9 – 11
11 September the movie
11 mn 9 sec by Samira Makhmalbaf
In an Afghan refugee camp close to Iran – Afghanistan border:
The whole community is busy making sun-dried adobes to build a shelter in anticipation of the American attack.
The school teacher seems to be the only one to realize the uselessness of all these activities.
She explains the 9-11 attacks on WTC to kids who don’t even know what a tower building is.
With an improvised clock she makes them hold a minute of silence for the 9-11 victims.
Who are they?
I saw this documentary a while ago on google video. This movie is no longer online but there seem to be download possibilities. This 5mn excerpt will give you a taste of it.
Who are these young Iranians so often in the headlines in recent months?
In Dream of Silk, director Nahid Rezai returns to her all-girls high school twenty-five years later to explore the lives of young girls in contemporary Tehran. In this candid exploration of their dreams and hopes, the girls are at times shockingly open, often sweet, and occasionally sad as they talk about the future.
You can also see this 7mn Interview with the director who compares her youth during the revolution era with this new generation.
Bridge to Iran series – Link TV
ناهید رضایی
Earlier a friend was enquiring on where to find daily translations of Iranian news. Beside governmental websites and blogs I have already referred to, Enduring America (tag: Iran) and niacInsight have almost daily articles. I am not following any website regularly to have a firm recommendation. Your suggestions are welcomed.
Update: See also Balatarin, an Iranian “digg”. Recently they have added a new page where users can translate headlines.
Opposition body count: Based on a fact-finding committee inquiry, the pro-reformist news website Norooz has published the identity of 72 civilians killed in the aftermath of the elections.
With some help 18 of the 21 cabinet members were approved by the parliament. It includes the first woman in the cabinet since the revolution. Only in Iran this is seen as a set-back for women!
The nomination of a politician who ran the election headquarters during the presidential poll with some disputed academic background as the Minister of Science, research and technology seems rather confrontational toward universities. See also this article.
Delkash
1924 – September 2004
Another obituary post, in tune with the ambient mood: a tribute to Delkash’s powerful voice and songs. Some of her 50’s classics here.
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Iran album strikes web protest note : Young Iranians, with their fondness for Western music, are not the natural market for the country’s leading classical Persian musician, Mohammad Reza Shajarian. But his latest album has caused a stir among the Iranian online community, with web users urging others to attend Mr Shajarian’s concerts and to buy his album, … link to the article / listen to Put down your gun, wonderful words of Fereydoon Moshiri – I didn’t find an English translation of this poem, please let me know if you find one.
The entrepreneur
This won’t do justice to him, consider it a simple acknowledgment.
Entrepreneur, editor, translator and writer Homayoun Sanati passed away on August 26th, 2009 at the age of 85
Road to Damask: A grand old man of Iranian enterprise talks to Michael Griffin about his life and his latest venture: organic rose essence for the high-end cosmetics market
“[...] His acumen stems from his grandfather, Ali Akbar Sanati-zadeh, “a simple man with no education who thought he might see something of the world to know what was going on”. Ali Akbar walked to Bandar Abbas, from where he worked his passage to India and Istanbul, only returning after 10 years of wandering through Europe and Russia. “He came to the conclusion that Iran needed two things to develop, education and industry, and he was particularly interested in industry,” said Homayoun. “That is why we are called Sanati, which means industrious. It was a name he adopted and, simultaneously, he started an orphanage[...]“
Sanati was a consultant for the German NGO, Agro Action, which launched a pilot rose-growing project on 32 hectares in Nangarhar, Afghanistan in 2004 as part of efforts to find viable alternatives to the dominant poppy crop. [...]
Ever the businessman, he provides a powerful argument for roses as one alternative to opium. “When it comes to agriculture in Europe, the economy is based on income per hectare of land. But land is not the limiting factor in Iran, Afghanistan or other Middle Eastern countries. It’s water. If you cultivate a hectare of opium, you’ll get about 30 kilos of opium at $300 per kg. That’s $9,000. If you cultivate a hectare of roses, you get 6,000 roses and, if you water them properly, 1.5kg of rose oil, which will give you $7-8,000. That’s still less than opium, but opium needs three times more water.” Link to the article
مسعود بهنود: مقصد او پیداست
همایون صنعتی، مترجم و ناشر ایرانی درگذشت
همایون صنعتی زاده درگذشت: زندگینامه جالب این مرد فرهنگ دوست
Where are you rushing to?
… and amidst all that we even had a small and beautiful wedding. He was supposed to come back to Iran and start a business, now she is leaving the country with him.
When insults had class
This morning, while still in bed, I thought of this Iranian saying beshin, befarma, betamarg (“sit down”, “please sit down” and “get your ass down”), expressing the same content by different manners.
I thought of writing a post and illustrating this with a few examples. For instance you don’t agree with something like… let’s say … the outcome of some election. You might get a whole range of answers to your reactions. It might be: “Oh my! Why would you think such a nonsense?“, or “Oh dear! I have no time for that but come over and let’s check it together” or “F&#$ off you lousy bastard or I’ll kick you f*&#ing ass” et ceteras and even darker et ceteras.
Later, I found this series of classy insults in the inbox. Instead of elaborating on the above let’s just post it as it is.
These glorious insults are from an era before the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words.
- The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, “If you were my husband I’d give you poison.” He said, “If you were my wife, I’d drink it.”
- A member of Parliament to Disraeli: “Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.” “That depends, Sir,” said Disraeli, “whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.”
- “He had delusions of adequacy.” – Walter Kerr
- “He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” – Winston Churchill
- “I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” – Clarence Darrow
- “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” – William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
- “Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.” – Moses Hadas
- “I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” – Mark Twain
- “He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” – Oscar Wilde
- “I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend…. if you have one.” – George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
- “Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.” – Winston Churchill, in response.
- “I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.” – Stephen Bishop
- “He is a self-made man and worships his creator.” – John Bright
- “I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” - Irvin S. Cobb
- “He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.” - Samuel Johnson
- “He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.” – Paul Keating
- “He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.” – Forrest Tucker
- “His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” – Mae West
- “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.” – Oscar Wilde
- “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… for support rather than illumination.” – Andrew Lang
- “He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” – Billy Wilder
- “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.” – Groucho Marx
Kudos
h/t Balatarin
Rastegar Rahmani-Tanha, here in front of his home in Javanrud, got the top score in the nationwide university entrance exams in both science and language fields. Congratulations!
He looks like many others who usually move into the university dorm in a major city to further their education.
They don’t deserve this kind of treatment nor being labeled as spoiled half-witted kids who need anonymous twitters to get an opinion.
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