Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
Can you imagine that I almost failed to click on this headline on the grounds that "Turkey Celebrates Pharmacy Day" did not sound like important news?
You guys are always asking me why I love Turkey. This is why! How amazing is it that I just woke up in this country?
Ottoman hospitals operated as polyclinics but with a difference, no charge including home visits and medicine. And no charge if the sick person’s caretakers came in place of them and described the symptoms to the doctors who would explain what medicine was to be given to the caretakers at no charge. According to Dr. Ayten Altıntaş at the Şifahanes of Istanbul, anyone taking advantage of the free facility would be hit with the curses of the Pharaoh and Croesus, whatever those might be.
Now that is an elegant solution to the challenge of keeping down health care costs. I point out: I'm living in a country where I can just walk outside and check out these Ottoman hospitals.
The medicine used would be kept in the depots of the hospitals. The most important of these medicines were such medicines as antidotes and were used for every kind of ailment, especially in cases of poisoning.
I'm living in a country where not long ago, the most important medicines were antidotes to poisoning. (And frankly, I hope they've kept up-to-date on that expertise.)
And I must say: I am closely following the Republican Party nomination contest, and yes, it's my country and I care very deeply about the outcome, but I cannot watch Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty speak for even a minute without fighting to keep my eyes open. I've just been spoiled by the drama of a Turkish general election. How can you compete with politicians who say things like this?
Meanwhile, BDP co-chair Gültan Kışanak said in Batman Friday that Erdoğan suffered from schizophrenia ...
... Sex tape scandals hitting Turkey’s opposition parties are holding politics hostage and could be products of an organized crime gang, a former prosecutor running for Parliament from the main opposition has said ...
... Anonymous plotters warned the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, to step aside by May 18 if he does not want to see more sex and audio tapes of his closest aides released. ...
... Additionally, Erdoğan accused the CHP leader of lying, calling him a “walking lie.” “How can a man tell so many lies without being ashamed of himself or blushing? How could he acquire the ability to tell so many lies? If you want to see a walking lie, then look at Kılıçdaroğlu.” ...
... A program of “dark propaganda” is being plotted in Turkey to smear the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, by manipulating a number of controversial issues, party leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said. ...
... Referring to the TSK’s stance toward the Kurdish question, Müftüoğlu said the TSK adopted a “Führer” position toward the issue, while calling CHP’s Professor Binnaz Toprak “cockatoo.” ....
... Describing the parliament speaker Mehmet Ali Şahin’s statements as inconsistent, he also called Kılıçdaroğlu an “underdeveloped chief.” ....
... In reference to the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, leader, Müftüoğlu said the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, poured laxative in Kılıçdaroğlu’s compote, causing him to have diarrhea ...
Come on, admit it: If we could count on American politicians to say things like this every time they opened their mouths, we'd all be having more fun. It won't be a great election season, by my books, until someone accuses the Democrats of pouring a laxative in Ron Paul's compote.
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Nov '10
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
In other words, one might say, John Locke (America) is eminently more boring than, say, Nietzsche (Turkey/chaos).
Come to think of it, maybe this is related somehow to why that pretty Turkish dingbat couldn't say "I feel like John Locke."
I'm sorry, but why is a country where the most important medicines are antidotes to poisoning so lovable?
Why invite vastly greater amounts of Turks and Muslims to immigrate into a country where they can (allegedly) become so boring?
Nov '10
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
Reason TV put out a great little video about the Jefferson/Adams election, with its similar over-the-top expression...Maybe it's a good sign for Turkey.
Apr '11
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
"Come on, admit it: If we could count on American politicians to say things like this every time they opened their mouths, we'd all be having more fun."
Yeah we might be having more fun but we'd be Turkey. I'm not sure that's much of a trade. When picking candidates for the highest office in the land I don't think American Idol is the best model we could use for choosing. Lately I find myself growing nostalgic about Party Conventions and back-room deals.
Jul '10
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
We might not have loose bowels in American politics to the degree we might want, but we do have incontinence of another kind as evidenced by the disclosures about the private lives of the Johns, Edwards and Ensign, and Newt Gingrich flatteringly telling his second wife she was a Jaguar and he wanted to trade down to a Chevrolet mistress for comfort's sake.
Aug '10
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
Any mention of Turkey and "polyclinics" reminds me of the Ankara one I saw in 1992 with the big banner reading "It's Our Circumcision Season."
As for Turkey and politics, well, that all sounds juicy; but far more interesting to me about this or any country is what's left unsaid. Example: yesterday on Zaman I saw an article about a mine detector invented by a retired Turkish soldier. OK, thinks I; this is for sweeping areas where terrorists have laid ambushes. And maybe it is, but the story didn't say that. It was chiefly concerned with a treaty Turkey had signed, by whose terms it was obligated to destroy its stocks of landmines. Apparently those stocks are in the ground, placed there by Turkey's armed forces within its own borders, and it doesn't remember where, and now it has to find them.
Am I getting that right?
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
Robert Lux:
I'm sorry, but why is a country where the most important medicines are antidotes to poisoning so lovable?
Those were Ottoman, not contemporary hospitals.
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
Yes, I think it is. And I think we've lost something in both our rhetorical and political tradition in that we seem now to prize a kind of reassuring, anodyne rhetorical blandness in our politicians. There's a great deal of wit in Turkish political discourse, and what seems to me an appropriate level of emotional affect, given that the stakes really are that high. They're that high in America, too--but our debates sound a lot like Tylenol commercials. Our political language has been sanitized and infantilized, and I'm not at all sure that's a good thing.
