Dar al Hayat from Saudi Arabia writes: "...unless the Iranian people start insulting Khomeini himself instead of Khamenei, the chances are slim for a second popular revolution that would compensate for the first one." My theory for improving Iran is like Whoman's, start with the easier, social issues like traffic. But if things were to really change, the omnipresent pictures should come down. However, the last thing to change in Iraq was the statues.

The BBC enlightens the outside world about the problems within the universities, if Mehdi's post below and ibelievethat Sharif students didn't explain it for you. "I pray for the day happiness shines on all women and men in Iran."

Time for reformers to resign by Ahmad Sadri. "A political system devoid of resignations must be viewed with suspicion." It was an excellent article.

Iranians write to the BBC. There are some people who are just like Khamenei living in a dream world: "I used to dream of living in the US. But under George W Bush it has become a police state, far worse than Iran and perhaps as bad as Nazi Germany." When I was in the US (March and April 2003) I saw many many peaceful protests about all sorts of issues (the Iraq war, sugar companies, the Everglades in Florida, even signs all through Americus, GA saying the mayor and police chief were part of an "axis of evil" and should be fired - "boot chief yates"!) and there were no thugs to beat anyone up. The worst that happened was Clear Channel (lots of radio stations are owned by them) sponsoring pro-war rallies. Obviously this Iranian guy has never been there. There's so much ignorance about other countries, all over the world, what can I do?

I got some email from an American in NYC with the subject "Reality Check" and body "are you really blogging from Iran?" and I said "yes, why do you doubt me?". Then she wrote back and said "Because isn't Iran a police state where they will drag you into jail for saying human things and beat you up or worse?". And I have been thinking about how to answer this. Initially I was quite angry, like Salam Pax was, thinking "why doesn't she believe I'm in Iran?" Then I got the reply and realised it was a good question, it's difficult to see into Iran from the USA.

I want to start by being positive. (Steppenwolf got in trouble with someone for saying you can't have a boyfriend/girlfriend in Iran, which is not really true.) You can speak freely in taxis, or with people you know well. It's not like Russia under Stalin or Iraq under Saddam. There's no "secret police" to turn you in for making subversive statements privately. It is partly democratic. Many newspapers have been closed, but there's lots of political debate within limits in those that are still open. An American professor from New Jersey visited here a while ago, and you should read his report. Unless you say something loudly and publicly and non-anonymously, nothing will happen. Signing petitions is not a problem unless the mullahs think you're part of an organised group.

Problems occur if someone famous "says" something publicly in opposition to the mullahs, like Ahmad Batebi, Montazeri, Aghajari, Abbas-Amir Entezam, Ali Afshari, or something the mullahs don't like, like Sina Motallebi, or lots of other political prisoners whose names I can't remember.

But if you're a nobody like me, and you write anonymously and in English, no-one will care. (I hope.)

Iraqi women forced to veil. Oh No, Not Again.

"It's an issue of people's rights - it's an issue not only of women's rights, but human rights - and people have a right to choose whether or not they wear the veil, what religion they practise, how they practise that religion," [UNICEF] chief told the BBC.

I walk past a UNICEF building in Abbasabad quite often. There's an armed guard outside, I always wonder why a children's fund needs an armed guard outside. Does UNICEF say anything about Iranian women who don't want to wear the veil?

And now I must write something positive! I'll think about it.

Christian Science Monitor gives one English translation of soosool:

"You define yourself by your enemies, and those were the superpowers back then," the analyst says. "But now they are fighting young people who put gel in their hair. That's the enemy. So it's demeaning, and not at all elevating for their self-image."

In news that's been completely ignored by international news agencies, Hashem Aghajari's sentence was reduced on appeal to four years in prison and a five-year ban from teaching. It's a good issue for the students to protest about, but maybe they have forgotten him. Also, Babak Payami, the director of "Secret Ballot" was arrested leaving the Russian embassy and is out on bail. Azam wrote about the 20 forbidden things on the Iranian internet and Ebrahim Nabavi's letter.

Mehdi lives in the Tehran University dormitory. He's been getting thousands of hits a day! Here is an English translation of the first part of his blog entry for June 14.

I left behind 3 days and 3 nights full of scandal. Only the first night of rioting was relatively quiet; it was about privatisation of the universities. But not the following nights. Even the people of Ansar savagely attacked the dormitories of Chamran. Take a look at these pictures. They are self-explanatory.




A group of people wanted to enter from the south-east door of Gisha; with military force they settled down there and there was heavy conflict. Groups and individuals and political wings with different purposes and intentions exacerbated the conflict and chaos, whether in the country or outside. I even heard satellite channels in some cases by broadcasting these scenes were encouraging the people to come into the streets. Among the students some people thought they were representatives of other students. In some cases they made unnecessary and mistaken decisions that mostly exacerbated the currents of chaos. From my point of view, I think the thuggish and illogical behaviour of the students, non-students, militia or Ansar was common to all. By the way, the number of students attending the conflict may not have reached 2000. I mean something between 1000 and 2000 people were involved, and the rest were unintentionally caught up in the incidents.

Graphic Gooya pictures. In the day of the internet, if anyone in the outside world cares, Iranians don't need someone like Ahmad Batebi to hold up t-shirts so much. Perhaps "The Economist" can get a good picture of this weeks' protests if the Israel/Palestine events don't overshadow it, and then the mullahs will be in severe difficulties.

Last night, the fourth night of the protests, I met a Reuters journalist, Jon. Jon has been in Iraq for a while, but has returned recently. I asked Jon how he estimated crowd sizes and he said it was just experience, and to think of a football stadium for example. A Manchester United match could be 50000 people. Before Jon left to go cover the protests (with his gas mask!), someone said to him to be careful because a Japanese reporter and his interpreter had been arrested. Any foreigners in the area would probably be treated with great suspicion. People were saying everywhere was crowded, the IR was going to end soon. Many soosools were protesting (can someone translate that term?).

I stayed behind and watched "Dr Strangelove". I hadn't seen it before, the video quality was bad and Dr S was difficult to understand. It was rather eerie. Of course I thought of what would happen if the mullahs got nukes. What would a regime whose ideology is centered around death and martyrdom understand of the notion of a nuclear deterrent?

This morning I read Jon's report and I was glad I wasn't with him! The New York Times report wasn't so good, because they equated basij and ansar-e-hezbollah. Ansar are more extremist and there are many more basiji than ansars. Basij are morality police who set up checkpoints to see if unrelated men and women are together and look for Western music or alcohol. I haven't seen checkpoints for a while now. Ansar don't do anything except beat people up, as they go around on their 1000cc motorcycles (more than 250cc is illegal here, unless you have connections, as they obviously do). But they are both mindlessly obedient to the Leader.

I had a discussion recently about the Iranian price of a Nissan Maxima (~$US50-60000) whereas the actual cost is about half that. The same is true for Kia Prides; the Economist reported that in Syria better quality Kia Prides are sold for less than half of the $US8000 they cost in Iran. The difference goes to the government here, who are thieves. I also talked to a professor about the car accident death rate Hooman commented on below. We agreed that I was wrong because it should be deaths per passenger mile, which means that the Iranian death rate is more than 10 times as bad, because passenger miles are much higher in the US than in Iran. Certainly, there are severe social as well as political problems here.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, HAMAS gives travel advice for Israel, asking foreigners to leave. The prophet Isaiah said "my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations" but it doesn't look like that's going to be true for a long time. Terrorists have other ideas... Another Haaretz article explained what Israel's actions look like to Palestinians, and what the consequences will be:

Therefore the PA has only one answer to the question why Israel decided to eliminate Rantisi now and not several months ago, when there was no dialogue with the PA and when there was no Israeli commitment to the road map - Israel wanted to stop the peace process. ...

Senior PA officials were already talking yesterday about how "thanks to Israel, the Hamas now has another national hero who at least in the near future will dictate the atmosphere."

