So I posted Schauleh Sahba’s first cut of the video here not too long ago. Recently, the final version was announced, see it here. To learn more about the video, go here. Thanx to Schauleh for letting me be a part of the video and its anti-war message.
Today is the first day the State of California is issuing license certificates to same-sex couples. Be proud… I am. If you don’t like the idea of gay marriage, then don’t participate in one. It’s really that simple. By the way, I hate flags, I really do, but I like the one below.
…just as long as it gets to continue to build Jewish-only settlements in occupied Palestinian territories. Here, we have Secretary of State Rice, now that she’s at the end of her term, expressing concerns over the endless settlement building: “‘I am very concerned that at a time when we need to build confidence between the parties the continued building and settlement activity has the potential to harm the negotiations going forward.’ Israel announced last week it would build 1,300 new housing units in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as their future capital. The announcement brought to more than 3,000 the number of homes Israel has approved for construction in east Jerusalem and the West Bank since the renewal of peace talks late last year. The Palestinians claim both areas, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as part of a future independent state.Israel differentiates between east Jerusalem, which it annexed in 1967, and the West Bank, whose status remains unresolved.” [The only real difference is that Israel builds settlements at a faster rate in Jerusalem than elsewhere, but nevertheless is seeking to preclude a viable Palestinian state in both the W. Bank and Jerusalem through that settlement building. In other words, when Israel says it wants peace, it’s really just an empty slogan. The facts on the ground say something altogether different.]
BBC News: Last December American intelligence agencies said they had “high confidence” that in late 2003 Iran had stopped trying to build nuclear weapons. That seemed to end much of the talk about an American – or Israeli – attempt to destroy the facilities that Iran has developed for what it insists is a purely peaceful nuclear programme. Plenty of influential people in the Middle East, Europe and the United States think an attack on Iran would have consequences potentially as disastrous as the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It would also send oil prices, already through the roof, into orbit. But the talk has started again. Negotiations with Iran – and sanctions against it – have not stopped it enriching uranium, which its critics say is being done to make a bomb. Read on here.
Excerpt: “…the 42-year-old author confessed that ‘I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. ‘Rowling came up with two themes, captured neatly in the title of the address itself: ‘The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination.’ Failure came fast. ‘A mere seven years after my graduation day,’ she said, ‘I had failed on an epic scale.’ Shattered by the end of a brief marriage, jobless, and a single mother, Rowling said she was ‘as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless.’ But adversity uncovered personal strengths that immediate success or comfort might never have revealed: her strong will, ‘more discipline than I had suspected,’ she said, and ‘friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.’ Failure also stripped away the inessential, said Rowling, who signed her first (and very modest) book contract in 1996. What was essential had remained. ‘I was set free,’ she said. ‘I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored; and I had an old typewriter and a big idea.’ Rowling finished writing the first Potter book in Edinburgh coffee shops. ‘Rock bottom,’ she said, ‘became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.’
…has won the Democratic Party’s nomination! It was no easy task beating not just Hillary but the entire Clinton Machine but he did. Congratulations America! Here is a clip from his amazing victory speech in St. Paul.
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CNN: Sen. John McCain, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, targeted Sen. Barack Obama again Monday over the Illinois senator’s approach to Iran and the Middle East. But a new poll released by Gallup Monday suggests McCain may be out of step with the majority of Americans when it comes to U.S.-Iranian relations. Fifty-nine percent of Americans surveyed thought it was a good idea for the President of the United States to meet with the President of Iran. When Iran is taken out of the equation, an even higher percentage – 67 percent – responded that they thought it would be a good idea for the president to meet with leaders of countries considered enemies of the United States. Of the three remaining major presidential candidates, only Sen. Barack Obama has said he would meet personally with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the leaders of other countries regarded as enemies of the United States by the Bush administration. The Gallup survey was conducted May 19-21 and based on telephone interviews of 1,013 adults nationally. It has an overall margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.
A couple weeks ago the MIT Persian Student Association and the Harvard Iranian Student Association screened Bam 6.6 and it made me really really miss Iran. The documentary is about the Bam earthquake, the destruction it wrought on Bam’s residents, and the story of an American couple traveling through Bam when the earthquake struck. Although the two were victims of the tragedy, the documentary also chronicles how despite the chaos and destruction, they were received, welcomed, and taken care of. It is the story of human beings treating each other with humility and friendship at a time of death and scarcity of resources. See the trailer here.
this type of American liberation for Iran. No but really, a picture does speak a thousand words and here we have some American liberation in Iraq.
I’ve been home in southern California for a few days now enjoying the beginning of the summer break. Today, my mother and I were channel surfing and came across this documentary about Iranians selling their kidneys to people struck with fatal diseases. It was horrifying to see unfortunate people opting to sell an organ in order to free themselves from indebtedness or to start anew. At the same time, it was heart wrenching to see people dying to get a new kidney and not having enough money to buy one. According to the video, the buyer pays the equivalent of $2,000 and the state adds $1,000 to buy a donor’s kidney. Can you really put a price on your kidney? If so, does $3,000 suffice? No, according to the sellers/donors as they all seemed to be in need of more money but agreed to the bargain out of desperation. At the same time, $2,000 is a lot of money for an ordinary Iranian to fork over, especially when the average monthly salary is $200 (according to the documentary)… and I thought I had problems.
This anti-war video is most pleasing, especially since it was made in the Bay Area and I recognize some of the people in it. It would be great to see this as an advertisement on television. Please distribute the link by sending it to everyone, especially non-Iranians. To learn more about the video, go here.
I can’t stop watching this performance on Britain’s version of American Idol. It’s pure entertainment and it’s already received more than 5 million views. Enjoy. Oh, and here’s the newest trailer to The Dark Knight. It’s the film I’m most excited about this movie season.
Memritv is a complete tool, but sometimes you can make good use of it. Here is a thorough explanation as to why the level of violence in Iraq dropped from horrible to very bad, which really doesn’t say much if you ask me. On a side note, I’m just finished up a course with Professor Roger Owen on Iraq’s 20th century history and I must tell you, the country’s history is depressing… but not nearly as depressing as its current status. FYI, this blogger was against the war from DAY ONE and is still against the war.
In celebrating Israel’s 60th anniversary, I’d like to say that I’ve grown to dislike flags (and other overt symbols of nationalism) tremendously. As one of my peers recently told me, they say nothing more than “not you.” By the way, have you noticed that countries and regimes that have legitimacy problems are always putting their flags in your face? It’s sort of the same idea behind Bush’s inauguration day. He was sworn in using not just one bible, as is customary (unfortunately), but an entire stack of them. I assume he was trying to buy legitimacy through religion, as the way in which he won the presidency was highly controversial. It’s the same idea behind an International Day festival at Harvard Law School early this semester. Every nationality that set up a booth had no more than one flag on display but the Israelis, of which their entire state has legitimacy issues, had like 20 flags hanging from the wall, ceiling, and the table. But I must admit, as much as flags (and other overt symbols of nationalism) annoy me, I take exception with the Palestinian flag as it is a flag denied.
