http://hoder.com/weblog/ A weblog on Iran, technology and pop culture, by Hossein Derakhshan en-us hoder@hoder.com Sat, 04 Oct 2008 21:01:48 +0200 http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/017817.shtml Omid Memarian has received a fellowship known as 'Rotary Peace' from Rotary International for 2007-2009. But I wonder, if there is nothing wrong with Rotary International in his view, why then he keeps dropping the 'Rotary' from all his bylines? Does this imply that Memrian thinks there is something fishy about Rotary Foundation?... http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/017766.shtml Mohammad Khatami, who is now bashing the current president Ahmadinejad for anything he does or says, has apparently forgotten that his own words against Israel have been as harsh as Ahmadinejad. Unfortunately, like all politicians, he forgets about the existence of archives. Here are three examples of what Mohammadi Khatami has said about Israel. If any of these had been said after Iran officially started its nuclear programme, they would have easily become strong points of anti-Iran propaganda, the same way Ahmadinejad's words have become. Especially given how easily they can totally mistranslates and misquote anyone, if they want to.... http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/017746.shtml If only I had time to debunk, paragraph by paragraph, picture by picture, of the recent New Statesman's Iran's cover story. It was so full of lies, nonsense and unfair statements that that could easily be published in any right-wing magazines such as Standpoint, The Spectator, Commentary, National Review, etc. What kind of Leftist magazine it is when its arguments and positions about Iran, Valenzuela, Cuba, etc. are identical to those labelled as the Right?... http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/017743.shtml As if the substance of the latest anti-Iran propaganda film, The Stoning Soraya M., could not tell us enough about who is really behind it, now Variety's report can almost confirm the easy answer: 'Producers have kept the exact Mideast shooting location (outside of Iran) a secret, out of concern for hostile radical Islamic response, but locale stands in effectively for Iran.' Now, I ask you, which country in the Middle East could inspire 'hostile radical Islamic response' except for one: Israel. I'm sure any real journalist can verify this and discredit this blatant push for an invasion of Iran.... http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/017731.shtml I think I have reached a rather brialliant, modestly put, way of theorizing hyperlinks on the Web which I'm going to use in my dissertation: A hyperlink is the gaze of one website at another. But a different kind of gaze (regard) from the medical gaze that Foucault talks about and Mulvey expands in their related works. I would like to emphasise on the positive and productive effects of this gaze , however. A lot to work and think on.... http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/017702.shtml The American presidential elections have completely become a soap opera tv show for men. Can anyone really call this a public sphere and the outcome a democracy?... http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/017647.shtml Those innocent and naive souls who are bought into the US State Department's propaganda through its disguised extensions (various international NGOs, such as the NED-funded Reporters Sans Frontier, etc.) can now see directly one of the best examples of free press in Iran: Shahrvand-e Emrooz, a weekly magazine published by close neo-liberal allies of Akbar Rafsanjani, which brags on top of its logo that it is the 'magazine of the private section', is now finally available for free online -- and it's actually quite a well-done website.... http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/017626.shtml I'm reading a lot of Derrida and Spivak these days for my dissertation, which would be about voice and silence on the internet, based on my own personal experience in the past few years and the shift in my status in the Iranian diaspora blogosphere from the 'Blogfather' to the 'Public Enemy'. I also have this sketchy idea of defining the subaltern on the Internet. But I haven't given up the temptation to wrote a separate essay with this very sketchy idea of internet subaltern, based on the case of Fatemeh Rajabi, who is a pious woman, a pro-Ahmadinejad commentator... http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/017182.shtml Mahnaz Afkhami, who happens to be a board member at the NED's international branch (called World Movement for Democracy, or ironically WMD), runs a women oriented organization, named Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP). The following is all NED's grants to Afkhami's organization: 2007 Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP) $25,000 To strengthen and expand the International Women’s Democracy Network. As the secretariat of the Network, WLP will collaborate with regional coordinators to identify and invite into the Network new members, create regional listservs to provide a forum for members to share experiences, and... http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/017495.shtml I encourage everyone to read the extensive interview that Financial Times has done with Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, one of the closest friends and advisor to Ahmadinejad. The following part is particularly important because it reveals how the entire story of Ahmadinejad and Revolutionary Guards (Sepah) is nonsense which was created by Rafsanjanists before the elections in order to discredit this guy. After he won, they also continued with these lies in order to imply that the election was manipulated by the Sepah. The interesting thing is that among all other candidate, it was Baqer Ghalibaf and then Ali Larijani who... http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/017553.shtml http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/017467.shtml Shirin Ebadi tells the 'progressive' Nation magazine: The only sort of sanctions she is willing to support are direct, political sanctions that target Iran's leaders, from those involved in the Iranian nuclear program to the country's highest officials. Such sanctions, she suggests, could restrict these officials' travel abroad and could order the seizure of privately held assets. In addition, Ebadi believes, the world's countries could collectively shun the Iranian state. "What I mean is that all the countries of the world should reduce or lower the level of their political relations with Iran, so that they convince Iran to improve... http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/017465.shtml It's sickening how a bunch of Iranian reformists turned exiled-opposition are calling Ahmadinejad a neoconservative, to justify themselves and make their puppet masters at the State Deprtment and Hoover Institute happy. Ahmadinejad has courageously reversed 16 years of disastrous free-market economic policies of Rafsanjani and Khatami which were gradually destroying the entire dream of the Iranian nation who revolted against the tyrannical and dependent regime of the Shah and basically selling Iran to the American corporations, IMF and the World Bank. These are the same people who, in their Persian-language media, have been crying foul the whole past three years... http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/017422.shtml I have to say I'm very disappointed that my favourite British weekly, the New Statesman, has started selling its credibility to the U.S. government's embedded 'activists' at the Amnesty International. Especially after seeing its first instalment which was about the NED-backed or at least NED's favourite labour activist in the whole world (Mansour Ossanlu or Osanlou or Osanloo) who, as you can guess, is from Iran. Interestingly, the author of the article, David Cockcroft, has never written for the News Statesman before and has not disclosed that as the secretary general of the NED-funded International Transport Federation (in addition to... http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/017560.shtml