Ms. MARIA BRANT of the Leaf of S.Paulo sent me an e-mail asking to answer some questions for her Sunday report (I was among thirty others). Here are a few of her questions and my answers. Now that the article is published (it seems my answers weren�t what she expected) I share some...


What do you think of the recent protests by students in Iran? They are brave souls who deserve all the support the world can offer.

Would you like Iran to be a democracy? Why? Yes. Because despite all the imperfections of a democratic system, it is the best form of a government mankind has ever invented.

Can you tell me the name of a person you admire? Mr. Amir Entezam (He has been in the Islamic Republic of Iran's jail for the past 25 years. In my opinion he is an unknown Mandela).

Why have you started blogging? Why in English? For me blogging is the best medium to express myself. To write and publish in Persian on the Internet is cumbersome and besides I would like to have a larger audience.

  

 

Have you ever felt fat and ugly? Have you ever felt that you want to get one of those life-changing liposuctions? Well I woke up this morning thinking...thinking...thinking...about liposuction, breast lift and Iran. I don�t know what her other children may suggest ... but I think it's about time that Iran cuts her breasts (or has a lift,) stops breastfeeding, and suck out all the extra fat that she has here and there and becomes the beauty she is! Why not? How long does she want to breastfeed torturers, killers and extremists!


Check salamworldwide... M forwarded it to me...the article is on Iranian Blogs You Must Check Out!

Baby watches her favorite program on PTV: Barney. Perhaps baby thinks of us (P and I) as her barneys too. She calls us Baanny and Maanny! Her aunt (my sister-in-law) has send baby a big barney for her birthday and it has become the latest addition to our family!

If there was one Iranian poet, I would love to read poetry with, it would be Mr. Mohammad-Reza Shafii Kadkani (M. Sereshk).

The song of wind and rain

You are kinder than a leaf under the kisses of rain
The wakefulness of stars in the eyes of streams
The mirror of your eyes the unity of morning and shore
Your rare smile a star-pouring morning
Come back, cause in your absence, my silent insanity
Made the mountainous rocks scream
You running brook, don't run from this shadow leaf
Since this opportunity has been missed by so many
The wall of life has been painted with memories
By many before you and me
You said : "Love has set in my heart over time," I said:
You can not strike it out even by time
Till remains in the world the song of wind and rain
Our love melody will remain after you and me

Shafii Kadkani

Check khorsheed.com.

  

 

Some 4000 to 5000 Iranian Students have been arrested. You can check ayandegan and alinonblogger (both are in English).

If you currently live in Iran and know students who have disappeared/vanished from the face of earth in these recent years and/or not been heard from...you can help by filling this form. Write their names, the name of the university, when he/she was accepted at the university, the last place they were seen, where are/were they from and so on...remember you do not have to write your own name...I don't know how much my English blog can/may... help...I feel like an...ant (when writing this blog...well I don't know the exact/best words to describe this feeling of 'ant-ness' (like Nooshi's child...I have created my own literature) ... this feeling of ... not being enough of a mama-long-hands (not daddy-long-legs) to touch the hearts of as many as I can...

eparizi writes a thirteen-year-old male student has been attacked. He is severely injured, hospitalized and under constant watch by the clerics' revolutionary guards. Reporters and journalists are not permitted to see him.

Check my paintings on the iranian.com

  

 

She writes zaneirani's blog is soothing on the eyes and the mind. Thank you SuddenNothing.

  

 

I bathe my baby, dressed her and sat to drink my tea. While sipping my warm drink (I don't drink coffee or alcohol and I have never been a smoker...water and some times tea are pretty much what I drink) I started thinking about the reasons I left my birth country, Iran ... and as my brain was storming through the memories ... I thought Does Paradise Have a Hell? Does Hell have a Paradise? If Paradise had a Hell that would be Denmark-a country where second generation immigrants and refugees (and Danes of different ethnic backgrounds) experience sever depressions and physical and mental disorders due to the rapid psychological and social rape......if Hell had a paradise that would be Middle East and the hope for freedom and Peace.

Middle East

I dreamt that I was innocent
my naked skin
in touch with reality
and my soul was in search
to hear your -worldly- murmur: Peace

I offered you my love
wrapped in honesty
(pure to catch up with you)
shrunk with disbelief

I -asking you: Know me

with your gorgeousness
as you played with the waves
breaking one after another
taking them into your hands
touching them one after another

I wanted to be called with your name: just

what color was Peace?
the one you chose to paint me?
the one you narrowed into my heart and nested in my grave,
what color was it?

I am longing in my grave
to receive the flowers
with your hand written note: rest-in-peace
(my beautiful Middle East)


Sheema Kalbasi

Mr.Khamenehi (Ayat-e allah/Ayatollah/Leader number one) wants the arrested students to be executed. In order to support the -students/people's- demonstration against the clerics ruling the country...please sign this petition.

There are plenty of music channels -on TV- that baby and I enjoy listening to.
.......you start to shake your bon-bon (with the diapers) once you hear the music play. I love you my baby girl but I think your baba loves you even more. He says no one's love and nothing has ever come close to the love he feels for you. He says you look like your mama Sheema. He says he loves me. I tell him I love him. I am one of those very expressive women. I guess being Iranian has its advantages......

