What can we do about Iran?

Not much.

Almost anything anybody does, whether it be politician, newscaster, or even blogger, is seen as foreign meddling. Of course, any regime that has officially-sanctioned human rights abuses considers any comment as interfering with internal affairs. In the case of Iran, they do have a bit more justification for paranoia given the long history of other nations directly interfering.

I had a scheme to cause a minor disruption in Iran. It was not something that would put the country in a snarl, but something that, if enough people participated, would be noticed by the government. But I thought better of it. It would be "foreign meddling" and could provoke a similar disruption in other countries.

Many people are holding solidarity demonstrations, both peaceful and violent. If people in Iran know about them, they may feel others are supporting them. However, isn't that kind of news being suppressed? Besides, how much have anti-US demonstrations changed American foreign policy, even when a large portion of Americans sympathize with the demonstrators?

There are three things that Americans can do.

First, write to the President, your Congressional representative, and your state's Senators supporting the measured response that the President has given.

Second, donate to human rights organizations that are following the situation.

Third, keep yourself informed of developments.

Fourth, drive less! I almost forgot this. Iran is one of the authoritarian petro states. Oil is propping them up. If oil use declines radically, these states will have less funding and become weaker. Because oil prices have dropped dramatically from their eyes, they already have some severe economic and political difficulties. Less oil consumption around the world makes these states even shakier.

Sources for news about Iran

My original source for current news about Iran was "The Lede" of the New York Times. It was a good aggregator of news, pictures, and videos from various sources, but the flow seems to have slowed considerably have things have "quieted down". It sometimes is hard to find the latest page. The link in an article may be to the previous day or there may not even be a lead article on Iran. Also, the Times doesn't have the same reporters aggregating for The Lede everyday.

I have now added The Huffington Post to my list of periodic checks. Nico Pitney's "Iran Uprising Live-Blogging" has had many interesting items, including one of the British hosts of Iran's PressTV quitting. For a few more details see, the 5:16ET item in the 2009-06-30 blog.

Revolution or restoration?

The actions of the Iranian opposition have been called a "Green Revolution", but is it really a revolution? Is it more a call to restore the ideals of the 1979 revolution that have been corrupted by the power grab of certain parts of the Iranian elite?

For one view, see "After the Crackdown: Iran's Opposition Down but Hardly Out", Scott Macleod, Time Magazine, 2009-06-30

Falcons in Duluth

I was walking on Superior St. in Duluth and saw a man leaning against a corner of a building. I was ignoring him until I caught site of his binoculars. I stopped, turned around, and asked him if he was watching for falcons.

He said yes and pointed to one atop the Norshor Theatre. He said it was one of the recent fledglings and was already a full size male. After a few minutes I continued down the street. When I got to the next intersection, I looked back and he was still there. He must not have seen any acceptable prey, most likely pigeons. On the other hand were pigeons staying away because they saw him on his perch?

When I got home, I checked for recent stories in the Duluth News Tribune. The one on this family said that they had been raised in a box on the top of Greysolon Plaza.

I also did a search on falcons and found "How do peregrine falcons fly so fast?" It has two interesting videos. One comparing the flight of falcons and eagles and the other showing how pigeons can escape from falcons.

If the falcons can't find enough pigeons, will they move on to the gulls in Canal Park?

Is Iraq interfering in Iran's internal affairs?

Authoritarian regimes tend to blame the problems of their own creation on outsiders meddling in internal affairs. Even would-be authoritarians like Sen. Joe McCarthy see meddlers in every cubicle. So it is no surprise that many in the Iranian government are spending so much energy blaming everybody but themselves for the dissatisfaction in Iran.

What surprised me was that one "outside" "meddler" is either unnoticed or seen as a mediator in the conflict in Iran. Who is this "outside meddler"? The Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani of Najaf, Iraq.

Apparently he has more respect among Shi'a muslims than either Rafsanjani or Khameni. Iranian politicians have gone to Najaf to consult with him. Interestingly, he refused to see Ahmadejani. See "Iran's Rafsanjani and Iraq's Al-Sistani", Patterico's Pontifications, 2009-06-22.

I was led to this site from a transcript of "Fareed Zakaria GPS" program on CNN, 2006-09-28.

He had an interview with Robert Baer, a former CIA agent, who thinks there has been a military coup by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard with the connivance of Ahmadinejad, a former officer of the Guard. However, Zakaria followed the interview with his own musings on the influence of Al-Sistani in Iran.

