Amor de Burqas

Another great track 1 comes from Jorge Ben's 1967 album "O Bidu/Silencio no Brooklin." Enjoy:



Jorge Ben - Amor de Carnaval

So, what is going on right now? I actually want to say one or two things unrelated to Iran first before I get to that. First of all, I noticed that the veil debate in France has heated up now that Nicolas Sarkozy has had this to say:

"The burqa is not welcome on French territory. In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity."

Spot on, Mr. Sarkozy. By forcing these women to be liberated from these burqas and forcing them to act more like French women, who are not forced to wear the burqa but in fact will soon be forced not to wear the burqa, we will force a reality upon these Muslim women in which they are forced to fit our definition of free, liberated women, free to act as they please. Oh wait...it seems there is a flaw in this logic somewhere.

My ability to relate to this issue or make any kind of informed comment on it is basically limited to what I can read, but it seems to me the best course of action is to just let everyone live their lives as they please, that way you avoid stigmatizing France's Muslim community and maybe coming off as kind of sexist. Just let 'em be.

Anyway, so it seemed as though not a lot happened on the Iran front today. I was at my place of work and they had Fox news turned on for awhile, which tends to raise my blood pressure a bit. Obama answered a lot of his Republican critics, who seem dedicated to making sure many more Iranians die or are imprisoned and tortured in the current atmosphere, which is exactly what will happen if Obama gives them his full, official support. Here is what he threw down today, check it:



I love Obama for standing up to those goons. The really ironic part is that these are some of the same people who have very recently condemned Iran and used language indicative of the fact that they don't really separate the people from the government, and all of a sudden they are trying to make Obama speak out for the pure, democracy-loving Iranian people. Uh, really? Weren't you some of the guys who wanted to go to war with Iran recently? Anyway, it's unfortunate that Obama condemns violence against civilians while our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and what is essentially our war in Pakistan) are still killing lots of civilians and have been for quite some time.

Anyway, CNN has a picture of some mullahs in a protest march, which is actually pretty interesting I think. Also, there's supposed to be another protest tomorrow at 4 pm (Iran time) that has been more organized and talked about, so maybe it will be bigger than what we've seen the past two days. If a lot of people show up, we'll see how the government responds. If they've learned any lessons from the Shah, it won't be with more violence.