The Labyrinth

Richard Dawkins: An atheist's call to arms

2007-11-07T14:19:00.000-08:00

"Demokracy" by Abjeez

2007-07-09T10:30:00.000-07:00

"Demokracy" by Abjeez

Rorty's Death in the Iranian Media

2007-06-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

Rorty died a few days ago. I read the news about his death on the first page of the newspapers in Iran. I found it sad that for American media the news about Paris Hilton imprisonment is more of a news than the death of one of America's most prominent philosophers. I talked about this to an American friend. She reminded me that Rorty's death was not actually “important news“ that much, hence not worthy of being in the newspapers' first pages. She found that odd that the Iranian media consider such a thing worthy of the first page (not that she thinks Paris Hilton should be on the first page, but she thinks neither one are really important news of the day.)

I don't really know how important Rorty was for Americans, but his last interview in The Progressive shows how important he was for the Iranian secular leftist movment.

Marjaneh Satrapi's Persepolis

2007-06-01T18:55:00.000-07:00

I loved the book when it came out a few years ago. Now I cannot wait for the movie. The two trailer that are online are very promising. It seems the movie depicts my generation's childhood in a way no regular movie can capture.

The only thing about Marjaneh Satrapi that bothers me is her nationalism. Persepolis is a very bad name for the story. and the fact that she has changed her last name to "Satrapi" (a reference to Achaemenid satraps) says something about a meaningless pride for an ancient imperalist state that I cannot understand.

Sending People to Paradise, by Force

2007-05-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

After 28 years, Iranian people are finally showing some signs of resistance. The 'morality' assaults that have tried sending Iranians forcefully to paradise have accomplished nothing other than sending the Islamic regime to hell.

- More news about the recent attackes on "bad hijab" women here.
- Veiling (Hijab) and segregation of sexes in Iran.

"Moral" Enforcment in Iran

2007-05-08T09:47:00.000-07:00

Just to give you a glimpse of how the "moral" life is practiced in a religious country, and how a religious government preserves the family values and ethics in a society:

The girl in the video is arrested for her inappropriate Hijab and "western-intoxicated" makeup. Those in the street who are witness to this and who are opposed to these values don't dare to say anything because they can be arrested too. Others share the same values and enjoy seeing them being enforced on the population.

I thought I should share this video with you so you can imagine how it can be if the religious right could run the "Christian Nation" the way the want to. They probably don't arrest people for their Hijab, but I am sure there are many other Christian "moral values" that can be enforced on the population in a similar way.

How "nations" are invented

2007-05-07T17:40:00.000-07:00

This article on BBC says a lot about how "nations" are invented based on an imaginary past. They are invented regardless of human beings' real experience of life, and regardless of their real history.

Religious Democracy = Ghormesabzi Pizza

2007-04-08T16:08:00.000-07:00

Mannequins

2006-12-04T20:49:00.000-08:00

Mannequins, Downtown Los Angeles, Broadway Avenue, December 2, 2006.

Inside a bungalow, The Ambassador Hotel

2006-11-05T22:01:00.000-08:00

Inside a bungalow. The Ambassador Hotel (Now demolished.) Los Angeles, April 2005.

Girl takes pic of herself every day for three years

2006-09-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

Ganji at PEN American Center

2006-07-26T23:06:00.000-07:00

PEN American Center - July 24, 2006
Akbar Ganji on Writing and Freedom of Expression in Iran.
Listen to his talk here (MP3).

The Process of Non-thinking Called "Faith"

2006-05-14T22:20:00.000-07:00

I recently discovered the NPR program, Point of Inquiry. The most interesting episode to me was this one, featuring an interview with Richard Dawkins about “the process of non-thinking called faith.”

You can listen to the MP3 file here, or subscribe to Point of Inquiry's podcast in iTunes.

- See also: The God Delusion and The Virus of Faith.

The Power of Nightmares

2006-04-28T11:32:00.000-07:00

In the winter of 2005 a friend of mine brought a copy of a the BBC documentary, The Power of Nightmares, from England. It was about the Neo-Conservative movement in the US, the Islamic foundamentalism in the Middle East, their origins of both, and their role in what is happening in today's politics.
Not surprisingly PBS did not dare to show this documentary in the US. The content of the movie was too informative for the US audience. It was aired on the BBC on January 2005 and got a lot of response in the UK. To my knowledge it is the only documentary that talks comparatively about Leo Strauss and Sayyid Qutb and their influence on the formations of these two political movements. During the last year I wanted to write about The Power of Nightmares but I found it useless to comment on a documentary not available in the US. Now thanks to the Internet it can be watched and downloaded on either The Internet Archive or on Google Video (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).
Watching all of three episodes takes about three hours but I bet you'll get more information about 9/11/2001, today's politics in the US, and the Middle Eastern fanatics than any program you have seen on any mainstream media in the last five years.

* Two more issues to mention:
1. I have my own criticisms of Adam Curtis' documentaries, especially when it comes to siymplifying the history of both the movements he talks about, his support for Kissinger's policies, the documentary’s comments about the environmentalists, the abscencse of information on the Trotskyist background of the Neo-Conservativism, and the lack of emphasis on the role of the Iranian revolution and thinkers like Shari'ati on the emergence of Modern Islamic fundamentalist politics. All of these issues hopefully will be the subjects of another post in the future.
2. Adam Curtis' style is a little bit eccentric. Don't let that stops you from watching the video, if you don't like it. And if you like the content and style of the work watch the other documentary by him, Century of the Self, which is about the role of psychoanalysis, marketing, and public relations in the United States.

* Links:
- The making of the terror myth. The Guardian, October 15, 2004.
- The Exorcist, by Tim Adams. The Observer, Sunday October 24, 2004.
- Feign of Terror, by Adam Curtis. Village Voice, April 19th, 2005.
- Beware the Holy War by Peter Bergen. The Nation, June 2, 2005.
- The Power of Nightmares by Katrina vanden Heuvel. The Nation's Blog: Editor's Cut, posted on 01/25/2005.
- Neo-Fantasies and Ancient Myths. by Robert Koehler. Cinema-Scope 23.

Xerxes and W

2006-04-23T20:01:00.000-07:00

I am in the Washington D.C. area for a short period of time. Yesterday, walking only a few blocks from the White House, I was lucky enough to see an ad in the street about the staging of the oldest known play, The Persians, and tonight I watched it. It was a play--I never had read--about the decline of a greedy empire, Persia.
The play is released at a time when the "West" (believed to be the heir to Greek culture and civilization) is supposedly threatened by the "Persians." But in contrast to what is expected, it uses ancient Persia's defeat to represent the imminent demise of the United States' imperialistic foreign policies.
If you live in DC area, go an watch it. You will not regret it.

Botero and Abu-Ghraib

2006-04-14T00:43:00.000-07:00

It took me more than a year to hear about the works of one of my favorite contemporary painters, Fernando Botero, on an unusual subject for his type of paintings: Abu-Ghraib. I heard about the works from a friend coming from Iran. I had not seen him for 11 years. I felt very sad when I found out that he not only is more up-to-date about the works of our favorite painters, moviemakers, and photographers but he also knows the details about the works of many artists whose works are on show in LA galleries but are completely unknown to me.

Getting the news from my friend was somehow embarrassing. While listening to him, I was thinking I know more about the details of Angelina Jolie's relationship with Brad Pitt than the latest works of Botero. The food is probably cheaper here in the US and I can pay my rent much easier in LA comparing to Tehran, but when you look at the cultural side of life you feel something is trebly missing here, even when you actively fight against it.

Every nation is a lie

2006-04-04T01:57:00.000-07:00

“Every nation is a lie for which time and history have gradually fashioned an appearance of truth – as they did for ancient myths and classical legends. No nation ever arose naturally. The coherence and fraternity that a few still display conceal alarming realities beneath fine literary, historical and artistic fictions that underpin their identity. In these nations too those “contradictions and differences” – creeds, races, customs, languages, and not always minority languages – were demolished, for just like Albert Camus’s Caligula, the Nation needs to eliminate these things in order to feel secure, safe from the risk of fragmentation.”
--Mario Vargas Llosa

- Photo by Morgana Vargas Llosa

"Defenders of the Faith"

2006-03-12T20:43:00.000-08:00

During the last month I have written several pieces but have not posted any of them because I never could finish them. I wanted to talk about the movie Chronicles of Narnia and how it should be a favorite movie for Ahmadinejad and Pat Robertson. I wanted to talk about my trip to Costa Rica and how much I enjoyed to see a country that abolishes the institution of military forces and replace its headquarters with a butterfly garden. I wanted to talk about the movie Syriana, about the experience of visiting Ashes and Snow at Nomadic museum, temporarily located at Santa Monica beach. I wanted to talk about many other things too but never could fource myself to seat in front of the computer and write it down.

I still don't feel I want to write anything. But Zizek's short piece in today's New York Times made me create another post. So far it is the most inteligent reaction to the stupid "cartoon crisis." It might be removed from the site later on so I post the entire piece here:

March 12, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor

Defenders of the Faith

By SLAVOJ ZIZEK
London

FOR centuries, we have been told that without religion we are no more than egotistic animals fighting for our share, our only morality that of a pack of wolves; only religion, it is said, can elevate us to a higher spiritual level. Today, when religion is emerging as the wellspring of murderous violence around the world, assurances that Christian or Muslim or Hindu fundamentalists are only abusing and perverting the noble spiritual messages of their creeds ring increasingly hollow. What about restoring the dignity of atheism, one of Europe's greatest legacies and perhaps our only chance for peace?

More than a century ago, in "The Brothers Karamazov" and other works, Dostoyevsky warned against the dangers of godless moral nihilism, arguing in essence that if God doesn't exist, then everything is permitted. The French philosopher André Glucksmann even applied Dostoyevsky's critique of godless nihilism to 9/11, as the title of his book, "Dostoyevsky in Manhattan," suggests.

This argument couldn't have been more wrong: the lesson of today's terrorism is that if God exists, then everything, including blowing up thousands of innocent bystanders, is permitted — at least to those who claim to act directly on behalf of God, since, clearly, a direct link to God justifies the violation of any merely human constraints and considerations. In short, fundamentalists have become no different than the "godless" Stalinist Communists, to whom everything was permitted since they perceived themselves as direct instruments of their divinity, the Historical Necessity of Progress Toward Communism.

During the Seventh Crusade, led by St. Louis, Yves le Breton reported how he once encountered an old woman who wandered down the street with a dish full of fire in her right hand and a bowl full of water in her left hand. Asked why she carried the two bowls, she answered that with the fire she would burn up Paradise until nothing remained of it, and with the water she would put out the fires of Hell until nothing remained of them: "Because I want no one to do good in order to receive the reward of Paradise, or from fear of Hell; but solely out of love for God." Today, this properly Christian ethical stance survives mostly in atheism.

Fundamentalists do what they perceive as good deeds in order to fulfill God's will and to earn salvation; atheists do them simply because it is the right thing to do. Is this also not our most elementary experience of morality? When I do a good deed, I do so not with an eye toward gaining God's favor; I do it because if I did not, I could not look at myself in the mirror. A moral deed is by definition its own reward. David Hume, a believer, made this point in a very poignant way, when he wrote that the only way to show true respect for God is to act morally while ignoring God's existence.

Two years ago, Europeans were debating whether the preamble of the European Constitution should mention Christianity as a key component of the European legacy. As usual, a compromise was worked out, a reference in general terms to the "religious inheritance" of Europe. But where was modern Europe's most precious legacy, that of atheism? What makes modern Europe unique is that it is the first and only civilization in which atheism is a fully legitimate option, not an obstacle to any public post.

