Photo by Abbas Kowsari for the Paris Review.
Yeah, they're kinda badass.
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Monday, October 27, 2008
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Bits: Designing the Waterfront, Euros in NY, South Asian Accents, Iranian Magazines, Disappearing Islands, Disaster Relief, Lifeboats & Dead Dolphin
It's been a while since I've done one of these, since I don't have that office job anymore and all. But now's a good a time as any to start it back up again.
1.
"Turning a Pier Into a Park," New York Times Editorial
I've been following the entire Pier 40 debates because I am invested in its outcome (hell Community Village Boating). There are three plans (Related's Las Vagas-izing of the Pier, along with housing Cirque du Soleil, Urban Dove's focus on sports and the Pier 40 Partnership's desire to maintain the Pier as is while creating more organizational space. Out of these, the New York Times favors the Related plans, and while it does make sense from a business point of view because the Pier needs to generate money for its renovation and for the Hudson River Trust, I was kind of disappointed. I thought maybe the Times would root for the underdog--the Pier 40 Partnership. Yeah, sure, they don't have a firm plan, but, come on, it's the perfect plan. Don't destroy something that already works, don't push stores and restaurants down our throats, we already have Seaport for that. Let Pier 40 live on as a pier for the people.
2.
"'Euros Accepted' signs pop up in New York City" from Reuters
So the dollar is so, so bad that stores around New York are accepting Euros, and other foreign monies from tourists taking advantage of their monetary superiority.
3.
"East River State Park" from A Daily Dose of Architecture
This blog posted images of the winning design concept for the East River State Park in Williamsburg. While it looks nice, it's hard to tell whether there is ACTUAL waterfront access. We don't need more railing along the rivers, right?
4.
"An Ad With Talking Pandas, Maybe, But Not With Chinese Accents" by Stuart Elliot, from the New York Times
Elliot talks about the controversy over Salesgenie's Super Bowl commercials, one that featured animated pandas that spoke with Chinese accents and another that included Ramesh, a salesman. What caught me about this article is the description of Ramesh's accent:
Mr. Gupta [chairman and chief executive of InfoUSA, parent company to Salesgenie] said he planned to keep running the other Salesgenie commercial, featuring an animated salesman named Ramesh who speaks with an Indian or other South Asian accent.
Yep.
5.
"Shutting Down Zanan," New York Times Editorial
Because it's easier to get rid of any possible opposition than actually confronting them in a civilized way, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad closed Zanan, an Iranian women's magazine. The reason? According to the editorial, because "the magazine was a 'threat to the psychological security of the scoiety' because it showed Iranian women in a 'black light.'" This, of course, wasn't true. Ahmadinejad was just afraid of women empowerment, especially in an Islamic country where sharia law sets women apart from men.
6.
"For some, climate fight is about survival," by Elisabeth Rosenthal, from International Hearld Tribune
Attention to drastic climate changes, all thanks to global warming, is growing constantly. Just look at all the havoc being wrecked throughout the world, like Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh, the tsunami in Indonesia and of course, Hurricane Katrina. There is the constant push for new environmental laws that would limit greenhouse gases from major industrial countries, like China and the U.S. (two countries which refuse to do so). One of the areas of the world that is often overlooked, both for their size and their lack of international power: low-lying islands, such as Bali, Maldives and Granada, as Rosenthal points out. As sea levels rise, these islands are in danger of disappearing. Entire countries vanished. Can you imagine that?
7.
"Anonymous donor gives $130m to cyclone-hit Bangladesh" from the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Sort of along the same lines, this is really nice. And, just so you know, 130,000,000 Australia dollars (I assume that's what the article meant) is equal to 7,946,669,332.57 Bangladesh taka.
8.
"Jan. 30, 1790: The Lifeboat, an Idea Whose Time Has Come" by Tony Long, from Wired
Because I'm a boat-nerd, I needed to share this.
9.
"Rare Dolphin 'beaten to death' in Bangladesh" from AFP
This is sad, but strangely makes sense--if something isn't familiar, you're going to be scared of it.
1.
"Turning a Pier Into a Park," New York Times Editorial
I've been following the entire Pier 40 debates because I am invested in its outcome (hell Community Village Boating). There are three plans (Related's Las Vagas-izing of the Pier, along with housing Cirque du Soleil, Urban Dove's focus on sports and the Pier 40 Partnership's desire to maintain the Pier as is while creating more organizational space. Out of these, the New York Times favors the Related plans, and while it does make sense from a business point of view because the Pier needs to generate money for its renovation and for the Hudson River Trust, I was kind of disappointed. I thought maybe the Times would root for the underdog--the Pier 40 Partnership. Yeah, sure, they don't have a firm plan, but, come on, it's the perfect plan. Don't destroy something that already works, don't push stores and restaurants down our throats, we already have Seaport for that. Let Pier 40 live on as a pier for the people.
2.
"'Euros Accepted' signs pop up in New York City" from Reuters
So the dollar is so, so bad that stores around New York are accepting Euros, and other foreign monies from tourists taking advantage of their monetary superiority.
