From the International Children's Digital Library
A Journey Round My Skull - Archives: The Star of Manners and Letters
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
A Journey Round My Skull - Archives: The Star of Manners and Letters
Illustrations by Aazarnoush Ebraahemiroushan for The Star of Manners and Letters (Iran, 1986). The book features "a selection of 4 poems by a famous contemporary poet teaching a code of morals."
From the International Children's Digital Library
From the International Children's Digital Library
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
The Iranian Threat By Noam Chomsky
By Noam Chomsky
Monday, June 28, 2010
www.zcommunications.org/the-iranian-threat-by-noam-chomsky
The dire threat of Iran is widely recognized to be the most serious foreign policy crisis facing the Obama administration. Congress has just strengthened the sanctions against Iran, with even more severe penalties against foreign companies. The Obama administration has been rapidly expanding its offensive capacity in the African island of Diego Garcia, claimed by Britain, which had expelled the population so that the US could build the massive base it uses for attacking the Middle East and Central Asia. The Navy reports sending a submarine tender to the island to service nuclear-powered guided-missile submarines with Tomahawk missiles, which can carry nuclear warheads. Each submarine is reported to have the striking power of a typical carrier battle group. According to a US Navy cargo manifest obtained by the Sunday Herald (Glasgow), the substantial military equipment Obama has dispatched includes 387 “bunker busters” used for blasting hardened underground structures. Planning for these “massive ordnance penetrators,” the most powerful bombs in the arsenal short of nuclear weapons, was initiated in the Bush administration, but languished. On taking office, Obama immediately accelerated the plans, and they are to be deployed several years ahead of schedule, aiming specifically at Iran
“They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran,” according to Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London. “US bombers and long range missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours,” he said. “The firepower of US forces has quadrupled since 2003,” accelerating under Obama.
The Arab press reports that an American fleet (with an Israeli vessel) passed through the Suez Canal on the way to the Persian Gulf, where its task is “to implement the sanctions against Iran and supervise the ships going to and from Iran.” British and Israeli media report that Saudi Arabia is providing a corridor for Israeli bombing of Iran (denied by Saudi Arabia). On his return from Afghanistan to reassure NATO allies that the US will stay the course after the replacement of General McChrystal by his superior, General Petraeus, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen visited Israel to meet Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and senior Israeli military staff along with intelligence and planning units, continuing the annual strategic dialogue between Israel and the U.S. in Tel Aviv. The meeting focused “on the preparation by both Israel and the U.S. for the possibility of a nuclear capable Iran,” according to Haaretz, which reports further that Mullen emphasized that “I always try to see challenges from Israeli perspective.” Mullen and Ashkenazi are in regular contact on a secure line.
The increasing threats of military action against Iran are of course in violation of the UN Charter, and in specific violation of Security Council resolution 1887 of September 2009 which reaffirmed the call to all states to resolve disputes related to nuclear issues peacefully, in accordance with the Charter, which bans the use or threat of force.
Read More: The Iranian Threat By Noam Chomsky | Before It's News
Monday, December 21, 2009
to Grand Ayatollah Hosseinali Montazeri ( 1922 – 2009)
From Adonais
Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart?
Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here
They have departed; thou shouldst now depart!
……
That Light whose smile kindles the Universe,
That Beauty in which all things work and move,
That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
Which through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley -- (1803-1822)
Thursday, November 26, 2009
The House is Black / خانه سیاه است
1962, 22 Minutes, Black and White, 35mm
It is the only film from Forough Farrokhzad, possibly Iran's most noted and controversial female poet. A look inside a leper colony, the documentary short has been called "the greatest of all Iranian films" by Jonathan Rosenbaum, and is (now) frequently referred to as one of the lynchpins of the Iranian New Wave. Following an opening statement accompanying a black screen that simultaneously warns and invites viewers to gaze upon that which society has deemed horrifying, Farrokhzad trains her lens insistently on the decay of human faces in bleak honesty, observing the lepers' flaccid eyelids (incapable of doing the biological job of protecting the eyes behind them from flies), the crusty, flaking stumps that used to be their feet, and their exposed nose cavities completely devoid of cartilage (one of them casually and surreally exhales cigarette smoke from the orifice). While showing the leper community forging an ersatz societal representation of normalcy. Old gents playing board games, women dressing up and donning make-up for what appears to be a wedding march (and once you've seen a woman apply mascara to the inside of her eyelid, the image will not soon leave your head), kids tossing a plastic ball around the courtyard.
