Month: June 2007

‘The blogging Mullah’

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Link via a blog at the website of the German business paper Handelsblatt:

Update: Tatyana informs me in the comments that one of Abtahi’s post I’m linking to, ‘Freedom of Holding Demonstrations against America’, alludes to an old Soviet joke about being perfectly free in the Soviet Union to protest against America.

The Ayatollah Ali Mohammad Abtahi, Vice President under former Iranian President Khatami has a blog of his own. According to Handelsblatt he is posting almost daily, his subjects mostly being ‘rumors heard in mosques, indiscretions [uttered] at official receptions and inside stories from the halls of power’. Abtahi still is a welcome guest all over the Arabic world, so he has a lot of such stories on offer. He mostly blogs in Farsi, but some stories are also translated into a quite idiosyncratic English here.

Abtahi and his former boss Khatami are quite moderate as Iranian Ayatollahs go, although the latter demonstrated this April the limits of his moderation by telling some Israeli journalists to ‘go to hell’. Furthermore, even people reporting for German public TV now and then feel compelled to point out that the Iranian government under Khatami was no less intransigent as far as their nuclear program was concerned as the present one under Ahmadenejad is right now.

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Not Prejudiced At All

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This news story brings us word of a new robot developed by Japanese researchers. The latest in interactive robotics, the only thing it can do is create expressions when it recognizes various keywords.

The author of the Reuters article seems to take great delight in pointing out that the robot is programmed to react with fear and disgust when it hears the words “President”, “Bush”, “Iraq” or “war”. Or at least it seems that they are delighted to me. After all, the only word mentioned that brings a positive reaction is “sushi”.

Since the robot is nothing more than a disembodied head, I can’t help but wonder if the researchers programmed it to react in the most negative way to the words “al Qaeda”, “captive” or “militant”. Something tells me that the robot would just sit there and give you a blank stare if you said anything like that in it’s hearing.

After all, the researchers wouldn’t be praised as being “brave” or “daring” if they criticized people who actually sawed innocent people’s heads off.

Speaking to One Another and Speaking Out

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A couple of days ago, I quoted Bruce Bawer on engagement. Since then, his words have rolled about in my head. This long spring, I started reconnecting with old gay friends; I’ve been struck by how many of them have become politicized, beset by BDS. In the sixties and seventies they were apolitical – as, most of the time, I was. Occasionally, I’d have a boyfriend who’d talk about politics, but then I’d retreat to my friends whose arguments were over the fictional and aesthetic.

Bush’s stance on gay marriage may irritate, but, frankly, this is the first White House in which a gay couple stood on the nominating platform with the presidential candidate, when the First Lady when asked if she would allow a gay couple in the White House answered, quite calmly, said she was sure many such couples had stayed there. But I must acknowledge my friends have a point. They feel something they know should be acknowledged: partnership, affection, duty. Besides, marriage has been tattered and torn. Some confuse weddings with marriage, rights with duties, conjugal responsibilities with conjugal visits, buying houses with raising children, keeping the core institution of society strong with being a social “couple.” But, then, so do a lot of heterosexuals.

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Memo to John Edwards

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“But what this global war on terror bumper sticker — political slogan, that’s all it is, all it’s ever been — was intended to do was for George Bush to use it to justify everything he does: the ongoing war in Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, spying on Americans, torture.” — John Edwards, June 3, 2007

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Quote of the Day

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In turn, very few Cubans left their country for good before 1959. Sure, there were some who emigrated to the United States, but compared to the masses [immigrating] from Europe it was a very small group per capita.
 
If you’ve stuck with me thus far, what comes next should be obvious. Simply put, after castro and his bandits took over in 1959, the boats and airplanes changed directions. They began leaving instead of arriving in Cuba. Estimates place the Cuban-American emigration to the United States at over a million. From a population of 6 million in 1959, that’s staggering. This doesn’t count the many Cubans who emigrated elsewhere in Latin America, as well as to Europe and even Australia. A country of immigrants became a country better known for its human export. A country which boasted sugar among its exports now spits out its own flesh and blood.

–Robert