Cycle of the Outcast Turned Saint

I don’t have anything particularly original to say about Michael Jackson that won’t be said in the media-hype-storm that is already upon us. In short, I think he may have done some inappropriate things with young kids, not out of malice, but because he was a victim of a lifetime of abuse himself. I think for most of his life, he was mentally unstable and didn't know how to handle his fame. I don't think he was a monster, but a victim who needed help and love and not ridicule.Toward the end of his life, I don't think he had a firm grasp on reality and was being manipulated by forces beyond his control. Michael Jackson is what happens when you turn a child into a commodity and force it to produce profits for a lifetime.

His life and death, however, have made me think about how the world treats its icons, idols, saints and prophets. It is a simple model, perhaps too simple, but it seems to work no matter which hero you insert, from MJ to the big JC:

1. Person is a nobody, an insignificant member of the herd
2. Person begins to rabble rouse and make statements which separate themselves from herd
3. Person is ridiculed and made to feel like outsider
4. Person is accepted, loved, and idolized
5. Person is transformed into hero, idol, prophet
6. Person is worshiped
7. Person falls from grace
8. Person is prosecuted, admonished, ridiculed
9. Person is ostracized from herd
10. Person is crucified and forgotten
11. After death person is remembered and loved again
12. Herd feels guilt for scorn and death
13. Person is resurrected and worshiped
14. Person is made into a martyr, idolized and loved for eternity.

So there you have it, the Michael Jackson is Jesus Christ cycle of the outcast turned saint. At its core, Jackson’s message was one of hope and love. Whether people see it as romanticized pop clichés or meaningful scripture only time will tell.

Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race

All I know is that Thriller was the first musical experience I remember as a child and his music has always filled me with hope and made me want to dance. Although he had all by died years ago, his physical absence form the world will be felt. Hopefully now that he is gone, the world will remember him for the things he said and how he said them, not for the things he was accused of doing, or the color of his skin or size of his nose.

Something New

There are many ways to tell a story. A snippet of a song, an image, but the goal is to leave the listener with something new… The act of creation is seldom from nothing. A simple resemblance of what is always around us.

The Lucifer Principle

The Lucifer Principle is definitely worth your attention if you are interested in human behavior, evolution, superorganisms, genes, memes, and the concept of evil.

The book, however, tends to get lost in a series of tangential points loosely tied together by the main thesis: "Violence as central to the creation of the 'superorganism' of society and the inevitable 'pecking orders' and hierarchies inherent in human social groups"

In short, Bloom's work is all over the place, and while at first this nebulous structure is entertaining, toward the end becomes tiresome.

With a strong introduction and solid body, I found myself intrigued and highlighting much of the text. However, the end of the book gets lost in self-righteous patriotism and absurd xenophobic ideas.

The person who reviewed the book right before me said it best, "he veers off into screeds against organized religion, foreign aid and welfare," that I felt were absurd.

All together a thought provoking book and worth your time.

Pick Another Kid

Saw this clip of Real Time by Bill Maher the other day on Crooks and Liars, that summed up my thoughts on third party politics better than I have seen in a while.

Starts off with some mediocre jabs at Twitter and texting, but watch at about 2:39 when he goes in for the kill:

To those of you on the right who some how think that we are now in league, we are not in league. I was criticizing Obama for not being hard enough on the corporate douchebags that you love to defend. I don’t want to be on your team; pick another kid.

Then closer to the end he nails it again:

Shouldn't there be one party that unambiguously supports cutting the military budget, a party that is straight up in favor of gun control, gay marriage, higher taxes for the rich, universal health care, legalizing pot, and seeks direct taxing of polluters? These aren’t radical ideas, a majority of Americans are either already for them or would be if they were properly argued and defended, and what we need is an actually progressive party who represents the millions of Americans who aren’t being served by the Democrats. Because bottom line Democrats are the new Republicans.

I should be watching more Bill Maher.

Where Is This Place?

What more needs to be said:

Gday Podcast

I was recently asked by @cameronreilly to share my thoughts on Iran on his Gday Podcast.


Follow this link to hear the podcast.

We Are All Iranians

I sat in my kitchen this afternoon and watch nearly an hour of Khamenei’s speech today. While his words rankled me beyond belief, he was not saying anything I had not heard before. Like most petty tyrants only able to rely on predictable religious formulas, casting the faithful against the evil faithless, he reminded me of another small Texan rallying the masses behind , “Us against them.” He spoke from fear, ignorance, and intolerance, and like his American counterpart he used a series of platitudes filled with religious propaganda and clichéd epitaphs, only flipping the nebulous enemy on its head, exchange Islamists terrorist with the West and mysterious Zionist enemies. Strange how both sides can lie to us using the same lies.

