McCune-Elmore is traveling with several Oklahomans as a guest of the Institute of Interfaith Dialog, hosted by Orhan Kucukosman. 

Today, she writes about traveling abroad and learning that a fellow journalist, Oklahoma native Anthony Shadid of the New York Times, had been detained by Libyan forces. McCune-Elmore said Oklahoma Today did a feature article on Shadid about five years ago and she has admired the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist’s work and courage for some time:

“With my fellow travelers, publishers and journalists among them, I visit Sophia Haggia, the Blue Mosque, the sultans’ palace. I have beautiful dinners and wonderful tea and join in a chic Turkish birthday party, where I bum a cigarette, drink champagne, and dance with Turkish lovelies. I lounge on pure silk Turkish rugs. But where is Anthony, Saint Anthony, my missing patron saint of Middle Eastern travels? Throughout the night, my hotel room TV turned on, I listen in a foreign language to news reports of the bombing runs on Libya. Where is he? Where is he?”

Turkey, McCune-Elmore goes on to write, played a pivotal role in the eventual release of Shadid and the other Times journalists detained in Libya.
To read McCune-Elmore’s complete blog posting, connect here: “Dispatches From Turkey: Metacorrespondent”

Read the Religion and Values blog for more updates from McCune-Elmore as she continues traveling throughout Turkey.