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Today's Stories May 20 / 21, 2006 Patrick Cockburn iraq is Disintegrating May 19, 2006 Winslow T. Wheeler Democrats and the Defense Budget: Just as Ruinous as the Republicans José Pertierra Posada Carriles: Extradite or Prosecute, There's No Other Option John Ross The Marcos Factor: Mexico's Electoral Wildcard Dave Lindorff Virtual America Jeff Juel Ecological Extortion in the National Forests? Alan Farago Defanging the Endangered Species Act Eric Johnson-DeBaufre Building a New Sanctuary Movement José Martî Letter to Manuel Mercado: "The Revolution Desires Complete Freedom" Jonathan Cook Marriage Ban Closes the Gates to Palestinians Website of the Day Fix the Movie and Revolutionize the Movie Industry!   May 18, 2006 Bill Simpich Building a Movement that will be Stronger After the US is Out of Iraq: Lessons from the 1970 Student Strike Patrick Cockburn The Carnage in Basra Christopher Brauchli The Needle and the Damage Done: the Death Penalty's Ministers Nora Barrows-Friedman The Nakba in Palestine Victoria Buch In the Name of Israel's State Security Eric Ruder Nuclear Hypocrites George Wuerthner The Ice Cream Wilderness? Juan Santos The Border War Comes Home Website of the Day Help Stop Animal Torture at Devore   May 17, 2006 Lenni Brenner The Lobby and the Great Protestant Crusader Carlos Villarreal Immigrant Scapegoats and the Manufacturing of a Crisis Larry Everest Catching Rumsfeld Red-Handed: an Interview with Ray McGovern CounterPunch News Service Hugo Chavez: the London Sessions Lee Sustar Compromise and Conquer? Inside the Senate Immigration Bill Anthony Papa Dealing with the Rockefeller Drug Laws: a Tale of Two DAs William S. Lind Ink Blots and Super Fortresses: More Contradictions from Iraq War Bruce K. Gagnon Where are the Real Leaders? JoAnn Wypijewski Has Anything Really Changed at Fort Sill? Website of the Day The Pacific Northwest: Animated   May 16, 2006 Ward Churchill Punishing Free Speech Ted Honderich The Moral Barbarism of Blair and Bush Paul Craig Roberts Ministry of Fear Annie Nocenti "Jesus was a Zombie?": Letter from Haiti Charles V. Peña Regime Change Redux: US Plans for Iran Go Far Beyond Nuclear Efforts Ron Jacobs Circling the Wagons and Building Walls: Bush and Co.'s Immigration Policy Norman Solomon A Sick, Hungry Well-Armed Nation Harvey Wasserman Why the Fundamentalists Are Freaking Out Over the Da Vinci Code Michael George Smith Bush, Immigration and the Democrats Harry Browne New Frontiers of Shamelessness: Bono's Independent Website of the Day Seeger: "Bring Them Home"   May 15, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Abe Rosenthal's Times William Blum Appealing to the US is Not Very Appealing Tanya Golash-Boza and Douglas A. Parker Dehumanizing the Undocumented: an Immigration Policy Statement by Sociologists Without Borders Dave Lindorff Gen. Hayden's Sedition Against the Consitution Debra Schaffer Hubert The Battle Cry of G.I. Jesus: Capital Punishment for Gays? Patrick Cockburn Now It's Shia Troops Versus Kurdish Troops in Iraq Tom Turnipseed The Messianic Presidency Ken Livingstone Welcome to London, President Chavez! Gideon Levy Game Theory: Hamas is Winning Mickey Z. Is Impeachment Too Good for Bush? Jeff Faux What Bush's Speech Will Miss: Immigration and the Desperate Mexican Economy Website of the Day Iraq War Images Uncensored   May 13 / 14, 2006 Vijay Prashad The Indian Road: Left Triumph Joan Roelofs Why They Hate Our Kind Hearts, Too Kathy Kelly Imagining Survival Michael Neumann On the Value and Stability of Israel Dr. Susan Block Hookergate Daniel Cassidy How the Irish Invented Poker Christopher Reed Rebel Journalist: the Memoirs of Wilfred Burchett Mike Roselle The Fallacies of Greenpeace Saul Landau Up the Mekong to Cambodia Robert Fisk The Inescapable Beat: US Military Bases in Brazil Ralph Nader Sally Mae and the Student Loan Swindle Evelyn Pringle Rove and Fitzgerald Play Monopoly Fred Gardner The Marketing of "Cannabis Americana" Stanley Heller Is Another Mass Murder of Arabs in the Offing? Conn Hallinan China: a Troubled Dragon Valentina Palma Novoa "They Ordered Me to Lay My Head in a Pool of Blood" David Krieger Why Nuclear Weapons Should Matter Col. Dan Smith The Senate's Peace Quilt Christopher Brauchli Mister Bush and Mister Zarqawi: Video Stars Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Davies, Ford, Engel, Guthrie, Orloski and Louise Website of the Weekend Not Your Soldier!   