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Shaherezad in Santa Monica

This play is about the love relationship between Shahram, an Iranian poet living in exile, and Shaherezad, an Iranian activist who had been in prison for 11 years during both the Shah and Khomeini's regimes. They both had lost their partners, Ezzat and Hamid, in Tehran execution fields in the 1980's. In Act I, they meet in Santa Monica, California, and fall in love. But in Act II, difficulties arise and in Act III, Shahram has to accept the fact that Shaherezad has begun to date an American professor, Sean >>>

Real change

Change, at least in America, has become solely a self-reminder of how much we may dislike ourselves in many of the things we do, or permit to have done, to others in the planet, or even to ourselves. But change – honest-to-goodness change – is something we can rest assured will not take place… not with Sen. Obama, not with Sen. Clinton; not even if either received an unprecedented and miraculous 70 percent of the popular vote – an unquestionable mandate to effect change. Change as a major transformation of our government, or of our civil society, or the way we do things, just won’t take place>>>

شیر آزادی

مرحوم احمد بورقانی که البته من توفیق اندکی در هم صحبتی با ایشان داشتم اما با کارها و زحمت ها و خدمت های او آشنایی داشتم. به خصوص از وقتی که گشایش پس از انسدادی در جامعه ما رخ داد و مردم با آرای خود مردی را بر مصدر ریاست جمهوری نشاندند که از او توقعات بلند و بزرگی داشتند، علی الخصوص برداشتن قدم هایی استوار در راه آزادی و ایجاد جامعه مدنی. وعده های بزرگی هم از او شنیدند. ملموس ترین و دیدنی ترین بهره و بخش آن وعده ها، آزادی مطبوعات و مطبوعات آزاد بود. البته وزارت ارشاد در این امر مسیولیت اول و اهم و احسن را داشت. مرحوم بورقانی چنان چه همه ما اینک می دانیم به سمت معاون وزیر در امور مطبوعات در آن وزارت خانه مشغول به کار شد و آن چه که ما از جنس شکوفایی مطبوعات در دوران ریاست جمهوری آقای خاتمی می دانیم تا حدود بسیار زیادی مرهون دلیری های این از دست رفته عزیز است.>>>

My hero in the dark

We lived in a small town in Mazandaran and my father was respected and well known. He was a busy man and I, as a little girl, craved to spend more time with him. My father took me every Thursday night to the only movie theater of the town. Our family had its own special reserved seats. Row nine, seats 10 to 14. Every time we drove down the main street, I looked for that place. The brown brick building with an orange fluorescent sign at its side. I would stare at the letters forming the word “Cinema.” I could find it from afar, could recognize its shape, and I envied anyone standing in the black line waiting to buy a ticket. I would gaze at the colorful posters of actors and picture their adventures in my daydreams>>>

رئيس جمهور «حسين»؟

آقای «باراک حسين اوباما» مطابق رسم آمريکائی ها، هيچگاه نام وسط خود، «حسين»، را بکار نمی برد، هرچند که در کتابی که دربارهء زندگی و افکارش منتشر کرده بود فشرده ای از گذشته و مکنونات خود را بيان داشته است... مردم آمريکا، طی جريانی کاملاً بی ربط با آقای اوباما، اين اسم را شناخته و نسبت به آن پيشزمينهء ذهنی بشدت منفی دارند. در واقع، طی سال هائی چند، رسانه ها و دستگاه های تبليغاتی آمريکا کوشيده اند تا نام «حسين» (در ارتباط با «صدام حسين») را در افکار عمومی مردم آمريکا با مفاهيمی چون ديکتاتوری، سرکوبگری، ماجراجوئی، تروريسم و مخالفت با دموکراسی و حقوق بشر و نظاير آن يکی کنند. و اکنون مردی پيدا شده است که مردم آمريکا رفته رفته کشف می کنند که «حسين» نام دارد و می خواهد رئيس جمهور آنها باشد.>>>

We live in a different age

We cannot judge the past from the standards of the present. Everyone will willingly admit this. But every one will not admit the equally absurd habit of judging the present by the standards of the past. The various religions have especially helped in petrifying old beliefs and faiths and customs, which may have had some use in the age and country of their birth, but which are singularly unsuitable in our present age. The past brings us many gifts; indeed, all that we have today of culture, civilization, science, or knowledge of some aspects of the truth, is a gift of the distant or recent past to us. It is right that we acknowledge our obligation to the past>>>

