A Voice of Two Cities

MOVED

2007-10-12T15:58:00.000-07:00

I've moved to the new address for my blog which is avoiceoftwocities.blogspot.com

Time to unpack now!

But before I go "unpack," I'd like to thank the Lord, my family, and my dear beloved neighbor's dead dog (;)) for being there for me in hard times and for laughing with me in the good. I hope it's been a great experience for myself and that I can see myself as moving onto my new project, my life and my blog and my hope for implementing them through communication and exchange.

I think it's time to say goodbye to this beloved blog that was linked to by some as being http://say-no-to-crack.blogspot.com while I was in Iran, then sea-of-angels or something of that nature, and now the final move.

I've linked my homepage on the other blog page to this blog page so it's my unofficial archive.

My Position?

2007-10-09T21:26:00.000-07:00

I recently scoured the articles on Nema Milaninia's weblog community Iraniantruth and I found his article about his views on Iranian opposition groups in the disapora (not inside Iran).

I don't know what's wrong with opposition groups outside of Iran. It seems we may be looking at the wrong groups, or seeing the wrong faces. For instance, opposition groups that have powerful lobbying skills may be seen as negative and having a bad effect on the Iranian diaspora in the eyes of Iranians inside Iran but there are also many opposition groups that don't do that because they aren't interested in power politics for money or fame...they actually want to HELP the people and the workers. There are many individuals, small groups, and communities that are trying their best to have a positive impact on Iranians and it's hard when you don't live inside Iran. I expect the greatest change to come from within Iran, but some of the smaller steps can be taken outside too. It's not simply a matter of borders and boundaries at this day and age when we just connect through computers and have our worlds connected.

Many revolutionaries affected change on society from the guarded, and "foreign" interior of a jail-cell. They might as well have been camping on K2 for all they were worth inside their country, but they still held their ground and achieved their goals and they are respected. I'm totally in agreement that evil, conniving a-holes should be hung from their shorts but that's rare (duh).

---

Now, I've been thinking more and more about the Persian Green Relief Institute. I've found a few other organizations that I'll list soon, and hopefully I can get a couple of email correspondences going between here and there and post what I find out here.

Would it be possible to actually go to Iran and work with these organizations? I don't know...I'm not even sure where to start or who to ask, it seems almost frivolous of me I've been asked a few times if I was crazy or if I needed to see a therapist...because I want to see if I can work in one of these organizations for at least 6 months.

If anyone knows of any place that I can contact, let me know because I need to know hopefully soon before I go to Tehran in the winter.

----

While I spent a year in Iran for high-school, I used to practically eat up the following blogs:

BroodingPersian
Scaniranic
Webgardian
Opip

They've all stopped blogging for at least a while now. I don't know what anyone else felt, but these blogs were practically the only connections I had (besides my favorites in American culture, media, entertainment, cooking, etc...) to explain and help understand what I was seeing and hearing while in Iran. I hope they're all doing what they want to do and I also hope they all come back to join in a dialogue again. Everyone counts.

Riding the Metro in Tehran

2007-10-06T22:35:00.000-07:00

I remember

This summer I decided to start taking the Metro to visit family near Karaj. Before, I would pay around 10 dollars to get a taxi to drive me about 40 miles to see them. Then, gas prices went through the roof (I was out that night when it happened-long story) and I realized how much 10 Iranian tomans is really worth (to me).

So, I took the metro from Tehran through a transfer center in Sadeghiye and to another metro to Karaj.

The metro was cool when it first came in, and besides the occasional stares (because I dressed like a hippy)
All was super.

Then, I saw the deluge of females in black swooping down the aisle from another transferred metro to join mine...and my world came to a sudden too-hot-and-stuffy-to-breathe end.
Fortunately, I didn't require any CPR because the women around me were complaining so much about the heat and just looked like death I had to hold myself back from totally ripping my scarf to shreds....instead, I just took it off.

People stare when you do things like that...they don't smile at you most of the time, or give you nods of encouragement but they just stare. I felt a little uncomfortable, but it felt wonderful having the scarf off and I wondered if anyone else felt that they too should take it off because you don't have to take it. You don't have to.

One other girl ended up taking her scarf off...it felt sort of like the girls who took their manteaus off in the park

to see what it would feel like? ahhhhhhh.....free at last!

Persian Green Relief Institute

2007-10-06T18:55:00.000-07:00

I'm still learning how to read formal Farsi, and websites are making that much easier. I was searching for any NGO opportunities in Iran for myself in the future when I plan to visit.

If anyone has the inkling of an interest in going there and contributing their skills to being a humanitarian in Iran the greatest opportunities are found through civil organizations that help build the foundations of a healthier society.

In my search, I actually found an exciting group that I never knew existed! (sad, but true)

The Persian Green Relief Institute

Because their concentration is on Disabled citizens of society as well as HIV/AIDS infected members of society this particular NGO caught my eye. Iran definitely needs to start planning for those infected with HIV/AIDS and those in danger of being infected...I believe the country has only one sequencing PCR Machine in Tehran for mass DNA replication and for research of AIDS/HIV and that's unfortunate.

Perhaps University of Tehran can fix that someday...which I've heard is happening. :)

Have I Said Too Much or Not Enough?

2007-10-06T17:38:00.000-07:00

I always have to wonder to when what I've said is too much or whether I should have said more. It's important to be demanding of your words since they give meaning to your little world, your "Persona".

During the past 170 posts, I spent most of my time of it writing from my little white-washed, paint-chipped room in Tehran. I always sat in front of the window because I could let the breeze in during the hot summer and hear the people outside (which could have been anyone from the guy screaming and yelling things about vegetables and used fridges or a couple of kids beating each other up). Sensory overload made me happy.

In fact, the entire experience was a sensory overload, until I slowly felt myself giving way to that little existence that I had. Slowly seeing myself as living within the society, rather than on the outside and only fluttering in to do my groceries, or get my hair done. That feeling isn't gone, but I am back home now. Or, rather, one of my homes.

You know the song-of course you do!- "I left my heart in San Francisco"? Well...I did...but I left my Soul in Tehran.

Apparently, this isn't a good thing, but it can't be helped. I'll be studying for at least two more years and then I'm free as a bird (or a plane, to be more precise). Hopefully, I'll have learned enough during the two or so years with blogging, media, and film to be able to pass my time chronicling events while I'm in Tehran again.

But I was in Tehran recently, over the past few years, and it was some of the most inspiring experiences I've had there. My first time in Tehran was mind-boggling, I didn't understand a thing and I always got jipped at the stores and was afraid to even step near anyone for fear that they'd all of a sudden start screaming Koranic verses at me for thinking that I didn't like to wear a scarf in 100 degree weather and I didn't want to believe in the Newspapers or the Religious Elite (is Elite a good word here? It would be more acceptable to say the Religious Majority).

I should write more later. Hopefully, I'll be able to do justice to my experiences here. And, in a way, I think many of the bloggers here are all Edward Shirleys...except that they are a chorus of Shirleys and the lead role is missing. But, in time, I think people will realize that we don't need someone to save Iran, or someone to lead Iran to the gates of golden-washed glittery "Democracy Express Mail". Rather, Iran needs lead ROLES. Leaders. Many of them, and one day I can go back there without having to worry about the length of my manteau but rather the virtues of my actions!

Anyway. Back to the books and I'm glad I can finally write down all that I went through. Should be interesting to read it,myself, even if it sounds corny.

:)

Hazara Archives

2007-01-19T09:20:00.000-08:00

The archives and news from the Hazara website has reports of interest to everyone involved in the past affairs of Afghanistan's Hazara's and anyone concerned for its present state of affairs. The website includes links to articles outlining the increasing violence between Taliban factions in the South and NATO/Afghan forces. Apparently, Pakistani officials are not exactly holding up their end of the bargain with the U.S

Rants n Raves

2007-01-05T08:55:00.000-08:00

Check out the Rants n Raves page on Craig'slist:

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/rnr/

The Muddled East

2006-12-07T17:08:00.000-08:00

That was a long time not to post on here (the anticipation was killing you, right?), but I've been a little busy with the load of work/research. Hope you've all been surviving the brink of the Holiday shopping and having things to look forward to like a week long break for winter!!!

Yes, I know what you'd say, "That's EXACTLY what I was thinking!" which at times doesn't seem the least bit ironic to me. However, this map was taken from the archives of uncyclopedia.org.

If you've been the frequent user of wikipedia.com, you probably would not know much about this other website but it's full of idiosyncratic images/texts of people who write simply to entertain others on serious subjects such as the war in Iraq, Immigration in the U.S, the threat that is Iran, Japanese porn, and other such subjects.

Now, onto more important events like this article posted by the Middle East Forum (Some things never change) regarding an interview they did with James A. Baker III (re:Iran). Pay attention to the difference emphasized between Saudi Arabia's Islamic fundamentalism (U.S ally) and radical Islamic fundamentalism(U.S enemy) that the ME Forum points out- Of course,I would call it "the same difference," but there are advantages to being white smurfs sitting on a heap of Gold (Saudia Arabia, case in point).

"Snow Leopard"- "Palang-e-Sefid" (Uncia Uncia) Filmed For the First Time...

2006-07-27T05:45:00.000-07:00

Just a few days ago a camera crew was out in a remote mountainous region in Northern Iran filming the habitat and searching for wild animals native to the area when suddenly a white, large cat was spotted through the camera lens.

The camera crew immediately recognized this beautiful creature as a Snow Leopard, scientifically named Uncia Uncia, which had not been captured on film for almost a decade or more inside Iran.

The best part about seeing this animal, although scrawny and underfed in the film, was that I was discussing their plight with a friend just yesterday. I remember reading about the hunting parties that drove their species to near extinction and the disorganized, underpaid state of the environmentalists and animal activists within Iran being unable to control poaching of these animals. Because of their prized fur, and their small numbers, most of these Snow Leopards have been transferred to wildlife parks where they are bred and have grown in numbers but still suffer in the wild because of the lack of protectionism.

The strangest aspect about these Snow Leopards is their inability to roar or purr, leaving them in complete silence; however, I hope that there will be changes in policy and more money sent to the national parks to protect what is left of them for future generations to enjoy.

*
Because my other blog has exceeded its bandwidth usage on eponym.com I've continued to work on this one, and I hope everyone watches VOA's Rountable tonight, with Nazanin Afshin-Jam!

Lebanon's Cedar Movement

2006-07-25T13:14:00.000-07:00

It may have rallied an entire Nation, to or against its movement but it surely held a significant place in the hearts of many Iranians that I heard from and especially those young students who believe that one day they would be able to echo the calls of the Lebanese youth in the streets of Tehran; however, I would like to salute this site for its quirky approach to the movement, and consider Iran a hopeful Babe of the future.

The Washington Post Tackles the Tablet...

2006-07-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

...issue with a clear message from the Lawyer(Streichmann) as well as a clear response from Gil Stein who is the director of the Oriental Institute at University of Chicago:

Here's what Streichmann says:

"We are seeking to enforce the judgment that was awarded to my client," said Strachman, who considers it ironic that the terrorism-fighting Bush administration is backing Iran's immunity claims -- "blatantly opposing us," as he put it. Meanwhile, Iranian commentators have hammered U.S. authorities with "crazy conspiratorial things in recent days."

What Iranians are probably saying, and what they hope for as I do is that the words of Gil Stein will go farther than Streichmann's present ideas, that they will not sell these artifacts (it would not even compensate for the plaintiffs because they should be priceless).

Stein says:

"Would Egypt loan the treasures of King Tut if they thought they could be seized by anyone who had a beef with the government of Egypt?" he asked.

"Scholarship depends on the ability to trust each other to work above the level of politics and infighting. The whole structure of scholarly collaboration would fall apart, and the whole world would be very much the poorer for it."

So What?! They're Just A Few Thousand Year Old Lumps of Clay...

2006-07-25T12:40:00.000-07:00

...that coincidentally record the ins and outs of the infamously invisible Persian Empire (BC) and have helped lead scholars and archaeologists to greater knowledge concerning the Persians.
Each tablet contains information regarding the infrastructure and economic standards by which cities like Pasargadae were built and have built significant historical leeway for those scholars who did not invest much consideration for Persian society.
In fact, these artifacts, like the Rosetta Stone, record achievements for the human race rather than for empires and legions. The historic tablets are markings of a great empire and should be studied and then placed for public viewing/archiving, instead, they are being used as pawns in a political game of Wolf.

Maybe some of you had seen these articles about five Americans who are suing the Iranian government (having been awarded 71million in compensatory damages and 180million in punitive damages) for wounds they received after a terrorist attack by Hamas which is believed to be funded and trained by Iran. But, because Iran has not even been represented (until now) in the courts, the plaintiffs decided that they would pressure Iran to either pay the damages or lose the half-a dozen or so ancient tablets in an auction that would pay for the damages.

The damages that the plaintiffs seeks would total to nearly 250 billion tomans (that's too much money in Iran) and I cannot even comprehend the enormity of the issue if the clay tablets ARE sold. By the time the auction is over, the pieces will probably be gone to the four edges of the globe and unavailable to scholars as a whole for another century or perhaps never.

Surprisingly enough, Iran has issued a lawyer to represent them in the court, but they only have until August to complete their case...

War and Peace?

2006-07-21T06:48:00.000-07:00

The ongoing war between Hezbollah and Israel is turning up dead/wounded civilians left and right. There's tremendous controversy as to how much firepower Israel should be using against Hezbollah, especially as this terrorist group is based within mostly civilian areas in Lebanon.

Israel should target terrorist groups, and unfortunately civilians will be killed if they are caught in the crossfire. I realize also that Hezbollah was not using the Beirut Airport to transfer arms and money, does use hoax tactics to get around, and probably did use civilian cover to get away from tight spaces (especially the leaders) but the massive intelligence from Israel and the U.S would know more than that; or at least I hope they do. Why else would Israel target a row of ambulances?

