I’ve been wondering how to title this post since late Friday night, when it became clear that the attempted coup in Turkey will fail, but I’d say this is short, simple and accurate enough. Sure, military rule can never be desirable and a coup usually works out dreadfully, Egypt now being clear and obvious recent proof that even when it’s meant to solve an obvious existing problem, it’ll replace it with an even worse one. However, Turkey’s history offered some hope that it’ll be different, and reasons to allow for some tentative, limited and definitely conditional support for this as a temporary solution to a very real and major problem plaguing not only Turkey but negatively influencing the entire region and even the world.
But Friday night was do or die, and now Turkey’s lost for many years to come, with fallout almost certain to spread over the entire region and beyond. What Turkey’s looking at for the foreseeable future is an authoritarian president whose paranoia has apparently been proven justified and who has lost no time in making full use of the events in order to greatly hasten his ongoing efforts to ensure complete control over all sectors of the country, ruthlessly eliminating anyone not fiercely loyal to him and jailing anyone who as much as dares to express any sort of criticism even more than before. There’s of course even the very serious talk of reintroducing the death penalty, and it was said that opponents will be “eradicated”.
Articles detailing exactly what happened, why and why it failed are all over the Internet and that’s not just because everybody has an opinion about it, but because it’s so easy to say, especially when it comes to the reasons for the failure. It was a poorly planned and poorly executed attempt, the president not being captured or killed as the very first action, the Parliament not being taken over or at least put under complete siege, the media not being taken over and used efficiently in order to give the impression that the deed was already done and there was no turning back, the Internet apparently not used in any relevant manner at all, aircraft and vehicles not under the control of the rebels not being disabled or too far to react in time… In short, they made just about every mistake they could have made, almost as if this was all staged and meant to fail quickly and offer the authorities this opportunity to return triumphant and take revenge.
Which, of course, is something many have been saying was actually the case. But I remain “allergic” to conspiracy theories and would require some solid direct evidence before believing such a claim. Instead, at the moment I’m thinking it was a rather desperate attempt by the relatively few who managed to remain in any position to do this without being fiercely loyal to the regime, and who knew the last possible window of opportunity was about to end. So they had neither the time nor the resources to plan this properly, the regime was probably aware of the threat and took precautions, and the result was what it was and it is now being taken full advantage of. Which, in fact, means it was caused and is being used by the regime just as much as if it’d have actually been staged, so it doesn’t make much of a difference whether the conspiracy theorists are right or not.
Which leads to the bigger problem, which is the reaction. Inside Turkey, all the political opposition was united in condemning the attempt, there are reports that those who took part in the protests that started with Gezi Park were even on the streets Friday night to push back against the rebel troops, Saturday saw large gatherings of loyalists praising Erdogan and Allah and demanding the death penalty, and anyone who may have any real and completely justified concerns or criticism to express is being silenced. So there’s absolutely no hope left for anything but a drastic worsening of the situation for the foreseeable future.
Even worse was the international reaction, however, and it all started from the United States, the current administration once again proving that having even someone with half a ball in the White House would be an improvement and absolutely necessary for the world when they were the first to release a firm message of support for the Turkish government while the situation was still fluid. Of course, it’s also possible that they had all the information before anyone else and already knew the outcome at that time, so they were merely backing the winning side, but an explicit message of support for that regime, without pointing out its crimes and demanding drastic and immediate changes for the better, is a terrible signal, and one which has unfortunately been echoed since then by nearly all other countries, as well as the European Union and NATO. Egypt, for obvious reasons but making a perfectly valid point, got in the way of a UN resolution, but that’s a rare exception, if not even the only one.
So this is the end. Huge increase in the support enjoyed by the regime, a complete and ruthless consolidation of power and control, the elimination of any known or suspected critics while any who may still think for themselves and manage to get away with it will flee or hide in fear and censor themselves, and an “international community” not daring or even caring to react to the abuses. Erdogan was elected president in 2014 for a five-year term that can be renewed once, so, barring truly shocking events, Turkey is lost until at least 2024, and almost certainly for some time after that as well, as merely being unable to maintain this particular position after that point will stop neither him nor those he surrounded himself with. As a status I saw today said: “If an attempted coup doesn’t result in the death certificate of the dictator, then what dies is even the shadow of democracy which had still existed until then.”
Last year I didn’t even write a post on this date, which feels completely wrong, especially since it’d have been the tenth since she left. At the same time, even considering the round number, what was there to say that I didn’t already say so many times before? It may always seem that it’s getting ever worse, but whenever I look back through such posts, which tends to happen at least on July 12 and September 27, I’m reminded it has been pretty much the same for several years now. A few areas where a slightly greater impact may occasionally be noticed may perhaps be identified, and that does count as the situation getting worse overall, but only marginally and if you really struggle to quantify it, so definitely far less than it feels like it is, day after day.