May 12, 2006 Michael Snedeker Death by Snitch: the Attempted Murder of Michael Morales Dave Lindorff What Fourth Amendment? Leah Fishbein / RJ Schinner Santorum vs. Santorum-Lite: In Pennsylvania, Abortion is Absent from the Debate Brian Kwoba The Immigrant Rights Movement: Birth of a New New Left? Chris Kromm Why Southern Progressives Should Support an Estate Tax Kai Diekmann 45 Minutes with Bush: the BILD Interview David Swanson Bush Tops Nixon: the Most Despised President in History Virginia Tilley Hamas and Israel's "Right to Exist" Website of the Day The CounterPunch Story That Made the Front Page of the NYT Today   May 11, 2006 Sunsara Taylor Battle Cry for Theocracy: Meet the Shock Troops of the Christian Youth Jonathan Cook A Short History of Unilateral Separation Tariq Ali High-Octane Rocket-Rattling Against Iran Won't Work Wayne S. Smith Recycled Non Sequiturs: State Dept. Presents No Evidence Cuba is a "Terrorist State" Mike Whitney Secretary of Lies Pratyush Chandra The Royal Nepalese Army and the Imperialist Agency Joshua Frank Save Darfur? Not So Fast Mickey Z. Does Property Destruction Equal Eco-Terrorism? Francis Boyle Abe Rosenthal Stole My Kill Fee! Edward S. Herman / David Peterson US Aggression-Time Once Again: Target Iran Website of the Day The Missing Papers of John Roberts   May 10, 2006 Werther Axiom of Evil Larry Birns / Michael Lettieri Is Venezuela the New Niger?: the Bush Administration is Trying to Link Hugo Chavez to Iran's Nuclear Program Ramzy Baroud Iran and the US: Nuclear Standoff or Realpolitik? Kevin Zeese The Corporate Takeover of Iraq's Economy Evelyn Pringle Peter Rost vs. Goliath: an Ex-Pfizer VP Takes on Big Pharma Amira Hass Hungry and Shell-Shocked Michael Donnelly Nature Loses a Champion Ron Jacobs Singers in a Dangerous Time: Dylan and Haggard Take the Stage Sharon Smith Abstinence Backfires Website of the Day Camp In with Ray and Cindy   May 9, 2006 Ray McGovern My Encounter with Rumsfeld M. Shahid Alam The Muslims America Loves Moshe Adler Mayor Bloomberg: Even Worse Than Giuliani Walter MIgnolo Beyond Populism: Natural Gas and Decolonization of the Bolivian Economy Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor Blacks, Latinos and the New Civil Rights Movement William S. Lind The Other War Heats Up: Fighting on Afghan Time Todd Chretien Does It Really Matter Who Runs the CIA? Dave Lindorff Pelosi is in for a Big Surprise in November Ishmael Reed Furor Over the "Colored Mind Doubles" Website of the Day Two Years for One Joint   May 8, 2006 Kate McCabe "No Less Courage": Political Prisoners' Resistance from Ireland to Gitmo Paul Craig Roberts A Nation of Waitresses and Bartenders Col. Dan Smith Privatizing West Point: "Duty, Honor, Trademarks..." Norman Solomon Gag and Smear: the Misuses of "Anti-Semitism" Ingmar Lee Bush's Destabilizing Nuke Deal with India Robert Jensen "Covering" and the Law Ricardo Alarcon The Struggle for Immigrant Rights in a Neo-Liberal Economy Will Youmans / M. Kay Siblani The Danders of Misunderstanding Sudan Alexander Cockburn The Row Over the Israel Lobby Website of the Day Labelle Does The Who: We Don't Get Fooled Again   May 6 / 7, 2006 Jeffrey St. Clair The Rise and Possible Fall of Richard Pombo Ariel Dorfman Mission Akkomplished: the Secret History of George W. Bush Joe Allen Death Row at the "Castle": Inside the Military's Judicial System Fred Gardner From Ritalin to Cocaine: Steve Howe's Untold Story Jeff Taylor Democratic Masqueraders: Plutocracy and the Party of the People Saul Landau The Immigration Malaise Stephen Philion Lessons from the Fordham 9: Challenging CIA and Military Recruiters on Campus Trish Schuh Islamophobia, a Retrospective Ralph Nader The Tragedy of False Confessions Robert Fisk Through a Syrian Lens: Is the US Provoking Civil War in Iraq? Paul Cantor Parody of a Protest: We Came, We Marched, And ... ? John Holt "This Goddamn Place Looks Like Hell" James Ryan When is a West Point Grad, No Longer a West Point Grad? Lawrence R. Velvel Harvard and Its Presidents: Plagiarism, Ghostwriting, and the Character of Larry Summers Greg Moses