Podcasts about SAVAK

This week on the Exciting & New Podcast, Jason, Andy and Dana welcome Mike back on the show as we discuss the 1984 Sci-fi borefest Star Trek 3 - The Search for Spock.  Everyone who knows anything knows the odd numbered Trek movies ain't that great, and Part 3 is no exception.  It's not terrible, but nothing really happens either.  Dr. Brown is brought along on this mission as the big bad Klingon, and Kirstie Allen couldn't bother to come back as Savak, so they had to recast.  Anyway, all this is to say that something happened during the recording of this podcast and the last half of the show got cut off.  Production issues are nothing new (or exciting) to this podcast, but we are all kind of getting sick of it.  Maybe it is time to fire the current producer and bring on someone better.  Enjoy what you can of this podcast.  The summer of sex starts next week with Bachelor Party and we come out of the gates strong.  

DJ Savak, the architect behind Mechanismus and keeping Seattle noise-filled, has a quick chat about the festival, promoting, community, and Seattle. Void Signal Intro/Outro courtesy of Processor.Visit https://www.mechanismus.net/ for more info about Mechanismus.Visit https://VoidSignal.net to support Void Signal, enjoy exclusive episodes/series, and more.

Sohrab Habibion and Michael Jaworski discuss the new SAVAK album, Flavors of Paradise, dancing seahorses, snow shovelling adventures, the late Rick Froberg's role in influencing aspects of SAVAK and his constant presence in our lives, U.S. politics and the media, singing about years, defending your band name, gallows humour and punk-infused pop music, many project updates, tour news, other future plans, and much more. Support vish on Patreon! Thanks to Pizza Trokadero, the Bookshelf, Planet Bean Coffee, and Grandad's Donuts. Support Y.E.S.S. and Black Women United YEG. Follow vish online.Related episodes/links:Ep. #840: Mint MileRick Froberg RememberedEp. #383: Hot Snakes' Rick FrobergEp. #259: Savak's Sohrab HabibionEp. #224: Ian MacKaye & Steve Albini (Part II)Ep. #223: Ian MacKaye & Steve Albini (Part I)Ep. #217: Do You Compute – The Story of Drive Like JehuEp. #177: Sohrab Habibion on Obits calling it quitsEp. #29: Sohrab Habibion of ObitsSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/kreative-kontrol. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's show, after Jack's son Jim sings and plays a 1964 Beatles beaut: brand new New Model Army, J. Robbins, Real Estate, Kelley Stoltz, Jesus & Mary Chain, Joel Stoker, and Savak, plus Byrds, Specials, Moody Blues, Flying Burrito Brothers, H...

Squeezed in a whopping 9 tunes in this issue! Hope you enjoy!

Trong xung đột ở dải Gaza, bùng lên từ hôm 07/10/2023 sau cuộc tấn công đẫm máu của Hamas, lực lượng Hồi giáo vũ trang Palestine, Iran nổi lên như là một trong những tiếng nói gay gắt nhất chống lại cuộc phản công Israel tại Gaza. Điều này phù hợp với chính sách đối ngoại kiên quyết chống Israel của Teheran. Hai quốc gia Trung Đông thường được mô tả là kẻ thù không đội trời chung. Nhưng người ta đã nhanh chóng quên rằng Teheran và Tel Aviv từng là những đồng minh tương trợ. Từ 40 năm qua, chính sách về nước Cộng hòa Hồi giáo Iran của phương Tây được diễn giải dưới hai khía cạnh : Ở bên ngoài là một mối « đe dọa » và ở trong nước là chính sách « trấn áp ». Tuy nhiên, đằng sau những phát biểu gay gắt, kêu gọi « xóa sổ Israel ra khỏi bản đồ thế giới », và đe dọa phát động chiến tranh hạt nhân chống Iran, hai quốc gia này từ 70 năm qua chưa bao giờ ngừng duy trì các mối quan hệ thực sự, nhưng thường được giấu kín.Trong một hội thảo được tổ chức ở Edinburgh, Scotland vào tháng 06/2013, ông Trita Parsi, một nhà chính trị học, chuyên gia về Iran, trước hết nhắc sơ lại lịch sử quan hệ giữa người Ba Tư và Do Thái đã có từ ngàn năm trước.« Mối quan hệ giữa người Iran và người Israel thực ra khá là tích cực trong suốt lịch sử, nhân duyên bắt đầu từ 539 TCN, khi vua Cyrus của Đế chế Ba Tư giải phóng người Do Thái khỏi ách tôi mọi của người Babylon. 