3.
"East River State Park" from A Daily Dose of Architecture
This blog posted images of the winning design concept for the East River State Park in Williamsburg. While it looks nice, it's hard to tell whether there is ACTUAL waterfront access. We don't need more railing along the rivers, right?
4.
"An Ad With Talking Pandas, Maybe, But Not With Chinese Accents" by Stuart Elliot, from the New York Times
Elliot talks about the controversy over Salesgenie's Super Bowl commercials, one that featured animated pandas that spoke with Chinese accents and another that included Ramesh, a salesman. What caught me about this article is the description of Ramesh's accent:
Mr. Gupta [chairman and chief executive of InfoUSA, parent company to Salesgenie] said he planned to keep running the other Salesgenie commercial, featuring an animated salesman named Ramesh who speaks with an Indian or other South Asian accent.
Yep.
5.
"Shutting Down Zanan," New York Times Editorial
Because it's easier to get rid of any possible opposition than actually confronting them in a civilized way, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad closed Zanan, an Iranian women's magazine. The reason? According to the editorial, because "the magazine was a 'threat to the psychological security of the scoiety' because it showed Iranian women in a 'black light.'" This, of course, wasn't true. Ahmadinejad was just afraid of women empowerment, especially in an Islamic country where sharia law sets women apart from men.
6.
"For some, climate fight is about survival," by Elisabeth Rosenthal, from International Hearld Tribune
Attention to drastic climate changes, all thanks to global warming, is growing constantly. Just look at all the havoc being wrecked throughout the world, like Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh, the tsunami in Indonesia and of course, Hurricane Katrina. There is the constant push for new environmental laws that would limit greenhouse gases from major industrial countries, like China and the U.S. (two countries which refuse to do so). One of the areas of the world that is often overlooked, both for their size and their lack of international power: low-lying islands, such as Bali, Maldives and Granada, as Rosenthal points out. As sea levels rise, these islands are in danger of disappearing. Entire countries vanished. Can you imagine that?
7.
"Anonymous donor gives $130m to cyclone-hit Bangladesh" from the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Sort of along the same lines, this is really nice. And, just so you know, 130,000,000 Australia dollars (I assume that's what the article meant) is equal to 7,946,669,332.57 Bangladesh taka.
8.
"Jan. 30, 1790: The Lifeboat, an Idea Whose Time Has Come" by Tony Long, from Wired
Because I'm a boat-nerd, I needed to share this.
9.
"Rare Dolphin 'beaten to death' in Bangladesh" from AFP
This is sad, but strangely makes sense--if something isn't familiar, you're going to be scared of it.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Flying Back Home
I took this picture while flying over Iran, sometime between December 27 and 28. Tomorrow night, I get to fly back the same way all the way to New York. It's going to be weird coming back after spending a month here, but I'll survive. And, anyway, I'm coming back in May.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Arabian Nights at the Museum
On Monday, I took my sister to the Museum of Natural History for her biology assignment. After taking notes in several exhibits, we decided to take a stroll through the Stout Hall of Asian Peoples. Wandering through displays and learning about India, Saudi Arabia, China, Japan and so on, we paused in front of miniature models of different moments from those countries. One showed ships from the Dutch East India Company docking in an Indian seaport, another showed a typical day in ancient Ur. Then, there was one depicting Iran, as seen below:
Looking at this, my sister noticed something hovering above the scene in the upper-right corner of the display. This is what she saw:
Yep, that's right, people, it's a man on a flying carpet, because, you know, it's the Middle East and all, and of course people flew around on flying carpets. There was no note of this in the description, so, it's a joke...right?
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Responses to Ahmadinejad
Photos by Nashid Chaudhury.
First came the now infamous vicious introduction by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger where he called guest speaker Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "a petty and cruel dictator," talked about homosexual and underage persecution and called for complete release of Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh.
Ahmadinejad then took the stage, quoted passages from the Koran that weren't translated, commented on the show of disrespect from Bollinger and proceeded to speak about nuclear power, the absolute lack of homosexuals in Iran, the need to research to confirm facts about the Holocaust, terrorism and many other things.
The New York Sun, obviously, loved Bollinger's introduction, calling the invitation to Ahmadinejad a "blunder" and focusing on the Jewish reaction to that "tragedy" as they state in the editorial. They even ran portions of Bollinger's introduction in the Opinion section under the headline "Cease This Outrage." To their credit, they do feature another opinion piece and another article about Bollinger's disrespectful prologue.
Both the New York Times and the Washington Post took more reasonable stances.
Dana Milbank got it right when he said, "Without listening to Ahmadinejad, how can the world appreciate how truly nutty he is?" Maureen Dowd also put it perfectly when she wrote, "[regarding Bollinger] Once you’ve made the decision to invite a tyrannical leader, you can’t undo it by belittling him in public. Universities are supposed to be places where you can debate and hear dissenting voices; it would have been far better just to hand the mike to the students and let it rip."