Will Iran be sucked into this? I have to say they will, especially with all the dirty things going on within the system and outside it. Everyone in the leadership is responsible for the internal corruption that has been going on in Lebanon, keeping them from functioning properly as a sovereign state, and Syria has no less responsibility.

I can guess which terrorist group Claudia Rosett was mentioning when talking about terrorist tactics:

"hiding as pregnant women"

SI.com - Writers - Dr. Z: Zidane's outburst understandable in flop-filled game - Monday July 10, 2006 5:04PM

2006-07-11T14:46:00.000-07:00

SI.com - Writers - Dr. Z: Zidane's outburst understandable in flop-filled game - Monday July 10, 2006 5:04PM

Zinedine Zidane is not a flopper or a whiner or a moaner. I have never seen him pull one of those scenes from the last act of La Boheme, enacting his death tableau on the field after the merest brush of contact. I haven't seen him lying there at death's door while they go through with the most ridiculous of all dramas, the entry of the stretcher.

Censorship

2006-07-08T07:42:00.000-07:00

Maybe we haven't learned a word from the wise. I still don't know what is more dull or laughable. Today, as I attempted to access Media Study and find an article from Project Censored, guess what? It was censored!

I wrote an essay about it, and deleted it. In short, I ask "Why God, Why?"

an unconventional read; puzzle

2006-06-26T03:32:00.000-07:00

that that which is comonly called "being" is a state that is wrought more or less definitely proportionately in the appearance of a positive different between that which is included and that which is excluded.

Notes From A Visit to One of Many Villages

2006-06-23T02:33:00.000-07:00

Ten miles to my left and some more to my right lay fields of wheat, golden and still in the hot desert-like province. The sun here rises harsh into the sky while the local townspeople hide away in their homes, the temperature rising to the hundreds, immeasurably suffocating. Every home is made of stone and mud-plaster, held together and built by the same hands that live in them. Outside is a horse and a small white donkey, a dozen chickens, some plants and flowers and buckets for milking the cows. In each home, as in the home that I visit with a friend, are basic chairs; a table, perhaps a bed or rolled up blankets, a small kitchen; and the wives and young children of the family. The men here work in the blistering heat, often wearing straw hats- bent over in the fields- and come home with toughened skin, blackened by the unrelenting sunlight and a silent demeanor passed onto them by their fathers.

Life here moves continually, but slowly, suddenly flashing memories of the Old West in films back home. I can almost see the tumbleweed. The husband talking in a low voice (in monotones) to his wife, asking her to bring some refreshments- cherry sorbet water with ice- seems awfully slow but curt and fresh (as if they are used to guests and we are just another one of many). He asks about America with a curious smile, about the country, what I do there, who I live with (he does not understand how I live by myself and lets it go at that); she asks how old I am, where I stay, what I am doing in the town, who I stay with and then tells me that she has a son, a small shop owner in the city, smiling wide with twinkling blue-green eyes and I smile back.

This is the world that I don’t forget, wherever I go back home, when I type out my essays, buy my coffee, pay my bills. It seems disconnected to the modern reality of life, the economy, the weather in Bangkok and the stocks in NYSE, or the new cars recently imported into the country. They are utterly independent of the world, alone in their sheltered homes with a small Koran, reading the pages every night and early morning, making breakfast, feeding the livestock, herding the cows, tending to the fields, and then a light one course meal at home before an early retirement to bed.

Surprisingly, though, these people vote too, and change the course of a country (in their sluggish habits), lending a powerful tool to those politicians who can manipulate their simplistic sense of society and economy. “I will return morality, religion, and money to our people!” is the barking campaign of a politician whose words are powerful to these poor people, like Manna was to the Israelites. A message from God, a miracle, a true epiphany of goodwill and mercy from above is the message of the politician who reaches the ears of these masses. What matters most is not that these villagers, or farmers who live out in the country vote for these politicians (because they are few), what matters is that they are the ideological and fundamental backbone of many children who grew up in those mud/stone homes and moved to the cities decades ago. The whitewashed backbone of men and women who gave rise to millions of youth in cities like Tehran -that because of state-sanctioned censorship, and those same politicians, have not seen any other world, any other ideology or system. They have been promised youth, money, and education in the messages of people like Khatami, but the system fails them simply because of their ties to the past, to the modern “traditionalism” that like the great hammer of Thor splits the skies but does comparatively little good for that “opportunity, money, and education” promised them.

Now, we can unravel that mystery, little by little. When we understand that the world of traditional values/cultural mores has been transmogrified into a modern cityscape, modernized into the year 2006 and compressed, congealed, confused into obscurity; when we understand, we can respond to its problems.

Understand the culture of the home (and what constructs it), the school (and how it teaches), the relationship of a 25-year-old woman to her mother (who gave birth to her and before the girl could breathe- independence- was given to her husband), the loyalty to a prophet one thousand years dead but who speaks through the mouths of mortal men, and the businessmen that the youth become (with no obligations to the community, no return for the poor, no civic duties). There is not much responsibility for the land, for the natural resources- there is little grassroots, community involvement. A small town does not enforce values and laws that are learned by the children and later reflected by the nation because they have very few. Their cultural upbringing did not teach them to gather their trash and throw it into the trash bins (recyclables in one, trash in the other), but the modern world of 2006 taught them to consume, to buy into the world of money and material goods.

Understand that the year 2006 has books too; it has scholars to teach what is in the books; teachers to help train what the scholars read out; and parents to enforce a sense of responsibility, and education. The year 2006 has very few rules on what type of chips, soda, and ice cream you should eat but it has many rules on how to throw them away once you’re done choosing. What we should understand is that life is demanding, this new generation -nearly half of the population being under the age of 30- holds the future of this country in its hands and we would be fools to believe that they can lead that future. Life is demanding, and it requires that we learn how to appease those demands. These youth should ask how to create a cultural responsibility for throwing trash into separate bins, and how to collect, reuse, and better the environment as well as the community with their policies. If we are examples of our childhood, and the nation is the image of all our children, they had better start now. There’s no more room for mud/stone houses in 2006.

Women's Protest

2006-06-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

The young girl whose face you can't see is your own staring into one of many Medusa-like creatures who walk and talk like humans but act in aggression and oppression against their fellow Zan.
This woman is a female police officer who has joined rank with thousands of other female officers whose job is to regulate where female regulation is needed. Note that they are not "feminine" in the sense of their being gentle, kind, or compassionate. No. This is only because the men are not allowed holy permission to stroke the back of a women's head as they punch her or rip her clothes from her body, thus, the female officers are used to avoid sending male officers into hell lest they touch the flesh of a living women. But they are as aggressive as the male officers when it came to this protest. In the other photos we become witnesses to a constant struggle between those women who are protesting their second-class status and those (the officers male and female) who believe this is the true path to Utopia.

Photos courtesy of Kosoof- Arash Ashoorinia

Iran Vs Mexico

2006-06-13T07:52:00.000-07:00

I was at a friend's house for the game with her father, mother, sister, and cousin. The game was going well in the first half, the defense was doing spectacular, the announcer(english speaking) was praising the Iranian team's progress against such a powerful foe and then guess what in the second half it was like they were given poison which they probably were. Rahman Rezaei was doing very well but because of that idiot Kaebi (who passed the ball to Mirzapour who then served the ball to Mexico for a second goal) ended up screwing up the game on the second goal as a result and eventually Iran loses 3-1 because their morale came down immediately after the second goal as it was the most pathetic event in the whole game and of course the end of it for Iran. I was upset because they were doing fairly well in defense holding back Mexico but in the second half the whole team had pulled back, weakened, and whoever gave the ball to Mirzapour (Kaebi) admittedly was a loser made obvious when he came in the first minute and threw himself (imitating a fall) and the referree just ignored him.

Well, when the game was five minutes to over, we decided that we weren't going to sit around and sulk because the Iranian team has some rule that it has to lose in the World Cup so that the people of Iran will be depressed for all time, so we left the house in her mom's car, music blasting, flags out and screaming and you know the biggest street in Tehran, Valli Asr was empty, everyone that we saw was upset and confused as to why we were having fun and enjoying this moment (so were we) and anyway, I think our car and two other cars totally turned the night around (in twenty minutes people had called other cars and there were hundreds packed in Valli Asr and the people shut down the street a mile north and south and danced and sang and lit firecrackers (it was awesome and I forgot my camera, silly) and anyway, people were chanting "mexico" to make a point that they would take sides with other countries if this was how they were going to play. Everyone was saying "we love mirzapour, and ali daei" meaning they would kick their asses if they saw them- ali daei pretty much owns half the team in terms of financial stakes (shareholder)

anyway. It was fun. and after two hours of dancing and singing and everyone laughing at such a funny night they brought in the antiriot police who tried to kick in people's doors and yelled "berin bebinam, chera vaistadin????????" and they were very violent (against young men's cars, scratching them with their heavy black boots leaving streaks of rubber) and that's when people slowed down because they could not just dance and sing in the face of these guys. so everyone began to leave since there were so many of them in black suits on black motorcylces- almost 20-(they ride motorcycles so that they can get between the cars and scare people) People went home waving flags and singing and laughing, but when we got home and I called around to see what was up in their neighborhoods the next day everyone was shocked that such a thing had occured (karaj, and other areas of Tehran were quiet and deserted)

The whole night in Valli Asr I saw a handful of people working for the government taking pictures and when we stopped one (dressed in casual clothes -as if he were a reporter) and talked to him asking "why are you taking pictures?" he answered "I don't know" and we asked for which newspaper or company he worked and he would not answer nor could he convince any of us what he was up to since he seemed to have constant trouble with his camera, trying to get it to work (obvious that he's not a professional)

Many young men that we talked to (between our car windows) were happy and without a doubt they were enjoying themselves but then girls that rode their cars like my friends and I also smiled and talked to us (which is fairly unusual for girls to do that to each other) and were friendly and encouraging each other to keep driving back and forth, dancing in our cars and although there was an air of anger and spite the people showed that they could not be stopped from enjoying the finer pleasures of life.

Summer Long Notes

2006-06-07T22:36:00.000-07:00

The ball of mercury is rising inside the small plastic needle on the wall because it's still not summer here. The weater is still Spring to Iranians and they continue to go to school and work, studying for their final exams and readying themselves for a summer of Futbal, bastani yakhi, and mehmoondari. I heard about this new Lebass-e-Melli or National Dress code that some people in the Majlis were trying to debate and now I hear it's been taken very seriously by those in the Majlis, and they've come up with all kinds of pretty little patterns from different ethnic/cultural backgrounds of Iran which they've thrown together to create somekind of modern-day tourist attraction. Some young people (mostly those who are living off of their parents, enjoying their summers) think that it will unite the youth of Iran because it is a dress code full of color and floral patterns and that will attract even the most hard edged fashionistas in Tehran streets. Of course, that's a bit absurd, they can ban the imports of clothing from foreign countries but that will not stop anyone who wants to wear Pink Floyd shirts from finding, buying, and wearing them. For some, this ethnically twisted dress code may seem a matter of pride and will side with it's story of nationalism and ethnic/Iranian fashion but it doesn't plug the problem of why these young kids want to wear the shirts and pants of the "West". They definitely see something in those clothes that they don't find attractive in the ethnic dresses of the Ghasghaei...

One of the Afghanis working on the factory for ------ was watching the show where Emil (the Turk) was singing in his 70s and ------ wondered how this old man is looking younger and younger as he gets older and older and yet ------ was very young when Emil was much older and singing in Turkieh. The Afghani said, in the simplest of ways, that if he had that much money and did not have to worry about feeding his young wife and many children he too would start looking like a God.

Translation

2006-05-26T11:22:00.000-07:00

This is a partial translation of Beyade67's post regarding the sit-down of at least 1000 students in front of and near the Law school of Tehran University:

At this time, 11 students are reported to have been taken away by authorities.

As a precaution against tear gas from the riot police, students have lit tires up causing a smoke-filled haze to fill the Amir Abbad neighborhood.

A dormitory building has been transformed into a makeshift hospital where many wounded and hurting students are staying and some of them are in terrible shape...

All roads leading to the dormitories and students on campus are now monitored by the authorities and any contact between students outside with students inside is nearly non-existent.

Those of you who are reading this should inform family or friends who live in the Amir Abbad area about gathering first aid materials, water, and any other necessities in case of emergency

---------

Frightening to think of the rioting that will continue on into the nights during these weeks. I'm sure many of you will remember that these students were only protesting peacefully in front of the Law school, and that they were gathered under the blue (now grey, thanks to the same authorities) skies to voice their concerns over an apparent rift in the school politics.

News

2006-05-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

TEHRAN; protesters gathered in front of the Law school in Amir Kabir, reportedly showing their displeasure with the "resignation"s of some professors at the school (and for other reasons that associate Ramin Jahanbegloo's arrest to them).

beyade67

Spamalot I

2006-05-25T13:02:00.000-07:00

"Nuke Gay Whales for Jesus"- Spam Mail

Steps You Can Take to Help Save Nazanin

2006-05-22T17:19:00.000-07:00

Steps you can take to save her life:

What you can do to help Nazanin:

Sign and spread this petition, started by the former Miss Canada Nazanin Afshin-Jam.
Help spreading the story about Nazanin! Tell everyone you know, family, friends and others who might be interested. Direct them to this web page and ask them to take action for Nazanin.
Contact the United Nations Office of Human Rights on this email-address and ask them to protest. You can also contact them via this page.
Contact newspapers, TV-channels, blogs and other media and ask them to report this story. US residents can contact local or national media via NOW.org
Write about Nazanin in your own blog, homepage, or in internet forums or chat rooms you frequent.
Put a link to this page in your email signature or add any of the links on this article to your emails.
Write the Iranian Government Heads (see list below) or the Iranian embassy of your country , and demand that Nazanin`s death sentence is commuted immediately. Here are some addresses:

Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, (Leader of the Islamic Republic)

Email: info@leader.ir
istiftaa@wilayah.org

The Office of the Supreme Leader,
Shoahada Street,
Qom,
ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
Fax: 00 98 251 7 774 2228
(mark "FAO the Office of His Excellency, Ayatollah al Udhma Khamenei")

______________________________________________________

Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi (Head of the Judiciary)

Email: irjpr@iranjudiciary.org

Ministry of Justice,
Park-e Shahr,
Tehran,
ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
_________________________________________________________

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (President)
Email: dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir
(Or via website) www.president.ir/email

The Presidency,
Palestine Avenue,
Azerbaijan Intersection,
Tehran,
ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
Fax: 00 98 21 6 649 5880

Here is how you can contact the local and national media in USA.

