October and Revolutions!

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Some of you might be already familiar with my reading habits: I can hardly start my day without looking through the pages of Radikal. And on Thursday evenings, no one can come between me and my comic magazine, Penguen.

On October 17th, Radikal decided to be "born again", with radical changes both in form and content.

In the picture above, you can see how this new (tabloid) size better accomodates the junior readership..;-)

I am not sure what to make of the content... Yet... The fact that two professors from my Alma Mater (Bogazici University) is among the new columnists certainly helps create warmer feelings.

However, I'm not sure about the new top guy (Eyup Can), who replaced the previous editor (Ismet Berkan).

Eyup Can is the husband of one of my favorite writers, Elif Safak. With all due respect to Elif Safak, I'm afraid this Eyup Can feels terribly inauthentic...

Every time I read a piece of Can's writing, it has the after taste of a failed fusion dish. He is neither of the Orient, nor of the West, just like most of us. The problem is not that he is a little of column A and a little of column B. Rather, it is the lack of sincerity and genuineness in his work. It seems like he is either pushing too hard to sound charismatic, or not putting much effort, but is propelled to his position by some other means... Either way, I'll still give him the benefit of doubt and keep buying the paper.

At a more personal level, I am deeply troubled that as soon as he took over, he alienated the official "crazy mom" columnist from the paper. Indeed, I am talking about Ayca Sen's resignation.

She was the refreshingly hilarious single mommy, slashing and burning her way amongst the jungle of all-knowing, all-male journalists. Her adventures with her son were full of both motherly wisdom of a modern age radio DJ mama, as well as the no nonsense observations of an astute political sociologist.

Leaving Radikal might be a very small loss for Ayca Sen, if any, but it is a great big loss for Radikal. I would strongly recommend Eyup Can to fill the "crazy-mom-raising-children-outside-the-box" position in Radikal, ASAP.

Maybe he could try to bring back Perihan Magden. That would certainly cheer me up during these gloomy days of fall.

Hope you all have a steady relationship with your own newspapers,

Enjoy the fall colors!

The tabloid-size Academic Mommy