professional profiling

According to a 2007 Oxford University publication by Gambetta and Hertog 78% of Jihadists are engineers ... I think it may be that the engineers are the dumb ones who get caught!

guess who?

If you guessed Sarah Palin then you're right! It's her Miss Wasilla 1984 head shot and one of the pictures for the Palin Calendar. The cover page is below and you can find all the pages here.

اوضاع و احوال

گفتم تفعلی بزنم؛

رایت سلطان گل پیدا شد از طرف چمن
مقدمش یارب مبارک باد بر سرو و سمن
...
مشورت با عقل کردم گفت حافظ باده نوش
ساقیا می ده بقول مستشار موتمن

و شاهدش

تو نازک طبعی و طاقت نداری
گرانیهای مشتی دلق پوشان
درین صوفی وشان دَردی ندیدم
که صافی باد عیش دُردنوشان

salaries

... with the current situation it seems 2008 will be the highest peak at least for some time ...

* source: IEEE Spectrum August 2008 and they got it from the US Department of Labor

greener clean

I've been trying out "greener" choices for cleaning supplies in the past few months. I've tested both brand name and drugstore labels. In my opinion the best dish washing liquids are [drum roll] Method by Method and Green Works by Clorox. Both claim to be naturally derived and biodegradable.
As for glass, bathroom and kitchen cleaners, once I got to the Green Works line of products I stopped checking because I was very please with what I had found and, well, I'm not a consumer product reviewer!
You might find the Greenzer website helpful if you're looking for a particular product, but keep your eyes open for the frauds ... maybe I should come up with a green-meter of some sort ...

اسلام و ایرانیان

اين مکر و ريا گشت به گوش همه ياران
اين حيله بشد باور يک ملت نادان

ای وای از اين قوم وازاين ملت بيمار
لعنت به سر گور امام زاده مکار

ايرانی که بود تاج سر دانش دنيا
اينک قمه بر سر زدنش خنده دنيا

زنجير به سرو سينه زدن در غم تازی
از شب به سحر در غم ودر گريه وزاری

شد سنت ايرانی پس از عمری شهامت
ای وای از آن قومی که شد خام ديانت
...
ايرانی بشد چاکر درگاه امامان
آن شيرزن خاک گهر پوش دلارا

شد زينب و زهرا و خديجه و سهيلا
از کوروش واز ايرج و کاوه و بابک

قربانعلی و غلامحسين آمده اينک
لعنت به من و ما که بيگانه ستائيم

پيشانی به سنگ در هر تازی بماليم
لعنت به من و ما که فرزند يلانيم

بيرونی بيگانه از اين خانه ندانيم
نفرين به چونين تيع که تيزش نتوانيم

لعنت به چونين دست که مشتش نتوانيم
اهريمن از اين خانه برون ما نتوانيم

اين ديو ستمکار از اين سفره نرانيم
لعنت به من و ما که خاموش نشستيم
که خاموش نشستيم

سیمین بهبهانی -

the Hamas point of view

Do you not find something very wrong with this sentence?

"We might forgive the Israeli's for murdering our innocent civilians but we will never forgive them for forcing us to kill their civilians."

- Sheikh Nayef (from Dreams and Shadows)

The later leaders were of course a lot more lenient.

Our message to the Israelis is this: we do not fight you because you belong to a certain faith or culture. Jews have lived in the Muslim world for 13 centuries in peace and harmony; they are in our religion "the people of the book" who have a covenant from God and His Messenger Muhammad (peace be upon him) to be respected and protected. Our conflict with you is not religious but political. We have no problem with Jews who have not attacked us - our problem is with those who came to our land, impose themselves on us by force, destroyed our society and banish our people.
We shall never recognize the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our national rights. We shall never recognize the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil in order to atone for somebody else's problem. But if you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the terms. Hamas is extending a hand of peace to those who are truly interested in a peace based on justice.

- Khalid Mashal, 2006 (from Dreams and Shadows)

path to liberty

We are not expected to be transported from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

- Thomas Jefferson

Judge Alex

As I was eating lunch today, the TV was showing one of the many reality court shows. I never really warmed up to Judge Judy, who is apparently the highest paid TV personality, but some other ones I can take ... but I digress ... The case was about a lady whose car had been stolen and totaled by the next door neighbor's son, well actually they had a teenage boy visiting from out of town who had apparently driven the scenario. The conversation was something like:

• Judge: well how did they break into the car?
• lady: the door was not locked. where we live we don't even have keys to our front doors, all the doors are open.
  
• Judge [with a smile]: in Florida the only reason you would leave your doors unlocked is that you want to shoot the thief inside the car! well how did they start the car then?
• lady: they turned the keys and started the car.
• Judge: so you had left the keys in the ignition?
• lady: yes, everyone does that. even the police officer who took my statement said he leaves his keys in the ignition when his car is in the driveway.

The judge looked amazed and so did I. But she was telling the truth; the defendant confirmed what she said. He admitted that he had asked his son where his cell phone was and the son had told him what they had done with the car and said that he'd left the phone in the car. A little into the trial she starts crying and when the judge asks why she replies: "well if car theft is their first crime what is their second crime going to be? break into someone's house and put a gun to their head?"
What they described and how they reacted to everything was like a fairytale. So far from reality in my mind! I grew up being told not to forget to lock the second lock on the door. I had heard stories of how my grandparents never had to lock the door but that was by far my closest encounter. Just think how much more tolerable our lives would be if we could just go back and live as peacefully ... I hope these people and their little towns don't go extinct any time soon. Maybe we should preserve them as treasures ...

politics

Politics is about getting outside of yourself and your own problems for a little while and fully immersing yourself in the lies and deceit of others.

