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V for Voice

My unselfish and greater wish is to represent the voice of our repressed Iranian people, of the women of Iran who endure human rights abuses that should not even be occuring in this day and age... I would love to use our current production of "The Vagina Monologues" as a springboard for both a show in solidarity with women's and children's rights from you, my community, and as a compassionate vehicle of greater involvement of our Iranian community within the American community at large. This is a fabulous video where Jane Fonda and Eve Ensler, the playwright and women's rights activist extraordinaire, passionately and so eloquently explain our cause >>>

فرهنگ شخصی : ت

توت : میوه سفید خوشمزه و شیرین وضریف که تحمل مسافرت به خارج از ایران را ندارد

تفاهم : همدیگر را فهمیدن در اروپا و امریکا معمول است ولی تحمل مسافرت به ایران را ندارد

تفنگ : نوعی سلاح آتشی که امریکای ها آزادند با آن جان همدیگر را بگیرن >>>

Touran Khanom

In the vicinity of Baharestan, the old Parliament, there used to be an elementary school that was a little gem of an establishment. Dabestan-e Farhad opened in 1958 in the building and grounds that had been home to Mirhadi family. Touran Mirhadi—or, as she is universally known, Touran Khanom—was the youngest daughter of the family and the principal of the school. Her old students, some now well into their fifties, still refer to themselves as Farhadi, and are perpetually in quest of establishing contact with each other and their old teachers. For those us living outside Iran, no trip to Tehran is complete without touching base with Touran Khanom>>>

جای خالی احزاب غير ايدئولوژيک

به نظر من، بن بست کنونی اپوزيسيون حکومت ايدئولوژيک اسلامی، دقيقاً نتيجهء عدم دوری اپوزيسيون از «ايدئولوژی کاری» و آلوده شدن به «ايدئولوژی زدگی» است ـ وضعيتی که نمی تواند آلترناتيوی امروزی و دموکراتيک را در برابر حکومت اسلامی بنشاند. >>>

Watch out, here they come! (part 3)

We write the songs on guitar, and when you use a standard blues line up for the recording and the sound and everything, you become a bit bluesy! And our influences; people who we grew up (and grew old!) listening to were either blues players (like Stevie Ray Vaughan or B.B King or …) or influenced by blues players (like E.C, Jeff Beck, Led Zeppelin and of course Dire Straits!), so the blues element is there, but comparing to Adam e Mamooli, I must say we are less of a blues band. Actually, we are aiming to have no label and sound like KIOSK, that’s what I am talking about when I say we are not mature enough and we still don’t have our own genuine sound, but this album was a big step for us towards that goal.>>>

Maddening world

I’d swear this world has gone mad. This morning at work during our daily morning-coffee-Chitchat. I mentioned the racism killing in Antwerp to my colleague that’s an odd thing to mention at a morning-coffee session isn’t it? about 2 weeks ago I had read a short article about the proceeding of this psychopath, that has been stuck in my mind and I had mentioned this to my colleague, so today’s sentencing was something we couldn’t let pass by . This man had killed a black pregnant lady and had injured a Turkish lady if that’s not heinous enough.>>>

Point of emulation

Given the high office Ahmadinejad holds, he has free access to Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi and frequently seeks solace and guidance from him on religious as well as matters of the state. Furthermore, Yazdi often times serves the role of father figure, confidant, as well as therapist for Ahmadinejad. Recently, petrified by a vision, Yazdi rushed to Ahmadinejad for interpretation of the meaning of his vision and the course of action he should take. Below is a digest of what transpired between PAM and AMY.>>>

A new dawn

I thought the ease of commenting could bring about substantial changes to the way that the site is used in the future. After seeing a couple of comments on one of my recreant photo-essays, I realized that the future has arrived and things have changed already. A simple calculation revealed that since the publication of the article mentioned above only 14% of posted articles managed to remain immune to comments (all articles till 18th Sep were included in this calculation). Let’s not talk statistics, but at the first glance an increase in the number of articles commented on is apparent.>>>

دو روی سکه

ده سال از نخستین دیدار و مصاحبه ی هادی خرسندی، طنزپرداز و شاعر، با صمد شخصیت نمایشی معروف، همان دهاتی ساده دل عاشق، گذشته است. اینبار خرسندی به تقلید از مُد جدید "تراپی" و بر اساس دستورات دکتر هلاکویی، صمد را بر روی تخت "تراپی" اش می خواباند تا دریابد در این فاصله ی ده ساله بر صمد و دیگر صمدهای سرزمینش چه تغییری حادث شده است.حاصل کار نمایشی است دو پرده ای در شش بخش که قرار است حدود پنجاه اجرا در سرتاسر اروپا داشته باشد.>>>

Longer vacations

Making fun of the French is a favorite American pastime, none more so than when it comes to how much vacation French workers take. This really gained national attention here in the USA when France opted for the 35-hour workweek. Laugh all we want, but in my humble opinion, they will have the last laugh. The issue goes far beyond just how much one works or plays. The United States ranks last among 21 industrialized countries in the number of days of paid vacation and holidays it guarantees workers by law, says a study by the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. So complete is the corporate grip on the American psyche that no day in the year, not even July 4, the most patriotic U.S. holiday of all, is a paid holiday guaranteed by law.>>>

پاسخ استاد علی اکبر دهخدا

از اين گوشه آسيا شما می تواند به ملت خودتان اطلاعات بدهيد، تا آنها بدانند در اينجا به طوری که انگليسی ها ايران را معرٌفی کرده اند، يک مشت آدمخوار زندگی نمی کنند، و از طرف ديگر به فارسی، به عقيده من خوب است که در صدای آمريکا، طرز آزادی ممالک متحده آمريکا را در جنگ های استقلال، به ايرانيان بياموزيد و بگوييد که چگونه توانسته ايد از دست استعمار خلاص شويد؟ و تشويق کنيد که واشنگتن ها و فرانکلن ها در ايران، برای حفظ استقلال از همان طرق بروند. >>>

How much for a kidney?

Recently I read an interesting article about Iranian security forces discovering a tunnel that apparently lead to the British Embassy in Iran. I found the whole affair extremely interesting, not so much because of the cloak and dagger stuff, but because the Iranian authorities among other things, accused the Brits of using the tunnel to bring in prostitutes into the embassy. I was naturally flabbergasted by this insolence of the British embassy staff. How dare they doing this in the Islamic Republic? Don't they know that prostitution is illegal in Iran? Don't they know that the wise rulers of the Islamic Republic allow temporary marriages (from a few hours to many weeks or months, depending on one's stamina)? But what can you expect of these foreigners? They don't know much about the country. So I have taken it upon myself to educate them on how the Islamic Republic functions. >>>

Caught up in the mortgage mess

Lately, one cannot log on to the internet, turn on the television or open up the newspaper (people still read newspapers, don't they?) without being inundated with some kind of news, invariably bad, concerning the housing market, mortgage defaults and so on. It also seems that while the news entities focus on all of the losses, cable TV channels like TLC and Bravo are showing investors and speculators making healthy profits in less time than it takes to solve the latest crime on the newest CBS spinoff, CSI: Rasht. >>>

To pay or not to pay

Eyeglasses. There is no other accessory I love more than a nice pair of glasses. Purses are carried under my arm, shoes are on my feet but eyeglasses are on my face, adding a frame, personality, a different style. When I lived in Berkeley, I used to walk around Shattuck after class and go into the glasses store just for the heck of it. I fell in love with thousands of models.... from the trendy black plastic ones that make me look smarter than I am, to the nice metal frames that would be perfect for class, to the light white frame sunglasses that create the perfect contrast with my dark skin.>>>