1/3 dân số Do Thái sống ở Babylon. Ngày nay họ là những người Do Thái ở Irak, 1/3 thì nhập cư vào Ba Tư. Hiện nay họ là những người Do Thái ở Iran, vẫn còn 25.000 người sống ở Iran, tạo thành cộng đồng Do Thái lớn nhất sinh sống ngoài Israel tại Trung Đông. Một phần ba còn lại quay về Palestine thực hiện công trình phục dựng lần thứ hai Đền thờ ở Jerusalem, được tài trợ từ thuế của người Ba Tư ».1950 – 1979 : Israel và chính sách ngoại viVậy thì mối quan hệ giữa Iran và Israel thời hiện đại đã được bắt đầu như thế nào ? Dưới triều đại Pahlavi, cai trị từ năm 1925, cho đến khi bị lật đổ trong cuộc cách mạng năm 1979, mối quan hệ giữa Iran và Israel không có gì là thù địch. Tuy nhiên, vấn đề về người Palestine đã là một trong số các mối bận tâm trong chính sách đối ngoại của Iran.Trả lời kênh truyền hình Al Jazeera của Qatar, nhà sử học Eirik Kvindesland, trường đại học Oxford nhắc lại, Iran là một trong số 11 thành viên của ủy ban đặc biệt do Liên Hiệp Quốc thành lập năm 1947 nhằm đưa ra giải pháp cho Palestine sau khi quyền kiểm soát lãnh thổ của Anh chấm dứt. Tuy nhiên, Iran là một trong số ba quốc gia bỏ phiếu chống lại kế hoạch phân chia Palestine của Liên Hiệp Quốc, khi cho rằng dự án này sẽ làm leo thang bạo lực trong khu vực trong nhiều thế hệ sau đó.Theo giải thích của vị giáo sư trường đại học Oxford, « Iran cùng với Ấn Độ và Nam Tư, đã đưa ra một dự án thay thế, một giải pháp liên bang nhằm giữ Palestine là một quốc gia có một Quốc Hội, nhưng được chia thành các bang Ả Rập và Do Thái. Đó là sự thỏa hiệp của Iran để cố gắng duy trì mối quan hệ tích cực với phương Tây vốn ủng hộ chủ nghĩa Phục quốc Do Thái, với chính phong trào Phục quốc Do Thái, cũng như với các nước Ả Rập và Hồi giáo láng giềng. »Dù vậy, hai năm sau khi Israel chiếm đóng nhiều lãnh thổ hơn mức Liên Hiệp Quốc phê duyệt và tuyên bố thành lập Nhà nước Do Thái, bất chấp việc 700 ngàn người Palestine bị cưỡng bức di dời và bị tước đoạt đất đai tài sản, Iran – dưới thời Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, vị vua thứ hai của triều đại Pahlavi, hay còn gọi là Shah – là quốc gia có đông người Hồi Giáo thứ hai, theo chân Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ, công nhận Israel.Đối với sử gia Kvindesland, động thái này của Teheran thời đó chủ yếu là để quản lý tài sản của khoảng 2.000 người Iran sinh sống ở Palestine và đã bị quân đội Israel tịch thu trong cuộc chiến Ả Rập-Israel lần thứ nhất năm 1948.Nhưng điều này cũng diễn ra trong bối cảnh « chính sách ngoại vi » của Israel. Nhà sử học Eirik Kvindesland giải thích, « để chấm dứt thế cô lập ở Trung Đông, thủ tướng Israel David Ben Gurion ngay từ khi lên cầm quyền năm 1948, đã theo đuổi mối quan hệ với các quốc gia không phải là Ả Rập ở "rìa" Trung Đông, điều mà sau này được gọi là học thuyết ngoại vi. Chính sách này bao gồm cả Ethiopia, nhưng Iran và Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ cho đến nay được cho là những cách tiếp cận thành công nhất của Israel. »Israel-Iran : Nỗi sợ Liên Xô và các cường quốc Ả RậpMối quan hệ này giữa Iran và Israel xuất phát từ một cảm giác chung : Cả hai nước e sợ Liên Xô và các cường quốc Ả Rập thời đó như Ai Cập và Irak. Là những đồng minh trung thành của Mỹ trong khu vực, cả hai nước tăng cường các mối hợp tác quân sự và an ninh. Tuy nhiên, theo quan sát của Eirik Kvindesland, trong mối quan hệ này, Israel cần đến Iran nhiều hơn là chiều ngược lại.« Israel luôn là bên chủ động, nhưng quốc vương Iran cũng muốn tìm cách cải thiện mối quan hệ của Iran với Mỹ, và vào thời điểm đó, Israel được coi là một cách tốt nhất để đạt được mục tiêu này. Ngoài ra, còn có triển vọng xây dựng bộ máy an ninh. Cơ quan an ninh và tình báo SAVAK của Iran thời đó đã được Mossad (Cơ quan tình báo Israel) đào tạo một phần. Đây là những thứ mà Iran có thể nhận được từ nơi khác, nhưng Israel rất muốn cung cấp chúng vì họ cần một đối tác ở Trung Đông, bất kể là có tư tưởng chống chủ nghĩa Phục quốc Do Thái và chống Israel. »Trong giai đoạn này, quan hệ thương mại giữa hai nước cũng phát triển mạnh. An ninh năng lượng của Israel được bảo đảm nhờ vào việc xây dựng đường