- Stephen Elliot

Zoroastrians

I have started reading the book Dreams and Shadows by Robin Wright and I am going to share parts of it with you in the next little while:

"I once visited a fire temple of the Zoroastrians, who worship light as the symbol of good and omnipotent God. Iran is the world center for the faith founded six centuries before Christianity. As the symbol of light, fires at the altars of their temples have burned continuously for centuries. Zoroastrians ideas about the devil, hell, a future savior, the struggle between good and evil ending with a day of judgment, the resurrection of the dead, and an afterlife had great impact on all monotheistic faiths, and even Buddhism.
The largest Jewish population in the Middle East outside of Israel is also in Iran, ...."

giving

We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give.

-Winston Churchill

for the boys who never became men

so you can grieve and move on with life ... i am sorry that i can't be beside you in your pain ...

well in case you failed to notice
in case you failed to see
this is my heart bleeding before you
this is me down on my knees
these foolish games are tearing me apart
your thoughtless words are breaking my heart
you're breaking my heart

- Jewel, foolish games

فال شب مهتابی

کنار آب و پای بید و طبع شعر و یاری خوش
معاشر دلبری شیرین و ساقی گلعذاری خوش
الا ای دولتی طالع که قدر وقت می‌دانی
گوارا بادت این عشرت که داری روزگاری خوش
هر آن کس را که در خاطر ز عشق دلبری باریست
سپندی گو بر آتش نه که دارد کار و باری خوش
عروس طبع را زیور ز فکر بکر می‌بندم
بود کز دست ایامم به دست افتد نگاری خوش
شب صحبت غنیمت دان و داد خوشدلی بستان
که مهتابی دل افروز است و طرف لاله زاری خوش
چو می در کله جامست وساقی در نیامیزد
که مستی می‌کند با عقل و می‌بخشد خماری خوش
به غفلت عمر شد حافظ بیا با ما به میخانه
که شنگولان خوش باشت بیاموزند کاری خوش

harder times

I haven't been writing for a while and the reason, unfortunately, is mostly sad events rather than happy ones. I've been distracted, preoccupied and stressed. All of this being said, I should mention that the "situations", for the lack of a better word, I have been dealing with were mostly related to my loved ones rather than me. I don't mean to downplay their dealings with all of this but for my side, I guess, it just all came at the same time and took me by surprise.

I'd like to take a step back to the happy event before I think about the sad ones. We, as Sharif graduates, had our fifth international reunion in Vancouver. I was on the organizing committee and we hosted over 300 people. It all ran very smoothly. I learnt about the origin of the Sharif University of Technology Association (SUTA) and met a few of the people who had actually started the whole thing. We even had a surprise birthday on the last day ...

But the problems! Since it's people's personal matters it would probably be a better idea for me not to delve into them too deep. I'll just point to a few things.

I, for one, have never been that big a fan of marriage. It never quite made sense to me for someone to commit him/herself to someone for the rest of their life when they didn't know what the rest of their life would bring. You may say that it has worked for so many generations in the past, but that is exactly my point. That was in the past. In my opinion our parents were probably the last generation that could, as a society, live up to the old definitions of marriage. In today's world man and woman change so fast and independent from one another that they can easily evolve into very different beings with little commonality.

Now, my opinion is not meant as an invasion on the institution of family but more of a cry for the need to move around the boundaries and find something that would fit the mold of modern society. Just think of it this way, an average successful marriage in North America is estimated at around 5 years and we are promising our partners until death do us part! I would understand something along the lines of I promise to love and cherish you until the day we are happy and I will fight for being happy with you ...

Despite my pessimistic views towards traditional marriages, I was shocked to hear of so many of my friends having issues. I guess theorizing about matters and understanding them logically is far from accepting them emotionally. Some relationships have run their course, others are hanging by a thread and some are slowly working their way to getting stronger. At this point there is no saying where we will all be standing once the tide is gone, all I can hope for is that one day when they look back at this they can say I am pleased about the decisions I made ....

for the past

and I'm so sick of love songs
so tired of tears
so done with wishing you were still here
said I'm so sick of love songs so sad and slow
so why can't I turn off the radio?

- so sick, Ne-Yo

life

Give me books, fruit, french wine, fine weather, and a little music ...

- John Keats

fall for you

The best thing about tonight's that we're not fighting
Could it be that we have been this way before
I know you don't think that I am trying
I know you're wearing thin down to the core

But hold your breath
Because tonight will be the night that I will fall for you
Over again
Don't make me change my mind
Or I won't live to see another day
I swear it's true
Because a girl like you is impossible to find
Your impossible to find

This is not what I intended
I always swore to you I'd never fall apart
You always thought that I was stronger
I may have failed
But I have loved you from the start

- Secondhand Serenade

there

Beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing, there's a field. I'll meet you there.

- Jalal al-Din Rumi, 13thC

taste

When you are exposed to a new flavor of food it is said that you can acquire a taste for it in an average of 10 tries. Now I am not that kind of a person to force myself into liking something, but throughout life my appetite has changed. I used to hate even the smell of olives and now I would kill for them; there are other examples when it comes to food too ...

And then there is another side to taste. I first started reading One Hundred Years of Solitude when I was about 15. I don't usually leave a book half read but this one just didn't give me enough incentive to go past page 50. A few months back I read Love in the Time of Cholera, which is also written by Gabriel García Márquez, and I loved it. This prompted me to think that I may have grown into his work and "developed a taste" for it.

So, I order One Hundred Years of Solitude with a bunch of other books. When they're shipped it's the second book of the pile I start reading ... and ... it was still the same. Nothing had changed for me. It was still as distasteful as it had been 13 years ago! It makes me think, maybe there are some virtues of your appetite that you can't sway ...