He is a small man talking to small closed minds. His speech will be remembered, I hope, as the spark that began the fire of freedom in Iran. His ultimatum can only be met in two ways: Acquiescence and submission (which are the corner stones of Islam) or rebellion!

Unfortunately, my life path has taken from Iran and left me powerless to make that decision. I know it is selfish for me to sit in the comfort of my home and expect that millions of people will swam the streets risking their lives to fight the lies of this small man, but hope is all I can do.

I hope the people will fight back, not with violence and death, because these are the tools of the oppressors, but with their shear presence. A Sea of Green, Iranians united despite their age, class, or religious severity, standing arm in arm saying enough is enough. Saying we will not be oppressed and abused, tortured or killed any longer. Take your best shots now, because in the end this is our nation, our land, our lives, and we will no longer allow you to steal from our coffers, stifle our dreams, abuse our women, or jail our greatest minds. We will no longer allow you to keep our brothers and sisters mired in foreign lands. We will no longer allow you to poison our minds with your interpretation of our religion. We demand freedom.

This is no longer simply a battle for Iranian sovereignty; this is the battle for freedom of ideas and thoughts worldwide. If Khamanei is allowed to win in Iran, the case for freedom will suffer worldwide.

The question now is can the people of Iran do this alone? And should they be meant to? Let me empathetically say here that I DO NOT ENDORSE ANY SORT OF FOREIGN OR AMERICAN INTERVENTION MILITARY OR ANY OTHER KIND. I do find it curious though that the world led by the US was willing to send thousands of troops to Iraq and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people in order to secure their democracy in Iraq, but apparently are willing to allow millions of Iranians be massacred at the hands of a murderous, corrupt maniacal regime. If ever there was ever a time for fighting for democracy, this is it, but please do not think I agree with the neo-conservatives, I know better than to ever believe that the US is a force for freedom or good. We will fight this fight ourselves, alone, in our streets as was meant to be.

As I said, I do not endorse nor wish for any UN intervention or US military campaign. The people of Iran have shown more courage and bravery than anything the world has seen in decades. They have, without arms or bloodshed , defied and opposed the forces of violence and death. They have with love and flowers stood up to the vile attacks and brutality of ignorance and bigotry. Like the movements of India and the American south, the forces of non-violence bathed in shrouds of green have spoken, and they have said, “We will not be subdued any longer.”

Tomorrow will be a day that will hopefully go down in history as a day of great triumph for the forces of freedom and non-violence, but I am not so naïve to believe that the Islamic state will simply release their power. History has shown that power never relinquishes its grip unless forced.

I just wish that this movement had more organization and leadership. On the other hand, perhaps I am wrong, perhaps that is the problem with parties and organizations that they become exclusive and selective, where as what is happing in Iran is a spontaneous, open, and all inclusive.

This letter from a student published in the New York Times says it best,

The truth is, it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. The open-air parties that, for one week, turned Tehran at night into a large-scale civic disco, were an accident. People gathered by the tens of thousands in public squares, circling around one another on foot, on motorcycle, in their cars. They showed up around 4 or 5 in the afternoon and stayed together well into the next day, at least 3 or 4 in the morning, laughing, cheering, breaking off to debate, then returning to the fray. A girl hung off the edge of a car window “Dukes of Hazzard” style. Four boys parked their cars in a circle, the headlights illuminating an impromptu dance floor for them to show off their moves.

Everyone watched everyone else and we wondered how all of this could be happening. Who were all of these people? Where did they come from? These were the same people we pass by unknowingly every day. We saw one another, it feels, for the first time. Now in the second week, we continue to look at one another as we walk together, in marches and in silent gatherings, toward our common goal of having our vote respected.

No one knew that it would come to this. Iran is this way. Anything is possible because very little in politics or social life has been made systematic. We used to joke that if you leave Tehran for three months you’ll come back to a new city. A friend left for France for a few days last week and when he returned the entire capital had turned green.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Until last week, Mr. Moussavi was a nondescript, if competent, politician — as one of his campaign advisers put it to me, he was meant only to be an instrument for making Iran a tiny bit better, nothing more. Iranians knew that’s what they were getting when they cast their votes for him. Now, like us, Mr. Moussavi finds himself caught up in events that were unimaginable, each day’s march and protest more unthinkable than the one that came before.

