Archive - Oct 30, 2008 - Article

Good for America. Good for the World.

Globalization, destructive as it has really been in its universal economic outcomes, has also brought about some significant changes in the national self of many individuals of various nationalities throughout the world. Such indiduals, of whom I find myself to be one, while remaining national or even nationalistic in their selves, have grown, in their national selves, to be, in different degrees, a “citizen of the world” as well. Considering that these days nothing happens in or to any part of the Earth which is not going, sooner or later and directly or indirectly, to affect all the other parts too, these individuals consider it both as a human right and a civic, or at least moral, duty to be concerned with the world affairs as if these were part of the internal affairs of their own respective countries>>>

عشق عمومی

طبیعی است که متاسف باشم از آنچه اتفاق افتاده است. هرگز فکر نمی کردم به این زودی ها از زمانه جدا شوم. برای خودم یک زمان 5 ساله قائل شده بودم. زندگی ام به 5 ساله ها تقسیم شده است. این بار قرار این بود که این دوره کوتاهتر شود. به اجبار. انتخاب من نبود. از کانادا که برگشتم با طرحی نو آمده بودم تا زمانه را در کانادا پایه گذاری کنم. هیات نظارت زمانه بدون اینکه این طرح را باز کند یک هفته بعد بدون حضور من تصمیم گرفت که ساختار زمانه را دگرگون کند. پیام آن از همان روز اول روشن بود. اما من عمدا نخواستم آن پیام را عمده کنم. من دلایل متعدد داشتم که تصمیم هیات نظارت یا بورد زمانه کارشناسی نشده و شتابزده است. دلایل قاتع کننده نیست و روش اجرا نیز مناسب نیست. خواستم تا طرح کتبی شود. شد. اما ایرادها کمتر نشد. تمام این ماجرا 20 روز طول کشید. آنها در 9 اکتبر جلسه گذاشتند در 10 اکتبر ضمن دیداری برای قهوه خوردن از سوی رئیس بورد و مدیر پرس نو به من شفاها ابلاغ شد.>>>

Dilemma

It’s a dazzling summer morning. The breeze moves the shining waves of sun with care. Foreign birds fly in the sky with harmony. A masked man is trailing me through the orange trees of my childhood memories. The green leaves touch my face and juicy oranges drop over my head. The branches scratch my skin and the pain spreads its path through my veins. I run and I don’t look back. The heavy breathing of the faceless man overshadows the happiness of the wind, and the diffuseness of a fading moon enlightens my way. Like in a dream, in a blink of eye, I grow tall and strong, capable of pushing away branches and trunks and leaving their imposing path. Like the imaginary Deev of legends and tales, I crush trees under my toes, knowing I’d reach the birds, if I want to.>>>

Enchanted

I recently visited Lisbon and several other cities of Portugal [Photos]. The trip was not only fun but an adventure since Portugal is like no other country in Europe. There is a lot of history to be observed. Portugal has been a seafaring nation since the fourteenth century. Its very poverty drove many of its people out of the country in search of a better life, and thus turned the Portuguese into discoverers. They sailed everywhere, from Brazil to China and East Timor via Angola and Mozambique, from Hormuz in the Persian Gulf to Goa in India, in a quest for riches and intent on spreading the catholic faith. Portugal is the land of Henry the Navigator and Vasco de Gama, the first to sail to India via the Cape. Fado, the country’s traditional music reflects the melancholy of the many who left their country never to return, their homesickness and the longing of those they left behind. Is this also why the Portuguese, though friendly and helpful, are not exuberant like the Italians, why they rarely smile?>>>

Sleepless in Tehran

Under Ahmadinejad, Iran's mullahs have gone on a domestic subsidy binge — using oil money to cushion the prices of food, gasoline, mortgages and to create jobs — to buy off the Iranian people. But the one thing Ahmadinejad couldn't buy was real economic growth. Iran today has 30 percent inflation, 11 percent unemployment and huge underemployment with thousands of young college grads, engineers and architects selling pizzas and driving taxis. And now with oil prices falling, Iran — just like the Soviet Union — is going to have to pull back spending across the board. Fasten your seat belts. The U.N. has imposed three rounds of sanctions against Iran since Ahmadinejad took office in 2005 because of Iran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment. But high oil prices minimized those sanctions; collapsing oil prices will now magnify those sanctions>>>