Further to “Istanbul Conflicts From Afar:” Kudos, Mentions, and “Great Expectorations”

Some “meta-reporting” further to my recent post entitled Istanbul Conflicts From Afar: Issues and Aspersions, Headscarves and Rambo …

Kudos and “Great Expectorations”

Over the past two weeks Istanbul Conflicts From Afar received some attention and even kudos.  On July 10, WordPress (the hosts of Bubkes.Org) featured the post in their “Freshly Pressed” listing of read-worthy blog activity.  On July 20, Doc Searls of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the law school of Harvard University included it in a string of quotes summarizing a selection of my postings to date.  More important, Doc  tracked down the US Public Radio broadcast (“Great Expectorations”) that revealed the suspect origins of the malicious and overused “spat upon Vietnam vet” urban legend.  To read the full transcript of the the broadcast click here.

Linux Journal and Working Class New York

By coincidence, only a few days before Doc posted his review of Bubkes.Org, I received an email from the urban, water, and infrastructure expert mentioned in my post Istanbul: Water, Fountains, Taksim, and Infrastructural Tourism.  In his email, the expert included this link to another mention of me by Searls in a 2008 piece for Linux journal.  In the 2008 article, Doc referred to a posting to my old weblog Hakpaksak in which I quoted from Joshua Freeman’s excellent book Working Class New York on the appeal of what remains of the unique character, ethos, and capabilities of New York City as it was prior to the rise and fall of the financial sector.  The collision of the New York of heavy lifting and manual skills with the New York of trading floors and computer screens remains for me a subject of ongoing observation that colors my portrayals, written and photographic, of cities my native New York, Istanbul, and my very own private bench-scale urban laboratory of sorts: Sofia, Bulgaria.