Sherlock Holmes' Daughter (2)

At the time, however, Christie’s showing up semi-nude to my party seemed like poorly played feminine rivalry. A disappointing move for a woman of Christie’s guiles, but then again she had been caught off guard. Sitting through Paul’s daily denial sessions in my office, I gathered that his conversations with Katayoon were starting to turn personal. “She shuts me out when I ask about her dad,” Paul said. “Is it bad manners in your country to ask about family?” Paul said. “Depends on how you ask,” I said realizing too late that I should have just said “no,” and gone back to my spreadsheet>>>

روزها بلند بود و دیوارها کوتاه

مدرسه که تعطیل میشد و تابستانِ زودرس نَفَس بهار را می گرفت دیگه ول بودیم توی «لین» (کوچه) تا اول مهر و باز شدن دوباره مدرسه. روزها بلند بود و گرما کافر و مسلمون نمی شناخت! پدر و مادرها نهار را که میخوردند دراز می کشیدند توی اتاق نیمه تاریک زیر پنکه سقفی. بادبزن حصیری هم کنار دستشان بود و تنگ پلاستیکی آب یخ بالای سرشان. میخوابیدند تا کمر روز بشکند و زهر گرما گرفته شود. سکوتِ در و دیوار، دین آدم را درمیآورد! >>>

Iran's honour and future

“Unity” is a word that Iran’s hardline elite uses a great deal these days. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s televised address on 21 March 2010 on the occasion of nowrooz (Persian new year) was typical, in its reference to “the unity and solidarity of the Iranian nation”. The Iranian president’s rhetoric here is, in its brazen disregard of the country’s reality, at least consistent. This is the man who celebrated the fraudulent presidential election of 12 June 2010 - of which he was the chief beneficiary - as an example to “the world” (no less) of a “new humanitarian and true method of democracy” >>>

New Iranian Nuclear Deterrent

Less than two weeks after Iran announced its highly enriched uranium plans, the Israeli Air Force staged a ceremony in honor of the "operational acceptance" of new Heron TP (known internally as the Eitan) UAVs. The Israelis might ordinarily have marked a transaction such as operational acceptance with no more pomp and circumstance than a signature and a nice pen. It's reasonable to assume that the ceremony's intended audience was a thousand miles away, undertaking preparations for National Nuclear Day>>>

ايرانيان در شوک

اين روزها، به نظر می آيد که سايه ی سرد و تلخی بر سر سرزمين مان، ايران، افتاده است؛ مثل سکوت وهم انگيزی که طبیعت پس از زلزله پيش می گيرد؛ سکوتی که در آن هم ترس هست و هم بی حالی. ديگر فرياد دلداری دهنده و شوق انگيز «نترسید! نترسيد ما همه با هم هستيم» شنيده نمی شود، ديگر از «با هم بودن» ها خبری نيست؛ ايميل ها ديگر رنگی از هيجان ندارد و تلفن ها زنگ اميدشان را گم کرده اند>>>

پریشان

به هر بازیت گردن نهادم
هر چه سرودی گوش دادم

هزاران خاطرت آید بیادم
تار مویی گشته از تو نمادم >>>

A Soldier's Lament

Home,
Thank God,
I am home at last.

A return to sanity,
And the security of knowing,
That I am home >>>

Theocracy vs. Democracy

Today, there is a serious discourse among Iranian intellectuals, secularists as well as religiously minded ones, about whether Iran should have a secular government or continue on a more moderate path of religious democracy. This discussion is even more relevant after the rise of the Green movement. Should a semi- religious state evolve if and when the concept of Velayat-e- Faqih is gone? I think that advocates of the idea of a religious state, members of Washington think-tanks or scholars, are mistaken to advise their governments that Iran is better off under religious rule>>>

Killer candidate

The Islamic Republic of Iran, in a provocative act, has announced its candidacy for the United Nation Human Rights Council, a UN organization based in Geneva. The candidacy of Iran comes at a time that during the last 10 months, Iranians are experiencing one of the darkest periods of human rights violations since 1979 revolution. The candidacy of Iran for the UN Human Rights Council is comparable to electing apartheid South Africa to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination>>>

Sherlock Holmes’ Daughter (1)

Sherlock Holmes didn’t look the same the second time he came to my dreams. How old was I the first time he visited? Let’s piece the clues together. It was the night we saw The Hound of the Baskervilles. I was able to sit still in a theater, but my kid brother hadn’t been born yet. That means I was around six years old. There’s more. My parents were getting along, or we wouldn’t be going to the movies together. That narrows it down to a particular week in the October of that year. Yes, it was during this happy week that Holmes came to my dreams and gravely predicted a murder>>>

Kristallnacht

The present poem recounts the horrible events of that nightmare of a night in a quasi-delirious, almost hallucinatory fashion The brackets designate those moments when the observer pauses the narrative to loudly protest the painful scenes, which are taking place before the eyes.>>>