Showing posts with label ha ha. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ha ha. Show all posts
Friday, May 15, 2009
Eurovision!
I never feel more American then during the Eurovison competition. This entry from the Netherlands embodies everything the competition means to me. I'll let you interpret what I mean by that. Enjoy!
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
My Uncle Napoleon
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: My Uncle Napoleon is the best book about Iran that I ever read. It's author, Iraj Pezechkzad, will be at Stanford. So if you are lucky enough to be in the area (I'm not, unfortunately), go hear him speak!
Details at Payvand. http://www.payvand.com/news/09/may/1042.html
Details at Payvand. http://www.payvand.com/news/09/may/1042.html
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The anti-anti-American song
I'm stealing another post from Sahand: a message of conciliation from Sina Khani's alter ego Sina Turner.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Congratulations on high oil prices
"We congratulate the Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian people the increase in the price of Iranian oil to $100 a barrel."
Translation of an sms going around Iran right now.
Translation of an sms going around Iran right now.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Which character best exemplifies tarof?
Calling all readers who know enough about tarof (taroof) and popular culture to suggest an appropriate mascot!
Tao has Winnie the Pooh, but which character from pop culture best exemplifies tarof?
I'm thinking Eddie Haskell, but that is just my first reaction. Anyone else have a suggestion? I will collect a few and then add a poll to the site for a vote.
Hope to see your comments!
(Read about tarof here and at The Iranian.
Tao has Winnie the Pooh, but which character from pop culture best exemplifies tarof?
I'm thinking Eddie Haskell, but that is just my first reaction. Anyone else have a suggestion? I will collect a few and then add a poll to the site for a vote.
Hope to see your comments!
(Read about tarof here and at The Iranian.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Monday, March 12, 2007
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
It’s all a big mistake…
A friend of mine that I will call "Jeff" wrote to tell me of a dream he had about Iran’s uranium enrichment program:
Iranians are tough negotiators. It’s clear to me that they understood that the EU was the more desperate of the two parties. The EU was desperate to show America that it could negotiate a treaty with Iran. Iranians had to have known this going in.
And what should Iran be desperate for? Iranians may be desperate for improved relations, but their government is not. They would like relations to be bad enough to keep them in power and good enough to keep their consuming citizens happy (or, should I say, complacent). Believe me, these guys are smarter than we are. I think that most people think that the regime is idealistic instead of what it really is: realpolitik-al (is that a word?)
Do they really think that we want to drink this stuff?
Last night I went to the pharmacy with K’s nephew. He needed some things, and I wanted some rubbing alcohol. They handed me a tiny bottle of rubbing alcohol. “Don’t you have anything bigger?” I asked. “Or is rubbing alcohol really expensive here?”
“No it’s cheap,” the woman answered and then called to her manager, “Should I get a bigger bottle for them?”
The manager came out to look at us. K’s nephew said, “Don’t worry, we’re not going to drink the stuff. We have something much better at home.” This comment made the whole store full of people start laughing.
“I can give you two small bottles,” our clerk told us.
“Look, I just want to clean my ears with the stuff,” I said. I turned to my partner in crime and asked: “Do they really think we want to drink rubbing alcohol?”
“Yes.”
“You’re joking.”
“Iranians do.”
“Well,” I responded, “I have often felt that I was being served rubbing alcohol. Now I know that it’s true.”
Anybody know where you can buy cat litter in Tehran?
Contact me: resoponses@gmail.com
Hijab
A couple of friends of ours have been picked up for violating the Islamic dress code. (Which is what? I have been reading the Koran and so far the only thing I have read is that a woman should hide her private parts and her ornaments. What exactly does that mean? Isn’t the definition of “private parts” more social than religious? The whole hijab thing is seeming more like a fetish to me than any religious doctrine. It’s just like the injunction against eating pigs. Why make such a fuss over some parts and not about others? At this point, however, I have not completed reading the Koran, and I am *not* an expert.) They had to attend a class on hijab. I got the sense that it was kind of like driving school after being ticketed. “There were at least a 1000 people there. There was even a 14 year old girl. I mean, she was just a little girl,” our friend told me. “Everybody had at least one relative with them and some people brought there entire families. They showed us a film, gave us a lecture, and sent us home.”
