برای نادیا انجمن
جایی برای من نبود ...

مرغ نبودم
گوسفند نبودم
گاو نبودم
فیل نبودم که عاجم را
کرگدن هم

گردنم را بریدی
سرم
سرم
در میان پستانهایم گذاشتی

که زن بودم
که زن نبودم- انسان بودم

بودم بودم انسان زن زن انسان زن انسان
گیسو داشتم
چشم داشتم
لب داشتم
دل داشتم

مرغ نبودم
گوسفند نبودم
مذاب بودم آب بودم زمین بودم
زن بودم
تو را من همسر
همسنگ
بودم

مرا تو اما بریدی
سر سر بر تنم نهادی
تنم را در خاک
از خاک نمودی
قاتل!

شیما کلباسی

------
"While hanging out at a sidewalk café in downtown Beirut, a Lebanese-American friend of mine shocked me when he abruptly and forcefully dismissed a woman who walked up and said something to him in Arabic. Whoa, I thought. There was a side to his personality that I hadn't seen yet."

from Michael Totten's ...Middle East Journal.

When she was three weeks old Mom and I... dress her up in warm clothing, a blanket covering her body and walked in our neighborhood. People called her, little pumpkin, sweet pie, and precious baby. Today she is three years and a half and won her first medal. She is beyond the little pumpkin pie we carried in our arms... today she was the youngest... but the greatest for her baba (p) and maani (Sheema.) (One of the black belt gentlemen in the photo is not particularly... how can I put it... slim... so there maybe hope for me after all. I am starting to take martial arts lessons from next week... hoping to reduce my level of stress.)

وقتی دختر کوچولو سه هفته اش بود با مامان... لباس گرم تن دختر می پوشوندیم... زیر پتوی سبزی که مال دوران نوزادی خودم بود و از محدود وسایلی هست که مهاجرت و تبعید هجده ساله ام از دستم نگرفته... توی کالسکه نشونده و تو دور و بر خونه امون شروع به قدم زدن می کردیم. آمریکاییهایی که من باهشون تو خیابون و مغازه ها مواجه شدم عاشق نوزادند و به یک فسقلی نیم انگشتی کلی ابراز دلباختگی... می کنند... و اما امروز صبح دختر کوچولو که حالا سه سال و نیمه هست... لباس تکواندو به تن خیلی موقر جلوی داورها ایستاد و ادای احترام کرد... بعد هم حرکاتی که یاد گرفته بود رو انجام داد. البته که خیلی کوچیک هست... درواقع کوچیکترین شاگرد کلاس ... اما برای من و پ بزرگترین بانوی کوچولو...!

Ahmadinejad's Mein Kampf moment

There are differences between Hitler in 1925 and Ahmadinejad in 2005. Perhaps the biggest is this: When Hitler made his threats he was an obscure politician whom hardly anyone took seriously.

By contrast, Ahmadinejad is the president of a large and wealthy nation that operates terrorist organizations and is well on its way to developing nuclear weapons.

Clifford D. May

My stomach turned when on the Chris Mathews show this morning, I heard Jimmy Carter complementing Bush senior (41) for his foreign policy accomplishments while criticizing Bush junior (43) for his foreign policy failures. There is a lot you can blame W for, but in this particular case, give me a break. What these foreign policy accomplishers screwed up so badly over the course of 50 years in the Middle East, cannot be turned around by W over night, no matter how "right" his vision might be.

Sheema Kalbasi

-------------
MORE ON MUSLIM RIOTS IN DENMARK

من: مانی زود باش!
دختر: مانی! دارم زود می شم.
من: امروز باید زودتر ببرمت مدرسه. ساعت نه کلاسم شروع می شه.
دختر: هآشکی * اونوقت منو از مدرسه میاره؟
من: آره عزیزم. مانی ساعت سه میاد دنبالت.
دختر: هآشکی اونوقت نیست واسم غذا درست کنه؟
من: چرا مانی! مانی واست غذا درست می کنه وقتی بیای خونه غذا داری.
دختر: مانی! شما خیلی عاقلی.

* هیچکس

My motto is very much what Marion Wright Edelman, Attorney and civil rights advocate has said: "If you don't like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time. You're not obligated to win. You're obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day."


Sheema Kalbasi

The Human Rights Activist, Shiva Nazar Ahari was condemned to one year imprisonment sentence in Iran.
------

" Ganji's situation is now extremely critical. The authorities are exerting tremendous pressure on him to disavow his writings. "

Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

------

- دشمن اسرائيل ، انساني است که به شيوه هفت هزار سال قبل مي زيد ، سيماي او ، پوشش او ، بوي بدن و پاهايش ، رفتار او با همسر و فرزندانش ، خانه يا غاري که در آن زندگي مي کند ، کلماتي که براي حرف زدن انتخاب مي کند ، ميزان آگاهي اش از پديده هاي دنياي جديد و خيلي چيزهاي ديگر.دشمنان اسرائيل صاجبان چفيه پوش چهرهايي ترسناک اند که در غزه ، جنين و بعلبک به خيابان مي ريزند ، براي قتل هزاران انسان بيگناه شادي ، هلهله و پايکوبي مي کنند ، صداهاي عجيب و غريب در مي آورند و تيرهوايي شليک مي کنند. خوشتان بيايد يا نيايد ، دوستي يا دشمني اسرائيل ملاک انتخاب است ميان تمدن و بدويت - اين يک حکم راستگرايانه ، نئوکنسرواتيو و غيرانساني نيست. اين واقعيت دنياي امروز ماست. قبول نداريد ، کاغذ و قلم برداريد ، خطي وسط صفحه بکشيد ، دوستان و دشمنان اسرائيل را يک به يک روي سمت راست و چپ خط حائل روي اغذ آوريد. نوشته خود را چند بار خوب نگاه کنيد و بعد لطفا از خود خجالت بکشيد ، اگر تا ديروز نامتان در کنار بن لادن ،‌احمدي نژاد ، خامنه اي و الزرقاوي بود.

نیما راشدان

Iran as the new Jewish state



Still...

I am pretty miserable and down with fever and a stuffed nose to carry around... but the good news is... today... I am high on chamomile and green tea... enough to post this. Manoke Khodabakhshian, the Iranian theoretician and commentator (he has a nose for it) recently said (Last Sunday that is)... we say... we want reform... the ruling regime in Iran... introduces three reform movements... we ask for a republic... they have seven type of republicans up their sleeves... we ask for a straight shooter, an honest journalist with years of experience in both Shah's and Khomeini's regimes... They send us Masoud Behnoud and Ebrahim Nabavi... we ask for a constitutional... lets say monarchy... they have it Hajjrian style (these last parts are not Khodabakhshian words but mine... I just felt like merging my bright intuitions and comments with his!)... So I say... lets try saying... we want Iran as a Jewish state and see what the regime in Iran can come up with! After all Jews... have been living in Iran for some 2000 years... perhaps the not so bright Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will now dress in a Rabbi suit to convince us... the regime in Iran has the winning card up their sleeve!