I then looked up Al-Sistani and found Patterico's Pontifications. He in turn referenced "Regime Change Iran: Movement Seeks to Eliminate 'Supreme Leader' Position", Threats Watch, Steve Schippert, 2009-06-21. Schippert quotes Al-Sistani,

"I am a servant of all Iraqis, there is no difference between a Sunni, a Shiite or a Kurd or a Christian," and that Islam can exist within a democracy without theological conflict. You will never hear such words slip past the lips of Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei. Ever.

Sorry, the quotes are exact from the site.

I recommend reading the full text to get a better idea of all the complexities of this situation. As Patterico implies, we may be seeing a "slow-motion regime change".

Did the Iranian government win the battle only to lose the war?

We lived in Stockholm, Sweden from 1970 to 1974. In our last year I remember seeing a demonstration of a couple hundred or more Iranians demonstrating against the Shah. The Shah did not abdicate until 1979. Iranians in Iran demonstrated this month in the thousands against the Iranian government. The government turned out in force and stopped the massive demonstrations. Did the government succeed or fail? Indications are that they may have failed; will it be weeks or years before the current government falls?

The streets of Tehran are calm and commutes take 15 minutes where they used to take 45. But business is way down, some shopkeepers report by more than half. People are afraid to go out. But they remember what they saw and will not forget.

“'People are depressed, and they feel they have been lied to, robbed of their right and now are being insulted,' said Nassim, a 56-year-old hairdresser. 'It is not just a lie; it’s a huge one. And it doesn’t end; they keep on insulting people’s intelligence with more lies on TV.'”
- "In Tehran, a Mood of Melancholy Descends", Nazila Fathi, New York Times,

"Instead, hard-liners around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opted for schism, a historic error. The Iran of yesterday is gone, the Iran of tomorrow not yet born."
- "Iran's Second Sex", Roger Cohen, New York Times, 2009-06-27.

If you haven't done so already, read Roger Cohen's reports from Tehran for the last several days.

Don't gloat too much over Republican hypocrisy

Several Republican politicians have been embroiled in sex scandals recently. Some who don't like the current narrow-mindedness of the Republican party may wish that these hypocritical actions may bring the party down. After all, this is the party of family values.

Don't be too hasty in your wish. The jaundiced would say they all do it. The current Democrats who have strayed include John Edwards and Bill Clinton. And liberal Republicans took quite a blow over the years.

The first I remember is Sen. Edward Brooke, Massachussets, who ran into financial and ethical difficulties and lost re-election in 1978. See http://www.answers.com/topic/edward-brooke. Sen. David Durenberger, Minnesota, was accused of unethical conduct regarding outside income and misuse of public funds. He did not run for re-election in 1994. See http://www.answers.com/topic/david-durenberger. Sen Bob Packwood, Oregon, was accused of repeated sexual harassment of female staff and lobbyists. He resigned from the Senate in 1995. See http://www.answers.com/topic/Bob-Packwood.

If your feet are made of clay, don't put your head in the clouds.

See also "The Prurient Trap", Charles M. Blow, New York Times, 2009-06-26.

The quiet before the storm?

The mass protests in Iran have petered out in Iran because of overwhelming action by the security forces. Even protests made without crowds seem to have been feeble.

Yesterday was supposed to be a day of releasing green balloons. I wondered where the protesters would get enough balloons to fill the sky. Even if there had been enough green balloons in the stores, wouldn't the authorities rush to buy all the balloons?

Supposedly because protesters ran out of green balloons, they used trash bags instead. I knew they would never have enough helium; who stores a helium tank in their apartment? A quick Google search led me to the clue - hair dryers, and I didn't even have to read any full article.

Maybe the time it would take to fill a trash bag with sufficient hot air explains why the only pictures I saw of green balloons were of single groups of four or five bags tied together. Not a very massive demonstration. I was surprised that a trigger-happy Basij didn't shoot them down.

However, a couple of Iranians have been quoted as there is plenty of heat beneath the ashes. We haven't heard for several days about Rafsanjani's work behind the scenes with the Council of Experts, the group that can hire and fire the Supreme Leader. We have read that the mayor of Tehran thinks that people should be able to protest peacefully. We know that several clerics, including some very senior clerics, have spoken out against the clampdown. We know that many members of Parliament did not attend the congratulatory party for Ahmadinejad. What many of us didn't know is how much the security forces control so many aspects of Iranian society. But even in the security forces, not all agree with the necessity of the crackdown.

