Erdogan Squirms

By Jirair Tutunjian, Toronto, 11 April 2926

Faced with prolonged criticism, President Recep Erdogan of Turkey recently decided to clear the air through a staged intimate interview with a sympathetic journalist. Since no Turkish journalist would be foolhardy enough—we mean suicidal—to interview the vexatious-irascible-vengeful-paranoid Big Recep—Erdogan’s handlers arranged that he be interviewed by a friendly British reporter. After all, except for the unfortunate misunderstanding in 1914, the United Magical Kingdom has been friendly with Turkey since the reign of the Queen Elizabeth I in the late 16^th century.

Reporter X (RX): Good evening Mr. President of all the Turks and successor to the Great Ataturk.

Recep Erdogan (RE): I am the successor of no one. Kemal had some cheap successes but in no way are we in the same league, as you British say.

RX: People say while you condemn Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, you facilitate the transport of Azerbaijani oil to Israel.

RE: That’s calumny. I advise you to be careful with your words. We are not involved in shipping oil to the Zionists. Third party tankers moor in Ceyhan, buy the oil, and sail away. We don’t know where they go. It’s none of our business.

RX: I know ships carrying Azeri oil load in Ceyhan and taking evasive action, go, say to Sicily, and then make a U-turn to Israel,. They turn off their tracking signals so as not to be detected.

RE: Do you have a hearing problem? I just told you we don’t care where the ships go.

RX: Don’t you care that the oil shipped from Ceyhan enables murderous Israeli pilots to drop bombs on Palestinian children?

RE: Listen carefully: I replied to you. I never repeat myself. It’s a habit I share with Suleiman the Magnificent, Napoleon, and martyr Sultan Abdul Hamid II.

RX: Wasn’t he the homicidal sultan who banned H2O—the chemical symbol of water—because he was convinced it stood for “Hamid the Second will Die”?

RE: I am shocked a reporter from an organization which is friendly with Turkey would repeat the calumny hatched by terrorist Kurtler. Had you been a citizen of Turkey, we would have offered you history classes about this great nation which is the mother of human civilization and the father of all languages.

RX: Thank you for the offer, but I have to head to Beirut to report on the recent Israeli bombings of the city.

RE: We have a couple of seven-star restaurants there. Give my name to them and they will serve you the best kepap in the world.

RX: Thank you. I am fruitolian.

RE: What is fruitolian? Is that an Armenian fruit?

RX: Have you always been obsessed by Armenians?

RE: Obviously. [Picks up his I-Phone and sends a message to Orhan, head of his PR department]. The message says: “Pazav—REDACTED…REDACTED…REDACTED. If you value your life, jump into the Bosporus. Did you hire this Engleez to embarass me?”

RX: Mr. President, can you tell me what you just typed and to whom?

RE: Mr. Fruit….

RX: My name is Telford Tennyson Trevelyan III

RE: Is that Armenian?

RX: Returning to the selling oil to Israel, there’s the rumor that you get a personal cut for every barrel shipped to Israel.

RE: Lies, lies, lies.

RX: There’s talk your son-in-law Selcuk Bayraktar recently became one of the richest men in Turkey because you gave him access to state resources, public money resources, and procurement opportunities.

RE: What kind of family man would I be if I didn’t assist my daughter and her husband?

RX: I have one last question. Israel’s former PM Naftali Bennett, repeating what other prominent Israelis have said, pointed out recently that Turkey is a threat to Israel and that your country is part of Iran’s Axis.

RE: My good friend Naftali has a naughty sense of humor. He was referring to the upcoming Turkiyah-Israel football match. Remember, my country was among the first to recognize Israel. We even sent food to them. We are generous people. We could have eliminated the ingrate Armenians who wanted to take over our homeland. Instead, we escorted them away from the theatres of war …to Syria.

RX:: An interesting take on the genocide of Armenians.

RE: Gather your electronic gizmos…and scram. I will phone your boss. Unless he kills your article and fires you, we will shut your Istanbul bureau.

RX: Everything you said was automatically transmitted to the Public Corruption Divan and to your Kurd PM who hired me for this job.  Erdogan Effendi, you were an ex-footballer and in a few minutes you will become ex-president…and don’t expect Putin to save you this time.  Tashakur edarim for your time.

