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Friday, June 26, 2009
Heroes of Iran Silenced
There is no news from Mahsa Amrabadi , journalist and blogger who was arrested last days
There is no news from Shiva Nazarahari, activity human rights & blogger who was arrested last days
Mohammad Mostafaie arrested. he is lawyer & activity human right in I iran
link: The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
Stop That Metaphor!
They used sexual morality as a weapon and now it’s shooting them in the foot.
link: Op-Ed Columnist - The Prurient Trap - NYTimes.com
But If It Only Does It When Nobody's Looking. . .
Amnesty International has installed a new anti-domestic-abuse ad fixture in Hamburg, Germany which is equal parts clever and shocking: when you look at the photo, it's a smiling couple; when you look away, it's a dude punchin' a lady.
Iran: All Quiet but "Fire in the Ashes"
7:24 PM ET -- "Calm of the grave." Friday in Tehran. Nico Pitney writes:
In the centre of Tehran there are many fewer security forces on the streets. A stadium where Basij militia - an arm of the Revolutionary Guard - were based is now being used for sport again. But the power of the regime is not far from the surface. On the main avenues black cars with the words special police painted on them move steadily through the traffic, each one containing four or five men in camouflage uniforms.
It has been much quieter these last few days. One elderly witness said she felt it was the calm of the grave. [...] When you ask Iranians about the way this might go, a phrase keeps cropping up. They say it might seem quiet to an outsider, but there is fire below the ashes."
link: Iran Uprising Live-Blogging (Friday June 26)
There Are Of Course Naked Men Hanging Around All Over Rabun County, GA
A former mayor found sitting naked and holding a beer at a Rabun County campsite told police he wasn’t the same naked man seen walking around earlier.
Mark Musselwhite, 43, said he was hot and had been in the creek, according to a Georgia Department of Natural Resources incident report. He apparently didn’t think he was doing anything wrong.
Musselwhite, of Gainesville, was arrested last weekend after being confronted by state DNR authorities. He was charged with public indecency.
“He told me he was the ex-mayor of the city Gainesville and he was a very political person,” DNR Ranger Brandon Walls wrote in the report.
link: Naked ex-mayor arrested at campsite | ajc.com
It's Not So Much the Stabbing, It's the Peeing in the Closet. . . .
What a wake-up call.
A 24-year-old Kansas City man suffered a stab wound to his face and shoulder Wednesday when his girlfriend allegedly tried to wake him from sleepwalking.
Police said the victim was intoxicated when he came home to his apartment. The girlfriend awoke about 1:30 a.m. and saw him urinating in the closet. She thought he was sleepwalking because he had done that in the past.
She tried to wake him up, but she said he pushed her out of his way. Scared he might hit her, she said, she grabbed a knife and held it up as he approached, cutting him. His injuries are believed to be non-life threatening.
link: A tough way to wake up: Man stabbed while sleepwalking - Kansas City Star
Iranian Women: The Return of the Repressed
Roger Cohen writes:
From Day 1, Iran’s women stood in the vanguard. Their voices from rooftops were loudest, and their defiance in the streets boldest. “Stand, don’t run,” Nazanine told me as the baton-wielding police charged up handsome Vali Asr avenue on the day after the fraudulent election. She stood. Images assail me: a slender woman clutching her stomach outside Tehran University after the blow; a tall woman gesticulating to the men behind her to advance on the shiny-shirted Basij militia; women shedding tears of distilled indignation; and that young woman who screamed, “We are all so angry. Will they kill us all?” How can a revolution kill its children? The post-1979 generation has risen, not alone, but in the lead. Perhaps Iran cannot be an exception to the rule that revolutions devour themselves. A friend told me he no longer recognizes his wife. She’d been of the reluctantly acquiescent school. Now, “She’s a revolutionary.” I followed as she led us up onto the roof. The “death to the dictator” that surged from her into the night was of rare ferocity.