If there is indeed heat beneath the ashes, what, if any, fuel will start a new conflagration. The 1979 revolution took a year; the 2009 revolution could also.

Who's Michael Jackson?

Today's newspapers, online and in print, have had a large portion of their front pages devoted to the death of Michael Jackson. Who is he?

Oh, yeah, now I remember. There was a Pepsi commercial years ago of a cool young man and a couple of friends encountering a boy half their size. The boy looks up at them in awe and exclaims, "Michael Jackson!" Michael Jackson sang popular songs and had a clever way of moving called moon walking.

That cool young man became glitzier and glitzier and gathered a huge following. I suppose because of that huge following, newspapers have to put his death above news of the turmoil in Iran, the dying in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and other calamities depriving the world of possible teachers, scientists, and doctors.

I suppose those of us concerned about all these other deaths needed some sort of catharsis by reading of a death that was not caused by people being mean to each other.

Do you see patterns or atoms?

Your thinking and learning is determined by your ability to see patterns. The more data you can put into a pattern, the quicker you can absorb new data, the more data you can put in memory, and the better you will be able to manipulate data.

Seeing patterns or "chunking" is one of the things that people who have superior performance in any field do according to Geoff Colvin in "Talent is Overrated". One of his examples is master chess players. Most of us look at the pieces on a board and try to sort everything out. A good chess player sees positions and calls on his or her memory of how similar positions have been played in the past.

Think of chunking in a more mundane field: your own reading. Do you look at each letter and tell yourself that it is a b because it has a vertical line and a curve to right and you know it's not a d, p, or q. Maybe you did that when you learned to read. But as you became more skilled you saw whole words and even started seeing whole phrases. Why do you think so many typos get missed? Editors look at big chunks and miss some detail that they glossed over.

Warning! Seeing bigger and bigger chunks takes lots of work. All your need is motivation and time. But you may be surprised at your gains beyond the material at hand.

Personal responsibility is a two-edged sword

"Personal responsibility" is a mantra coming from the Republican and Independence parties.

Personal responsibility is something most of you reading this generally live by. You pay your bills on time, you keep your yard tidy, you eat healthy foods, you avoid doing things that annoy other people, etc., etc.

But political calls for personal responsibility often have another message than just being a good citizen.

One is that we should take personal responsibility for our own health care and not rely on some government program. Never mind that many who have good health insurance have it through an employer program; doesn't sound very personal to me. Never mind that for those who don't have access to employer insurance generally don't have enough money to buy equivalent health insurance and generally don't have enough money to even pay for one night's stay in a hospital. How many people earning $20,000 per year or less have $2,000 in savings? (It could be even more than $2,000 given how various hospital charges add up.)

A second is that we should take personal responsibility for our own education, especially advanced education. I doubt if all but a few have done that. If we don't have rich parents, we often cobble together part-time work, scholarships, grants, and loans.

Depending on personal responsibility for health care, education, and much else reduces the common good. If we have people getting and keeping "old economy" jobs just for health insurance, we won't have as many people working on creating a "new economy". See "Forget jobs, create opportunities". If we limit advanced education to only those with great economic resources or willing to go deep into debt, we will have fewer people getting an advanced education. One of the justifications for high doctor's fees is that they need the money to pay off their medical school debts.

Hm! Higher medical costs make it harder for many people to pay for health care. Sick and poor people can't get advanced educations. Fewer people getting advanced educations means few doctors. Fewer doctors mean higher health care costs. Higher health care costs mean...

"No man is an island, entire of itself." John Donne, http://www.poetry-online.org/donne_for_whom_the_bell_tolls.htm

Guns and poses

U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio of Florida has been quoted as saying that the Iranian people should have more guns. I forgot where I saw that framing, but what he actually wrote on Twitter was "I have a feeling the situation in Iran would be a little different if they had a 2nd amendment like ours." The National Journal has a more detailed explanation from a Rubio spokesman.

This comment is all over the web and the comments on it are multiplying even faster. On one side are people who say our freedoms are being protected by guns in the hands of the people. Others point out gun in the hands of the people have begot even more violence, like ethnic cleansing. One commentator said that Saddam Hussein required every family to have a gun and many had AK-47s. Well, the AK-47s didn't protect the people against Saddam but they certainly were used against the invasion by Americans.

