Firstly I want to applogize for non-updating the blog for long time. I hope I do update more regularly. Here is the interview with Seymour Hersh, the famous reporter of New Yorker with daily show of Jon Stewart.
So it seems that Bush administration is preparing for another war. Of course, I like the fact that hardliners be out of power in Iran, but I wonder for two things: one is situation afterwards in Iran, messy situation that just harms normal people, not a bit to those hardliners. Those hardliners have prepared themselves financially in wealthy countries in Europe or elsewhere for such a situation. The second thing is about the next coming power, which I believe will be another sort of non-democratic close-to-US government, similar to Egypt or Jordan, as it was before 1979 revolution.
The reason for such attitude is that I believe that war will never bring democracy, because democracy is a step-by-step process that can't be happening by a non-smooth social process such war, revolution, or ... . I prefer that US uses this situation as a power to force hardliners in Iran to accept step-by-step change to give more freedom to people, rather to actual using this power as war.
If you can't afford to pay a 30,000-dollar college tuition, and your forehead is healthy, you've got a good chance to get this money.
Andrew Fischer, a college student in Nebraska, have used e-bay to auctionize a 30-day advertisement on his forehead. The bid firstly reached US$ 30,100 after 10 days with 113 bids, but he couldn't contact the buyer, and after relisting, the bid is started again and will end Jan-21-2005 at 07:40:43 PST.
In 1865, at the end of civil war between northern states and racist southern states, and following the victory of northern states, president Abraham Lincoln announced the end of slavery in the US. Lincoln was assassinated in the same year.
About 100 years later in 1964, three students who were active about civil rights for all citizens, black and white, went to the state of Mississippi to encourage black people to participate in voting for presidential election. They were shot and killed in Nebosha county. There was conspiracy that the county police and the members of the racist white-supremacist Christian organization of Ku Klux Klan (or KKK), originally founded in 1865 (end of civil war), were behind their murder. In 1968, in a biased trial in the state of Mississippi, there was no murder charge given. Last week, trial of the 79-year-old missioner head of KKK in that county has been started again after 41 years.
In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, in his famous I-have-a-dream speech in the Washington D.C. march, said: "... I have a dream that .... [black people] will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character...". (listen here). Dr. King was assassinated in 1968.
In 2004 election, there was conspiracy that black people in the state of Florida were harassed not to vote, because of critical role of electoral vote of this state in the national presidential election, and the default tendency of black voters to Democrats. Add to all this the result of 2004 election, that most of the counties and states that 150 years ago were in racist southern states in civil war, are among republican red states in the last election.
Despite of the relationship between media and KKK (in an article by the leading award-winning author Michael Parenti), do you think there is any hope for the southern states to be one day free of radical racism? Do you think that a physical war (civil war) is enough to end slavery or a cultural revolution is needed? Let's hope that we'll see justice at least in the current trial in the state of Mississippi.
If you have been using prepaid phone cards for long distance, most probably you have noticed about the same problem. Since less than a year ago, I have been noticing that almost all communication companies located in the US have transferred their customer services to the country India. Everything seems fine till now. The problem starts when they are totally unable to help you in no way. Here comes a real story ...
You buy a card, say Radiant card (I hate it). Its catalogue says that you should be able to talk for 70 minutes. Then you call, it says you are able to talk 30 minutes! OK, at least they were just half-liar, not more. You call your number, it is busy, later again busy, but you know that it is not busy at 4:00 am local time. After 13 hours, when you call it says that, you have half of the credit, while it has also mentioned in the catalogue that there is no connection fee. You angrily call so-called customer service. After a long waiting time, finally somebody starts to talk politely with Indian accent. When you explain the whole story, he says that you'll get whole credit back to your account in 48 hours, because "we are outside US and it takes 2 days and nights to communicate with the US!". OK, you don't have any other choice.
After 4 days, you tiredly try once again. It says 'you have no credit left!' , Ohh, ... you call again, they say again politely that we are going to give credit back to you. You have no other choice, not talking with manager, because managers are in the US, and no connection to them!! .... Their final answer is that the card has been expired after only 1 week!!! Even milk in our fridge has longer expiration period than a week.
This story happened to me for 3 different cards during the last couple of weeks. I think Customer Service in the merriam-webster dictionary has to have a new definition based on the new condition of globalization: "A service that you call to spend your time, be fool around that gives you virtual untrue hope to the future".
Four years ago, at this date, I landed in the US, INS border in Atlanta, Georgia. Since then, I am obliged not to leave the country, because otherwise I might loose my studying years for not getting visa to come back to school. The very first thing that surprised me was people who were super-fat, the size that I had never seen before.
The image about US that I had was totally wrong. Almost about anything my image was not right. That taught me that I have to experience myself - not through media stream - in order to figure out something. The image about my home country Iran, in the US, is totally wrong too. Most people probably think that Iran is a very religious country, but I now can assure that people in the US are much much more religious than people of Iran. Even people in secular Turkey, based on my experience on the time that I have been in Turkey for a while, are more religious than Iran.