Farrokhzad soundtracks her images with an alternating narration. A male voice (whose detached matter-of-factness brings to mind a contemporary Jean-Luc Godard at his most bemused) unpacks the medical implications of the condition, gently reminding the audience that leprosy is a treatable condition, provided the proper expediency, in what constitutes the film's most salient instance of activism. But between the clinical dialogue (in every sense of the definition) are snips of poetry by Farrokhzad, read by the author herself, that elevates the colony's plight to the level of that Old Testament paragon of unanswered and cruel kismet: Job. If Farrokhzad's poetic sensibilities were said to be both preoccupied with Eastern mores and influenced by Western modernism, then The House is Black authoritatively clears the path for such aesthetic dilettantism.
-- Eric Henderson
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Fale Hafez
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
If Iran Were America
I thought this was pretty funny with gems like “General Husseino”, and “L.L. Limnitzer”. Here are some Excerpts:
If Iran Were America (And We Were Iran): A Timeline
by J. L. Bryan
1953: Coup in America
Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected President of the United States, a country that receives most of its income from oilfields in Pennsylvania and Texas…
1953–1979: The McCarthy Era
King Joe McCarthy rules with an iron fist for 26 years. Though initially reluctant to obey a foreign government, King Joe soon embraces his sweeping new powers, as well as the constant flow of Iranian aid and weapons that makes it all possible. Iranian intelligence agents create, for McCarthy's regime, the Department to Surveil and Vet Americans for the King (SAVAK).
1978–1979: The Christianist Revolution
Under SAVAK rules, large groups of Americans can only congregate in two places: pre-arranged, pro-McCarthy rallies, and houses of worship. As a result, revolutionary tendencies sprout and grow in churches, led by radical clerics Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Jim Bakker. With other evangelical leaders, they form the Supreme Council for the Christian Revolution in America (SCCRA), or the "Christian Coalition."
1980–1988: The America-Mexico War
The Iranians have previously maneuvered one of their long-time Mexican intelligence assets, whom we'll call "José Husseino," into the position of dictator of Mexico. Now they provide their pet dictator with arms, aid and intelligence, and launch Mexico into an invasion of the United States.
1988: Oops…….. via
Saturday, August 15, 2009
The Media Landscape in Iran
Author: Greg Bruno, Staff Writer
July 22, 2009
Introduction: Iranian authorities have reinforced controls on major domestic media following the upheaval over contested presidential election results in June 2009. One month after the disputed vote, nearly forty journalists remained in Iranian prisons. Yet Iran's media landscape, like many aspects of the theocratic regime, is riddled with contradictions. The flow of
information into and within Iran has genuinely improved over the last decade; since 2000, Iran's leaders have oscillated between tightening and loosening restrictions on the country's domestic news media. While Iran's reformist (or liberal) news outlets have suffered funding cuts and closures, conservative newspapers now frequently criticize government policies. Some foreign journalists say they, too, have seen past restrictions ease, and despite recent Iranian attempts to jam signals and confiscate satellite dishes, the transmission of foreign-funded Persian news broadcasts are proliferating, giving Iranians greater access to British, French, and U.S. broadcasting inside Iran.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Iran: The worst is yet to come | The Call
Tue, 08/11/2009 - 5:04pm
By Eurasia Group analyst David Bender
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made it through his August 5 inauguration with the regime secure, but he faces a bumpy road ahead. The Iranian government won round one against the opposition through its willingness to use force in the streets, torture in the jails, and heavy propaganda in the media. Based on its apparent calculation that excessive repression will not provoke a revolution, but compromise might, the regime won't let up anytime soon on its crackdown. While this hard-line policy may keep the regime firmly in control for the short term, it leaves it few long-term options. The regime now has neither the legitimacy nor the political capital to effectively rule or institute needed economic reforms.
Iran is less politically stable than it has been at any time since the Islamic Revolution. The regime shows deep internal fractures, even between Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The two are hanging together for now, but if Ahmadinejad becomes too great a liability, Khamenei may have to dump him. Ahmadinejad faces serious challenges, including an increasingly reactionary support base dominated by the hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a wide field of opponents, and wary clerics in Qom. Meanwhile, the parliament is gearing up to challenge the president on a number of technocratic matters. In other words, the impetuous president is under pressure from multiple angles, something that history suggests will push him to become more brash, outspoken, and antagonistic.
