Freedom of speech

What are you talking about?

Free speech for others.

For everybody?.

Do you know, how much more time exercising freedom of speech would add to my daily life in taxi cabs and butcher shops here in Tehran? It would take me 5 hours in cabs to travel from west Tehran to east Tehran and hours more at the butcher shops because then I would need to listen to everybody. That would be really a nightmare, maybe even worse than not having free speech.

Can't we all just get along? Can't we just go home Esther? I mean, leave this place.

I would get you your own TV show in Los Angeles and you can talk as much as you want about free speech.

I am going crazy here.

Are you crazy to start this discussion with the Iranians? Most of Iranian people I know, (sorry guys) who live, work, married and have wonderful lives in the west love free speech, but not for others. I say this because if, we could tolerate disagreement better than we could agree about something. (You Iranians know what I am talking about. Esther always says two Jews, three opinions. We are even worse.) The fact is that we can almost always agree to be against something but we can almost never agree about what to do about it. We have an even harder time agreeing to be *for* something. This may not be just an Iranian problem, but we definitely need to work on this.

I know I am getting in big trouble now. But, the good news is that I and Esther will have a (?) book for sale soon, it is by the printer and would be ready to ship in couple of weeks. So watch this space.

Al-Safadi criticizes Ahmadinejad

Perhaps Iran's foray into the world of international conspiracy theorists won't be a love-in after all:

From The Independent: Iran's denial of Holocaust harms Arab cause, Palestine activist tells president
By Angus McDowall in Tehran

However, Mr Ahmadinejad has been condemned on the eve of the conference by Mahmoud al-Safadi, who was sentenced to 27 years by Israel for throwing Molotov cocktails during the 1988 intifada. In an open letter to the Iranian president, he says that Mr Ahmadinejad's stance is a "great disservice to popular struggles the world over".

"Perhaps you see Holocaust denial as an expression of support for the Palestinians," he writes. "Here, too, you are wrong. We struggle for our existence and our rights, and against the historic injustice that was dealt us in 1948.

Akbar Ganji - Letter to America - washingtonpost.com

Read Ganji's Letter to America:

Akbar Ganji - Letter to America - washingtonpost.com: "But the dangers of the Tehran regime are not limited to the nuclear question. The regime is dangerous mostly because it is willing to brutally trample on the democratic and human rights of the Iranian people. It is dangerous because it is willing to create gender apartheid in the name of religion and to suppress religious and ethnic minorities. Finally, it is dangerous because it considers all forms of dissent unforgivable sins. The real goal of the nuclear program is to make these policies permanent. In its negotiations with the Iranian regime, the West must not overlook this important fact."

Adventures of Mr.Behi: We still can or we never could?

Adventures of Mr.Behi: We still can or we never could?

Just enjoying this post from Mr. Behi:

There is a lovely story about one of the old comic legend in Iranian literature that talks about the day he shouted in the middle of the main square of his town that he was still as powerful as when he was 20. People gathered around that 60 year old guy and asked for proof.

He took them to the country side where there was a big rock along side of the river. He started pushing the rock so hard for some minutes and then gave up. After restoring his breath he claimed: "See, I could neither move this when I was 20".

The Iranian president claimed :" We STILL have means to confront the west".