I’m a tad under the weather and so won’t be posting as per usual today.
Like many people though, I’ve been riveted by what’s happening in Iran. Andrew Sullivan has been a great clearinghouse for information, the Boston Globe has some incredible photos, and #iranelection on Twitter is chaotic but has been full of realtime news, circulation of proxy server addresses for use by Iranians, successful schemes to jam official state websites, and eyewitness reports from the ground.
And the videos speak for themselves:
This surely beats reruns of the Hills! Ha!
Hope you feel better…
"Take a hot towel and wrap it around your head…"
I hadn't heard about Iran. Thanks for the heads up.
Don't know if the election was actually rigged but it looks like, with the help of the web and all it's adjuncts, the voice of the reformers will be heard. Who knows, Iran may be saved yet. Hope so.
I think it's fascinating how the Internet and other media outlets have affected/contributed to stories such as Iran.
I hope you're right Chuck and the voice of the reformers will be heard.
Nathan – All work and no play can make the germs come your way. Take it easy and feel better soon!
Nathan, rest up, and feel better!
Amazing photos from Iran via the Boston Globe.
Boston.com, not the Boston Globe. The "Big Picture" webpage is always worth visiting, the photos collected there are amazing.
carrie-
Isn't boston.com the Boston Globe's website?
Ah, Nathan, sorry to hear you're not feeling well. Take good care of yourself.
I've always found the best thing for sickness is sleep. Pulling the covers up, closing your eyes and getting some deep rest. Snoring recommended.
Feel better!
Rest up. Hope you feel better soon, and thanks for thinking of your readers even when you're not feeling well.
Oops. I see that the Boston.com AKA the Boston Globe photos were already linked by our host. Oops. Apologies for the redundanc…
Well, the photos are fantastic, definitely.
Word verification: "biali." Hey, I'm hungry!
The world is a fascinating place, is it not?
Nathan, hope you feel better soon.
Feel better soon!
And yes, this Iran thing is really fascinating.
Did you catch Ahmadinejad's interview on Larry King? What did you think?
Aww Nathan, I hope you feel better and I hope it isn't the flu (if it is you have 48hrs from onset of symptoms before it is too late for Tamiflu so don't hesitate to get to a Dr!).
Sorry that is the student nurse coming out. 😀
Whatever it is, I hope you feel better!
I've been following this all weekend as well – it's amazing watching the twitter feeds. I can't help thinking about how past rebellions/protest movements could be suppressed by shutting down the newspapers and phone lines, but it's now impossible to completely isolate a population.
Like others, I've been very disappointed on how badly the 24-hour news networks dropped the ball on this one. What's the point of calling yourself 24-hour news if you miss a story like this?
So sorry you are ill and best wishes for recovery, partly selfish so you can get back to your own blogging self.
If you need another filler idea, here is something I have been thinking about; researching for fiction. Necessary? How much? Where to go? When to stop? I have opinions on these things and would love to hear others.
Also, this is an amazing photo. I feel a short story coming on.
https://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/iranelect_06_15/i29_19360635.jpg
Hi, Nathan!
I met you last month in Washington, and you inspired me to start my blog sooner rather than later. Thank you!
I'm sorry you're sick, and I hope you feel well soon!
The power of the media. But it is also open to abuse. Remember "that photo" of the crowds cheering as a statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down by American troops after he was removed from Iraq? If you speak to people who were actually there, there were some people, some troops and some carefully placed cameras. Not saying this is not all genuine, just, there are more than two sides to most stories.
Wore my green today! Sounds like you're a little blue. Hope you feel better soon — try lemon and honey. Only time I ever combine the two!
billi jean
Unfortunately it is all for naught. The president of Iran has about as much power as Miss America here. Their pres answers to the religious rulers and is therefore but a mouthpiece. I feel for the people in Iran, but they were not on the verge of any real change anyway.
The mom in me hopes you feel better soon.
ooh instead of talking about politics, we could have a nice healthy discussion on media ethics – now doesn't that sound like fun?
For example – Can misleading the public ever be justified? i.e the Saddam Hussein photo that anon@2:45 mentioned. Did the photo accomplish what it was supposed to? Was it wrong to mislead the American people?
I'm sure there are countless other examples. There's a couple great photos on the web, I'll see if I can find them… oh, only if anyone cares. =)
Hey Nathan
I was about to post comiserations on your ill health – and mention grandmother's remedy involving healthy stuff liberally topped off with whiskey – when I discovered that being divebombed by a moth can also clear a sinus headache speedily!
Given the choice I'd have gone with the former rather than the latter – hope you're feeling better soon.
Don't know if it was rigged, I wouldn't be surprised. Their fanatical religious leaders would probably do anything to keep Ahmadinejad in power.
Anyway, get well soon!
Speedy recovery, Nathan!
This thing in Iran, last heard, the government there shut down YT and FB access, but they didn't get Twitter, and this created the brewings of the under 30 revolotion. I hope those kids get to know what democracy truly is.
