Car free day in Europe

Past Monday 22. of September was Car free day in Europe. Hopefully we would have a similar day in Iran, soon! otherwise...
Car free day in Europe
and Mobility week in Europe

IEEE President writes an open letter to its members Concerning about serving members in embargoed countries

Letter in pdf format

Change it or get changed!!

I enjoyed this story so much that I highly recommend it!...
I was taught this lesson in my early twenties when, working for a tour company in the Canadian Rockies, a woman called to book a sightseeing tour. I explained in great detail the different day trips available to her and together we picked one out for her to take. She then asked me a question that took me off guard, “Do you offer discounts to the blind?”
read it here @ Alexthe girl Wednesday, September 10, 2003

Congratulations on Raha's new virtual home town :-)

A good fellow of mine Ms. Raha has moved to a new home. enjoy her work here

Pain and Suffering; how to distinguish them!

I really liked this story. Hope everyone reads it...read it here at Alex the girl weblog
Saturday, September 20, 2003
One of the most common criticisms I receive is that somehow I must lead this perfectly charming, easy little life without worry and that if, in fact, I had ever suffered even the slightest, I would be more patient and understanding to those who like to live in a pitiful, complaining and negative world full-time. I would write less "good" stories because in the real world where there’s real problems, it’s not so easy to be kind.

Bride from Iran

Dear Mom and Dad,
I am writing you to thank you again for sending me a wife from Iran. Maryam, oh no I mean Marjan, has fulfilled all my desires. The short, ugly and bald Iranian that I am, there is no way anyone in their right mind here in America would want to live with me....read the rest at
Iranian.com

Traffic, Traffic and more traffic Jam

Wednesday, birthday of Hazarat-e Ali was a national holiday in Iran and father’s day (finally a day in Iran for men with all due respect for our hardworking women:). It was around 7:00 am we (my parents and I) decided to take a trip to North of Iran heading to Namak_abrood, to visit couple of family friends. We got ready and left our home heading for Chaloos road. The route to Chaloos was clear and plain up to the exit from Kardj to Chaloos. Then as soon as we arrived we faced a packed jam traffic. A traffic that prevented us from either returning to Tehran or going forward to our destination! We spent about 3 hours in queue of cars bumper to bumper. If I had estimated correctly we only moved forward about 2 km in entire 3 hours! Then, we decided not to go further and return! (So, we decided to take a trip to cheloo-Kababi in the city:). While we were in traffic jam, a police car passed by who announced that Chaloos road has reached its capacity and the entire road to Chaloos is completely jammed! I should mention with so much traffic there was one bright side. People were celebrating the traffic by playing loud music and dance!
While in traffic observing all this sceneries, I kept thinking traffic is an integral part of large cities. From New York City to Tehran they all have their own typical traffic jam. However, Tehran has different characteristic when it comes to traffic and its corresponding rush hours. Contrary to other big cities that the rush hours starts during the time that people commute between work and home, in Tehran however, we don’t usually follow the same pattern! No matter what time of day it is we may encounter traffic and to someone’s surprise during rush hours you may see no traffic at all!! This unpredictability of our system is something that makes Tehrani’s life not monotonic (I suppose this is again a bright side of this whole story)! However, I believe this is the main factor preventing us from any proper planning in for any work we do or follow certain forecasting blueprint as other counties tend to do.

In my humble opinion reasons behind the traffic jam in Tehran are many. Though, I will discuss those that I feel have the most impact on the entire system.

1. Cultural values: apparently it is so hard for us to give a yield to right! We usually move in from Side Street to the main street with tremendous force and no mercy to the driver on the main street! Image someone wishes to turn. You will hear the nonstop sound of horns coming from everywhere. We have come to this conclusion that no one has right more than us. Therefore, we should block her/his way and continue our path forward no sympathy considered! Kill or get killed!

2. Staying in a queue of street lane that is backed up all the way to kilometers is against our character and religion!! We should go from the most right to the most left, try to force in our car while blocking other side of road lane…(ok, ok, I know someone wishes to say that is because we don’t have enough roads, though).

