Archive - Jun 24, 2008 - Article

History in limbo

For the past few months, the legal proceedings surrounding the sale of Persian artifacts on loan to American museums and universities had remained mostly dormant. That is, until, revelations occurred on three separate fronts of the issue. In the case of the Northern Illinois case Rubin et al. v IRI, two very separate developments have occurred. On March 29, new plaintiffs emerged seeking the clay tablets from Persepolis which are already targeted by the victims of a 1997 Jerusalem attack, Rubin et al. these additional plaintiffs want to lay claim to the artifacts so as to sell them and receive payment for a $2.7 billion decision in their favor>>>

Isfahan - City of Polish Children

The Polish Postal Service has commemorated the role Isfahan played during World War 2 in caring for Polish orphans. The new stamp, "Isfahan - the City of Polish Children", went on sale earlier this month. It depicts a pupil at School No. 15 near Isfahan (Stanislaw Stojakowski), standing in front of a Persian carpet woven at the city's Carpet School in 1944. In 1942, Isfahan housed thousands of Polish orphans released from the Soviet work camps of Siberia and Kazakhstan>>>

چراغ پیرزن

سرهنگ پیرزاد، اساساً فرد آرامی بود و از وقتی بازنشست شد، آرامتر گشت. اعضای خانواده اش به این وضعیت عادت کرده بودند. گاهی اوقات طی روزها فقط چند کلمه بیشتر نمی گفت. برنامه زندگی روزانه مرتبی داشت. پیاده روی و دیدار با دوستان در پارک. نهار، خواب، مطالعه و سرانجام خواب. به سبک دوران خدمت هر روز زود از خواب بیدار شده و به ورزش های سبک می پرداخت. آنقدر آرام بود که گاهی اوقات اعضای خانواده اش فراموش می کردند که سرهنگ با آنها زندگی می کند. حتی سر میز نهار و شام هم کمتر داخل بحث ها میشد. یونیفرم های دوران خدمت را مرتب در کمد لباسهایش چیده بود و هر از چند گاهی آنها را از کاور هایشان بیرون آورده و تماشا میکرد.برخی اوقات هم وقتی ساعتها محو تماشای آلبوم عکس های قدیمی میشد، بر می خواست ولباسهای نظامیش را می پوشید.>>>

Among so many Eves

The poems in this collection are no more than forty-two lines long, yet they all make their message palatably clear to the reader in a short amount of space. These are poems of longing and loss, yet they all honor the esteemed place poetry holds in Persian culture. In addition, these female poets are reveling in their right to freely speak their minds and transfer their hearts onto the page—certainly not a small feat in the eleventh or even the twenty-first century... With so many Iranians living abroad as a result of the Cultural Revolution, a poetry collection such as this one is made all the more important, strengthening national pride, and also applauding Iranian women writers across genres and across the ages>>>

Clueless

Clueless, I entered the lab
on such a beautiful day
chatting with the radiant girl
playful and pregnant.
A little voice nagged
at the back of my head:
Remember the last time
we acted this way? >>>