Sic Semper Tyrannis

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 Poet-Bashing

Poet-Bashing Police

//www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/opinion/sunday/at-occupy-berkeley-beat-poets-has-new-meaning.html?pagewanted=all&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB 

"It is the chain of communicat­ion, not the means of production­, that determines a social process."

-- Robert Anton Wilson

Did Iran delegate its reason to Khomeini?

No such thing.

Since day one in power, he was faced with protests and dissent, starting with women, unemployed workers, national minority,... Khomeini became a dominant force, but his domination was challenged from the very beginning, he violently enforced his dominance, rather than obtaining it just through a simple process of delegation. 

Any totalizing narratives, easily forgets all these historical facts and paints the picture of 1979 as a foregone conclusion, which was not.

Few weeks ago

for a while, we had blogs about contributors who had been blocked and others asked for their returns but we have not had that for a while. Thankfully Fesenjoon is back.

Rea

Glad you are back also glad AO did not get banned. Although I would not marry anymore people to the Taliban.

Returned to this blog

and what I've learnt, lol AO. 

"It's nice of JJ to not have blocked me after I married his aunt off to a Taliban." 

Love yr sense of humour. ;o))

Fesenjoon - Bro

Samsam (AB) is  one of us.  "Az khodemooneh" as they say.  He's just as much a critic of 1400 years of akhoonds' lazy aftabeh culture as you and I.    He's a stand up guy.

Anonymous bugger, did we

Anonymous bugger, did we strike a sensitive chord?!

If you wanna pat yourself on the back, there's always Mohammad Ala's blog. 

Mehrban-e gerami - you're always welcome to speak your mind

on my blogs, and so is everyone else, pro or con.  We need to be tolerant and accepting of opposing as well as favorbale points of view.

I'm just sad that we wasted my friend TL's time.  Well, I'm sure she'll move on now and won't waste her time on this blog anymore now that she has realized this a dumb subject.  

RG Jaan -Thanks for the comment -on another note (also Mehrban)

you can guage a culture's level of backwardness by its response to criticism.  And as you can see here, the needle on the backward-o meter is busting out of its socket when you look at some people's reaction. 

By contrast, look at Divaneh and HG's comments.  Good aticulation of disagreeing points of view.  So, looking at these guys / gals, I believe that there may be hope for us after all! 

It may seem dumb to you but

 the approach of delegating reason to proxies is advocated on this very site.  Day in and day out.  Did Iran delegate its reason to Khomeini in 1979?  

Ao jaan, sorry to have spoken for your blog but Tiger asked my opinion. 

Thanks, Mehrban

In all honesty, I hadn't realized that the purpose of this blog was as pathetically dumb as that.  Wasted my time instead. fekr kardam masalan khabariye.

EWWWWWWWW to TL, EEEEWWWWWAAAAAAAWWW

Good one AO

Thankfully, I was always attracted to poets who were more outspoken.

Islamic or Sassanid

architecture is just a continuation of Sassanid. There were domes like that of Ctesiphon before Islam. The Muslim rulers just used the same approach. Then the architects improved them.

Whole history is one giant continuum. People learn from others and built on it. As they say we stand on shoulders of others. No one is going to advance by themselves. The great thing about today is the availability of information.

Right now America and Europe are the main centers of advancement. Russia used to be pretty advanced under Soviets. But the money ran out and that was it. Now physicists drive taxi cabs. Things always change. 

Dear Anahid - how about this one -

Dear AO,

may be you are lucky because she does not read ic or may be she does but she is very open minded. by the way, regarding your last comment, you do have a point but poems are just tools to communicate between poet and readersm a poem can call people to action and one can be in "seytayesh" of a dictator. among our 20th century poets, we had many that were more of a positive force than anything. poets like eshghi, farokhi yazdi, lahooti, iraj mirza, and many others.  

Tiger, Islamic to you? maybe. To me it is Iranian.