3. Dilemma known as Timing of red lights on the intersections in Tehran: I never understood why it takes less than a second for a green light to change the color to the red and all this changing happens, simultaneously. Right at the same instant the other side of intersection goes from red to green! May be it is because of this fact that Tehranis are so quick in reacting during driving! The entire process takes less than a second!! I personally don’t understand why not giving about 3 to 5 seconds between green and red, so, the intersection would get cleared up before the cars from other side of intersection speed into the opposite path and a big time traffic would take place!

4. Many fellow drivers have no idea of what is proper driving or can’t recall anything they did when performed the driving test: have you ever noticed no person pre-decides his/her destination before gets to an exit or intersection! This is a last minute job for a drive. Right when s/he is completely on left side of the street, all of the sudden by the time the driver is by the intersection s/he wants to turn right.

Having said that, I have to admit once again by start of new school year we should expect to see huge parking by the name of Tehran has once again established!!!!

Check out the proper meaning of the F-Word

I don't usually use the fault language or profanity ...though, this one worth seeing!
FuCk meanings!

I just wanna dance

I’m listening to the music as I write this. I hear the piano with it’s irregular timing. Not timing that a classical pianist would be used to playing. I hear the percussion. I hear the beat: Ba, ba, ba, ba ba. “The heartbeat of the Latin people.” I hear ten seconds of a salsa orquesta and I want to jump up and start dancing, it doesn’t matter if there’s someone to dance with…I just want to dance. I hear salsa in my head all the hours I’m awake...
read the rest here

Have you got any time?

Have you ever noticed how many people keep complaining of lack of time? It goes like this: Essi joon, I swear to Barbara’s life, I didn’t get time to call you or answer your e-mails! … I have been bombarded by work and not knowing how to manage all these stress and pressure I receive! …ShooShoo joon, I am stress out! No time to do anything I planed for… These types of complains keeps coming, as far as I recall! I choose a terminology for former and later people as Time Deficiency Syndrome (TDS).

We live in times that people are in constant complain of lack of time. I kept wondering with all these technological gadgets human has invented to make our life easier and provide us with more time to enjoy ourselves, we still keep complaining of lack of time! Anxiety and angst have been reported to be direct psychological consequences of the state known of lack of time.
I just recently read that anxiety levels today are higher than those of psychiatric patients from 1950s!
It might be blasphemous to say anything against what has technology created for us by an engineer whose life is dependable on PDAs, computers, and Internet!J Though, I believe a big chunk of these complains is directly related to use of modern technologies.
As proof, consider the many new words that people and professionals are using to describe this modern state of mind. One common term is techno-stress, feeling of frustration and stress caused by having to deal with changes brought on by computers and other technologies. For example, people used to leave the office and that was that. Now with cell phones, pagers, and e-mail all part of many employee’s toolkit, these workers are stressing because they are always connected and have no down time.
Computer problems can lead to what psychologists are calling technology-related anxiety (TRA). In a recent study reported in the Washington post, 14 percent of respondents said computer problems interrupted their work more than a day, and 21 percent said they missed work deadlines in the previous three months because of hardware and software problems.
Devices have long been a source of frustration and anger, resulting to redo a job or spending longer to finish a job. To my knowledge devices have shown a tendency that is known natural antipathy toward human beings. A word that describes well the latter statement is resistentialism. Almost everyday, we hear the term from someone around us “things are against us” or “I am sure nothing is working on my way”!
I am sure many of you (including me), at least once or twice in his/her life time, has begged a computer to please, please give me back the file containing the drawing I just recently drafted or a report I typed 5 minutes ago, or pleaded a toaster, you know, to actually toast the bread this time rather than burning it to cancer prone bread, then you are ripe for resistential worldview!

Just imagine how much time we spend to learn how new technologies with their related phrases can help to improve our suitable life!
Books, magazines, newspapers, documentaries, licenses, by-laws and manuals do not only bombard us with tons of information where we have to comprehend them, but also by Internet and instant information resources existing under our finger tips we have increase this world of human-machine interaction. Just kindly add the number of e-mails, newsgroups and weblogs that we read everyday, then you would be able to understand why Technological Fatigue Syndrome (TFS) is something that helps us to receive an excessive amount of anxiety plus what I called Time Deficiency Syndrome (TDS). We receive such a large pile of information that we have hard time to plan how to classified or process them, not to mention comprehend and manage them for later usage. Planning for such a large data input is monument task. We may lose track of proper planning and managing of our resource and abilities. As a result not using our time to its utmost efficient way.