This is email address of Amnesty International USA:
admin-us@aiusa.org

* Contact politicians/representatives and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in your country and ask them to pressure Iran to commute the death sentence and free Nazanin. US representatives can be can be contacted via NOW.org.

Iran Focus-Violence, poverty and abuse led girl, 16, to gallows - Human Rights - News

2006-05-22T17:17:00.000-07:00

Iran Focus-Violence, poverty and abuse led girl, 16, to gallows - Human Rights - News

The case of Atefeh Rajabi, 16 year old girl condemned to death for having had sexual intercourse with men out of wedlock. The judge, Rezaii hung her himself.

What a surprise.

Save Nazanin Petition

2006-05-22T16:38:00.000-07:00

Save Nazanin Petition With 100,000+ Signatories!

Nazanin (her last name has been withheld) will be executed by hanging for the crime of self defense against three men who attempted to rape her (aged 17 at the time) and her cousin (aged 16 at the time). She is charged with murdering her attacker- having allegedly stabbed him during the assault.

Where are these so-called attackers and what punishment do they get?

You know what, she killed her potential rapists? Give her a goddamned medal!!

FrontPage magazine.com :: The State Department’s Dead Parrot by Kenneth R. Timmerman

2006-05-20T09:32:00.000-07:00

FrontPage magazine.com :: The State Department’s Dead Parrot by Kenneth R. Timmerman

Here's your answer Farid.

Truth, Life, and Political Honesty

2006-05-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

Truth, Life, and Political Honesty by Mark Glesne and "The California Homosexual Activists' Assault on Schoolchildren"

I've read and commented on the article written by Ben, posted on Mark's blog and it was significantly devoid of flaming rhetoric against homosexuality and against their ways until you read about....oh, two sentences into the article and land on this clause from the article about the Bill which reads:

According to the California Senate Judiciary Committee, "The bill also would direct the school governing boards to include only instructional material that accurately portrays the cultural, racial, gender and sexual diversity of our society, and, in instructional material for the social sciences, include the contributions of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender to the economic, political and social development of California and the United States of America." Grade level is not specified in the bill, so presumably, third graders may be learning about the sexual proclivities of Allen Ginsburg.

Would the school governing boards really use Allen Ginsburg, cartooned into a children's book, as an educational tool? Yes, and why should he not? I do remember that Thomas Jefferson was lauded as a great man of virtue, intelligence, and patriotism, and yet, if we want to go down that road of infamy, he was the owner of hundreds of slaves, and had an affair with a mullatto slave of his...That was not "traditionally moral" if you ask me, and yet, we don't see books destroying his reputation or slathering mold over his patriotism, we just see the great accomplishments of his time, as children should see in Allen Ginsburg, or perhaps, Shakespeare (if anything). And yes, I believe that homosexuals have a long road to trudge through, and mistakes have been made, accusations have been flung, fingers pointed, and yet, they are victims of extreme prejudice in our country even if the media ignores this fact.

Bacheha

2006-05-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

Bacheha migan ke vaghti miri balla shahr, bayad roosarito bekeshi aghab, rogue bezani be labat (ya jelle bezani be moohat), oonvaght beri ecstasy bekhori ta maghzet as gooshat darad.

Bacheha migan ke vaghti miri payine shahr, bayad mooye rooye labat bezari por sheh (dokhtarha va pesarha ;)), tond tond ra beri, va jam beshin doreh bababozorg ta begoozeh va hameh dast bezanan..

Bichareh Pesarah:

2006-05-18T14:16:00.000-07:00

1)Age tip bezanan beran biron migan baki gharar dari?

2)Age lebasaie mamoli beposhan migan to aslan salighe nadari.

3)Age ziad began doset daram migan baz che naghsheie to sarete?

4)Age nagan doset daram migan paye kase dige vasate.

5)Age ziad beheshon zang bezanan migan etemad nadari?

6)Age ye modat zang nazanan migan mesle inke saret kheily shologhe.

7)Age to khone ziad bekhandan migan chie mast shodi?

8)Age nakhandan migan che margete ashegh shodi?

9)Age sham bekhan migan hamash be fekre shekameshe.

10)Age sham nakhan migan malom nist ba ki sham koft karde

Tina Bergsd

2006-05-16T11:30:00.000-07:00

2006-05-16T11:04:00.000-07:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Interview with Afghan Warrior

2006-05-16T09:49:00.000-07:00

Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Interview with Afghan Warrior from Farid Pouya

It's important to help out your neighbor in times of need, especially in times of growth and construction as Afghanistan has been going through since the Afghan-US War started more than four years ago.

Many of the Afghan population have very little personalized voice in the Western media, and even in the world view. They seem to filter into news articles, or press photos, at times frozen in their tiny worlds- impermeable to the mind of the West, and at other times we see opinions about their loya-jurga, or the lowly women's movement.. Rarely do you see a personal, insightful side of Afghan from within Afghanistan. Like many blogs, Afghan Warrior shines through his knowledge of the universal language (English) and expresses everything about Afghanistan that any individual could want to know.

His optimism is a fertile land for other Afghan bloggers to grow in, even if internet access and learning English are two of the lower modern advances in Afghanistan.

Google News

2006-05-15T21:08:00.000-07:00

The last news stub that has been updated on Google News when searching "Ramin Jahanbegloo" was from Payvand News, Iran dated May 9, 2006.

What's going on here?

NemaNy.com

2006-05-15T16:23:00.000-07:00

Just for a moment.

Warrior of the Light Online

2006-05-13T20:03:00.000-07:00

Warrior of the Light Online

I knew when I first read The Alchemist that it was a book about myself. The young boy wanders as a shepherd of a flock that cannot speak to him, comfort him, or believe him but simply follow his cane. And after so many years, laying there between day and night as a young person does, he suddenly was frightened into his path. And on the way down that path, he became a new person, and learned about the joys of looking with life in one's eyes rather than at life, or to life.
Anyway, it was a journey that many have taken with his book, but I felt as if I aged with it, suddenly, and saw myself years later looking back and thinking, "so, this is the face of suspense." I was very young when I read his book, and stole it from someone, and kept reading it.
We should all keep these memories close, and look at them as he says to look at life around us- walk with a spoon full of oil, see your surroundings, but always remember to keep that oil from spilling.

The kind of writer that doesn't disappear with the cover once you turn the page into the book.

Ramin Jahanbegloo: Rights Advocate Calls Iranian Scholar's Arrest A Troubling Sign (RFE/RL)

2006-05-13T17:28:00.000-07:00

Ramin Jahanbegloo: Rights Advocate Calls Iranian Scholar's Arrest A Troubling Sign (RFE/RL)

The webpage maintained by Toronto Initiative for Iranian Studies has an excellent article here. Don't accept Fars News' face-value explanations for his arrest.

Pentagon Strike

2006-05-12T15:27:00.000-07:00

Pentagon Strike From Signs of the Times

Explaining, in very little detail if you ask me, how there was no gigantic boeing flying into the Pentagon building.

The lengths they go to blue photos, create hollywood hype, and then dump a load of bs that I have to clean off the surface of my thoughts. Visit the website and bask in the conspiracy.

The United-Ninety Three Transcript

2006-05-12T12:08:00.000-07:00

This is a copy of the United Ninety-Three flight's unfateful flight more than four years ago. This page is an excerpt that I chose, which as in all the other excerpts, was cut from the actual 31-minute voice recording from the airplane.

I hope that those who passed away and succeeded in throwing off the plane's flight path will rest in peace, even though everyone here still remembers that day and will not forget. I wanted to post this up because many people have not heard it but need to read it. Need may be a strong word, they think they may find something important about the minds of the hijackers in it- and they will.

Wicked Adventures Travel - Your destination for the ultimate wicked adventures!

2006-05-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

Wicked Adventures Travel - Your destination for the ultimate wicked adventures!

Washington Prism

2006-05-12T10:53:00.000-07:00

Washington Prism's Farid Pouya with Farhad Khosrokhavar.

In the Farsi/Persian text, enjoy.

Ramin Jahanbegloo's Amnesty International Appeal

2006-05-11T23:26:00.000-07:00

I have been blocked from my Eponym website at this time, but I hope to have it up and running by June of this year.

Most of the concentration of the news from Iran has been concerning the threat of war, future crude oil bin prices, and the 18 page letter from that-person-whom-nobody-can-pronounce-his-last-name-on-cnn has sent to President Bush here.

But, there has been more writing on the fate of Ramin Jahanbegloo, which has been hidden from the public for nearly a week now. More writers continue to spread his story around; the mysterious arrest, the even more mysterious causes; and continue to allign forces with such groups as Amnesty International, the Iranian Student Organizations, etc... to support the truth in this ordeal.

At this point in time, I've gotten another article, linking to a group blog called "Freethoughts" run by many devious writers who have much to say about Ramin and his background as well as his future.

KentuckyFriedCruelty.com

2006-05-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

Now here is an in-depth, knowledgeable article that points out the faults within the system of mass-food chain companies like Kentucky Fried Chicken...or KFC as is known in the U.S

I've linked to the FAQs page, which has very clear information on the basic plans that PETA would encourage KFC to implement. At one point in time, there was a rumor going around on blogs and radio talk shows that KFC had chickens that had very little bones, no beaks, no tails, and were just tube-fed machines waiting to be slaughtered.

At this point in time, it would not be the fault of the consumers, who will continue to consume meat whether or not new regulations are imposed on some of these horrendous meat markets. However, the companies do have the resources to stop their cruel treatment of these poor chicken populations.

It's just like that automotive industry, that the meat industry will whine and moan and cry at the doorstep of the Capitol, and then, when it is forced to change policies, NOTHING HAPPENS... No stock market crashes....no loss of shareholders.....etc.etc.etc.

MEK Definition

2006-04-28T12:04:00.000-07:00

Hello!

Back to this webpage to use the Screenname for posting on Juan Cole's blog. I've just submitted a comment on Juan Cole's article on the pro-Likud agenda of the Conservatives and their relationship with the "terrorist" MEK as Juan Cole puts it:

---
Excellent definition of terrorism; in any sense of terrorism in your terms, the US would be a terrorist cult too, wouldn't it? We HAVE killed civilians in our pursuit of pinning down Osama Bin Laden/Al-Qaeda and Saddam/Baathists...You're missing the clause that a terrorist kills innocent civilians with intention and purpose, while the US and the MEK killed civilians unintentionally.
If they have killed civilians intentionally, please provide the readers with that bit.

----

I am perturbed by the ease with which the term "terrorism" is used today, and here was a great example.

Note

2006-03-21T09:51:00.000-08:00

Alright, who was I kidding?
SNTC's moved to another field of dreams.

Moved

2006-03-20T15:46:00.000-08:00

SNTC's been transmorgified; email me for the changes!

Bye Bye Birdy

2006-03-17T20:27:00.000-08:00

Okay, time to pack up Say No To Crack's organization and move it.

When we find our new home, we'll send a postcard.

Innocence Lost

2006-03-16T21:45:00.000-08:00

The thought that most prematurely floats to the top of my mind after reading this is a thought that usually identifies itself after I realize that someone has been executed for a crime, or placed into solitary confinement for months on end. Certain realities, like the act or expression of paedophilia and its impact in our society are, to a degree, as specific I can get in terms of those thoughts. The thought's presence is not as important as the portent of its ideas and dilemmas are; for instance, child pornography and its causes, effects, problems, and solutions.

I strongly urge myself to discover new perspectives on the thought of crime and punishment in our society, especially in light of the case of some paedophiles. In imagining the causes and effects that impact my world when the media suddenly hound on this issue, it is equally debateable whether this type of propaganda-like nuance of "innocence versus inhumanness" will really help the child who was victimized and continues to be in light of the crime being revealed?
Will it actually take us a step towards finding out why the man sexually confronted a child?

Most of the concept of children revolves around the projection of their vulnerability, lack of responsibility or disassociated view of 'reality' (usually, sex does not matter). And, as a case in point, they are called innocent; lacking maturity, or, gullible. They still believe that Prince Charming's real name is Charming.
At the same time, women in most cultures of the world, and even in American culture, are projected as being the soft (or weak), innocent, guileless being who is an object of lust. The opposite of the conniving, powerful, and sexually dominant male.

In effect, the image of children and women (although boys are more often abused as children than men in adult relationships) as a target is even more inflated by this damned idea that they ARE the symbol. That just because society portrays them as the symbol of the word "innocence", they must, evidentally, act or project themselves as one for the "non-innocent". Then, we may see why there is this blurring of lines for paedophiles.

Why is it that most people, men and women in general (including lesbians, sexually and socially), are attracted to a wide-eyed, full-lipped, soft-skinned, hairless woman on purely surface based bias than to a normal, average, hairy woman? And why is it that children are even more attractive?

There could be more than one answer here. Or even more questions.

Another writer discusses this in eloquent questions too ;)

Just Nuke It!

2006-03-16T15:13:00.000-08:00

Here's an idea;

A simple, soft, feminist-upping sweatshirt for those of you who just love a girly-looking statement on the conservative view of Iran's nuclear energy proliferations.

(JUST NUKE IT! © could be another Top 100 sales hit)

You've got to love consumerism when it just can't help being so loveable.

It comes in more girly-looking colors like baby-blue and white for those of us who get squeamish when we see pink but still opt for 'feminine' colors.

UN, Bloggers, and the IRI

2006-03-15T09:54:00.000-08:00

I think the underlying theme here, from the majority of the Blogs (abtahi, khanoumhana, alpar, ashoob) is the overwhelming vote of no-confidence from the Iranian people and it's Diaspora at large against the nuclear/atomic energy proliferations of the Iranian government.

