16 AZAR

Youth power

The Student Movement fighting battles that evolved from 1953

19-Nov-2009 (59 comments)
Young people continue to die in Iran. In December of 1953 following the coup d’état that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mossedeqh, students of Tehran University staged a protest in response to a visit by then U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon. During the demonstration police shot and killed three students. Today when we read about the deaths of Ahmad Ghandchi, Azar Shariatrazavi, and Mostafa Bozorgnia more than 50 years ago, it isn't hard to see the similarities they had with students today>>>

BLISS

Pomegranate Planet

Pomegranate Planet

Photo essay: Festival with 200 varieties of wild and cultivated pomegranates

by Persis Karim
17-Nov-2009 (15 comments)

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THANKSGIVING

Talking Turkey

Americans invented the atom bomb and overthrew Mossadegh, then they recorded Elvis and went to the Moon

17-Nov-2009 (14 comments)
Every year on Thanksgiving Day I give thanks that Iran’s problems with the West are gravy compared to what the Indian chief Massasoit faced when English settlers landed at Plymouth Rock in1620. As the story goes, the newcomers were starving that first winter in America and the Indians helped them survive. The outcome was pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, leftover turkey sandwiches, and the United States of America. Also, the Native American way of life was demolished. Massasoit was a great and wise chief. Undoubtedly he saw the threat these foreigners posed. >>>

ANAR

Pomegranate Planet

Festival with 200 varieties of wild and cultivated pomegranates

17-Nov-2009
This is the time of year when the days grow shorter and darker. It's also the time that my son Niko and I love because it is the season of pomegranates and persimmons. We had the pleasure of partaking in our pomegranate pleasure at the annual Wolfskill Experimental Orchard's fall pomegranate and persimmon tasting day -- which my son has dubbed the "Pomegranate Festival." This year, in addition to going to the actual festival, I volunteered the day before at the USDA National Clonal Germplasm Repository where more than 200 varieties of wild and cultivated pomegranates (largely from Western and Central Asia) are grown, studied, and preserved>>>

NUMBERS

Promoting democracy

PAAIA Releases 2009 National Survey of Iranian Americans

17-Nov-2009 (12 comments)
In August of 2008, the Public Affairs of Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA) commissioned Zogby International to conduct a national public opinion survey of Iranian Americans to gather, for the first time, accurate and timely information about the demographics and views of the Iranian American community. The purpose of the 2008 survey was to provide PAAIA with the knowledge required to more effectively represent the Iranian American community, and to further inform and educate the American public at large, as well as U.S. policy makers and opinion makers about Iranian Americans>>>

TRAVELER

An Otherwise Peaceful Place

An Otherwise Peaceful Place

Photo essay: Nature walk in the village of Istalif, outside Kabul

by Princess
16-Nov-2009 (28 comments)

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BOOK

Who are we?

Homa Katouzian digs into "Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern Iran"

15-Nov-2009 (9 comments)
Homa Katouzian’s latest book The Persians is arguably the most comprehensive and learned history of Iran and the Iranian people encapsulated in a single volume in the English language to date. Few authors would be so bold as to take on the mammoth task of writing a history covering several millennia of Iranian history, but then again, few are as qualified as Katouzian for just such an undertaking. And the reason for Katouzian’s success in pulling off such a massive feat, is not only the wealth of experience and learning he has brought to bear in this book, but the tightly argued and analytical structure by means of which Iranian history, from the mythological birth of Kiumars to the Islamic Revolution, is deftly imparted to the reader >>>

IMMIGRANTS

Bridges

Bridges

A photographic review of the movie, “Letters from America”

by Nazy Kaviani
13-Nov-2009 (14 comments)

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TRAVELER

New New Orleans

New New Orleans

Photo essay: Slowly recovering four years after Katrina

by Farzaneh
13-Nov-2009 (2 comments)

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JOY

My Evening With Orhan Pamuk

Whatever has ever happened before this moment is irrelevant

11-Nov-2009 (24 comments)
Orhan Pamuk walked into the stage and the excitement of hearing him reading from his new book took over my breathing system, inside my veins, my stomach, my eyes, and I felt enchanted by his tall silhouette and the shine in his silver hair. I couldn’t decide which one of his little gestures were the most charming; his subtle smile as he glanced at the audience, or his obvious difficulty in pronouncing some words? At the end, I was particularly captivated by his inquisitive eyes, as if he could still look at the world with amazement>>>

EXHIBITION

One Day

A collective narrative of Tehran in an art show

11-Nov-2009 (2 comments)
One day, strolling down the streets of Tehran, I noticed that somethings are near and somethings are far. Big deal, I said to myself. Everybody knows there is a here and a there. But why did this thought feel like a find? Why was I inspired by it as though I had just heard a Hafez verse? For some reason, I felt compelled to give life to the sensation so that it can trot out on its own and share itself with other people? Fortunately, I am a Hafez of sorts myself. I work in a different medium, photographs that hang in a gallery instead of verses written in a book>>>