Other websites to visit: World Net Daily and Fox News.
It's interesting to see some of the women move their headscarves off and onto their faces.
I'm actually glad to see this here. It very much relates to free speech and **A LOT** of what we take for granted.
The magnitude of these protests is too large to ignore. Esp.since they relate to at least an middling effort at representative democracy.
Americans should take note and start voting, at the very least.
—
I just clicked on & looked at the Boston.com pix: they look so real, this could be down the street.
The riot police, I couldn't help noticing, all look like Storm Troopers.
For those of you who feign disinterest in this post (or chose to ignore it), I feel sorry for you. Several photos are graphic in a way that's chlling: protestors, shot in the head, killed fighting for democracy.
No wonder people tend to view Americans as navel gazing morons.
"Hundreds of thousands of people marched in silence through Tehran to protest Iran’s disputed presidential election in a show of defiance that appeared to be the largest anti-government demonstration in Iran since the 1979 revolution."
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/world/middleeast/16iran.html?_r=1&hp
Hope you are feeling better!
I was already (thankfully) aware of what's happening in Iran, but I still appreciate the links. The photos were especially powerful, and I agree with Anon 5:52 – Americans should be more aware of what's happening elsewhere… and be more appreciative of the freedom of speech we are allowed (and encouraged) to embrace.
So, thanks, Nathan, for educating us – even when you're feeling poopy. (Yes, I said "poopy.") Hope you get better soon – and not just 'cause I miss your sense of humor. I mean, we can't laugh ALL the time. 🙂
–Laura
I've been following this all weekend. It's been kind of an emotional roller coaster, even though I don't have any connection to the area.
Feel better!
Wow Nathan – that makes two of us – I actually drug myself out of bed to read your blog and I'm going right back under the covers. Feel better!
If you were going to cheat an election you should be a little bit brighter about it. Give yourself 52% instead.
I love the "Young actor" saying, " We want kindness. "
I thought the saddest words in "The Kite Flyer" were near the end when after his visit back to Afghanistan the main character says, "There is no kindness there anymore."
Kindness is one thing extremist governments quickly dispense with. I pray the Iranian people do get it back.
I'm afraid Iran's president has a lot more power than our Miss America; power to speak as Iran's representative to the whole world and so help or hinder relations between his county and others is not to be sneezed at.
Sorry about that last, if it's a cold you have, Nathan!
Chuck 12:08, Dara 4:53pm, I agree – I haven't seen any evidence either that the election was actually rigged.
Anon 5:52pm "..protesters killed fighting for democracy.." How did you conclude that?
In my understanding, Iran is a largely poor nation (40% below poverty line) and Ahmadinejad has campaigned along anti rich and fundamentalist lines – that is an election winning strategy in most poor nations. And it is well know he is liked by the poor in Iran.
Yet Iran has a substantial middle class that was educated abroad and is very progressive and that is the tweeting population. But they are a minority in the country.
So if elections are not rigged and Ahmadinejad is the voice of the poor and Islamist majority, then the protest is against democracy.
anon 2:45pm I agree with you 100%. Media does not present both sides of the story.
Having said that, I am also with the reformers – Ahmadinejad is wrong for Iran and the world is my view too. But because we don't like him, we can not use any excuse to nullify the voice of majority in Iran when we champion democracy as the solution to countries like that.
I've been on a high all day, with each new video more exhilarating than the one before.
Moussavi's support base is more in Tehran than rural Iran (you can see very few of the beard and traditional dress donning mullas in the pics). The nation is split between the educated urban progressive minority and the poor rural Islamist majority. And this is happening in more than one nation – the ongoing conflict in Thailand is along the same lines – choice of the rural majority vastly differs from the educated reformers (called as elites by some). No solution in sight there either.
Excellent thought provoking post once again, Mr. Bransford.
I guess this is the 'other side of the story' (or at least one of the other sides).
So sorry you're not "up to snuff" today. Theraflu to the rescue!
wfh-
There is a lot of evidence of foul play. Not to get into it too much, but they called the election four hours into counting the vote and the nonpartial commission monitoring it called it a fraud. This is very different from Thailand.
I am sending get well wishes, Nathan.
I saw the Larry King interview. I think we live in a scary world.
@writer from hell, I'm Anon 5:52 & 5:55
one fundamental problem w/the incumbent's credibility – regional specifics aside – on the world stage are his widely disseminated statements that SIX MILLION JEWS WERE NOT MURDERED. It was all … a hallucination. A whatever! A blond moment!
Although I'm not Jewish, I am gay and have made a point of educating myself about various ways marginal cultures & people are euthanized. I cannot help but relate the Holocaust with how Americans passively stood by and allowed Reagan's total disinterest in addressing what would become the devastation of the AIDS holocaust.
Likewise, I cannot help but relate Anne Frank's Diary with the books and journalism penned by Paul Monette and Randy Shilts, people who wrote in the face of certain death, against the extingenices of a ticking clock so there would be a written record of that time, those people, that truth.
