Results of the Wordcomplete Contest
I had held a small contest in my Desperate Housewives column from two weeks ago: I asked readers to complete the last sentence of my column and offered a wife-beater! 
as a prize to my favorite. I was supposed to conclude that right after the column, but things continued getting in the way. I have finally managed to post the results. Here are the top 3:
1.Except that for both secular and religious conservatives, whether followers of the Prophet or followers of the profits, this would mean being in the forefront of a march in the wrong direction.
2. Except that Turkish government’s mentality stands too much far away from those who built modern Turkey.
3. Except….. for the backward men!
The winner has asked me to donate the wife-beater to charity, which I will at the earliest opportunity. I thank all who participated, either through comments at the Daily News or here at the blog, or through emailing me.
Coming to more serious matters, I had given Sweden as an example of paternal leave in the column, prompting reader DKI to comment that “that’ll be the day”. He may be right, but as I told him, imagine is free:) BTW, the IHT ran an article on paternal leave in Sweden soon after my column was published; the timing couldn’t have been better! They also summarized parental leave around the world.
Coming back to the battle of the think-tanks, which I sketched in an addendum to the column, Gokce Uysal of BETAM has pointed to an important detail: In the first figure of their latest note (only in Turkish), TEPAV is using quarterly numbers for labor force participation (LFP). Agriculture has the lowest LFP in the winter, and so the headline figure could have been distorted by it. Since we don’t have non-agricultural population, we can’t calculate a non-agricultural LFP. But we could look at urban LFP, and there you don’t see a fall in women’s LFP. Point to BETAM:)…
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