OBAMA

Bidding for Biden

Dealing with Iran and the next democratic Vice Presidential candidate

by Goudarz Eghtedari
20-Aug-2008 (46 comments)
By the time you read this article, you might have already heard who the actual VP is on the Senator Obama’s ticket. And I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut tonight that there is a good chance that my phone will ring early morning on Wednesday, like two million other phones to say that Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic nominee for the Vice Presidency of the United States of America. As an American with Iranian ethnicity, who like many others has followed the US’s foreign policy toward Iran in the past decades I can say Joe is the best choice. This judgment is not only based on the fact that Senator Biden has foreign policy experience as the chair of the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee, but also because of his unmatched actions and interest in opening up with Iran>>>

RELATIONSHIPS

Vahid’s Story

But Happened Difficulties...*

by Nazy Kaviani
20-Aug-2008 (14 comments)
I pour two cups of tea, and bring out the cookies my sister brought me from Iran. My friend is not himself today. He moves too fast and talks even faster. It’s as though his mind is on fire. He rattles off thoughts and sentiments and questions, barely waiting for me to get a word in edgewise. He says: "You know, everything in this world is upside down and out of order! I love someone and she doesn't care for me. Why can't it be that I love someone who loves me, too? I'm so sick of feeling rejected all the time. I know she doesn't want to be with me, that she doesn't care for me, but I keep pushing forward, trying harder and harder, and feeling more and more unwanted every time>>>

BOMBER

Sharing the pain

Yasmina Khadra's "The Attack"

by Suzan_Abrams
20-Aug-2008
No matter the questions of the puzzled observer and the clever expert, there are never any proper answers. Forget the possibility of even half-baked ones. The mind of the suicide bomber already blessed for her spiritual martyrdom, is unworkable for a psychological penetration, mute to ramblings and secretive to disclosures. The intimidating icy personality disguised behind its feminine veil, shuns any attempt at recalling the basic laws of compassion and the resurrection bearing any normal perspective of humanity that would have long faded away, by the time the hour of the ghastly act dawns>>>

MEDIA

خودمان را گول نزنیم

باید بین رسانه های تبلیغاتی و رسانه های خبری حرفه ای مرزبندی قائل شد

by oazadi
20-Aug-2008 (7 comments)
شواهد موید این نکته است که صدای آمریکا اصولا برای حرفه ای کار کردن خلق نشده است. منظور دولت آمریکا از راه اندازی این رادیو بیش از آنکه خدمت به فرهنگ رسانه ای و خلق یک کار با کیفیت باشد، استفاده از آن به عنوان یک ابزار پروپگاند بوده و هست. بنابراین اینکه صدای آمریکا نه تنها در فضای رسانه ای فارسی بلکه اصولا در دنیا نتوانسته است اعتبار رسانه ای کسب کند بیش از آنکه از ضعف این رسانه باشد از ماهیت متفاوت این رسانه ناشی می شود. از این نظر می توان صدای آمریکا را با رادیو بی بی سی زمان جنگ جهانی دوم مقایسه کرد...رادیو اروپای آزاد نیز یک رادیو حرفه ای نبوده و نیست. از همین رو نیز باید بین رسانه هایی که صرفا کاربرد تبلیغاتی دارند با رسانه های خبری حرفه ای مرزبندی قائل شد>>>

FICTION

Diaries & Jallad

A novel: Chapters 6 and 7

by Kaveh Afrasiabi
20-Aug-2008
"Paris-Geneva." K. was whispering this when his mother woke him up, at first thought that he had slept only an hour or two; the outside was dark and the faint somber noise of a muezzin* from a nearby mosque made him think that she was waking him for the dawn meal, sahari. "Get up son," his mother scolded him, "you have slept all day again. Look at this jungle. Why don't you clean up after yourself once in a while?" K. ignored her, closed his eyes again and defiantly asked her to turn the light off and give him just a few more minutes, absorbed himself in the dreadful noise, wished it sounded differently, like a radio announcer, instead of a reminder that His Majesty is watching>>>

COUP D'ETAT

Where were you on Aug 19, 1953?

Recollections of writers, translators, men and women of the pen

by Fariba Amini
19-Aug-2008 (74 comments)
On the occasion of 28 Mordad (Aug 19, 1953), I thought that by translating and summarizing parts of these recollections, some of which are quite fascinating and moving, we might see the past from different perspectives. In many ways, while Iran is being targeted on all fronts, whether right or wrong, the events of Aug 1953 are still with us in the most haunting way. Writers, scholars and people in general, Iranians and Americans alike, continue to be mesmerized with what really took place on those days when a nation’s destiny was changed overnight, trying to analyze these events and to find answers to the many questions they raise. Above all, more than that of any other Iranian political figure of modern times, Mossadegh’s legacy lives on>>>

POINT

The Iranian jigsaw puzzle

The US should adopt a strategy that deepens and expands the reform movement

by AmirAshkan Pishroo
19-Aug-2008 (9 comments)
Although all serious analysts agree that there are a variety of possible options to deal with Iran, they usually accord the primacy of some type of alternative over the others, treating the rest as background. Logically, we need a policy that brings together options that by themselves are insufficient conditions. That is, “X,” “Y,” and “Z” may be necessary conditions but will not be sufficient condition unless they occur simultaneously or in a particular sequence. In dealing with Iran, three options appear to be necessary and sufficient: (1) economic cooperation; (2) diplomacy; and (3) security. The United States must be prepared to take the lead and synthesizes these three options into a smart diplomacy>>>