link: Op-Ed Columnist - Iran’s Second Sex - NYTimes.com
Akatre Atelier
Akatre was founded by Valentin Abad, Julien Dhivert and Sebastien Riveron. The three of them met as students during their art studies in 2002. After working together as a team for school projects and numerous assignments they quickly understood that they had to work together. The idea of Akatre was already working up in their heads. Since their graduation, they experienced working in studios and companies, such as Philippe Apeloig, Integral Ruedi Baur, Pyramyd Editions, Michel Bouvet and Aer 'studio. About a year later of freelance work and internships, they had the “entrepreneurship bug” and didn’t want to work for a name, in the style or the way of thinking of somebody else. Hence they created "Akatre Atelier".
link: \\\: Akatre
House Passes Climate Legislation
Overcoming deep divisions within its Democratic majority, the House passed legislation on Friday intended to address the threat of global warming and transform the way the United States produces and uses energy.
The vote was 219 to 212.
The vote was the first time either house of Congress had approved a bill intended to curb the heat-trapping gases scientists have linked to climate change, and its provisions could lead to sweeping changes in many sectors of the American economy, including electric power generation, agriculture, manufacturing and construction. The House vote also establishes a marker for the United States when international negotiations on a new global climate change treaty begin later this year.
“This legislation will break our dependence on foreign oil, make our nation a leader in clean energy jobs and cut global warming pollution,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, a co-sponsor of the bill, adding that Friday’s vote was a “decisive and historic action” that would position the United States as a leader in energy efficiency and technology.
link: House Passes Bill to Address Threat of Climate Change - NYTimes.com
Obama Makes Bad Mojo with Detention Plan
The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, is drafting an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations. Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that bypassing Congress could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.
link: Ari Melber: Obama Courts Disaster With New Detention Plan
Reuters' Editor in Chief, David Schlesinger, on the Future of Journalism
The old means of control don't work. The old categories don't work. The old ways of thinking won't work. We all need to come to terms with that. Fundamentally, the old media won't control news dissemination in the future. And organisations can't control access using old forms of accreditation any more. Those statements mean what they say and not necessarily more. I am not arguing that newspapers and magazines and news services will die. No, just that they must change.
He goes on to talk about how silly it is to think of "accreditation" and defining who is and who is not a journalist by pointing out that everyone is a journalist in some way.
This isn't necessarily the "citizen journalism" trumpeted by some pundits, but a recognition that social networks make everyone the journalist of their own lives: To say they can blog as long as it isn't journalistic, misses the point. To a 23 year-old athlete, used to putting out a "news feed" of every detail of her personal life and training on various social media platforms, there simply isn't a distinction. Her life IS a news feed. Her blog IS a publishing platform. Her Facebook page IS the daily newspaper of her life. And none of these things is really private. They can get indexed by Google; they get searched; they can be public to the world with a potential circulation of every single user of the internet. Take this scenario: I will easily aggregate my imaginary athlete's comments and thoughts on winning or losing or on the standard of judging with tweets giving the audience perspective from various parts of the stadium. I'll then add that in with mobile phone camera pictures and video posted on Flickr and youtube. Well, my friends, who really needs the rightsholders, AP or Reuters if you can do that?
link: Techdirt
O Arizona: We Need Sotomayor on the Supreme Court NOW
The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with Arizona officials who said the federal government should not be supervising the state’s spending for teaching non-English-speaking students.
The 5-to-4 decision reversed a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which said the state was still violating a law that required “appropriate action” to help English language learners overcome language obstacles.
But the case, Horne v. Flores, brought by parents in Nogales 17 years ago, will go on. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority, remanded the dispute to a federal judge in Arizona for another look at whether the schools in Nogales, a small town on the Mexican border, now provide equal opportunities to English language learners.
link: Justices Side With Arizona in Case on English Language Education - NYTimes.com
Zimbabwe Seizes Diamond Fields
Zimbabwe’s military, controlled by President Robert Mugabe’s political party, violently took over diamond fields in Zimbabwe last year and has used the illicit revenues to buy the loyalty of restive soldiers and enrich party leaders, Human Rights Watch charged in a report released Friday.
link: Zimbabwe Seized Diamond Fields, Report Says - NYTimes.com
Iran: Interview with Reza Pahlavi
You are said to be a leader of the Iranian exile groups working to overthrow the regime whose clerics and mullahs overthrew your father exactly 30 years ago in the Islamic Revolution and forced your family out of the country. What do you do on a day-by-day basis, exactly?