In Tehran, more people know the direction to point their satellite dish than the direction to Mecca!

Iran denies UN nuclear team access to electric company. It won't go down well at next week's meeting. Yesterday Rumsfeld talked about Iranian nuclear ambitions.

Data on traffic accidents in Israel. I can learn some things about Iran from that... July and August are the most dangerous months, 5-7pm the most dangerous times. Death rate in Iran is >20000 per year and about 40000 per year in the USA. I used to think of it as number of people (USA = 290m, Iran=70m) but obviously there are many more cars in the USA. I read that in 2001 there were about 2.5 million cars in Iran, and 290m people in the USA, so approx. 145m cars in the USA. There are 5 million cars in Iran, half in Tehran, and 10m by 2008. so... death rate of 0.4% per car per year. Can that be right? (0.03% in USA).

Dormitory is looking worse for the wear.

One of the slogans of the students (same as four years ago): "Ansar jenayat mikonad, rahbar hemayat mikonad". (The followers (of Hizbollah) commit crimes and the Leader (Khamenei) supports them.)

Gooya reported that the students had arrested 3 ansars and wanted a prisoner swap :-)

Iranian Reformist Newspaper Promotes Democracy Without Americans. The things the yas-e-no editor says to foreign publications! Inshallah it's a sign of better times to come.

Thousands protest in Iran. I didn't hear about it until I read it on the net this morning. Which satellite TV channel was that?

Last night I went to a house in Darrus to meet a prospective new English student, and the family had four dogs: a pekinese, a daschund, a poodle, and a shih-tzu. My landlord has a dog and a cat, because he has space for them. But my apartment is too small.

Azam quotes the Iranian proverb that "a knife does not cut its own handle". But Mr Probitas suggests he will end it all soon.

Egypt bans "The Matrix Reloaded". "The first film was shown in Egypt, but was criticised by some Islamic newspapers, which claimed it espoused Zionism." Such nuttiness! They see Zionist plots everywhere, just like the leaders here.

NIGHTLIFE. Tehran's nightclubs are renowned throughout the Middle East, which doesn't mean that the visiting foreigner will find them to his taste. The most westernized of these are located in or around the large hotels: Arya Sheraton, Intercontinental, Hilton (Persian Room, dinner-dancing from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.); International (tea dance on Fridays at 5 p.m.); Park, Marmar Tavern, etc...

Most of the discothèques are on Pahlavi Ave., Baccara, Casba, Cave d' Argent, Le Château, Miami; or on Kouroosh-e-Kabir Ave., Borsalino, Harlem, Bohème, Cheminée, Lane Kaboutar; Markis, opposite the Iran American Cultural Society, Vozara St. The Moulin Rouge at Ferdowsi, Sevome Esfand St., offers entertainment in the local style. Private boxes are available.

Tehran's best cabaret is the Shekoufeh Now, Simetri Ave. The Copacabana, Takht-e-Jamshid Ave., also presents a show.

BARS. Between Shah Reza and Takht-e-Jamshid Aves. there are a dozen establishments of very special character where you can have a drink in the company of charming hostesses. A glass of iced tea sipped in such surroundings will cost you 300 Rs, which is not exactly a bargain.

There are also bars in the international clubs and large hotels. The bar in the Hotel Marmar is very fashionable (once a week, caviar is served on the house; the barman is a great character). Also fashionable are the Xanadu bar (beer on tap; attractive setting) and the Tehran Club bar (open fireplace).

Added suggestions for touring grand-dukes: Boccacio, Roosevelt Ave.; Lido, Shahabad Ave.; Rainbow,Shah Reza Ave. and Forsat St. As a general rule, bars stay open very late.

"Fodor's Iran 1979", by Richard Moore and Peter Sheldon, David McKay Company, New York, pp131-2

Here is a book review of "Religious Minorities in Iran" which I mentioned here a while ago, having seen it at last year's Tehran International Book Fair. "Iranian secularists and the left have done themselves no favours in their own lack of sympathy for the Baha'is. This is not because they may or may not have legitimate grievances about the religion, but because it portrays a continuing inability to understand what human rights are about." What can I say other than "he is right"? I don't have a solution. The measure of the humanity of a society is in how it treats its most marginalized citizens. Admzad has similar criticisms, but again no answers. He thinks that hatred is one of the features of Iranian culture. If you know a prominent Iranian in Iran who's spoken against the treatment of Bahai's in Iran please comment.

I was mentioned by Michael Ledeen as "one of the other bloggers" in his article. He didn't address my criticisms of him. He doesn't admit his own mistakes.

I've been looking at the Lonely Planet Iran guidebook... "...wages are lamentable by Western standards..."

Is it possible to measure how curious and knowledgeable about the outside world Iranians are? A review of Amir Taheri's "The cauldron: the middle east behind the headlines" suggested:

"And,yet, it is remarkable how misunderstood the Middle East is in the West. ( The reverse is even more true: as the author of this book shows , Middle Easterners know even less about the West and much of what they know is fantasy!)"

I couldn't find that quote in the book when I looked at it in the US. I think it is true (I need to add many nuances though - later!), but quotes like this about a certain Californian at the Lonely Planet thorntree don't increase my confidence...

``An example of American decadence: Got a neighbor three houses away who has 3 SUVs! One for himself, one for his wife and one for his 16-year old daughter. Each SUV sports an American flag. He also has an American flag attached to his garage and one on a flag pole in his front lawn. He's constantly yelling at his wife and daughter, and he allows his two dogs (German shepherds) to run the neighborhood and shit on other people's lawns. He worships George W. Bush to the point of telling everyone that Bush's profile should be carved on Mt. Rushmore, and he thinks we should nuke Iran because "they're a bunch of commies!". Michael Moore would have a field day with this guy! ''

I saw a lot of SUVs and houses with large American flags and Republican stickers in the Deep South. I'll see if I can find a good picture.

Guardians' council rejects referendum bill. Khatami will stay on to 2005, read the EIU analysis while waiting for the ICG analysis. If you're staying in Iran only in the hope that things will improve, I say leave.

Australian police raid Iranian homes. "She talked to them and said if you want to get the terrorists, you've got to go to Iranian embassy, not here, you've got the wrong people."

The streets are covered with pictures of Khomeini for the 14th and 15th of Khordad holidays. I remember the book "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" well, it is one of my favourites and I refer to it all the time. In the book, the author Jerry Mander (his real name) quotes a Hopi Indian theory that whatever you look at the most or meditate upon, you become like. In fact the idea is present in many world cultures and religions. He uses this and other ideas about how light enters in the top of your head to argue against TV. If you see Khomeini's unsmiling face everywhere and keep seeing it all the time, it will probably have a bad effect on you. Another word to describe the Iranian government is "necrocracy", government in the name of the dead (I read this in some Khomeini biography). In every country there is a dictator, you see his picture everywhere... in Iran, you see the dead dictator everywhere. It might be the same in Syria, with Hafez and Bashar al-Assad pictures everywhere, but I don't know.

The most important point for me, however, is that if the government spent on traffic a fraction of the time they spend on signs, Iranians wouldn't be treated worse than Swiss dog shit. The rule of law would be enforced and many of the problems of Iranian society would disappear at once.

Some links on how the US helped Iran with their nuclear program before the revolution. Dilip Hiro probably has a good book about this.

Slashdot has an article advising you to buy a bad computer for US college, because you won't be able to play games and if you work it out you're probably spending $1 a minute on classes!

Russia 'halting Iran nuclear help'.

Persepolis a comic book about an Iranian childhood. (see news.google.com for links) Interview with the author.

Khatami stalls for time; Mullah's Manhattan Project from instapundit. The author suggests a pre-emptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities... Let's not invade Iran based on weak "intelligence". Menas Associates has a page about Iran I found through some Reuters article.