  

 

In order to support the-students/people's-demonstration against the clerics ruling the country-please sign this petition.

I had a meeting yesterday and baby was outside with P-waiting. She kept coming to the door with her-she calles it-Teddy and a big pretty smile-showing off her charm and making her mama very proud.

I am not trying to campaign for non-smokers or ban smoking but I want to present my case as a mother ...read more about it on mom to be section of irandokht.

  

 

...another (bloger) student is arrested... ...

NS sent me this link ( a song for the arrested students -yesterday and today...)

Today is one of those quiet days....... all you hear is the dark-gray sky crying ..... when I was a little girl and visiting my aunt ....... one afternoon ...... I looked at the sky and asked (my) Khaleh-mom's sister-why is it ... that ..... the sky .... is.... so red? ...... She answered ..... because too many people have been killed today......

Today is one of those quiet days .................

  

 

persiannote: to learn more about the current situation/news in Iran you can go to this English blog.

Lady Sun describes her frustration, anger and sadness over the current situation in Iran. Dictators, the extremist group, the reformist government, wishful monarchists, and the Iranian students -including herself- are among many she hates (she is one of the many who live under the cruel
-major-minority of the Iranian regime- where persecutions, prison, executions, sudden deaths, stoning are not just a few scary/disturbing words).
It seems hate -these four letters- has much more power than Love! Lady Sun has every right to despise those who have made her generation-my generation- to an explosive and burning one.

But with hate comes killing. Killing is an intensive part of my history -sons killing fathers, brothers killing brothers, women killing and poisoning women and all that to gain power and position. We easily "kill" (to condemn others' actions/reactions when not desirable/acceptable/desired/accepted -and in our self-interests). Killing is the one word we take lightly and therefore it has become an "active" part of our society and culture ...bahaies, kurds, political activists, army officers, teachers, mojahids, monarchists, reformists, extremists, students, wives, daughters, sons, kings and soon sheikhs, ayatollahs, basijis and hezbollahis are to join this long exhausting list of executed iranians.

I condemn Killing.

  

 

The student protest turned into a larger demonstration against the clerics ruling the country.

A few days ago a friend sent me this. What I read on this blog was extremely disturbing. The bloger writes about a mentally challenged 16-year-old Iranian woman who was raped by two men. The men threatened the girl's parents and therefore the family refused to charge any complains. Few mounts later the 16-year-old gave birth to a baby. Today she -a rape victim- is convicted of prostitution!

  

 

Brian (our American painter friend) is leaving for Lebonan soon...today is one of those days that I wish I were the one bag packing and traveling (I don't mind P and baby to come along as long as I am not changing the diapers.)

...And your tears will flow like a river
And at the close of your life
You will find that since your beloved
Has no land, no home, no address
You have been pursuing only a trace of smoke
How difficult it is, my son
To love a woman
Who has neither land, nor home.

Nizar Qabbani
read his eshgh va naft



To gain your man's heart feed him well (or as Martin Ostergaard the Danish author writes: to gain your man's heart be a great lover!) Well I want to rephrase it to: "to gain your wo/man's heart =buy her/him one of these.
It is the best thing that a woman (or man) can have. I am mother of a toddler and my life is... as busy as it can get. So when P - the man of my life- with a Ph.D. in Math and Masters in Electronics and M.B.A.-after our baby's birth turned into a cleaning-master-robot (he really has become Mr. Clean!) -and- bought this beauty- I was all for it. The mechanical, chemical, electronics and bio friendly house cleansers and machines (that we have) can't/don't lift a finger to the handy sweeper.

...read the article on Salam Pax.

  

 

An artist friend has created Sangsar, a combination of art and his beautiful poetry.


For those of you who want to read one of my (Persian) fiction stories here is the one I like most...it may not be the best of my works...but I love the poetic style of it.

  

 

Living in Europe, for a non-European, is an every day struggle to prove he/she does belong to the human race!

the old lady in the shoe...

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"It's better to change your shoes than to carpet the world." --Stuart Smalley
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and to you:
Frankness and rudeness differ greatly from one another. Next time...keep it in mind.

Mahshid Amirshahi is one of P's favorite Iranian writers (I think it's more her views than writings...) mom told him Mahshid has been to our home (she came with some friends... I guess-once mom said that) P got more interested in me... if we weren't already married... I'd have some fun...with the...
Last night I received an interesting photo-painting by an (American) artist friend. He has both his children's reflection.. painted on his glasses.

My dad's school/classmate Parviz Tanavoli keeps building these "Hich" (nothing) sculptures over and over!!
I don't know... maybe I just have a bad art day!!!!!


P looks at our Baby and says if only Iran was a free and democratic nation...
Just got published (under another name- there are times when I want to publish my political views with my real name but I have to think of the baby- don't ask me what the other name is... P says motherhood/fatherhood brings responsibility...)

Mr. Rafsanjani has officially bought lands and buildings in Canada, Uganda and Brazil. Hasn't he been convicted for crimes against...