The idea that is being spread here is that the energy is for the people, and the majority of Iranians would agree that this energy is not for the people. Some may like to say that people do not know what's good for them, which is why the government makes the greater decisions for them, but that is not true. Iranians who are educated and well read on this issue realize that it is a political and demographic tactic to ensure the IRI's continuing continuing power struggle within the Middle East against its image of weakness and back-door dealings with the West.

Those Iranians who don't know what the processes and implications of the atomic energy policies and plants entail in a real world context would not know the butt end of a heating rod from a toilet pipe...but they do know that the gas and energy minsitry has trouble getting gas to their homes in the winter and they wonder how atomic energy is going to change their municipality skills.

Mojtaba and the Gay Iranians

2006-03-13T17:26:00.000-08:00

“I would like to ask a question of the people of the world: is there anyone
who can listen and understand what I’m saying? Is there any one who can save us?
To be gay and Iranian is worse than anything else! Do you think it is in my
hands to change my gayness? I am not god, able to change myself. Are we made
this way just to make you laugh? I think we gay Iranians have no future. We are
marginalized and persecuted. Should I stay here in Turkey to die in isolation,
or go back to Iran and be prepared for execution? Save us! Help us!”
- Mojtaba, "a
soft-spoken young man, is from Shiraz, a city of some 1,100,000 people in
southwest Iran"

The greatest fear that the IRI plays on is the darkness behind those veiled eyes.
Here, you can read and contribute yourself, ideas, and financial support to the group that voices their concerns to the world.

Until They Bleed Tears

2006-03-13T17:17:00.000-08:00

In Picture #7 of the photo campaign to free Jill Carroll, you see her wearing the traditional Arabic/Muslim Hijab, or the veil.

It only sheds more light onto the fact that this hostage needs to be freed. Her picture is a tool, that is being used wisely. It is a display of human emotion, happiness, shared between Christians and Muslims. Albeit, she is wearing a veil which is not part of her cultural tradition, but it is a part of her existence. She wore that veil better, in terms of how much hair it shows, than most women correspondents in Iraq would have.
Obviously, she has a great respect for Islam that does not reach the hearts of those people who captured her.

2006-03-13T16:13:00.000-08:00

In many ways, my first encounter with Denmark was one that I will probably never forget and rarely revisit.
On a very cold midafternoon, after an eleven hour flight on an airplane and another impeccably straightened, stiffened, and exhausted chair I landed in Amsterdam. My first memory of the airport was that it was very big, almost innumerable tunnels going this way and that, sometimes even reaching out beyond the windows where one could see an arm-like extension of the terminals going for what seemed like miles. I landed there, as a kid, and held my duffel bag against my chest, walking as fast as I could to keep up with my flight 'babysitter'. A pack of well concealed playing cards pressed up against my chest and various pencils, notebooks, and loose chocolate candy wrappers crushed themselves in an effort to accomodate my vise-like grip.
As we walked, I noticed her cleanliness, and morbid insistence on looking directly at the space in front of her nose , which I had seen before in my short experiences through life but never tasted when there was a slight air of xenophobia hanging between us.
I was sure that god, or God -had in good humor- left me a very pretty attendant who, being Dutch, would adore my oh so 'Americanness' and consequently ask me all about my adoring set of Barbies, my fascination with horses, and then hug me and send me away into the arms of my loving family; just like the nurse in the Sound of Music.

But, unfortunately, that was not what happened. What happened was me, and my unrelenting mouth, spewing all of my favorite stories and ideas and thoughts hoping to see what she would say. Still, cluthing the duffel bag in case she did turn into some howling, slobbering Medusa I slowly realized that she was more in-tune to the dazzling array of invisibly entertaining molecules in the air than to the small child trying to make friends.

Of course, when I realized that, I huffed, puffed, and tried to blow that little piggie's house down, but ended up in a small metal chair in the children's waiting room until I was picked up.

Later on, when I retold my story to my relatives, they nodded almost knowingly, shaking their heads as if it were something they had seen before or could understand. And they did. The Dutchmen did not like my relatives, for reasons that could be considerably variated but amounted to the nitty gritty fact that they had darker hair and darker eyes and were evidently olive-complexioned.

To me, they were very pretty.
But at that time, I chalked that observation up to a irrelevant experience that I would never repeat again by avoiding snobbyish looking women -and men, for that matter.

Much later, when I was older and revisited the land of the Giants (the Dutch are the tallest humans, as a group, in the world) I came up with other, more reasonable explanations for that woman's reaction to a small child.

I was comitting the crime myself.

Evidently, after living in Iran for quite a while (without my duffel bag in tow) I became my own Medusa. In the land where woman range from all colors underneath the red sun, fair-skinned, golden haired 'morgh's or women ('hen's) are comparatively more beautiful than, say, a 'sabze' or a olive-complexioned girl. Especially in the northern regions of Iran.

Now, as a child, you are born into a society as a stranger. A complete stranger. You grow up to assimilate into the society by imitating those around you, and by adding or detracting from your character those behavioral traits that you, yourself, don't need. And, as a new-born, or someone who was completely alienated by and from the Iranian society, I considered my dislike of olive-complexioned girls to be a direct cause of the socially accepted norms of beauty in the Iranian society. I was taught that a girl should be rosy cheeked, and fair haired. If not, she should try to be. And so, I came face to face with one of my many Medusas. Watching her sprout from in between a childlike garden was scary, but at least I was able to see it. Certainly, it could not be ignored, this new reason behind the mask that the woman wore in Denmark. She was not at fault, for inheriting her society's dislike of the less-than-acceptable. The less-than-human.

I am no less, but more human that I was a few years back. But, the experience of the norms and labels of beauty in Iran gave me the tools to recognize why and how our gardens sometimes spoil from our personal Medusas.

---

On another note. The news is that a Dutch Immigration minister, Rita Verdonk, has denied asylum to gay Iranians because they will not be executed if they are returned to Iran.

She believes that the two young men, who were executed this year in Mash'had, were only executed because they were purportedly witnessed to have raped a minor. The case has no real hard evidence, and the jury was -obviously- out on this one...because there is no jury in Iran.

However, because they 'had' raped a minor, she claims that these gay Iranians have nothing to be afraid of. All they have to be afraid of is gross human rights violations (rape, murder, and systematic abuse), secretive, closed-door cases, and a long, dark, wet prison cell.

She also ordered Iranian Christians -converts- to be returned to Iran. On the same basis that they did not have any threats to their lives based on that fact alone.

The nightmare is that this news groups the Iranian Christian converts with the Gay Iranians. It tackles two entirely different issues and jurisprudential crises with one fell swoop. It lumps homosexuality, with conversion, two of the many socially discriminated-against behaviors in Iran.

Iran is simply too dangerous for them.

Free Jill Carroll

2006-03-12T11:26:00.000-08:00

I hope that Jill Carrol, the journalist who was working in Iraq, will be freed by the time people read this post.

Here is a photo-campaign to free her.

Discussion

2006-03-10T22:37:00.000-08:00

Right now, I'm sitting in an Islamic meeting discussing the important, critical issues that have impacted their thoughts on a daily basis. My own thoughts interact and collide with theirs.

Here are some of the ideas that they've discussed. But first, the background of this group is a perspective of perennially secular Muslims, in California.

These are a group of children to adults.

*
Someone said that if I were a Muslim and changed to a Christian, my persona would not change. My self would not change.

Tradition causes rifts in the religion of Islam. At times, we acquire traditional customs into Islam and at times we integrate Islam into culture.

The Quran depends on how you read it; who wants to use it how. One person wants one thing , the other wants another.

You can't just read the Quran and say that "so and so is going to happen if I do this"; instead, you have to take the experiences that you've had and then reflect by reading the Quran.

Reading the Quran can change the direction of your life; it can affect your goals, change them.

Don't look at the Quran like a historical document; look at it as a guideline to life. A lifestyle.

History repeats itself, and reading the Quran can shine light on the future by knowing what happened before.

For Taliban, Islam is a goal, not reaching God. They would kill to abide by the rules, but wouldn't know how to make sense of those rules outside of their own immediate environment.

Islam is a vessel, not a rule.

Islam means three things; proof of your worship, your acts of islam, and your thoughts

The most simplest thing in the Quran, or the most detailed, are the simple verses in it. God says, "I made the fly" so, how come a god this big isn't embarassed to admit that he made such a primitive creature? He is so gracious.

Humans can't do anything compared to god. They still haven't been able to make DNA or cells.

....

An Interview With Reza Aslan

2006-03-06T11:42:00.000-08:00

Reza Aslan, a research associate at the University of Southern California and author of No God but God on Public Diplomacy, says in response to whether or not Iran has violated any NNPT laws:

"No, this is of course the awkward part of this whole thing, is that despite years of lying and cheating and hiding the scale and scope of their nuclear program they have yet to technically violate, violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty now. I think that is an indication that the treaty needs fixing. But, nonetheless, I think that Iran believes that it has an inalienable right, as a signatory of the NNPT to continue its enrichment for what it claims is peaceful purposes...It's hard to really figure out whether that's the case or not.
And...in particular I think Iran...over the last couple of months, particularly with this nuclear trade deal that the United States is signing with India -which of course is not a signatory of the NNPT and does have nuclear weapons, in violation of international law-
I think that just feeds the perception in Iran, that there is a, a double standard applied to their country. I think it's just going to harden that sentiment in the Islamic Republic."

His final statement,
"I think we have to recognize that there is nothing any country in the world could do to convince Iran to stop enriching Uranium on its own soil"

Pop Culture. Popular Tradition and Extradition.

2006-03-06T10:05:00.000-08:00

I would like to know if anyone has references that are studies, or essays or reports on these issues. Certain pieces, like poems and short stories are acceptable.

Impact of chat and chatting on the younger generation of the 21st Century; sex, education, and identity.

Urban "mania" as superimposed on relatively rich and otherwise White suburban areas.

Movies that celebrate the triumph of good vs evil in stark black and white symbology and characterizations for young kids. Lord of the Rings. Harry Potter. Even Star Wars Episode III.

On writing in blogs; transformation from thinking of feelings to explicating and indulging one's self in the act of expressing them to others.

Integration of people through the internet on topics that were once discussed mainly by men like Henry Kissinger but are now hand-me-downs of the next-door-neighbor type.

The proliferation of resources spread out in thousands of organizations, affiliations, corporate exchanges, journals, internet databases and the segregation of generalization in history from the specialist work.

...

Eh

Origen and Apokatastasis

2006-03-06T09:17:00.000-08:00

Re:
Origen of Alexandria and Apokatastasis

Origen was a philosopher whose work was in parallel with early Gnostic and late Hellenistic learning. At the same time he was completely at odds with the Church's word, a heretic for believing in the principles of transformation and rehabilitation (redemption, in Christian terminology, is the return to good during the visible life, or real life; Origen believed redemption was a return to good that continued even after the visible life).

Persian Pride

2006-03-05T14:15:00.000-08:00

Mr. Behi, a writer from within Iran, explains a very important term in the handy Getting to Know Iran Guidebook (one size fits all):

We, Iranians have a very common habit that we can not help not to expose, and that is a pride we have to our history especially to the ancient glorious era of the Persian empire. When chatting with non-Iranians, we can not help it not to lecture them about the great history we had in our land and this happens as soon as they ask a question from us about Iran whatever it is. It happened to me many times and I found myself explaining the fact that we had this and that in our history, Insisting to correct the wrong impression of many of the Europeans that our language is not Arabic but Persian and smile from ear to ear when their eyebrows were rising in surprise. I can not help it as an Iranian but all the time, I feel it is silly to divide history by the present borders as it is to divide Earth as such.

One of the top priorities if an attack on Iran is palpable would be to understand and develop a sense of association between persian pride of their heritage, and the sense of victimization or subordination they feel from post-Islamic Iran.

You can see for yourself, even Mr. Behi displays that ever feeling of pride and then slumping reality of denial.

Who Else Feels Like They're Chasing Points On A Circle?

2006-03-05T10:54:00.000-08:00

II was thinking of writing this story when I went through a writer who talked about the perceived threats to masculinity and the ever metrosexual jesus;

I decided not to continue my writing, for reasons of personal and emotional well-being. It seems that the struggle for women and men is always like the two sides of a tree, that when the sun hits it, there is always one light side and one dark, and as the earth circles the sun, the light side goes to the other and the dark side equivalently the same. But, no matter how much the tree turns and twists, there is always one side blinded and the other, simply, in the dark.

I hate to leave my thoughts like this, tracing them for so long through the night, thinking of the many scholars, artists, directors, poets, and even friends who've come up with so many distinct versions of sex and violence and society. It is a reminder of my mortality that when I wake up every morning, it is by chance that I haven't died yet, and have one more day in which to think about life as it is. As it is, my thinking hasn't necessarily brought me to the answers or the process that would give answers.

I have too many questions. Especially about sex and the roles that are assigned to sex. Again, my questions always end up being "what, what, what" because even those who are convinced that a man is someone who drinks beer, grabs ass, and watches football games
don't know how they came to be such men, or how to combat those men who can't fit into these categories or are unwilling to.

Here's that piece;

"Should I hope that there will be a Men's Awareness Month? A month that would celebrate men who have stood against the "grain" of their masculine brothers and taken on the role of Human instead of man?

Yes. I should. We are a changing world, and that means change for a whole category; men with women, instead of women alone, or blacks alone. Pushing forward the agenda of Women as a women's issue is relevant but it just isn't the case. Men are the co-habitators of one-half of this world, and women believe that their half is subservient to that half. Although women may be dominated by a patriarchal society in countries like the IRI, I don't believe that this is what I need to see in our country now. What I need to see is a Men's Awareness month, where issues that men face are tackled."

