Iranian people cannot be simply compartmentalized into fanatical pro-theocracy religious people and then secular pro-Western democrats. A large number of Iranians are very difficult to classify. (
Pilgrimage of Karbala on PBS

Watch Video on www.pbs.org

Iran is not just

March 20, 2007: Vali Nasr, Professor, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and author of THE SHIA REVIVAL, discusses Iran's emerging regional role and the escalating tensions between Iran and the United States with anchor Daljit Dhaliwal.

DALJIT DHALIWAL: Professor Vali Nasr, welcome to Wide Angle.VALI NASR: Thank you. It's good being with you.DALJIT DHALIWAL: What do you make of what you just saw? Put this all into context for us.

VALI NASR: Well, I think it revealed the depth of the emotional attachment to Shiism within Iran. And I think that's very interesting because most people in the West look at Iran and they think of the country as being ruled by a theocracy [with] a population that has become secular and anti-regime and is disaffected with Islam. And that's not the picture that we see. We see an enormous amount of attachment and emotion with the core values of Shiism and particularly with the myth of Karbala. And in the film I was particularly amazed and interested in seeing this associated with this social class in Iran that you often associate with secularism. Families with women who are not wearing the head scarf, have dyed hair; have a dog in their house. And yet their son at one point served in the Revolutionary Guards. And he's so attached to the popular aspects of the religion that he crawls on his stomach towards the shrine in Karbala. And I think that raises a more important issue. Nowadays in the West we talk about how we can extricate Iran from Iraq, as if the relationship of Iran to Iraq is mandated by the highest authorities in the Iranian government. And when we look at this movie, we look at the footage, we see the amount of attachment at the popular level Iranians have to Iraq, where most of the shrines are, where the myths of their religion come from. One wonders how exactly you can exclude Iran from Iraq now. I mean, this goes to the core of the religion that the Iranians and the Iraqis share, that is Shiism, and the fact that the centers of Shiism are in Iraq. And you cannot get Iranians to turn away from Iraq because that's where their whole religion is.

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‘‘اچھا تو بیوی سے تمہاری لڑائی کس طرح ختم ہوئی؟‘‘
‘‘وہ گھٹنوں کے بل رینگتی ہوئی میرے پاس آئی۔۔‘‘
‘‘اچھا تو اس نے شکست تسلیم کرتے ہوئے کیا کہا؟‘‘
کہنے لگی‘‘چلو چارپائی کے نیچے سے نکلو۔۔آئیندہ زبان سنھبال کر بات کرنا۔۔‘‘


وجہء سکوت
‘کیا تم نے کبھی ایسا منظر دیکھا کہ عورتوں کی محفل میں مکمل خاموشی چھا گئی ہو۔۔‘
‘جی ہاں!کل ہی لیڈیز کلب کی میٹنگ میں اس وقت مکمل سناٹا چھا گیا۔۔جب چئیر پرسن نے کہا کہ کلب کی سب سے عمر رسیدہ خاتون سٹیج پر آکر سب سے پہلے خطاب کریں۔۔‘‘

NPR interview about Rumi with Coleman Barks


WBUR's Connection series a call-in radio show, with Coleman Barks as the guest

Belinda Stronach did right with Peter Mackay?




This agreement was published in the Globe and Mail, June 5, 2003 under the heading "Tory leadership deal. Peter MacKay won David Orchard's support at the Tory leadership convention based on a deal hastily scrawled on a piece of paper."

May 31, 2003 Agreement between Peter MacKay and David Orchard

1) No merger, joint candidates w[ith] Alliance. Maintain 301.

2) Review of FTA/NAFTA - blue ribbon commission with D[avid] O[rchard] w[ith] choice of chair w[ith] P[eter] M[acKay's] agreement. Rest of members to be jointly agreed upon.

3) Clean up of head office including change of national director in consultation (timing w[ithin] reasonable period in future, pre-election) and some of DO's people working at head office.

4) Commitment to making environmental protection front and center incl[uding] sustainable agriculture, forestry, reducing pollution through rail.

[Signed by Peter MacKay and David Orchard]

Israeli Author, Peace Activist Tanya Reinhart Dies at 63

The Israeli linguist, author and peace activist Tanya Reinhart has died of a stroke at the age of sixty-three. Reinhart was one of the most outspoken critics of Israeli government policies and one of Israel's leading advocates for Palestinian national rights. She was professor emeritus of linguistics and media studies at Tel Aviv University and Global Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at New York University. She wrote columns for Israel's largest daily newspaper, Yediot Ahranot, and had an active following of readers around the world for her critical perspectives on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Her books include "Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948" and "The Road Map to Nowhere." In December, she moved to New York saying she could no longer live in Israel due to its treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.

For many years, Reinhart was an outspoken critic of Israel's handling of the Palestinian problem. She argued that Israel should abandon the West Bank and Gaza:

Israel should withdraw immediately from the territories occupied in 1967. The bulk of Israeli settlers (150,000 of them) are concentrated in the big settlement blocks in the center of the West bank. These areas cannot be evacuated over night. But the rest of the land (about 90%–96% of the West bank and the whole of the Gaza strip) can be evacuated immediately. Many of the residents of the isolated Israeli settlements that are scattered in these areas are speaking openly in the Israeli media about their wish to leave. It is only necessary to offer them reasonable compensation for the property they will be leaving behind. The rest — the hard-core "land redemptions" fanatics — are a negligible minority that will have to accept the will of the majority.

جناب الطاف حسین نے فرمایا "جیو پر حملھ آزادی صحافت پر حملھ ھے۔۔
تو جناب جنگ کے جلے ھوے پرچے اب کراچی کی ہوا میں اڑ رھے ہیں۔ اور اگر آپ کی ناک حساس ہے تو آپ جلے ہوے انسانی گوشت کی بو بھی محسوس کر سکتے ہیں۔
وہ حملھ کس پر تھا

Jeremy Matthew Glick is an author and activist, best known for his appearance on The O’Reilly Factor on 4 February 2003.

Glick is a co-author of the book, Another World Is Possible, and should not be confused with another Jeremy Glick, a passenger on hijacked UA flight 93.