Atheism is a European legacy worth fighting for, not least because it creates a safe public space for believers. Consider the debate that raged in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, my home country, as the constitutional controversy simmered: should Muslims (mostly immigrant workers from the old Yugoslav republics) be allowed to build a mosque? While conservatives opposed the mosque for cultural, political and even architectural reasons, the liberal weekly journal Mladina was consistently outspoken in its support for the mosque, in keeping with its concern for the rights of those from other former Yugoslav republics.

Not surprisingly, given its liberal attitudes, Mladina was also one of the few Slovenian publications to reprint the infamous caricatures of Muhammad. And, conversely, those who displayed the greatest "understanding" for the violent Muslim protests those cartoons caused were also the ones who regularly expressed their concern for the fate of Christianity in Europe.

These weird alliances confront Europe's Muslims with a difficult choice: the only political force that does not reduce them to second-class citizens and allows them the space to express their religious identity are the "godless" atheist liberals, while those closest to their religious social practice, their Christian mirror-image, are their greatest political enemies. The paradox is that Muslims' only real allies are not those who first published the caricatures for shock value, but those who, in support of the ideal of freedom of expression, reprinted them.

While a true atheist has no need to boost his own stance by provoking believers with blasphemy, he also refuses to reduce the problem of the Muhammad caricatures to one of respect for other's beliefs. Respect for other's beliefs as the highest value can mean only one of two things: either we treat the other in a patronizing way and avoid hurting him in order not to ruin his illusions, or we adopt the relativist stance of multiple "regimes of truth," disqualifying as violent imposition any clear insistence on truth.

What, however, about submitting Islam — together with all other religions — to a respectful, but for that reason no less ruthless, critical analysis? This, and only this, is the way to show a true respect for Muslims: to treat them as serious adults responsible for their beliefs.

- Cartoon courtesy of Tooka Neistani

ZIZEK! The Movie

2006-01-29T18:04:00.000-08:00

ZIZEK! (the movie) will be released very soon. I saw the trailer today. "Elvis of cultural theory," he is named. Seems to be a quite a character, doesn't he?

- For watching the trailer click here. For watching a section of the movie click here.
- Read about the director, Astra Taylor, here.
- My other post about Zizek and his opinion about Iranian nuclear program.

Pillars of Society

2006-01-22T20:39:00.000-08:00

Pillars of Society
George Grosz
Oil on Canvas, 1926. Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany.

Grizzly Man

2006-01-20T01:14:00.000-08:00

Watching Grizzly Man is shocking. It is a visual description of what Herzog previously has described in his "Minnesota Declaration":

10. The moon is dull. Mother Nature doesn´t call, doesn´t speak to you, although a glacier eventually farts. And don´t you listen to the Song of Life.

11. We ought to be grateful that the Universe out there knows no smile.

12. Life in the oceans must be sheer hell. A vast, merciless hell of permanent and immediate danger. So much of a hell that during evolution some species - including man - crawled, fled onto some small continents of solid land, where the Lessons of Darkness continue.

- "Minnesota Declaration" can be found at Werner Herzog's website.
- What reminded me of Herzog's "declaration" was CK's comment on the movie.

Has Bush ever read the US Constitution?

2005-12-30T15:07:00.000-08:00

I chose to live in the US because I thought it is ruled based on a constitution that protects the rights of people more than any other constitution I know. A constitution that has amendments such as the following amendments.
The constitution does not seems to have any meaning anymore. Read the latest news here.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense."

- Thanks to Notes from the Museum of the Middle Class for bringing this to my attention.
- Cartoon by Mr. Fish. From Harper's.

God Bless America

2005-12-07T15:38:00.000-08:00

God Bless America

Here they go again,
The Yanks in their armoured parade
Chanting their ballads of joy
As they gallop across the big world
Praising America's God.

The gutters are clogged with the dead
The ones who couldn't join in
The others refusing to sing
The ones who are losing their voice
The ones who've forgotten the tune.

The riders have whips which cut.
Your head rolls onto the sand
Your head is a pool in the dirt
Your head is a stain in the dust
Your eyes have gone out and your nose
Sniffs only the pong of the dead
And all the dead air is alive
With the smell of America's God.

—Harold Pinter, January 2003.

- Pinter's lecture as winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature.
- Pinter's website.
- Harold Pinter's Timeline.

Saturday Afternoon in Downtown Chicago

2005-11-26T21:00:00.000-08:00

It is two days I am in Chicago. Today in Art Institute of Chicago, seeing one of my favorite paintings, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, was a total surprise for me.

Chicago in many ways is like New York—much cleaner (which is nice,) but more racially segregated (which is unpleasent.) At the first few hours after leaving the airport I found it difficult to adjust myself to the weather (I think I am now officially "addicted" to living in California.) But after the first few hours I began to enjoy the snow again. Today, walking around in downtown Chicago and feeling the cold breeze on my face took me back to the winters of Tehran and the joy of aimless wandering in the crowded streets.

- Photos are my own, taken this afternoon.

A Tree in Pasadena

2005-11-14T01:25:00.000-08:00

From now on every now and then I am going to add photos to "The Labyrinth." Here is the first one: different faces of a tree, the sky and the earth. Taken a few months ago in my favorite city of southern california, Pasadena.

Good Night, and Good Luck

2005-11-13T22:25:00.000-08:00

Who knew George Clooney could direct movies?
Good Night, and Good Luck is a low budget movie, without any sex or violence, without any "action" scenes. It is all shot in a few rooms in a TV studio. The movie surprises the viewer with its thought-provoking content and beautiful black and white cinematography. It is an exception to mainstream Hollywood cinema, and it was made by an unexpectedly talented director.

The movie goes beyond the criticism of the current administration and reminds us of something more important: the fact that even in the height of the McCarthy era there were journalists in the mainstream media who questioned the validity of the actions of their contemporary fascist "patriots." It also remind us of the absence of such journalists in our own time.

- For more about Edward R. Murrow click here.
- If you want to see the movie reading this would be helpful.

An Important Testimony, Not Covered by the Media

2005-10-22T17:04:00.000-07:00

This video (Clinton Curtis, at the December 13th, 2004 Congressional hearing in Columbus, Ohio) is such an important testimony. One wonders why it did not get any coverage by the media. Is it a fake video? It seems to be shot by a person who sits somewhere among the people who are watching the event. It does not seem to be fake because it shows some members of congress asking questions... or are those characters fake as well?

What should a Persian Actor look like?

2005-10-19T21:30:00.000-07:00

Below is the description of a Persian messenger in a casting call for a Warner Brothers movie:

[PERSIAN MESSENGER] MALE. Age: 30's - 40's. ETHNICITY REQUIRED; PERSIANS are scripted as being: Assyrians, Arabians, Bactrians, Cappadocians, Medes, Karians, Babylonians, Armenians, and other Asiatic tribes...'a hundred nations'. Could be middle-Eastern, Asian, African... They can (and probably should) have an 'old world' somewhat Arabic-sounding accent. MUST BE SCARY, TOUGH & POWERFUL LOOKING; A scarred face and sharpened teeth (all prosthetics) through which he delivers his message to Leonidas: kneel in servitude to the God King Xerxes or perish. It is the same message he has delivered to many other Kings and he carries pieces of their skulls as a grim warning to those who would oppose Xerxes's rule. He has no fear. He serves Xerxes - the most powerful man in the world - and what's more, he is a messenger and so believes that he is untouchable. But his arrogance is his undoing. Leonidas holds everyone accountable for their words. Even messengers. And his insults directed at Sparta and her Queen earn this messenger a one-way trip down a very deep well...HORSE-BACK RIDING EXPERIENCE A PLUS. APPROXIMATELY 4 SHOOTING DAYS.

Yes, ... Middle-Eastern, Asian, African, ... doesn't matter. As long as he doesn't look European. His face should show that he is inferior to us. His scary "scarred-face" and "sharpened-teeth" face should reveal what kind of a savage he is, and how dangerous he can be to "our freedom."

By the way, did the Greeks really look like the blue-eyed blonds as Hollywood movies portray them? As far as I know Greeks do not look like this at all. Even the Romans did not imagine Greeks to be blonds (look at this mosaic of Alexander in Pompeii.) As a matter of fact the Greeks, and later on the Romans, considered their northern blond neighbors, the Germans and Gauls, to be nations of savages, far more barbarous than the sophisticated empires to their south and east.

I don't want to sound "nationalist" here, nor do I want to rant about the "great Iranian empire" and the other crap many Iranians talk about these days. But to me it is important to see what Hollywood-style Greeks stand for in today's pop culture. Greeks in these movies and novels are blond and European-looking. They clearly represent the "West." They are depicted as the only open-minded, rational, and intelligent people of antiquity, thus implying that Western culture (meaning European and Northern American Culture) IS the only open-minded and rational culture of the world. Europeans are the only real civilization in the anciant world, and the rest of the world are depicted as a bunch of Barbarians. There cannot be any dialog, any cultural exchange, or anything else between the barbarians and the Greeks. Greeks are freedom-loving creatures by birth, and the Eastern barbarians are incapable of understanding it. There is no way to make peace with the barbarians except by conquering their countries and ruling their lands, as Alexander finally did. The Greeks here are not a part of history, but rather a character in a mythology that creates a certain worldview and justifies a certain political agenda.

In this mythology it does not matter how far this story is from reality, or that Greece never was a part of "European" culture, or even how false the whole argument is. What matters is that Bush should look like Alexander entering Babylon, and Persian/Middle-Easterners should look like a bunch of scary animals that should be killed in a preemptive war.

George Carlin on God and Religion

2005-10-15T22:06:00.000-07:00

Can theologians take George Carlin seriously and give us a decent answer to his basic questions?

* From stuntcook.com. This extract is from George Carlin's HBO special, "You Are All Diseased", recorded live at New York City's Beacon Theater on February 6, 1999.

What country should the US invade after Iraq?

2005-10-10T13:16:00.000-07:00

The American public is very well-informed about their government's foreign policy and the world outside the US borders. Click here to see it for yourself (Windows Media Player Format).

"Extraterrestrial Route" in Puerto Rico

2005-09-28T11:53:00.000-07:00

Reynaldo Rios, an elementary school teacher who says he's been communicating with alien visitors to this U.S. territory since he was a child, holds a pyramid while pictured standing in front of a sign reading, 'Extraterrestrial Route,' in Lajas, southwestern Puerto Rico, Sunday, Aug. 28, 2005. Rios wants to build an alien landing strip, equipped with pyramids as control towers, on a nearby hilltop, in an area where many locals believe they have seen UFOs in the past. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

I miss my cousin. He could become very famous here in the US.

Source: Associated Press. Link here.

Fight Club, September 11, and Project Mayhem

2005-09-12T00:51:00.000-07:00

We have front row seats for this theater of mass destruction. The demolition committee of Project Mayhem wrapped the foundation columns of a dozen buildings with blasting gelatin. In two minutes, primary charges will blow base charges and a few square blocks will be reduced to smoldering rubble.

The last part of the movie Fight Club, made in 1999, shows several high-rises exploding and collapsing. Tyler Durden, the man behind this terrorist act and the leader of the Al-qaeda-like organization named Fight Club, describes his dream as follows:

In the world I see - you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway.