A Special Ed Student

2006-03-04T15:20:00.000-08:00

According to the Yale Herald article, Hashemi, who will graduate in 2009 like many other First Time Freshman of his caliber, will be taking political science classes that are not geared towards a degree but rather to having mature, and motivated students represent Yale in their futures as well as to fulfill all the Yale requirements as if they really were getting a degree.

Of course, the Yale Hearld paints him out to be the horn-rimmed librarian that just loves "furry bunnies, walks on the beach, and cozy moments shared with my significant other"- always...what is the word? Politically correct. That's it. He's "seeking to learn and be educated"

A close friend of the genius Hezbo is Rezvi, who coincidentally also graduated from an Ivy League, and he says this about Rahmatullah's ever endearing love for the smell of new books as you open them, “He has views, but his views are about how to improve things, like education. We talk about how to deal with the future and the problems in that part of the world,”

I wonder what kinds of problems they talk about, especially in that cryptic way in which Rezvi mentions "the future and the problems in that part of the world". Oh, we are talking about Afghanistant, the south Asian countries, and the Middle East, right?

So, we are talking about the problems that women face, I imagine, because Rezvi did study in an Ivy League, he should know the difference between a problem as Islam sees it and a problem as someone like Jackson Katz would see it;

Does Hashemi discuss the finer points of gutting a pregnant women from the lower belly up or from between the breasts down to her groin?

Maybe, he's thinking about applying a political science theory to the way the bobble-headed children study in Afghanistan, or STUDIED, under his former friends?

Yale Discriminates Yet Again

2006-03-04T15:09:00.000-08:00

JOHN FUND ON THE TRAIL

Here's a copy of the article for those of you who didn't click on the link. It's from the Wall Street Journal Opinion

Jihadi Turns Bulldog
The Taliban's former spokesman is now a Yale student. Anyone see a problem with that?

Monday, February 27, 2006 12:01 a.m.

Never has an article made me blink with astonishment as much as when I read in yesterday's New York Times magazine that Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former ambassador-at-large for the Taliban, is now studying at Yale on a U.S. student visa. This is taking the obsession that U.S. universities have with promoting diversity a bit too far.

Something is very wrong at our elite universities. Last week Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard when it became clear he would lose a no-confidence vote held by politically correct faculty members furious at his efforts to allow ROTC on campus, his opposition to a drive to have Harvard divest itself of corporate investments in Israel, and his efforts to make professors work harder. Now Yale is giving a first-class education to an erstwhile high official in one of the most evil regimes of the latter half of the 20th century--the government that harbored the terrorists who attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001.

"In some ways," Mr. Rahmatullah told the New York Times. "I'm the luckiest person in the world. I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale." One of the courses he has taken is called Terrorism-Past, Present and Future.

Many foreign readers of the Times will no doubt snicker at the revelation that naive Yale administrators scrambled to admit Mr. Rahmatullah. The Times reported that Yale "had another foreigner of Rahmatullah's caliber apply for special-student status." Richard Shaw, Yale's dean of undergraduate admissions, told the Times that "we lost him to Harvard," and "I didn't want that to happen again."

In the spring of 2001, I was one of several writers at The Wall Street Journal who interviewed Mr. Rahmatullah at our offices across the street from the World Trade Center. His official title was second foreign secretary; his mission was to explain the regime's decision to rid the country of two 1,000-year-old towering statues of Buddha carved out of rock 90 miles from the Afghan capital, Kabul. The archeological treasures were considered the greatest remaining examples of third- and fifth-century Greco-Indian art in the world. But Taliban leader Mullah Omar had ordered all statues in the country destroyed, calling them idols of infidels and repugnant to Islam.

Even Muslim nations like Pakistan denounced the move. Mr. Rahmatullah, who at the time claimed to be 24 but now says he was lying about his age and was actually two years younger, cut a curious figure in our office. He wore a traditional Afghan turban and white baggy pants and sported a full beard. His English, while sometimes elliptical, was smooth and colloquial. He made himself very clear when he said the West had no business worrying about the statues, because it had cut off trade and foreign aid to the Taliban. "When the world destroys the future of our children with economic sanctions, they have no right to worry about our past," he told us, according to my notes from the meeting.

He smiled as he informed us that the statues had been blown up with explosive charges only after people living nearby had been removed. He had no comment on reports that Mullah Omar had ordered 100 cows be sacrificed as atonement for the Taliban government's failure to destroy the Buddhas earlier.

As for Osama bin Laden, Mr. Rahmatullah called the Saudi fugitive a "guest" of his government and said it hadn't been proved that bin Laden was linked to any terrorist acts, despite his indictment in the U.S. for planning the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He said that if the embassy bombings were terrorist acts, then so was the Clinton administration's firing cruise missiles into his country in an attempt to kill bin Laden. "You killed 19 innocent people," he told us.

After the meeting I walked him out. I vividly recall our stopping at a window as he stared up at the World Trade Center. We stood there for a minute chatting, but I don't recall what he said. He then left. I next thought about him a few months later, on Sept. 11, as I stood outside our office building covered in dust and debris staring at the remains of the towers that had just collapsed. I occasionally wondered what had happened to Mr. Rahmatullah. I assumed he either had died in the collapse of the Taliban regime, had been jailed, or was living quietly in the new, democratic Afghanistan.

From newspaper clips I knew that his visit to the Journal's offices was part of a PR tour. He visited other newspapers and spoke at universities, and the State Department had granted him a meeting with midlevel officials. None of the meetings went particularly well. At the University of Southern California, Mr. Rahmatullah expressed irritation with a question about statues that at that point hadn't yet been blown up. "You know, really, I am asked so much about these statues that I have a headache now," he moaned. "If I go back to Afghanistan, I will blow them."

Carina Chocano, a writer for Salon.com who attended several of his speeches in the U.S., noted the hostility of many of his audiences. "A lesser publicist might have melted down," she wrote. "But the cool, unruffled and media-smart Hashemi instead spun his story into a contemporary parable of ironic iconoclasm," peppering his lectures with "statue jokes."

But sometimes his humor really backfired. At a speech for the Atlantic Council, Mr. Rahmatullah was confronted by a woman in the audience who lifted the burkha she was wearing and chastised him for the Taliban's infamous treatment of women. "You have imprisoned the women--it's a horror, let me tell you," she cried. Mr. Rahmatullah responded with a sneer: "I'm really sorry to your husband. He might have a very difficult time with you."

A videotape of his cutting remark became part of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," and infuriated the likes of Mavis Leno, wife of "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno. Mrs. Leno helped found the Feminist Majority's Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan and devoted countless hours to focusing public attention on the plight of Afghanistan's women and girls. "I will never, ever abandon these women," she often said before the Taliban's overthrow. Here's hoping she has saved some of her outrage for Yale's decision to welcome Mr. Rahmatullah with open arms.

In his interview with the New York Times, Mr. Rahmatullah, said that if he had to do it all over, he would have been less "antagonistic" in his remarks during his U.S. road tour. "I regret the way I spoke sometimes. Now I would try to be softer. A little bit." Just a little?

Today, when he is asked if Afghanistan would be better off if the Taliban were still in charge, Mr. Rahmatullah, has a mixed answer: "Economically, no. In terms of security, yes. In terms of general happiness, no. In the long-term interests of the country? I don't think so. I think the radicals were taking over and doing crazy stuff. I regret when people think of the Taliban and then think of me--that feeling people have after they know I was affiliated with them is painful to me." Note that the government official who represented the Taliban abroad now claims to have been only "affiliated" with them.

Even though he evinces only semiregret for his actions in service to the Taliban, there is evidence that he has become quite a charmer. After the fall of the Taliban, he resumed a friendship he had developed with Mike Hoover, a CBS News cameraman who, according to a 2001 Associated Press story, had visited Afghanistan three times as a guest of the Taliban. Mr. Hoover inspired Mr. Rahmatullah to think about going to the U.S. to finish his studies. "I thought he could do a lot as a student/teacher," said Mr. Hoover. He persuaded Bob Schuster, an attorney friend of his from Wyoming who had gone to Yale, to help out. As the Times reported, "Schuster called the provost's office to ask how an ex-Taliban envoy with a fourth-grade education and a high-school equivalency degree might go about applying to one of the world's top universities."

Intrigued by Mr. Rahmatullah, Dean Shaw arranged for his admission into a nondegree program for special students. He apparently has done well, so far pulling down a 3.33 grade-point average.

There is something to be said for the instinct to reach out to one's former enemies. America's postwar reconciliation with the Japanese and Germans has paid great dividends. But there are limits.

During a trip to Germany I once ran into a relative of Hans Fritsche, the top deputy to Josef Goebbels, whom the Guardian, a British newspaper, once described as "the Nazi Propaganda Minister's leading radio spokesman [whose] commentaries were among the main items of German home and foreign broadcasting." After the war he was tried as a war criminal at Nuremberg, but because he had only given hate-filled speeches, he was acquitted of all charges in 1946. In the early 1950s, he applied for a visa to visit the U.S. and explain his regret at having served an evil regime. He was turned down, to the everlasting regret of the relative with whom I spoke. She noted that Albert Speer, Hitler's former architect, was also turned down for a U.S. visa even after he had completed a 20-year prison sentence and had written a best-selling book detailing Hitler's madness.

I don't believe Mr. Rahmatullah had direct knowledge of the 9/11 plot, and I don't think he has ever killed anyone. I can appreciate that he is trying to rebuild his life. But he willingly and cheerfully served an evil regime in a manner that would have made Goebbels proud. That he was 22 at the time is little of an excuse. There are many poor, bright students--American and foreign alike--who would jump at the opportunity to attend Yale. Why should Mr. Rahmatullah go to the line ahead of all of them? That's a question Yale alumni should ask when their alma mater comes looking for contributions.

President Bush, who already has a well-known disdain for Yale elitism from his student days there, may also have some questions. In the wake of his being blindsided by his own administration over the Dubai port deal, he should be interested in finding out exactly who at the State Department approved Mr. Rahmatullah's application for a student visa.

Yale's New Age Diversity

2006-03-04T14:48:00.000-08:00

READ

So, everyone now knows about Seyed Rahmatullah Hashemi, who's government, the Taliban regime, brought the world into a chaotic struggle for a war against terror on September 11, 2001.

Not only did his government harbor those who helped bring down the WTC towers, they also were a major cause of the rise of terms like "the axis-of-evil" in George W. Bush's words, which pointed to Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as the enemies of this war on terror.

All the writers and scholars discuss the war-on-terror in vivid terms, using images of Americans being attacked on home turf by turban wearing mullahs and fascist murderers raping, pillaging, and slowly destroying democracy and the west.

However, this hasn't yet happened. What has happened is that Yale, the Ivy League university that ranks in the highest levels of academic achievement in the world, accepted the ambassador of the Taliban Regime in Afghanistan to its school.

I guess this is diversity,this is the equal rights of all men. But I think there's something missing here. Now, I can imagine a thousand and one missing pieces here, for instance, why they will accept someone like this devil's advocate.

Here's some links

The Wall Street Journal
If you read the Wall Street Journal, this is an opinion that goes into detail about the case and Yale's own words; after Harvard accepted soemoen of the same caliber as Hezbollah (ooops! I meant, Rahmatullah) Yale decided that they would not "make the same mistake again" and hired this mutant of a genius instead.

ZaneIrani
I like her.

Weekend's Bring Memory Home

2006-03-04T13:34:00.000-08:00

On friday, before the ceremonies began, we were all sitting around the table. Two of us furiously working at the saffron, crushing the red herbs against a marble grade. It was the custom, for the daughters of the family, with sleeves rolled up and a canvas of golden skin showing, to bend over the saffron and crush it to perfection.

Each daughter was given a mortar and a small sack of saffron, which was delivered by the neighbor who was also helping in the ceremonies. At the dark, wooden table both girls moved in a rhythmic motion, crushing the saffron into a fine powder. The red of the saffron reminded them both of sensual and soft thoughts, bared to their self-conscience by a reminder that red was also the color of the devil they feared those thoughts and put them away working at their saffron, again.

Of course, no one had ever actually told us that we had grown up to be two beautiful girls, but it was made apparent by the new light in the neighbor's eyes as he approached the room. His feet stopped at the entrance of the room, the smell of the stew cooking in the giant pots making his nostrils twitch with anticipation. But, what had amazed him most was how the two little girls, shrieking and yanking at his coattails with goofy grins and innocent, wide eyes had suddenly turned into two women. The first, his eyes told him, was Soheila, the littlest one, and the prettiest of the two. Her golden hair, almost a honey color wrapped about her soft waist. When she looked up to the neighbor, smiling, her wide eyes sparkled a deep blue, aknowledging the old patron as she would her father. Of course, her sister was much darker. A par of braids extended down to her shoulder blades, as dark as the brown mud that surrounded their backyard, and eyes that were black in the light, but moody and tense as she spotted him. The neighbor extended the sacks and left them on the ground.

Both girls turned back to their work, this time, the dark-haired one, Ronak, felt trapped by his body standing near the doorway. For some unexplainable image began to show itself to her. As her hands continued its rhythmic push and pull over the saffron, his body seemed to eclipse the sunlight, a silhouette of resilience where the sunlight wavered. The shadow that he cast against her face was cold, indifferent to her but the sunlight's failed attempt to peek through from behind his larger frame scared her. Eyes closing, she turned her head to the mortar, a drop of sweat forming behind her ear and sliding down her neck caused her to frown. The crease of her forehead an unknown feeling to her smooth skin.

The neighbor, having stared at their supple movements, caught his breath short. The sound of feet approaching, the girls' mother, stopping his already outstretching hand. The fingers of his right hand shook, shivering with a vacanct expression that was not there, but gone, touching the skin of their arms and stroking the hair from the nape of the golden one.

He left soon, after greeting the mother and commenting on the rich smells from the kitchen.

"You have such fine skills, such good smells come from this kitchen when you cook, Aziz. And such pretty children to help with it. They've grown so."

