Date

LAUGHS

Sheiky baby, I love you

Howard Stern interview with the Iron Shikh, the "Shah's bodyguard"

05-Aug-2007
...>>>

LIFE

Buying cucumbers

Finally I found the fruit and vegetable section

05-Aug-2007
The day I arrived in Paris from Iran, my older sister sent me to buy cucumbers. She told me that I needed to learn to be independent and mature. I was 23 years old. I had never before bought cucumbers. In Iran, I never shopped in grocery stores. Being the youngest daughter still living at home, I was spoiled. I never cleaned my room. I never helped my mother with any chores. I never bought anything for my father. My father was a retired mathematics teacher. He wasn't old in years , but the day he learned he had to retire, a few months after the Revolution, he suddenly became old. He stayed at home and grew bored. I was doing the same thing at that time--nothing! I was accepted to attend the university, but universities were closed.>>>

STONING

Adultery vs. savagery

Let's learn from Europe's mistakes

05-Aug-2007
Stoning is a form of human rights violation, it is torture. Even based on Iran's Islamic Penal Code, it should happen in very special circumstances, almost close to none. Jafar Kiani who was stoned to death, well, not in a progressive manner, did not have a fair trial. None of the Penal Code conditions for stoning applied to him. Can you imagine for a second, how it is to be killed that way? Can you imagine the lives of the 2 men and 9 women who are now in prison, nightmaring their life, waiting to be stoned one day?>>>

ART

Inclusion / Exclusion

Inclusion / Exclusion

Art show in southern California

by R. Falahi, S. Rahbar and A. Faulwell
05-Aug-2007

>>>

OBSERVER

Reality in contradiction

Reality in contradiction

Photo essay: Life in Iran

by Laléh Larijani
05-Aug-2007

>>>

OBSERVER

Reality in contradiction

Photo essay: Life in Iran

05-Aug-2007
The nineties were an era of the modern melodrama in Iranian life. Popular concerns included modernity, evolution in family values, and a high order distinction between the private and public selves. The desire to conform to and shadow the rest of the world called for an extreme need to adapt and fast-forward an organic process of familiarization.>>>

CHOMSKY

Naïve Noam

Imagine ceding moral high ground to the neo-cons

05-Aug-2007
Don’t you miss the good old days when Noam Chomsky was a humble groundbreaking linguist? These days the MIT professor is increasingly an apologist for Islamists (last year he met with Hizbollah). Now, in an excerpt from Interventions, his latest book, he writes that Washington is bent on “demonising” the Iranian leadership in order to pave the way for US-led assault. How, he must be asked, can you demonise people whose power, after almost three decades, remains pegged to death, torture and imprisonment?>>>

PEOPLE

Little Mother of Abadan

I met Fati in my recent trip to Khozestan, and this is a report of my visit with this adventurous girl

05-Aug-2007 (one comment)
Fati is the mother of orphaned beggars of Abadan, and unfortunately Abadan has lots of beggars many of whom are orphans. Passing through any street and back alley you will see hands that are extended towards you and mouths that are glued to your hands. “Fati” the 14-year old girl, who herself has two needy hands, has gathered many of the needy, abandoned, and homeless kids around herself and in effect has formed a small organization of beggars. This organization does not train beggars but rather helps the homeless children, and at times with a bite of food and a pair of shoes saves a life.>>>

LATINA

More power

Single and loving it!

04-Aug-2007
As a 39 year old Latina I travel in two worlds, Hispanic and American culture. I speak English and Spanish fluently, my French could use a lot of help. I have decided to learn Farsi and Arabic. I am going to the university and hope to finally graduate this summer. I have made so many great friends from many cultures. Moving from a small city in Texas to a Metropolitan city was the best decision of my life. It was such a relief to leave the narrow minded town I lived in for 16 years. I am amazed at so many of the similarities between the traditional Iranian culture and that of the Hispanic traditional culture. Yes, there does exist a double standard in dating for the different genders>>>

REBUTTAL

Nothing, nada, zilch

Giving credit to the Islamic Republic

04-Aug-2007
Iran has a GDP of less than $2000, $1200 of which is from oil. For the past 30 years, the Islamic bastards did not do a damn thing to build any type of an industrial or service base. Nothing, nada, zilch. South Koreans or Japanese, without a liter of oil or a cubic meter of natural gas built world class industries and became industrial power house in 30 years. What did the Islamic Republic or Iran do? Japan is #1 in auto and consumer goods industry. Korea is #1 in semiconductors & ship building and fast approaching #1 in electronic consumer goods. Korea's bioengineering industry is ahead of the U.S.and France.>>>

LIGHT

Luminara Victoria

Luminara Victoria

Photo essay: Canadian lantern festival

by Azadeh Azad
04-Aug-2007

>>>

LIFE

Grandma’s garden

I recall how based on that premise, years upon the sale of that garden, I made an attempt at polishing it up in my mind by actually revisiting it

04-Aug-2007
Riding up Sumach, one of the smaller streets in Toronto, all of a sudden, I felt transported in time and space. Back to my childhood I was, when grandma used to water her garden in southern Tehran after a sweltering day in the summer. The smell of bedewed flowers and dripping leaves had brought back so many memories of a long distant past. Those were the days, when in my carefree childhood I would spend hour upon hour on the swing set up from atop the sturdiest tree of grandma’s garden. I remember how Farshid, my British-Iranian cousin, had come for a visit one year -- of course, with Uncle Farhad, for he was but a child of seven at the time -- and how we used to fight over who would gain temporary control of the garden.>>>

IRAN-TURKEY

Reza Shah vs. Ataturk

The former did not preside over the total alienation of his country

04-Aug-2007
Yes, Reza Shah did confiscate privately owned land but he did not take it from the poor peasants whose earnings were plundered by their powerful and greedy landlords who had, in turn, obtained the same land by force and without giving a fare share to its native farmers. He took the land off the hands of the feudal landlords who had mushroomed around the country and were seeking to disintegrate it for the benefits of their foreign masters. And no, Reza Shah, unlike his friend and ally Ataturk, did not preside over the total alienation of his country's literary heritage by blindly adopting a foreign script that had no connection with its rich literary past be it poetry or prose. And unlike Ataturk in his days as a member of the fiercely nationalistic Young Turks, Reza Shah had no hands in the ethnic cleansing of a major community.>>>
Jahanshah Javid
04-Aug-2007
I love the new design by Ardalan Payvar. I am thrilled that user experience and interactivity will be greatly enhanced. It's time for iranian.com to grow up a little. The future is bright :o) Still, it's hard to let go.>>>
Jahanshah Javid
03-Aug-2007 (2 comments)
My first blog is proving difficult. I mean, what do I say? I've been looking forward to this day. Finally, after several attempts, iranian.com is not only getting a new look, but also a blogging section where anyone can self-publish.>>>