DIZIN

Remote and wild

Remote and wild

Photo essay: Ski slopes of beautiful Dizin

by DM
10-Nov-2009 (6 comments)

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OBJECTION

Wasteful Sport

Wasteful Sport

Photo essay: 2010 Winter Olympics Torch relay in Victoria, Canada

by Azadeh Azad
09-Nov-2009 (6 comments)

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POINT

Olympic blunder

2010 Winter Olympics Torch relay in Victoria

09-Nov-2009
The Olympic Flame that was lit in Olympia, Greece, on October 22, 2009, finally arrived in Victoria, British Columbia (BC), on October 30th, where and when the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Torch Relay began its 106-day, 45,000-kilometre cross-Canada journey. The cross-country journey will be completed at Vancouver’s BC Place on February 12, 2010, as it lights the Olympic Cauldron, signaling the start of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Here, I'd like to balance all the Olympic hoopla in the media by relating some of the Cassandra facts exposed (with sources) by the Olympic Resistance Network groups>>>

DEMOCRACY

On the way

Iranian people seek democratic change and the democratic world can help

09-Nov-2009 (one comment)
The Green Movement has demonstrated that the desire for democracy is very strong in today’s Iran. This is the main characteristic of the GM: a national and peaceful democratic movement. It encompasses a wide range of political tendencies as well as various strains of the civil society, from women and students movements to teachers, lawyers, workers, business people, arts and culture personalities and human rights activists. Indeed, the GM highlights a culture change in Iran. Never in Iran has such a peaceful and well-disciplined large group of people taken into the streets in their millions calling for democracy and basic human rights>>>

13 ABAN

Day of Infamy

The youth of have no interest in shouting "death to America"

09-Nov-2009 (13 comments)
While the 1953 coup was a strategic mistake by the US for which the Iranian people paid dearly, it serves as absolutely no justification for taking US diplomats hostage 26 years later. Taking hostages did not gain anything for Iran and Iranian people, other than more suffering. It did not protect the regime in the least from any similar coup attempts, in fact if the US wanted to take hostile action in Iran it would have been more justified since it had been attacked (the US embassy is sovereign US territory under international law)>>>

IRANIANS

چرا ایرانیان – آمریکایی  نیستند

مقایسه ای کوتاه بین ایرانیان و آمریکاییان

09-Nov-2009 (8 comments)
ما ایرانیان عزیز که در اقصی نقاط دنیا سکنی گزیده ایم با آشنایی با جوامع غربی و نوع نگاه آنان به زندگی – توانسته ایم به عرصه های جدیدی دسترسی پیدا کنیم. بخشی از هم وطنان ما در ایران هم توانسته اند به بخشهای سرگرم کننده زندگی غربی مانند فیلم و سریال ها (از طریق دی وی دی دوبله شده و نه با تماشای کانالهای ماهواره ای انگلیسی زبان و دیگر زبانها) و شوهای رقص و غیره آشنا شوند بی آنکه بتوانند در آن کشور ها زندگی کرده و نوع زندگی اجتماعی و سیاسی آن کشور های دموکراتیک را تجربه کرده و حتی با آن نوع نگاه آشنا شوند>>>

TRAVELER

Touching song

Touching song

Photo essay: Trip to Oaxaca, Mexico

by SA
07-Nov-2009 (5 comments)

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IRAN

سفر "جیش دارم"  به ایران!

وقتی به مخالفین دولت رنگ سبز مالیدند درواقع کلاه بزرگی سرمان رفت

06-Nov-2009 (50 comments)
در این گذر اگر از اندک اشکالاتی که در پایین تشریح میگردد چشم پوشی کنیم، بقیه خاطرات سفرخوب بودند و بعدا درمیان خواهیم گذاشت. فقظ خواستم فردا دوستان نیایند گله کنند و بگویند "تو که میدونستی چرا واسه ما نگفتی." در طول سالها زندگی درامریکا من فقط یکبار به ایران رفتم که آنهم سی و دو سال پیش بود و سرانجام امسال با تشویق دوستان و فامیل مصمم شدم دیداری از وطن تازه کنم. لذا چند ماه قبل چمدان را بستم و با شوق فراوان و پس از انجام امور تجدید گذرنامه و سایر کارهای مربوطه عازم ایران شدم.>>>

SATIRE

Private Parts

Public discourses in modern Iran

04-Nov-2009 (3 comments)
The first half of the 20th century minus the Reza Shah period is unique in the whole history of Persian literature in the amount of satire, lampoons and invectives which were published largely though not entirely through the press, and usually with a political motive. It was characteristic of Iranian history that the fall of an arbitrary state, often even the death of a ruler, led to division and chaos. The first quarter of the twentieth century was a period of revolution, chaos and coup>>>