Starting to Sober Up

Sorry about the lack of songs, that is just uncalled for:



Chet Baker - Tenderly


So my friend helped me get a little essay on altmuslim.com (ooh, and it's right up there on the front!), so feel free to go check that out. I have never had a thing published on a site that was read by more people than just my parents and my roommate, so this is new for me. It also was unfortunate that all of my attempts at humor had to be stripped from the article, but alas, this is the nature of writing actual news and analysis. It feels kind of soulless in that regard, but at least my main points are still there, more or less. Plus, now I'm totally guaranteed at least one or two accusations of being an imperialist, which seems to be the standard response to any non-Iranian writer making even the most seemingly vague, insignificant comment about Iran. So that'll be new for me, too. As it is, I'm also probably guaranteed to never get into Iran. I guess I can ask them to take my name down from the site when I apply for my visa.

Anyway, so headlines all over this morning are saying that the Guardian Council has ordered a "partial recount" of the votes. Unfortunately, this is not what Mousavi and the protesters were calling for, as a partial recount could mean anything. What, are all the votes just sitting safely in a warehouse somewhere, waiting to be recounted? You're telling me none were lost or will now be hard to relocate? In any case, I think this move has made it clear that the government is not going to concede as easily as the protesters hoped. They are probably banking on things going the same way they did with the last two big protests (in 1999 and 2003), in which things settled down after about 10 days. We'll see. All in all, I think this cartoon by Nikahang Kowsar speaks pretty loudly:


The Persian says, "You'd better carefully examine Mousavi's letter!"

My suspicion about the Western bloggers covering the events is growing. There is a definite "democracy rocks!" filter going on here that is sort of unsettling. They are even starting to fight with each other, criticizing each other for either not supporting the protesters enough or for getting too wrapped up in all the blog wankery even though they have nothing at stake. It's not nicecore, so I don't approve. Of course, since nobody actually reads this one for live updates (or any reason other than to tell me they saw it as they pass by me on the way to the bathroom), my blog doesn't really count in all of this. Ha! But seriously, tomorrow maybe a little more on this, then my thoughts on Netanyahu's speech the other day.