Diaspora

What Role Religion Can Play

America is a nation of highly religious citizens and Americans seems to have retained their spiritual life “Full 92 percent of Americans say they believe in God, 85 percent in heaven and 82 percent in miracles, according to the latest FOX News poll. Though belief in God has remained at about the same level, belief in the devil has increased slightly over the last few years — from 63 percent in 1997 to 71 percent today” (2004). Such information, however, should not be viewed as an indication of the status of religion in public life. When it comes to public life, this nation pretends that religion does not really matter. We are not supposed to let our religious believes interfere with our public life>>>

راه گلشیفته را باز نگه داریم

من کی باشم که بخواهم برای یک دختر بالغ و عاقل و باهوش مثل گلشیفته‌ی فراهانی تکلیف تعیین کنم که چه کند یا نکند، چه بپوشد یا نپوشد، موهایش را چکار کند یا چکار نکند. ولی می‌خواهم به همه‌مان یادآوری کنم که ذوق‌زدگی‌مان از اینکه یک هنرپیشه‌ی جوان و با استعداد ایرانی در یک فیلم متوسط و در یک نقش درجه سه‌ی کلیشه‌ای اورینتالیستی (بقول گایاتری اسپیواک، زن سبزه و مومشکی‌ای که توسط یک مرد فداکار سفید چشم آبی از دست مردان مو‌مشکی وحشی نجات پیدا می‌کند، یا هر ورسیون دیگری از آن) کمی زیادی است. هالیوود مگر چه گهی است جز اینکه ۹۵ درصد محصولاتش مزخرفاتی است که برای سن عقلی ۱۲ تا ۱۶ سال ساخته می‌شود؟ یا دی کاپریو مگر کدام خری است که قرار است همبازی بودن با او به من یا شما یا گلشیفته افتخاری بدهد؟>>>

Saturday Night Hooka

When you called you sounded tired
I was too from the night before
And although we both felt an obligation
To the twilight of our twenties to do something...
Something significant, on this Saturday night
We decided against it and instead to smoke a hooka
When we sat down at the cafe you complained of work
That the nurses had done this or that
Of a patient who had been especially sick >>>

An American Friend

I could have traveled all over, I could have read every book and heard every song, I could have made it my object of study, and none of it would have helped me love the America I wanted to love as much as one good American friend. I already wanted to know what everything was, so just to hear Jack say that he was hungry, I would think, 'There it is - America, contained in one American man's hunger.' All of a sudden, the America that was somebody's home came through to me through him. There was a love that an outsider had for America and there was a love that an insider had for it. I knew the first one through and through, because of watching and listening, and making the America that I wanted to love on my own.>>>

Tehran's Coming Disaster

"Baba jan, look, there is so much they could be doing, that is basic, simple, established read it and do it type protocols for this sort of thing, that they could have rescued far more people than they did. It is absolutely un-necessay for this many to have died." he replied. Later that week, in the shiny offices of his San Jose consultation firm Enviro Safetech, I spoke with Jamali about exactly what the government of Iran could have done better to rescue more people than were saved in Bam. Jamali outlined a basic plan that now seems all but elemental, and not only sounds obvious, but happens to be backed by the emergency response policy here in the US.>>>

NIAC beats AIPAC

It was David versus Goliath: the classic underdog matchup. In the battle over a Congressional resolution calling for war with Iran, the lines were drawn between the smaller grassroots Iranian-American movement (NIAC) on one side and the hawkish American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) mega-lobby on the other. No one expected the Iranian Americans and their coalition partners to be able to stand up to the belligerent giant intent on amplifying hostility with Iran. But with the Congressional session expiring this week, our proverbial David in Washington has delivered the knock-out blow to the pro-war forces' Goliath. The Iran war resolution is down for the count. Yes, you read that right - NIAC beat AIPAC >>>

Setting you free

Imagine me going to a trip to say… Italy, then getting very emotional seeing this person who is very hot, and say… kiss him once, a deep French kiss, a very passionate kiss. Let’s also assume that it stays by a kiss and it does not go further (it’s just an assumption, we all know that if a kiss is that passionate, it can have some other implications…). Further, we can assume that I have a relationship and I decide not telling my partner about the KISS. In a very odd way though, the minute I arrive back home, my partner has an idea that something has happened. He will then ask me: “is there something you want to tell me?” I will then say: “no.” Let’s analyze this for a minute, shall we? What is the truth? Am I lying? >>>