Beyond his inflammatory rhetoric, Ahmadinejad needs to bring…..
Thursday, July 30, 2009
IRAN: Fresh video shows mourners gathered near Neda's gravesite
A massive memorial in Tehran's Behesht Zahra cemetery is currently underway in Tehran, 40 days after the death of several protesters, including Neda Agha-Soltan, whose death at a protest was videotaped and seen around the world.
YouTube footage already has leaked out, showing thousands of mourners chanting the name of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the opposition leader who ran and lost against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in elections last month.
Another video shows protesters chanting, "God is great!"
As night approached, word came that more people were gathering in front of Tehran's Grand Mossala mosque for another round of protests.
-- Jahd Khalil in Beirut
Videos: Demonstrators gathering at Tehran's Behesht Zahra cemetery.
Monday, July 13, 2009
محسن نامجو به ۵ سال حبس تعزیری محکوم شد
يكی از پيشكسوتان قرآنی كشورمان با اشاره به شكايت خود از خوانندهای كه مبادرت به خواندن تمسخرآميز آيات قرآن كريم به صورت
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Lyrical voices hail Iranians from overseas - Los Angeles Times
Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times
Partow Nooriala and Shahrzad Sepanlou left Iran after the revolution. “I have a vision of a colorful Tehran up to 1979,” Sepanlou says.
Watching the election protests in their homeland, an Iran-born mother and daughter -- a poet and a singer -- are part of a growing expatriate artistic movement.
From the house we built
With blood and soil
With blood and soil
To the road on which
The moonlight procession
Flies forth on their boat
The moonlight procession
Flies forth on their boat
Of shooting stars
It is a pity you did not wish
To stay here with us
The poet had crafted those words so long ago. Flush from the victory of a People's Revolution in Iran that ousted a repressive monarch for a bearded cleric who spouted promises of freedom and quality, Partow Nooriala all too soon came to believe that the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had deceived them.
It is a pity you did not wish
To stay here with us
The poet had crafted those words so long ago. Flush from the victory of a People's Revolution in Iran that ousted a repressive monarch for a bearded cleric who spouted promises of freedom and quality, Partow Nooriala all too soon came to believe that the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had deceived them.
Lyrical voices hail Iranians from overseas
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Iran Election Crisis: 10 Incredible YouTube Videos
1. Saturday, June 13th
This was one of the first Iran election protests videos to be spread around the web. Translate, the video’s title is “Saturday 23 June.” In actuality, this video was taken on Saturday, June 13th in what we believe to be Tehran.
2. June 13th: Riot in tehran streets after election day
This now well-known video has over 400,000 views. You can see the green masks of the Mousavi movement onn clear display.
3. June 13th: BBC – Protest against Iran election results
The BBC was on top of the Iran crisis. This popular video is an incredible on-the-ground report.
4. June 14th: Iranians protest against election results, police intervene
This is one of the first videos that shows the police getting involved in breaking up the crowds that formed not long after the elections. There are cries, screaming, running, burning wreckage, and many angry citizens.
5. June 14th: Iran Election Protest in Paris
The protests have not just been inside of Iran. There have been demonstrations in cities across the world in support of Mousavi’s Green Movement. This well-produced video comes out of Paris.
6. June 17: Protesting in Silence – Tehran
Silence.
7. June 19th: Poem for the Rooftops of Iran
From the video’s description: “A woman speaking about the state of her country while filming the rooftop shouting of “Allah-o Akbar” in Iran on Friday June 19th”
The poem and the background noise make this video evoke emotions that are unlike most of the other videos coming out of Iran.
8. June 20th: Basij Milita have opened fire into crowds
This unedited video from the BBC is a display of how the violence has escalated in all of Iran.
9. June 20: Wounded Girl Dying [GRAPHIC CONTENT]
WARNING: The following video is very graphic, disturbing, and involves the death of an Iranian woman.
DO NOT WATCH unless you feel capable AND are old enough.
Nevermind the crisis in Iran – this is one of the most brutal videos I have ever seen in my life. That is why I have provided multiple warnings about this one, but I feel that it is important to include it for several reasons:
- Social media is raw, and that YouTube allows you to get the uncensored version of things. We cannot be blind to that fact.
