If you dislike something, you are so cool you can get out some bad A fist and block something on YouTube, like a whole website so no one in your country can see it he is so cool, he can just block it and not one person in Turkey can watch it. That works good for porn or for perverted sites. I agree. I hate pornography and there are so man perverts out there, I wish all internet porn could be blocked forever. But, Facebook is not pornography and I have many friends that I do not get to see. I have family that with out the internet and without Facebook I would never get to see them and know what they are doing every 30 minutes at their jobs when they update their Facebook status. I would not know how Heidi Sterling messed up an account at work and was scared of getting fired. I would have missed out on my uncle's babysitting experience with three kids and how he was changing a poopy diaper and how all three kids slipped and fell on a floor covered in pee. He even was giving us updates with no picture (sad!) on FB while he was trying to clean up the poop.  I would have missed out on a lot over the last year, and come to think of it I will miss out on more if the internet law passes on August 22nd.
  I hope that this Prime Minister likes Facebook enough to allow me to keep talking to my friends and family in USA. I hope that he also does not throw me out of Turkey for writing this either!
   Maybe if I tell him how awesome he is he will not kick me out and he will not close my blog and he will not close Facebook. OK... So I watch Fox News of You Tube but I can let that one go. What about TiVibu though? Hmmmm... OK... But not Google nor Google Video... I hear that Turkey as of 22 August will be more strict than China... Do I need to pull out the tissues and cry yet? We will see.
In the meantime, I think everyone should invite Mr Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Facebook as his friend and make sure you say the nicest things about him too.
  I want to tell this Prime Minister thanks for controlling me on the internet, but how can I do that in a way that he can see how sincere and thoughtful I am? do I send him Congratulations flowers? A box of Turkish Delight? do I have him over for Tea and Cake? Maybe send him a Utah Jazz Jersey? Autographed copies for PM not pulling the plug on You Tube.
 The Snuggle Bear agrees with me and yet does not want any conflict. We want to be able to stay in Turkey. And it is a great place to live.

Just saying...

Peace Out