The other night, I was stopped by one of these guards of Islam who did not realize that I was a foreigner. “You can’t dress like that,” he told me. I was baffled. I was wearing loose fitting Levi’s, a men’s baggy windbreaker, and my scarf. Without the scarf, they would have assumed I was a man. Only in a country like Iran could I have been accused of provocative dress.
K came to my rescue. He was livid. He really cannot abide anyone telling anyone else how to dress. The two other times that someone had the nerve to tell me that too much hair was showing, K really let loose with verbal abuse. “If I were to accept their comments and say nothing, this place would really be Hell,” he told me. “It’s none of their business.”
A friend of mine that I will call "Jeff" wrote to tell me of a dream he had about Iran’s uranium enrichment program:
Your blog got me thinking and I remembered a dream I had some time ago.
I dreamt that the whole uranium enrichment program was a big misunderstanding – what the Iranian government was really embarking upon was an Iranian Enrichment Program. I'm not sure what that would be– some sort of cultural exchange, I suppose.
Iranians are tough negotiators. It’s clear to me that they understood that the EU was the more desperate of the two parties. The EU was desperate to show America that it could negotiate a treaty with Iran. Iranians had to have known this going in.
And what should Iran be desperate for? Iranians may be desperate for improved relations, but their government is not. They would like relations to be bad enough to keep them in power and good enough to keep their consuming citizens happy (or, should I say, complacent). Believe me, these guys are smarter than we are. I think that most people think that the regime is idealistic instead of what it really is: realpolitik-al (is that a word?)
Do they really think that we want to drink this stuff?
Last night I went to the pharmacy with K’s nephew. He needed some things, and I wanted some rubbing alcohol. They handed me a tiny bottle of rubbing alcohol. “Don’t you have anything bigger?” I asked. “Or is rubbing alcohol really expensive here?”
“No it’s cheap,” the woman answered and then called to her manager, “Should I get a bigger bottle for them?”
The manager came out to look at us. K’s nephew said, “Don’t worry, we’re not going to drink the stuff. We have something much better at home.” This comment made the whole store full of people start laughing.
“I can give you two small bottles,” our clerk told us.
“Look, I just want to clean my ears with the stuff,” I said. I turned to my partner in crime and asked: “Do they really think we want to drink rubbing alcohol?”
“Yes.”
“You’re joking.”
“Iranians do.”
“Well,” I responded, “I have often felt that I was being served rubbing alcohol. Now I know that it’s true.”
Anybody know where you can buy cat litter in Tehran?
Contact me: resoponses@gmail.com
Hijab
A couple of friends of ours have been picked up for violating the Islamic dress code. (Which is what? I have been reading the Koran and so far the only thing I have read is that a woman should hide her private parts and her ornaments. What exactly does that mean? Isn’t the definition of “private parts” more social than religious? The whole hijab thing is seeming more like a fetish to me than any religious doctrine. It’s just like the injunction against eating pigs. Why make such a fuss over some parts and not about others? At this point, however, I have not completed reading the Koran, and I am *not* an expert.) They had to attend a class on hijab. I got the sense that it was kind of like driving school after being ticketed. “There were at least a 1000 people there. There was even a 14 year old girl. I mean, she was just a little girl,” our friend told me. “Everybody had at least one relative with them and some people brought there entire families. They showed us a film, gave us a lecture, and sent us home.”
The other night, I was stopped by one of these guards of Islam who did not realize that I was a foreigner. “You can’t dress like that,” he told me. I was baffled. I was wearing loose fitting Levi’s, a men’s baggy windbreaker, and my scarf. Without the scarf, they would have assumed I was a man. Only in a country like Iran could I have been accused of provocative dress.
K came to my rescue. He was livid. He really cannot abide anyone telling anyone else how to dress. The two other times that someone had the nerve to tell me that too much hair was showing, K really let loose with verbal abuse. “If I were to accept their comments and say nothing, this place would really be Hell,” he told me. “It’s none of their business.”
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