Iran brain drain article on BBC. I am not sure that going to India is such a big improvement...
"Everyone wants to leave because of the economic problems, because of the social conditions facing young people," [he] said. It talks about English teaching here, but what it doesn't mention is how terrible the quality of teaching in Tehran is... people learn English grammar in school but not how to speak. I've met lots of people who have a degree in "English translation" from Azad Islamic University (four years!) that can't speak a word!! I wanted to talk about this: if you can speak English well, then you can leave, but if you can't, then you are out of luck because the main countries built on immigration (Canada, US, UK, Australia, NZ, South Africa even) are all English-speaking countries.

OK, some pictures from yesterday. I went to Darakeh again, arriving at 6:30am... walked for a few hours, had ash-reshteh, talked about mathematics problems... then I went to a gathering in a walled garden near Tajrish. Remember, "paradise" originally came from a Persian word meaning "walled garden". It was really great. In fact I went into the wrong place at first and it had to belong to a (dollar) millionaire... when I got to the actual place, it was even better and I could hardly believe I was in Tehran... of course, the area is full of magnificent houses no-one lives in... anyway, pictures tell the story best.

Eric Robert Rudolph arrested, I remember reading about this guy and thinking he would never be caught...

The Waldorf transcripts showing how Powell and Straw doubted the evidence... it reminds me of the joke about the preacher's notes... "argument weak here, shout loudly!"

Apathy in Iran. Finally, an article quoting people who live here. British Airways has 5 flights a week to Tehran now.

Iran holds Saif al-Adel. So what was he doing here?

A specialist on US-EU relations says: "U.S. hawks were privately pressing for pre-emptive strikes to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, as Israel did with Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981." Utilitarianism says: if everyone had the same pre-emptive policy as the US, what would the world look like? Would it be a safer place? I suppose looking at the big picture, it is Iran that needs to make concessions now, because the EU policy on Iran is going nowhere. Otherwise the EU policy will become closer to the US policy.

David Warren says Michael Ledeen is the best informed Western journalist on Iran? Is this really what people in the West think? I hope not.

I went through my nedstat links (see that graph over there?) and came to... Iranian or Canadian which has a horror story about a guy who was born in Iran but now has a Canadian passport travelling to the US. From there I went to where's my elephant which had a BBC link about Rumsfeld saying Iraq destroyed its WMD before the war. Does this make sense to you? I'm sure there's a big contradiction there somewhere, someone just needs to write a good web page about it, putting all the statements by Powell, Bush, Rumsfeld, Blix, Ritter etc together.

Disaffected Muslim is interesting. He/she is very articulate, self-aware and self-critical and I pretty much agree with everything he/she says. And I love dogs too! Little Green Footballs writes critically about the Muslim world, but I didn't like the guy's coverage of Rachel Corrie, for example. Just as it's possible for some to be anti-Israel in a kneejerk way, LGF is pro-Israel in the same way.

Wired News writes more about Iranian bloggers.

I patiently await the next International Crisis Group report about Iran. Possibly before June 16 (IAEA meeting), almost certainly before August 5 (one year since their last Iran report).

Chess in Kabul by Frans M. Hoynck van Papendrecht. Boys and girls get to play, and the article has good pictures too. Khomeini banned chess in Iran until 1988 and then Mullah Omar of the Taliban banned chess in Afghanistan. Note that Kabul is more liberal than the rest of the country.

"Prior to the Ayatollah, Iran, under the Shah, was the only Islamic country that organized chess and participated in chess tournaments, including the 22nd chess olympiad in Israel in 1976 (in Haifa)." (from the above link.)

I went to Kolakchal today and because it was Tuesday there were no people. That deserves pictures too!

Lieberman favours regime change in Iran:

"There's no nation in the world where the government is more anti-American and the people are more pro-American then Iran," he told FNS host Tony Snow. "And that's the equation we have to flip."

So, the USA should make the people anti-American and the government pro-American! Like the Arab countries, in other words...

Lots of other news in links: Iran Says It Holds No Senior Al Qaeda Members; two-faced Iran hiding Osama bomb goons; (what a classic tabloid headline) Iranian lawmakers protest to ayatollah; IIFM membership for Iran; Australian foreign minister's remarks in Iran; Azar Nafisi in The Atlantic; Ruzegar-ye-ma review; (sounds like the profiled presidential candidate would have been much more in touch than Khatami!) Lady Sun complains about having to wear socks.

Lastly, Cannes is going downhill... (switch to Venice)

"The poor quality of the pool this year -- a view shared by many -- raises questions about the French festival's traditional hegemony and festival director Gilles Jacob's unabashed reverence for directors based on their reputations rather than their most recent results."

SNSC bans publication of letter to Khamenei. (from ibelievethat). How ironic, to ban the publication of a letter which in part complains about the lack of press freedom! Khatami is the chairman of the SNSC.

Sen Robert Byrd writes "The Truth Will Emerge" concerning Iraq (from eyeranian)... the san francisco chronicle writes about regime change in Iran:

"Iran's hard-line government, accused by the Bush administration of harboring top al-Qaida members, poses a big problem for the United States and should be replaced, lawmakers said Sunday."

What would this sound like if we switched "Iran" and "the United States", then changed "Bush" to "Khamenei" and "al-Qaida" to "MKO"?

"According to someone" is an article in which the ombudsman of the Washington Post claims that, despite the Jayson Blair scandal, all their quotes from anonymous intelligence officials about Iran will be real quotes. He acknowledges the problems with anonymous sources.

Finally the Australian foreign minister talks to Khatami and Kharrazi, and it's reported in Australia this way and Iran this way. (Of course Iran Daily plays up the "blame America" angle, can't they think of something new?)

Yesterday I went to Darakeh again. The mountains were full of basiji wearing keffiyehs, and women in chadors. Some had green, red and white headbands. People were giving out free saffron drinks, and later free zam-e-zam soft drinks. The reason behind all these strange events was the commemoration of 3rd Khordad 1361/24th May 1982, the victory at Khorramshahr. There are lots of cloth murals up again.

I played some chess there... there was one interesting position, which I should convert to a jpg file in keeping with the new graphic style here!

Iran denies accusations about al-Qaeda. The interesting point about the Guardian article was that it mentioned European diplomats also say al-Qaida is in Iran. Also an Arab newspaper is quoted saying Saad bin Laden is there.

The pictures below are of chelo-kebab at the ali baba restaurant. They are for Mr Plate but anyone else is welcome to look and salivate :-)

Khatami won't resign. I told you this was a "game", didn't I?

"The administration of Mr. Khatami is very hopeful about the future of economic, social and cultural progress and thus the issue of resignation is out of the question."

Yes, everyone I meet is just so full of optimism! They are skipping and bouncing along the street, as money flitters out from their pockets! But they are making so much, it isn't worth their time to stop and pick it up! Happy happy joy joy!

"The future of the regime is very bright." Good good good. The problems are all in your mind! Just keep being happy and everything will be OK!

I intended to write about Iran's forex rate, it seems artificial... here is the first article I found.

Roya on I Believe That wrote about how annoying it is to go to university and have your clothes examined every time you go in, and that Larijanivision had a documentary concluding the problem was with women. Let's look at today's news, and see if men are responsible for any problems in Iranian society.

"Dishonored" truck driver beheads niece in public. I need to step outside myself, and be as objective as possible - is this an "Islamic" or "Middle Eastern" problem? Because I haven't heard about this kind of thing happening outside of these two "cultures" - whereever in the world it happens, there always seems to be some kind of "Islamic" or "Middle Eastern" connection. And another thing - it's always the MALE who's doing it, I've never heard of a story where an aunt/mother cut off her son's head because he was dating or had sex. You can tell me I'm wrong in the comments, if you think I'm wrong. That is, you can say it's just a problem of patriarchy, and certain cultures are backward in these areas. I have been thinking along these lines for a while - when women become emancipated, they have fewer children, and so patriarchal cultures are invariably dominant. I haven't read this idea anywhere, but I'm sure it's been discussed.

