It must be true ... I read it in a history book!

Well, no. A lot of what passes for history is to history what a factoid is to a fact. They look similar, but one's a total fake. So read this little article from Salon.com on history, its uses and abuses.

especially if you fancy yourself a brawny Scotsman with a clan kilt in your closet.

Kiddy Lit

Nicholas Kristof has a good column in today's NYTimes on 'The Best Kids' Books Ever.' Yes, it includes the Harry Potter books, but also some other unexpected ones. Freddy the Pig makes the list. Take a look.

Does anyone out there have any suggestions? Carmen?

Cats as political metaphor

Cute little beasts. Way better than rabid guinea pigs.


hurray! Blogger has suddenly decided to let me post pictures again.

Another historical ad

This one very, very, French.


hey, it was sent to me by our choir director.

"Stand by Me"

Actually, it sounds kinda nice in Farsi.

"One Ring to Rule Them All" - Farsi edition

In the worst of times, when the horror mounts, some brave souls find humor, or at least a grim irony approaching humor. In Iran this week the government, in an effort to get people to stay at home and be quiet, is showing the "Lord of the Rings" on TV, all dubbed expertly into Farsi.

Problem is, there is a lot gained in translation, an Iranian observer at Salon.com tells us.

Back to "Lord of the Rings." Gandalf the Gray returns to the Fellowship as Gandalf the White. He casts a blinding white light, and his face is hidden behind a halo. "Imam zaman e?!" someone in the room asks. Is it the Mahdi, the last imam and, according to Shia Islam, the savior of mankind?

Guess who the Orcs are? And the Hobbits and Dwarfs are called "Kootoole", little person in Farsi. And Kootoole is also the nickname the demonstrators call Amadinejad. The cross cultural connotations continue:

Back to the movie. Gandalf's white steed strides into the frame. It is instantly transformed by local viewers into Rostam's mythical horse, Rakhsh. Rostam, the great dragon-slaying champion of Ferdowsi's poetic epic "Shahnameh," which recounts the whole history of Iran.

Hilarious, if you are in the mood for it. Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think. (I can never remember who first said that).

sorry for being so silent of late, but I am glued to the computer following the news in Iran and this little piece is about all I can bring myself to write.

Star Trek and Camelot

Carmen and I recently saw the new "Star Trek" movie and loved it. It was un rembering the cues the script writers used from the original series, which I watched the first time they ever ran on TV, a time when every quirk of every character (Kirk's Quirks?) was yet to be discovered.

I also love the Middle Ages and once entertained about half dozen of my friends who had taken me to see "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." They said the movie was funny, but not half as funny as watching my reaction to it. Apparently I was literally falling out of my chair and ROFL.

So... here it is... the long awaited "Star Trek meets Monty Pyhon" song. If you look sharp you will see why it was so funny in the new "Star Trek" when the young Kirk asks the young Sulu what kind of personal combat he was trained in and Sulu replies, "fencing."

Iraqi version of the Economic meltdown.

Zeyad is still blogging from Iraq on Healing Iraq, though very sporadically. He seems to have decided to go on with his career in dentistry.

Here is a joke that was going around Iraq late last year explaining the collapse of the stock market. It makes as much sense as anything else I've read.

A financial expert was asked to explain in simple layman's terms the reasons behind the recent stock market crash. He thought for a while and said: “A man traveled to a far away village and offered its inhabitants to buy every single donkey they owned for $10. Many villagers rushed to sell him their donkeys. The next day he raised the price to $15, and even more villagers sold their donkeys. Later he raised the price to $30, and the villagers sold until they all ran out of donkeys. Then he said, ‘I will pay $50 for every single donkey,’ and he went to spend the weekend in the city. The man’s assistant visited the village the next day and offered to sell back the villagers’ donkeys for $40 each, provided they sell them back to his master for $50 each on Monday. The villagers went into all their savings in order to buy back their donkeys. Those who did not own anything rushed to borrow from their neighbours, hoping to make a quick profit. They never saw the man or his assistant again. When the next week arrived, there were only two things left in the village: debts and donkeys.”

Reenacting the Civil War

It just ain't what it used to be.

My brother the Confederate Nut claims to know these guys from some reenactment or another.

but he's a stickler for details.