Guns in the hands of the people have not worked against the U.S. Government: Shay's Rebellion, the Whiskey Rebellion, and Waco. Let's not forget the Civil War and all the Indian tribes defending their homes and lands with rifles. The government will always have more and bigger guns.

Suppose the Iranian people had more guns. The government is now fighting the people mostly with batons, water cannons, and tear gas. If the people counteracted with guns, more than the Basaji will be shooting. If the people kept fighting with guns, don't you think the Iranian Army might be coming back with tanks? How many people keep a tank in their garage? Think Tiananmen Square.

Hope among the uncertainty in Iran

BBC posted a telephone interview with a resident near one of the mosques where people wanted to mourn the death of Neda Agha-Soltan and others killed by government forces. The resident doesn't know how things will turn out but he does say that the Allah o Akbars from the rooftops are getting louder each night. He thinks that is keeping up hope among Iranis.

It is this uncertainty on how things may turn out can be the hope of the people because they know how to conduct themselves. The Iranian government is unsure of how to conduct itself. Consider all the changing positions despite many affirmations that things were done properly.

I thought of this when I read the following passage from "Talent is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin:

"Average performers go into a situation with no clear idea of how they intend to act or how their actions would contribute to reaching their goal. So when things don't turn out perfectly, they attribute the problems to vague forces outside their control." Like foreign press, U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Israel, ...

Forget jobs, create opportunities

I've wanted to write an entry like this for many weeks. Today an article in Yahoo Finance gave me an added impetus. It was on Kodak stopping production of Kodachrome, one of its signature films for over seventy years. See "Sorry, Paul Simon, Kodak's Taking Kodachrome Away".

Quite some time ago I read about somebody complaining about the job situation in Rochester, New York. He said that one used to be able to go to the Kodak factory and get a job right out of high school. I believe he also blamed the lack of jobs on foreign competition.

It was not foreign competition that reduced the jobs for making film; it was technical competition. The rise of digital photography led to less and less use of film cameras and thus fewer and fewer sales of film. Film cameras that cost over two hundred dollars new now sell on eBay for prices that don't justify the shipping costs. I have two working Minolta SRTs with an extra 70-185 zoom lens and an extra 35 mm lens. I hope I shoot the last roll before the sole processor of Kodachrome stops doing so. But it is so much easier to use the little digital camera that I have on my belt that I doubt I'll finish the roll in time.

I fault Obama's stimulus package for focusing on creating jobs for existing skills, thus prolonging the need for those skills. For example, the stimulus package "creates" thousands of construction jobs. We will always need construction workers, but will we need so many? What happens when all these "shovel-ready" projects are completed?

Wouldn't it be better to plan an infra-structure that helps states and communities develop a flexible work force that creates its own opportunities. In other words, we need more entrepreneurs and fewer employees.

It will be a long, slow process to shift our focus. Too many people want the supposed security of benefits rather than the security of adaptability. As long as health insurance is tied to jobs, we will have too many people who want jobs instead of becoming, even on a small scale, an entrepreneur like Steve Jobs.

It all depends on your point of view

Last week my wife and I had dinner at the Nokomis on the Scenic Drive between Duluth and Two Harbors. She sat so she looked out the front windows at Lake Superior. I sat so that I looked out the side windows up the highway.

I remarked that the weather was improving. The cloud cover seemed to be thinning.

She replied that it was getting worse. I turned and looked at the thickening fog on the lake.

Fortunately for us, my view prevailed. When we left the fog had thinned and we didn't have to drive through it on the way home.

Iran, Berlin Wall, and Snapping Fingers

An old bromide raised its head on the comments in today's Lede of the New York Times; see comment at 8:06 a.m. by nymarty. Ronald Reagan said "Tear down that wall, Mr. Gorbachev!" and the Berlin Wall came down! Except the wall came down ten months after Ronald Reagan left office. It's like the hippy snapping his fingers on the park bench to keep the tigers away. Since there are no tigers nearby he assumes snapping his fingers is working.