Canto for a Cinco de Mayo Weekend Laray Polk Homeland Security Spending: a Dallas Case Study Ron Jacobs Subterranean Fire: a Review Ben Tripp No News is Good News Mickey Z. 9/11 Movies, Anti-War Protests and "Illegal" Humans Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: My Own Private, Springsteen-Free JazzFest (Week Two) Poets' Basement Kirbach, Landau, Davies, Engel, Buknatski, Subiet, Ford and Thoreau Website of the Week Lawrence Welk Meets the Velvet Underground   May 5, 2006 Vijay Prashad The Charmless Inconveniences of the Bourgeoisie Robert Fisk Sy Hersh versus the Bush Administration (and the DC Press Corps) David Swanson Washington Post Writer Rushes to Rummy's Defense Against Ray McGovern Mearsheimer / Walt The Storm Over "the Israel Lobby" Dave Lindorff They're Back!: The Looters of Social Security Sarah Ferguson A Day Without Gringos: Immigrants Flooded the Streets of NYC on May, But Where Were the White Peaceniks? CounterPunch News Service Costs of US Wars: Bush's GWOT Now Fifth Most Expensive in US History Corporate Crime Reporter David Sirota: Still Shackled to the Democrats Website of the Day Watch Ray KO Rummy   May 4, 2006 John F. Sugg Sami al-Arian's Final Persecution Will Potter Green is the New Red: How the Bush Administration is Using Terror Laws to Prosecute Nonviolent Environmental Activists Jonathan Cook The Long Path Back to Umm al-Zinat Roger Burbach Bolivia's Radical Realignment Chris Dols Colbert's Moment (And Why the Beltway Gang Didn't Get It) Christopher Brauchli Sen. Frist Without Clothes Tony Swindell "Our Descent into Hell has Begun" Website of the Day The Two Lobbies   May 3, 2006 Robert Bryce The Self-Locking F-22 Paul Craig Roberts John Kenneth Galbraith, a Great American James Petras The Rise of the Migrant Workers' Movement Lee Sustar Democrats and Immigrants: the Grand Evasion David Bolton The War on Drugs is a War on Ourselves Joshua Frank Challenging Hillary Jeffery R. Webber Evo Morales' Historic May Day: Bolivia Nationalizes Gas! Website of the Day Happy Birthday, Pete Seeger!   May 2, 2006 Evelyn Pringle Gouge and Profit: Will Big Oil Destroy Tariq Ali On the Death of Pramoedya Ananta Toer: Indonesia's Greatest Writerthe US Economy? Saul Landau Life in the Mekong Delta Paul Craig Roberts Endgame for the Constitution Gary Leupp "Out of Iraq, Into Darfur?" Ron Jacobs May Day in Asheville Sen. Russell Feingold Our Presence is Destabilizing Iraq Anthony Papa Rush Limbaugh and the Politics of Drug Addiction Website of the Day Rainbow Books     May Day, 2006 Norman Finkelstein The Israel Lobby: It's Not Either / Or Christopher Reed Mercury's Message, 50 Years On Michael Donnelly Rummy's Not the Only One Who Should Go: What About the War's Liberal Enablers? Dave Zirin A Day Without Pujols Mike Whitney The "N' Word: Take Back the Oil Companies! Gilad Atzmon Self-Haters Unite! Missy Comley Beattie Marching for Peace Alexander Cockburn The War on Terror on the Lodi Front Website of the Day In Your Face, Mr President   April 29 / 30, 2006 Peter Linebaugh May Day with Heart Ralph Nader Break Up the Big Oil Cartel Robert Bryce The Scandal of the V-22: It Kills, It Crashes, But It Won't Die Rev. William Alberts Praying for Peace or Preying on Peace? Time for People of Faith to Censure Bush Lee Sustar Opening a New Movement John Chuckman Xenophobia in a Land of Immigrants Eric Ruder An Interview with Camilo Meija on the War and Immigrants Seth Sandronsky Securing the Homeland for Whom Ron Jacobs Neil Young's Call to Arms Ben Tripp A Fork in the American Road Fred Gardner Forgotten Memories: Personal and Political Don Monkerud Corruption Reform in the Age of Abramoff: Not a Roar, But a Whimper Tommy Stevenson JazzFest, Tears and the Renewal of New Orleans Lettrist International Proposals for Rationally Improving the City of Paris Contratiempo Back to the Back of the Yards: the Jungle, 100 Years Later St. Clair, Vest and D'Antoni CounterPunch Playlist: What We're LIstening to This Week Poets' Basement Engel, Orloski and Guthrie Website of the Weekend Survival of the Fattest   April 28, 2006 James Ridgeway What You Won't See in Flight 93, the Film Ramzy Baroud Hamas' Impossible Mission Sarah Knopp An Interview with Nativo Lopez on the May Day Protests William S. Lind Off With His Head!: But Rumsfeld's Should Not be the Only One That Rolls Werther Operation Canned Meat and Its Derivatives April 27, 2006 Winslow T. Wheeler How Much is the War Costing? How Many US Troops are Really in Iraq? Robert Fisk The United States of Israel? Juan Santos Immigration Endgame Robert Jensen Why Leftists Distrust Liberals Dave Lindorff Making America Safer: One Released War Crime Victim at a Time Jose Pertierra Honor and Injustice:the Case of the Cuban Five   April 26,2006 Robin Philpot The Rich Life of Jane Jacobs Sherry Wolf Democrats, Their Apologists and Abortion: the Jig is Up Pratyush Chandra Nepal: a Saga of Compromise and Struggle Joshua Frank Zig-Zagging Through the War With John Kerry Gary Leupp The Neo-Cons and Iran: No Negotiations Bill Quigley Katrina: Eight Months Later     April 25, 2006 Gary Leupp Wilkinson Speaks Out About the Coming War on Iran Paul Craig Roberts The World is Uniting Against the Bush Imperium Linda S. Heard Is the US Waging Israel's Wars?: the Prophecy of Oded Yinon Ralph Nader Political Science: Gingrich, "Futurism" and the Abolition of the OTA Mike Whitney Preparing for the Economic Typhoon Michael Donnelly Lutherans Betray Michigan's Loon Lake Wetlands for Pieces of Silver Sharon Smith Breathing New Life Into May Day Website of the Day SDS Ver. 2   April 24, 2006 Tim Wise What Kind of Card is Race? John Stanton Strike Iran, Watch Pakistan and Turkey Fall Dave Lindorff Dangerous Times Ahead Steve Shore Berlusconi Defeated: The Long Wait is Over ... Or Is It? Amadou Deme Hotel Rwanda: Setting the Record Straight Mickey Z. 15 Minutes of Radical Fame: America Meets Bill Blum and Ward Churchill Ralph Nader Lee Raymond's Unconscionable Platinum Parachute Alexander Cockburn Obama's Game Website of the Day Too Stupid to Be President?         Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition May 20 / 21, 2006 Uproar in Turkey Over the Hijab Headscarf By MICHAEL DICKINSON I can still remember my terrified reaction on first encountering Arab women dressed in chadors, covered from head to toe in black sheets with only their eyes visible. It was at Kuwait airport and I was three years old, arriving with my mother and brother to join our father who had started working for the oil company. "Ghosties!" I cried, clutching my mother's skirts in terror, as the black phantoms silently glided behind the men in long white nightshirts moving about the terminal. It took a while for her to convince me that they weren't ghosts but ladies, and this was the way they dressed in Kuwait. But they were a rare sight, usually confined indoors at their husbands' beck and call, here at the airport in transit. I learned that this style of clothing was considered obligatory for Arab women because of the book of rules that dominated their lives, that saturated their culture and society, and that determined their subordinate position in the world - the holy Koran. The word of God as dictated by the Prophet Mohammed; which includes two surahs that order Muslim women to cover up: 'And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and be modest, and to display of their adornment only that which is apparent, and to draw their veils over their bosoms, and not to reveal their adornment save to their own husbands or fathers or husbands fathers, or their sons or their husbands' sons, or their brothers or their brothers' sons or sisters sons, or their women, or their slaves, or male attendants who lack vigor, or children who know naught of women's nakedness. And let them not stamp their feet so as to reveal what they hide of their adornment. And turn unto Allah together, O believers, in order that ye may succeed.' Surah 24, verses 30--31 'O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them [when they go abroad]. That will be better, that so they may be recognized and not annoyed. Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful.' Surah 33, verse 59 Apart from the unquestionable word of the Koran, the faithful also adhere to the Hadith recollections about the Prophet, where it is reported that when the daughter of Abu Bakr appeared to him flimsily dressed, Mohammed is reported to have told her: "O Asmaa! When a girl reaches the menstrual age, it is not proper that anything should remain exposed except this and this. He pointed to the face and hands." Thence the cover-up, the all-covering black chador, and the hiding away of the women from the lustful gaze of other men. "I leave you no calamity more hurtful to man than woman!" Mohammed is reported to have said. "Oh assembly of women, give alms, though it be your gold and silver ornaments, for verily ye are mostly of Hell on the Day of Resurrection." The chador is a rarer sight here in Turkey, where I now live, half a century after that early initiation into culture-shock, but not so very uncommon, and my mind still mutters "Ghosties!" as the black shapes pass by, in small groups, or behind a stern faced husband. Locals nickname them 'kara fatmas' (black beetles.) Kuwait is a monarchy where Islamic law is the main source of legislation. But Turkey is a democracy with a non-religious secular constitution, and women are free to vote, to work, to drink, to drive, to choose their own religion. But, although the government is secular, 99 per cent of the population is Moslem. Take a walk down the main shopping centres of Istanbul, and alongside the thoroughly modern misses sporting the latest fashions, flashy jewelry, tinted hair and makeup, you will also find those with their hair covered by a scarf. The reasons might range from bowing to family pressure, a gesture to cultural tradition, or a statement of solidarity with Islamic law in Iran. The further one goes into the burgeoning suburbs of Istanbul the more the headscarf proliferates, not gaily colored like the ones you see on the girls in Istiklal Caddessi, but plain and knotted under the chin, the body covered by the obligatory ankle-length raincoat. Almost a chador. In the sprawling outskirts of the city where poverty is rife and education neglected, there is a growing frustrated population that would gladly jettison the godless secularist republic founded by Kemal Ataturk, and welcome the institution of Shariah law. It was their vote which swept the current Islamic-oriented government, the AKP, the Justice and Development Party into power. The powerful Kemalist army allowed them to take power because its leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan insists that it is Islamic in the same sense that Christian Democratic parties in Western Europe are Christian, and it is committed to the secularism of the Turkish state. It is merely opposed to the petty exclusion of religious symbolism from public life, such as the ban on women wearing headscarves in state-owned buildings . The headscarf ban was the cause this week of a murder which shocked the nation. Turkey's current law on headscarves (which dates back to the 1986) bans civil servants, students and staff at private and state universities and schools, medical staff and members of parliament from wearing the 'turban' in public offices, including schools and government administrative positions on the grounds that it would be a breach of constitutional secularism. In theory, the ban only applies to people on state premises or in state-controlled businesses, but recent court decisions have upheld penalties imposed on civil servants who wear the headscarf in their private life outside work. Late last year the Council of State upheld a ruling that the Ankara governorate had been justified in refusing a teacher promotion because she wore a headscarf on her way to and from school. The Council of State made reference to the secular order imposed by the Turkish constitution and stated that education should be "kept at a distance from dogma and influences that run counter to science." High level members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) were critical and negative about the ruling, and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is recently quoted as saying: "we face many obstacles at the Council of State. We will either overcome these or we will walk together with those who understand this". On Wednesday morning in Ankara, a gunman broke into the chamber where judges from the Council of State were meeting and opened fire, declaring himself a "soldier of Allah". Judge Mustafa Yucel Ozbilgin was killed, and 5 others injured in the shooting. As he ran from the building screaming 'Allahu akbar' the killer was captured by the police. He turned out to be a 29-year old lawyer Alparslan Arslan, who had been under surveillance prior to the attack due to his alleged links with the radical Islamist group Hizbullah. He told police that the bullets were punishment for the controversial decision on the teacher and her headscarf. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the attack, but rejected suggestions that it could be linked to the AKP's espousal of greater rights for Islamists. He warned that it would harmful to try to seek political gain from the incident, referring to the opposition Republican People Party (CHP). Deniz Baykal, the leader of the CHP, said that the attack had targeted Turkey's secular constitution as well as the Council of State." Turkey is being dragged toward a very dangerous place," he said. Criticism was leveled at an Islamic newspaper for targeting the judges who had upheld the banning of the headscarf on public duty by publishing their photographs on its front page last week. The day after the shooting more than 20,000 people, including senior jurists, lawyers, lecturers, students, members of parliament and retired military officers marched to the mausoleum of Ataturk in Ankara to protest the attack, shouting "Turkey is secular and will remain secular" and "Government resign!" Many also voiced their angry indignation at the recent grenade attacks (three in a week!) on the Istanbul headquarters of Cumhuriyet, Turkey's independent radical republican newspaper which has been sharply critical of the AKP, saying it is trying to undermine the country's secular system of government, and which recently ran a media campaign warning of what it sees as rising Islamic fundamentalism. "AKP buildings are also being bombed," was the dismissive comment on the Cumhuriyet attacks by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan's wife, Emine, wears a headscarf. So does the Foreign Minister's wife, Hayrunisa. In fact most of the Cabinet members' wives also wear headscarves. For this reason the pro-secular establishment excludes them from state functions and dinners. This doesn't please them. And indeed, surely they have the right to feel the ban on the headscarf to be a discriminatory infringement of women's freedom of expression and religion, as well as of their right to education (Hayrusina was barred from attending university for wearing one.) The ban on headscarves clearly infringes upon women's right to religious freedom. But enforced veiling should also be opposed as an infringement upon a woman's rights and freedom. Is that possible in an Islamic state, where the Koran rules and hijab for women is proscribed by law? A few years ago an old student of mine returned for a visit to school. I remembered her as a bright intelligent teenager, witty and funny, crazy about Bon Jovi. I was shocked by the change in her appearance. In place of the grey school skirt, the white blouse, jacket and tie, she now wore a long grey coat, buttoned from neck to toe, and a beige headscarf tied tightly over her hair, only her face and hands visible. "What happened?" I asked. "From one uniform to another," she grinned, not unhappily. Her parents were devout Muslims. A Turkish friend was telling me about her weekend. "We went to Camlica Park on Sunday but I felt uncomfortable in my jeans. All the women there were in dressed in their long coats and headscarves. I was getting strange looks." Shades of the 'Stepford Wives'? The renewed focus on the headscarf issue sparked by the deadly attack on the State Judges has increased tensions between Turkey's secularists and the AKP, and they seem set to rise ahead of next year's presidential and parliamentary elections. Should the headscarf ban be lifted? How much of a difference would it make? Would the government offices, hospitals, schools and universities of Turkey suddenly become flooded with fundamentalist women in headscarves and life go on at its normal secular pace, or would the unchecked dress code lead, as those who fear it might, to an Islamic theocracy similar to that in Iran under the guidance of Ayatollah Khomeini? Michael Dickinson is an English teacher working in Istanbul Turkey. He can be contacted at www.stuckism.com/Dickinson/Index.html or mdickinson@kablonet.com.tr

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