First in a series of blog entries out of Iran, its liberal voices seeking a new way to live proud and free from political and religious tyranny.
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Your Holiness,
Have you ever fallen in love? Have you ever gazed into the crimson of the wine, when you can still feel the spot where she kissed you on your eyelids? Have you ever danced? Have you ever had Maz Maz dipped in Mast Moseer? Have you ever worn jeans? Do you know what Mum roll-on deodorant is? Have you ever cried at night? How many years did you go to school? Have you ever made abghosht? Have you ever got a barbeque going? Tell me, what is Newton’s Third Law?
How many times has the scent of springtime in Shiraz driven you wild? Have you ever kissed a dog? Have you ever listened to Persian classical music? Or what about rap? Do you ever whistle?
Have you ever kissed her neck? What about behind her ears?
Have you ever downloaded an MP3 from the Internet? Do you ever ask the guy at the kiosk selling cigarettes how he’s doing? Ever walked through town at midnight? Have they ever raided your home and confiscated your books?
Have you ever been forced into exile? Has it ever happened that you just can’t get the pattern of those tiles in your mother’s kitchen out of your head (for three nights in a row), but you just can’t remember the color? Have you ever called your mother up from far away and asked her to describe the color of those tiles – at the mention of which you both uncontrollably sob?
Have you ever longed for the windows of your apartment in Tehran?
What do WalMart, BestBuy, Procter & Gamble, and Travelocity have in common? Come to think of it, too much – forget I asked. But there is one thing I’d like for them and their likes to continue doing, and that’s pulling advertising money out from propaganda aired on FoxNews. (If this dream turns reality, FoxNews as a whole will go off air and the stupefied Under 50IQ Paranoiacs-R-Us will be left to wonder the streets, thus increasing their chances of getting killed by a speeding vehicle.)
Reports suggest that the list of companies requesting their advertisements not be part of Glenn Beck’s Duckspeak has now reached 20. (Source: The Huffington Post)
Even God is pleased; using angels’ blood He signed a self-imposed Cease to Kill Kittens, normally executed by the Almighty at a 1:1 ratio for each act of human masturbation. (Since the Reforms of ’79, acts of ape and chimp masturbation do not result in kitten executions. Ever since, humans have tried and failed to work out a similar deal with God, leaving many to feel shame and guilt over simply being human.)
The cease is valid on all days a new company pulls its advertising from FoxNews, a gesture which outraged the Mice Consortium, but to which the K9 Units responded with an enthusiastic wag of the tail.
How are you, GI Joe? It seems to me that most of you are poorly informed about the going of the war, to say nothing about a correct explanation of your presence over here. Nothing is more confused than to be ordered into a war to die or to be maimed for life without the faintest idea of what’s going on.
(Hanoi Hannah, 16 June 1967)
Six years after Michael Brown was ushered into high ranks by G.W.Bush, Janet Napolitano is the Secretary of Homeland Security. Appointed by Barack Obama, she’s off to a smashing start.
Her main job is keeping the terrorists out from USA, but nearly a hundred days into her job she still doesn’t know where and how terrorists enter America. In her CBC interview, she’s clearly under the misimpression that at least some of the 9/11 hijackers entered the US from Canada. In turn, Napolitano is busy building up a border between the northern and southern part of the continent, spending pallets of money in all the wrong places. And, like with a bad prescription, something real is going untreated or is at best benefiting from a placebo effect – a very expensive placebo that can cause “dizziness, vomiting and edginess towards minority ethnic groups few know anything about, but most have a definite opinion on.”
But really, those of us who made it this far have learned to survive on placebo. Or even better, just not going to the doctor at all. Misdiagnosis, after misdiagnosis, we had to adjust or die trying.
Getting back to Napolitano, I’m not fully convinced that the ignorance she’s demonstrated is genuine. Her linking of Canada to 9/11 is bound to stick in the minds of many, securing the resources to build up the US / Canada border for any number of ulterior and less popular motives. All this with the added benefit of fear mongering and shock therapy that tends to lead every two legged sheep to ask “how high” when told to jump in the name of security.
Posted in
Political Perspective at April 24th, 2009.
1 Comment.
While I’ve failed to keep abreast of the progression and the justifications given for it, my observation is that our city began with a single red light camera at an intersection with the highest accident rate, and since expanded the campaign approximately hundred fold.
According to a local newspaper’s February 11th story by Geoff Kirbyson, “46 dedicated traffic officers have been removed from the street” – plenty of room to make a counter claim against “photo-radar making the streets safer.” Unlike the original, cameras are now installed at intersections with low accident rates. The city and the firm which provides the photo service are both paid commission style, with no independent body overlooking their practice.
A “2006 City Audit of the Photo Enforcement Program shows that the city used misleading statistics in an attempt to cover-up the program’s failure to reduce accidents. Independent evidence cited in the report indicates that the number of insurance claims for accidents, injuries and property damage expenses went up significantly at sites using camera enforcement in the year following the introduction of the devices.” (Audit PDF)
But perhaps most frustrating about the whole situation is that few question the authorities when a claim about safety is made. When someone at an airport tells you to get rid of your water, few seem to realise that the ceased containers are stored inside the airport loaded with people. If it all really was a threat, should it not be removed immediately? And how many of all the “safety regulations” are a placebos to problems which have always existed, and will continue to exist until each and every citizen has all their liberties removed?
What I’m getting at is that in the name of safety, you’re likely getting ripped off financially while being stripped of your privacy – both often done by your own government.
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If you live in the Winnipeg area, please review and consider signing the petition against current photo-radar practices, set to be presented in court in April.
