مرقــد مطهر حضرت امام رضا(ع) قبله گاه دل هاى مشتاق و عاشقان دلداده آن حضرت در سراسر جهان است.شيدادلان كوى دوست با تحمّل مشقت هاى فراوان به زيارت بارگاه نورانى آن امام مى شتابنـد و گــاهى در خلوت لحظات ، چنان شوق زيارت بى تابشان مى كند كه آرزو مى كنند ايكاش مى توانستند همواره در محضر مولاى خود، حرم مطهر رضوى باشند و عرض ارادت و ادب كنند، لكن اين امر هميشه و براى همگان مقدور نمى گردد. آستان قدس رضوى با فراهم سازى امكان نيل به زيارت از راه دور،زمينه اين ارتباط از طريق سايت اينترنت را فراهم آورده است تا از هر كجا و هر زمان كه اراده نماييد خود رادر محضر امام رئوفتان بيابيد.

See here for a virtual tour of Imam Reza shrine. The nice point is that there are no wals here near Zarih. I mean the walls separating men from women. Do not trust me? See it yourself!

When you are addicted you do not have to think much about the world. When you screw things up, because of addiction, you say to yourself, it was not so important. People may talk to you about the silliness of addiction, but you are sure they do not understand it. At least, when injecting drug into your veins, you are sure that you are connected to the majestic power of the universe. You have no reason for being addicted, though it is nothing bad, let everybody tell whatever they want. You are happy. I think fanatism is so much like addiction. Just replace "addiction" with "fanatism" and "injecting drug into your veins" with "shouting, down with US" in the above. The cartoon is from here.

At the first days of Iranian revolution, many top politicians believed and asserted that expertise is not an important conditions for people responsible for official affairs, even for engineers and doctors. What they assumed to be really necessary was loyalty and devotion to what they assumed to be the aims of the revolution. And they did what they did. I was once reading an article about Rejaii (assumed to be the first president of IRI, after the actual first president Banisadr who had to flee the country for his life). The writer believed that Rejaii was so lucky to be assassinated that soon (after a few months)! At least it was never known publicly how illiterate he was for being a president. So they understood that it is important to have education. At least for being able to give suggestions that do work. Guess what they did afterwise! There was (and is) lots of money spent on educating government figures in cheap universities in and outside Iran. See here if you know Persian for a sample case talked about by a key figure of their own flock. Briefly, they invented an university called Islamic Azad (means free) University (see). There are also other more prestigious versions of that in Iran. As an other example, when it was found out that an internationally unknown university called Hawaii University is doing some strange things in Iran, it was also learned that many key figures of judiciary have been customers of that same institute! Is it strange to know that nobody wants to investigate the actions of that university now? The head of judiciary in Tehran (the man seen here) was one of their special graduates! It is more understood in Iran that education is more a fashion than a necessity. Not just for the man in the street, but also for politicians.