Green Years ...

Sunday, July 31, 2005

Iran: a Nuke?

In the BBC news I faced a report regarding the nuclear powerhouse of Iran. When I read such kind of report, it seems that Iran has to be a very technological country, which I know it is not. In fact the coutry has lack of technology in many different area. I remember medical-used nuclear products were always bought from other countries. A friend of mine who was a dentist was always wondering why a simple toothbrush had to be imported to the country. The strong bureaucracy in industry was a huge prevention for progress.

I remember March 2003, right before Iraq war, there were huge media coverage for WMDs. But after 2 years of searching, nothing, exactly nothing is found! This question always bothers me if here the situation is the same or not? What do you think?

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Happy Mother's Day


Yesterday the 27th of July was Mother's Day in Iran. It is very interesting that there are some names, persons, events which have the same importance in different countries. It doesn’t matter how far away these countries are from each other or what religions or cultures they have. For all human being, mother and father are the friendliest persons that God gave us as gift. It dosen't matter how to call her: mom, mother, or muthar (in Persian pronunciation). I want to tell all mothers in the world "happy mother's day to you all". And no matter where you are, I love you.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Panacea vs. Cancer?

Usually when we are in countryside we face a lot of herb that we never imagine that some of them are used as panacea .In one side of country some herb are used which in the other part are not used. This difference becomes more significant when we look at different countries. For example soy and soy components were first used as food in Asian countries and then expanded to Europe and America. However there existed soy cultivation in the United States from long time ago, but it was used as an animal food.

Use of herb as for soothing purposes has a very interesting history. For instance Avicenna, the great Persian herb scientist living in 11th century AD, was one of the first persons in the world to use herb as panacea. In the ancient India, we can also see the same application.

Living in the 21th century, after 1000 years, instead of using the natural fruit, vegetables, and panacea herb, we are unfortunately using more and more chemical food. Just in the last 20 years, the effects of using the chemical foods has caused Americans to suffer from obesity, heart problems, different types of cancers, and so forth. The more the drug companies increased their income, the closer the former healthy people become to disease and gradual death.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

It's like that ...

American's English knowlege and vocabulary seems to be dropping so fast. Can it be the difference between the two generation's lifestyles? I don't think so.

Have you noticed around yourself when a teenager is talking, the most frequent word that you hear is "it's like that...." Some sort of magic word that poorly is used in combination with verbs, adverbs, adjectives, ..... The more you notice, the more you understand that using this magic expression is a substitution for lack of knowledge for English words. They prefer to say "it's like that" and then either use sign language or quote a sentence afterwards, while the whole thing could be expressed as an appropriate adjective.

By some degree, this language frustration is understandable. English is the most official language and is used to express all different ideas from different cultures, sciences, and new technologies. So a native English speaker, after a while, feels a lot behind where he/she might expect to be. So here they are, start to look for some substitution.

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Ganji's Hunger Strike












Akbar Ganji, the Iranian famous journalist is in his 36th day of hunger strike in prison. He has challenged the power of Iranian dictator, Ali Khamenei. Khamenei has ordered directly not to let him be released from prison. Ali Khamenei's direct representative, Saeed Mortazavi, once has killed under torture the Iranian-born Canadian journalist, Zahra Kazemi, about 2 years ago, after raping her in prison.

What is expected from such fanatic jerks, claim-to-be religious people?! I wish I could do something to help him and other political prisoners in Iran. I am really that angry from all hardliners that wish all could be executed in the wildest form possible. Saeed Mortazavi has said in a private meeting some days ago that "Kazemi has been killed, then human right organizations and some countries announced against us, but after 2 years everybody forgot. Ganji also dies in prison, and nothing will happen. After a while, everybody forgets him."

Ganji in his
first letter since starting of his hunger strike sent out of the prison mentioned "Khamanei will be directly responsible for my death. Mortazavi gets his orders from Khamanei via Hejazi (Khamenei's chief of staff). I am against Khamanei's unlimited lifetime rule because it is contradictory to the rule of people." This letter was written in his 19th day of strike. He sent out his second letter to all free people in the world explaining the goals of his hunger strike.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Language Population

A French speaking person is able to speak in France, Belgium, Quebece of Canada, some region in Switzerland, and a few other African countries (totally about 72 million). It makes French the 13th language in the ranking of population of speakers.

Number one in this list is Chinese (Mandarin), and number two surprisingly is not English, but Spanish. English is ranked three. Farsi (Persian) is ranked all the way down in 39th.

Bastille Day

Today is July 14th, the Bastille Day. On July 14th, France celebrates its national holiday in commemoration of the storming of the Bastille prison, which took place in 1789 and marked the beginning of the French Revolution. It is like the 4th of July in the US. So today is the 216th anniversary of the French revolution.

I looked up through some library books, for some French books. Everything that I found was related to how and why French hate "us." Isn't that stupid that "some people" always think that the whole world is their enemy, even a county that had helped them to make their whole civilization?

Language learning

Bad news is that my teacher in French class is going to be busy and our class finishes end of July. So sad! However she is not native French, but the class was fairly good.

I remeber some years ago, when I was back in school, I never liked the "language course," which was English one. Nowadays I feel so much energy and motivation to learn another language.

Progress and 12+1 !

Today, I finally could solve a programming issue in an industrial project that I am doing. I was stuck for a long long time of almost 3 months. Finally it was solved!! Most of the progress was last night, July 13. In the Persian culture, (and I think in some other cultures), number 13 is a bad luck sign, but it worked for me. :)

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Dangers of Bloging!

This research-type article shows the dangers of the blogging for the ones who are actually looking for a job. You might express your extreme views on your blog, indeed when you are so hopeless/hopeful and want to express yourself. And that's not a good thing for most non-intelligent bosses who want some easy-to-accept employers.


By default, if your are a known blogger, you might sadly decrease your chance of job seeking. Remember the guy who was actually fired by Google, the mother of blogger, just because of his blog, some months ago.

Monday, July 11, 2005

Trip and French Class

During the last week, we received two seperate offer for free trip to our choice. For us, that love going to trip, is hard to ignore them. But it seems that we should due to a lot of things that we have to do by the end of this year, or more longer.

On the other hand, as it goes along, it seems for me that more US cities are alike. I don't know, why. But it might be because of the stuctures of the cities, or a short maximum-four-century history. Anyway, that's an introduction of saying that I am more interested in visiting Europe, its rich culture, and history. Maybe that's another reason that I started learning French.

Speaking about my learning French, it really goes well, although I'm not spending much time on it. I can read a lot of things, even in Le Monde - the most famous French newspaper (meaning: The World, :) ). The hardest part in French is its pronunciation. My teacher is saying that mine is well considering of a short time that I started (about 2 months).

I am so amazed of how many common words and expressions are in French and Persian, even wih the similar pronunciation, totally different from their corresponce English words. Historically, Iran was never a colony of France. I don't know how come such a vast vocabulary came into Persian from French. Any idea?