Kamangir (Archer)

They want to execute us
Effective tomorrow, anyone who wears stripped pyjamas will be executed for acting against public and private safety*.
p.s. From now on, this blog will be dedicated to apiary in alpine heights, the positive effects of cucumbers in getting rid of stomach gas,  modern sewing methods, making flowers with flour, the importance of [...]

The date on the last post in this blog used to read “June the 13th” for almost a month. This was quite a change for this blog, which used to be updated more than once on almost every day for over two years. Things had changed, but better, less tense, days are ahead.
First, there was [...]

The Kurd activist Farhad Hadj Mirzaei has been under arrest since last winter.
The Student Committee of Human Rights Reporters reports that the interrogators have applied harsh methods of torture, including electrical shocks and sleep deprivation, on the inmate, in order to take a forced confession out of him [Persian].
A week ago, his father wrote [...]

Chris De Burgh, who happens to be one my most favorites, recently went to Tehran to do a joint song with the Iranian group Arian. In his website, the work is described as,
This is an exciting project as it is the first collaboration between Western and Iranian artists.
It also so happens that Arian was for [...]

The anniversary of Operation Liberation of Khoramshahr is approaching. Independent of all the arguments against the war and how the Islamic Republic to many people’s understanding prolonged the war to establish itself and silence the opposition, the brevity and sincerity of those who fought and fell for their country should be honored. They fought an [...]

A satirical post by “35 degree“,
Do you carry condoms?
It is a lot fun to buy a condom in Iran! Of course, I agree with you that not only it is a hard thing to do, but also it could cause trouble for you. But, just for the sake of argument, let’s look at it differently. [...]

In her newest book, Seven Valleys of Love, Sheema Kalbasi looks at the works of Iranian female poets from Middle Ages Persia to present day Iran. Sheema is fluent in both Persian and English, to the extent that she does fine writing in both languages. When asked by the Persian Radio Farda why she focused [...]

Although, recently I have been quiet about my blogging projects, including Didish and Feed Counter, I have been steadily working on the twins.
The aggregation module in Didish is now a local tool, as opposed to the previously-used web-based Gregarius which was strangling Kamangir’s host as the number of links grew bigger. The project’s interface [...]

Hamid Reza Moghadam-Far, the head of the state-run Fars News, when asked, “As the head of a major media outlet, do you already have a blog or plan to start one? “, stated [Persian],
I am not for what has become a trend for journalists to be active in the media and write their [...]

“Are you sure the Islamic Republic/Ahmadinejad have asked for Israel to be wiped off the map?” This is the question I have been asked by so many people over the course of the last few years. While I became more and more concerned why so many people kept asking the same question, I kept [...]

Three years ago, around these days, Masih Alinejad was banned from entering the Parliament [Persian]. At the time, Alinejad worked as the parliamentary correspondent for ILNA, a media source close to the reformists. When she published reports that indicated that contrary to their claims of “living an ordinary life”, the MPs do enjoy a [...]

After I published the post “Why bombing Iran is a Must” in Persian, I received a lot of angry responses. The outrage was to the extent that I deleted the Persian post and apologized from the readers. The same day, later in the evening, a group of us gathered in our apartment to talk about [...]

 

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If you have not guessed how the case of a woman on the death row could have anything to do with “discount” a hosting company offers to its customers, well, that’s what I call the “Iranian Connection”.

The sign reads, “No service to people with loose veil, not even to our old customers”. This sign I wish was rare in Iran, but it isn’t. The fact is, there are stickers which carry the same message and are printed by the Police. These stickers are widely used all over Iran and their use [...]

Outrageous Police Violence in Iran

“The ceremony will focus on designating rewards for the assassination of three Israeli top officials”. This is how the close-to-state website Farda describes an event to be held in Tehran. The three officials are Ehud Barack, Meir Dagan, and Amos Yadlin. The amount will be awarded for the “revolutionary execution” of these three individuals. The [...]

Unrest in Shiraz University

Worshiping Atoms

Etemad, a newspaper published inside Iran, reports that they have received word that the Ministry of Communication is considering complete blackout of the Internet in Iran for the day of the Parliamentary Elections [Persian]. Reportedly, this is the first time computerized polling will be integrated into the old paper-based system and the ministry is worried [...]

Riot in Tehran

“5 in the morning”, a website close to the reformists, claims that since a month ago Iranian tankers have been travelling in the Persian Gulf under foreign flags [Persian]. Reportedly, as the American ships in the Persian Gulf increased their surveillance on Iranian vessels, tankers operated by the state adopted flags from Cyprus and Malta. [...]

The simplest job on the planet

The Iran I can be proud of

I talked to Ido Hartogsohn of the Israeli website Nana last month, about the Persian blogosphere and how its members manage to communicate with Israeli fellows despite all the tensions between the two countries. The piece was originally published in Hebrew, but Lisa Goldman has been kind enough to translate the whole piece in English. [...]

Proud to be Offensive