I think it is the nebulous character of this movement that allows for its success. It is this openness and simple message that allows the world to participate via their computers. There are no manifesto or demands beyond freedom.

“We are all Iranians.” The people say and blog and tweet, well if that is the case then don’t give up on us.

Before the elections Mousavi was nothing more than a reformer puppet allowed to run by Khamenei himself, but now he finds himself in a precarious position. He is the haphazard leader of a movement exhausted from sitting still for thirty years. A movement made up of young and old. A movement of freedom. The question now is whether Mousavi can back up his words and lead this movement beyond his empty reformist rhetoric, or maybe a better question is whether the movement can organically lead itself through shear will and faith in freedom.

Roya Hakaian says it best,

Green is not the last color to symbolize the quest of Iranians, and Mousavi, the true winner of the 2009 elections, is merely an incidental figure on the road of the nation's thirty-year plight for freedom and equal rights.

How can we help? What can we do? Remember we are all Iranians now, what happens next?

Perfect Sadness

There is perfect sadness in the world. You can feel it best alone, beneath a large empty sky. This despondency, ironically, has not been planned to cause you grief. No, this tenderness is here to remind you that you are human.

This is the place where we connect and share our fears, our loves, our lives. This may be the only place where we are fully human. I can only assume that you have felt it too, because it is the only place I feel alive, and I cannot be the only person living in our universe.

They say that only the fittest are meant to survive, and I will take their word on that; I see it all around me: pecking orders and hierarchies, shifting power bases and politics. They scramble to the top, eating, fucking and killing each other on their way up and back down, but what evolution doesn’t take into account is our ability to feel this sadness, and in doing so understand our ability to love each other.

Perhaps our evolutionary path must take a detour through this tenderness. Maybe out here alone, beneath the stars, we will feel our interconnectness and move beyond our biology.

Iran A Nation of Bloggers

As an Iranian and a blogger, though not necessarily an "Iranian Blogger" I simply fell in love with this little clip from the Vancouver Film School students. A perfect blend of history and artistic intergity, this is a must watch video. Please share widely:

Broken Promises

With everything going on in Iran, my mind is on constantly fire. I find myself shuffling a series of conflicting thoughts and ideas. Some emotional, some political, most impractical. I spin conspiracy theories with delusions of a Utopian Iran where I can take my daughter to rural Iranian villages on the coast of the Caspian Sea. We eat fresh walnuts that make our hands black. Stopping for tea and Zoolbeya. Spiraling first up then down Mt. Damavand. My mother is there, her brothers, her sisters, all of us returned from exile as if allowed back into the garden.

For the first time in my life, I feel at home, no longer out of place, no longer alone, but I know this is just a false fantasy. I have changed; we have all changed too much. The ground is too soaked with blood. Our memories have been erased by a blind faith in God.

I want to release a theory. It may not be intellectually sound enough to be taken seriously, I may not have sufficient facts or footnotes, but it must be let out, because it is taking up too much space in my head and needs to be voiced.

It starts with oil and power and strategy and American interests in the Middle East and the CIA and Globalization and privatization and Iraq and Afghanistan and natural gas and back room deals and politics and betrayal and lack of leadership and carefully crafted leaders who are more palatable than ignorant hill billy wanna be Skull and Bones mamma’s boys, and nuclear weapons and axis of evil and terror and heroin junkies and prostitutes in Dubai and unemployment. It ends, as it always does with the broken promise of freedom and self-determination and democracy.

For anyone who knows anything about the history of the Middle East in the 20th century, Iran is a key player in controling the region, and American has had its sites on control of the world’s 4th largest oil producer since WWII.

When an upstart nationalist, thought that perhaps Iran should be able to enjoy the wealth of this highly sought after new global commodity, the CIA had other plans. A carefully crafted coup displaces Mosaddeq and implants the Shah. The next chapter reads like a clichéd CIA handbook. Benevolent dictator turns Iran into the Paris of the Middle East, kills, tortures, and terrorizes communists, intellectuals, artists with his CIA trained secret police Savak. Same story in Indonesia, Chile, El Slavador….



Years go by, Iranians re-group. They slowly build a revolution. No not the Islamic one you have heard so much about, but an actual socialist one where millions of workers take over factories and march in the streets. They are not only brining down a dictator they are standing up to American imperialism. Could it be a truly democratic socialist Iran in control of its own destiny in the Middle East? Let’s not be naïve.