After more searching... "Honor killing is an Islamic duty" says the Islamic Action Front of Jordan; what is the Islamic view of honor killing?; "honor killing does not exist in Islamic law"; Anakultur "...organizes 8th of March celebrations in the most remote parts of the region [southeast Turkey] during the minimum of 2 hours celebration programme we talk to both to fathers, husbands, brothers and to the local authorities individually. Trying to explain to them that this practice of honour killing has nothing to do with the religion." So while the murderers and their supporters use Islam to justify honor killings, the majority who are horrified by such killings say Islam has nothing to do with it.

Once, the New York Times interviewed Molla Hassani (an ultra-conservative from Orumiyeh in the NE of Iran) and the journalist noticed that he was obsessed with stoning as a punishment for WOMEN, but never mentioned it once as a punishment for MEN. How can this be? On the one hand, Khamenei condemns honor killings, but on the other hand, this is the land of virginity testing and stoning to death for adultery.

On Sunday night I went to Chelo Kebab Ali Baba, immediately north of Vali-Asr Square. If you want to get away from people, this is a good place to go, because it has been practically empty every time I have been there. Remember that Tehran is like New York with 60 million people. (So why isn't the restaurant popular with young people, and how do they make money with no customers?) On the wall instead of pictures of Khomeini and Khamenei there are pictures of Khomeini and Taleghani. The decor and the pictures have not changed since 1979; in the West it would be promoted as "retro".

Aghdasieh Restaurant is also good. You can buy bread there without standing in line... the reason I'm going to so many restaurants is that while I was in the US, the power failed in my flat (for two months) and everything in my fridge died. I'm still trying to get rid of the smell!

Last Thursday I went to Darabad with a professor and a student visiting from the Netherlands. Because we went the wrong way at first, the way became difficult and my companions became fearful of walking across a sheer dirt slope. I was wearing bad shoes, with smooth soles, but I got to the other side and took amusing pictures of them with my new digital camera! On the way back I talked to the professor about a conference he and I are going to in the UK next month. The professor said recently he was talking to a woman who said getting a visa was easy! He said, "What time did you arrive at the British embassy?" and she said 5am! This seems perfectly normal in Iran, some people had stayed overnight!

Complaining is quite usual of course, this post was inspired by recent stories on Face It about how humiliating it is to obtain a visa, and the sort of humiliation Tehran airport officials put Iranians through. OK. So, I said to the professor, "Let me tell you what it is like to be in the British Embassy. Many diplomats live inside the compound. One day, after Friday prayers, the ansar-e-hizbollah (thugs who Mr Janati pays) turn up and throw bricks at your house, breaking all the windows. Then, they start throwing Molotov cocktails, eggs, tomatos etcetera. This happens very often for a period of several weeks. Another day, someone drives a pick-up truck full of gas cylinders into the wall of your house, killing himself, and then people start handing out leaflets saying he was a shahid/suicide bomber. Remember, it is a diplomatic compound, this is like an attack on the UK itself. And now you are asking why they treat Iranians so badly???" And he said, "but what if you are a head of department at a famous university (like he was) and have been to this same conference four times before? I will ring them to get an appointment and if they don't give me a reasonable time for an appointment then I won't go!" He has obviously developed ways of dealing with the stress in Iran under IRI (and he doesn't have economic problems), but the people like the ones on the Face It blog are desperate to get out, what can they do?

In passing: Mr Zarif doesn't realise that attacks on embassies are attacks on the territory of that country either. (from smccdi).

``M. Javad Zarif, Iran's United Nations ambassador, says Iran "has not invaded any neighboring country" for two centuries.

Since it is international law that a foreign embassy is the sovereign soil of the country represented, the Iranian invasion and hostage-taking of American diplomats from November 1979 to January 1981 stands in stark contrast to Mr. Zarif's assertion.''

The real saving private Lynch (from Face It) it's old but really interesting, I had to link to it.

US claims al-Qaeda operations chief in Iran and that Riyadh attacks ordered from there. Jeddah, Nairobi, Kuala Lumpur, or London, where will the next suicide attack be?

I saw a film last night Deserted Station at Asr-e Jadid cinema. (You can buy tickets on the net there, though I didn't for this). It was a terrible film and at the end I wondered what it was about. It must have been one of those "festival" films.

Iran steps up gas and oil ties with India (note remarks about Gujarat below). Jews of Morocco link. The Register writes about how Lawrence Lessig says the Internet is dying...

Jeff Jarvis gave me a link (Hooman told me about it), so maybe I'll get some visitors. A few days ago I wrote about an article by William Beeman studying the influence of Michael Ledeen. I posted some comments, which I'll repost here, because the article has gone stale now.

My problem with Dr Ledeen is the inaccuracy of some of his reports on National Review Online. Here are two examples:

1. He has written many times that Montazeri issued a fatwa against suicide bombing in April 2002 (Jewish World Review and National Review Online) and was quoted by David Warren, former CIA director James Woolsey, iranian.com, Glenn Frazier, Andrew Sullivan and many others.

Whereas Bill Samii of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported the same statement as:
"Montazeri backs suicide bombers" and Christopher de Bellaigue, the Economist correspondent for Iran, in the New York Review of Books simply
saw the statement as endorsing a two-state solution.

If you can read Persian, you can find the original statement here. There is no condemnation of suicide bombing. He is just saying the two peoples should move towards peace.

2. Along with SMCCDI, he's always writing about huge demonstrations which aren't happening! (The-regime-is-about-to-fall type writing.) Apathy characterises the situation here best. In one article he wrote about a demonstration where women burned their headscarves in public (after SMCCDI). Lots of Iranians reading the blog hoder.com had never heard about it.

I've always found "The Economist" to be the most objective English publication about the size of the demonstrations. The correspondent (who actually lives in Iran, unlike Ledeen) wrote in the New York Review of Books about the hype:

In the November 25 on-line edition of National Review, Michael Ledeen claimed that "something like half a million" Iranians had taken to the streets on November 22, "to demonstrate their disgust with the regime of the Islamic Republic." On December 6, in the same publication, he misrepresented events as follows: "The revolution is being led by students, workers, intellectuals, and military officers and soldiers."

So far as I know, Ledeen hasn't visited Iran since the days of Iran-contra —in which, acting as a consultant to Ronald Reagan's administration, he played a small and inglorious part.[*] His distorted analysis of events in Iran—which conflicts diametrically with my own experience—has unaccountably been given a platform by The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times. It would be interesting to know the sources of the information he and other conservative American commentators have been circulating about Iran.

(The de Bellaigue article's criticism of Ledeen has previously been noted at Blog Left and Cobban. But it's supposed to be copyright, so hasn't been noticed much in the blogosphere.)
For someone who has such massive influence, these kinds of mistakes are disturbing. Apart from the language barrier and the closed nature of Iran increasing the likelihood of such mistakes, these errors are the kind of things Westerners would LIKE to believe, so they get propagated extensively in English language media.

It could be just that he is getting wrong information from his sources, of course, but the kind of incidents reported in the NY Review of Books article above really make it clear that on-the-ground sources have much higher credibility. However such sources don't always have the wide distribution that Ledeen does.

Unfortunately I don't get many visitors to this blog, so I told William Beeman about the above and I'll see what happens. (Once in some comments on I believe that I took Ledeen's word on the fatwa, but there's no evidence for it except for Ledeen himself.)

US State Department launches new Persian web site. So, if you're Iranian and you can't GO to the US, at least you can read about it...

Q & A on the Saudi terror attacks. "[The terrorists] want foreigners to leave and to eventually bring down the Saudi government and replace it with a government which adhers much more strictly to the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam." If they succeed, there goes the foreign direct investment, they can all watch as their society goes down the toilet! I wonder how they will make Arabia more "Islamic"? Isn't it already like the Taliban was in many ways? That's the problem with mixing religion and state, you can never have too much religion for some people.