Tyler Durden's ideal world reminds me of Mullah Muhammad Omar and his Emirate in Afghanistan. I can even imagine Omar writing the script. In the image I have from him in mind Omar seems to be a cool guy. He even calls the exploded area "Ground Zero" two years before it becomes fashionable:

[Tyler points a gun into the Narrator's mouth]
Narrator: [voiceover] People are always asking me if I know Tyler Durden.
Tyler Durden: Three minutes. This is it - ground zero. Would you like to say a few words to mark the occasion?
Narrator: ...i... ann... iinn... ff... nnyin...
Narrator: [voiceover] With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels.
[Tyler removes the gun from the Narrator's mouth]
Narrator: I can't think of anything.
Narrator: [voiceover] For a second I totally forgot about Tyler's whole controlled demolition thing and I wonder how clean that gun is.

That's exactly what I am thinking about as well. The gun is too clean. Either Bin Laden writes scripts for Hollywood, or Hollywood works for Al-Qaeda. Either way, this gun is too clean for a bunch of villagers in Afghanistan.

Contemplating Hell

2005-09-11T01:07:00.000-07:00

Migrating from Iran to Los Angeles, it is difficult to compare the city to hell. Bertolt Brecht probably had the same feeling when he escaped Nazi Germany and moved to LA. But there is something here, in Los Angeles, that made him write this poem. Something that might be partly true.

* Contemplating Hell
Contemplating Hell, as I once heard it,
My brother Shelley found it to be a place
Much like the city of London. I,
Who do not live in London, but in Los Angeles,
Find, contemplating Hell, that is
Must be even more like Los Angeles.

Also in Hell,
I do not doubt it, there exist these opulent gardens
With flowers as large as trees, wilting, of course,
Very quickly, if they are not watered with very expensive water. And fruit markets
With great leaps of fruit, which nonetheless
Possess neither scent nor taste. And endless trains of autos,
Lighter than their own shadows, swifter than
Foolish thoughts, shimmering vehicles, in which
Rosy people, coming from nowhere, go nowhere.
And houses, designed for happiness, standing empty,
Even when inhabited.

Even the houses in Hell are not all ugly.
But concern about being thrown into the street
Consumes the inhabitants of the villas no less
Than the inhabitants of the barracks.

There's no way like the American way

2005-09-08T09:40:00.000-07:00

No comment.

* The photograph: "At the Time of the Louisville Flood", by Margaret Bourke-White, 1937.
© Margaret Bourke-White/Timepix.
* Also see the new cartoon by Steve Bell in Guardian.

Slavoj Žižek on Iranian Nuclear Program

2005-08-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

In These Times has published an article named Give Iranian Nukes a Chance written by Slavoj Žižek about Iranian nuclear program . Žižek's criticism on American hypocritical foreign policy makes sense to me:

Why are Timothy Garton Ash, Michael Ignatieff and other internationalist liberals-who are otherwise full of pathetic praise for the Hague tribunal-silent about the idea to deliver Noriega and Saddam to the Hague? Why Milosevic and not Noriega? Why was there not even a public trial against Noriega? Was it because he would have disclosed his own CIA past, including how the United States condoned his participation in the murder of Omar Torrijos Herrera? In a similar way, Saddam's regime was an abominable authoritarian state, guilty of many crimes, mostly toward its own people. However, one should note the strange but key fact that, when the U.S. representatives were enumerating Saddam's evil deeds, they systematically omitted what was undoubtedly his greatest crime (in terms of human suffering and of violating international law): the aggression against Iran. Why? Because the United States and the majority of foreign states actively helped Iraq in this aggression.

But I can in no way accept his conclusion:

It is here that one approaches the crux of the matter: Such an optimistic reading relies on the problematic belief in a preestablished harmony between the global spread of multi-party Western democracy and the economic and geopolitical interests of the United States. It is precisely because this harmony can in no way be taken for granted that countries like Iran should possess nuclear arms to constrain the global hegemony of the United States.

What a lame argument... what a shame for an intellectual to make such a comment.

* I found the link to Žižek's article in Payam Yazdanjoo's blog at Francula. If you can read Persian you might want to take a look at Payam's criticism to Žižek's scary defence of the Iranian Nuclear Program here.
* Photograph by Denis Sarkić

Chimpanzee Culture

2005-08-22T14:13:00.000-07:00

BBC Science News reports:

Chimpanzee culture 'confirmed'
By Helen Briggs

Primate experts say they have proven that chimpanzees, like humans, show social conformity.
By training captive chimps to use tools in different ways, they have shown experimentally that primates develop cultural traditions through imitation.
This has long been suspected from observations in the wild, but has not been shown directly.
It suggests that culture has ancient origins, scientists write in Nature.

The study was carried out by a team at the University of St Andrews in the UK and the National Primate Research Center of Emory University in Atlanta, US.
They presented two different groups of chimps with a problem relevant to their wild cousins: how to retrieve an item of food stuck behind a blockage in a system of tubes.
One chimpanzee from each group was secretly taught a novel way to solve the problem. Ericka was taught how to use a stick to lift the blockage up so that the food fell out.

Another female chimp, Georgia, was shown how to poke at the blockage so that the ball of food rolled out of the back of the pipes.
Each chimp was then reunited with its group, and the scientists watched how they behaved.
They found that the chimps gathered around Ericka or Georgia and soon copied their behaviour. By the end of two months, the two different groups were still using their own way of getting at the food and two distinct cultural traditions had been established...

Billions of years from now the great-great-grand children of these poor chimpanzees will kill each other over the right ways to do the Poking rituals and use the Sacred Stick. Many chimpanzee philosophers will contemplate the hidden meanings behind the holy stick and create systems of thought based on these metaphors. Moral systems will be created to describe if it is appropriate for two chimpanzees to hold the stick in their right hand at the same time, if the poking should be done by the males or females, and if peeing is ok when one holds the stick in one's hand.

Through the centuries chimpanzee poets will write thousands of beautiful poems about the mysteries of poking, and great chimpanzee composers will bring tears to the listeners' eyes by making moving musical pieces containing the real spirit of the stick. Pieces that can unite the followers with the source.

Many important things might happen in the future history of the chimpanzees. They might even show us the real meaning of the world. A meaning that reveals itself through the stick, but a meaning that we never completely comprehend.

Patron Saint of Oil

2005-08-12T08:50:00.000-07:00

I didn't want to have another post on the same subject, but I couldn't resist showing you "Patron Saint of Oil" by Ingy. I took it from this post at LA Voice.
For seeing a bigger picture click here.

Mullah Mohammad Omar of the United States

2005-08-11T01:25:00.000-07:00

Great!
See what Mullah Mohammad Omar of the US has to say about evolution.

I immigrated from Iran to get rid of this type of idiots in power. But it seems they take the power one country after another. Where should I escape to? Mars?

- For the best April fool's day article ever click here:
Scientific American apologizes for not being balanced.

Por-rooyi, Ta'aarof, Gheyrat, and Aaberoo

2005-08-07T18:53:00.000-07:00

The Mocking Bird has a post about a funny piece published in Iranian.com. In a comment to her post I asked her if there is any word in English for Por-rooyi. She couldn't find any, like many others I have asked.

I wonder if having the word indicates that something annoying exists in the culture that needs to be described. Something that probably a Norwegian or French or American does not experience that often. Maybe it is for the same reason we have the word ta'aarof in our language. There is no exact word in English to describe ta'aarof. The same is true about gheyrat and aaberoo. Unlike por-rooyi these words are not invented to describe something annoying (even though they are annoying to me!) but they still represent ideas that do not exist in many other cultures, at least in the same way we have them in the Iranian culture.

"Elevator to the Gallows" In LA

2005-08-06T16:24:00.000-07:00

If you live in Los Angeles, enjoy watching old Louis Malle's movies, and love to hear one of the most beautiful Miles Davis' works, don't miss the screening of Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud) at the Lammle theater in Santa Monica boulvard. It's about two blocks west of 405.

Maybe I shouldn't be so confident in suggesting a movie I have seen years ago. Maybe seeing it again would be very different from seeing it years ago, the same way watching Wings of Desire was different. But I want to try it anyway. Even if I don't enjoy it this time, watching it tells me something about myself and shows me how my taste in music and movies is changed.

Hear a sample piece of Miles Davis' improvisation on the movie here.

Ganji Nears Death

2005-08-01T18:44:00.000-07:00

I am certain that this night of darkness will not last long. The moon of freedom will finally step out from behind the clouds of religious tyranny, and will shine rays of joy upon us all.
—from Akbar Ganji's letter written on July 22, 2005, his 43rd day of hunger strike in Evin Prison.

I admire Akbar Ganji, despite things I don't like in his letters from the prison. His self-sacrificing revolutionary tone of voice is outdated, and his presentation of himself as a martyred hero (a hero who supposedly "wakes up the masses later in the future") is something I don't like, and his constant quoting from Carl Popper reminds me of religious people quoting from the Bible or Qur'an. But I still admire Ganji. His courage to speak out his mind and his dedication to non-violent ways of opposing the system is beyond anyone else in the Iranian politics.

I don't think he was right in his decision on beginning the hunger strike. I don't think any idea is worthy enough to die for. Ganji is a great journalist and a lively activist. I don't know how he justifies his own death. Even for fighting for democracy and human rights he should to be alive. His death is the best the Iranian regime can wish for. It cannot change anything, except the names of a few schools and streets in a far future, and probably a few pages in the history books—lamenting over his unjust "martyrdom."
* * *
Ganji nears death. What can we do?

Visit here and here for more on Ganji. In case you want to sign the online petitions for his freedom click here and here.

Cartoon by Davoud Shahidi.

Harlan McCraney, Presidential Speechalist

2005-07-21T23:29:00.000-07:00

... but he talked exactly what I wanted to hear.

Harlan McCraney, Presidential Speechalist
Starring Andy Dick, Director: Russell Bates
From Otis Productions

Iranian Lessons

2005-07-17T19:50:00.000-07:00

Today's New York Times' article by Michael Ignatieff is both well-written and accurate in the way it describes Iran.
I especially liked this section:

From their vantage point inside a theocracy, young Iranians long for ''a wall of separation'' between religion and government, as Thomas Jefferson called it, and they told me they found it puzzling, even disappointing, that religion and politics are not actually separate in the United States. I tried to explain that keeping God in his place in a democracy is work that never ends.

and this one:

In any event, America has almost no capacity to promote democracy inside Iran, and some capacity to do harm to Iranian democrats. Every Iranian I met wanted to spend time in the United States -- and wished there were more scholarships to take them to America -- but nearly every one of them laughed when I mentioned the recent Congressional appropriation of $3 million to support democratic opposition groups inside and outside the country. Iranian democrats look on American good intentions with incredulity. It would be fatal for any of them to accept American dollars. ''Do they want to get us all arrested as spies?'' one said to me.

But nothing is truer than this:

With oil at about $60 a barrel as I write, there is little likelihood that the regime will be forced to open up and reform the economy. But unless it does, there won't be much democracy or progress for the poor. One human rights truth, universally acknowledged, is that oil is an obstacle to democracy in every developing society. When a government can get what it needs out of oil derricks and ceases to derive its revenue from taxes, it loses any incentive to respond to the people. Theocracy in Iran is built on oil and will endure as long as the oil price holds up.

- Photo by Lynsey Addario/Corbis, for The New York Times.
- Read a criticism on Michael Ignatieff's views here in the leftist website, Counterpunch.

Benjamin Franklin on Liberty and Security

2005-07-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
—Benjamin Franklin

Picture: Benjamin Franklin. Courtesy: National Portrait Gallery. From IEEE Virtual Museum.

Newsweek's Report on Iranian Everyday life

2005-07-14T16:39:00.000-07:00

Turn the speakers on, click here and listen to the Newsweek's report on the everyday life in today's Iran.