Should probably get to reading a few more pages of that book I’m the “alpha reader” for, as I’m just barely staying on pace to finish it in two months and can’t afford to skip a day, or even to do far less than usual in one, but I’m not sure how that will work, as I’ve been pretty much sitting here and mostly drifting off for the past few hours. Think I spent close to one hour solving a sudoku which should have normally taken me under ten minutes, and sometimes even closer to five, and that’s dealing with numbers, which my mind can grasp far better. Words are an entirely different matter…
May be better to crawl in bed for a while, but it’s getting a bit late for a possible nap and this crazy neighbor that keeps screaming at her child is quite a problem when I don’t have headphones on and am not listening to something, since closing the window in the evening is probably not the best idea now. It’s not too hot yet, still quite far from it for me, but it can get rather uncomfortable without the window open during this cooler time of the day, and I don’t want to get to the point where I’ll need to keep it open while sleeping quite yet.
And I again just left this open and drifted away, though at least I spent a few of these past 35 minutes replying to something. Had this open for I think some four hours already, and now there’s definitely no time to get through the number of pages I should be getting through today, not unless I’d just be reading them instead of going over every little bit so carefully, and I definitely won’t just read. So maybe staying in a debate about population control, especially with World Population Day having been yesterday, would at least mean I’d be doing something with my day… But it’s probably not what I should be doing, and having said debates in the comments section of an article on The Guardian won’t do anyone much good anyway. So I guess the book it is… Somehow.
Taking advantage of the good weather, I ran twice this week, both Tuesday and yesterday, and if Tuesday’s attempt fell just short, yesterday I actually managed to get under 34 minutes on the seven-kilometer route! Tuesday I was thinking that will need to wait until after the summer, since next week’s forecast doesn’t seem to allow runs during the day again and such good conditions seem even less likely in the weeks after that, but when I saw that it was nice again yesterday I simply made another attempt and somehow found a few more seconds there at the end.
Tuesday’s time was 34:02, with sector times of 4:28, 5:02, 5:46, 4:30, 5:08, 6:08 and 3:00, making for lap times of 15:16 and 15:46, so the second and, after taking the first one into account, fifth fastest lap times ever, third and fifth first sector times, second and fourth second sector times, second third sector time and second final sector time. And it would have been under 34 minutes, but as I was in the final sector a little girl was playing hide and seek and she turned around from the tree and started to run just as I was about to pass behind her. Had been considering the possibility when I saw her there and was thinking I’ll go around her on one side if she’ll either stay there or take only one step or the other if she’ll take at least three steps, but she took one, then noticed me coming hard and fast and froze on the second, exactly in my path if I were to pass in front of her and too late for me to normally change direction and pass between her and the tree, so I just barely managed to stop without knocking her down and then step around, almost certainly losing more than those two seconds.
Still, that was the incentive to try again yesterday and I did so with a vengeance, resulting in a total time of 33:48 and sector times of 4:32, 5:03, 5:43, 4:30, 5:05, 6:01 and 2:54, making for lap times of 15:18 and 15:36. That means the third and fourth fastest laps, fifth first sector time, third and fifth second sector times, fastest ever third sector time and second fastest final sector. My gains were there at the end, as the total time at the start of the second lap’s third sector was a single second faster than Tuesday, and that was thanks to the three seconds gained over that lap’s second sector, after losing two over the entire course of the first lap, the second lap’s first sector being covered in the same time on both days. But then I was seven seconds faster on that third sector and six more on the final one, though most of these were likely the result of the lack of anybody getting right in my way as I was putting every last shred of energy into it, hoping I’ll just keep falling forward with each step there at the end and not straight down.
Otherwise, “managed” to get myself banned on my Sector’s mayor’s Facebook page last evening, after posting a comment there for the first time, on an album where he brags about “modernizing” the sector, saying he’s willing to face the expected criticism for his projects. So I sent some of that criticism, sarcastically, saying that if modernizing is defined as paving over, encasing in concrete, butchering and destroying anything that was left natural or even “human”, then yes, the modernization is definitely running at full speed.
