Category Archives: General

Ahmadinejad Isn’t the Power

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Regarding all the stuff going on with Ahmadinejad lately, it’s worth pointing out the following: Ahmadinejad doesn’t have ultimate power in Iran. He’s not a dictator. See here:

He may be the public face and figurehead of Iran, but he is not the final authority. The President of Iran is just a flunky: the real power, including supreme command of the military, lies with the Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamanei. The President of Iran is elected by popular vote — but can we really believe that the “Council of Experts” would give any say in government to the Iranian people? Ahmadinejad runs the day-to-day affairs of the government but in all real issues of policy he has to answer to the Supreme Leader.

and here:

Political analysts [in Tehran] say they are surprised at the degree to which the West focuses on their president, saying that it reflects a general misunderstanding of their system.

Unlike in the United States, in Iran the president is not the head of state nor the commander in chief. That status is held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, whose role combines civil and religious authority. At the moment, this president’s power comes from two sources, they say: the unqualified support of the supreme leader, and the international condemnation he manages to generate when he speaks up.

“The United States pays too much attention to Ahmadinejad,” said an Iranian political scientist who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “He is not that consequential.”

Gays in Iran

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President Ahmadinejad of Iran was asked this afternoon at Columbia University about the rights of homosexuals in Iran. First he evaded the question and then he responded:

“In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. We don’t have that in our country.”

The audience booed and hissed loudly. Some laughed, uncomfortably.

“In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon,” Mr. Ahmadinejad continued, undeterred. “I do not know who has told you that we have it. But as for women, maybe you think that maybe being a woman is a crime. It’s not a crime to be a woman. Women are the best creatures created by God. They represent the kindness, the beauty that God instills in them. Women are respected in Iran.”

This is why I’m glad he was allowed to speak at Columbia – so we can see what an idiot he is.

Wound

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I went to the emergency room yesterday afternoon.

Last year my parents got me a really good set of kitchen knives for Hanukkah. “They’re really sharp,” my mom said, “so be careful with them.”

You know where this is going.

Yesterday afternoon I was slicing a bagel with the serrated bread knife and I sliced into my index finger. Gushing blood, wouldn’t stop. Matt suggested we go to the emergency room, but I didn’t want to deal with that. So I kept applying pressure to my finger on and off for about 30 minutes — but it still wouldn’t stop. So we walked up to the emergency room at St. Vincent’s, a place Matt knows well, because he deals with college students and he’s always taking someone there for something or other. Like a veteran, he immediately grabbed a form and filled it out for me.

They saw me relatively quickly, and eventually the finger stopped bleeding. I did the Sunday New York Times crossword while waiting. (I hurt my right index finger, but I’m left-handed.) I wondered if I’d need stitches, but the nurse didn’t think so. They talked about maybe gluing it up, but once it stopped bleeding they decided they didn’t have to do that either. So the physician’s assistant just cleaned out the wound with saline, smeared bacitracin on it, and wrapped it in gauze. Then I got a tetanus shot.

The gauze somehow came off in the middle of the night, so this morning I washed the finger again, lathered it up with bacitracin, and put a regular ol’ bandaid on it. It’ll be fine.

But my arm is still a little sore from the tetanus shot. Bleah.