*****

St. Peter Has a Headache

By Jirair Tutunjian, Toronto, 17 April 2026

A befuddled St. Peter is sitting in his office behind the Pearly Gates. He is wiping his blood-shot eyes when St. Paul enters the office.

St. Paul: Greetings, Peter. How are you? You look tired.

St. Peter: I am not tired. I am exhausted.

St. Paul: I don’t understand. You have been at this job for more than two-thousand years. It should be a breeze by now.

St. Peter: It’s not the job. It’s the papyrus. You see this million-page tome where I have listed the sins of everyone since the Crucifixion. It’s called The Sins and Crimes of Humanity. It is made of papyrus. Two weeks ago I registered the names of a criminal gang on the volume’s last page.

St. Paul: So?

St. Peter: I need a ton of papyrus for volume two. I contacted a Coptic clergyman in Upper Egypt and ordered a ton of papyrus for volume two of The Sins and Crimes of Humanity. He said due to pollution, today’s papyrus is flimsy and is produced in small quantities mostly for the tourist trade. The sturdiest paper I can locate will pulverize in less than a thousand years. All the apostles and disciples retired long ago except me. I can’t even remember who gave me this boring Pearly Gates job. I don’t even get the weekends off.

What makes the situation particularly dire is that I am compiling the official and up-to-date list of Donald J. Trump sins, crimes, misdemeanors, and trespasses.

St. Paul: I never understood the difference between sin and trespassing.

St. Peter: Paulie, get serious for a minute. I am recording every sin, crime, misdemeanor Trump has committed in his 80 years. Would you like to hear the abridged version of the braggart’s trespasses?

St. Paul: Why not? It’s a slow afternoon.

St. Peter: In no particular order: according to The Washington Post, Trump lied 30,573 times in his first term as president…He was involved in half-a-dozen dubious bankruptcies…He pardoned fraudsters who were his friends…As warmonger, he is responsible for the death of thousands in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen, Venezuela, Iran…The creation of ICE—his SS…Exiling people who have committed no crime…Long list of sexual immorality…The dozen or so women who have accused him of groping, forced kisses…Accepting millions of dollars from wealthy American Zionists to recognize Arab Jerusalem as the capital of Israel…Accepting $100 million from the widow of a casino owner to approve the annexation of the West Bank…Casual and frequent blaspheming…Covering up the Epstein scandal…Trying to benefit personally from political donations…Threatening to invade Canada, Mexico, Greenland…Threatening to destroy Iran to Kingdom Come…Betraying his NATO allies…Uttering 492 false or misleading statements…Falsely claiming positive employment stats…Exaggerating the number of jobs his administration created…Harassing newspapers …harassing and women who claimed he tried to rape them…Indulging in libel chill to intimidate journalists who were about to reveal his crimes…Verbally attacking the Pope…Displaying overweening arrogance…Paying “silence money” to a porno star he had slept with…Keeping classified documents after his election loss…Engineering the January 6 insurrection in Washington…Conspiring to obstruct justice…Illegally withholding important documents at home…Conspiring to defrauding the U.S…Racketeering…Conspiring to Impersonate a public officer…Filing false documents…Keeping the globe’s 8 billion inhabitants confused, worried, and terrorized…Conspiring to obstruct justice…Falsifying business records…Accepting Bribes…Falsifying the results of the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States…

St. Paul: Enough, enough. He is certainly headed to the 10th Circle of Hell.

Brother, I can see the challenge you are facing.

St. Peter: Trump has committed further crimes but the judicial system absolved him due to corruption or the incompetence of the prosecutors.

St. Paul: Tell me Peter, what’s the Melania story? I understand she was shipped by a fashion impresario to the U.S., together with a dozen other European models. She was introduced to partying Manhattan billionaires like Epstein and Trump. Although she was not an immigrant, she was granted an “Einstein Visa” which is given to people who would have a significant positive impact on American society. What was super-special about upstart model Melania of Slovenia?Her cheekbones or her lizard eyes?

St. Peter: To learn that you have to wait for volume two of The Sins and Crimes of Humanity.