RAP

Ensejaam

Ey javoonaye doreye estebdad akhe ta key mikhad sedatoon darnayad?

10-Aug-2007
Tooye Sale Ensejam, khordim etteham Akhe darin az chi migirin entegham? Donya dare be soraat pish mire Amma too fekre inim kare man chish gire?>>>

TURKEY

Slander in black & white

What have you learned from living in a democracy?

10-Aug-2007 (one comment)
My observations were about Istanbul and a few other towns I visited and the people of Turkey. Now, when one compares Reza Shah to Ataturk, the differences are striking. On the one hand we have Reza Khan Gholdor, (surely there was a good reason why he was given this nickname) who put his foot on every piece of land, confiscated it for himself and his newly named Pahlavi family, and then distributed it. How noble of Reza Khan! History has taught us that he was a malovolent dictator, who was ruthless towards his opponents and in the end sided with the Nazis. Let us name some intellectuals, poets, high ranking men who were incarcerated, shot at or killed at the order of Reza Khan:>>>

POETRY

Ba behtarin arezouha...

I hope all your mornings will be shitty and all your evenings will be migraine filled

10-Aug-2007
I know you probably have a girlfriend. I am a jealous fool. Jealous. But what can I do? >>>

FRIEND

Azita, where are you?

Five years after Azita left Iran, I left for France; the war still was going on in Iran

10-Aug-2007
Azita was my best friend. No, actually she was my only friend in high school. Or the only one I cared about. She was Jewish, and when the Islamic revolution happened, she and her family left Iran for Israel. We were forbidden from sending mail to Israel, so I had to send my letters through another country. Her address changed a lot, and it was in Hebrew, an alphabet that looked to me like modern art or bent nails. My last letter to her returned as a lost letter after having traveled through many different countries. I always wondered what letters or numbers I had missed in writing her address.>>>

GENDER

Inside and out

I prefer to see positive qualities attributed to both genders

10-Aug-2007
I think a woman is beautiful inside and out. We do not have to be a beauty queen to be beautiful. We are strong, intelligent, hard working, compassionate, caring, energetic, assertive, and so on. We have an openness, agreeableness, extraversion and positive conscientiousness about us that if raised in a non nulling environment at school and at home will be brought out. I do not see the majority of women as neurotic. However, if they are raised in an authoritarian, nulling environment, and patriarchal family I can show you a neurotic individual regardless of gender.>>>

IDEAS

عقل، دین و خشونت

باور کردنی نیست که ما در ابتدای قرن بیست و یکم خود را در چنبره خشونت جهانی به نام دین می یابیم

08-Aug-2007
پاپ بندیکت شانزدهم (کاردینال راتزینگر سابق) در سخنرانی پارسال خود ( تحت عنوان ایمان، عقل و دانشگاه) در روزنبرگ تلازمی بین دین غیر عقلانی (به زعم او: اسلام) و خشونت دینی قائل شد. فحوای این سخنرانی بخودی خود اسلام را به چالش میخواند ولی آنچه موجب بر انگیختن احساسات فراوان شد اشاره او به امپراطور بیزانسی مانوئل پالیو لوگوس دوم (1350-1425 میلادی) بود که علی ما نُقِل در مباحثه ای (که به سبک رایچ در تمدن یونانی بشکل دیالوگ نوشته شده و واقعیت تاریخی آن محل تشکیک است) به یک عالم مسلمان ایرانی میگوید: >>>

WOMEN

Democratic culture

A campaign for equality

08-Aug-2007
Finding itself in a new environment, the women’s movement had to look for new tactics and strategies compatible to the narrow avenues available within a theocratic system. Under such circumstances, the movement found success galvanizing support around grievances affecting a broad array of the female population—not simply single constituency issues. Given that women comprise nearly half of the Iranian population, relying on group identity and grievances offered a smart approach to building solidarity and mobilization. Issues such as custody for children, the right to divorce, legal equality, and opposition to violence against women were as important to secular, educated middle-class women as to poor, conservative, and working women.>>>