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
Herkybird: "Come on, admit it: If we could count on American politicians to say things like this every time they opened their mouths, we'd all be having more fun."
Yeah we might be having more fun but we'd be Turkey. I'm not sure that's much of a trade. When picking candidates for the highest office in the land I don't think American Idol is the best model we could use for choosing. Lately I find myself growing nostalgic about Party Conventions and back-room deals. · May 14 at 4:51am
American Idol, no. But can you read the Lincoln-Douglas debates without thinking that something important in our debating tradition has been lost?
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
This is great, by the way. Thanks. Go watch it, everyone!
Sep '10
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
May I suggest the perfectly appropriate medicine Obama can take to cure him of his habit of serial fibbing and general ungraciousness? Commonly known as the "black and white," it is a laxative consisting of Cascara Sagrada (black) and Milk of Magnesia (white). Maybe if he takes it in 2012 during National Pharmacy Month (October in the US), he can be a gracious loser by the time the election in November is over.
Heck, I'd even buy it for him myself in honor of National Pharmacy Month!
Edited on May 14, 2011 at 7:51amMay '10
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
A rich tapestry indeed. May you live in an interesting country. Sadly, the use cyanide is still in its cruder, less romantic stage.
"It was such tales as this which the Romans like to cite to make themselves proud of the relative civility of our republic. As a young man, I had admired the Alexandrians' passion for politics, though I could never accustom myself to their propensity for sudden, extreme violence. Alexandrian healers peddle a poultice with the Egyptian name "cure-for-a-human-bite-which-draws-blood" and most households keep a supply on hand." - The Venus Throw, Steven Saylor.
Plus ca change...
Dec '10
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
Test, this is only a test. If this were a real post it would likely contain inane drivel.
Apr '11
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
"...But can you read the Lincoln-Douglas debates without thinking that something important in our debating tradition has been lost?..."
That's sort of my point. I'm presently reading Pauling Maier's, Ratification - the story of how the Constitution was approved by the states. How many public figures today can, like Patrick Henry back then, address an assembly with speeches - ex tempore - lasting a whole day and sometimes two - in a losing cause - and still have the audience proclaim him the most eloquent speaker of the convention?
Or for that matter, how about former Mayor of Boston, James Michael Curley? A man of little formal education who prided himself on his vocabulary and public eloquence; a man persuasive enough to get himself elected to office from a jail cell. Or Teddy Roosevelt and FDR?
Today, in terms of public persona, I'd just settle for someone buying the President a necktie to wear when getting off the big jet.
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
Herkybird: "...But can you read the Lincoln-Douglas debates without thinking that something important in our debating tradition has been lost?..."
That's sort of my point. I'm presently reading Pauling Maier's, Ratification - the story of how the Constitution was approved by the states. How many public figures today can, like Patrick Henry back then, address an assembly with speeches - ex tempore - lasting a whole day and sometimes two - in a losing cause - and still have the audience proclaim him the most eloquent speaker of the convention?
Yes, I think we're agreeing. While I surely don't hold up Turkish political debate as a model to which we should aspire, there is something about the vitality of these exchanges that reminds me of something we've lost.
Jul '10
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
Herkybird: "...But can you read the Lincoln-Douglas debates without thinking that something important in our debating tradition has been lost?..."
That's sort of my point. I'm presently reading Pauling Maier's, Ratification - the story of how the Constitution was approved by the states. How many public figures today can, like Patrick Henry back then, address an assembly with speeches - ex tempore - lasting a whole day and sometimes two - in a losing cause - and still have the audience proclaim him the most eloquent speaker of the convention?
I'm not sure it would live up to such exalted standards, but I would love to watch a series of debates between Paul Ryan and Russ Feingold for Kohl's senate seat.
As long as there was a good moderator (simple, broad questions with follow-ups for specifics, no oh-so-clever 300 word diatribe "trap" questions) those would be worth a road trip.
Nov '10
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
[W]e seem now to prize a kind of reassuring, anodyne rhetorical blandness in our politicians...our debates sound a lot like Tylenol commercials. Our political language has been sanitized and infantilized, and I'm not at all sure that's a good thing. · May 14 at 7:14am
Anodyne rhetorical blandness goes hand in hand with progressive, apolitical politics (progressivism being just as prominent on the right as on the left: Exhibit A, as Paul Rahe says, Mitt Romney is a "technocratic progressive").
Apolitical politics and plain viciousness, however, are inconsistent. In fact, the more apolitical our politics becomes, the more vicious it becomes. The viciousness simply takes a less directly individualized form, as in a one-on-one political debate, and debate otherwise takes the "Tylenol" form. Last I checked, a former President of the United States categorically labeled all those who are vigorously opposed to Obamacare as racists. Few things more toxic have been uttered in American history. This is, furthermore, the meme and subtext running through much of leftist rhetoric.
Heck, even here at Ricochet, bigotry and xenophobia are imputed to you for thinking that increasing Muslim immigration is profoundly unwise.
Nov '10
Re: Plots, Poisonings, and Compote Laxatives--It's Turkish Pharmacy Day!
* "Apolitical politics and plain viciousness, however, are NOT inconsistent."