The Reaganites ignore that the Soviet Union was changing under Gorbachev's leadership and it was probably not because of Western Armaments. It was probably because of Western ideas that Gorbachev saw how bankrupt the Soviet system was. The East German government was already being marginalized within the Warsaw Pact. The xenophobia of the East German government only prolonged the agony.

nymarty wrote that Obama said too little too late. Obama can only say so much without increasing the xenophobia of the Iranian government. It has already lashed out at the English, French, and German governments for their statements. And words are just that, words! What can any U.S. President do about Iran? Stop oil shipments? What a ruckus the increase in gas prices will cause in the U.S. Invade Iran? Remember, the people with the guns are mostly supporters of the Iranian government. But even those in the Iranian army and police who don't support the current government are going to be very hostile against any foreign invader.

What is interesting about nymarty's comments is that he goes on to say that JFK spoke out against Castro's Cuba and that Churchill and Roosevelt spoke out against Hitler. Castro's Cuba is still there and it took nearly seven years of war to defeat Hitler.

What is most ironic about nymarty's comment is that he ends with "The Mullahs want the bomb and nothing our president can say will stop them from getting it." In other words, Obama is wrong for not saying enough, but no matter what he says it won't mean anything.

My view is that Obama is choosing his words carefully to support the people of Iran while not giving the Iranian government an excuse for claiming "foreign interference" in "Iran's internal affairs", a well-known cop-out for corrupt governments everywhere.

Standing still at Grandma's Marathon

For the second time in ten years we stayed in town for Grandma's Marathon instead of going to our cabin in Brimson. For the first time we not only went near it, we volunteered; I as an entertainer, my wife at whatever was needed.

My wife dropped me off after 7 close to my assigned place, which was the corner of Superior St. and Fifth Avenue West, by the Ordean Bldg. I went to the nearby Starbucks, which, as far as I knew, was the only coffee shop open at that time. It was convenient also, being only a block from my assigned place. I had my mug filled and bought a scone and a muffin.

I set up our chairs on one of the few level places on Fifth Avenue, pulled out my water bottles and music notebook, and stuck my jacket in the pack. I also wired myself with my iPod for any accompaniment I would want. I had only had a few bites of my scone before the leaders of the Half-Marathon were in view. They were some distant apart and so I only sang song snatches as they came around the corner. "He'll be runnin' down Superior when he comes" or if I thought the runner was Kenyan, "Amani Utupe Na Ustawi". This is the name of a song written by an American for Kenyan friends. It is Swahili for "Grant us peace, give us courage".

Only when the runners came in packs did I go to songs. Some I could do unaccompanied from memory; others I needed sheet music and iPod accompaniment. Several times I couldn't get to the selection on the iPod very quickly. It seemed my fingers just slid across the screen without doing anything. Of course, I was doing this as I held my notebook in my other hand.

I did a fair job of singing during the Half-Marathon, but my voice became strained. Still, several runners smiled as they went by and some bystanders gave me a bit of encouragement. I stopped singing probably 15-30 minutes before the Marathon leaders were due.

The first runner was well ahead of others, and people were saying he was a Minnesotan. Probably 6 of the next 8 were Africans. One of these did a double take when I sang "Amani Utupe Na Ustawi".

When the first woman came by, I was struck by her intensity. I don't think she even noticed me. I recognized her as Mary Akor who was featured in the Duluth News Tribune on Friday. As she went by I sang "Amani Utupe Na Ustawi". I don't think she even noticed me. But I thought, "Whoops, I don't think she's from Kenya". I read about her later; she's from Nigeria but now lives in California as an American citizen.

As the runners came more in packs, I started singing complete songs again. But my voice wasn't as good anymore. I missed syllables, I missed higher notes, and I sounded strained. Still, I got smiles from some runners and encouragement from some bystanders.

A dark-skinned woman made some friendly comment about my singing. I was too slow to sing the phrase "Amani Utupe Na Ustawi." However, from the snatches of her words, I would say she was American, not African.

I was on the lookout for green head bands or wrist bands, but the only green I saw was on shirts or shorts. I finally saw two guys running together, dressed almost identically. I think they had yellow shirts with some green, but they both had bright green head bands. I shouted "Ey Iran" after them, but they were out of earshot.

"Ey Iran" is a popular patriotic song often used by the opposition. You can find the lyrics at http://en.wikipedai.org/wiki/Ey_Iran and a good choral version at http://www.saeedgilani.com/EyIran.mp3. Note that the capitalization is important in the second URL and probably in the first.