The mother, grinning from ear to ear, fanned herself with her hand laughing at his comment on her cooking skills. What struck Ronak, was the absence of her mother's tight lip at the mention of their names. It should have been a small smile, and a overly lascivious thank you to signal his leave; that would mean he had been inappropriate with her daughters' presence, but today was not the case.

Today was the ceremony, the day in which Ronak and Soheila's older brother was engaged to the daughter of a doctor, a friend of the family's.

Insides the house, there had been a commotion all day long. The rooms had been swept clean with the servant's help. Each room was placed with lush carpets, designed to portray the flourishing fruits of the spring. Each carpet had a theme, one of tiny swallows and blossoms, others of more flowers and symbols of luck. The carpets were lined with pillows, that the guests would sit on, cross-legged, and enjoy the festivities on.

---

Note to self; characters, carpets, dress, birds

Friedan

2006-03-04T12:08:00.000-08:00

Honestly, we work and work until the day we are about spitting fire and balding at unusual places and suddenly realize that, "Hey, I'm still earning less money that that caputz over there because of some holy-art-thou rules of social dominance that basically state if you aren't hiding a pair of balls underneath boxers (or panty-hose, for that matter) you are as surely not going to be earning as much as if you were!"

As much as I would not enjoy discussing the finer details of that, there is certainly a great respect for those women who did. If you recognize who Betty Friedan is, then you may know what she helped to introduce to humanity, and if you have no clue, here are some resources:

Note Written by Melissa
Her piece reflects on the environment in which most women are still revelling in, years after Betty Friedan.

Real Media Presentation
Discussing what Friedan's vision and explorations accounted to in the view of David Horowitz.

Research
Self-authored books as well as critiques, magazines, and clips.

---

Because it is March, and only an agonizing few days from the impending referral of Iran to
the Security Council in the UN, it will be one of the priorities of this year to focus on the Women's Awareness Month (and Men's Education), especially as it coincides with the news unravelling from New York.

Of course, we will be having more focus on the relevancy and the high-stakes case of Iran in the UN, but it is fair to bring forward the matters of the women in Iran as well. They will need the support, most especially of the West, if there really are going to be changes in the next decade.

Some people share my sentiments when there is talk of the mothers in Iran. That they set the examples for their future children, and that the better their tools and resources, the better their examples.

A Question Is A Questions Is A Question

2006-03-03T16:56:00.000-08:00

Feeling: Overly joyed by this month's topic of choice, Women's Awareness Month. I will be celebrating it, as I do everyday, with a much more approachable and friendly manner. Certainly, most people of my age would appreciate a moment to step back from the politically correct and assess what exactly it is that they want to correct and how exactly it is they are going to correct this.

Women's Awareness Month is not about lesbians. It is about subjects that concern both genders -and even those who haven't yet found a gender :). And it is not about degrading the male half of the human population. Even those men who defend women and their search for resolution in this world can be assured that they are not losing their masculinity, or their manhood for that matter. They are just losing their ignorance.

Gender is the equivalent of a a label, like a political party, that all members have to join in on their respective sides and hurl insults across the line at each other in an attempt to assert each side's omniscient right to domination of the other. Often times, it won't be just an insult. It will be a pie in the face, or even a fist in the face.

As many women in Iran may know, either through personal experience or the witnessing of someone else's, violence from men or the implication of its use is a reality that they must endure for the sake of absolute ignorance. It is no joke when you hear, see, or are involved in a violent incident between couples. First, witnessing or even having a part in these outbreaks of inhumanity causes deep psychological trauma, loss of security, and even teaches others the "quiet syndrome" or a tolerant attitude towards violence. Second, when there is a tolerance, ambiguity, and trauma in the situation of the women involved, there are no battered-wives homes for them to turn to when they need to begin a process of learning, and healing (no 1-800-help lines either).

Anyone else remember the House of Reyhaneh? There was, in Karaj, another home for battered girls who ran away from violent and oppressive regimes within their own homes. They turned to this government-approved home for learning and healing only to be disappointed and finally turned out into the streets by the same people who had promised to show them the guidance and the care they had not asked for but should have had when they were first brought into this world. Most of these girls came from abusive households where they were under substantial physical and mental discrimination by brothers, husbands and fathers.

In the IRI, the legality of a domestic violence case is amounted to a simple slap on the hand and a court order that simply "warns" the perpetrator of future consequences if they happen to abuse their spouse again- that's if the spouse is still alive then. At times, even, the wife is accused of acts that would be inflammatory to a Muslim man's. That, by some infallible independent chance, she comitted herself -voluntarily- to being a victim by going against her husband's grain.

Most of what I met in Iran, the tolerance and the spiteful but non-chalant attitude from women, I could understand. These were women who grew up as children before the Regime wanting to ride bicycles, and being told that "only boys ride bicycles," and after the regime still facing these social fallacies. Wanting to go swim in the pool with a swimsuit, and being told that "girls are chaste and chastity requires us to cover our bodies," while boys would go swimming showing all the skin their masculinity allowed them. Some have told me, friends and family, that they grew up helping their tired mothers cook four or five dishes of food, setting the table, and after grueling hours in a hot kitchen watching as the men ate their food only to be invited by the men to sit and eat (it's called taarof, or the act of faking an invitation). Even to this day, I remember watching women clean up the table as their fathers and brothers and some lazy sisters sat on the couches watching nubile, young bodies dancing to L.A based persian music on the satellite. This was the result of years of hardwork from the leadership.

In a sense, the patriarchal attitude of the society in Iran is based, in part, on the concept of Islam and marriage; that a little girl is property before the age of nine that is handed from the father's home to the husband's home after going through her menstrual period. Many will argue that this is not the case in marriage anymore in Iran, that there is a legal age for girls, and it's set at 18, but this is easily argued in the rural areas in Iran. Girls, on average, are married at very young ages in rural Iran, especially when they are a few years past their puberty, around 14 or 15 years of age.

Not only are women vessels for procreation and an endowment to the proliferation of Islam, they are also a concept of subordination to the dominance of men. Instead of choosing to solve the problems of the women in Iran who face battering, child abuse, and other cases of discrepancy, they are merely schloffed off to the world of hidden femininity. They are the side of humanity that is "excitable...prone to emotional excitation", or "they are a field to be plowed and tilled to a man's desires."

Again, the way in which violence and abuse is reinforced is by reiterating a perspective of women that alienates them even further from the perspective of men.

A good way to illustrate this is to use a more American metaphor; Men will be big, smart, and decisive but brooding intellectuals who hop out of Rambo weilding their phallic presence over the covert, vacillating unnamed Female who faints at a whim and swoons at the announcement of the next Tupperware convention.

So, instead of facing the proverbial causation of violence by awareness and deliberation on the part of women, there is more attention given to the "what" of a woman. How many times do we have to remind ourselves that if we want to change something we need to know "why, why, why" and then "how, how, how"

How do we prevent violence against women? Of course it's essential to have a basic understanding of what a woman is, but in general, that is what laws are for. Laws define what and who we are, or can be, within broad boundaries. For instance, a woman is someone who should never be battered in a domestic situation by law, ever. A woman is someone who should be given freedoms of employment, marriage, education, and entertainment equal to a man's by law, or at least she should be given the right of way to gain those freedoms. A woman would be someone who is deemed, by law, to stand up for her rights.

In other words;
A woman, by law, should be worth the same amount of money that a man is worth when she is killed in a car accident. A man is worth about 30 million Tomans, which is equivalent to 30 thousand dollars. But a woman is worth the same as a young boy's, 12 million Tomans.

It will be harder and harder for these old traditions and norms to be broken by the future generations, especially as the gap between the more westernized world widens from the traditional and midieval world of the middle east. As time goes by, it will be a bigger challenge for many youth to destroy the stereotypes about women and to remember that women should not be fighting alone for their rights, men are responsible too.

---

Here are some important quotes that I should look at later, but unfortunately, have no time to talk about now. This is an article by Parvin in the faithfreedom.org organization. Here's one of my reads.

"if a woman murders a man his family has the right to a sum paid to the next of kin as compensation for the slaughter of a relative. By contrast, if a man murders a woman, her murderer must, before retribution pay half the amount of a man's blood money to her guardian".

"To rape women prisoners, especially virgin girls, who are accused of being against the regime, is a normal and daily practice in the Islamic Republic's prisons, and by doing so, the clergies declare that they adhere to the merits of the Islamic principles and laws, preventing a virgin girl to go to Heaven. Mullahs believe that these are ungodly creatures and they do not deserve it, therefore they are raped to be sure they will be sent to hell". The report of the Special Representative of the Commission of the Human Rights of the United Nations in the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1992.

"The specific task of women in this society is to marry and bear children. They will be discouraged from entering legislative, judicial, or what ever careers which may require decision making, as women lack the intellectual ability and discerning judgment required for theses careers." Ayatolah Mutahari,(one of the principal ideologues of the Islamic Republic of Iran) on "The Question of Veil"

Simon Says, "Touch Your Elbows To Your Knees"

2006-03-03T16:02:00.000-08:00

Note: This is a theme in line with adult domitarcies -;)- and or it may not belong to your friendly neighborhood three-year old.

Coitum a posteriori, lead the way! (After ruthlessly abusing my body with caffeine, sugar cookies, tea, and an industrial amount of cooking- which can also make you hot and sweaty)

Sex is important to a sexual relationship. "Just as salt is important to Ashe-e-Reshteh," you are compelled to add a little sex to spice up that life of yours. Sex does not mean the woman lays a la vache style while the man seeks to plough her from the south. It is defined by its degree of eroticization, the degree of pleasure or stimulant that it arouses in the partners.

Eroticization, in terms of a woman's body, is getting to know her every crevice and curve.

And it is possible that all places on a woman's body are erotogenic "zones" in which a little stimulation can result in satisfactory relaxation. The conch-shelled shape of the ear, for example is a morsel of a buffet for a woman(some, unlike me) from her only too eager Tamerlane.

But, the most important erotogenic zone, certainly a priority in the case of sex concerning penis to vagina penetration, is the anterior wall of the vagina (which does have nerve endings!- in case there were any philocentric obscenities lurking in those evil minds) or as popular culture calls it, the ever infamous G-spot.

If you can't tell which is which, then you probably shouldn't be snooping down there anyway.

Komen na Sai

2006-03-02T13:59:00.000-08:00

Buddha converses with the rosy dawn, speaking in thrills of joy that in depths of height feel a grief of love;

"You will grasp the broadest ideas, the general importance of ideas. You will hear the syllables spoken as on the crest of the wind, and you will smile, modifying the occurence of each sound until at last you attain the ability to tell each color from its most dearest shades, and each shade delved into by its mother colors and at last, you will attain the enlightenment in which you were born of."

The Dawn, stretching forth her fingers in joy and wanting eagerly to stroke Buddha's cheek, Her entire being soliciting a physical pleasure, destroying all fragments of sensibility, but instead, she lay back against the night, combing her ocean of hair through his sleeping limbs. But, she thought of the Buddha long afterward.

And did not find him again.

----

On a less phantasmic whim, I've been very naughty (;), and very busy with work. It seems there is a constant list to classwork and the textbook references to bases+nucleotides+polymerase in our bodies. That no matter what I do, I can never associate my identity with my limbs and their mitotically challenged systems.

However much I feel convinced by the media that I am a person - that what people see people get- I am not my two hands nor my two feet, but rather, use them to better express my real self's needs and gives.

Kiss and Tell

2006-03-02T13:25:00.000-08:00

A promenade on the arms of my ever loyal browser, and a blue moon at that, led to the Garden of Shima, and there, it was so lush and foresty...Beautiful vines scrawled along the length of the ground and up the sides of the brush, reaching towards images of blossoming flowers and a blue-blue sky.

Somewhere along the trip, there was a picture of Shima dancing, in Iran, wearing a very modestly cut dress and smiling at a man who could otherwise have been her father (Her father-in-law); pregnant, and nonetheless, sober.

However, she talks of Ghelyoon, which is the equivalent or worse than cigarettes; alcohol which is illegal and punishable by lashing at least 70 times; and above all, feminine skin.

Otherwise a sensible scene - IN AMERICA- this strangeness would be exactly the moment when my loyal browser and I suddenly squawked with confusion.

Is there something wrong with this post that Shima's put up? In any rational world, we would say yes, but again, Iran makes rationality a national crime. Why is it that a pregnant, "lokht" woman in terms of IRI law, so easily puts up her picture, pictures of her family (who probably don't know that she put the picture up), and then proceeds to explain that there was alcohol in country that daily whips, hangs, and rapes women who have displayed skin, drank alcohol, and danced with men?

When I compare this with my friends who go by pseudonyms, use fake pictures, and never ever mention a family member's real name LET ALONE POST THEIR PICTURES, it makes very little sense to see this.

It would make more sense if I could figure out what sort of hormones she was on while pregnant, and get ahold of them myself.

Quote Unquote

2006-03-01T18:53:00.000-08:00

A great human rights activist and social studies Phenomena says this about Pakdasht

" "Pakdasht crimes will never be forgotten. The depth of these problems and incidents should be heeded at the regional and national levels. As long as issues of the sort are not attended to in a comprehensive and effective manner, we cannot protect the society as expected."

He goes on to reiterate that, if the root-cause of such ugly incidents is not heeded,

"our future moves will not be trustworthy".

Referring to the shocking crimes committed by two men in Pakdasht, he noted,

"The people who committed these crimes were enveloped by violence and revenge and were merciless. It must be seen what conditions led to the emergence of such people and that how many of the same might still be in the society of whom we are unaware.”

And finally, a last emphasis and a warning to all that,

"Otherwise, incidents of the sort recur and people soon forget about them until they happen again and then society wakes up."

(Just kidding, this was no other than Dr. Chocula himself, Khalibaf)

The hanging of Mohammed Bijeh, who was the main perpetrator of the violence committed against the 28 or so victims was probably the climactic surge in public attention that was paid to this sad but eventful day in Iran. However, the mainstream media chose to ignore the otherwise obvious occurence of such crimes and the systematic brutality that most men within Iran committ against their female counterparts be they wives, sisters, or mothers. I know that there is a social crisis in the male population in Iran, that they are struggling with a terrible appettite for identity that is easily hidden behind the grotesque manifestations of male patriarchal systems, female subordination and discrimination, and gender/economic issues.

