The age factor

If a man tells his wife of 20 years that she should be aware that at any moment he can go back to Iran and marry a 25 year old; should the woman be offended/ threatened/ mad/ sad? I find myself to be obsessed with the issue, simply because lately, my husband has been saying that to me repeatedly. As you may guess, we are not in our honeymoon anymore, and we are not in our old age either. He is a very educated man; a prominent figure in our community and I am an educated and a professional woman. Yes, things are not going so well between us lately and we have had arguments>>>

هنوز دوران جوانی است

در ایران متوجه شدم طرفداران دولت احمدی نژاد را در بین توده های مردم، محرومین و زحمتکشان و در میان گروه های سیاسی، نیروهای عدالتخواه تشکیل میدهند. آنان که از حق درمان، حق تحصیل فرزندان، حق مسکن وحداقل زندگی شرافتمندانه محرومند احساس میکنند احمدی نژاد توانسته آنها را تا حدودی در سرنوشتشان شرکت دهد و به حق و حقوقشان آگاه سازد. برای آنها احمدی نژاد نمود رهبری است که مصمم است خدمت به مردم رابه عنوان یک فرهنگ فکری به الگوئی در بین مسئولین دولتی تبدیل نماید و بهمین دلیل بسیاری امتیازات را از مدیران دولتی حذف کرده است. او با سرسختی وپشتکار سعی در ترویج روحیه کار سخت و سازنده را دارد. احمدی نژاد توانسته است برای این اقشار معیارهای فراموش شده در انقلاب بهمن 57 را دوباره زنده کند.>>>

More than a cause

I was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder and my doctors told me that my only chance of survival is if I have a bone marrow transplant. The doctors were telling me that the only way that I could live is if somebody else would give me some of their bone marrow!... I made a promise to myself that when I am better and able to live a normal life, I will dedicate my life to educating people of the significance of donating marrow and how truly important such a gift is to patients in need. The only reason that I am alive today is because my brother was able to overcome his intense fear of hospitals and needles and donate the marrow that now keeps me living.>>>

Hunting humans

In contrast to reforms under Mohammed Khatami, the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has intensified hate propaganda against Baha'is in government-controlled media, where they are variously demonized as agents of Russian, British, and U.S. imperialism, not to mention Zionism and even Wahhabism. A 2007 UN report revealed that the Ministry of Intelligence has been collecting detailed information about Baha'is across Iran. Death threats and attacks, desecration of cemeteries and places of worship, denial of pensions and university education, the harassment of Baha'i children in schools? all signs of a concerted campaign to strangle this community in the land of its birth.>>>

Meet Keiko

Twenty Years ago, when we first moved to St. Louis
I met this lively graduate student named Keiko
After twenty odd years, it is hard to recall details beyond her round face framed by short shiny black hair
But I remember the way she moved through the building with a combination
of agility and grace, in bursts of short successive moves -
much the way robins would explore a tree (without making noise or knocking anything down) >>>

My War with the Americans

This begins with a personal story. For eight years now, I have been at war with a few lunatic Americans currently residing in Colorado, California, New Mexico and Kansas, who have been responsible for several years of harassment, slander, libel, stalking, interference with employment and other felonies. These individuals have all received legal warnings and orders per their ongoing activities but as my lawyers have claimed, when dealing with people who are mentally ill, deluded and incapable of understanding what the law means, you can expect them to continue their illegal activities until they land in jail or have every penny they have taken away from them>>>

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

The fastest way to build trust and generosity in someone is to spike her nasal spray with a dose of the hormone oxytocin. But hurry to the point--money, promotion, sex, whatever it is you can't get without cheating; the drug degrades to half its strength in only three minutes. The science article with this info coincidentally comes with a graph that suggests, among 29 nations, Iranians are the fourth least likely people to resort to this sort of deceitfulness. Norwegians stole the gold medal in trustworthiness, Denmark grabbed the silver, and if it hadn't been for the Chinese, Iranians would have come home with the bronze>>>

روان ملی ما

در کشورهای مردم سالار همه مردم قانونا برابرند و در ابراز اندیشه‌ها و احساسات خود آزاد. به همین دلیل در این سرزمینها«ملت» مفهومی‌ست که از هاله‌ی آرمانی درآمده و واقعیتی اجتماعی به خود گرفته است. اما در کشور ما ملت هنوز یک مفهوم آرمانی‌ست، زیرا یک گروه خاص(در گذشته سلطنت طلبان و امروزه ولایت فقیه گرایان) بر شهروندان ایرانی حکومت می‌کنند. تا هنگامی که ما ایرانیان نتوانسته‌ایم در پیشگاه قانون برابر باشیم و آزادانه نمایندگان خود را برای نهادهای تصمیم گیرنده انتخاب کنیم، هنوز ملتی«در خود» هستیم و نه «برای خود». چرا که اجازه نداریم آزادانه در تعیین سرنوشت خود تصمیم بگیریم و مجبوریم فرمانبردار گروهی خاص باشیم. >>>

Love

The carpet on my face is scratchy. It smells like dust and dead spider. I lift it to breathe. I crawl on my back and my head hits the leg of dining table. I drag myself toward the cold teapot. “Once the ceiling is lifted, we could get out of here,” Ahmad says. He is holding the fridge on his chest and its metallic bottom has set visible traces on his skin. “Once the walls are painted, we’ll take a few days off,” I say. “Do you like to have some coffee?” “Without sugar,” he says.>>>

Alarm bells

The most aggressive posturing and accusations against Iran, yet issued by Washington, signal the rapid closure of the window of opportunity for peace which opened up following the release of the US’ National Intelligence Estimate in December 07 concluding that there was no evidence of a nuclear weaponisation programme in Iran. This revelation which was concordant with the IAEA’s own repeated assessment over 5 years of intrusive inspections, and which had been held from publication by the Vice President Cheney for over a year with the aim of altering its key findings, put a spanner in the frightfully accelerating wheel to another war and a potential inferno in the Middle East and beyond>>>

Natural Born Grillers

One of the most endearing things for me personally, when it comes to BBQ’ing, is when suddenly the men get all territorial and caveman-ish about the grilling. It’s absolutely hilarious to watch… Sometimes if there are several men present, it becomes a competitive sport and it makes great entertainment… “Me man…me cook food, me feed family” I’m not exaggerating, this is a direct quote from my a friend of mine who undergoes a strange character transformation the second the BBQ is lit. Personally, I’m all for letting the men folk do the grilling, as my talents tend to lie more in the food preparation and table-laying. I’m quite girly in this sense and the idea of standing over a hot grill prodding hunks of meat prompts all kinds of thoughts like “What if I burn myself?”>>>

Behind the Garden Door - Love

For the most part it was the circumstances – we were literally thrown together by the restrictions imposed on us from the outside and, like prisoners in a jail cell, we turned to each other out of necessity. It was really quite ironic – the very things that should have kept us apart: our different religions, the tyrannical nature of the regime and its constant attempt to control intermingling between man and woman, the political intrigues, our very cultures and mindsets – all these were washed away in the tidal wave of the revolution like matchsticks, causing us to become closer, and, having no one but each other to turn to, ever closer still>>>