MOVIES
Review: "Charlie Wilson's war"
The film starring Tom Hanks as Charlie Wilson, portrays the brash action by a Senator who raised as a child frightened of imminent attack by the Soviet Union during the nuclear Cold War era (one of the damaging effects of "duck and cover" ad campaigns on this generation), takes it upon himself to push his counterpart buddy "idealists" in the CIA to covertly support the Afghan rebels to fight the Soviet Union with training and equipment. This is successfully spun as a heroic tale of Yankee ingenuity and dogged American determination. What bothers me about this kind of storytelling is that it tidily evades the real problems that this kind of illegal covert action leaves in it's wake
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WOMEN
Interview with women's rights activist Soheila Vahdati
Vahdati: My contact with Iranian women activists goes back to 2003, when I started writing for Women in Iran. The website was founded by Shadi Sadr and a group of women journalists and activists (womeniniran.net). Although it started mainly as a women’s news site it had other sections such as “Tajrobeh haye zananeh” (Womanly Experiences) which was my favorite section and I started writing for it. At the time Faezeh Tabatabaei was in charge of the column and encouraged me to continue writing. Soon, I started writing articles for the site as well
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IDEAS
Voting for anyone with courage to reform the tax system
I am going to pay some taxes in January about which I've been having nightmares for a couple of months already. Then I found out that Mike Huckabee proposes to abolish the IRS, in favour of CONSUMPTION TAX!! When I heard this I thought it was a joke, but it is actually true. And Mike Huckabee has just won the Republican elections in Iowa. Great news! I hope he wins'em all and becomes president. I'm not very sure about a FLAT consumption tax, but I am definitely in favour of abolishing income and all other similar taxes
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POETRY
by Yasi
Dreams were my passion, my solitude
Passing of the day was precious as it brought me glorious black
Has it been too long I wonder,
Will I ever return to that far away land?
Would I remember how to step off a window and not fall
But soar, so softly, so crisply…
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For the good ones out there..
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ما وظیفه داریم با فراموشی مبارزه کنیم
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نابود کردن میراث فرهنگی، جنایت علیه بشریت است»
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QUACK
Disney illustrator's friendly incursion into the Land of Kings
by
Darius Kadivar >>>
DISNEY
Master illustrator's friendly incursion into the land of kings
Strangely "Donald Duck in Ancient Persia” grew out of interest in horror films. Though Disney illustrator Carl Barks was no great movie-goer, he saw several horror classics which contributed to the stories eerie atmosphere. A quest to raise the dead, spells muttered over a magic pool, a frustrated marriage, and honor slaked by death – these are all motifs from Boris Karloff’s classic Horror flick The Mummy (1933); and the spooky old mansion on the hill looks like The Old Dark House in another Karloff movie. Even the mad scientist, with his high forehead and deep-set eyes resembles that veteran horror actor.
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VIEW
Iranians must focus on a permanent fix rather than a quick solution
I am under the impression that some people are in search of a
democratic Iran without the consideration of the geopolitical and/or
sociopolitical situation. Some Iranians are stuck in a mindset that the
religion of Islam is the cause of all evil in the Iranian struggle to
advance and that Iranians were “defeated” because of the introduction
of Islam into their society. For many, the IRI represents a government
that promotes the same religion that corresponds to the downfall of the
great Persian Empire and its advance society
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HILLARY
Will the U.S. have a woman president?
One would expect that if there is one country in the world in which women have become equal to men, that country is America. In fact, the number one question of twenty first century is, why does America remain the only industrial nation in which a woman has not been allowed to become president, or even vice president when even in many developing countries that has happened many times. Therefore, the anti-women factions mentioned above, with some of the big media at their service have managed to neutralize the women's struggle for more equality or place it on the back burner
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