I am in contact with all sorts of groups that are committed to a secular, democratic alternative to the current regime. We believe in a democratic parliamentary system, where there’s a clear separation between church and state, or in this case, mosque and state.
Has the American government aided you?
No, no. I don’t rely on any sources other than my own compatriots.
But presumably you’re working with American agents in the C.I.A. or elsewhere who have been trying to destabilize the Iranian regime for years.
Your presumption is absolutely and unequivocally false.
How did you end up settling in Bethesda, Md., with your wife and children?
It happens to be circumstantial. To me, it’s a temporary place to live.
Why would you call your decades of living near Washington “temporary”?
Because my desire has always been to permanently return to my homeland.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed victory over Mir Hussein Moussavi in an election that was widely condemned as fraudulent. What do you make of him?
The cry for freedom you hear in the streets of Iran right now is well beyond the fact of whether it’s one candidate versus the other. It’s about the fact that for 30 years they have been denied their most basic rights.
Many people believe that Moussavi would be more a more moderate president than Ahmadinejad.
The same argument was made during the Soviet era, where one would argue that one person would be supposedly more moderate than the other. But at the end, they all represented a Communist, totalitarian system. I think that anyone the Iranian regime prescreens would not be a true representative of the nation.
What do you make of Ahmadinejad’s rants against Israel?
Of course it’s troubling, and it’s connected again to the viral, violent message embedded in the ideology that was brought about by Khomeini himself at the time of the revolution.
Did you see the speculation from Iran that Ahmadinejad has Jewish roots? Do you think the claim is true?
Look, we hear a lot of things, but the big picture here should not be forgotten. If we say Jewish roots, aren’t we all the children of Abraham if you come to think of it?
What religion are you?
That’s a private matter; but if you must know, I am, of course, by education and by conviction, a Shiite Muslim. I am very much a man of faith.
What do you say to those who associate your father’s rule with the violation of civil rights?
He ran a brutal secret police. I leave this judgment to history. My focus is the future.
Some say the media clampdown in Iran and censorship of the foreign press are tactics Ahmadinejad learned from your father. You don’t feel obligated to acknowledge your dad’s misdeeds?
The current regime is, by any measure, the standard-bearer and global poster child for militancy, brute autocracy and corruption. If they are in fact students of my father, his ultimate act of refusing suppressive bloodshed in favor of exile should be their test.
When your father fled Tehran and went into exile, he reportedly took a lot of money with him. Would you describe yourself today as a billionaire?
Those are the recycling of 30-year-old propaganda by the clerical militants of the time. If you were to learn of my net worth, you would be more than surprised.
Do you feel bitter about not getting to be shah?
This is not a personal matter. This is not about me.
link: Questions for Reza Pahlavi - The Exile - Interview - NYTimes.com
Iran: Forced Accusation? Neda's Father
2:37 pm: Human rights activists “Iranbaan” reports that “Neda Agha Sultan’s father was brought on TV and her martyrdom was blamed on the ‘rioters.’”
link: niacINsight
Iran: Greek Journalist Arrested
Iason Athanasiadis, a Greek journalist based in Istanbul, is being held by the Iranian authorities. He was arrested 17 June 2009. The arrest seems particularly perverse since Iason, on assignment for the Washington Times and GlobalPost, is a long time Iran-hand, Farsi-speaker, and Iran-lover, who spent 2 years at Tehran University. Efforts to secure his release are being managed by the Greek Foreign MInistry, and the Greek embassy in Tehran.
link: Greek Journo Detained in Tehran – Tehran Bureau
Pipilotti Rist, Homo sapiens sapiens: Eye Witness
Pipilotti Rist. Homo sapiens sapiens, 2005 Audio-video installation (video still) © Pipilotti Rist
Airform Archives
"it seems like a rhythmical process, like inhalation and exhalation; waves of disturbance run through the sun sphere, stream out and stream back again, gradually lessen in strength until they fade away completely."
link: airform archives: until they fade away completely...