ống dẫn dầu Eilat – Ashkelon, được cung ứng từ nguồn dầu hỏa của Iran. Tuy nhiên, mối quan hệ này giữa Iran và Israel phần lớn được giữ bí mật. Nhà chính trị học Trita Parsi nhắc lại :« Tuy nhiên, theo quan điểm của Shah, ông muốn càng giữ kín điều này càng tốt, ví dụ như khi thủ tướng Israel Yitzhak Rabin (nhiệm kỳ 1974-1977) đến Iran vào những năm 70, ông ấy thường đội tóc giả để không ai nhận ra. Những người Iran đã xây một đường băng đặc biệt tại sân bay Teheran, cách xa nhà ga trung tâm, để không ai để ý đến việc rất nhiều máy bay của Israel đi lại giữa Tel Aviv và Teheran. »Cách Mạng Hồi Giáo 1979 : Một bước ngoặt lớnCách mạng Hồi Giáo Iran nổ ra năm 1979, vua Ba Tư bị lật đổ. Giáo chủ Ruhollah Khomeini, người lãnh đạo cuộc cách mạng, đưa ra một thế giới quan mới, chủ yếu ủng hộ Hồi Giáo. Kể từ giờ, Iran ủng hộ cuộc đấu của người Palestine và khẳng định sự đối đầu với Israel, đồng minh của Mỹ, một « Đại Quỷ », theo như cách gọi của chế độ thần quyền Teheran. Ngày 12/02/1979, Yasser Arafat là lãnh đạo chính trị nước ngoài đầu tiên đến thăm Cộng Hòa Hồi Giáo Iran.Theo giải thích từ nhiều nhà nghiên cứu, tham vọng của nước Iran Cách mạng Hồi Giáo theo hệ phái Shia là tự khẳng định như là một lãnh đạo mới của thế giới Hồi giáo, vượt lên trên cả sự chia rẽ giữa người Ả Rập và người Ba Tư, cũng như là giữa hai hệ phái Sunni và Shia. Nhà địa lý học Bernard Hourcade, cựu giám đốc Viện Pháp về Thế giới Iran, trên tờ báo Pháp Le Un, cho rằng, khi giương ngọn cờ đấu tranh của Palestine để « giải phóng Jerusalem », Iran đã có được một tấm « giấy thông hành » để được lắng nghe trong thế giới Ả Rập. Đương nhiên, chính sách tích cực này của Iran đã đặt các chế độ Ả Rập liên minh với Mỹ vào thế phòng thủ.Tuy nhiên, nhà chính trị học Trita Parsi, cũng trong cuộc nói chuyện ở Scotland năm 2013, từng lưu ý, bất chấp cuộc cách mạng Hồi giáo, quan hệ « tích cực » giữa Israel và Iran vẫn còn tiếp diễn trong những năm sau đó, nhất là trong giai đoạn Irak xâm lược Iran vào những năm 1980:« Khi Irak xâm lược Iran năm 1980, Israel lo sợ Irak sẽ giành chiến thắng, nên đã sốt sắng hỗ trợ Iran bằng cách bán vũ khí và cung cấp nhiều phụ tùng thay thế dành cho kho vũ khí Mỹ, vào thời điểm, Iran vô cùng yếu thế do các lệnh cấm vận vũ khí của Mỹ mà Israel đã cảm thấy thoải mái vi phạm. Trên thực tế, trong những năm 1980, chính Israel đã vận động Washington đàm phán với Iran, bán vũ khí cho Iran và không mảy may để ý đến hệ tư tưởng chống Israel của Iran. »Chiến tranh kết thúc, giáo chủ Khomeini qua đời năm 1989, Iran phải nỗ lực tái thiết kinh tế. Thỏa thuận Oslo năm 1993 mở ra nhiều triển vọng hòa bình cho Palestine. Tổng thống Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005) chủ trương cải cách nối lại các mối liên hệ bí mật với Israel, nhiều cuộc họp không chính thức liên tiếp diễn ra trong khuôn khổ trao đổi kinh tế, văn hoá, hay giáo dục.Trở mặtNhưng những biến động môi trường địa chính trị trong khu vực một lần nữa đã bẻ gãy sự năng động này của mối quan hệ. Thỏa thuận Oslo thất bại, Liên Xô sụp đổ, Chiến tranh lạnh kết thúc, rồi cuộc tấn công khủng bố 11/9/2001 và cuộc chiến xâm lược Irak của Mỹ năm 2003 đã làm tan vỡ những thế cân bằng cũ, đồng thời đặt vấn đề hạt nhân của Iran vào trung tâm của các mối lo an ninh khu vực, cũng như là toàn cầu.Đây cũng là thời điểm Iran và Israel trỗi dậy như là hai trong số các cường quốc mới trong khu vực. Thay vì trở thành những đối tác tiềm năng, cả hai nước dần đi đến xem nhau như là những đối thủ cạnh tranh và kẻ thù của nhau. Chuyên gia về Iran Trita Parsi giải thích : « Israel, trong những 1980, từng vận động Hoa Kỳ cải thiện quan hệ với Iran, khi ấy tỏ ra lo ngại về việc Mỹ và Iran nối lại quan hệ và nghĩ rằng điều đó sẽ gây tổn hại đến lợi ích an ninh của Israel. Thay vào đó, Israel đã tìm cách đẩy Iran vào thế ngày càng bị cô lập. »Giờ đây, sự thù địch ngày càng gia tăng khi cả hai bên đều tìm cách củng cố và phát triển tầm ảnh hưởng trong khu vực. Iran ra sức hỗ trợ mạng lưới « trục kháng chiến », gồm các nhóm chính trị và vũ trang ở một số quốc gia trong khu vực như