The Spider Killings (3)

Babak could see his mother, Fati, standing across the pond at Kuh Sangi Park, one of the most beautiful parks in Mashad that he and his mother loved to stroll in whenever possible. She was clad as usual in her long chador with only her face peeking out, a tall black triangle with a small white oval in the top corner, an oddly austere figure among the colorful and fragrant tall grass and blooming flowers that covered the ground at Kuh Sangi Park like some sort of magically alive Persian carpet. Babak continued to calmly suck his thumb for a few seconds, believing that Fati would eventually see him and come towards him. But she just stood there, still as a tree>>>

وعده سر خرمن

سرما از پاهایم می آمد
و بهار از در پشتی
با هزار وعده سر خرمن
و من کنار اینهمه یا..
چنار را می کشیدم
سیگار را می کشیدم
انتظار را می کشیدم

>>>

Vis & Ramin

Vis & Ramin is one of the world’s great love stories. It was the first major Persian romance, written between 1050 and 1055 in rhyming couplets. The plot, complex yet powerfully dramatic, revolves around royal marital customs unfamiliar to us today. Shahru, the married queen of Mah, refuses an offer of marriage from King Mobad of Marv but promises that if she bears a daughter she will give the child to him as a bride. Vis and Ramin had immense influence on later Persian poetry and is very probably also the source for the tale of Tristan and Isolde, which first appeared in Europe about a century later. The plot, complex yet powerfully dramatic, revolves around royal marital customs unfamiliar to us today >>>

Winning without popularity

The Guardian Council and the military have been working under Khamenei's direct supervision to paralyze and manipulate the upcoming elections, all in an effort to make Khamenei the undisputed winner. The council has until now been the Supreme Leader's main instrument for controlling electoral outcomes. In recent years, however, the military has increased its role in the voting process tremendously. The Interior Ministry, which administers the elections, is in the hands of military and intelligence officers. The interior minister himself, Mostafa Poor-Muhammdai, was deputy minister of intelligence under Rafsanjani and is widely thought to have had a role in killing dozens of intellectuals and political activists>>>

The New Man

The New Man sat over the proceedings like a kind and friendly ghost, like somebody who was not only new but also old, because of how the people were like children before him. And maybe he was old, because the thing they were there to talk about fighting, the thing that the man whose face was on the tee-shirts had fought, the face that was staring at all of beauty and tragedy at once, which everybody in the room was staring at too, even if they didn't do it all the time like he did - that thing that they were all against could seem like it was what was new sometimes. It had been growing over their lives, for one thing, or trying to at least>>>

گل یخ

آمدم
با تنی زخمی
از قمه های نزده
از زنجیرهائی
فرونیامده بر شانه هایم،
و سینه ای که
از داغ کربلا سُرخ نبود.
>>>

Missing the point

Perhaps Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury thought his statement about Sharia Law will be received enthusiastically as well-intended and an effort to reduce racial tensions in the society. However, his proposal got him into trouble. He was attacked from right and left. Those who saw their “white Christian culture” under threat asked for his resignation. Women rights activists, secularists and such like attacked him for the negative effects of Sharia Law on human rights, particularly the disastrous effects of such a practice on women in so-called Muslim communities. In response to harsh criticism he tried to qualify his proposal by stating that he did not mean the whole Sharia Law, but in family matters. He has just missed the point>>>

Voice of Iran

Mohammad Reza Shajarian's voice streams out with such power and purity, embodying centuries of technique yet with such emotional texture as to leave the listener in absolute awe. It’s a voice hard yet clear like crystal, a crystal through which one can see three millennia of Iran’s history and culture, from Zarathustra at the dawn of spiritual man through to Baarbad in the Sassanid court, to Alexander’s sacking of Perspolise, to the invasion of the Arabs, to Rudaki and Avecina, to the Mongol plunder and Hafez’s great existential shrug, to Hasan Sabbah’s stubborn resistance at Alamut, the horse rides in the caucuses and the Shalimar gardens in Kashmir. It’s the voice of endurance in the face of pious repression and invaders’ brutality and regeneration through culture>>>

Impossible not be very concerned

Some could claim that the building of Sivand dam in the Iranian province of Fars is necessary and has nothing to do with destroying Iran's history and pre-Islamic monuments. Many others, however, including 47 organizations in Iran itself, the UNESCO and many scholars and Iranians citizens claim otherwise. The building of this dam in the Pasargad plains can cause irreversible damage to the most valuable treasures and historical monuments in Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran has embarked on the final stages of a dam construction in the south of Iran>>>

اعتراض سراسری

نه، امروز ۲۷ بهمن ۱۳۸۶ است . امروز، روز اعتراض سراسری برای آزادی همه دانشجويان زندانی است. دانشجويان آزاديخواه و برابری طلب دانشگاه های سراسر کشور، که بسياری از آنان به جرم تلاش برای برگزاری مراسم بزرگداشت ۱۶ آذر روز دانشجو در زندان به سر می برند، از بيش از يک ماه و نيم پيش، امروز را روز اعتراض سراسری اعلام کرده اند و از همه آزاديخواهان جهان خواسته اند به هر طريقی که مناسب می دانند، خواهان آزادی فوری همه دستگيرشدگان و توقف سرکوب آزاديخواهان و برابری طلبان شوند.>>>

The threat is still there

How likely do you think war is with Iran? KINZER: I fear that this prospect is still very real. The recent National Intelligence Estimate makes it impossible for the US to hope for broad support for new sanctions on Iran. This could mean that some people consider a military strike the only remaining alternative. People in the White House might decide that Iran is a looming threat that must be contained before it can rise. Manufacturing an incident, either in Iran, Iraq or the Gulf, would be easy, and it could become a pretext for war.>>>