Ladies first

1350 - 1300 BC. Politically Influential Queen Napir Asu, Elam, Khuzistan: Wife of King Untash-Napirasha who built many great buildings and temples in the area including, the Choga Zanbil near Sush (Susa). Her well preserved and headless status was discovered at Susa and is currently at the Louvre Museum in Paris. She is dressed in the same outfit as the Elamite goddess Pinikir and very likely served and represented this divinity at the temple of Ninhursag where she was discovered>>>

The truth in black & white

The real breakthrough in Kaveh Golestan’s career as an independent photojournalist occurred during Iran’s 1979 revolution. He was honoured with the Robert Capa Gold Medal in 1979 for his coverage of the Islamic Revolution. His photographs from Ruhollah Khomeini’s arrival in Iran in late January 1979 and first public appearances at the Alavi school in Tehran were published in Time magazine. In the summer of 1979, he travelled to Kurdistan, West Azerbaijan, Khuzestan and Turkmen Sahra in the province of Khorasan and documented the first deadly confrontations between Kurds and Turkmens and the recently established armed forces of the Islamic regime>>>

Funny Persian

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Language of Terror

It was only later, long after the events of 9/11, that I finally realised I was a terrorist. The realization did not come easily, or all at once. After all, I had not planted any bombs or hurt anyone (not even verbally). I had not visited secret training camps in Pakistan . I had not even done anything as rash as Samina Malik, who was convicted of Terrorism recently by a British court for writng Poetry about Jihad. (Poetry has always been a dangerous activity, as all tyrants know). No. It was something far more insidious. >>>

Will the US attack Iran?

Bravado, posturing and gnashing of teeth have long characterized US-Iranian relations. For almost thirty years, and in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution which brought Ayatollah Khomeini and his small coterie of disciples to power there has been a string of events that have gone to ensure the bad-blood and rancor between these erstwhile allies has continued unabated. Prior to the revolution, Iranians resented the US for the CIA-MI6 orchestrated coup d’etat of 1953 which overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadeq and later US support for the dictatorship of the Shah Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi>>>

The Spider Killings (7)

It was now dusk but still no sign of Hossein. It was completely unlike him to be so late, knowing Mahin would be stranded in the now deserted streets, her hands full of shopping bags from the Bazaar-e-Reza, the market where she had gotten all her spices and nuts, honey and saffron, enough to last for the month. Mahin started walking a bit down the street, hoping she could meet her husband’s oncoming car. Though she walked with her head held high, striding fast and determinedly despite the heavy bags wearing her down, she felt vulnerable. A woman alone at night, walking around as if… as if…>>>

اکنون زمين زير پای زن است

اکنون، جوامع متمدن با باروری زن به عنوان امری کاملاً طبيعی و تحسين برانگيز روبرو می شوند؛ روابط جنسی را نيز همين گونه زيبا و طبيعی و زمينی می بينند، پوشش زن را نيز. اکنون تن عريان يک زن همانقدر جاذبه دارد که تن عريان مرد، و گيسوی زن بود و نبودش همانقدر مهم است يا مهم نيست که گيسوی مرد. و چنين است که خانواده ی بشری در قرن بيست و يکم رفته رفته، در متن اين روابط آزاد از توهم، شکل تازه و بديعی بخود می گيرد. و انسان امروز به ابتدای جهان باز می گردد، زن همان «حوا»یی می شود که برای رسيدن به، و پا گذاشتن بر زمين، نافرمانی کرد و شادمانه حتی از بهشت گذشت تا بتواند به راحتی دوست داشته باشد، به راحتی عشق بورزد، و بی ترس و نگرانی از تبعيض زندگی کند و مرد هموزن او همان «آدم»ی باشد که در درک ارزش اين نافرمانی و همسانی با او همراهی و همفکری کند. >>>

Taarof

A lesson for my kids>>>

We all act all the time

When playwright Sepideh Khosrowjah was two years old her parents gave her a doll, which she immediately destroyed. “Toys were boring,” she says. I can understand why dolls would frustrate a future playwright; there’s nothing inside them. This weekend (March 8,9,14,15,16) Berkeley's Darvag performance company will begin staging Khosrowjah’s Farsi language play, “Dar Soogeh Kazem Ashtari,” (In Memory of Kazem Ashtari) and there is plenty inside the characters [rehearsal photos]. Besides humor, love, cunning, ambition, jealously, shame, and frustration, there is also a surprising secret. It was fun reading the play twice, the second time knowing the characters were hiding something from each other>>>