I kept watching for two friends who would be coming sometime after three hours. But I had to go to the toilet, but I didn't want to miss them. Finally the first appeared, walking. He had told me that he hoped someone would sing in French, and so I sang bits of "Allouette". He gave a big grin. Quite a few minutes later the second friend appeared, running. He is Japanese, and I shouted, "Say What? Seigo! Say What? Seigo! Seigo! Seigo! Go! Go! Go!" I immediately headed for the portable toilets a half block away, and at least one was not occupied!

After I came back, I made a few attempts to sing, but it was with less and less energy. Finally, I sat in one of our chairs, pulled out my iPod, got a signal from the Radisson hotel, and caught up on the news from Iran, none of it any good.

Somewhere around noon my wife came from her post and we packed up. Runners kept coming, but most were walking. We headed toward the entertainment tent at the course end to use our beverage tickets. As we crossed the slip bridge, the volume from the tent was deafening and we were still over two hundred feet away. I suggested that we eat at Amazing Grace instead.

It was cool and relatively quiet inside, and there were still many empty tables. We plopped down by a window with our sandwiches and beverages, grateful just to sit. We could still hear the music from outside, but at least it didn't drown out conversation.

We stopped next at Northern Lights Books to pickup a book I had ordered. Another cool and quiet stop. Later I learned the temperature had gotten to 80; the last online prediction I had seen had said 70. When we came out, runners were still coming down the home stretch.

We headed up Lake Avenue to Superior Street. As we walked down Superior Street, we still saw runners; they had well over a mile and a half to go. We saw flashing lights up the course all across the road and figured that was the official closing of the race. Sure enough two patrol cars drove slowly past us, and all remaining runners were now on the sidewalk, almost all walking.

Although I had only stood in place, I dreaded even going uphill to where my wife had parked. We took a zig zag route to minimize the incline at any one point.

When we got home, it was all I could do to check up on the news from Iran and type a few notes about the day. Even today, after over nine hours of fairly good sleep, I have to overcome inertia to type this.

Will I do it again? Not next year because we have a family gathering at race time. I'm not even sure I'll do any more outdoor singing, especially busking for an hour or more. Frankly, I need to build more stamina for lots of singing. Secondly, I kept a long sleeve shirt on to avoid sunburn. I have no sunburn, but I have heat rash on one arm. Burned if you do, burned if you don't.

An interesting non-violent counter-attack in Iran

If you have seen many of the pictures coming out of Iran, you may have seen a middle-aged man on the back of a motor-bike pulling a gun out of his belt. According to the Christian Science Monitor, he is a provocateur trying to increase the level of violence. See "Who's behind Iran violence? Website posts video in name-and-shame campaign".

An Iranian website has posted a few pictures of these provocateurs and some have been identified. People are surprised to learn that they are their neighbors. Supposedly one of the identified provocateurs has left town.

Many critics complain we have become beholden to our gadgets and our technology. But these gadgets and technologies are really giving power to the people. Power is held by the few when information is held only by the few.

In defense of teachers

"Greedy teacher unions!" "Underperforming schools!" and many other simplistic slogans pollute the discussion about improving education. But more thoughtful people wonder how to counter all the other problems that make learning difficult: disinterested parents, bullies, too much testing, too little class time, and on it goes with things that are outside the control of teachers.

For a good summary of these problems, see "Teachers aren't the problem" by Micheal Kennedy, Star Tribune, 2007-06-17. Kennedy teaches at Southwest High School in Minneapolis.

Al-Jazeera more liberal than many think

Because Al-Jazeera broadcasts videos and other press releases from the likes of Al Qaeda, many Americans think of Al-Jazeera as nothing more than a mouthpiece for terrorists.

However, if you actually visit Al-Jazeera's web site you will find a much broader reportage. For example, see "Iranian writer on poll result", an interview with Azar Nafisi, author of "Reading Lolita in Tehran". Afisi doesn't pull any punches on what she thinks of the regime in Iran and of reactions to it. For example, "The US government is sometimes silly in its response to Iran."

Because I don't know Arabic, I can't say if this interview was also posted in Arabic. I can say if you click "Arabic" in the sidebar on the left, you will find many of the popular photos from Iran, including a demonstrator holding up a sign, "Where is my vote?"

I probably will not live to see it, but the 22nd century may see no dictatorships. Optimistic? Consider that in the 1950's Western Europe had Franco in power in Spain and Salazar in Portugal.