Liban, Syria, Irak và Yemen, những nước ủng hộ lý lẽ của người Palestine.Israel trong những năm qua cũng ủng hộ nhiều nhóm phản đối chính quyền Teheran, trong đó có nhiều tổ chức bị Iran xếp vào hàng « khủng bố » như Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), một tổ chức có trụ sở ở châu Âu, các tổ chức Hồi giáo hệ phái Sunni ở tỉnh Sistan và Baluchistan đông nam Iran, cũng như là các nhóm vũ trang người Kurd có trụ sở tại vùng Kurdistan Irak.Iran và Israel còn mở những cuộc tấn công nhằm vào các lợi ích của nhau, đặt bên trong và ngoài lãnh thổ. Trên bình diện ngoại giao, Iran và Israel nỗ lực lôi kéo một số nước Ả Rập. Tháng 3/2023, dưới sự trung gian hòa giải, Ả Rập Xê Út – một đồng minh của Mỹ - đã tuyên bố nối lại bang giao với Iran.Hoa Kỳ cũng cố gắng làm trung gian cho một thỏa thuận tương tự giữa Ả Rập Xê Út và Israel. Nhưng mọi triển vọng bình thường hóa quan hệ giữa nhà nước Do Thái và vương quốc Ả Rập này đã bị đình lại, ít nhất cho đến hiện tại, sau vụ phe Hamas tấn công Israel và Israel phản công dữ dội, gây ra một cơn ác mộng nhân đạo, giết chết gần 10 ngàn người Palestine, một phần ba trong số này là trẻ em.Theo đánh giá của ông Trita Parsi, hiện nay là phó chủ tịch điều hành Viện Quincy, một tổ chức cố vấn độc lập tại Mỹ, cuộc xung đột này cho thấy, « đối với chế độ hiện hành ở Iran, bất kỳ sự xích lại gần nào với Israel giờ là điều không thể. »Mệnh lệnh an ninh chung trong nhiều thập kỷ trước đây, từng biến hai nước thành đồng minh, thật sự đã biến mất vào đầu những năm 1990. Teheran phản đối thế bá quyền của Mỹ ở Trung Đông, trong khi Israel tìm cách đẩy lùi mọi nỗ lực của Washington nhằm triệt thoái quân khỏi khu vực.  Trả lời Al Jazeera, nhà chính trị học người Mỹ gốc Iran này kết luận : « Đây là một cuộc cạnh tranh để giành quyền thống trị và ảnh hưởng trong khu vực. Hai quốc gia này đã bị lôi kéo vào một cuộc chiến tranh cấp thấp trong hơn một thập kỷ qua. Không có dấu hiệu nào cho thấy có sự thay đổi đó. »(Nguồn Al Jazeera, Le Un, và TED.com)

Topics: summer stoop and roof hangs, Shipwrecked Golf in Red Hook, lunchtime walks in Central Park, Silverball Retro Arcade in Asbury Park, Jon Bon Jovi rest stop, Savak at Mama Tried, Balthazar, Milady's, Rose City Band at Union Pool, Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, CT, Phish at Madison Square Garden, Evenings at the Village Gate by John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy, The Ballad of Darren by Blur, Welshpool Frillies by Guided By Voices, I Inside the Old I Dying by PJ Harvey, My Back Was a Bridge For You to Cross by ANOHNI and the Johnsons, Lost Son - An American Family Trapped Inside the FBI's Secret Wars by Brett Forrest.

Today on the podcast we welcome Sohrab Habibion from Edsel, Kids for Cash, Obits and SAVAK. Sohrab also filmed a ton of shows back in the day in the DC area and his YouTube channel is full of amazing performances from a time when many shows weren't filmed. We tap about his time in NYC, DC, bands, his musical life that continues to this day.Sohrab's YouTube Channel 

Günümüzde bildiğimiz İran, coğrafya olarak tarih boyunca istihbarat savaşlarının, casuslar arası mücadelenin ve akla gelecek-gelmeyecek her türlü bilgi için tehlikeli operasyonların yapıldığı bir yer. Dolayısıyla İran coğrafyası savaşlardan ticarete, siyasetçilerin hedef alınmasından teknoloji hırsızlıklarına kadar muhtemelen istihbarat mücadelesinin her türlüsüne şahit oldu Sadece İran topraklarındaki casusluk faaliyetleri onlarca bölümlük yazı dizisi serisi yapmayı gerektirir. Bu nedenle biz, 1957'te kurulan SAVAK'tan başlayalım. 

