...and in other news

Good afternoon, this is Jessi Jones reporting live from Istanbul, Turkey where breaking news in the political realm is causing an uproar....

The Turkish Parliament outlawed the DTP party yesterday...(party names are not important if you are not fully invested in Turkish politics so i will give you a brief overview)

The DTP is the main supporter of Kurds and Kurdish rights in Turkey....

The Kurds in Turkey are already on edge and from time to time they create problems in Turkey.... In the past they have killed soldiers, civilians, and tourists on their path to gain either equality or seperation from Turkey I am still not sure what exactly they want...

However, all the Kurds i have met are smart, thoughtful and in many cases, kind and generous people... so i have come to think of this as a violent version of the Civil rights movement...what the Kurds need is a Ghandi like figurehead...or Martin Luther King, or a Nelson Mandella, or Dalai Lama....

their current imprisoned leader (Ocalan Abdullah) seems to create even more divisivness that leads to more resentment and dislike of the Kurdish party (PKK) by external parties and the international community because it is seen as violent and uncooperative.

So in any case...the abolishment of the DTP caused riots and protests to break out on Istiklal street in Taksim yesterday which dampened my already drenched spirits (it's been raining like niagra falls) because suddenly it was no longer safe to go up to Istiklal where i normally take my dinner and tea.

So instead i stayed inside and had a discussion with my friend about the PKK and why he disliked them...which somehow turned into a discussion of Hamas and the situation in Palestine, Israel and Gaza Strip...and the next thing i know my friend says..."occupied Palestine territories" and all of a sudden my temper flares.

Now everyone should understand that when you get upset...all your reasoning and logic disappears. so at this point i should have simply bid my friend good night and gone to bed

instead i begin to pump him for information on why he doesn't recognize Israel and before i know it, we aren't speaking at all.

This is the problem...the root of almost every conflict.

People get so emotionally invested in one side, that they refuse or cannot see the other side of the arguement. I see this happen every time someone takes a hard line on a touchy subject i forget to actually listen and i automatically hunker down and prepare to return fire.

What if...and i'm just supposing here

what if we all just listened to each other...and i mean the real listening...where you aren't just waiting for an openeing where you can jump in and state your opinion

i mean listening so that when the person finishes talking you have to take a few moments silence just to digest what they have said and you even repeat it back to them to make sure you hear it correctly.

And what if everyone did this....and really tried to step outside of themselves and see the other side...

what then?

I dont care if you are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Taoist, Morman, Athiest, Pagan, or reincarnated as a squirrel democrat, republican, Tory, Whig, Labor, AKP, Communist, socialist, Anarchist, nationalist, Iranian, american, english, canadian, Chinese, Icelandic, black, white, yellow, blue, red, green, orange....

None of us has a road map to a perfect world....no one has a monopoly on the truth or being right...

we may have to do some things that we dont like...and we may have to take a hit to our pride...and we may have to accept that some people just do not believe the same exact thing we believe...doesn't mean they are wrong

We may not all speak the same languages but our ears serve the same purpose...to listen...to comprehend...to understand each other....



and now back to your regularly scheduled program....