Archive - Oct 1, 2007 - Article

Blown out of proportion

A few days ago, I was home minding my own business, eating my yogurt (as they say in Farsi/Persian) when a friend told me over the phone that Ahmadinejad had made a fool out of himself by saying that there are no gays in Iran. Because I don’t have cable television, I could not listen to Ahmadinejad’s talk at Columbia, live on TV. I had to trust that the president “gand zadeh” as my friend put it. She was upset not only because of Ahmadinejad’s alleged statement about the lack of homosexuals in Iran, but also because of Bollinger’s disrespectful and rude introductory remarks. >>>

Inferior news for inferior people

The history of propaganda in the US is as old as the country itself. After all, what else can justify eradication of millions of Native Americans on the grounds that they’re savages or enslavement of millions of others because their color is a sign of their inferiority? However, for the moment, we can look at post-WWII history and all the relevant US laws. VOA is controlled by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which also runs Radio and TV Mari (targeting Cuba), Radio Sawa and AlHurra TV (in Arabic), Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe (targeting eastern Europe), and Radio Free Asia.>>>

ماههای آخر

فکر نمی کنم بتوانم تاب بیاورم. دردهای جسمی ندارم، یعنی جسمی که درد می کرد، دیگر نیست. پنج ماه و دوازده روز پیش از من جدا یش کردند. آن را ا ز من گرفتند." چپم " را همان روزهای اولی که به جبهه رفتم، هنوزعرق ام خشک نشده بود، که از دست دادم....دومی را؟ خیلی باها ش کنار آمدم، اما حالا آن را هم ندارم. درد جسمی هم ندارم. دیگر نیستند که به مجرد کم شدن اثر مُسَکن، درد را روانه کنند.اگر هم بودند، دیگر کاری ازشان ساخته نبود. اما درد فکری چرا، خیلی هم دارم. گاه مدتها سرم را روی دست هایم می گذارم و درمانده، جان می کنم.>>>

Thus, the dialogue began...

In the small set of San Francisco's Tick House, four theatre artists sit around a table and talk. What is different about this theatrical discussion is who these people are and what has brought them together. Who could imagine that the Israeli playwright Motti Lerner, the Iranian director Mahmood Karimi-Hakak, the American dramaturge Roberta Levitow and Golden Thread Theatre Company's Iranian-Armenian artistic director Torange Yeghiazarian would get together to make a play -- Benedisctus -- about the relationship between Iran, US and Israel?>>>