- This is, in my mind, the most incredible of all the videos coming out of Iran.
- Sometimes, you have to see everything to really understand what’s going on. Things are very, very bad in Iran, period.
With all of that said, this video is just gut-wrenching.
10. June 20th: Tehran Tazahorat
You can’t help but be amazed by the sheer number of people in the streets. THis video has been passed around a lot recently in social circles, and for good reason. It’s incredible, just like all of the videos here.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Enter the Real-time Genie
 |  |
Iranian youth make their case for freedom and democracy to a worldwide audience and they find more than a sympathetic ear-they find a global avalanche of support- being a despot will never be easy again-Viva the courageous youth of Iran-Viva peace & freedom-Viva the new global opinion and consciousness-Viva the Real-time web.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Green Brief - By NiteOwl
I'm Josh Shahryar AKA NiteOwl and I've been immersed in tweets from Iran for the past several hours. I have tried to be extremely careful in choosing my tweet sources and have tried maximally to avoid listening to media banter. What I have compiled below is what I can confirm through my tweets to have happened in the past day and in the past week in Iran. Remember, this is all from tweets. There is NOTHING included here that is not from a reliable tweet. No news media outlets have been used in the compilation of this short brief as I would like to call it.
These are some of the happenings that I can positively confirm:
1. During the last protest in Tehran, several policemen have been spotted by protesters who were wearing green bands which is the color of the revolution. The policemen have told them candidly that they support them.
2. During the protests, on several occasions, Baseejis who have attacked peaceful protesters have been arrested on the spot by the police. This seems to have occured in several spots, yet it hasn't been a crackdown of sorts. A few cases only!
3. Several Baseeji militiamen have been spotted laying down their arms and going home after being asked to interfere with the protesters.
4. By far the biggest threat people are facing right now are plainclothesmen. They seem to be everywhere and are targetting people who are not in groups. These men have been mostly linked with Ansar e Hezbollah. They are responsible for beating people up, arresting people, threatening protesters, arresting reformists from their homes and such.
5. So far, it has been confirmed that 15 people in Tehran and 32 people around the country have been killed. Hundreds more have been injured and in excess of 800 people have been detained. Among these there are dozens of reformists. Most of these arrests have been made by the notorious plainclothesmen mentioned above.
6. During yesterday's protests, mullahs have been spotted joining rallies within Tehran and in several other cities. No one could confirm what the status of these Mullahs was or is within the clerical society, but their numbers have been very visible this time.
7. Protests have occured not just in Tehran yesterday, but in Ahvaz, Mashhad, Kermanshah, Qazvin, Shiraz, Tabriz and EVER Qom.
8. Pro-Ahmadinejad protesters' numbers have been greatly exaggerated by the state media in comparison to Mousavi's supporters' numbers. In reality, Pro-Ahmadinejad protesters were only a pocket full of people. Most of these people have been identified by other protesters as either people who work at government offices or people who were brought from the countryside.
9. After downplaying the protests for days, the state-run media has finally started to announce news of the events a little more accurately.
10. Text Messaging is still down in Iran and internet is extremely slow. People are unable to get sattelite channels on their televisions. At the same time, police and plainclothesmen are going door to door and taking away people's sattelite dish antenas.
11. Mohsen Rezayee, one of the candidates, is going to declare his support for a reelection tomorrow. The fourth candidate, Mahdi Karoubi openly joined yesterday's rally.
12. A group of prominent officials within the Ministry of Interior have written a letter to the Guardian Council declaring that they have witnessed widespread irregularities within the voting and counting processes during the election. They have asked this matter to be investigated fully.
13. As of today, not a single report of the military's intervention into the peaceful protests has been established. Not a single one.
14. Khatami and Mousavi have both asked the Ministry of Justice to investigate the involvement of the plainclothesmen in the violence that has been sparked during the protests.
15. Several eye-witnesses have seen non-Iranian Arabs waving Hamas/Hezbollah flags around the protests. These reports have been fully confirmed and are NOT a rumor spread by Israel.
