The Dangers of Rejecting Turkey

When I first glanced at this subject heading in my email inbox last week, I briefly thought, oh, heeeeere we go. Some idiot has decided eating turkey is absolutely necessary to the survival of the human race. Life as we know it, according to some scientist in god-knows-where Azerbaijan, will end, turning upon the mandatory consumption of a giant NorthAmerican fowl.

Imagine the jarring feeling I got when I read the first paragraph of the article: "Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked out of Davos in a huff last week during a discussion about Gaza in which he berated Israel..." and I subsequently discovered that the COUNTRY of Turkey is apparently hugely strategic, a NATO ally and a longstanding friend to the West. "What Turks do and think affects the balance of power in the world, positioned as they are between the Middle East and Europe, between Russia and the Arab-Islamic bloc, while serving as Iraq's conduit for trade and supplies in the south and Georgia's in the north." Oh. THAT Turkey.

Which leads me to my reflections for today, dear reader. How insulated I have become in my own mental construct, how completely attuned to ALL THINGS COMESTIBLE... that I automatically think of the food-related meanings with regards to all communications. I am truly food-centered. This has got to stop.

So I asked myself, what would the Prime Minister of Turkey do in this instance? Why not randomly take a look at my personal issues from Turkey's perspective? To start with, let's examine Erdogan's personal motives, the first and most important: "As the global economy tanks and brings Turkey with it, he needs to distract attention from the bottom line." So taking a lesson from Erdogan, I must begin to DISTRACT myself from FOOD. I came up with these strategies for this week:

1. Spend as much time engaged in my work, my projects, and exercise as possible.
2. Avoid ALL commercials and advertisements involving food.
3. Think about NO recipes...engage in monoeating for the next several weeks.
4. Plan for weeks, but execute the DAYS...mayhaps the HOURS.
   

That's it. Oh, I won't go into how two-faced Erdogan is behaving in the world arena. In all of this, it doesn't matter whether the Turks are right or wrong, wise or ill-advised in their sense of grievance. Or how Erdogan is certainly playing a dangerous game. What may bear ill omen: the West is not in the game at all. As Melik Kaylan says in his Forbes article this week, "While Russia has become Turkey's main trading partner, Iran a partner in the struggle to contain Kurdish separatism, Syria ditto, and Arab oil money a major investor, the West [keeps standing Turkey up at the dance,] while Turkey waits, publicly humiliated."

He was, after all, a mere pawn in my arbitrary choice of a blog topic.