Moreover, another big factor is something that is known as desire to handle many jobs, simultaneously. To handle many jobs in one working day requires a daunting planning and usage of our time efficiently. However, with overload of information plus Tehran traffic where takes 2 hours to go from point A to B where usually must take about 10 minutes, we may even forget what we had really aimed for! I think we have a great Persian expression for this, taking couple of watermelon at one instance with only one hand (i.e. Bardashtan chandta Hendoneh ba yek dast!).

I always wonder is there a way to ease technological anxiety and TDS? I honestly do not know since the pace of changes around us is not something in my control and I think with so much desire for a better life we would have a hard time to see things would get any better. However, I would suggest it makes it meaningful for us from time to time if we turn everything off for a while and stand high to evaluate our status. Or just tell yourself I always make time for things that are affecting my soul. So, then let’s start from right now and leave all the watermelons on the ground!!!!

Admitting in prison

Apparently, two books have been recently published in Iran that are memories of two Iranians in IRI prisons. Read the rest in
BBC

New revolutionaries!

Sitting in a taxi heading to Tajrish Square from Shahrak gharab, I was asked by the driver to move in to the front row of the car since there are two other women passengers who want to get on the taxi. I affirmatively accepted and sat in front beside a guy who was looking in his early twenties with a beard that was not trimmed properly, with plain cloths. The shirt was hovered on his pants. The entire clothing was either light gray or a shade of gray color, a typical Basiji militia looks.

Our conversation started by the scene he observed first and got my attention as well. A woman who seemed to be in early twenties was beating a small beggar child and dragging him to the pedestrian side on Northeast corner of the intersection. The beating and defending continued and even other homeless children got involved and throw a couple of punchs to the guy who was beaten by the young girl. The entire scene was taking place in front of a police officer who was standing on the southwest corner of the street. The guy beside me started the conversation: “I think the small guy deserved to be beaten!” I got surprised that he said that and I felt once again I saw a person who is judging the situation and establishing the verdict before even the facts are appeared or considered. Therefore, I replied: “I don’t think beating is something that someone may like to receive or give.Not to mention that child would be deserving. Because first of all, if you look at the girl and that child height you would realize that the guy is 1/3 of the girl’s size!” I went on with the saying we have to find out what is the motivation of such an act. I know that the beggar might have done something unethical or dishonorable to the girl. However, I feel the motivation and reasons behind the act must be investigated and finding out what has put the small guy like him to go extreme and do something to insult the girl.
He agreed that we should abound any type of violence. Then he continued by explaining that our society has little tolerance for none traditional acts! He explained that he is part of plain cloths militia who are patrolling on the street to find people who are conducting illegal acts (I think by IRI definition, of course). He went on that couple of days ago he was acting as a deputy who would oversee the case of arrested individuals. A woman was brought in. He confronted a middle age woman who was claiming that she wishes to have sex with him or either get married!! She apparently explained that she has recently separated from her husband and she has a great appetite for sex at the moment! So, she wishes to have sex with the guy or wishes to get married as soon as possible! Apparently, according to Shar-e Islam she was not allowed to get married with 3 months and 10 days after her separation! Still being in this period she was legally banned from any remarriage!! Apparently, Mr. S. writes a letter to judiciary to allow her to get married before the stated time period, he took the responsibility of any sin that may have arises from such an act towards himself! He continued how he let go of couple of guys and girls whom were arrested by his colleagues.
Then he introduced himself as a person in Fleet of Saralah Number…. In the end he said please don't consider me Hesbollahi!...
After a casual farewell I started to think that how easily young people can be manipulated. If we just provide them with a good education where they can distinguish between what is being promised and what is really acted upon, then we can be hopeful that our investment for future is set on the right direction. I kept wondering how effective was my 2-cents! It helped him to change his mind from a simple thinking dude who sees only black and white, to a dude whom was honoring his work by letting go of people who were arrested for no particular reason than moral behavior!