This blog to me says that to base the foundation of one's cognitive process on dead poets writings is a dead end.  And I agree.   

Ps. I also think AO's concern is not just poetry but a general sense of delegating rational thought. 

And now a word from Hafez

Hafeza mard -e nekoo naam nameerad hargez

Agar ham mord be k*r-e Hafez 

***  Credit to a friend of mine who saw this blog and emailed me the verse.  I think Hafez himself wrote that when he was extremely drunk and forgot his "irfan" and the resulting obligation to be "nice" to everyone. :-) 

Dear Anahid

It's nice of JJ to not have blockd me after I married his aunt off to a Taliban.  Seriosuly...

Dear Mehrban - don't forget the Parthian arch :-)

One of my favorites --  

Anyway, you seem to get it, along with a few others on this thread.  Putting all exaggeration aside, the point is that we need a total cultural overhaul and renaissance.  There is a reason why we are the ONLY nation on this planet that is being ruled by a theocracy in the 21st century, and that reason is NOT because we're God's gift to humanity.  Our unjustified orgy of self indulgence and empty self aggrandizing at the expense of real modernity and progress must come to an end before our hedas can be oh so gently pulled out of our lubricated rear ends.  That's all!   

Dear AO

Your comment addressed to me about JJ featuring some of your blogs and then you wrote about his khaleh, etc. That is nice that he featured this blog of yours even though you just recently wrote the other blog.  May be you should not write about his relatives for a while :).

Mehrban, guess what?

Those emblems of architecture are very much based on "Islamic" geometrical patterns. (Often, the material used, also is.) And the significance is that it really was Iranians who mastered and consequently exported many of the admired accomplishments of what is known as "Islamic tradition".Even the squints - on squares -  and domes of mosques and the sound engineering)

Mehrban, what, in essence, is this blog saying?

My two cents more :)

I think we have had great accomplishments in Architecture.  For example maydaan naghshe jahan is a prime exmple of great urban design (if IR can keep its hands off the fabric of the Bazar and some of the housing structures around it).  Each building on four sides of the square are magnificent in their own right.  Many more examples in Esfahaan such as the bridges.   Also the houses of Yazd for example where  in a hot arid area, with the help of constructed wind catchers, entrap the wind and guide it over a shallow pool of water to create air conditioning.

I think the structure at the Maydaan Shahyaad in Tehran is a great modern edifice personifying an Iranian heritage.  

So I would say we have had great accomplishments in Architecture.

I don't want to disprove this blog at all because I think in essence it is saying something very important. 

HG & AB &VPK

VPK, welcome to the Global Village. ;)

HG & AB, agreed. For one, science  needs forms of communication, for which there are brilliant examples in that particular part of the world, as mentioned by AB, on every pillar at Persepolis. 

I suppose what I would and do find interesting is how it 'translates' itself today (or how and to what extent...)....

,del

,del

fesenjoon, i have to

fesenjoon, i have to disagree with you.  we did not invent khayehmaali but perfected it both in the arena of art and science.

shotor gaav palang logic!

So stone carving in Persepolis proves that pre-Islamic Iranians were khayeh mal? ..like how?...So carvings showing different ethnic groups such as Indians, Egyptians, greeks, Sardicians, Khorasmians, Babylonians, Arabs, Phonicians bringing gifts to the king on the occasion of the new year translates into ancient "Iranians" being khaayeh mall?..pls elaborate professor!!!!!?..so with this logic we concur that all egyptians babylonians etc were khayeh mall?... If anything children were thought from an early age to not kneel before  the corrupted & never lie for convenience.  you know ,there is difference between ignorantly discounting the whole entity of  "Iranians" vs finding faults that ail "Iranians" with clear anti-ommatie solutions. In comparison the former is a mere authentic whiner & the latter is a constructive reformer.

Cheers!!!

Inventions

In my immediate family we got about a dozen patents applications. And we are not even in the big league. 

Why don't you folks invent a few things and apply for patents.