The Photograph: The Exit Signs, from "My Life; Self portraits" by Dadbeh Bassir. Courtesy of Kargah.com.

I Awake in Your Eyes

2005-07-09T20:22:00.000-07:00

The July issue of the Italian photography magazine, Private, is about Iranian contemporary photography. To my surprise it didn't have anything from photographers like Shirin Neshat (who are famous not for their talents but for their connections to the New York art business) or Abbas Kiarostami (who is famous for his movies but somehow managed to become famous for his photographs as well).

"I Awake in Your Eyes" (the name of this issue of Private) is a fine selection of contemporary Iranian photography. Many of the photographs in this collection are by artists I know to be genuine representatives of Iranian photography. I once mentioned some of them in a link here in this weblog, and I even chose a picture for the post that is also published in the first page of "I Awake in Your Eyes". It seems my taste is very similar to that of the photo editor of this magazine.

Iranian photography flourished after the revolution. Compared to Iranian painting, theater, and even cinema, Iranian photography is far better in its artistic quality. It reflects more of what is going on in that surreal republic, and at the same time it doesn't exoticize the culture for the "Western" eye. Despite the media's realistic nature, Iranian photography is very much based on metaphors, a characteristic that connects it to an older tradition of poetry. At the same time the fact that for years photography has not been taken seriously as an "art" form in Iran gives it the opportunity to get rid of what Iranians call "Ostaad" or "Masters": a bunch of useless obsolete "experts" in different art fields who don't know anything about anything but are the ones who have the last words in everything.

The only art field that can compete with photography in Iran is graphic design. Iran has developed a very unique style in graphic design that has not gotten the international attention it deserves. The reasons for the obscurity of both Iranian photography and graphic design are not clear to me, especially at a time when the worst Iranian movies get so much attention in Europe and the US. I hope that publication of collections like the latest issue of Private will be a beginning for their introduction to the outside world.

* This issue of Private is published both in English/Persian and Italian/Persian.
- The above photograph: "Présence Pure" ("Hozoor-é Nâb" in Persian) is by Kourosh Adim.
- The photograph below is by Mehran Mohajer, 2001.

My Silence

2005-07-02T02:00:00.000-07:00

I know... this time it took me a long time to blog again. What can I do? I guess I should call it "blogger's block" ... like "writer's block."

What happened in the last few months could be one of the the biggest changes in Iran during the last 8 years but I was completely indifferent. I guess I am used to Iran's constant surprises. In Iran you never know what is going to happen in a few months. Future events are always very different from what everybody thinks.
Iran's culture changes constantly. It changes so quickly that people who try to analyze it can not catch up with its fast pace.
It is like a turbulent ocean. A strong whirlpool might take you down to the bottom of the sea in a matter of seconds, and you might never know which wave took you there, what caused it, and who is responsible for the death.

It is a very dynamic society, too dynamic to be understood.

Democracy Lite

2005-06-02T15:26:00.000-07:00

Democracy Lite
A Cartoon By Mark Fiore

Under the Sign of Saturn

2005-04-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

Susan Sontag, reading from her essay "The Last Intellectual," 1978. (Real Audio)

- The audio from The New York Review of Books.
- The latest issue of Dissent has an article On Susan Sontag by Paul Berman.
- Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.

The Eyranian's Wedding

2005-04-24T00:14:00.000-07:00

I used to call The Eyranian the "guru" of Iranian blogers. Reading his weblog made me addicted to checking it every hour to see if there is any new post or comment I haven't read.

Today I am going to his wedding. I never thought reading someone's blog can take you to his wedding one day... strange things happen in Blogestan. Any way, The Eyranian's readers are not going to have "From My Dating Files" any more, but what can we do? This is the way the life is. It changes.

I wish Pedrum the best in life, both inside and outside the internet.

When can we get rid of God?

2005-04-21T20:39:00.000-07:00

A family lights a candle at a section of the Kennedy Expressway underpass in Chicago, Illinois where a yellow and white stain on the concrete underpass has left what many believe to be an image of the Virgin Mary. Hundreds of faithful and curious people have visited the underpass since it was discovered 10 April 2005, leaving flowers and candles(AFP/Jeff Haynes)

So it is not just in Iran that people can see Khomeini's face in the moon. Idiots are everywhere...
The only thing I can see here is just dirty stain from water and probably salt from a homeless peeing there.

Believing in god is like cancer. You take it out from people's mind, and it comes out from somewhere else. Is it a mental disease? Is it a brain problem that majority of people have and a minority haven't? When can we get rid of these disgusting sacred objects? When can we get rid of God?

Clay Bennett on American Security

2005-04-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

From Clay Bennett, Christian Science Monitor.

Molotov Cocktail

2005-04-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

The letter N has a funny story about Iranian revolution of 1979 and her grandmother's involvement in making Molotov Cocktails.
The story reminded me of the revolution years. I was a child back then, but I vividly remember everything: the enthusiasm, the hope for the future, and the hatred toward Shah. "Har gohi biyaad behtar az ine!" ("Any piece of shit would be better than this one") This was what he said repeatedly in those days. A few years later he regretted saying that. Not because he wanted the Shah back, but because he —like many others— understood how wrong the policy of "anyone but Shah" could be.

When overthrowing a government is the only goal —and nobody knows what is going to replace it— it is not a surprize to see it replaced with another "piece of shit."

The painting: "Molotov Cocktail" by Alexander Kosolapov. More details here.

Look at me

2005-04-10T00:12:00.000-07:00

To me, a movie is good if some of its images, dialogs, and moments come back to me the day after watching it. A movie is even better if it brings me questions I have no answer for. Look at me was such a movie for me today, and I feel its moments come back to me for a few days. It is a beautiful movie, very French in the tradition of Eric Rohmer, and consequently very unpopular, I think. Last night I saw the movie with only three other people in the theater.
* * *
Searching for the movie's website, I found this great photography project. It is an online exhibition of snapshots: old photographs of unknown people looking at us. Here is what the website says about the kind of photos it exhibits:

These photos were either lost, forgotten, or thrown away. The images now are nameless, without connection to the people they show, or the photographer who took them. Maybe someone died and a relative threw away their photographs; maybe someone thought they were trash.
Some of the photos were found on the street. Some were stacked in a box, bought cheap at a flea market. Showing off or embarrassed, smug, sometimes happy, the people in these photos are strangers to us. They can't help but be interesting, as stories with only an introduction.
The "Look at Me" project started with a few photos found by Frederic Bonn and Zoe Deleu in a Paris street in 1998.
The collection now contains 464 photos.

The website gives the regular family photographs a new dimension. The photographs in this website do not stand as a replica of their subjects anymore. The nature of the snapshots is changed by the anonymity of the subjects and the way they are presented there. Unknown family photographs are transformed to a metaphor: an ironic metaphor for all the efforts we make to eternalize ourselves by printing our image on a rectangular piece of paper.

- The Photograph from Project Look at me. To submit a photo to this project click here.
- Look at me's trailer here.

What the hell are they waiting for?

2005-03-09T23:36:00.000-08:00

From Harper's magazine. Friday, February 25, 2005. By Mr. Fish.

Gore Vidal and Imperial America

2005-03-05T08:25:00.000-08:00

Gore Vidal's interview (RealAudio) with Australian ABC's Lateline host, Tony Jones.

- Transcript here.
- Other links: Uncensored Gore, State of the Union, 2004, Imperial America, Inventing a Nation.

Photo by Murdo Macleod. From Guardian.

Zohre and Manouchehr

2005-02-27T23:24:00.000-08:00

[In the city of Tabas,] women do not dare to talk to men. If any woman would do such a thing she would be killed, and the man would also be killed…Of the cities I have seen in the lands of Arabs and non-Arabs, this city was one of the four places I found safe and ruled by justice.
—Nāser Khosrow, Safar-nāme (The Travel Notes) written in the eleventh century.

Last night I saw two movies at the Annual UCLA screening of Iranian movies: Maryam Keshavarz' Color of Love (2004) and Mitra Farahani’s Zohre and Manouchehr (2003). Both movies were about the ways that contemporary Iranian society deals with sexuality. Color of Love pictured the interactions between several young couples in the city of Shiraz during Āshūrā, and Zohre and Manouchehr mixed interviews of different types of people about having sex with a Parajanov-style depiction of a nineteenth-century Persian poem about sex.

Watching these kinds of documentaries about sexuality is shocking to the Iranian community outside Iran who has been away from the “mainland” culture for years. Iran has changed a lot during the last 27 years. The societal restrictions imposed by the Islamic government (in order to form the kind of “model society” Nāser Khosrow speaks about in his travel notes) and the imagined model society presented on the satellite TV and the Internet deeply have affected the current moral system. Many people do not respect the traditional moral "values" any more. Many others see them as still valid and want to force them on others who don’t believe in them. Many imagine “the West” as a land of free sexuality and dream about moving there. Others, mostly the older generation, see it as a threat to the traditional values. The culture is obsessed with the idea of sexuality. Thinking about concepts such as Bekārat (virginity), Qeyrat (male extreme jealousy and feeling of honor in ordering around the female members of the family or community), and Nejābat (female suppression of her sexual needs) are sometimes more important to Iranians than anything else in life.

I have never forgot observing this in my daily life in Iran. As a male it was impossible for me to get into a taxi full of male passengers (in Iran we share the taxis with other passengers) and not hear a sexist comment about “how horrible women are these days.” There was always a passenger or a taxi driver who had a story about “a corrupt woman” who tries to seduce him. The story mostly ended up with him, strong and victorious, rejecting the seduction and going back to his proper moral life. The story always was followed with comments from the narrator of the story, or the others, about what a moral disaster this is. “Āqā, vaz’ kheyli kharāb shode… zanā az dast dar raftan.” (Man, this is a disaster; women don’t know their limits any more…) The first part of the story was basically the same literary material the porn film industry uses in its studios in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. The second part is very similar to the value system that makes it possible for the churches, prostitutes, and the casinos to co-exist in Las Vegas. The difference here is that the repression of desires and the contradictions between what people say and what people do is hundreds of times worse in the Iranian case.

Sexuality is the main topic of conversation for Iranian men and probably women. It also is the main problem that Iranian society has with “Western culture.” Controlling the sexual behavior of the citizens (and not their political actions) is the main justification of the government for controlling the society. This justification sounds convincing to many, even those who hate the government. The mentality of the eleventh-century writer, Nāser Khosrow, is still pretty much alive in twenty-first-century Iran. Having justice and safety is still tied to the government observing the social life of the citizens and correcting them by force. The public still supports the punishment of those, who respond to the sexual hormones in their blood, and sees the government’s enforcement of moral values as legitimate and defendable.