This week on the blog, a podcast interview with writer/director Nicholas Meyer about his work on the Adrian Brody “Houdini” mini-series, as well as thoughts on Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek, Time After Time and more.LINKSA Free Film Book for You: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/cq23xyyt12Another Free Film Book: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/x3jn3emga6Fast, Cheap Film Website: https://www.fastcheapfilm.com/Behind the Page Nicholas Meyer Interview Part One: https://tinyurl.com/3f7mbzerBehind the Page Nicholas Meyer Interview Part Two: https://tinyurl.com/ms3tm45fNicholas Meyer website: https://www.nicholas-meyer.com/Eli Marks Website: https://www.elimarksmysteries.com/Albert's Bridge Books Website: https://www.albertsbridgebooks.com/YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/BehindthePageTheEliMarksPodcast***Nicholas Meyer – TranscriptJohn Gaspard: Do you remember what it was that caused your dad to write that book? Nicholas Meyer: I know something about it. He was interested, the subjects that kind of absorbed his attention were the sons of passive or absent fathers. This was a topic which probably originated from his experiences with his own father, my grandfather, who was a very interesting man and a kind of a world beater, but who spent so much of his time doing what they said in The Wizard of Oz—being a philip, philip, philip, a good deed doer—that he didn't have enough time for fathering. He was not a bad man at all, quite a conscientious one. But the parenting was left to his wife and I think my father missed and was affected by not having an involved father. And I think that a colleague of my dad's said to him Houdini, that's the guy for you. And that's how he did it. I'm only sorry that he didn't live to see the two-night television series based on his book. Jim Cunningham: I enjoyed it immensely as a Houdini fan. It was fascinating and fun and Adrian Brody is terrific, as is the woman who plays Bess. I thought I knew a lot about Houdini and there was a lot in there that I did not know. And I really enjoyed the opening to it, which suggests that it's all fact and all fiction, and it's our job to figure out which is which. How did you come to being involved with the TV mini-series about your dad's book?Nicholas Meyer: I have been friends and worked for many years with a television producer named Jerry Abrams. I started working with Jerry in 1973 with the first teleplay that I wrote was for a television movie called Judge Dee in the Haunted Monastery. There was a—China apparently invented everything first, including detective stories—and a circuit court judge in the seventh century, Judge Dee Jen Jay, solved mysteries and people wrote detective stories about him and now there are movies about him. But back in 1972, or something like that, and I had just come to Hollywood and was looking for work and didn't know anybody. And I met Jerry Abrams and I met a director named Jeremy Kagan and I'm happy to say both of these gentlemen are alive and still my friends. They gave me a shot to write this Judge Dee in the Haunted Monastery because I think ABC thought they were going to get a Kung Fu movie out of it, which it wasn't. But it was a television movie with an all Asian cast. The monastery in question was the old Camelot castle on the Warner Brothers lot and that's where I met Jerry. And Jerry and I've been friends ever since. Jerry's son is JJ Abrams, who directs movies. Anyway, Jerry said to me a couple of years ago, let's do Houdini and I said, Oh, funny, you should say that because my dad wrote a very interesting book about Houdini. I would be interested if it were based on his book. I would only be interested and that's how it got made.John Gaspard: What was your process? Did you know it would be two nights going in? Did you know it's going to be that long? How did you get started and what other resources did you use, because I know there's stuff mentioned in the movie that I don't remember being in your dad's books. You must have had to dig a little bit.Nicholas Meyer: There's a lot of books about Houdini, that I read many, many books, because my dad's book is distinguished—if one could call it that—by being the only book of all the books about Houdini that attempts some inner explanation of his psychological process. The why? Why would you do this? Why do you feel the need to do this? Other books will tell you what Houdini did, and some will tell you how he did it. But my dad's book, as I say, it kind of