Review of SOFT DESPOTISM, by Paul Rahe
Rahe's book on soft despotism, one of three substantial volumes he is publishing this year, studies a concept of Alexis de Tocqueville's set forth in his magisterial work, Democracy in America. Soft despotism (despotisme doux), according to him, is a new despotism found only in democracy. It is not based on making the people tremble with fear, as Montesquieu said of the usual despot, but on providing benefits and offering good will to the people as individuals.
link: Consequential Ideas
GOP Sex Scandal Flow Chart, for the Bewildered and Clueless
Talking Points Memo makes available this handy tool:
Sex Scandal Flow Chart
link: Sex Scandal Flow Chart | TPM News Pages
Photos by Daryl Banks
Crinoline Flower by Daryl Banks.
Daryl Banks is a photographer based in Toronto, Canada. Working in areas such as fashion, advertising and fine art.
link: \\\: Daryl Banks
Stop the Presses: Contrabass Saxophone and Spandex News
Sportswriter and competitive musicologist Randy Emerick reports:
Important musicians in history #1
French cyclist Emile Escargot, riding for the Italian team Basso,attempts to win a stage of the Tour de France while playing La Marseillaise on the bass saxophone. Unfortunately, his low E flat key got caught in his chain and he finished dead last.
link: Facebook | Randy Emerick's Photos - Wall Photos
Iran: Possible Scenarios
First, where do things stand with the protests? The government's repressive measures appear to be increasingly effective in suppressing the movement to the streets. At the same time, however, there is word that Rafsanjani may have collected enough anti-Khamenei votes in the Assembly of Experts to force a compromise, possibly in the form of a run-off election between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. At the same time, it seems unlikely that Rafsanjani has the votes to have Khamenei removed outright. The outcome, in other words, looks increasingly like something like a power-sharing agreement between the clerics allied around Rafsanjani and the militarist/nationalists (including plenty of clerics) around Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, in which Khamenei will remain Supreme Leader but the orthodox clerics will get some concessions - possibly starting with the rumored run-off election - and will insist on a greater say in how things are done from here on out.
Understanding the fact that Khamenei and Ahmadinejad are political rather than religious figures -- and that their opponents, led by Ayatollah Rafsanjani, speak for the religious voice in Iran's leadership -- is directly relevant to thinking about Iran's nuclear program. The fact that Ahmadinejad is on the less religious end of the spectrum helps explain why his government might be pursuing a nuclear weapons program despite years of statements by Iran's leading religious authorities that nuclear weapons are an offense against God. One positive outcome of a power-sharing arrangement might be a government that is more willing to bend on issues relating to its nuclear program.
link: Howard Schweber: Iran and the Syrian Gambit
The Art of James Ensor
Although Ensor has long been a fixture in the art canon, he is also a fugitive presence. My guess is that a lot of people know his name without knowing quite who he is. Who can blame them? He’s hard to pin down. Gothic fantasist, political satirist, religious visionary: one minute he’s doing biblical scenes, the next the equivalent of biker tattoos, in a style that veers between crude and dainty.
link: Art Review - James Ensor - At MoMA, Nighmares of Gruesome Beauty - NYTimes.com Hat tip to David Bain
Pay No Attention to the Iranian Cleric Behind the Wall of Contradictions
Andrew Sullivan writes:
Many of us feel numb after the last few weeks of anticipation, euphoria and horror. And it will take time to absorb and plumb what really went on, what will happen next and how all these things will change our world. But it seems totally clear to me that the curtain has been pulled from the Islamist Wizard. Theocratic regimes require some base level of reverence, and watching the old Supreme Leader lose it at Friday prayers a week ago, and the bare-faced martial law that has been effectively imposed since, you realize that the mystique has gone for ever. In fact, the whole notion of a democratic Islamist state just hit a wall of contradictions.
