Coastal Breeze News

While the world’s focus was on Iran and Afghanistan for the last year or so; some important and rather ominous things have been happening in a part of Russia called the Caucasus. This particular region of Russia is geographically and demographically closer to the greater Middle East than to Europe and thus influenced more by radical Islamic fundamentalism in general and the Iranian regime of Mullah’s and their attempted influence in the area in particular. What has been taking place in parts of Russia may actually be closely related to people and events in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan In ... Read More »

Today, there are many fellow citizens who experienced the moment of saying “good-bye” to their loved ones before they sent them off to fight in a war and defend our country and our principles. Having personally experienced this rather traumatic moment which comes with mixed emotions, I truly identify with them. There have always been wars for whatever reason, somewhere around the world and there have always been those who had to go through the emotions of looking at their loved one’s faces and wondering if this was the very last time they would see them or if they came back would ... Read More »

“We think the era of utilization of force and pressure in international relations has ended. Today, the will of the people will prevail, as it did in the election in Iran.”  That is what Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran told the reporters after the latest so-called elections in Iran. There was no “will of the people” in the elections in Iran. Candidates were handpicked by the Mullahs in charge and ballot boxes had more ballots cast than the total sum of the population in the area. Dissidents were beaten or shot to death. International observes were ... Read More »

Many Americans today may recall the events that took place in Iran between the years 1960 to 1979, and the accompanying terrible images in newspapers and on TV of 53 Americans being held hostage by so-called student demonstrators in the American Embassy for 444 days. Some, including the author of this article, strongly believe that Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, the sixth and current President of Iran was one of the student leaders of the hostage-takers. I traveled to Iran on many occasions from 1975 to 1979 and befriended a number of businessmen and their families. Some of them have visited me in ... Read More »

Valentine’s Day is observed on February 14 in the USA and in many countries around the world. How and when did this tradition start? There are many different beliefs about this. Some authorities trace the tradition to an ancient Roman festival called Lupercalia to ensure protection from wolves. During this festival young men struck young women with strips of animal hide and women believed that this made them more fertile. Others link it to an old English belief that birds chose their mates on February 14th. Many others connect the event with one or more saints of the early Christian ... Read More »

The year was 1860. Abraham Lincoln was elected President of a young United States of America; South Carolina seceded from the Union; a possible Civil War was looming in the future. In Europe, once a mighty Empire, the Ottomans were in a slow but certain decline.  In Istanbul, the capital city of the Ottoman Empire, a young American missionary, Cyrus Hamlin was busy trying to establish an American School, having arrived there in 1839. A graduate of the Bangor Theological Seminary in 1837 by way of Bowdoin College, Mr. Hamlin was born in Waterford, Maine to the prominent Hamlin family ... Read More »

It is another wonderful sunny and breezy Marco Island winter morning. My eight year-old granddaughter just walked in for her regular Saturday morning visit and without even saying hello or giving me her usual big, warm hug and kiss she said, “Grandpa, you and I have a big problem. This week in class (second grade at Tommie Barfield Elementary) we were studying ancestries and when I told my classmates that part of my ancestry was Turkish, since my grandpa is from Turkey, some of the kids started making fun of me and saying things like, “So Thanksgiving must be your favorite holiday”, or “Do you speak gobble, ... Read More »