INVADERS

Big difference

Fundamental differences between Russian and American invaders

by Ben Madadi
19-Aug-2008 (36 comments)
Recent developments in Georgia have confirmed many fears, including that of mine, that Russia's imperialistic intentions are very serious and the democratic world needs no complacency toward such brutal acts against democratic movements of other nations, the one of Georgia in this particular case. When I wrote an article a few days ago about the events in progress I was thinking about a few issues that I was absolutely sure would come up in the comments I would receive. The questioning is absolutely legitimate and worth serious consideration and debate. We know that America did invade Iraq. We know what happened in Iraq after the invasion>>>

LOVE

اجاره ی نور از اداره ی فرصت های از دست رفته

هوا شناسی خبر از بارش ماهی های کپور می داد

by hadi khojinian
19-Aug-2008 (4 comments)
تا ماهی ها از رودخانه به دریا خودشان را برسانند مارسیا زودتر با دوچرخه به در خانه آمد. هوا نسبتا ابری توام با نور ملس خورشید بود .جلبک های سبز رنگ در حاشیه ی مرداب هواسازی می کردند. قایق های کوچک بادبانی از آن سوی دریای مانش به طرف بندر می آمدند .تا مارسیا در خانه را بزند مرده های کف دریا خودشان را به ساحل رساندند .با چشم های بی نور به سمت آفتاب دراز کشیدند و پره های بینی شان نم ماسیده در هوا را مشتاقانه فرو کشیدند. زنگ در خراب بود. چکش در با دست مارسیا به صدا درآمد. زودتر از من گربه ی خانم میشیگان پشت در بود. با هم سلامی و بوسه ای رد کردیم. مارسیا دامن سفید - مشکی گلدارش را به تن کرده بود. باسن گردش به تمامی خودش را در دامن نشان داده بود. آقای گربه خودش را به پای مارسیا یله می داد و پوست نرمش مارسیا را به وجد می آورد. >>>

POETRY

Rus

Rus
by jamh
19-Aug-2008
Am I the only one remembering Malinin?
concentrating to become a bird or a cat
in those thin paperbacks on cheap paper
that crumbled after just a few reading?

Or in the first alternative theater
that showed film festivals for children,
those sparse Russian shorts, in woods,
a few kids lost among leaves of maple? >>>

FRIENDS?

Doostie khale kherse

I hope Iran’s politicians are not counting too much on China and Russia’s support

by Tina Ehrami
18-Aug-2008 (17 comments)
This “friendship” that politicians and clerics in the Islamic Republic of Iran consider useful, is nothing more than a “doostie khale kherse”! Either Iran’s politicians have no problems with this one-sided friendship or they are ignorant of the fact that they are being played! When the Russians attacked South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Iran’s media blew this up into former-USSR-propaganda proportions! I don’t think Russian media even claimed this attack to be as much as a success as Iranian media did! >>>

RELATIONSHIPS

Kissing all the frogs*

It seems everybody hurts in a different way

by Nazy Kaviani
18-Aug-2008 (23 comments)
What does it take to be truly happy in life? Is it absolutely necessary to have a lover or a partner in life in order to be happy? Why are so many people out there looking, looking, and looking? Is our search for love a part of our yearning for our “personal legend” as reflected by Paulo Coelho? Can we have perfectly satisfying and rewarding lives without a love interest in the center of it? And, after all, how hard can it be to find someone? Most of us are looking for only one person in our lives, no more. If you think about it, there are more or less the same number of men as there are women in this world, give or take a few (million!) >>>

THINK

Stupid, and proud of it

Rational thought and free inquiry vs. faith

by A. H. Ladan
18-Aug-2008 (9 comments)
Through centuries of living, learning, experimenting, experiencing, innovating and gaining vast knowledge, man has evolved to the next level. Today we are guided by our conscience and act with humanity; we no longer are bound by “one book”, rather we have many books to choose from for any aspect of our lives. Hitchens writes: “Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind … and the soul. … Religion spoke its last intelligible or noble or inspiring words a long time ago, … the devotions of today are the echoing repetitions of yesterday, sometimes ratcheted up to screaming point so as to ward off the terrible emptiness.” >>>

LETTERS

"چشمی هست که از اشک لبریز نشود؟"

می خواهم بگویم که زیبایی های زندگی هیچگاه فراموش شدنی نیست

by mnoghrekar
18-Aug-2008 (6 comments)
وصیت نامه ها و نامه ها یی که می خوانید بخشی از اسناد جنایات حکومت اسلامی اند , این وصیت نامه ها و نامه ها,که در آستانه ی اعدام قربانیان نوشته شده اند, نیازی به تفسیر و تحلیل ندارند ,گلواژه هایی هستند که خود به روشنی سخن می گویند و هر کدام عطر خویش می افشانند, سخن و عطر شور زندگی و عشق به آزادی و آزاده بودن تا حد جان دادن در ره این عشق. می توان با نظرات سیاسی و عقیدتی این قربانیان مخالف بود اما نمی توان و نمی باید بر این همه شور وعشق چشم بست و به آنان که داس تاراج شور و شادی وعشق در دست داشته و دارند رخصت داد به تاراج گل هایمان ادامه دهند, و یا تاراجگری های ضدانسانی شان به فراموشی سپرده شود. >>>

VIEW

We are all Baha'is

Discrimination against Baha’is has been so intense that human rights activists have also come to accept it

by Ali Keshtgar
18-Aug-2008 (29 comments)
The criminal scheme of Baha’i-killing, of which the Hojjatieh Society was the standard-bearer and promulgator before the [1979] revolution – a scheme whose promoters came to power with the emergence of the Islamic Republic – is at its foundation a felonious concept intended to bring about religious cleansing through the murder of all Baha’is. If there had been no barriers to this planned genocide, such as international laws or global reaction, then no doubt by now the leaders of the Islamic Republic would have fully implemented their atrocious scheme.>>>
« first‹ previous1234567next ›last »