Links and references are always appreciated.

My Boy Will Soon Be A Man

2006-03-01T14:13:00.000-08:00

How will I bring up my child if the little creature is a boy?

Will I teach him to smile with his eyes or with his mouth?

Will I teach him the language of a cold hand?

Will I teach him the language of the Elephant Man?

How will I tell him that I did not know?

That he was two when his father was a "no show"?

That he was four when his mommy fled through a dark door?

That he was 25 when I finally came around,

only to witness Death and its loyal Hound.

The Yellow Brick Road

2006-03-01T13:51:00.000-08:00

My wish to all of my wordly compatriots is to review, one last time, the movie "The Wizard of Oz."

The cinematic children's tale functions as a climactic moral streak into what we may also call the human condition. As you watch the scene near the end of the film when Toto pulls back the curtain and reveals an anomaly of what should have been a great, towering figure as the Wizard, you see instead a disheveled, "barely there" character with rosy red cheeks reminiscent of a boy-child's, scraggly hair pointing in every cosmic direction, and two buggy eyes frantically searching for the nearest door of escape.

Sadly, there are no doors of escape; what lay behind each door through which the Wizard existed had, instead, been opened, accosted, ridiculed, and morally subjugated. He stands there, a simple physique lacking the masculine uproar, and meekly listens to Dorothy as she poutingly enlightens him that he is a "very bad man." However, the tragic and undisturbed emotion that flows from the dialogue peaks in a cacophony of masculine truth from his admittance that, "I am not a bad man, I was only a very bad wizard."

To understand the Wizard, I personally seek to "overstand" what he so innocently, and vacantly explains to her. That "overstanding" in which the crisis in the human condition is the crisis of the identity. The crisis of joining the Man and the Wizard, joining the identity with the mask that wears it, or the mask with the identity that wears it. Is it really what we need to question, or concern our already disturbing lives with? Or will we simply chalk it up to Darwinian epilepsy and sweep the dirt where we will "never" find it again...

In An Ideal World

2006-02-27T12:05:00.000-08:00

In an ideal world, we would not be able to discourse and discuss any of our differences, and would, like the distant cousin, Ape, sit in cordial groups and snack on each other's mites.
But, fortunately, that isn't the case, and we deal with an exciting environment of communication and appreciation of people that surprises us all with its diversity. For example, we'll see the commentators on CNN discussing the trade off of our docks with the UAE shipping conglomerate, and instead of taking the views of someone like Condoleeza Rice, we identify with "Joe, from Underwood, Alabama." which makes everything have more sense.

Snow

2006-02-26T21:05:00.000-08:00

Last week left me with a terrible sore throat, headache, and a whining little voice that constantly screamed two words "Get OUT".

So, I did. And ended up doing a face plant in the snow with my snowbaord and an excellent bloody nose. Which, in some odd way, reminded me of a very red flower in the white background. I wouldn't recommend it. Japanese mochu- strawberry and coffee- and the best walk in the world down a beautiful dock at the hotel. I hope I do this again. Bloody nose and all.

Through the whole escape, I wondered about skiing and boarding in Tehran, and how the snow parkas kept getting tighter and shorter and the boys' hairs greasier and blonder.

Cocoa Wars

2006-02-22T11:13:00.000-08:00

No one really knows the truffles of our world when it comes to children.

It is a sad experience, to know that sometimes, we can't bring up our children how we thought they would be brought up; all the formulas, exercises, solutions, and answers would not help some of our children. Our children are the future in real time. They represent the future in their tiny physical space and what we do, what we share with them, may never actually improve them and the future but we still do it to satisfy their ever growing cravings.
In our country, we set rules for children, and we hold them at arm's length with those rules. But, the rules are for the common good of our nation; we ban child labour because we believe that children are all words connotative of fluffy, innocent, and obnoxious. And no self-respecting employer would even sit for an interview with such a thing. But, we need to feed our little, plump cherubs, and one way to do that is to produce food that fluffy, innocent, obnoxious children would eat. Even though children can be taught to eat anything, even insects, if they have to, we still agree that our children are different from other children. That they are children who will need to rule with an iron fist, and others are merely young in age, by some inevitable stroke of luck, and look miraculously like our children but are not really it.
So, some things never change, and we continue to eat chocolate because we can, and because the poor children of less developed countries don't have any other choice.

Bloglogue

2006-02-21T18:42:00.000-08:00

A new submission by the Bloglogue team.

If it does work, by some genius stroke of luck and tactic, then I think "yay".
However, democracy, progress, change, revolution, reform are all What What What. When will we see the Why, Why, Why or Hows. It makes sense, that to fight terror on a scale of the Muslim kind -spread all around the world- one should try all tactics, including giving those same Muslims democratically elected leaders, and a city mayor who actually lowers the unemployment rate not by killing off employees but by giving them better incentives and pay.

Another Piece of the Puzzle- A Favorite

2006-02-20T14:58:00.000-08:00

This morning it will be only one,
Window open and curtains wide,
Only dark clouds roaming through
Thunder at the morning light,
These, they announce, a return
Of the wild and berrating wind;
A return of the winter, of books,
quiet nights, and none of your visits.
Chance had it, that you were a bear,
When winter came, and having had your fill,
A cave would love you more, in hibernation.

Drifting From the Point

2006-02-19T13:59:00.000-08:00

Note to self: Wars of Occupation -unbeknowest to thousand year old conventional wisdom- involve the destruction of infrastructure (no kidding?), human deaths (gasp!), and facillitate the rise of fundamentalism (facillitate the rise of fundamentalism...Of course). However, peaceful tree-huggers (the metaphor is only too attractive here) intend to change all this. The rules in Wars of Occupation will change; From this colorful day onward, when a people are distinctly and obtusely threatened by a web of poetic enemies and they have differences that really do amount to life and death situations, they will merely shrug their shoulders and return to their television sets to watch reruns of "I Love Lucy".

***
There is a sense of communal and neutral sorrow that such a "society with a long history of secularism and women's achievements" has been castrated and thrown to the dogs of fundamentalism.

"As for you being an activist for women in your real life, well, you don't have to prove anything to me. And I respect your right to anonymous. It just freaks me out that people like you who support wars of occupation that destroy infrastructures, kill civilians, and facilitate the rise of fundamentalism in a society with a long history of secularism and women's achievements is out there working for "women's rights". "
-The Letter N.

We are not blaming N, we are not referring to the obvious "typos" in her comment, we are only spreading our seed in such a non-conformist manner as to make us individuals who believe in N-othing but nothing finally return to complete nothingness. We await the Great Mahd-Hatter's return, and hope that someone else will clean up after us.

Another Note To Self:

Who exactly is the enemy. Where does this Enemy work, in what periphery of influence? Where is this Enemy from, and for what does it choose to be the Enemy? These are questions that Nikki will never be able to answer. How do I know this? Because, if you look closely, she just hasn't. Not only has she not been able to answer this, but she would never be able to prove her answer. Who really is your Enemy? Do any of us have conclusive evidence that would bind the term Enemy to a certain geographical location(s), or to a certain party or parties. No. There is only the occasional outward thrust of deviousness that occasionally spooks our brains, from wars to warriors, society to hermetics, that believes in a symbol that really does not exist as an entity by itself but as a whole, and the deviousness retracts from the outer periphery of ideologue and snaps back into the deep reverie of the mind because the answer is simply "No" or "Don't Know".

Then, there's the question of When. When are we really talking about oppression? This is nothing new that civlizations have not done for thousands of years. Oppression is a cycle of life. It is the overpowering forces of Nature that take hold of all things natural in our world. The only unnatural part of our world, it seems, is the uncannily unnatural human mind.

The problem here is almost simple, almost the core of all problems, almost; numbers. We are constricted by them, and we are ruled by them. Everything we live by are numbered or have numbers, and that includes resources. Humans need more numbers than other humans to survive; these numbers can be land, food, and or material wealth, which goes full circle. All of these ideas combined are the limbs of a central theme for resources and wealth in resources. The ideas that flow come from the luxuries of such resources or a by-product of the influence of these resources.
---

"In a minute there is time
For decisions and Revisions which in a minute will reverse"

An Affectionate Letter

2006-02-19T12:07:00.000-08:00

JGDFD TYWW MD JYAD, JGDFD TYWW MD JYAD
JQ VFDVZFD Z HZKD JQ ADDJJGD HZKDC JGZJ SQN ADDJ

- J. C. DWYQJ

Anonymous 101

2006-02-19T10:14:00.000-08:00

The internet world, like a library, contains millions of downloadable pages of text, image, and voice that is widely viewed as educational. Some areas of the internet, like pornography, are not.
Iranian internet authorities, monitoring the millions of users from within their borders, takes the greatest pains to block user access to websites like Anonymizer, or The Cloak, and view the world of the internet in terms of Keywords, and not as a whole.

The keywords here are:

Ass
Teen
Woman
Girl
Soft
Hard
(etc..)

With these keywords belted under their waist, and the support of companies like SmartFilter, they reach into the internet using the cooperation of their ICPs and ISPs and effectively block almost all resources, including cancer and health, that use some of those keywords in their websites.

The unsettling part is that although some users may get a hold of an anonymous proxy service provider, they can never be sure that all the services provide completely anonymous surfing. This is true, especially in Iran. While inside, my email was listed onto a newsletter that would be sent every once in a while with a list of two or more free anonymous providers. Each day, people would access these sites, and then, it would be blocked. But, again, how can one be sure that when you send your surf inquiries you are REALLY safe?

Anonymous servers that are accessible in the IRI are anonymous, between the anonymous server and the server the user is trying to access, but they are not always anonymous between the anonymous server and the user's server.

That's where the user may be under an unintentional but hazardous circumstance; And, in all likelihood, this will continue to be the case.

*I tested a few of them while there, and the variation in them was astonishing: One of the sites that was not filtered was www.missworld.com...This is making more sense by the minute.

Note

2006-02-17T17:58:00.000-08:00

I miss that cat. It's intolerable, I remember when she was just a baby.
But, it was a male. A male with a penchant for silk curtains and satin bed sheets...haha.

Here's her brother, who is not mine, and is actually a female with a penchant for the outdoors, wild mice, and a lion's mane.

World Cup '06

2006-02-17T13:14:00.000-08:00

NOTE; The below was written before re-reading the link.

This is about a cartoon that, after the Danish episode, seems out of place and extremely distasteful of the newspaper that published it not because they should "be censored for inciting Muslim anger" but because they represented the Iranian Futbol team in such a manner that is just shameful. Iranian futbol players are not suiidal bombers, and they will not be used as potential suicide bombers, and never will.. Futbol is a sport that is respected in Iran, and although the German press that published this may see the Irony of the cartoon, MOST people in Iran will not find it amusing at all, and will be sincerely hurt by that image. It was a cruel joke, however ironic and intellectually entertaining the cartoonist/publishers believed it to be.

Note 2;
After talking with a partner in crime of mine, I re-read the paper and noticed that I missed ONE sentence, and because of that one sentence I lost the message that this article was conveying about the cartoon and about the reactions of some Iranians to it. I'm surprised that it happened to me, but it's really eye opening to see what weaknesses normal people like me have when we don't re-read and re-interpret something.

The sentence was

"It was not, they said, intended as a satire on Iran or even as a comment on suicide bombing."

Personal Responsibility

2006-02-17T12:25:00.000-08:00

Forming our groups and our guidelines, we sometimes forget to reach out and remind ourselves and others that there are people behind the text, that there are aspirations, desires, and functioning emotions. At times, we can store away a closely knit group of individuals, proceed to make a cause, work on the cause, then forget the vision. The importance of reflection is to revitalize that vision, to return the focus of the individuals or groups to the vision, if only for a moment, and to encourage the establishments that produced that vision initially.

Considering that we don't happen to bond with more than one or two people at one time in our lives, at a personal and interpersonal level, it is safe to assume that the outer periphery of friends should be twice as many, or more. Why? Because the small circle of interrelationships with one or two people is usually not enough. There is not enough data, information, interpretation, and individual result. Instead, we confine the circle to a level of communication that is directed in only one or two directions; perhaps, we have the relationship of mother to daughter, and lover to loved -two relationships in our lives- but we forge less relationships in the world of spiritual leader to follower, colleage to colleague, scholar to scholar...artist to?

Leaders and Leadership

2006-02-16T22:50:00.000-08:00

There could be a notion of leadership in some third-world countries that involves a degree of leadership in which the subordinates, collectively dis-engaged from the leadership process and achievements, are directed towards the idea that leadership is inherited by the order of select chromasomal crosses bred from an elite hierarchy of individuals in ancient times, and who, through the art of Darwinian theory, have acquired the genes for Leadership in the blood of their veins.
This disputable claim in the West was shred out of the different disciplines studying leadership in the 1900s, but, seems to have invaded some groups of peoples and evaded extermination in particular third world countries.

Much of this concept relies on leadership being measured by what it is rather than what it does.

It is noticed that leadership in the online community, reiterated by a group like Global Voices, encourages a leadership community that can effectively measure its performance and success by the development and decision-making skills of its constituents, rather than the quantity of the output of the followers it focuses attention on the distribution of power and execution to members of a team.

Bia2

2006-02-15T22:02:00.000-08:00

This website called Bia2.com has a directory of Hidden Cam pics that are basically pictures to feed to the frency of the typical voyeuristic and perverted Iranian male who, I presume, does not get enough time to jeer, catcall, hiss, poke, and pinch Iranian girls -so- has to go online and do it there too.

The funny thing is that, Bia2.com's hidden cam is not censored in Iran if you use the cache in Google. I wonder...Really, I do. Breast Cancer is censored, and this???