explores the why of it. And so I read these other books to supplement the rest of the how and the why and I've amassed quite a large Houdini library. When I say large, probably compared to yours not so much, but I must have like 10 books about Houdini and flying aeroplanes and Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle and spiritualism and so forth. So, yes, I read all those to supplement what I was trying to condense. I don't remember whether at this point whether it was proposed as two nights or three nights or whatever. I also know that if it hadn't been for Adrian Brody agreeing to play Houdini, it never would have happened. They weren't going to do it without a star.Jim Cunningham: He's great.John Gaspard: I was telling Jim earlier, before you got on, that my wife was kind enough to sit down and watch it with me. She's always worried in things like this, that she's going see how something's done. She doesn't want to know how magic is done at all. And when we got to the end, she said, “Houdini seems so nice. He's such a likeable guy.” And I think that's really more Adrian Brody.Nicholas Meyer: Oh, yeah. The Adrian Brody. As I say, the movie would not have got made without Adrian. I'm not sure that he wasn't to a large degree cast against type. I think Houdini was a guy with ants in his pants, a kind of frenetic character. And I don't think when you read about him in any detail, that he was what you'd call nice. I think he was a person who had a lot of charm that he could switch on and off like a tap. And I think this is one of the things that my dad's book brings out, and we tried to bring it out in the movie: that Houdini's whose own father was a failure of flop and absent parent. So, I think Houdini spent a lot of his life looking for substitutes or alternative father figures. And I think the first one he probably stumbled on was the French magician Robert-Houdin, from whom he took his name. And I think Houdini's pattern, at least according to my dad's reading of it, was to find father figures and fall hard for them, only to ultimately become disenchanted and alienated and furious with them. Probably, because ultimately, they weren't his real father. But I think there was something like that going on. John Gaspard: Yes, it's pretty clear that's what happened with Doyle as well. Nicholas Meyer: Yes, but he had better reason than in some other cases to be disenchanted with Doyle because Doyle's Atlantic City séance with Lady Doyle, Houdini ultimately regarded as a real betrayal. Because he decided, probably correctly, that the contact with his mother via Lady Doyle doing spirit writing was fake. And by the way, it's not that Mrs. Doyle or Lady Doyle might not have believed what she was doing. It just didn't track for two reasons: Houdini experienced this contact with his mother, and he was as obsessed with her as he was with the fact of an absent father. And he was so overcome when she spoke to him via the spirit writing that it was a couple of days before he realized that his mother didn't speak a word of English. And she had communicated via lady Doyle in English, she only spoke Yiddish. Doyle got around this difficulty by explaining that the medium in this case, Lady Doyle, worked as a kind of simultaneous translator. And Houdini said, yeah, but—and this was the second item—it was his birthday. And she never mentioned it and she always sent him something on his birthday. And he then denounced Doyle and Lady Doyle, as quote, menaces to mankind.John Gaspard: So, were you involved in a day-to-day way with production? And I'm wondering why you didn't direct it?Nicholas Meyer: I was involved. The whole movie was shot in Budapest, everything and I was involved. I was not invited to direct. I have not directed really since the death of my wife in 1993. I had two small children to raise and by the time it was, like, possible for me to go back since they are now grown up and busy. I was sort of out of a game. John Gaspard: Oh, that's too bad. You're a terrific director.Nicholas Meyer: I'm not arguing