I cannot help but remember sitting in at last year's LAMBDA (the books awards for LGBT literature) and watching photographs projected onto the white screen, face after after face after face of writers whose work was silenced in no small part due to early and irrefutable political inertia.
Two weeks ago, I was in a Starbucks, when a (quite elderly) man struggled to sit and share the table with me. I couldn't help but notice the concentration camp numbers indeliably tattooed inside his left forearm. I could not help but remember living through the 80's and 90's and seeing one young man after another wither and die.
So, when I saw those images of people protesting, I could not help but feel solidarity with the Iranian people who are fighting for something which totally eclipses blandly written RAND Corp. white papers numbly detailing regional conflict. Sadly, I cannot help but read your comments and think not of Frank, Shilts, and Monette, and all the others who, apparently, died for no reason.
That's where I stand. Where do you?
Anon, relating the Holocaust to passivity w.r.t. AIDS is overly specious… it's like comparing the black death to visiting Mexico and getting the swine flu.
Then again, this is an opinion of someone who chooses not to vote… thankfully I live in a country where I am granted the privilege to do so (I am a passionately disinterested navel gazer, I guess)
Also, democracy is not about electing who you think's appropriate, it's about electing someone who the majority thinks is appropriate, even if the guy is a megalomaniacal dbag.
And as far as elections being rigged – welcome to the 3rd world; we're just a little more interested in Iran b/c they can cause us a few more problems than the other corrupt 3rd world countries.
Excellent video, I can't wait to see more. It's sad to hear the protests have started turning violent but it does seem there is reason to question the outcome. Was anyone skeptical that it took them less than 24 hours to count millions of votes? It would be great to see true democracy in Iran, but I worry that the path to it is littered with corpses of young idealists.
It's fascinating what some people will turn their backs to, if it threatens their political perspective. They want to believe that a powerful nation must inherently be the "bad guy" and in turn they lend philosophical support to terrorists and religious extremists because they believe they are sympathizing with the plight of impoverished peoples. The west and Israel aren't always the bad guys. Iran and Pakistan aren't necessarily the good guys. There's a lot of gray matter, and most of us in the U.S. simply don't have enough information on which to base a sound opinion.
And that doesn't mean the election was flawed. At the moment we have very little information and no proof of anything. A few years back was saw Palestine finally embrace democracy, and proceed to vote a terrorist group into power. As far as any of us can tell, that was democracy in action. Does anyone besides me even remember?
(Except for the inevitable person who will correct me and say that, despite the fact that Hamas shoots rockets into family neighborhoods and bombs city busses and markets, they are somehow not terrorists?)
Today's terrorists often become tomorrow's statesmen, and the actions of nations can be just as heinous as the actions of terrorists.
I'll leave it at that.
Word verification: "unsult." Does that, like, nullify an insult?
It's profound to watch a people struggle for freedom.
This always brings up the feeling of equity in life for me. I feel deeply relieved that I'm not in Iran right now; that I am going to my comfortable bed in a moment, and worrying about things like work and writing and money and love.
But, what is it like like to be in Iran right now. To be fighting for something so…meaningful. If I were there, would I feel inspired? Terrified? Proud to be a part of things? Praying it would all end? Both?
I heard a speech once given by a man from South America. He lived his entire life in terrible poverty and oppression. He said that those of us who live in luckier circumstances are very, very important. We have the time and resources to make changes on a different level than those who are just fighting to survive.
So, since I seem to be waxing philisophical: am I fighting my own battles? I'm not in Iran, but I have my own battles to fight. Am I stepping up?
Okay, time for bed. Ah, lovely, healing, refreshing, restful sleep. (just in case someone who is sick is still up reading the news. Um, noone in particular. Just a random comment.)
Anon, Are you may be arguing against yourself?
No one in their right mind can support Ahmadinejad. That said, as Bane of Anubis pointed out, if democracy elects a megalomaniac, then what?
Yes Hamas was elected by Palestinian people and for that matter Hitler too was a democratically elected leader (was also Times man of the year in 1938 or 39, I don't remember which). By the same token I'm not amazed Ahmadinejad is elected in Iran. (I don't know anyone who thinks Pakistan or Iran are the good guys – even their own conscientious citizens might not).
Why is media projecting reformers protest as a sign (in itself) of rigged elections. There is no evidence of that. And the elections were not even marred by violence as happens in most ballot snatching cases in the 3rd world countries (thx Bane of Anubis for clubbing this lot).
So the question is whether democracy, which means the voice of majority, in nations like Iran and Pakistan, can salvage them or bring out goons to leadership positions. But no one likes answering that question (not media at least). So they highlight the urbanite Iranians protests as a proof that elections were rigged and pretend the man really isn't liked or elected by the people.
If he really does not have the majority support, he would be thrown out – there is a riotous lot out there in the 3rd world. That is what I believe.
https://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/2009613121740611636.html
another source on what all happened (without a view either way though)
Most balanced view I have come across thus far from BBC:
https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8101621.stm
Ok no more vandalising this thread. Over and out!