The fact is that in today’s Iran the divorce rate is high, prostitution is widespread, and the new generation questions anything related to morality. The younger generation is passing through a "1960s". A sexual revolution has begun among the youth that scares the elders. The Iranian government blames “corrupt Western culture” for Iranian “moral problems,” and the political opposition outside the country accuses the Islamic government of destroying the “integrity of Iranian culture” by creating an environment that makes prostitution possible. The media on both sides sheds tears for the moral corruption of the nation, and both sides believe that what is happening among the youth is a major problem that the country is facing.
* * *
Despite all of these facts, hearing the news about all these supposed corruptions is music to my ears. To me, this disgusting rotten corpse known as Iranian traditional morality, based on eleventh century moral values, needs to be buried, and if the spread of prostitution helps this process I definitely support it. Getting rid of Iranian traditions such as keeping virginity and glorifying qeyrat is more essential for the nation than having democracy or fixing the economy… ok, reading this might upset the few Iranian readers of this blog, since for some obscure reasons we think we should defend some outdated moral values just because they have been there for years. My opinion on this issue is very different: the right to have sex is as basic as the right to drink water or to breathe air, and if a cultural code deprives people of that right, I hope to see such a moral system eradicated. In a world ruled by religious fanatics (either the Bush type or the Iranian mullahs) fighting with traditional moral values is as essential as fighting for freedom of speech. The seemingly apolitical Iranian youth has already begun the fight in Iran. I think the manner in which this fight ends will eventually change other aspects of the culture, including politics, both in Iran and the Middle East. It eventually forms a new version of Islam that is more tolerant towards sexuality and probably more tolerant towards everything else. Am I a dreamer? I hope not.

______________________________
* Photos:
- Top: From Color of Love (2004).
- Bottom: From Zohre & Manoucheh (2003).

* Another post on the Iranian youth here.

Radio Farda and Arash Cigarchi

2005-02-27T15:40:00.000-08:00

A few days ago the Iranian blogger, Arash Cigarchi, was centenced to 14 years in prison for expressing his ideas in his blog (read the news here). The Letter N shows how the U.S. funded Radio Farda is partly responsible for his arrest.
__________________________________
* For more on this issue go to Committee to Protect Bloggers.
** The cartoon by Touka Neyestani.

The Ayatollah's Book Of Etiquette

2005-02-14T22:13:00.000-08:00

To have a touch of living as an Iranian I suggest you read The Ayatollah's Book Of Etiquette in the latest issue of Harper's.
What you read there is a part of "Ahkām" (The Orders), a series of Islamic teachings on harām and halāl, "must-do" and forbiden acts, and all the other 'laws' every Iranian child should study at school as a part of curruculom.
I never forget those wasted hours of my life learning Ahkaam. Never hated my country more than those hours in Religious Studies class.
______________________
* A few more readings on this subject:
- For knowing more about life in Iran after the revolution take a look at this book.
- For more on Islamic Shia "Cleaning Laws" see here.
- For more on some Jewish "cleaning laws" (the Islamic ones are a copy of these ones, ... as usual) see here.
- Those ultra-Iranian nationalists who think Zoroastrian religion doesn't have this kind of crap better read Bondahesh. Unfortunately no copy of Bondahesh is on the internet, but I am sure you can buy a copy (in Persian) somewhere on an Iranian online bookstore. Sometime in the future I will translate the parts of Bondahesh about the creation of Woman, and you will see how Zoroastrianism can be as disgusting as the Abrahamic religions.

* Forword (Feb 18, 2005): I finally found The Bundahishn ("Creation"), but the part I wanted to make a link to is removed from the text in the online version. It is at the end of the chapter 15, titled as "On the Nature of Women."

Dirty Harry and Geneva Convention

2005-02-04T08:36:00.001-08:00

This article in Wired reminds me of the editorials in Tehran's right-wing newspaper Keyhan, and its justifications for whatever the Islamic government does in the name of a set of "values" (supposedly more important than human beings.) The article in Wired refers to Dirty Harry and other "ass-kickers" in Hollywood movies to justify torture and other unlawful acts against Geneva convention. According to him these actions are justifiable as long as they are done by the "good guys." It reminds me of the Shah, Khomeini, and the others who justified their actions with the exactly similar kind of reasoning. The one in power never considers himself a bad guy. Of course he is the "good guy" of the story, and of course what he does is for the benefit of people and for their own good: that is why whatever crime he commits is justifiable by his own reasoning.

The article is one of the many examples I see everywhere in the US media these days showing how the extreme-Right thinks in this country. Another example is the Fox channel's 24 (with the Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo acting in it as an Iranian terrorist.) In a very Dirty-Harry-style "24" justifies torture as the only way of stopping terrorism. It is ironic that the same people trying to hijack ideas like "freedom" and "democracy" are the ones who justify torture and violation of human rights. They are the same people who make fun of Geneva convention, the UN and its most precious achievment, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Unfortunately this people are very successful with their show. Their ethical and political view is shaping people's mind here by replacing the reality with Hollywood movies and TV shows.

"Khayal" by Kaushiki Chakrabarty

2005-01-27T01:58:00.000-08:00

Listen to Kaushiki Chakrabarty. Her "Khayal"is just amazing!*
_____________________________________
* Khayal in Persian means "imagination". In India it is a form of music.
For more information click on the title of this post.

Attack with a Roll of Dice

2005-01-17T10:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to San Diego for my 3-year-old cousin's birthday party. Before getting there I went to a Toys-Я-Us to buy a toy for him. Browsing through the toys there made me astounded with the fact that toys are much more related to our daily life than what I expected. Here is the text—printed on a toy-set box—that was so ironic to me that I wrote it down in my notebook:

RISK®
The Game of Global Domination

In this classic game of military strategy, lead your armies as they sweep across vast continents to launch daring attacks against your enemies. But keep an eye on your flanks: your opponents are fighting to capture your troops and claim your territories. Reinforce your armies, then attack with a roll of dice. Capture all 42 territories, and you dominate the globe.

Play the classic RISK® game, then play with the rules variations for experts. For a shorter game, play CAPITAL RISK®. Or play European variation called SECRET MISSION RISK®, and complete your specific mission to win.

RISK® ... Leading the world in military strategy games since 1959.
Made in USA with Dice made in China.

* The photo from of tidal-w.com. It is a toy called John, Baghdad International Airport, 3rd Infantry Division.

Parking Gallery

2005-01-02T13:34:00.000-08:00

If you haven't visited Parking Gallery yet, check it out. It is a web gallery presenting the works of the young Iranian artists.

____________________________
Poster by Reza Abedini

How dangerous a "blog" can be?

2004-12-29T13:02:00.000-08:00

Here is the English translation of what the Iranian ex-vice president, Mohammad Abtahi, has reported on his weblog about the interrogation and torture of several Iranian blogers for what they said in their blogs.

This is what governments do when when the "national security" is in danger, and they should defend the "homeland", or "religion", "values", or any other sacred shit.
_____________________________________
More on the tortured bloggers here.

Susan Sontag (1933-2004)

2004-12-29T01:05:00.000-08:00

Susan Sontag died at 71 (News: 1, 2). Thinking about her reminded me of myself at age 19, writing down the Persian translation of In Plato's Cave narrated to me and a few others by Bahman Jalali in the Iranian School of Radio and Television. In those years (mid 1980s) there was no book published on the theory of photography in Iran, neither there was any photography magazine. I had not read anything like that before. Reading that essay while I was writing it was a shocking experience.
It was winter. I used to go to Jalali's classes in Thursday afternoons. We wrote down that essay and two others ("Melancholy Objects" and "America, Seen Through the Glass Darkly") in two or three weeks. Those winter afternoons were a turning point in my life. Sontag's essays changed the meaning of images for me forever. Maybe the same way the pictures of Auschwitz changed every thing for her.
____________________________________
* For reading Sontag's last article in New York Times magazine click here.
* Read "Looking at War" in "The New Yorker" here.
* Also listen to Remembering Susan Sontag at Radio Nation.
* Quicksilver by John Berger.

The Photograph by Peter Hujar.

Girlfriend-Lap / Boyfriend arm, for Sale

2004-12-15T23:54:00.000-08:00

After the boyfriend's arm pillow now the girlfriend lap pillow is in the market.
I think We should read these articles (1 and 2) again. The writers had seen something in the 1800s that we are still blind to it.

The Israel of Our Time

2004-12-09T01:48:00.000-08:00

This qutation from Herman Melville explains about many things that happenned years after him, both in America and in the world. I can not read it without thinking about Superman and G. W. Bush.

And we Americans are peculiar, chosen people -- the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world ... Long enough have we been skeptics with regard to ourselves, and doubted whether, indeed, the political Messiah had come. But he has come in us, if we would but give utterance to his promptings."
--Herman Melville, White-Jacket (1850)

Superheroes, Saving the World from Democracy

2004-11-19T11:55:00.000-08:00

[Political propaganda] is aimed at the broad masses. It speaks the language of the people because it wants to be understood by the people. Its task is the highest creative art of putting sometimes complicated events and facts in a way simple enough to be understood by the man on the street. [...] Political propaganda, the art of anchoring the things of the state in the broad masses so that the whole nation will feel a part of them, cannot therefore remain merely a means to the goal of winning power. It must become a means of building and keeping power.
—Joseph Goebbels, Nuremberg, 1934, from Der Kongress zur Nürnberg 1934 (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP., Frz. Eher Nachf., 1934)

The Incredibles claims to be a parody of Superhero genre in American cinema, but what the movie does is nothing but re-validating the anti-democratic ideology behind what it is mocking. The story pictures a world threatened by an 'evil' character who plans to attack a New-York-city-like metropolis from a far island. The only people who can stop the danger are the superheroes, a minority who are born to save others by using their extra-ordinary abilities. Unfortunately the democratic society they live in does not appreciate them and treats them like any other citizen and expects them to behave as any other citizen too. The system doesn't let them to work outside the framework of law and democratic values, and believes ''everyone is special, so no one is,'' and is a place where ''everybody will be super, which means no one will be.''
The movie proves that all these are wrong. That superheroes exist, and they should be treated differently from other citizens. That the 'evil' exists and attacks New York city, and the 'superheroes' are the ones who have the right to do whatever they want to save the world, even if it needs to let them work outside the law...
Does the story sounds familiar? I am not surprised.

***
Superman was created in 1933 -the same year Hitler came to power in Germany. The first Superman comic book was published in 1938 by DC comics and its immediate success began a new genre in comic books, movies, cartoons, and other pop culture media that was different in its mythological style of storytelling and the messianic character it portrayed for the masses.
The word Superman, or “Der Übermensch” was the title Hitler used to describe himself. Superman’s other title, “Man of Steel,” reminds me of the other dictator of the '30s, Joseph Stalin, because it is what the word 'Stalin' means in Russian.
These hints leads me to some questions: What did Superman and the homonymous dictators have in common that make them all to chose the same names? What were the reasons for the invention of Superman in the thirties? Why both Superheroes and dictators have their own easy-to-remember logos? What makes them so popular among the masses?

Superheroes and dictators create a world for their audience that defines their position as being ‘absolutely right’ on every issue and ‘absolutely good’ in every circumstance. They all fight against self-defined ‘forces of darkness’ and in their battles they all have self-proclaimed quasi-religious ‘blessing’. They are all committed to a self-defined concept of justice that puts them above the law. The law itself is not an issue for them. But what they are concerned about is justice. In this regard they all see themselves as a perfect embodiment of law enforcement and do their job by whatever means necessary. In all these cases it is the power of the superheroes’ fists that at the end of the story brings the world back to its “edenic” order. Superheroes and dictators share the same worldview, although with seemingly different value systems. They create a world that is easily understandable for masses.
In such a world there is no responsibility for the regular citizens in taking care of their problems or 'dangers' threatening them. They have nothing to do but supporting their superheroes. Superheroes who not only fight the evil but also are the only ones who define it.

_______________________________________________________________
* Photo: Courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar Animation Studios
* The Quote from Joseph Goebbels from here. copyright © 2000 by Randall Bytwerk.

Four More Years

2004-11-04T08:37:00.000-08:00

This is how Guardian's Steve Bell feels about Four More Years.

