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Wednesday * Satire's hallowed place in Iranian journalism As amusing as I found your April Fool's feature, "Not without my mom", it was not half as interesting as the responses from your readers. My first reaction was, "Gee, I did not know there were so many irritable royalists out there." But, I am wondering if the resentful cries of "poor taste", "irresponsible journalism" and, most interestingly, "lies", speak to a cultural divide as much as a political one. Although satire has had a hallowed place in Iranian journalism (I think I'd actually be relieved if somebody besides Qajar loyalists at the time criticized Ali Akbar Dehkhoda for "Charand o Parand"), it has rarely been seen as anything but an insulting, apolitical or (at a minimum) irresponsible act >>> FULL TEXT * Need distasteful irreverence from time to time I am glad that you have chosen "Nothing is sacred" as the slogan for the new face of your magazine. Some of the outraged responses to your April Fools joke ["Not without my mom"] make it amply apparent that we certainly do need an irreverent publication to purge us of the last vistages of the fear of "lese majeste" which is still so alive in our fellow country men and women >>> FULL TEXT * Perverse pleasure against Pahlavi I found your April Fool's article, "Not without my mom", in extremely poor taste. I realize you have the right to publish anything you wish, and I would be the first one to agree that political humour is a necessity for free and healthy political dialogue and community, but there is also such a thing as editorial restraint and good judgement. In the past you have taken almost perverse pleasure in publishing insulting articles dealing with Reza Pahlavi. Kobra Khanoum's "Our demands" was one of them. What, I ask, is achieved by this kind tirade other than losing the good will of people everywhere who have looked at the Iranian as a healthy place for the exchange of ideas >>> FULL TEXT Professor Manoutchehr M. Eskandari-Qajar * Your publication WAS respectable I am shocked to see this trash ["Not without my mom"] in your journal, newspaper - whatever you call it. Your publication was a respectable and high-quality reading material. That is why I did not expect this trashy interview printed there. You are stepping on the very sensitive feelings of thousands of Iranians, when you insult the Pahlavi dynasty. They were the people who pulled Iran up to be known as a country that the great powers of the world would take into consideration >>> FULL TEXT * Pahlavi crime not distateful? I found "Not without my mom" absolutely hilarious. What's even more hilarious is the people's negative response to it. Apparently these people don't find the crimes of the Pahlavi dynasty distasteful. All the killings and imprisonments of the political activists, destruction of the cultural identity, overt corruption at every level and so many other wrong-doings were done in greate taste. But making fun of that dynasty and a not-so-bright spoiled boy that still dreams of wearing the crown and reviving his old glory days, is distasteful. * Molla's clown By printing stupid sick jokes like "Not without my mom" and other silly letters like "Asghar Shah", and not printing my several letters in support of the constitutional monarchy, I have come to the conclusion that iranian.com belongs to the molla's clowns. * No need to mention Pahlavi Regarding the Iranian of the year survey, had Reza Pahlavi received 10th or 20th place, would you have gone that far to have his name mentioned? The norm is First, Second and Third place mention only. Ganji well deserves the title, so does Khatami, in the sense that they were very effective in the politics of Iran, even risking their lives. They don't live in U.S., safe and sound. * Ganji: Better picture Your cover photo of Akbar Gangi is part of a noble act . However it is a poor art work. You should put a better picture, not a cut out cardboard looking one that demonizes his look. I just hope it wasn't intentional! It reminds me of the type of publicity O.J. Simson had! * Can defeat email monitoring Hardly any ISP in Iran uses a "balanced send/receive band" (I assume this refers to synchronous links when the upload and download speeds are the same). Almost always the download speed is many times the upload speed (i.e., an asynchronous or "unbalanced" link). If the government wanted to monitor emails, why the emphasis on "balanced" links that really do not exist!? In any case such monitoring can easily be defeated. For details, search a little bit on the web with the proper keywords.
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