MUSIC

Toro Yadam Miyareh

New from Luna Shad

15-Mar-2010 (13 comments)
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QUESTION

How smart are sanctions?

Sanctions ultimately harm ordinary citizens

15-Mar-2010 (14 comments)
This time, the warmongers' silly season found its apogée in U.S. neo-conservative Daniel Pipes' advice to Obama to "bomb Iran," which appeared shortly after Tony Blair, having outlined why he helped invade Iraq, remarked ominously, "We face the same problem about Iran today." The Chilcot Inquiry in the United Kingdom on how the Iraq War was launched ironically coincided with a considerable military build-up in the Persian Gulf region. All this occurred amidst the continued struggle of Iran’s civil rights movement and proclamations of Western leaders to be in support of the latter’s efforts. But is there any evidence for this?>>>

NUCLEAR

Khan's Story

Pakistani scientist Khan describes Iranian efforts to buy nuclear bomb

15-Mar-2010 (7 comments)
The father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program has written an official account that details an Iranian attempt to buy atomic bombs from Pakistan at the end of the 1980s. Bombmaker Abdul Qadeer Khan states in documents obtained by The Washington Post that in lieu of weapons, Pakistan gave Iran bomb-related drawings, parts for centrifuges to purify uranium and a secret worldwide list of suppliers. Iran's centrifuges, which are viewed as building blocks for a nuclear arsenal, are largely based on models and designs obtained from Pakistan>>>

VIEW

Scholarly Mistakes

Should ISIS take sides?

15-Mar-2010 (32 comments)
On May 27, 2010, the International Society of Iranian Studies (ISIS) will hold its three-day biennial conference in Los Angeles, California. It is jam-packed with interesting panels. Scholars of Iran from around the world will be attending. But this time around there is a controversy brewing. It involves the attendance of a scholar from an Israeli university in the occupied territories. In the past, many scholars from different Israeli universities have attended and given papers at the conference. There has never been an objection. But this time, the matter is different>>>

TRAVELER

Journey to Alamut

The history of the Assassins did not end with the sack of Alamut

15-Mar-2010 (11 comments)
There is probably no other place in Iran better known around the world than the fortress of Alamut. This place has spawned so many legends of paradisiacal gardens, beautiful houris, intoxicated hashish addicts, ruthless assassins and other fanciful nonsense that they have reached to the utmost limits of incredulity. Yet for all that, it is a truly awe-inspiring place. Even had you known nothing of its religious or political history; even if you had never heard of Hasan Sabbah, of the Assassins, the Ismailis or the grand proclamation of the Qiyamat, this place would seize the mind of any casual traveller who beheld it>>>

POETRY

The first Nowruz
15-Mar-2010 (6 comments)
The first Nowruz was not when a king lit a fire.
Nowruz is not when day is equal to night.
It is not when earth does a full circle.
It ain't when the calenders change.
Nowruz does not launch with a fish startling a turtle.
The first Nowruz is ... >>>

POETRY

Barbad, the Lute Player
15-Mar-2010
In the Spring
Come back with Barbad (*)
Carrying a lute
And wearing a green cape.
Sneak into the royal garden and straddle the brook
Pass with haste from behind the hedges
Look from the corners of your eyes at the suspended apple
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POETRY

باربد
15-Mar-2010 (one comment)
بهاران  
با باربد بازآ  
با بربطی در بر
و شولای سبزی بر دوش
از جویبار باغ شاه ، شبانه به درون رو
شتابان از پشت شمشاد ها بگذر
به سیب چرخان روی فواره ازگوشه ی چشم نگاه کن >>>

HAMJENS

Hagh Koshi

Powerful song about homosexuality by Saye Sky

13-Mar-2010 (84 comments)
...>>>

VIEW

تب یا مرگ؟

چه كسی از مرگ نظام میترسد؟

12-Mar-2010 (4 comments)
ایرانیان آزادیخواه طالب مرگ نظام اسلامی هستند اما فراوانند آنهایی كه سر و صدای بسیار میكنند ولی به بیش از تب این نظام راضی نیستند تا بتوانند از آن امتیاز بستانند. اینها را كلاً میتوان به دو گروه تقسیم كرد كه متحد طبیعی یكدیگرند: یكی اصلاح طلبان رنگ و وارنگ و دیگر دولتهای خارجی كه از ابتدا بر آتش اعتراضات میدمند. گروه اول میداند كه اگر نظام برود در نهایت خودش هم خواهد رفت چرا كه تا این دستگاه برجاست نیمه خودی ها از اعتبار آن سهمی میبرند و وقتی رفت اینها هم با او فراموش خواهند شد>>>

STORY

Bibi’s Rainbow

A chapter from soon to be released novel

12-Mar-2010
The most significant clash between the two opposing cultures and their civilizations―Persian and American―as foretold by Professor Samuel Harrington in his well-known non-fiction book, The Clash of Civilizations, didn’t really happen on or around the fault lines somewhere in Eastern Europe and spread around the globe as he had predicted. Instead, unpredictably, it occurred, right smack in the middle of Elm Street in, of all God forsaken places, Beverly Hills. Over two-hunderd-seventy millions of Persian-speaking inhabitants in various countries in Asia: Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan>>>

IDEAS

Incentivizing Religion

How promise of reward and threat of punishment have transformed religion into a self-serving station

12-Mar-2010
Religion has utilized the incentive system to influence how people behave in just the same way that insurance companies utilize risk-sharing schemes, such as co-payments, to influence choices people make about their health. Imagine Mullahs prosecuting and punishing people every day, humiliating them in public, because they want to forcibly transform them into obedient devotees who will do whatever they are told for the sake of promised salvation>>>

POETRY

معمار عشق
12-Mar-2010 (12 comments)
راز محبّت بمن آموختی
شعله زدی جان مرا سوختی

حکمت گفتن به زبانم زدی
قفل تکلم به دهانم زدی

‌ای تو همه من سخن اغاز کن
قفل سکوت از لب من باز کن
>>>

POETRY

A child
12-Mar-2010 (one comment)
No longer longing for
My mother’s milk,
Cutting off this umbilical cord.
No need for my father’s
Confirming gazes as this
Child is standing on its own >>>

NOVEL

خانم معلم 5

بزودی دریایی پذیرای من خواهد شد که نه ته دارد و نه کرانه

12-Mar-2010
ناجی آداب دان و مودب بود اما نشان داده بود شخصی معاشرتی نیست و در ارتباط برقرار کردن با دخترها و مردهای زنباز و بی غم استعداد خوبی ندارد. سولماز خودش نیز نگاهی ویژه و غیر طبیعی نسبت به او داشت. می دانست ناجی دیوانه وار عاشقش است اما او مردی نیست که در ابراز عشق پیشقدم شود. این را هم می دانست که خودش ابداً عاشق ناجی نیست اما او را دوست دارد. رفتار ناجی برایش جذابیت خاصی داشت. ناجی از آن نوع مردهایی بود که شاید هیچ دختری به او اظهار عشق نمی کرد اما کمتر دختری هم وجود داشت که او را ببیند و شب بدون رویای او بخواب برود>>>