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I woke up to some good news! My friend from Tehran has made it onto her flight and is winging her way to Istanbul now!
I received a photo of her holding her boarding card at about 5 am my time this morning. I’d love to post it here, but for her safety, I don’t think it’s a good idea.
But please take my word for it. It’s a lovely photo.
This woman has a point
I’d like to take a moment to mourn the murder of a person who deserves to be mourned.
I’ll say her name: Breonna Taylor
Perhaps if the US would stop constantly lying to itself, and if political leaders would stop repeating ‘Political violence has no place’ when it clearly always has, and most decidedly is happening to many right now…
It is the pinnacle of madness to watch every politician with a platform keep repeating what is so clearly a lie, while watching thousands of people suffer the political violence being visited upon them.
Maybe if anyone was brave enough to say the truth, then it could be stopped.
Actually, political violence has had a place in America pretty much since its inception.
Every child who suffered through measles, every elderly person who has died choking on their own lung fluids because someone told them the vaccine was the devil. Every hispanic person kidnapped in broad daylight by the secret police of Trump.
So yea, I’d say political violence is pretty much alive and well in America.
I’m spending most of my days hand sewing and listening to audiobooks. One book I strongly recommend is Frank Dikotter’s “Cultural Revolution”.
You might think it has no relevance right now, but I would ask you to think again.
The thing about authoritarian regimes is that they find ways to make ordinary people complicit in their criminality and cruelties. At some point the terror is over, and the country tries to put it all behind them, but the ghosts never go away.
There is a rather depthy and worthy analysis of how America changes and why it changes, politically, by Heather Cox Richardson - in an interview on Pod Save America.
She eshews content and analyses structure. It’s excellent. Not rah-rah-rah stuff. Not so uplifting, but coherent and a landscape view of ideas and power.
Last night I watched “Seed of the Sacred Fig”
It’s an important #Film and important to watch. But it’s deeply disturbing.
It does something that few films about repressive regimes fail to do: show how authoritarianism eats away at the very fabric of the family.
While the performances of the female actors are all outstanding, it is the performance of the father, played by Missagh Zareh, is nuanced and truly magnificent.