OBAMA

The ‘Jewish Vote’

The fears are not based on empirical evidence

13-Jun-2012 (32 comments)
Polls show that most American Jews prioritize other issues such as the economy and health care. A recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute shows that only 4% of Jewish-Americans will cast their vote based on the candidates’ handling of Israel. Iran, the survey showed, will be a determining factor for only 2% of the Jewish community. The fears regarding the Jewish vote are not based on empirical evidence. American Jews vote overwhelmingly Democratic—period>>>

IDEAS

از اسلام‌گرائی تا ایران‌ستیزی

پس از انقلاب ۵۷ اسلام سیاسی با تمام توان به جنگ ملیت ایرانی رفت

13-Jun-2012 (11 comments)
چه از نظر تاریخی و چه به لحاظ منطقی، حس هویت ملی، و نه دینی، شرط بنیادی تحقق دموکراسی و حاکمیت باثبات در جهان امروز است. کشمکش اصلی در ایران در واقع رویاروئی اسلام‌گرائی با ملی‌گرائی است. ملی‌گرائی یعنی اینکه همه‌ی ایرانیان برابرند و هیچ مذهب یا قومی هیچ حق ویژه‌ای ندارد>>>

IDEAS

Conceptualizing Gender (8)

No to Exclusive Mothering by Women

13-Jun-2012
Many approaches to personality development acknowledge some of Freud's fundamental premises, while discarding others. One such approach has been the object relations theories, which were developed by several specialists. However, it is Melanie Klein (1882 – 1960), Austrian-British psychoanalyst, who is generally recognized as the originator of the modern theory, wherein the mother is the main object>>>

IDEAS

 Ecomagination

What US-Iran Relations Needs

10-Jun-2012 (4 comments)
With the recent Baghdad meeting, the US and Iran proved once again that nothing, beats the far harder task of crafting an offer that the other side simply can't refuse. And nothing precisely won again. Or we got nothing. The US showed that in spite of the fact that Glengarry Glen Ross is the definition of American salesmanship, it simply doesn't get Bazaar Bargaining>>>

IDEAS

Conceptualizing Gender (7)

Karen Horney and Masculinity Complex

07-Jun-2012 (3 comments)
Despite rejecting the Freudian concept of ‘penis envy,’ Karen Horney agreed that women were often embarrassed by their feminine role and envied men. In fact, in several of her essays, Karen Horney developed and restructured the concept of ‘masculinity complex,’ akin to Adler's ‘masculine protest.’ She described this complex as ‘the entire complex of feelings and fantasies that have for their content the woman's feeling of being discriminated against, her envy of the male, her wish to be a man and to discard the female role’>>>

INSULT

ای کوته آستینان تا کی دراز دستی؟

تمسخر کردن و نام بزرگان را بزشتی بردن، رذیلت است ولو آزادانه انجام شود

04-Jun-2012 (121 comments)
روی سخن با کسانیست که جرعه صحبت را به حرمت نمی نوشند و شرط ادب را در محضر خرد نگه نمی دارند و دین ورزان را به تازیانه تحقیر می رانند و دامن بزرگان دین را به لکه اهانت می آلایند. روی سخن با دین ستیزانی است که بنام نقد اهانت و نفرت می پراکنند و رقم مغلطه بر دفتر دانش میکشند و سر حق بر ورق شعبده ملحق میکنند>>>

IDEAS

Hidden Aggression

Cyberattacks challenge ideas of war – and peace

04-Jun-2012
Many countries are searching for new, less visible methods of aggression. The offensive cyberwar techniques now being readied or practiced by the US, China, and others could be only the latest method of conflict. This trend toward hidden and almost endless war raises troubling questions. When does war start and peace end? Who in government should approve such aggression and be held accountable for it? And how can citizens respond if the nature of conflict doesn’t fit old concepts of war?>>>

DIVERSITY

The Changing Face of "We the People"

From Reza to Rhea

04-Jun-2012 (3 comments)
America once took pride in calling itself and being known as the great “Melting Pot.” This seems no longer to be the case. As a nation and a people we seem to have developed a severe case of historic and hereditary amnesia. Worse than that, we have developed another severe inflammation of color phobia stoked again by fear mongers driven by destructive stereotypes. What has brought us in this new time to this old challenge regarding our identity as a nation?>>>

QUESTIONS

Is our world kaput?

Oh, mama, can this really be the end?

02-Jun-2012 (4 comments)
The horror film or the science fiction book often starts like that, doesn’t it, with small seemingly unrelated facts, harbingers of the end? One fly buzzing around an eatery, settling repeatedly on uneasy diners’ hair and hands and plates; one crow sitting on a telephone wire, staring at kids on their skateboards; one mangled body found in a wood; and so on, until the bad things start developing>>>

IRAN

Outflanking Washington

Failure to correctly apprehend Iranian ambitions

31-May-2012 (3 comments)
There is an interest that both Iran and the United States hold in common: staving off military action, whether by the U.S. or Israel. From there, however, U.S. and Iranian motivations diverge; understanding this divergence is key to understanding why the talks thus far have failed. Iranian officials publicly dismiss but likely privately worry about the consequences of war, while U.S. officials often seem more worried about the consequences of military action>>>

FARSI

«درست گفت» و «درست نوشت»

چند ملاحظه دستوری در زبان فارسی

31-May-2012
زبان فارسی در طول قرن‌ها شکل گرفته و تحول یافته است. ولی این تحولات در چهارچوب قواعدی صورت می‌گیرد که از آن‌ها تحت عنوان «دستور زبان» یاد می‌کنیم. دستور زبان نیز (در مورد زبان‌های طبیعی) از گویش مردمانی که به آن زبان سخن می‌گویند استخراج می‌شود و قراردادی نیست. به طریق اولی، نمی‌توان زبان طبیعی را با امر و نهی ساخت یا تغییر داد>>>

IDEAS

Conceptualizing Gender (6)

Karen Horney’s Womb Envy

31-May-2012 (one comment)
Freud’s description of women as genitally defective and morally inferior to men, his concept of “penis envy” and his Oedipus complex that gave the highest position to the father, have been criticized by countless feminist writers. They have maintained that theories and methodologies of the psychoanalytic systems are patriarchal, misogynistic and anti-feminist. In Freud’s time, these ideas were also meticulously criticized for the first time by German psychiatrist / psychoanalyst Karen Horney and Austrian-British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein>>>

IRANIANS

Black Saffron

Watch & learn

30-May-2012 (10 comments)
...>>>

IDEAS

Hasn’t the time finally come?

Avoiding another dictatorship

28-May-2012 (12 comments)
Culturally we Iranians have a big problem with accepting our errors and that is the main reason behind our failures over and over again. So instead of facing our responsibility, accepting our errors, learning from our mistakes and moving on, we resort to the game of heroes and villains. So depending on our political orientation we either make a saint and an unquestionable hero of Mosaddegh or the Shah by moving them beyond any criticism and then conveniently hide behind them>>>

MONEY

Damn it, Are You Still Alive?

Should We Allow Market Forces to Invade Our Lives?

28-May-2012 (4 comments)
Would you be outraged if someone called you every once in a while and asked you if you were still alive? It is perfectly permissible in this country for someone to lure you into signing a contract that gives you a lump sum of money in exchange for your life insurance policy, and then the person waits impatiently for you to die so that he can cash in and collect on your death benefits. The sooner you die, the higher the return on his investment>>>