(Muse to self: The Chechen bombing killed more people (>=54 versus >=29), but this gets more attention in the world media. In Chechnya, an order of magnitude more Muslims are dying than in Palestine, but this gets little attention in all media. The Iranian media pays no attention because they don't want to antagonise Russia (nuclear technology), because their state Khomeinist ideology focuses on Israel, and because the whole Israel/Palestine issue is such a wonderful distraction strategy from domestic problems in both the Arab world and Iran. The book "The Tragedy of the Middle East" explains the last point. Similar arguments apply for the 2000 Muslims killed in Gujarat, India in February and March 2002. And for the Arab world's silence on Hama.) Naturally, as I've said before, 5000 Kurds being gassed by Saddam in 1988 also gets less attention than 3000 international deaths on 9/11.

Last night I went to McMashallah. I had a "Double Cheeseburger" for 1800T. A "Happy Meal" was 2000T. Does this sound familiar to anybody?

Mr MRK says MPs won't resign. Why should they, they get a Land Rover, an apartment, and the press reports everything they say. It's all a kind of "head game" with the people.

The sickness at the heart of Iranian society is manifested in the traffic.

Stop at the red light, before changing the government.

Now we DO have internet censorship in Iran.

Umm, the I believe that young women have not written about this. I wonder if it is affecting them and how they feel about it? Mr Steppenwolf is pretty angry about it.

As for me, it is not affecting me at all. Reza Pahlavi, Emrooz, WomenInIran, Golshan, Molla Hassani. Yes, I can see them all. I'll let you know if this changes.

But Mr Steppenwolf, there is no need to get angry. There is something Iranians can learn from Arabs (!), because they have had to deal with this problem much longer than Iranians. Wayne's proxy avoidance will help, Peekabooty is simpler still. If you can't get it to work email me and I'll see if I can help.

Hopes for reform in Iran fading. Mr. MRK is about three years behind the general population... but this is not a democracy.

Stella Artois is called "horse piss" in at least 4 places on the internet, one, two, three, four.

Council's quashing of bill very unexpected to Khatami. Shakouri-Rad said that the bill would not be referred to the Expediency Council; Iran Press Service wrote about a resolution within two months. I predict the survival of the regime, despite the pressures.

Yesterday I went to the book fair again, and bought "Old New Zealand" by Maning, ($US90 on amazon.com, $US18 there); a critical edition of "Emma" by Jane Austen, History of the Twentieth Century, and "Fanny Hill" (Wordsworth)! I was rather surprised by the last one's availability. A wide range of uncensored material is available if you read English. At this rate, perhaps they'll be selling "The Satanic Verses" in a few years! On the way back I stopped by "Kabooky Fried Chicken", the taxi fare to Tajrish was 400T, but 100T yesterday!

State Department transcribes American Enterprise Institute conference. (What's happening there?) Other coverage at Payvand. Michael Ledeen is profiled by Brown University professor William Beeman (like his last article I linked to, quite informative).

Hoder talks about blocking of his site. From my perspective I have never seen any blocking of any site... of course I'll post if that changes.

Thursday, the first day of the weekend. The Tehran International Book Fair is on, and I had cards to buy books to the value of 100,000 tomans. The books are subsidised to the rate of about 300 tomans to 1 US dollar, whereas the usual exchange rate is 800 tomans to the dollar. Building 44 is where the new English books are, nothing older than 2001. Building 41A is older books.

So, I was feeling lazy, so I took a private taxi there (1600T).
All the stalls were full of people, except

"The Institute for the Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeini's Works"...which was surrounded by Cambridge University Press, Phaidon, and Gale Group. Today, it ended up that I bought three books, all from Routledge. Iranian History and Politics, usually US$90 but today 31800 tomans ($US38.87); English-only Europe? (about $US10), and Religion Without God.

You see, we have freedom in Iran! You can buy books about atheism now, despite the regulations that say nothing contrary to Islam can be sold. There are two big reasons why: (1) it's not in Farsi, it's in English and (2) the TIBF is a unique event, many things change - taxi fares can be multiplied many times, for example.

On the way home I stopped by Tam Tam Pizza near Tajrish Square. This is where young couples go to intertwine hands and feet and flirt with each other. A disturbing number of Iranian young women smoke now. I don't find this attractive.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has a meeting of its board of governors in Vienna from June 16-20. Iran wants the IAEA to clear it. But the USA wants the IAEA to find Iran in breach of the NPT. I'll be interested to hear the Economist's take on this in a few days. But from the quotes in the articles, it doesn't look good for Iran, because other countries have the same suspicions as the US and Iran only has Russia for its "friend":

A senior Western diplomat who attended the IAEA meeting yesterday in Vienna said Iran's report was unconvincing.

''It was a skillful performance,'' said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''They tried to give the image of transparency without providing substance about their nuclear program. We think they are hiding things.''

China admits supplying Iran with uranium hexaflouride and when you combine that with the Reuters article saying:

Diplomats say IAEA officials had detected that Iran had introduced some uranium hexafluoride into the gas centrifuges, which would be a clear breach of the NPT.

then you have bad news for Iran. The articles say Mr ElBaradei is in a difficult situation.

15000 mile bike tour.

``And despite hiding their cash in "hard to reach" places, a "fake policeman" in Iran robbed the family of $30,000 in Taiwan currency ($861), $200 in U.S. currency and another $200 in euros ($226). And they also had money trouble in China when $3,600 in U.S. currency turned black and moldy after heavy rain seeped into the cash.''

This happens all the time... Lonely Planet has several stories like this (also saying the police didn't want to help), El Traveler has a very detailed account and a follow-up describing in detail how the Iranian police didn't seem to want to help!

Internet offenses bill under consideration. Hoder wrote about something like this.

As for this alleged CBS program on Rafsanjani on 60 minutes (saw on peiknet.com, hoder.com): Iran is really not THAT important in world affairs, that the Expediency Council leader would have a program on him in America. Not many people know who Rafsanjani is outside Iran, believe it or not. Of course he is rich by Iranian standards, but not enough by world standards to be in the billionaires' list.
So an American program said to be investigating his wealth is just some Iranian's fantasy.

60 Minutes only interviewed him in 1997 because he was the president. Now, it is true, he is still one of the three most powerful men in Iran, but I don't think American viewers are going to be interested enough to sit through a program on him.

The Google Dance means that some google servers have more up to date results than the main server. If everyone knew this many would look to see which server has the latest search information, like I do.

Some Iranians would welcome a US invasion. I know people on both sides of the issue; according to the writer, sentiment in Tabriz and Kandovan supports it. I liked the quote at the end, though surely it isn't original: "If you're going to photograph the mullahs," says one photographer in Tabriz, "do it in black and white. That's how they see the world."

The attitude of European people in general... "English should be everyone's second language.". The attitude of French people: "English should be everyone's second language. FRENCH should be everyone's first language!" (Every human being should speak French!)

Anyway, the Festival de Cannes runs from May 14 to 25. When viewing the website, you have a choice between French (denoted by 6001 in the URL) and English (6002). A film from Iran is showing outside the official selection, in the directors' fortnight. It is called "Deep Breath" by Parviz Shahbazi. Even if you read about it in Le Monde it is still called "Deep Breath" not "Souffle Profond". English has taken over!!! Britannia rules the waves!

Miss Iraniangirl points out Lady Sun's English weblog. There is less risk involved in writing an English weblog in Iran, like this one, and the audience is completely different (much more international).

Australia Shows Iranian Asylum Seekers The Door.

"This simply underlines how right the government has been to take a strong stand on illegal migration," Downer said. "The simple fact is that if the government had taken a weak stand and just allowed anyone into Australia who wanted, without a visa, we would have ended up with a very major problem."