COOL

Supermodel terrorist

Kayvon Zand should be on everyone’s watch list

08-Aug-2007
The US’s recent mega-sale of arms to Saudi Arabia seems to have made the whispers of bombing Iran grow louder, but so have Iranian-Americans in their pursuance of the “American Dream”. Realizing the trance of opportunity and freedom that brought them to the US in the first place, Iranian-Americans are arriving on a multitude of industries with great amplitude. Kayvon Zand, a surging model, musician, and promising supplementary to the eruption of current young Iranian-American artists making a name in their niche, is a witty superstar in the making. With his bewitching lucent-azure eyes and original style, Kayvon should be on everyone’s watch list.>>>

FOOD

Chef groupie

Try and visualise a hot-tempered Chef asking you to go ‘undercover’ to review his own food!

08-Aug-2007
On occasion, I’m sometimes asked by certain Chefs or my industry peers to review a restaurant, or act as a Mystery Customer and review a restaurant for it’s food and service etc. Try and visualise a hot-tempered Chef asking you to go ‘undercover’ to review his own food! Surely it’s a contradiction in terms, but foolishly, I seem to always accept! I find the challenge lies in phrasing the review carefully, so not to infuriate the Chef, but get my point across. (I feel another skill listing coming on for my Resume... “Shabnam the Diplomat”) And I didn’t even have to study politics to get it!>>>

MUSIC VIDEO

Javoonaa

Female rap song on youth and oppression

08-Aug-2007 (one comment)
...>>>

BOOKS

Caspian rain

Excerpt from new novel

08-Aug-2007
FROM THE STREET, all you can see is the red brick wall that surrounds the garden, the giant mulberry and persimmon trees, and the top floor of the house, which rises higher than the wall. Inside are three bedrooms, a living room with a gold-leaf painted ceiling, a dining room with a round balcony that overlooks the yard. There are porcelain tubs in the bathrooms, a fireplace in the kitchen, sunlight everywhere you look: all the doors, even the one leading into the kitchen, are made of etched and mirrored glass. They reflect not only the inside of each room and the light from all the windows, but also the images cast in the other doors -- creating an endless echo of shapes and colors that go on for as far as the eye can see.>>>

IRAN-U.S.

Only option

A free market approach to foreign policy

08-Aug-2007
For more than 3 years now, the same arguments have been traded and recycled in US policy talking/making circles regarding Iran's nuclear program and what must be done to stop it. Most "analyzes" go something like this: Iran can't have nuclear weapons because it would upset the balance of power in the Middle East (thus revoking Israel's cart blanche uses of force against whomever, wherever), would trigger an arms race (in which arms dealers would make a killing), and would destabilize the entire region (since it is so stable right now in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, etc...). The conversation has boiled down to 3 options--do nothing, attack Iran, or sanction now and try to negotiate. Two of which are pointless in my opinion (guess which ones!), leaving only one viable option on the table.>>>

PARSIPUR

What matters is her work

Who cares what a writer thinks about this or that issue?

08-Aug-2007
This is the second time in as many months that someone has written a piece attacking poor Parsipur and defending Mahshid Amirshahi on the grounds of the former's personal opinions on certain issues. Grow up, people. And this nonsense is coming from individuals obviously living abroad. Who cares what a writer thinks about this or that issue, what matters is her work. If we were to disqualify writers and filmmakers and poets based on their politics or positions on social issues then T.S. Elliot or Ezra Pound should never be read.>>>

MUSIC VIDEO

Coming to getcha

Tribute to Kiosk

07-Aug-2007
...>>>

TURKEY

Time traveler’s nightmare

How long would it be before the mob would dare to pull down the statue of Ataturk?

07-Aug-2007
Sometimes a loss is best left alone because looking back may entail a whole new defeat we can no longer handle. That’s how I felt when I visited Turkey, a land with an uncanny resemblance to Iran of forty years ago>>>