16. Finally, the big news. It seems that the Green Revolution has garnered the support of Hashemi Rafsanjani, Nateq Noori, Tabatabayee and other prominent clerics and politicians. The Rohaniyone Mubarez organization that which has in its ranks pretty much most of the clerics except for the ones in power and includes Mr. Rafsanjani and Mr. Noori has declared their support for the annullment of the election and holding of new elections. Ayatollah Montazeri has yet to declare clear support.
Finally a few words to those who are reading this:
People Outside Iran: This is as clear and concise as I can be. I have not included ANYTHING that I have sensed to be remotely fishy, but human error will always manifests itself in even the most flawless of non-mathematical things. However, this includes nothing from the Western media, including the BBC which I have been generously using to inform people and I laud them for their courageous journalism.
People Inside Iran: Don't believe a WORD of what I am telling you. Do what you think is best, keeping everything in mind. I know LITTLE of what you know so make your decisions based on your OWN judgment.
People Who Want to Send Me Tweet Links: You don't need to find me, I will find you. Don't hassle yourself. Your voice will be heard through millions of others like me.
People Who Want to Hunt Me Down: I'm an Afghan. If you ever tried to attack me, you'll see my back only after your back has met the ground.
P.S. Please post this around. I will be writing one brief of this kind everyday until this ends.
Link to the Night Owl
Mindblowing #IranElection Stats: 221,744 Tweets Per Hour at Peak
FROM: Mashable
The protests in Iran have only grown in size and in magnitude these last few days. Ever since the highly disputed “landslide victory” for incumbent Ahmadinejad and subsequent charges of voter fraud, Iranians have taken up their cameras, mobile phones, and computers to send Twitter updates, YouTube videos, and Flickr (
While we knew that these social tools have been instrumental to the Iranian protests (so much so that the U.S. Government asked Twitter to reschedule downtime), we had no idea about the actual number of tweets sent or YouTube videos uploaded until now. Thanks to the social media trend tracker Trendrr, we can show you the sheer scale of the #IranElection crisis discussion.
Twitter: 221,744 “Iran” Tweets in One Hour
The use of Twitter (
Use of the #IranElection hashtag is extraordinary as well.
We’re approaching one million tweets on the situation, if we haven’t passed that number already. Heck, it’s been 1% of all Twitter chatter, according to Twist. Here it is compared to iPhone chatter:
The Blogosphere: 2,250,000 Blog Posts in 24 hours
The number of blog posts discussing Iran has been on a rapid rise as well. There are now over 19,000,000 blog posts that discuss Iran in some fashion, but in the last 24 hours, 2,250,000 posts were published.
That’s nearly 12% of all blog posts related to Iran. And while news stories within Google News have risen dramatically as well, they don’t hold a candle to the social media buzz:
YouTube: 184,500 Videos on Iran, 3000 in One Day
YouTube (
Even if every video were just two minutes, that would be over 6000 minutes of video related to the Iran situation. There are days worth of video on YouTube of what’s happening on the ground.
The Buzz Only Grows
While numbers can be off, these trends clearly demonstrate that social media has been front-and-center in the Iran election protests. The Iranian government has reportedly been trying to censor some of this communication, but clearly people are finding ways around it. While we know a great deal about what’s happening in Iran, we have almost no idea how it will affect the outcome. This may be the biggest question that remains to be answered.
In the meantime though, we keep refreshing Twitter Search and watching YouTube videos to keep up-to-date. Some are even using social media to help Iranians who are demonstrating in the streets. If you want to better track what’s happening in Iran via social channels, be sure to read our article HOW TO: Track Iran Election with Twitter and Social Media.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Iranian presidential candidate Mohsen Rezai calls for peace
The former soldier and insurgent who launched two of Iran's most acclaimed news websites says he can smooth Iran's relations with the international community.
By Borzou Daragahi
June 8, 2009
Reporting from Tehran -- Like so many of his generation, Mohsen Rezai is a fighter.
Before Iran's Islamic Revolution, he was a member of an underground organization fighting against Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi's regime. Afterward, Rezai helped found and lead the Revolutionary Guard, and he was a warrior in the 1980s war against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army.
In recent years, he launched two of Iran's most acclaimed news websites, which spoke out against the country's feuding conservative and reformist factions.
Now, he's the only conservative among three candidates running against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is seeking reelection to the presidency of the Islamic Republic. Although Rezai was long a man of war, he's convinced he is the person to calm relations between Iran and the international community.
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