History of The Night

2004-11-01T06:35:00.000-08:00

It is a long time I haven't blogged. Let me begin again with a poem by Borges:

History of The Night

Throughout the course of the generations
men constructed the night.
At first she was blindness;
thorns raking bare feet,
fear of wolves.
We shall never know who forged the word
for the interval of shadow
dividing the two twilights;
we shall never know in what age it came to mean
the starry hours.
Others created the myth.
They made her the mother of the unruffled Fates
that spin our destiny,
they sacrificed black ewes to her, and the cock
who crows his own death.
The Chaldeans assigned to her twelve houses;
to Zeno, infinite words.
She took shape from Latin hexameters
and the terror of Pascal.
Luis de Leon saw in her the homeland
of his stricken soul.
Now we feel her to be inexhaustible
like an ancient wine
and no one can gaze on her without vertigo
and time has charged her with eternity.

And to think that she wouldn't exist
except for those fragile instruments, the eyes.

Photo: UPI/Bettmann.
1984. Borges in his mother's old room at calle Maipú.

Keeping America Scared

2004-10-05T23:46:00.000-07:00

Keeping America Scared (Quick Time Movie).

Richard Avedon

2004-10-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth. --Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon passed away three days ago (news here). Despite the fact that he worked his whole life as a fashion photographer and his portraits were mostly the pictures of celebrities, I consider him a true revolutionary. He changed the way photographs are seen and understood, and established a new style of imaging -so powerful that can not be surpassed easily by any other fashion or portrait photographer.
My favorite, among all his books, is In the American West. I never forget how shocked I was when I saw it for the first time in the late '80s. It changed the meaning of portraiture for me, and I am sure for many others. In another post, I mentioned his influence on the works of the Iranian photographer, Mohsen Rastani.
I hope Rastani continues working on his Avedonian project. His photographs do not give us 'the' truth, but at least they give us a few accurate pictures of parts of the culture haven't been noticed for years.
__________________________________
* Some of Avedon's older works can be seen here and here. The recent works for The New Yorker can be found here.
* The New Yorker's article about Avedon by Adam Gopnik here.

Andy Kershaw in Iran

2004-09-27T01:31:00.000-07:00

Click here (part 1, part 2) to listen to Andy Kershaw's fascinating report on different types of music in the contemporary Iran. It is a very vivid and realistic image of what is happening there.
The BBC 3 page can be found here.

Elecrtic Lamp, Electric Chair, and Camera

2004-09-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

What is the relationship between Thomas Edison, electric lamp, electric chair, and camera?

In this early documentary film (MPEG), produced by Thomas Alva Edison in 1901, a cold and distant performance of a murder is carried out by a new scientific invention called 'the electric chair.' The performance is documented by another newly invented scientific device called Kinetoscope camera. The neutral eye of camera tries to prevent the emotions to get involved here. Nothing is supposed to be present but the absolute dominance of scientific precision.
That is how the civilization began its 20th century.

* Chronology
1879- Thomas Alva Edison invents a reliable, long-lasting Electric lamp.
1886-The New York State Government established a legislative commission to study humane forms of capitol punishment.
1887 - Edison conducts demonstration in West Orange, New Jersey, to show how perfect the "Electric Chair" works. He kills large numbers of cats and dogs by luring the animals onto a metal plate wired to a 1,000 volt AC generator.
1988- Thomas Edison invents his Kinetoscope camera.
1888- Edison uses dogs, horses and cows to demonstrate how AC electricity kills 'swiftly.'
1890 - The first execution by electric chair.

____________________________________
The Photo:
Sing Sing prison, New York, circa 1900. An African American prisoner strapped into the electric chair is observed by white American witnesses and guards before the moment of electrocution.
Source: Hulton Archive, another picture here (from the collection of George Eastman House.)

Hakha in English

2004-09-23T07:20:00.000-07:00

The Eyeranian has translated a piece of Hakha's daily show into English. It gives you an idea what I was talking about when in one of previous posts I wrote about the surrealism of my country's politics.

Here I re-write my comment to The Eyeranian's post:

It is true that just a small number of people have believed what he says, but the fact that he EXISTS as a political figure says something about the Iranian culture. You don't see such a phenomenon in Chile, Burma, Vietnam, or Ivory Coast. The only place in the world that such a caricature of a 'savior' can appear in the political scene is our great country, Iran. After all 'we' are the ones who invented the concept of "savior" for the world. (what a shame,... the world could be a better place without it.)

* For seeing Hakha's TV show on September 17, click here.

Hugo Crosthwaite at Tropico de Nopal

2004-09-17T11:43:00.000-07:00

Hugo Crosthwaite has an exhibition at Tropico de Nopal Gallery, begining from today till October 16.
Go and visit it, if you ive in Los Angeles. You will not regret it.

The Music Box

2004-09-17T01:41:00.000-07:00

One of the advantages of living under a religious dictatorship is watching a lot of Laurel and Hardy, since many of their movies have nothing ‘unethical’ according to the strict moral codes of the Islamic regime.
Watching those movies helps you recognize a stairway in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, when you walk through Vendome Street near the intersection of Del Monte. This is the stairway used in the Laurel & Hardy movie, The Music Box, in 1931.
Excited from seeing the real stairway, you walk up its 133 steps like a pilgrim visiting a shrine. It is like paying homage to an unseen friend who has brought smiles to your face many times during your teenage years. The years one couldn’t see anything but death on the Iranian TV.
The stairway’s meaning for you goes beyond the meaning of the Laurel & Hardy movie. Your experience of the movie includes the daily news of the Iran-Iraq war ‘martyrs,’ the dreadful face of Khomeini, and all the propaganda shown before and after the movie.
* * *
Keeping a smile on your face back then was like holding that music box and taking it up to the top of the stairway. In the years the majority of the population didn’t have the illegal item called VCR, and the only movie you could watch on TV was shown once a week (on Friday afternoons), watching the Sisyphus type of work Laurel and Hardy performed in The Music Box made you think of your own life, made you laugh at it, and made that life bearable in its unusual way.
Coming down from the stairway you think all these might be the reason you never forget the stairway.

______________________________________________
- You can see parts of the movie here: 1, 2.
- A picture of the satairway can be seen here.

Klingon Language in Deutsche Welle Radio

2004-09-15T09:30:00.000-07:00

The German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) has added an online service in Klingon. According to BBC, this is what is happening in DW director's brain: "We should celebrate our 10-year presence in the online universe with a cross-border language. This should help users from other galaxies get an impression of Germany."
After centuries of building 'reality' based on illusions in the form of religions, it seems now humans have began to get inspirations from scince fictions. Crazy species!

_____________________________
The Klingon language is an artificial language created for the TV series Star Trek. To know more about Klingon language click here.

Song of Childhood

2004-09-14T23:30:00.000-07:00

This is the first part of the poem "Song of Childhood" By Peter Handke. It reminds me of the day I asked my mother who "I" am. She didn't understand what I meant, and I didn't find more words to explain my thoughts. I was a little kid. I guess "language" itself was too new for me to handle this type of question, or maybe language was an irrelevant factor since I still have the same problem when I ask the same question.

Read the complete poem here.

When the child was a child
It walked with its arms swinging,
wanted the brook to be a river,
the river to be a torrent,
and this puddle to be the sea.

When the child was a child,
it didn’t know that it was a child,
everything was soulful,
and all souls were one.

When the child was a child,
it had no opinion about anything,
had no habits,
it often sat cross-legged,
took off running,
had a cowlick in its hair,
and made no faces when photographed.

When the child was a child,
It was the time for these questions:
Why am I me, and why not you?
Why am I here, and why not there?
When did time begin, and where does space end?
Is life under the sun not just a dream?
Is what I see and hear and smell
not just an illusion of a world before the world?
Given the facts of evil and people.
does evil really exist?
How can it be that I, who I am,
didn’t exist before I came to be,
and that, someday, I, who I am,
will no longer be who I am?
[...]

Originally translated by Gabriel, revised by Doug Rosebrock.

The American Left

2004-09-12T10:22:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I went to an event in Glendale Public Library, organized by KPFK and Union of Progressive Iranians. It was titled "1953 US Military Coup in Iran and US Empire Strategy in the Region," and promised to show a documentary. Documentaries on this subject are rare to find, so I went there to watch it.

The event was a disaster. Nothing was organized and every thing began late. We were packed in a small amphitheater, way behind its capacity (despite the fire safty regulations,) and we had to wait for the speaker an hour later than what was announced. During this one hour a bunch of people -mostly old people from the '60 and '70s generation- came to the podium, rased their fist in the air and shouted leftist slogans. The microphone was disconnected several times, and the speakers were intruppted repeatedly for technical problems. Worst of all, no documentary was shown and the subject of the speech was not the Coup but the US forign policy. It contained no deep insight into the subject, and we heard nothing but slogans, slogans, and slogans. Seeing all these I thought there is no wonder the Republicans and the Right are so popular in this country. The Palestinian flags and Hugo Chavez poters were not forgotten on the walls, but the microphone and the documentary were forgotten.

I left the place in the middle of the speech. There were so many people attending the event. It was a pity to see how the event was wasted like that. I wish the American left could grow up and do something that makes sense, instead of wasting its energy for selling books from dinousors like Mao or Lenin (yes, Lenin is a dinousur too) on the doorway, and wearing Che Guevara t-shirts and Red Star beret.
The extreme Left in the US reminds me of a 10 years old child, still playing with songs, raising fists, and slogans. To be Leftist here is the US is following a fashion more than a way of thinking that tries to critisize and analyse the subjects. To be a leftist here is having tatoos, shop organic and fair trade stuff in Trader Joe's, sign online pettitions, praise the dictator of Cuba (yes, I mean the dictator known as Fidel Castro,) and every now and then participate an event like what I saw on Friday. That is it. "Being a Leftist" is defined before being one. Like everything else here, it is a ready-made package to buy as it is. Despite all the criticism against the chains like McDonald and Berger King, to be a leftist in America is very much like going to a Mc Donald and choosing between Combo 1, 2, or 3. The Green Party, Anarchists, and a few other oprtions are your choices, and for being one of them you have to follow a certain pre-defined set of rules. Everything about them is so predictable. They don't do any action, but just reactions to what is set for them by the Republicans... and it is always in ways set up in a Combo 1-2-3 fashion: Don't drink Starbucks, don't shop from Gap, listen to certain bands and singers (mostly with psudo-revolutionary lyrics with no real "revolution" in the way they play their music,) and criticize the big corporations (but follow the fashion they set up for you.) Doing these all helps your conscience and makes you a 'leftist.'

All these shows why the American Left is such a loser. It has completely seperated itself from the reality. In Iran, the reality of the 1978 revolution and the massacre of the leftists in 1980-87 was like a slap in the face that waked up the leftists. The American Left lacks that experience, and I hope the experience never comes to America the way it came to the Iranians. But I think the American Left needs to find a way to touch what is going on in the world instead of palying with Che t-shirts and 19th century anarchist books. Praising a human disaster like Cuba, or selling Mao's books shows nothing but lack of ability to think, and being out of touch with the world.

Isaac Deutscher once said "The Right is evil, the left is idiot." (I translated it from Persian the way I read it in an article. It says "Raast-haa palidand va chap-haa ahmagh.") The Friday event reminded me of Isaac Deutscher, and how right he was when he talked about the left.
___________________________________
* For Elvis T-shirts click here, for Che click here.
* For seeing the comercials for "revolutionary Taco" click here

9/11

2004-09-11T01:32:00.000-07:00

It is September 11,
Let's remember all those who died during the American coup in September 11, 1973, in Chile, and all those who died during the 1953 American coup in Iran against the democratically ellected government of Mossadeq, and all those who died in 1954 during the American/Chiquita coup in Guatemala, and all those who were tortured in Indonesia, and thousands of people who were killed after the American coup in 1965 there, and all those who were tortured and executed after the pro-American military coup in Pakistan in 1977 that changed the country into the first Islamic Republic in the Middle East,
... and also all those who died in September 11, 2001, in World Trade Center, New York city. All those innocent people who paid (and are still paying) for the hate that is created during all these years.
Let's remember them all.