I've often thought about what would happen if Iranians emigrated en masse to Canada, the US or Australia. I think that immigration needs to be gradual so that the people who emigrate understand the culture and political background of the country they are emigrating to. With some people in the UK already calling for the UK to become an Islamic state and al-Qaeda's alleged plan to make an Islamic super-state including Australia, massive immigration would cause severe problems. The bad apples would come along with the good. Most of the Iranian asylum-seekers' claims have been rejected, and I know from conversations with diplomats just how far people will go to get out of here... on the other hand I've never been to a mandatory detention camp.

NYTimes Magazine writes about proliferation. Neo-cons want Japan to go nuclear to counterbalance North Korea; and the IAEA can't do anything about Iran without their co-operation; the US has an idea about this.

``In Iran, which lives in a hostile neighborhood and retains more than a little Persian pride, the reformers seem just as dedicated to a nuclear future as the mullahs.
...

They also hope the Iranians and their sponsors will take the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as fair warning.

''I think the presence of 200,000 American troops on their border for X period of time may tend to concentrate their attention,'' observed a senior American official. ''

Right-wing think tanks rule DC. I am interested in this because it will tell me what the US will do next regarding Iran. Think tanks mentioned are the Hoover Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Enterprise Institute (where Michael Ledeen works).

I'm back in Iran.

Al Jazeera quotes Ali Nourizadeh on the bills before parliament. (Actually, a groups.google.com search shows this is from March 24 or before.)

“The hardline Council of Guardians will not approve those laws,” Zadah said. “Khatami will then either resign or call for a referendum – which is what Washington wants – since the majority of Iranians want a change in government – a secular one and not Islamic. If the US is in Iraq, you can expect rapid changes in Iran.”

I agree with the part about the GC, but not the bit about Khatami. I think the Economist Intelligence Unit has it right.

Roadmap for Middle East peace.

ivj leads to: Iranian MP to face court over prison claims;

A reformist MP faced the threat of arrest yesterday after judicial authorities accused him of undermining Iran's national interests by informing UN human rights monitors about alleged abuses of political prisoners.

In the Iranian constitution there is no right to absolute freedom of expression. Tough luck for him!

Alireza Jabari wrote an article in a Canadian journal no-one's ever heard of, and now he gets 253 lashes... (in fact if you type "Charvand" into a search engine, all you get is info about this case!)

Ledeen pontificates about what Bush should do.

"...Our mission is not merely "regime change" in Baghdad, it is to win the war against the terror masters in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. " Ummm. He forgot Libya which he wrote about in March. ("...suggestions that the West take stern measures against the tyrannical terrorist sponsors in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Saudi Arabia.") Israel has so many enemies it's difficult for him to remember them all in his articles! And he didn't write about North Korea either. Or Sudan and Cuba in the "Patterns" report below.

It's that time of year again! Patterns of Global Terrorism 2002 from the US State Department

"Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism in 2002."
Perhaps it's true, or perhaps for the last couple of years they've been taking the reports and just changing the year...

Donald Rumsfeld talks to Abu Dhabi TV.

"In Iran what you have is a small group of clerics that are running that country in a way that is not democratic, that is repressive of the people, and I sense that there's stirrings in that country, that the young people, and the women, and the people who would prefer to be free and not have to follow such a rigid line, would like to see a change in that country. Now that's their problem. "

So, if you were worried that there was going to be a US invasion of Iran, relax, don't worry! And if you were worried that there wasn't going to be an invasion (?) it's your problem! Perhaps you could listen to Tabarzadi or someone (link from here from Iraniangirl).

Economist Intelligence Unit updates Iran forecast.

Is the world not black and white enough for you? Does it disturb you that it is multi-coloured? Are three dimensions too many? Are you adrift on the sea of uncertainty in today's world? If so, ask the imam! Don't think, just obey!

Typical Ask The Imam Question

There are funnier things on al-shia.com, but I found the above English site through the newsgroup soc.culture.iranian. Enjoy!

Paul Weyrich writes that the Internet is forbidden in Iran... also linked on Free Congress Foundation.

Mr. Weyrich has been named by Regardie's Magazine as "one of the 100 most powerful Washingtonians."

This world is in a baaaaaaaaad way! :-( Check the archives for a professor in Canada who doesn't know much better.

Vahid Tarokh goes to Harvard.

(Following links from SMCCDI:) Source of jamming satellites identified but majlis keeps it secret (this is the Middle East, after all!);Al-Alam becoming popular in Iraq; Israel claims Iran wants to undermine new Palestinian government.

Scott Ginsberg makes it on to CNN! Why didn't I think of that idea?

Bush: WMD in Iraq may never be found. This is sounding suspicious...

Canadian advice for Iran changes, removing the "don't go" advice. Maybe they want to be friendly after the WHO recommended against travel to Toronto.

Iranian born not welcome in US. A litany of famous Iranian-born people with visa problems.

SARS worse than AIDS...

Professor Dominic Dwyer, infectious disease specialist at Westmead Hospital and one of the scientists leading Australia's efforts on SARS, said he believed a mortality rate of 4 per cent for the disease was probably an underestimation.

Moscow alarmed about Iranian nuclear program what?!

Why I must move to Japan

the most interesting article I have seen on slashdot in a long time, a former Microsoft employee reviewing a book about the famous Microsoft interview process!

inshallah I shall be back in Iran soon!

Shi'a Muslims and opposition to America in Iraq.

First the quotes from people:

"We want an Islamic state here similar to the Iranian model," said Omran Kadhem, a doctoral student and public affairs officer at Karbala University. "We tried liberalism, Communism and secularism, but none of them worked, so why not try an Islamic state?"

(kaveh: well, I can think of a couple of reasons...)

[Mr Nasseri said:] "I want a Shiite cleric to rule Iraq, whether it be Iraqi or Iranian. I would rather have someone like Mr. Khomeini rule Iraq rather than any secular Iraqi."

Arrrggh! Talk about learning nothing from history! Yet, it is difficult for people to learn from their own mistakes; how much more difficult it is to learn from the mistakes of others.

OK, I have a brilliant idea! We can swap around all those people on Hoder's blog who'd rather be ruled by Americans than mullahs, and people like that in Iraq. Then everyone will be happy! There is a small problem with Arabic, but people on the Iranian side are supposed have learned Arabic in school, right? :-) And people like Mr Nasseri will be so happy to be ruled by mullahs, that they will learn Persian in no time!

If you didn't hear what happened to the 100 students from Amir Kabir University who wrote to Mr Karzai wanting to go and study in Afghanistan, a newspaper in Herat wrote in January that:

"Subsequently, the embassy of Afghanistan in Tehran welcomed this suggestion and hoped the head of the transitional Islamic administration of Afghanistan will accept this suggestion with his kind favour.

There is no doubt that the letter from Iranian students to the head of the Afghan administration had a symbolic aspect and from their point of view it is regarded as a symbol for the dominant political situation of their country."

(from BBC monitoring - Awa-e Naw, Herat, in Dari 21 Jan 03)

A transcript of Carnegie Council appearance of "Answering Only to God" authors Geneive Abdo and Jonathan Lyons.

"Every day is Ashura and every land is Kerbala" - Imam Jafar Sadeq. Today is Good Friday (and the second day of Passover). I don't hear people say "Every day is Good Friday and every place is Calvary" but it's not an unknown sentiment because two of the google hits (for the first part) were for Jerusalem and the Middle East. Apparently someone called Bossuet did say something like the above:

“Every day is Good Friday; every day the scene of Calvary is enacted on our altars.” (describing Catholic Mass)

Hezbollah and Americans. "So they can expect harshly worded letters."

The release of Qasem Shol'eh Saadi was connected to Amnesty, apparently... and Satellite TV is being promoted again (from SMCCDI.)

