Aside

These banners are hung in two windows of the same house, less than a block north of my own. I think it pretty much sums up the entire election.

Music: Blue Scholars – Fire for the People 12:08 am Pacific Time March 30 2008 I’ve heard that you can take the temperature of Iranian social freedoms by a quick glance at how young women (teenagers, mid-20s) wear their hejab. In the early days of the Islamic Republic, the chador (large black cloak) was enforced. Nearly 30 years later, it’s migrated to a simple hejab (headscarf). Very religious women will have it tightly wrapped around their heads and will usually…

Dear Friends, I’ve been informed that my radio piece on a new digital ballpoint pen will air on Morning Edition today (April 21)! It will be available on any of these stations (and their Internet streams). New York – 5 am to 9 am Eastern – WNYC – 820 AM – www.wnyc.org Washington, DC – 5 am to 10 am Eastern – WAMU – 88.5 FM – www.wamu.org Los Angeles – 2 am to 9 am Pacific – KPCC –…

Mila Rainof, one of the smartest, ambitious and most interesting people that I knew in middle school and high school has suddenly passed away in a tragic car accident in New Haven, where she was attending medical school at Yale. While I lost contact with her over the years, I feel a renewed sense of connection, knowing that she would have come to Oakland this fall to start her residency. The world is indeed worse-off without her. We’ll miss you,…

Wait, there’s a networking company in Lithuania called Santa Monica Networks? And they do business from Lithuania, through Latvia and Estonia, all the way up to Finland? Huh?

Part III ; Part II ; Part I Music: Blue Scholars – Second Chapter 9:16 Pacific Time March 26 2008 Without even realizing it, I clench my teeth and suck in air quickly and audibly, almost every time I ride in a Tehran taxi — my instinctual physical reaction to the frightening proximity of myself to the driver of the adjacent speeding car. I’m not afraid, per say, of my own personal impending doom, but rather that one of these…

Parts I and II can be found here, and here, respectively. Music: Beethoven – Symphony No. 6 12:17 pm Pacific Time March 24 2008 For the last couple of days, we begin our morning with Iranian noon, a sweet, almost buttery cheese, homemade quince jam, Persian tea and Peet’s Coffee. That’s right, Peet’s Coffee in Tehran. My father packed two pounds of French roast as a little comfort element for my mother whilst in unfamiliar territory. Yesterday morning, after our…

SF Chronicle: Felakat is part of a thriving underground music scene, wh… (04-16) 04:00 PDT Tehran – — In a cozy soundproof recording studio housed in a decrepit downtown building, the rap musician known as Felakat lounged on a chair, surrounded by sound mixers and other sleek recording equipment. Sporting a tousled black shirt, a slick fur-lined jacket and spiky hairstyle. the Iranian rapper might well pass for an Western punk singer. “I devoted my life to rap when I…

Music: The New Pornographers – Sing Me Spanish Techno (Soho Sessions) 1:03 pm Pacific Time March 22 2008 Khanoom and her husband — who passed years before — are buried sideways, so that they can face the Shrine of Massoumeh in Qom for all of eternity. This is the holiest of Iranian cities, the base of Iranian Shi’ite clergy and theology. Men walk the streets in dark robes and white turbans and glare out from behind their bearded and sunglassed…

Dear Friends, I’ve been informed that my radio piece on Motley Crue’s new release on Rock Band will air on Morning Edition today (April 17)! It will be available on any of these stations (and their Internet streams). New York – 5 am to 9 am Eastern – WNYC – 820 AM – www.wnyc.org Washington, DC – 5 am to 10 am Eastern – WAMU – 88.5 FM – www.wamu.org Los Angeles – 2 am to 9 am Pacific –…