Some more Self Promotion

It's not that I've lost interest in the world, but I think some of the stuff I'm involved in is interesting for a some of the people out there. So again, not an update about the sexual revolution in Iran, the plight of the bloggers worldwide, or even new creative outbursts of people other than myself. There's a few new songs on the myspace site of my band "Babak-o-Doestan". Check it out:

http://www.myspace.com/babakodoestan

Some Self Promotion

Some time ago Branko Galoic' Skakavac Orkestar came out with their debut album. It's really good, you should get your hands on a copy! On the release party Branko invited me to play along one of the songs:



I was not quite sober when this was played. And also my Tar was broken.

Saar cycles through Iran

Our friend Saar, who takes Persian classes in the Mezrab, is currently cycling through Iran. If you read Dutch you can follow her adventures here:

http://www.raarmaarsaar.blogspot.com/

The US, Atheism and Seperation of Church and State

Salon has a very interesting article on the secular beliefs of early American politicians. It is important for us to understand that the current level of religion in the political domain is fairly recent. We now have an "Islamic Republic" of Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, where before there was none. We have "In God We Trust" and "One Nation Under God", also fairly recent.

Here's a quote from the article: "In Washington's day, it may have been reasonable for the elite to worry that only fear of hellfire kept the masses from running amok, but in the 21st century it is clear that democracy as a form of government does not require citizens who believe in supernatural religion. Most of the world's stable democracies are in Europe, where the population is largely post-Christian and secular, and in East Asian countries like Japan where the "Judeo-Christian tradition" has never been part of the majority culture."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/04/14/christian_nation/

Persian Blogs in Danger

First of all, my apologies for being gone for so long. My internet connection at home has been unreliable for a few weeks.

I write now, again, to focus your attention to Arash Kamangir's blog, and particularly his
article about Bluehost (a blog hosting service) scrapping the blogs of Iranians as it fears it's illegal for an American company to deal with Iran and Iranians.

You should definately read his articles, but the gist of it is: Iran is under economic sanctions to pressure the government into reforming the country. In the current political climate the only vehicle of free speech Iranians have are their blogs. To shut down blogs because of the sanctions is helping the Iranian regime rather than hurting it.

- Arash's blog:
- His article on Bluehost: http://www.gozaar.org/template1.php?id=1222&language=english

Mid East Youth has an excellent article on keeping attention for imprisoned bloggers:

http://www.mideastyouth.com/2009/04/10/only-attention-will-keep-imprisoned-bloggers-alive/

(apologies if my links don't work, you have to copy paste them to your browser window. this is because of a problem with the computer I'm using to blog on currently)