A pseudonymous writer for Eurasianet says that both the UK and Iran governments tried to hush reporting of the attempted "suicide attack" (?) on the British Embassy in Tehran. How does one go about that? It can't be easy in the age of weblogs.

NYTimes on Iraqi complaints. They are just like (some) Iranians! Or is it the other way around?

But individual protest has almost reached a fever pitch, as scores of Iraqis around the city asked reporters if it was true that Mr. Hussein was now in the United States (the evidence: that Baghdad fell so quickly, a deal must have been struck). They are also, in greater numbers, beginning to blame American soldiers for the looting that has stripped the nation's property bare, from desk chairs to ancient Sumerian artifacts.

Iran’s war apprehension is growing. The director of Middle East studies at Brown University (an Ivy League university) writes something I didn't know.

"The office of Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, has prepared invasion plans for both Syria and Iran. However, they have not yet been presented to the National Security Council or the President. Moreover, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice is reported to be opposed to any further military action in the Middle East."

There may well be invasion plans for many countries, after all, the US military dwarfs all others.

There's lots of news today, I'm having trouble keeping up. All is from google news or Iranvajahan.

Japan's foreign minister urges Iran to come clean on weapons program. When a logical successful country talks to an illogical failed one, will they listen? Perhaps criticism from Japan can help make up for the lack of self-examination from inside the country.

Iraqi playing cards.

Israel Radio comments on implications of Iraq war for Iran.

Iranian Hard-liner Says U.S. Must 'Reward' Tehran. He and his ilk have been yelling "Death to America" for 25 years and now they expect a reward? Stay in cloud cuckoo land.

Clerics see writing on the wall. Shahla Azizi chats to taxi drivers and people in Tehran - but this may not be objective because they respond according to how you are dressed, she admits.

Finally, fun stuff... language reading abilities among New Zealand boys have dropped [New Zealand] alongside Iran, Belize and Kuwait when it comes to the difference between the sexes. And Melanie Griffith shows if you try to look young it just makes you look old. (Or freaky, like Michael Jackson.)

Secret deal.

An Iranian news agency close to top conservative military figures attributed the fall of Baghdad to a secret tripartite agreement between Saddam Hussain, Russia and the U.S.

Uh huh. Go and re-read that comment about Middle Eastern media a few days ago. But what's worrying is how the Iranian leadership still doesn't see the link between "cause" and "effect". They are back in the earliest stage of human development, somehow.

Some US "analysts" are no better though. Finally Michael Ledeen reveals the neo-con plan for Iran:

"We, and the Iranian people, want a peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy. There is even a suitable leader for the transition period: the late shah's son, Reza Pahlavi, widely admired inside Iran despite his refreshing lack of avidity for power or wealth."

My jaw just dropped. Who *IS* this guy talking to inside Iran? Did he read "Answering Only to God" by Abdo and Lyons, and did he listen to their press conference where they said this isn't going to work? He's playing and dancing to a completely different tune.

The Salt Lake Tribune has an article asking whether many teachers and students will move from Qom to Najaf. Recommended reading for today is: "The Mantle of the Prophet" by Roy Mottahedeh. It is one of the best books on religion and politics in Iran, and it's written in English by a Harvard professor. (Is that strange?)

If the history of Iran and Iraq has taught the people anything, though, it's that charismatic leaders are dangerous, especially if they become dictators.

Today I reinstalled mozilla for Linux, Persian/Arabic sites weren't working. Previously I had "unstable" in my /etc/apt//sources.list and just had done apt-get update, then apt-get upgrade, and it gave me a 2003-03-27 Mozilla. But the Unicode/UTF-8 support was completely broken. I spent six hours with xfstt (X font server true type), xfs, xfs-xtt, gucharmap, gfontview, mkfontdir, ttmkfdir, copying TrueType fonts from my windows partition, stuffing around with pref.js to make it recognize truetype fonts based on the advice on mozilla.org, etc. Nothing worked!!! Just then I said to hell with it, erased all vestiges of mozilla from my system, then downloaded the generic version 1.3 from mozilla.org, and ran the installer. Now everything works fine again.

The problem was that it couldn't seem to find any unicode fonts, so I was just getting boxes with numbers. What's the moral? Maybe, don't upgrade mindlessly?! If it's not broken, don't fix it, perhaps? Yet the Linux kernel releases up to 2.4.20 (the most recent) have been vulnerable to a local root exploit involving ptrace, requiring an immediate fix.

Mr Kho'i was killed by fellow Shi'ite Muslims. Iraq is divided in ways that outsiders like me cannot understand.

The Iraqi opposition:

The Iraqi opposition is about as divisive a bunch as could possibly be conceived. This is partly a reflection of Iraq's ethnic and religious patchwork, partly a result of the diverse spectrum of cruel experience Iraqis have suffered, and partly, Iraqis readily admit, a reflection of national character. One short-lived prime minister during the 1921-58 monarchy is said to have remarked, when asked why he declined to form a political party, “Find me three Iraqis who agree on anything, and I certainly would.”

Eurasianet interviews Mohsen Kadivar (who, like Soroush, left Iran to teach at Harvard).

The Economist writes about the fifth edition Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. In the online version of the article they helpfully provide links to amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. The UK version has 3739 pages and costs the equivalent of $US120.30. The US version has 3984 pages and costs $US105.00 (eh? that must be why the sales rank is higher).

If you want to buy the complete 20 volume 1989 Second OED, it depends where you live! If you are in the US, it is $US895; Canada, it's $US1250; Singapore $US1400; Australia $US1500, New Zealand $US1800; and UK/Europe, $US2800!! (Yes, I checked both oup.co.uk and amazon.co.uk, though it is less than 1/3 the price used.) It is a very strange pricing structure. Outside the UK, there is an INVERSE relationship between how much money people have and its price; and in its home country it's 3 times the price it is in the US. (Only in the UK can you have the blue leather edition for more than twice that price.)

Since I move around so much I think the CD-ROM (version 3.0) is for me. Also, the hard copy doesn't have hyperlinks, or the supplements included. Again, the price depends on where you live. $US295 in the USA, $US320 ($US390 from the OUP site) in the UK/EU, $US500 (for version 2.1?!) in Canada, $US387 in NZ, $US330 in Australia, $US235 in Singapore. (And $US3 in Iran. The lack of a copyright convention is one more thing keeping Iran out of the WTO, and an Iranian trade official told me that Iran intends to use it as a bargaining chip, which sounds illogical to me.)

Getting back to pricing differences, where will you buy the fifth book of Harry Potter ("The order of the Phoenix") when it is released? amazon.com offers a 40% discount, but amazon.co.uk offers a 50% discount! Of course they both come out on June 21. Assuming the exchange rate stays the same, it means the UK version is much cheaper ($US13.26 vs $US17.99) for a change! Ooooh, and Janet just explained to me that in the UK, the only difference between the "adult edition" and the normal one is the cover. So that you don't get seen reading a kid's book! "No, I am not kidding!" - Janet

In real life, I am having a discussion about the meaning of "pimp juice" (in Persian, "ab-e-koskesh"). It was Sarah who brought it to my attention. Fortunately a web search provides the answer. Sarah tried to explain it to me by printing out the lyrics to this song. There is a definition in the song:

"Now your pimp juice is anything, attract the opposite sex
It could be money, fame, or straight intellect"

but there's also an interview with the artist, Nelly which clears it up (I think). Let me say I am just amazed by the profundity of Nelly's lyrics. It just beats any Shakespeare, Dante, or Hafez:

"It's getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes,
I am getting so hot - I wanna take my clothes off."

Good to see concious, thought provoking lyrics coming back.

And I finished reading "Reading Lolita in Tehran!" I learned new words like upsilamba and poshlust that I could have picked up reading Nabokov in the first place. Maybe there will be a review soon; I recommend it to all interested in modern Iran or women's issues there though.

