Archive - Aug 30, 2009 - Article

Poseurs or Revolutionaries?

One middle aged man, came back recently from Iran, I saw him at the July 25th protest here in our town where less people showed up than at my friend’s birthday party. Like many others that day he was wearing a cap, big sunglasses and scarf to hide his face, he stood way back and did not repeat any chants or slogans, he boasted to me of chasing plain clothes men on motorbikes during the recent protests in Iran. I thought to myself: how can this guy, who worked for the foreign ministry under the Shah, who covers himself so much here in the safety of Place Massena, have had the courage to go chasing motor-biker bassijis in Tehran?>>>

چه کسی از فیس بوک می ترسد؟

با اینکه فیس بوک هیچ گاه شمار اعضایش را در یک کشور اعلام نمی کند اما دو قرینه نشان می دهدکه این سایت در طول بهار 88 محبوب ترین سایت ایرانیان در داخل کشور بوده است، نخست انتشار گزارشی از تعاملات جهانی در شبکه فیس بوک که در مقایسه با فصل مشابه در سال قبل نشان دهنده رشد شگفت انگیز استقبال از فیس بوک در ایران بود... اما این سوال که چرا ناگهان مسئولان سانسور در ایران که در همان حال حتی از فیلتر کردن وبلاگ هایی که کمترین نشانه اعتراض در آن موجود بود نیز نمی گذشتند، سایتهایی چون فیس بوک و یوتیوب را آزاد کردند؟ برای پاسخ به این سوال ابتدا نشانه هایی از استفاده عوامل اطلاعاتی حکومت برای ردیابی، رصد و مانیتورینگ نیروهای شاخص مخالف یا روزنامه نگاران یافت شد >>>

Middle Eastern Men

On one of my recent trips to the Middle East, a friend and a business associate, Hesam, invited me over to his house for dinner. I eagerly accepted. The dinner was plentiful, the host and the hostess extremely gracious, and as the tradition goes, some relatives, including Hesam's parents and his wife’s two sisters and their husbands, were also present. Everyone was dressed in western-style clothing except my host, who was wearing a long while dishdasha. The house was sumptuously furnished with European sofas and chairs, artworks from the surrounding Gulf countries, expensive Persian rugs, and lavish, beautiful curtains, which dressed the bay windows that faced the Persian Gulf across the street>>>

Empty nest

Humor and practicality have been my safety net through life’s ups and downs, especially the downs. Years ago, I used my imaginative mind to change those wasted summers of youth at my father’s farms into an education. While my older sister nagged incessantly about the unfairness of missing the city fun, I took the three months of life in Abbas Abad as a learning experience and tried my hands on a few native skills: field work, tending to livestock and weaving baskets. During school, whenever I came across a subject too difficult to memorize, I made lyrics out of such subjects as the table of elements, names of fossils, or human nerve passages>>>

A sight for granted, never...

To unlock the lock, I must endure this pain,
To harness the journey’s craft, I must negotiate with
The stones on this path,
To kill the monsters, I must be willing to die first
And then watch how my ashes shall rise against
Another day's sunrise. >>>

كودتاي مخملي كار من است

در كمال صحت و عقل و شعور
خالي از هرگونه جبر و ضرب و زور

مي نمايم نزد مردم اعتراف
تا شوم از درد وجدانم معاف

عامل اخراج آدم از بهشت
كشتن هابيل وصدها كار زشت >>>