The Iranian Features
November 8-12, 1999 / Aban 17-21, 1378
Today
* Hostage: Go Gig Red!
Recent
* Life
in America: Picking a president
* Ayatollah: The soft
side
* Shah: By the pale-green
stone
* Cover
story: The plaid sofa
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Friday
November 12, 1999
Hostage
Go Big Red!
"Ayatollah, why don't you go back where you belong?"
By Ali Hosseini
November 12, 1999
The Iranian
It was a week after the U.S. embassy was seized ... The wind blowing
over the early snow cut into my bones as I left the engineering building.
This Midwestern chill is going to be hard to get used to, I thought, walking
into the school cafeteria. The kitchen heat warmed me as I put on an apron,
wrapping its strings around my waist. I punched my time card and walked
to the Big Red dining room, an exclusive cafeteria for Nebraska Cornhusker
athletes. A group of football players were at their three-inch steak dinners.
I cautiously walked through the dining room, feeling the gaze of one of
the star football players at my back. It took only a few seconds before
he shouted at me, his mouth full.
"Hey, what did you do to your beard, Ayatollah?" Then he turned
to his friends, "Look at him," he said pointing at me. "Now
he's trying to look like Stalin." ... GO
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Thursday
November 4, 1999
Life in America
Picking a president
Figuring out the U.S. presidential candidates
By Babak Yektafar
November 11, 1999
The Iranian
I realized I would have a problem voting for G.W. (as in Bush, though
he has the best first initials for a candidate). I find his constant smirk
discomforting, as if he is telling me "just wait 'til I'm elected".
I don't want to take that chance...
I had saved my best lines for Dan Quayle, but of course he somehow got
wind of it and dropped out of the race. I must admit though that he would
have made the most fascinating of presidents. True, the nation would be
marching in the same spot with no forward momentum for four years but think
of the fun we would all have marching to the beat of a drummer who is tone
deaf and thinks that he is actually playing the violin.
Despite his rough and gruff and ultra conservative exterior, Pat Buchanan
comes across as a cross dresser. I am not exactly sure why, but every time
I see him, I envision him wearing matching fur rimmed hot pink panties
and bra. Please note that I said "envision" and not "dream
of." After all, I do draw a line even when it comes to my imagination
... GO
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Wednesday
November 10, 1999
Ayatollah
The soft side
Poems of Ayatollah Khomeini
November 10, 1999
The Iranian
Selected poems from Divan-e Imam (Tehran, 1998), the collected
works of Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini: ... GO
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Tuesday
November 9, 1999
Shah
By the pale-green stone
I blinked at a portrait in a gold frame: a saluting monarch
in white
By Cyrus Kadivar
November 9, 1999
The Iranian
It was my second day in Cairo and my taxi driver was eager to show me
around. Domes and minarets rose above the streets. I asked him if he knew
the Al Rafai Mosque. "Of course," he smiled. "You want to
see the tombs of King Farouk and the Shah? No problem."
When he discovered my Iranian origin he really opened up reminding me
of the old ties between Egypt and Iran. "We liked the Shah,"
he said turning a corner. "We felt sorry for him when the world closed
its doors on him. Only Sadat, a brave man, stood by him. He forced open
another door so that the Shah could die in peace here." It was midday
when I reached the side entrance of the Al Rifai Mosque ... GO
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Monday
November 8, 1999
Cover story
The plaid sofa
If I keep lying there I can re-live all those moments and
years
By Termeh Rassi
November 8, 1999
The Iranian
I was 12, full of angst - even though I didn't know the full meaning
of the word -- seated on a horribly plaid sofa, in an apartment hotel taken
over by Iranians in Madrid. We had been there for months. As I looked outside
I recognized the profiles in two thirds of the windows. All of us with
our own stories, anxiously waiting to see where each of us would go.
We were all kids on the play ground waiting to be picked by a team -
not knowing which team we would end up with - desperate not to remain standing
in the field. The field was Spain - a haven for those of us who got there
by 1982 - one of the few European countries that didn't require a visa
from Iranians. But there was nothing you could do there, and you couldn't
leave because you couldn't get back in ... GO
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