Archive - 2007

The volunteer!

An activist friend told me ... >>>

Nature's oasis

"What is so special about your flowers?" I ask. "Je besoin (I need) le nature," she replied eagerly. When I was a small child, I used to visit the Jura (mountains) and I took in the colors of the flowers. They gave me a kind of therapeutic feeling. I tried to bring this organic calmness to this village we call Geneva." Nicole enlightened me with stories of her youth, free in the mountains, surrounded by a bounty of soft flowers. She explained how privileged she was to be able to spend every day these past six years seeing, touching and breathing flowers. >>>

Too hot to handle

Southern Europe needs air-conditioning. Switzerland with it’s ski mountains, lake Geneva, chalets needs summer time air-conditioning. But we always think the good old days will return. The climate will reverse itself. That will never happen. The problem is serious. Heat comes to the surface at a higher rate now, lingers on if there is no breeze or gets absorbed in the lakes, ponds or any other cool place. The limits of temperature for human comfort are minute. Between 24º and 26º degrees with slight air-movement to be felt. Without air-movement, within the limit of those temperatures, one will not be comfortable behind desks with a suit and necktie. >>>

به امید دیدار!

جدّی میگی نیما ؟

بالأخره حمید جان؟
رفتی؟
باشه.
ما هم دیر یا زود میایم! >>>

Rehabilitating Iran's Military

The recent news about the change of leadership at the "Sepah Pasadaran" got me to thinking about how absurdly inefficient the current Iranian defense structure is. Take a country with a limited amount of resources available to allocate to its defense needs, then find yourself forced to split those resources between two identical organizations (the "Artesh", and the "Sepah") created, in parallel, to meet the defense needs of that country?!?! >>>

اندر جدال زرافشان و میلانی

 وقتی انتقادی درکار است، چگونگی بکار گرفتن کلمات است که نیت اصلی نویسنده را روشن می کند که قصد اصلی اش کوبیدن  است و یا سازندگی. وقتی از صیف وسیعی از کلمات موهن برای بیان نظراتمان استفاده می کنیم، یعنی عصبانی هستیم و بی منطق، و چیز دیگری رنجمان میدهد و به چیز دیگر آویزان شده ایم. و در هر حال متوجه این نیستیم که خوانندگان ما که در واقع مخاطب واقعی ما هستند، دارای آنچنان شعور، بینش، و استدلالی هستند که بتوانند بین آن دو تمیز قائل شوند. سخن در این است.   

 

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شرافت کاری و اخلاق حرفه ای

حسین درخشان ...دست به جعل زده است و از خود چیزی ساخته و به من بسته است. برای من جالب است که کسی که فحاشی مردم را به خود منتشر می کند تا مثلا آزادمنشی خود را به رخ بکشد تذکر حقوقی مرا ادیت می کند. او نگران است که روشهای غیراخلاقی اش با نقد حقوقی و اخلاقی همان اندک تاثیری را هم که ممکن است در بعضی اذهان داشته باشد از دست بدهد. بسیار با معنی است که او اگر هر کامنتی در هر جای وب بر خلاف خواست و نفع او باشد رسما می نویسد و اعتراض می کند و خواهان برداشتن آن می شود اما کامنتی را که در برابر رفتار ناجوانمردانه او گذاشته می شود و در آن هیج اصلی از آزادی بیان و احترام به مخاطب مخدوش نشده کوتاه می کند.>>>

A path to nowhere

It was the second day of winter 1986. The sun had already set and the snow-spotted Alborz Mountains to the north of Tehran were still visible behind a haze of smoke hovering the city. Two nights earlier I had toasted the birth of the Iranian god of Mehr (Mithra: god of the Sun) in a cave in the Alborz with some fruits and nuts along the longest night of the year in an inn in the City of Mashhad; and now I was at Khazaneh Bus Terminal in south of Tehran taken a seat by the window of a bus full of uniformed men like myself bound for Khuzestan in southwest of Iran wondering whether that would be my last trip from that terminal or it was just the beginning of a series of such trips that I had to take to the war fields in the south and west to fight an endless war regarded holy by many, unholy by many.>>>

امام مرده سخن می گويد!

گاه شرايط آنگونه ايجاب می کنند که رهبر فوت شده را بصورتی شگفت آور به ميان بازماندگانش برگردانند تا مشکلات و اختلافات را سريعاً حل و فصل کند. و از آنجا که احضار ارواح نه ممکن است و نه پذيرفتنی، نزديکان رهبر از دست رفته بايد او را از طريق بازگفتن خاطره های خويش بازسازی و احياء کنند.>>>

بی آزادگی کی ارزشی دارد این جان ما

This summer, I was thinking about AZADI word. When you look for it in Iranian literature and discussion you find a huge vacuum! So I’d like to propose you a new version of EI Iran. May be it could help to start a discussing letting us to define what is AZADI for Iranians! >>>

Wright is wrong

Someone please tell me if Robin Wright is a journalist or Haleh Esfandiari's PR manager. How dare she can get away with such a blatant lie that "Esfandiari and the [Woodrow Wilson] center have long denied receiving any U.S. funding for the lecture series she runs." The about page of the Woodrow Wilson Center reads "Approximately one third of the Center's operating funds come annually from an appropriation from the U.S. government.">>>

Iranian rappers in LA

Two-part video clips on Iranian rappers feel about living in USA. I feel like they have a lot to say which we can learn about them. >>>