The Iranian left makes a critical mistake by aligning itself with the Islamic faction hoarding in on its revolution. Trusting Khomeni becomes the end of the Iranian left. Khomeni carefully manipulates the left promising the Islamic voice to topple the Shah. In the chaotic days in 1979, suddenly the Shah is out and a vacuum is created. A splintered left leaves too much room, and Khomeni moves in. The rest is history. He quickly murders and tortures all dissidents, including the leadership of the very parties that brought about the revolution. A free socialists Iran controlled democratically by the workers who run her industries is hijacked by Islamic fundamentalist who revert the Paris of the Middle East to a back water nation more in place in the 7th century. The first Islamic Republic of the 20th century is born and Iran is officially dead.

What does that have to do with the green Twitter revolution we are watching in 2009? Here is my idea:

Bush with all his PNAC and Texas swagger was not the right cowboy to open up Iran. He could bomb Iraq back to the stone age, but Iran was a much more sophisticated enemy, one that needed a charmer, a diplomat, one who is well-versed in 21st century marketing and technology. In short to bring Iran back in to the fold of a globalized world order, we need Obama and yes Mousavi.

I think that the CIA and the US is behind this current “revolution.” I can see it now, a few weeks from now the supreme leader is disposed, Ahmedijan is out, and the savior of Iran Mousavi is in. A man most people know little about, a lesser of two evils like his American counter part. Two puppets, who themselves are being controlled by corporate interests, money, and power begin to reset the Middle Eastern stage- Iran opens up to the west…American oil companies move back in, pipelines from the Caspian Sea contracts are signed, American companies swoop in to bid for the new privatized contracts. Free trade agreements are signed: McDonalds, Krispie Kreme, Pizza Hut, and Monsanto are more than happy to rebuild Iran and remake it in America’s capitalists cloned image. Another nation checked off the list…only a few left.

Am I a conspiracy theorist? Perhaps, but we Iranians are by nature. I guess that comes from being born in a nation that sits atop a mighty plateau, with natural resources, natural harbors, and oil.

Now here is the thing; I think I don’t mind. I have come to peace with Iran transforming itself into another American consumerist clone. Thirty years of oppression. Thirty years of fear. Thirty years of stifling a vibrant culture is enough. Perhaps, entering the globalized world order like the rest of the world is better than being oppressed behind a veil and with a stick.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I have no hope for real freedom or democracy in Iran in my lifetime, so I will turn my avatar green and cheer Mousavi for the same reasons Americans cheered Obama, but in my heart I know he is not the answer. Iran will remain entangled in the strings of the puppet masters.

I take comfort in the fact that Iranians are a proud people, you have to be to keep a cultural alive for 2500 years. We will sit atop this plateau and wait for our turn to control our own destinies.

Some books to check out:

Revolution and Counter Revolution In Iran by Phil Marshall
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
All The Shah's Men by Stephen Kinzer

Escaping and Returning Home

It is the summer of 1979. I have just turned five years old and my memories are vague and fleeting. I remember the Caspian Sea and horses. I remember family, birthday parties and my great grandmothers samovar. I remember my grandfather’s scruffy beard, Ghorme Sabzsee, and rock candy. I am a child born in Iran to two Iranian parents; we are planning to move to America, but a rumored revolution hovers in the air.

It is September, my father has gone ahead, our month is formless. I have no way of knowing that our country, will be forced beneath a veil for the next thirty years, my entire life. I have no way of knowing that one uncle will need to escape through the mountains of Turkey, while another fights in the Iraq and Iran war. I have no idea that a million boys will be killed in the name of god and heaven and plastic keys. I have no idea that the American Embassy will be taken in a month. I have no idea that upon my arrival in the US, in 1980, I will be the enemy. I have no idea that I will remain the enemy for the next thirty years because my passport says Born in Iran, even while Oliver North sells weapons to the very people who he claims to fight.

It is September and we are in line at the US embassy to see if our visa has been approved. People chanting in the streets: Death to the Dictator. Death to the Shah. Death to America. Death, death, death…People march. People run. People scream. People bleed. The revolution has begun. We run to a taxi, one step ahead of a mob. Are we in America yet? Exiled. Forgotten. Back home the family survives, grows, evolves, endures.

I will be thirty-five in a week. Once again Iran is on fire and drenched in blood. I wish I could be in Tehran tonight. No longer a scared child, but a man fighting for the freedom of his country. A country he has been forced to carry with him only in memories. A country of warm hospitable people that until last month were considered members of an Axis of Evil. A country rooted in history and poetry. A country that no amount of twitter fans will ever understand. A country yearning to rejoin the world. A country he feels in his blood.

I want to drape myself in green and bleed if need be. The blood escaping and returning home...

to be continued....