By extending an invitation to someone, a foreign head of government nevertheless, calls for diplomacy and politeness. Common sense, no? By attacking him before Ahmadinejad even speaks is just plain wrong.
The Sun's editorial calledfor Bollinger to, essentially, pick a side: Israel or Palestine, and that it is duty as Columbia's president to do so, instead of being a "more neutral–we would say 'morally equivalent'—educator," as they write. That, I think, is ridiculous. As the president of Columbia, is duty is not to publicize and promote his views, but instead to bring the university together. And the Sun (I've recently become fascinated and more-than-slightly repulsed by this newspaper, hence my constant references to it, especially after reading several of these columns, but that's another story) has a little advice for Bollinger with dealing with his upset Middle East professors. Very subtle, Sun, very subtle.
Clever protest signs at Columbia.
Ahmadinejad then took the stage, quoted passages from the Koran that weren't translated, commented on the show of disrespect from Bollinger and proceeded to speak about nuclear power, the absolute lack of homosexuals in Iran, the need to research to confirm facts about the Holocaust, terrorism and many other things.
The New York Sun, obviously, loved Bollinger's introduction, calling the invitation to Ahmadinejad a "blunder" and focusing on the Jewish reaction to that "tragedy" as they state in the editorial. They even ran portions of Bollinger's introduction in the Opinion section under the headline "Cease This Outrage." To their credit, they do feature another opinion piece and another article about Bollinger's disrespectful prologue.
Both the New York Times and the Washington Post took more reasonable stances.
Dana Milbank got it right when he said, "Without listening to Ahmadinejad, how can the world appreciate how truly nutty he is?" Maureen Dowd also put it perfectly when she wrote, "[regarding Bollinger] Once you’ve made the decision to invite a tyrannical leader, you can’t undo it by belittling him in public. Universities are supposed to be places where you can debate and hear dissenting voices; it would have been far better just to hand the mike to the students and let it rip."
By extending an invitation to someone, a foreign head of government nevertheless, calls for diplomacy and politeness. Common sense, no? By attacking him before Ahmadinejad even speaks is just plain wrong.
The Sun's editorial calledfor Bollinger to, essentially, pick a side: Israel or Palestine, and that it is duty as Columbia's president to do so, instead of being a "more neutral–we would say 'morally equivalent'—educator," as they write. That, I think, is ridiculous. As the president of Columbia, is duty is not to publicize and promote his views, but instead to bring the university together. And the Sun (I've recently become fascinated and more-than-slightly repulsed by this newspaper, hence my constant references to it, especially after reading several of these columns, but that's another story) has a little advice for Bollinger with dealing with his upset Middle East professors. Very subtle, Sun, very subtle.
Clever protest signs at Columbia.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Protesting Ahmadinejad
Posters in Barnard's campus.
Reading through the New York Sun last Thursday, I found out that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was speaking at the World Leaders Forum at Columbia University. Excited about this event, I asked my sister (Barnard '11) if she could try to get me into the event. Alas, being that he is the president of Iran, one of the most-discussed countries in international affairs and journalism today, the event was filled up long before school started.
Freedom of speech thrives at Columbia and New York City—it's the home of the infamous 1968 strikes against the expansion of Columbia University into Morningside Heights (which is still a dilemma today) and the Vietnam War, students reacting against professors imposing their anti-Zionist views in the classrooms, even Ahmadinejad himself was supposed to speak at Columbia last year, but his invitation was revoked the professor incidences.
Coming from New School University where everything is something to protest against or rally for (Bob Kerrey is a war criminal; opposing the campus master plan and new GF/signature building; etc.), I've become used to this. Hell, the New School was formed out of dissent from Columbia University.
The New York Sun, the New York Daily News and Columbia/Barnard students are completely scandalized that Columbia would even extend an invitation to Ahmadinejad. Protests are planned for throughout the campus for today. This, though, is the wrong approach. While I understand everything the paranoid and extremely religious Iranian President has done and stands for, I still want to hear what he has to say. Isn't that what diplomacy is all about? If you denied someone the right to speak just because you didn't agree with their beliefs, then the world would be pretty boring. This is one of the flaws of Eugene Lang—everyone tends to share the same viewpoints, so debates aren't very common. The New School went through similar experiences with John McCain at the 2006 graduation and Newt Gingrinch at New School's Milano School, where McCain was booed and someone pulled a fire alarm during Gingrich's speech. What's the point of causing a ruckus? It's just disrespectful and paints you as immature. Don't protest, just listen, ask questions and have an actual conversation. Most people and media outlets blame Columbia University President Lee Bollinger for inviting Ahmadinejad, but it was a smart move on Bollinger's part. Ahmadinejad is speaking at the World Leader's Forum, and he is world leader, isn't he?
Hopefully, as the Columbia Spectator reports, the protests won't be as turbulent as predicted, and hopefully, students will understand the importance of hearing all voices, despite what their views and pasts might hold.
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