link: The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
Iran: Fault Lines in the Regime
Fareed Zakaria writes:
There have been protests in Iran before, but they always placed the street against the state, and the clerics all sided with the state. When the reformist president Mohammad Khatami was in power, he entertained the possibility of siding with the street after student riots broke out in 1999 and 2003, but in the end he stuck with the establishment. The street and state are at odds again—the difference this time is that the clerics are divided. Khatami has openly backed the challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, as has the reformist Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri. Even Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, not a cleric himself but a man with strong family connections to the highest levels of the religious hierarchy, has expressed doubts about the election. Behind the scenes, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani—the head of the Assembly of Experts, another important constitutional body—is reportedly waging a campaign against Ahmadinejad and even possibly the Supreme Leader. If senior clerics dispute Khamenei's divine assessment and argue that the Guardian Council is wrong, it would represent a death blow to the basic premise behind the Islamic Republic of Iran. It would be as though a senior Soviet leader had said in 1980 that Karl Marx was not the right guide to economic policy.
link: Theocracy and Its Discontents | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com
Invention of the Toothbrush
1498: The emperor of China patents the toothbrush: hogback bristles set into a piece of bone or bamboo. Dental hygiene takes a step up.
link: June 26, 1498: A Brush With History | This Day In Tech | Wired.com
China, US Wrangle over "Green Dam" Software
The United States still hopes it can persuade China to abandon, or at least delay, its plan to require controversial filtering software on new computers, despite growing trade friction over the issue, a U.S. trade official said on Thursday. "The U.S. government will remain focused on the problem and use diplomatic and other available means as necessary to resolve it," said Debbie Mesloh, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office one day after top American officials urged Beijing to drop the plan.
link: U.S. pressing China Green Dam concern on all fronts | Technology | Internet | Reuters
Cleric Calls for Execution of Iranian Protestors
A hardline Iranian cleric on Friday called for the execution of "rioters," in a sign of the authorities' determination to stamp out opposition to the June 12 presidential election result.
link: Iranian cleric says rioters should be executed | International | Reuters
Arab Activists Outside Iran Are Watching
Across the Arab world, Iran's massive opposition protests have triggered a wave of soul-searching and conflicting emotions. Many question why their own reform movements are unable to rally people to rise up against unpopular authoritarian regimes. In Egypt, the cradle of what was once the Arab world's most ambitious push for democracy, Iran's protests have served as a reminder of how much the notion has unraveled under President Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled the country for 30 years.
"I am extremely jealous," said Nayra El Sheikh, 28, a blogger and Sharkawy's wife. "I can't help but think: Why not us? What do they have that we don't have? Do they have more guts?"
link: Arab Activists Watch Iran And Wonder: 'Why Not Us?' - washingtonpost.com
Turkish Author Nedim Gursel Acquitted
A court in Istanbul on Thursday acquitted a Turkish writer who was accused of inciting religious hatred in a novel based on the birth of Islam. Nedim Gursel’s “Daughters of Allah,” was published last year in Turkey. The case came to trial after Ali Emre Bukagili, a member of a group that has campaigned against the theory of evolution, said that Mr. Gursel used inappropriate language against the Prophet Muhammad, his wives and the Koran that could not be interpreted as freedom of expression. Mr. Gursel, who holds French citizenship, could have faced at least a year in prison. He has said such trials damage Turkey’s chances for membership in the European Union.