And the problem is that it really is at full speed, and that’s exactly the description of what’s going on, and the butchering of trees is in full force in the entire city too and I keep wishing I could fucking do something about it and think of things and then give up on every single one because it’d require or may involve directly interacting with others and I freeze at the mere thought…
Early this morning (GMT), Juno successfully entered orbit around Jupiter. Don’t expect too much too soon, however, since the science collection phase officially starts in October, the time between now and then being dedicated to testing and calibrating the spacecraft and its systems. However, the team has stated that they have figured out ways to collect some data during this time as well, so there should be a few interesting things coming our way. Just be patient and keep expectations in check.
This means that, close to 13 years after Galileo was crashed into the planet at the end of its mission, we once again have something in orbit around Jupiter. And it also means that, for the first time ever, a spacecraft powered by solar panels operates at such a distance. However, Juno won’t stay there long, the mission being scheduled to end in early 2018, by which time the spacecraft is expected to already experience problems due to the effects of Jupiter’s radiation, considering the planned orbits. And, with Cassini ending its mission in September, 2017, and New Horizons already beyond, that means humanity will be left with nothing active in the outer solar system after that point.
There is, of course, one, and only one, mission clearly set to launch beyond Mars in the future, and that’s JUICE, but that will only launch in 2022 and is scheduled to arrive at Jupiter in 2030. That means it may be beaten there by NASA‘s planned mission to Europa, but there are still details to work on when it comes to that and the launch date is only listed as being at some point in the 2020s. Still, the chance to arrive before JUICE is real if it’ll end up using the Space Launch System, which will greatly reduce the time needed to reach Jupiter and allow it to get there first even if it’ll launch quite a few years later.
Actually went through posts to dig up all the times for my runs and the plan is to eventually sort them on a page. It’s just for my own personal use, so it won’t show up in the sidebar, but when, or perhaps even if, I’ll get around to it, I’m thinking of making tables for each distance, plus separate ones for lap and sector times. If you’ll look there now, however, you’ll just see a plain data dump in plain text in a format that makes sense to me, and in a few cases it’s not all the data to be found in those posts either.
But this post is about the best times, the number in each list having to do with how many clear ones I have, since early on I was rounding even the total time, it took quite a while before I started keeping track of sector times in the park and there were also those 7 km runs that were only roughly timed. A few cases will require some additional explanations, so there will be some notes at the end mentioning those. The links on the times lead to the posts mentioning them.
4 km (on the track; my first runs)
1. 22:46
5 km (on the track; my first runs)
1. 28:11
2. 28:21
3-4. 28:22 (probably twice)
5. 28:24
4.1 km (through the park)
1. 19:51
2. 20:21
3. 20:30
4. 20:35
5. 20:36
6. 20:42
7. 20:43
8. 20:47
9-10. 20:50 (twice)
6.4 km (through the park)
1. 33:37
7 km (through the park)
1. 34:35
2. 34:58
3. 35:28
4. 35:44
5. 36:24 *
10 km (through the park)
1. 52:14
2. 53:49
3. 54:43
Half Marathon (21.1 km)
Bucharest Half Marathon real time: 2:02:38
Covering the distance through the park: 1:59:11
Lap around the park lake (3.2 km) (on a 4.1 km run unless otherwise specified)
1. 15:12
2. 15:44
3. 15:45 **
4-6. 15:49 (and a second and third *** time)
7. 15:56 ***
8-10. 15:59 (and a second and third *** time)
Lap sector one (on a 4.1 km run unless otherwise specified)
1. 4:18
2. 4:27
3. 4:28 ***
4-5. 4:30 (twice)
6. 4:31
7-8. 4:33 (twice)
9. 4:34 ***
10-12. 4:35 (and a second *** and third ** time)
Lap sector two (on a 4.1 km run unless otherwise specified)
1. 5:00
2. 5:04 ***
3. 5:11 **
4. 5:12
5-6. 5:14 *** (maybe twice ****)
7. 5:15 ***
8-9. 5:16 (twice)
10. 5:17
Lap sector three (on a 4.1 km run unless otherwise specified)
1. 5:45
2. 5:54
3. 5:58
4-6. 5:59 (and a second and third ** time)
7. 6:02
8-9. 6:04 (twice)
10. 6:05
Final sector on a 4.1 km run
1. 4:31
2. 4:32
3. 4:37
4-5. 4:38 (twice)
6-7. 4:39 (twice)
8. 4:41
9. 4:42
10-12. 4:43 (and a second and third time)
Final sector on a 7 km run
1. 2:52
2. 3:01
3. 3:02
Final sector on a 10 km run
1. 1:46
2. 1:53
Notes:
* Small detour necessary on each lap. Roughly estimated the total impact at 20 seconds.
** Lap one of a 7 km run.
*** Lap two of a 7 km run.
**** Uncertain time, likely to be up to a few seconds slower, but still certainly in the top ten.
