[email protected]

Foolish Game

Don't leave your news choices to an algorithm - decide for yourself what you read. Add 12punto to your preferred sources!

The year is 1994.

Dreams of America for graduate studies are beginning.

Applications, passports, visas, plane tickets.

Back then, anyone wanting to go abroad had to pay 100 dollars.

Except for students and workers.

Even though I had a student visa, they forcibly took 100 dollars from me too.

Nothing we said worked.

A stamp was missing from the National Education Directorate.

We cried, we begged, we pleaded, but the officials of the established order wouldn't budge.

100 dollars back then is not the four thousand liras of today, but at least ten thousand liras.

That is such a large sum for a poor student.

Anyway, the language school I attended before my master's degree was very nice.

Rutgers University.

It is still a famous school.

While walking through the cafeteria, I came across a credit card application stand.

They were giving out freebies like t-shirts and cassettes to those who applied.

Since I had already received plenty of t-shirts from previous applications, I decided to get a cassette this time.

It was a cassette by a group called The Cranberries.

A girl named Jewel with a super voice.

I still listen to that cowboy girl from Utah.

I liked it because the music of the Arabesque-dominated Turkey was boring me.

She sings the song “Foolish Game”.

I heard the word “foolish” for the first time there.

It is not used much in daily life.

Usually, the word “stupid” is used.

After that, although I heard it from time to time, I didn't really encounter it until the 2019 Pastor Branson incident.

Trump’s foolish letter reminded me of the word “foolish” again.

The letter could not be answered.

I understood better last night why it could not be answered.

The 1980-born Hegseth baby says:

“Tehran, planes taking off from the middle of America, from MISSOURI, flew over its 3 most sensitive facilities in one night without being noticed at all. We managed to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and our children on those bombers are currently returning home.”

“We believe this will have a clear psychological impact on their outlook for the future,” he says.

Planes taking off from 20 thousand kilometers away can strike a whole country’s facilities and return safely.

Yet I cannot even find a train ticket from Eskişehir to go to Istanbul, which is 300 kilometers away.