Former CIA analyst: US ‘conned into war’

I was just writing about Robert Baer there... what does he think about the war?

“The American people, Congress, government and president were conned into this war, in the full sense of the word, by neo-conservatives and hawks in Washington who sold a false bill of goods. The president was lied to and given erroneous information that was filtered through Iraqi exiles who had not lived in Iraq for 20 or 30 years and had no clear idea of realities inside Iraq. The exiles had no intention of fighting themselves, but wanted the US to fight for them,” he told The Daily Star Thursday in an interview.

British embassy attacked.
MOLOTOV cocktails were thrown at the British embassy in Tehran as around 250 Iranian students demonstrated against the war in Iraq. ...

The demonstrators, who were calling for the expulsion of the British ambassador, burned US and British flags and chanted "death to America, death to Britain", while throwing tomatoes and eggs at the embassy.

They also distributed the photograph of the driver who was killed as his car smashed into the wall of the embassy compound on April 1, with a note reading "martyr of a suicide operation".

An interesting detail.

Bush puts God on his side. The BBC article contrasts this with Lincoln, who said the civil war was a curse on both sides. Also, a minister remarks that believing God is on your side makes life easy for believers because no self-examination is then required. It is exactly what happened in Iran; it's why the leaders there are unable to criticise themselves, and the future is grim. A thought from Dave Andrews: it's those people who are absolutely certain that they are doing God's will who commit the worst atrocities.

Fark on how Fox would cover historical events. I liked the "Kent State Shootout" one the best. (Both today'ls links from popdex).

Over at the I believe that blog a writer comments on Zahra Eshraghi's denial of the statements attributed to her in the New York Times. It seems she believes Eshraghi rather than journalist. Unfortunately, there's a long history of Iranians making taped statements to Western journalists and then denying they ever said such things! (see comments at the other blog). So I tend to believe the journalist. As an Iranian friend once said to me, "Spanish culture is just like Iranian culture, only they don't tell lies!" :-)

This brings us into a discussion about taqiyah. What is taqiyah? It is dissembling for the sake of faith, or hiding your true beliefs. At the link they quote (interestingly) Jesus and St Paul not saying exactly what they mean. The deputy judiciary chief of Iran, Larijani is quoted by Elaine Sciolino as saying...

"There's a hidden reality, a hypocrisy that keeps the peace," Larijani told me.
"It protects the dignity of the other. Architects don't build glass houses in Iran. If you don't speak of everything so openly, it's better. Being able to keep a secret even if you have to mislead is considered a sign of maturity. It's Persian wisdom. We don't have to be ideal people. Everybody lies. Let's be good liars."

It's relevant today because the fatwa from Sistani is under discussion at the same blog, and taqiyah can provide a good explanation of why there is so much argument over it! That is, Iranian state-controlled media does all they can to deny it, Iraqi TV quotes Sistani saying attack the invaders, etc. I know, I know, as if I'd attach credence to state-controlled media... but unless you've lived in a free, open society you won't really understand the safeguards against error in the media of such societies. Bias on the other hand is unavoidable (go and read Manufacturing Consent). There's a great quote from the book "See No Evil" by Robert Baer I can use here. I hope it helps Westerners understand Middle East media, and Iranians understand Western media (granted, Iranian press is among the freest in the Middle East):

"In the Middle East, life goes on behind high walls, out of view of strangers, especially foreigners. And it wasn't just walls made out of mortar and stone. The Middle East is a place wired to obscure the truth. Television and newspapers don't report news; they report whatever propaganda the government wants them to report. Investigative reporters don't exist. Books on politics and society aren't worth reading. The only time a scandal spills into the public is when the government decides it should. At the personal level, things are no different. Middle Easterners believe that the less they give up about themselves, the better. They'll talk about politics only in the most general terms, and they wouldn't even consider discussing terrorism. In their eyes, terrorism is a state activity; expressing your opinion on it just gets you thrown in jail."

Some UK embassy staff quit Iran after truck blast; Eight family members of British embassy staff leave Iran. Like I was saying, some Iranians want to scare all foreigners away, or don't realize the effects their actions are having. This reminds me again of the Daugherty article:

``These same Iranians who shouted "death to America," who condemned everything American as evil or decadent, and who would have killed us had it been ordered, would nonetheless ask my colleagues for help in obtaining visas to the United States, and then could not understand why they were laughed at. If the reader by now suspects, too, that these Iranians, at least, seemed to have difficulty with the concept of cause and effect, he or she would be dead on.''

The LA Times reports 50% support among Americans for taking action against Iran if it continues to develop nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Hmmm. I understand to some Iranians it's a national pride issue to get nuclear weapons, since Pakistan has them. But...

``... Shahram Chubin, in a study for the International
Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), points out, acquiring nuclear weapons
"would put Iran into a different league of risk and reprisal, and this would
not necessarily leave it with enhanced security."'' (Economist)

This is so true, but as I have noted so many times, the current Iranian leaders are incapable of self-criticism (perhaps there's a shortage of mirrors in their houses or something). And don't expect them to adopt the rational path, this is the Middle East!! I have grave fears for the region...

Finally a reader asked me to link about Najaf, Karbala, and Imam Ali. Umm, I was going to say a week ago that the US news channels were never pointing out that Najaf and Karbala are holy cities to Shi'ite Muslims, but this did change as the US troops approached.

On April 1, Dilip Hiro was writing in the Guardian about Ayatollah Sistani's opposition to the invasion. The article had a very negative tone. Today the Ayatollah issued a fatwa urging Iraqis not to resist! Now the US will definitely win the war, because Shi'ites make up 60% of the population of Iraq and Sistani is the highest religious authority in Iraq. Perhaps Saddam's "becoming religious" has backfired on him. It remains to be seen how long the war will take, because the supply lines to Baghdad must be stretched very tightly like a rubber band...

Iran hardline watchdog rejects curbs on its powers. Unless I'm mistaken, so-called "reformers" were talking big a few months ago about how this bill would never go to the Expediency Council and they would call a referendum or Khatami would resign or something big. Now Mr Shakouri-Rad seems to be backing down. It's further evidence that no fundamental change is in the offing.

Summary of war/peace arguments from Daypop.

Truck crashes into British embassy in Tehran. This version from ABC News is by far the most "negative" version, quoting an eyewitness saying it looked like a suicide attack. But if you hav e seen how contraflow bus lanes work in Tehran it's hard to see how it could have been an accident. It's particularly bad timing too. The police drove off all the witnesses and this is not the way to dispel suspicion and establish trust. In open societies the truth is easier to establish, allowing for self-criticism.

Medellin, Colombia is becoming a much safer place:

Homicide is down 38% over the same period last year, from 114 to 75, though according to a community leader from 20 de Julio, "they are not killing people in the neighborhood anymore. Rather, they take them out and kill them in neighborhoods nearby, which distorts the indices of violence in Comuna 13."

People now sleep easily at night:

Gunfire no longer echoes through the night because now more than half the killings are done with knives.

On the History channel I watched Killing Pablo twice in the last few days. The people who were being interviewed explained that there are important lessons in "fighting terrorism" to be learned from the whole story. A paramilitary group called "Los Pepes" (People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar) began killing everybody associated with him, so all of Pablo's allies were "running for their lives, dead, or arrested" (turned themselves in for their own safety). So Pablo didn't have any friends left and was hunted down by the police. Los Pepes evolved into AUC, which is now fighting Pablo's effective replacement, the FARC organisation. So, is fighting terror by "pre-emption" and "taking the gloves off" effective? Look at Colombia and learn...

Some Iraqis want war. (via Daypop.) The mental effects of living in a police state are described. The International Crisis Group while interviewing people in Iraq had characterised the situation before the US invaded as an ongoing war, which required an end. We will see whether this war was moral if the Iraqi post-war reaction is the same as the Afghan reaction.