link: Arts, Briefly - Turkish Court Acquits Author - NYTimes.com
Censorship and Surveillance in Iran
Reading last night's bone-chiling tweets from the Iranian known on Twitter as PersianKiwi, who has been posting virtually non-stop for the last week and a half, raises the question of whether the difference between censorship and surveillance is now playing out to a bloody end in Iran:
** they catch ppl with mobile - so many killed today - so many injured - Allah Akbar - they take one of us
** they pull away the dead into trucks - like factory - no human can do this - we beg Allah for save us -
**Everybody is under arrest & cant move - Mousavi - Karroubi even rumour Khatami is in house guardwe must go - dont know when we can get internet - they take 1 of us, they will torture and get names - now we must move fast -
**thank you ppls 4 supporting Sea of Green - pls remember always our martyrs - Allah Akbar - Allah Akbar - Allah Akbar
**Allah - you are the creator of all and all must return to you - Allah Akbar -
link: Bob Ostertag: In the Digital Iran, Censorship and Surveillance Merge
Note from TRH: Persiankiwi, whose Twitter broadcasts many of us had followed with rapt attention through the crisis in Iran fell silent two days ago. I, along with many others, are hopeful and yet fearful concerning his or her safety.
Iran: Ayatollah Sistani Declines Meeting with Ahmadinejad
The Shiite religious leader with the biggest influence, Najaf-based Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani — who rivals Ayatollah Khamenei as a marjaa for Shiites around the world — has kept quiet on the Iranian crisis. But a person familiar with the matter said this week that Ayatollah Sistani declined Mr. Ahmadinejad’s request for a meeting during the Iranian president’s visit to Iraq last year. At the time, Mr. Ahmadinejad said he had canceled a trip to Najaf because of a tight schedule.
link: niacINsight
Iran: Mousavi Calls Regime on "Contradiction Between Their Actions and their Duty"
10:23 am: Mousavi’s open letter to Iran’s national security council regarding illegal activities of the plainclothes individuals.
In a letter to Iran’s security council, Mousavi asked them to take immediate measures to prevent un-uniformed individuals from using violence. Mousavi said that armed individuals without uniforms or ranks have been frequently attacking demonstrators before the armed forces arrive, destroying property and injuring people. “I remind the council that this evil phenomenon – that the authorities in charge of providing order and security use plainclothes agents among their forces – proves that the armed forces are aware of the contradiction between their actions and their legal duties; therefore, that they are not willing to be associated with such appalling acts.” Mousavi then asked the council to take immediate action to stop these individuals.
link: niacINsight
Iran: Green Balloon Protest
This image, said to show today’s green balloon protest in favor of the opposition in Iran, was uploaded to TwitPic by a blogger who explained “They ran out of balloons, so they started filling up trash bags.”
link: Latest Updates on Iran’s Disputed Election - The Lede Blog - NYTimes.com
Iran: Shirin Ebadi to be Prosecuted?
Official Iranian news agencies have published a letter claiming to be from lawyers, university professors, and families of veterans and martyrs, which requests the Justice minister, Gholam-Hussein Elham, to prosecute Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi for allegedly violating Islamic and constitutional law through her human rights advocacy, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reported today. Elham is also the spokesman for Ahmadinejad’s government.
link: Latest Updates on Iran’s Disputed Election - The Lede Blog - NYTimes.com
Iran: "The Taboo is Broken"
Lara Setrakian of ABC News in Dubai writes on Twitter that a source in Iran tells her:
“Tehran is very very quiet. There’s anger & passion, but going out to show it doesn’t seem very productive and is very dangerous.”
“There has to be a ray of hope, there doesn’t seem to be any. Having said that, things will never be the same. The taboo is broken.”
link: Latest Updates on Iran’s Disputed Election - The Lede Blog - NYTimes.com
Iran Regime: Demonstrators to be Punished "Ruthlessly and Savagely"
Despite new international criticism, the Iranian authorities showed no sign Friday of bending to domestic or foreign pressure, insisting that the disputed presidential vote on June 12 was the “healthiest” in three decades.
The uncompromising words emerged as the Group of Eight countries, including the United States, mounted a fresh broadside Friday saying they “deplored” the post-election violence and demanding that the “the will of the Iranian people is reflected in the electoral process.”
The authorities showed little inclination to heed chastisement by outsiders as a senior cleric called for demonstrators to be punished “ruthlessly and savagely.”
link: Authorities Rule Iran Election ‘Healthy’ - NYTimes.com
