Iran

To Pierre Kattar and Ben de la Cruz, I wanted to write to you to tell you how much I enjoyed your video clip “Comedy with an Agenda” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/politics/aacomedians/index.htm?nav=lb) that was posted on your Web site this morning. I found it very intriguing and quite funny. However, in the caption to the video feed you mention Arab American comics. One of the comics that is featured in the video is Maz Jobrani, who you also have featured on the home…

The correction that I asked for appears! An article in Science Times on Tuesday about a project at the University of Southern California that uses artificial intelligence to help soldiers learn Arabic gave an incorrect literary example. Omar Khayyam’s poetry is in Persian, not Arabic. Because of an editing error, the article also misstated the location of Fort Bragg, where Special Forces soldiers are to test a video game this month as part of the project. It is in North…

From “David Corcoran” Subject Re: Fwd: Persians are not Arabs – need correction Date Wed, July 7, 2004 1:27 pm To “Cyrus J. Farivar” Persian it is. The correction will say his POETRY is in Persian, leaving the other works aside. Thanks again for your help and good humor. David >Heh. You’re opening a can of worms with that. If you ask me, I’d say >either one is fine — but probably Persian is the safest. > >You might want…

To the Editor of the Science Times and Ms. Margaret Wertheim: I wanted to write you to tell you that I very much enjoyed your July 6 article “Virtual Camp Trains Soldiers in Arabic, and More.” However, I found a glaring error in the 10th paragraph, where you write: “No one is going to be able to read Omar Khayyam after this training…” implying that Khayyam wrote in Arabic. In fact, Khayyam was Persian and remains one of the greatest…

So I’m reading a NYT story about virtual Arabic training, and it says: No one is going to be able to read Omar Khayyam after this training, but the agency hopes it will enable soldiers to navigate more easily and safely through the Arab world. OF COURSE THEY WON’T BE ABLE TO READ KHAYYAM! HE WAS PERSIAN! HE WROTE IN PERSIAN! Persians ≠ Arabs Persian language ≠ Arabic language

Last night my family went and saw a new Persian film called “The Lizard”, a contemporary Persian comedy, which is something of an oxymoron. In the last 10 years or so, in the new wave of Persian cinema with films like “The White Balloon,” “Children of Heaven,” “Rain,” and so forth. They tend to be quite simple and beautiful films, but very melodramatic and heavy as well — and they don’t differ a whole lot from one to the next.…