My take is that the boys taking these pictures are young,middle-to-high class boys around 17-30 (that's about the meaning of Young in Iran, because if they're from middle-to-high class, they are most likely still living with their mothers and still unmarried, or perhaps only engaged these days)
They have a fascination with the garbed body of bulemic girls who can afford to eat, but instead, buy coke and a hamburger but eat only 25.00050500050493993 Calories of it?

Let's see if I remember correctly; a walk to to park was about ten or fifteen offers to hitch a ride, double that in catcalls and perverted slurs, and triple that in head-to-toe stares, but, for some reason, these western-perceived religious people don't seem so religious anymore...Although, not all the young men are like this, I think it was pretty obvious that they are only a minority...if you haven't dated by 14, you are behind in Iran. And that's middle-to-high class, have no clue about the lower class but I don't count on them being as prolific, they couldn't afford to have four or five girlfriends at the same time (cell phone bills-10T, food you buy-50T, clothing and jewelry for each-50T, etc.)

The Photograph

2006-02-15T16:21:00.000-08:00

A photograph, is a photograph, is a photograph without words.

A photograph is like a journey into the human past without so much as a sentence written anywhere, a journey into the unique fascination that humans have for the eternal strife of a world most polluted by it, or for that matter, the eternal struggle. We wonder as we stare at the young boy hanging at the gallows, we wonder how long we can stare at it, our eyes fixated at the point of points where all the angles seem to point; his lifeless body. Is it really me looking, or is it someone else fixated by the power that death brings to our existence?

There are times, when we may think of the photograph as the simple venture into the universality of human reaction; a goofy smile on a child's face in Iran, holding a crayon and drawing pictures; here, the pictures are of God, and unisex buses, together again. There, you will see the gleaming skin of the model in the shopping center at Kish, her shining white teeth flashing at the camera's lens while a young, darly dressed Chador floats by, a ghost, and we wonder what these ghosts are made of.

It could be that in the photograph, we see parts of ourselves that we could never imagine being seen, a voyeuristic delving into the mind's constant need for attention. How much of our skin would we show to the world, and would we show it when we are dying? A slow, destructive death and then the skin that harbors it?

Fascination with the grotesque, the seemingly undivided worlds of 'normal' and the Spectrum of Normalcy; "the weird", like the fascinating coverage of the Elections nearly a year ago, would be on the very extreme ends of that spectrum. But, we will grade these 'weirds' giving them an approval rating of Five Stars or less. And it's well. It's distinctively a domination by the camera, where the sense of words are lost, but the translations are endless.

Tuition and Teaching

2006-02-14T21:22:00.000-08:00

My take on my statistics teacher is about the same take I had when I first realized that this whole university thing is NOT for real. I mean, for real real. I am paying for my tuition, I will be paying for it once I get out of University. SO, I would like to have my money's worth, especially if I will be paying nearly half my annual salary to give my loans back...Here's some advice to any teachers who may read this; if you don't know how to explain the answer to a question on the homework, DON'T FORCE US TO DO IT.

There.

The Stubborn Wind

2006-02-13T00:24:00.000-08:00

"Shhuu" is the wind claiming air
pushing against the window sill
seating itself, "Shhuu", there it is,
Quiet, listen to its slow resistance,
It's slow, slow, snail like perturbance,
constantly abating itself as it screams,
by, by, and gone.

Sustance and Substinance

2006-02-12T23:21:00.000-08:00

Her voice is equated to a virginal mouse's, that squeaks beneath the floorboards in its terror, frantically hoarding crumbs underneath her straw-filled nest, hoping to feast on those tiny jewels when a cold winter comes-because it will.

Would the little mouse succumb to the little cheese? Yes, it would. The more real the cheese, the greater its size, the more attractive.

We hope that she will watch carefully where she places those tiny padded paws of hers; it would be ugly if she did not.

Although, her survival constitutes not her intelligence, but rather her affinity to survival, or Survival's affinity to her. She has met many weak and sniffling mice who survived ordeals that, apparently, MENSA mice did not.

* * * * *

I called the Devil and he came,
His face with wonder I must scan
He is not ugly, he is not lame,
He is a delightful, charming man;
A man in the prime of life, in fact,
Courteous, engaging, and full of tact.
A diplomat, too, of wide research
Who cleverly talks about State and Church.
A little pale, but that is en règle
For now he is studying Sanskrit and Hegel.

RCon and Separatism of Thoughts

2006-02-12T17:06:00.000-08:00

Most enjoyable article about the Identity of Humans in a Co-Operative Hierarchy of the Internet, where the author, Rebecca, insures the readers of their worst fears; cyber-utopians and Microsoft led conferences discussing Identity on the Internet.

Well, it does stretch forward to point out those two facts, but it also reaches left and right to gather resources and material for you readers to plainly gain insight and to refurbish your internet terminology and phobia at the same time. In the receptive balancing act of displaying both the cons, arch-cons, and developing cons of the conference, she urges the readers with technical abilities in programming, online script, and internet savvy vocabulary to contribute to this dialogue; eventually, her reasoning being, that with a technologically advanced opposition, there may be a plausible response to this increasingly disarrayed and Big Brother-type censorship and stalking of the internet users.

My take on this is that the public have no idea this is going on; except for the few thousands who read her blog (and although my mission is not to make-believe that if the public knew there would be a better future for the internet) there is a consensus that the more the better.

Just as the corporate world takes advantage of the numbers to reel in their Greens (I am not going into those finer points), the writers of the world should take it upon them to introduce this topic (though heavy on technical jargon such as metasystems) in Laymen terms and to give their opinions or graft their solutions and offer them to the Identity Gang or to any group they would rather toss their salad of ideas with.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I may need to separate my Archives- but don't know how?
0.0 Hmmmm.

Media and Bloglogue

2006-02-11T14:08:00.000-08:00

I really liked this blossoming idea, and now I feel like it has the potential to bridge the gap between the online and offline thinkers; This is not the only communique for the internet, their are varied and widely popular groups like Usenet that utilize their technology to offer discussion of opinions on many subjects but the Bloglogue has references from a collection of thinkers collected based on Global Voice's mission.

The Little Bitty Heart

2006-02-09T22:03:00.000-08:00

However it may seem great to be outstanding like stars and beyond the expecte bright, it should not be implied that by such standards humbleness and introvertedness should be looked down upon. Is this one without the other, or neither without the other?

We May Agree On One Thing Only

2006-02-08T23:13:00.000-08:00

And that is the fact that the people that I know may not know this, but everytime they disagree with the words coming out of the IRI leadership's mouths, they are one step closer to sanity and one giant leap from a monkey's ass.

The Brains

2006-02-07T23:30:00.000-08:00

Why are some people receptive to illusion and fantasy while others just as easily find it puzzling or uninviting...Those people who perceive illusion also invest positive feelings into it, those who do not invest neutrality but not negativity...Strange.

The Safety Net

2006-02-07T17:43:00.000-08:00

I feel very sympathetic towards the plight of this journalist described here.

The problem with her is that she wrote her name and signed her fate onto a scrap of paper telling her feelings about the figure of Khomeini in the IRI. Unfortunately, she did not bend over and lick the soles of his feet like some journalists have done at various levels of governance; instead, Elham Afrutan used the analogy of the epidemic of AIDS to compare to 'Khomeini's revolution in the IRI.

I do think that the risk she played was very high and that the consequences they will give to her because of that risk-taking are unjust and criminal offenses to the rights of man themselves. She has the right to condone and or condemn that regime, but, unfortunately, not in the IRI.

So, remember kids, it isn't such a safe net after all.

The Embassy Fire; An Old Lesson In History

2006-02-07T16:47:00.000-08:00

Why do I feel like the saying "what goes around comes around" is being applied literally into our world of actualities, and that we are beginning to convince small parts of ourselves that the reaction has far better results than the action.

By the 'conversation', if you can even call it that, on S'CAN-IRANIC's post between Vazraka and I, it would seem that the logical solution to the struggles of the world is, I quote from Vazraka;

Despite what many peace activists may think, strategic violence has a very successful track record in achieving one's objectives. Just ask the Americans that dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Posted by: Vazraka | February 07, 2006 at 10:25 PM

The idea is attractive in itself, because his language speaks to the fire in the youthful mind, it reaches out to the trigger-happy generation or individual that feels actions speak louder than words, that a KO on the political dancefloor would show the world who's boss and let everyone know how powerful the ol' King Kong really is. If you've seen the movie, you may understand how 'powerful' King Kong really was and understand why even King Kong can be softened by the shapely curves of a banana.

However much there is this urgency to justify the actions of the burning of the embassies, the facts point to the evils of violence and destruction. The Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings were horrendous in their death tolls and the destruction they wreaked, and the end result was in all probability the end of the war, but it seems that their is no justification for such an act. However we cannot condemn those who acted upon that, because they are long gone, but we can resist the urge to commit those crimes again by dialogue and mutual relationships.

Where does the bombings of the Embassy fit in here? The bombings of the Embassy were assumed in retaliation for the cartoon depicting Mohammad, the prophet of Islam, to some mischievous ends, but the fact of the matter is that those who committed these crimes are no better than the Christian fanatics who bombed the abortion clinics. The cartoon may undermine the Muslims idea of his Prophet, it may be horrible and disconcerting to a faithful man or woman, but it isn't supposed to lead to burning or savagery. This act should lead to the opposite, the peace and the respect between religions and countries; the newspaper that chose to print such a comic should be punished, as a principle of inciting the anger of a great number of religious groups and as a double-standard for its strict rules against comedy on Jesus but slackness in the Islamic view. Seeing this punishment, the Muslims must know that they have to be patient, is that not the Prophet's ruling? Patience? Because I sure as hell remember being told that in high school. Or, was it jihad-like war constitutes a higher status than patience and civility?

When the history of civilizations shows that humans have been fighting over land and sea for thousands of years, who is to say that we should stop now? How can we stop the tide of human savagery and blood-thirst? Their pride? Their power struggles? If there is no definitive answer like 'heaven on earth', will that mean we must resort to the option of violence over peaceful resistance?

This Is Life

2006-02-06T15:04:00.000-08:00

Evidently, my search for the inevitable came at its due course and clasped its grimy fingers at my throat and pulled me down, rather quickly, into its cave of oblivion. I don't remember if it is called the act of "individual revolution" or rather "cultural evolution" when one realizes that these memories and feelings of hopelessness are continuous, they are eternal and have been carried for thousands of years on the shoulders of other human thinkers, striking at random and leaving it up to the humans to blink and then collectively gather their hopelessness into strands of DNA and pass it on to the next of their kind.

A gift, the observer would say, to ease the pain.

It seems to be interrelated, that the objects of our concerns and desires are of enough importance that they occupy space and are labeled with yellow post-its that say "Important" and that we carry with us in our handbags while we climb and dig and grapple for an exit; ultimately, ending up on our backs (like cockroaches when they are found in your kitchen sink)
and having lost the post-its that we so interestingly pinned to our foreheads hoping that others would see that my "Important" is bigger then their "Important'.

Somehow, the great order of information ravages the people's minds, headlines settling into the creases of their cerebral cortex as they try and sift through the importance of language, as language occupies the very axis of the society. They struggle to understand simple reasons for religious cartoonists and mockery( for reactionaries, haters, lovers), for schoolchildren shot, for spaceships launched into the darkness, for endangered species, and new shampoo brands for family pets, for happy endings and sad endings, for Prince Charming and Beauty;

But, the observer will not move, not for the dying and not for the rich, not for the crazy nor for the simple-minded...The people will continue to staple their foreheads and the people will continue to struggle to say "I love you"....and the billions of dollars will keep coming, and they will keep going. Just as the ocean tide comes in at night, and leaves early in the morning.

Correctness and Connection

2006-02-03T18:13:00.000-08:00

I have a little problem with this article, and my reasoning is my developing belief that when writing articles, correctness in writing is of key importance.

Applying the principles and conventions of correct writing is largely a matter of bridging the gap between the writer and the reader; the cleaner the writing is; in terms of punctuation, grammar, and structure; the more fluid the communication power of writer to reader it is.

Without the methods and applications of correct writing, communication becomes difficult to master let alone share, especially if your audience is a wide range of intellectuals and theoreticians in the making.

Make a good impression by applying critical writing skills as well as creative, social skills that put lasting effects on the readers...don't force the reader to play Mad-Libs with your work when they have no time to start filling-in-the-blanks for you. Have the sense to remember that a sentence will make or break you in the world of online communities such as newsblogs or op-eds.
Sitting down and writing what you think is not correct writing. The ability to function as a critical thinker and writer is determined by the fruits of your labor, and there are no exceptions if you are at the top of the writing community -especially- if you are at the top.

Although, it might be time to get a new job if you still haven't realized that.

Pregnant

2006-02-02T23:45:00.000-08:00

Not between Heaven’s doors, Hell’s gates, nor Limbo will the dead man walk; for eternity he will swagger, sway, and slump into the earth dusting the surface with the remnants of his laughter- and words- as they fall into his bones and scatter to.

Here, the book will open and he will rise to point at his scorn, and read the lines-

There, science and religion mock him with cracking statues, glaring into the sun with inscribed embellishments.

And his head will bend over to read the lines and cast darkness over the words, shadow in the wake of his knowledge.

What becomes True in truth; only the true meaning that nothing IS but truth...

The truth then exists besides no other, being whole and complete and unaffected by positive nor negative, but there the gods and the slaves of God urge the good in truth, and in turn possess the non-truth as evil, or wrong…if that is the existence of a humanized belief in truth, of a belief in good and evil, why, then, what will we even do in our heavens and hells? Contemplate good when there is no evil? Contemplate evil when there is no good?

Blame my parents and save me the trouble.

The Free World

2006-01-28T16:09:00.000-08:00

One of the rules for our University dorm;
"No sex after 11 pm on Weekdays"

You wonder why not, because if they're going to do it at 10:50(which is more probable for students who drink and party over sometime like 8 or 9) they are going to make all the noise and bump their way into your mental subconscious so that by 11 when they have to "stop" you'll be mentally scarred for the rest of the night. That's if you are home, if you're smart, you'll get the hell out of there.