There is no way to the peace, the peace is the way.
--Mahatma Gandhi

Ted Rall's cartoon here.

Bomb the Living Daylights

2004-09-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

A message from the Minister of Propaganda, Herr O' Reilly, at FoxNews. I took it from a blog I read regularly. Read the complete text here.

I don't have any respect by and large for the Iraqi people at all. I have no respect for them. I think that they're a prehistoric group that is -- yeah, there's excuses. Sure, they're terrorized, they've never known freedom, all of that. There's excuses. I understand. But I don't have to respect them, because you know, when you have Americans dying trying to, you know, institute some kind of democracy there, and two percent of the people appreciate it, you know, it's time to -- time to wise up. The big lesson is that we cannot intervene using ground troops in the Muslim world ever again. What we can do, is bomb the living daylights out of them, just like we did in the Balkans. Bomb the living daylights out of them. But no more ground troops, no more hearts and minds ... ain't going to work. They're just people who are primitive.
-- William 'Bill' O' Reilly, 8/7/2004, Tim Russert (CNBC)

Tired of Deadends? Join Hakhaa!

2004-09-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

Ahura Khaleghi Yazdi is the new cultural product of my surreal country. In his daily 4 hours programs from Rangarang TV (one of the numerous 'opposition' Iranian TV stations, located in Washington DC) he asks the Iranian people to put faith on his revival of a supposedly old Iranian religion of Achaemenid (shortened as Hakhaa) as the only way of freeing Iran from its Islamic dictatorship. He asks people to close their eyes, believe in him as the representative of "the real world," and gives them an exact definite date (October 1st) for his victorious return to Iran, and overthrowing the Islamic regime. In his strange speeches in Rangarang TV, he promises "to dance with the Iranian people in the streets of Tehran" on October 1st, and tells them their liberation would be not only a political triumph but also a spritual recovery from years of 'mental corruption.' "We all go to the real world together." A countdown clock on his website and on the TV screen shows the numbers of days, minutes, and seconds remaning from Islamic regime's life, visually showing how near the victory is. "Look at this clock," he says, "when I began to open your eyes to the reality there were many days you had to wait... now it is just 26 days."

Watching his programs on TV, makes me wonder if I have to laugh or cry. As an Iranian, one has to develop an ability to cope with unexpected social behaviors, and strange and surreal forms of political actions. To name a few of these type of actions I can mention Khomeini's Fatwa about Salman Rushdie in 1988, people seeing Khomeini's face in the moon in 1978, and Shah's talk with Cyrus the Great in 1970 assuring him that 'the Empire' is in good hands. But the craziness of Ahura Khaleghi Yazdi gives every thing a new dimension. By using the Internet and satellite TV he has added new abilities to the old Iranian business of inventing religions and Messiahs. Interestingly the spiritual leader of the new religion is also into some businesses in Iraq's reconstruction programs: he is a U.S. contractor for rebuilding Iraqi Airways. His glorious resume says a lot about the kind of political connections he has with the Iranian Monarchists and the countries who plan to bombard the beloved motherland he has inherited from 'Achaemenid.'

What makes me sad here is not the idiot I see on TV speaking about his insane religion and that exact day of 'liberation' by "Hakhaa" forces. What disgusts me is hearing the telephone call he gets from Iran, from people who have faithfully believed in his secret Achaemenid "knowledge" as the only way to liberation. People who say they are ready "to kiss his feet and become his slave" as soon as the prophet of Hakhaa goes back to Iran. According to e-mails I get from friends the number of Hakhaa beleivers in Iran is not that low, or at least way higher than what I expected.

The area which is now called Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, is the birthplace of many important ideas in philosophy and religion: the dichotomy between good and evil, the notion of punishment day, the idea of paradise and hell, and the invention of Messiah as a liberating force. These ideas are repeated throughout the history in the forms of different religions. The latest one was Baha'i Faith, in mid-19th century which reinvented all these concepts and applied them to the Modern life. Many thought this would be the last religion there, since the myth of Modernity itself was supposed to replace all those old systems, but it proved to be a naive idea. The cases of Khomeini, Iranian Mojahedin, and Dr. Ahura Khaleghi Yazdi show how the root of the problem is grown deeply far into the culture. The disaster is happening beyond what is expected to be the boundaries of this craziness. "Religionizing" every thing in Iran has nothing to do with Islam. It is Islam that is a part of 'the religion' the Iranians believe: a religion that can change its colors and names, easily replace turban with suite and tie and change the look, but it always is there to respond to any question in any period, with the same repeating answers.

Sovereigntities

2004-09-03T22:57:00.000-07:00

I have no comments on this video.
Whatever this man does or says is beyond anybody's words.

Audio here. (MP3)

Watch Her Disappear

2004-09-02T01:17:00.000-07:00

During my three hours trip to San Jacinto Mountains, and on the way back to Los Angeles I listened to a song from Tom Waits' Alice over and over: Watch Her Disappear.

For years I have been addicted to Tom Waits. I discovered him sometime in 1990, or 1991. I listened to Frank's Wild Years at a friend’s house, where we used to listen to music and drink alcohol, both being offenses punishable under Iranian law.
I remember I discovered Tom Waits the same night I drank Stolichnaya vodka for the first time. In a country where you didn’t have a CD store, in a country where you couldn’t find any drink other than terrible homemade raisin vodkas, “TomWaits/Stolichnaya” was a great mixture, a heavenly pleasure.
Tom Waits reminds me of Tehran, the city I hate and the city I love, both for the same reasons: for all the pleasures and sufferings that makes its character, and all the sorrows it carries on its shoulders.

Watch Her Disappear
(Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan 1992)

Last night I dreamed that I was dreaming of you
And from a window across the lawn I watched you undress
Wearing your sunset of purple tightly woven around your hair
That rose in strangled ebony curls
Moving in a yellow bedroom light
The air is wet with sound
The faraway yelping of a wounded dog
And the ground is drinking a slow faucet leak
Your house is so soft and fading as it soaks the black summer heat
A light goes on and the door opens
And a yellow cat runs out on the stream of hall light and into the yard

A wooden cherry scent is faintly breathing the air
I hear your champagne laugh
You wear two lavender orchids
One in your hair and one on your hip
A string of yellow carnival lights comes on with the dusk
Circling the lake with a slowly dipping halo
And I hear a banjo tango

And you dance into the shadow of a black poplar tree
And I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared

Untitled

2004-09-01T17:05:00.000-07:00

It is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary.
–Franz Kafka, The Trial.

Yaa AbolFazl!

2004-08-25T23:10:00.000-07:00

Recently I have written a lot (1, 2, 3, ...) about how in many cases I interprete the process of 'meaning-making' for social and cultural issues as an act of putting the subject in a mythologic system, whose meanings are already created, and are ready to be used.
The more I think about this idea the more I find it useful for explaining what I see. Take this one:

Rezazadeh of Iran lifts 441 pounds (200 kg) in the snatch during the men's over 231 lb (+105 kg) event at the Nikaia Olympic Weightlifting Hall during the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Wednesday Aug. 25, 2004 [News]. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

Just look at the word on the shirt: it says "O' Abolfazl, help me."
- Abolfazl?
- Yes, Abolfazl, ... The hero of the Shiite story of the sacred battle of Karbala
- The battle of Karbala?
- Yes, ... It is a war which hapenned in 680 in support of Hussain
- Hussain?
- Yes, Hussain, but it's a long story.
There is a long mythologic story behind those two words there. The only thing I can say about it now is that Abolfazl -the hero of battle of Karbala in 680- is still alive, lifting weights in Athens of 2004.

Is Democracy Still Democratic?

2004-08-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

Arundhati Roy, speaking in San Francisco, California on August 16th, 2004.
>>> The audio, video, and text here.

... If you think about it, the logic that underlies the war on terrorism and the logic that underlies terrorism is exactly the same. Both make ordinary citizens pay for the actions of their government. Al-Qaeda made the people of the United States pay with their lives for the actions of their government in Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The U.S government has made the people of Afghanistan pay in their thousands for the actions of the Taliban and the people of Iraq pay in their hundreds of thousands for the actions of Saddam Hussein.

The crucial difference is that nobody really elected al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or Saddam Hussein. But the president of the United States was elected (well ... in a manner of speaking).

The prime ministers of Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom were elected. Could it then be argued that citizens of these countries are more responsible for the actions of their government than Iraqis are for the actions of Saddam Hussein or Afghans for the Taliban?

Whose God decides which is a "just war" and which isn't? George Bush senior once said: "I will never apologize for the United States. I don't care what the facts are." When the president of the most powerful country in the world doesn't need to care what the facts are, then we can at least be sure we have entered the Age of Empire.

So what does public power mean in the Age of Empire? Does it mean anything at all? Does it actually exist?

>>> Complete text here

The Exorcist, A Samuel Huntington Movie

2004-08-22T20:23:00.000-07:00

"The power of the christ compels you!" (QuickTime movie)

As the only Hollywood movie that begins with Islamic call to worship Allah, The Exorcist (1973) is a unique film and worthy to watch, even after 31 years. It is even more interesting to see it now, when you know that the story begins in Iraq, shown as the birthplace of Evil, and ends in Washington DC, as the battlefield of Christianity and Evil -who is resurrected in the Islamic world. The last shot of the movie ends with the Evil still alive inside a seemingly innocent girl, passing through the beautiful George Town streets. The final shot is accompanied with the Islamic Azaan again, in the middle of George Town, reminding the viewer about the presence of the Evil, and relating it to the 'false religion.'
Written by William Peter Blatty(a Catholic) and directed by William Friedkin(a Jewish filmmaker), the movie is a good example of how a political ideology can be created by a seemingly neutral entertainment industry. What is unbelievable to me is that during all these 31 years no film critic has ever mentioned the anti-Islamic connotations of the movie. To realize how strange it is just imagine if there was any reference to anything Jewish in the scene presenting the demon. Such a thing not only couldn't be ignored for a minute (not for thirty one years), but the movie probably would have been immediately listed as a dreadful anti-semitic propaganda.

The ten minutes opening to the movie is shot in the city Mosul, Iraq. Beginning with an Islamic Azaan, the movie shows an old priest (played by one of my favorite actors, Max Von Sydow) unearthing a demon-like statue, representing a creature whose comeback to the world is accompanied by the unnerving sounds of snarling dogs: the Evil comes to the world again in this exotic far land that doesn't have anything to do with pre-evil happy life we see in the "Christian" Washington DC. In a series of preceding shots we see the priest passing praying muslims. Later on, we see him confronting the demon statue, symbolizing the battle between Christianity and the unearthed Evil. The Exorcist story, the fight between Christianity and the Evil begins here, in Iraq.
To me, The Exorcist is not a simple horror story of a little girl possessed by a demon, but a nightmarish part of a bigger mythology created by Hollywood cinema. This ready-to-digest mythologic system describes the world as a place for the confrontation of God and Satan. According to this mythology (which can be seen in any major horror, science fiction, adventure, or disaster movie) America is the main battlefield between these two, and American people have a pre-defined duty to save the world by supporting a superhero whose power comes from a divine force (yes,... no democratic institution is involved in this process). In all these 'good-fights-evil' movies the hero himself has never decided to be a hero. He is always chosen by the devine to carry a 'mission' for eradicating the Evil, and saving the world. As you see, we have a lot of sprituality here, a mixture of religion and imperialism to describe everyone's role in the New World Order.

