Iran
Twitter guide
Via Anastasia, a “cyberwar” guide — Twitter do’s and don’ts to follow when supporting the Iranian protesters from abroad. I don’t Twitter, so most of this is completely, um, foreign to me, but you can really see how solidarity is being reinvented and globalized … my favorite: Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is
Chavez’s loyalties
In case it’s still not clear to Sean Penn and his fellow far-left cultists that Hugo Chavez is a foe of democracy and an ally of police-state thugs the world over: The man has now offered his congratulations to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and railed against those who would “besmirch” his “great victory.”
The future of Iran…
…is its bloggers. And the answer to demonization of Iran by the right is not to excuse the regime from the left. It’s to stand with the regime’s brave internal critics. Iran: A nation of bloggers from Mr.Aaron on Vimeo.
McCain: appeaser?
John McCain was for negotiating with Hamas before he was against it. (Via.) On that note, David Brooks has an interesting column about Obama on Hezbollah. He starts out skeptical, even hostile, then presses Obama further and gets a remarkably nuanced set of answers on the Lebanon crisis. Obama is striking exactly the right balance: No to Bush’s cowboy diplomacy,
Hillary on Iran
John Aravosis gets it right: So in the space of 12 hours, Hillary has twice suggested that she’d nuke Iran, but now her staff is saying that she didn’t mean to imply that she would. Maybe she’s just 60 years old and tired, like her husband said she was when she repeatedly lied about Bosnia for four months. So long
Iranology
Since I’ve noted the falsehood of claims that Ahmadinejad’s “Israel-off-the-map” remarks were mistranslated, I should also note that Norman Podhoretz, advisor to Rudy Giuliani and unhinged proponent of bombing Iran, has been circulating a bogus quote from Khomeini. And this is part of a pattern with Podhoretz. Opposing aggression against Iran is one thing; peddling the Iranian government line on
Maher on Mahmoud
I like Bill Maher, I really do. But toward the end of this clip about Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia, he remarks on the Iranian president’s Holocaust denial and belligerence toward Israel. Terrible stuff, Maher says: But those are things he says to get elected. There are Jews in the Iranian parliament. He can’t be that anti-Semitic. Actually he said those
Columbia convergence
I had intended simply to note that I’ll be attending an international jazz journalism conference next week at Columbia University (details here). But I need to point out the sheer oddity of this event following on the heels of a highly controversial visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I support Columbia’s decision to host Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier pledged to