A prequel to the original story, Exorcist: The Beginning was released two days ago and it became an immediate box office success. I haven't seen the movie yet, but according to what I have read in the news, similar to Exorcist II, the origin of the Evil in the recent movie has been moved to somewhere in the North Africa. What is not changed though, is the main pattern in the story: God fighting against Evil, America fighting against the unknown world.
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P.S. Evidently, marketing Hollywood mythology to the world has been very successful. It has been even sold to the land of mythologies, Mesopotamia. Read the news here:
American troops launch 'Exorcist' tour at ancient temple

Ahmad

2004-08-21T02:38:00.000-07:00

My cousin, Ahmad, is dead. This morning I got a call from my brother telling me about his death in Iran. He has been dead in his apartment for three days, before the neighbors smell the decaying corpse and call the police.
***
Death never had such a tangible apearance to me.
Ahmad is dead forever.

The Library of Babel

2004-08-19T19:33:00.000-07:00

Reading Borges' short story The Library of Babel again reminded me of Nietzsche's fascinating essay On truth and lie in an extra-moral sense. They both question the ways the "unique truth" is manufactured through inventing systems of meanings out of an ambiguous scripture -our chaotic world.

"What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms — in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.
We still do not know where the urge for truth comes from; for as yet we have heard only of the obligation imposed by society that it should exist: to be truthful means using the customary metaphors - in moral terms, the obligation to lie according to fixed convention, to lie herd-like in a style obligatory for all..." (—' The Viking Portable Nietzsche, p.46-7, Kaufmann transl.)

Illustration: A Man with A Cube, by Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972).

Start your own church!

2004-08-17T22:56:00.000-07:00

Among all the junkmails I get every day, occasionally there are a few that take my attention, like the one I got today titled "Our church will ordain anyone who asks":

Become a legally ordained minister within 48 hours
As a minister, you will be authorized to perform the rites and ceremonies of the church!
Perform Weddings, Funerals, Perform Baptisms, Forgiveness of Sins
Visit Correctional Facilities
Want to start your own church?
Press here to find out how

After reading it, I thought probably I don't need them for begining my "own church". What it needs is an XX-Large robe and a talent in performing arts --to make me able to cry in public if necessary, and prevent me from laughing at people when they look at me with tears in their eyes.
It also needs a bunch of dedicated believers for starting the business. They have to worship me, see me in their dreams, try to understand what I say, and get "healed" when I touch them. Their job might seem difficult at the beginning, but there are good opportunities for them in the future to begin the first denominations of the religion, based on their interpretations of the sacred words I recite.
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The picture: Guru Nanak Jayant.

LA, Summer 2004

2004-08-14T22:07:00.000-07:00

To me this is the real LA.
Photography by Vinny Pacheco.
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Thanks to eyeranian.

Liberty

2004-08-06T23:57:00.000-07:00

"The cause of liberty becomes a mockery, if the price to be paid is wholesale destruction of those who are to enjoy liberty. It then becomes an inglorious satiation of ambition."
--M.K. Gandhi, 1940

Homosexuality and the Tradional Iranian Culture

2004-08-03T12:15:00.000-07:00

Reading this article about the ways the sexual concepts were transformed in Iran during the last 200 years made me thinking about my own memories of the older generations talking about sexuality. It seems generation after generation people became more conservative and less comfortable talking about sexual practices and homosexuality.
During the 19th century Iran imported the Victorian moral value system as an integral part of the Modernization process, and consequently homosexuality was not tolerated anymore. Historically, homosexuality was never considered a symptom of the decadence of society, the way it is considered now. It was very much accepted as a part of the real life, and even "Ulama" (the clergy) had their own rules of "halaal" and "haraam" for the act of homosexual sex between men for helping the beleivers to do it according to God's rulles! There is a big contradiction between what Quran says and the clergy "rules", but I think back then the clergy were smart enough to tolerate these types of issues. Homosexuality, like drinking, was a 'sin' that could be neglected. One can see that clearly in the Persian Classic literature.
Redefining gender in Islamic societies according to Modern values imported from Europe, and the relationship between Islamic foundamentalism and these ethical values is something worthy to research. There are not that many books and articles on this subject.

Matrix, Simulated

2004-07-30T17:38:00.000-07:00

I saw this flash animation a few days ago. When I was watching it I noticed the word 'Matrix' mentioned on the bottom of the page and thought it is referring to the movie Matrix. Seeing the Flash movie again today, I noticed the link is not referring to the movie, but to a real data mining program called MATRIX (Multistate Anti-TeRrorism Information eXchange).
As ACLU website explains:

[This] surveillance system combines information about individuals from government databases and private-sector data companies. It then makes those dossiers available for search by government officials and combs through the millions of files in a search for “anomalies” that may be indicative of terrorist or other criminal activity...

It amazes me how many metaphors created by Hollywood movies (The Star Wras, the spaceship Enterprise, or the Evil Empire) are used by American political language, and how much the reality formed in the minds of people depends on the simulated reality previously manufactured by the media. But it is even more surprising to see that nobody notices something so obvious. It is a system of manipulation of minds based on a modern-age mythology which has replaced the reality.

In the movie Matrix, the book in which the 'drug-programs' are hidden is Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation.

Apparently the movie wants to make a parallel between Baudrillard ideas about reality and what the movie was trying to say, but as one expects from a Hollywood product it completely misses the point. While Baudrillard talks about the actual life and the ways media and the whole system functions as the Borgesian "Empror's Map" to create a reality for us, Matrix tries to remake a Christian drama with a Modern-Age savior, based on a beautifully done commercial interpretation of Berkeley's philosophy (esse is percipi, to be is to be perceived). The eventual result has nothing to do with Baudrillard.

Ironically -as we can see now- the real Baudrillardian Matrix is made somewhere else: in the Department of .. you know what. What they do under the name 'Matrix' is so much in line with the map Borges talks about: the Baudrillardian image of a reality that doesn't exist anymore. In the late '90s Wachowski Brothers asked Baudrillard to get involved in writing the script and making the movie Matrix. He never accepted. I wonder if he has ever wrote anything on the re-make, the real Matrix. That is something I love to read.

Untitled

2004-07-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

It's not a certain society that seems ridiculous to me, it's mankind.
--Eugene Ionesco (1912-1994)

The Bridge of Knowledge

2004-07-04T22:37:00.002-07:00

Crawling on a self-invented bridge,
and writing the history of one's own shaky movements as if it is the only path to truth.

This is how the mankind defines 'progress.'

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Photograph: Passage.
Photogravure with chine-colle coating by Robert & Shana ParkeHarrison.

Fahrenheit 9/11

2004-07-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

Did Fahrenheit 9/11 deserve the Cannes Film Festival award? Probably not.

The movie is a great piece of TV style documentary with a certain political agenda. It is made to inform the American public about the mafia who runs the government, and more than that it is made to change their mind about the ones they choose in the next election. In its rhetoric the movie uses the same devices the Right-extremists have used for years to manipulate the public mind. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a great political pamphlet, informing people in great numbers about what is going on in their 'democracy,' but at the same time bringing itself down to the level of the least intelligent TV shows. Is it the weak point for the movie or its stregth?

The fact is that the movie can convince many people not to vote for Bush in the next election, and makes them think about the criminals in power. But at the same time this kind of argument, the kind of over-simplification of the reality (like showing pre-war Iraq as a paradise for happy children and smiling people) that we see in the movie is something that the other side of the battle is expert in it. They can easily use the same technics against the movie.

There are certain beautiful moments in the work, like when Moore reads the Patriotic Act to the members of the Congress using a loudspeaker, while he is driving a Ice-cream truck, or when he asks the Congress members to sign up their children in the Army, but a big part of the movie is playing with viewer's emotions. Listening to a mother who reads the last letter of his son, killed in Iraq, who asks people not to vote for Bush is nothing but propaganda. The son could have written something in favor of Bush, and the crying mother could be shown on Fox. So what is the difference here between these two? When I think about it I don't see that much difference in the 'languge' used in both of these cases. The truth is to be politically effective, one can't do anything but what Micheal Moore does in this move: for a nation so addicted to fast-paced TV programs, simplified reality, and fast food (not only for stomack but for brain as well,) what else can be done to convince the nation not to vote for an idiot?
I call Fahrenheit 9/11 a political 'pamphlet' because despite its claims it still works on the surface, it plays with emotions and cry scenes rather than bringing up important issues such as WMD or the fact that the new wave of American imperialism began when Clinton was in power. It emphasizes on removing certain people from power, instead of talking about the mentality that is behind American foreign policy for decades. It doesn't show the roots of what is going on behind the scene. There are a lot of information on Saudis (which at certain points, in my view, becomes somehow anti-Arab rather than anti-terrorist), but there is no mention of the gang whose policies has brought the world to such a disastrous situation.

The fact that I politically agree with Michael Moore doesn't make his movie a good film, the same way my praise for cinematic beauty of movies such as Triumph of the Will or Battleship Potemkin, or my enjoyment of listening to Israel's national anthem does not make me a pro-Nazi, pro-Communist, or pro-Zionist. I think we need to separate art from its political agenda. The works which are made for attaining certain political goals all have political expiration dates. The question is if they are deep enough and artistically rich enough to survive the oblivion of history, when their political goals are a part of a forgotten past.

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Picture: "Fahrenheit 9/11" in Asr-e Jadid (meaning "Modern World") Movie Theater in Tehran. from cappuccino.

The Lovers' Wind

2004-06-30T00:11:00.000-07:00

Tonight I watched Albert Lamorisse's The Red Balloon on KCET. In many ways the movie is very much similar to The Little Prince: it is made for children but goes beyond that, it is extremely poetic, and it can be understood in a very mystic way. If somebody wants to know where the first movies of Abbas Kiarostami are coming from, Lamorisse is the answer.

Lamorisse had a very rich and short life. He made several short feature films and documentaries between the late 1940s and 1970, the year he died in a helicopter crash. He died while he was making a movie, Le Vent des amoureux (Baade Sabaa in Persian, or The Lovers' Wind in English.) The documentary was commissioned by the pre-revolutionary Iranian regime, to be used as a professionally made propaganda movie about the process of modernization in Iran. Instead, as it could be expected, Lamorisse made a lyrical movie narrated by a wind, Sabaa, traveling around the country and telling the viewer about the history and culture of Iran. The movie is mostly aerial shots implying a wind's view.

In 1970 when Shah saw the movie, he didn't liked it. He asked Lamorisse to add new scenes to the movie talking about him as the great leader of the country and the modernized of face Iran, meaning the newly build dams, neon lights in the streets of Tehran, and the newly build Hilton Hotel. One can imagine how Lamorisse would have felt about this. Since the shooting of the movie was finished by that time Lamorisse couldn't use the special Helicopter and features needed for the new aerial shots, they were not available any more. So instead he used the helicopter and the pilot that was provided by the Iranian Army. That proved to be a wrong choice. The helicopter and the pilot probably were not able to do the same kind of movements he expected them to do. In june 1970 Lamorisse and the crew of the helicopter died in a Helicopter crash in the Karaj's dam lake. The movie was re-edited and released 8 years later in 1978, when a revolution made all those talks about neon lights and dams unnecessary.

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For reading The Red Baloon go here.