with you.John Gaspard: So, once you were scripting it, and you were using other sources, how concerned were you about this is fact, this is fiction?Nicholas Meyer: That's a very good question and it doesn't just apply to Houdini. It applies largely to the whole issue of dramatizing the stories based on real events. And by the way, you could make the case in a way that there's no such thing as fiction; that all fiction ultimately can be traced back to something real. I'll give you two examples off the top of my head: one, Moby Dick was based on a real Whale called Mocha Dick because of his color; and, as Heinrich Schliemann proved, when he discovered Troy, most legends, most myths have their origins somewhere in the mists of time, in some kind of reality. It turns out there was a place called Troy. So, he was not far off the mark. It's a knotty question with a “k” how much we owe to fact and how much we get to mush around and dramatize? And the answer has to be inevitably elastic. The problem is that people are neither taught, nor do they read history anymore. We are not taught civics. We are not taught history. Nobody knows anything and so by default, movies and television are where we get our history, and that history is not always truthful. It is dramatized for example, in that Academy Award winning movie, The Deer Hunter, we learn that the North Vietnamese made American prisoners of war in Vietnam, play Russian roulette. There is no evidence, no historical evidence that they ever did any such thing. And yet, if you're getting your history from the movies, that's what you see and someone said that seeing is believing. In any case, you have to sort of always be looking over your own shoulder when you are dramatizing history and realizing that, yes, you can tell a story with scope, dates and characters. But what's the point where you cross a line and start inventing things out of whole cloth? I'll give you another example: was Richard the Third really the monster that Shakespeare portrays? Now, remember, Shakespeare is writing for the granddaughter of the man who killed Richard the Third and usurped his throne and called himself king. You could make a very different case that that guy was a scumbag and that Richard was not, but you know, Shakespeare was in business. The Globe Theatre was a money-making operation and Henry the Seventh's granddaughter was the Queen of England. So, there are a lot of variables here. When you sit down to dramatize, I've worked for the History Channel and I can tell you the history channel will not make a movie where Americans look bad. The History Channel will not make a movie that questions any point in our own history. Our right to the moral high ground. It's a point of view and they have a demographic and Americans don't want to be shown any of their own flaws or asked to think about them. Jim Cunningham; Well, who does? Can I ask questions about the espionage? Part of what I witnessed last night, although I had sort of a vague memory, that there is some espionage connection or perhaps connection? In the first episode that he was working for at least the American government and perhaps the English government as well. Is there evidence for that?Nicholas Meyer: Circumstantial evidence.Jim Cunningham: Yes, and I suppose that it could still be even at this late date protected in some way in terms of, I don't know them, not admitting, or maybe no real hard evidence exists anymore, right?Nicholas Meyer: I'm more inclined to think that no real hard evidence exists. Although we all know that somebody said, truth is the daughter of time. But a lot of evidence has for a lot of things, not merely in this country, but also England has been redacted and eliminated and buried. You know, how many of your listeners know the story of Alan Turing? Alan Turing may have shortened World War Two by as much as two years by inventing the computer that helped break the German Enigma code. Alan Turing signed the Official Secrets Act which meant that his wartime work could never be revealed. Alan Turing was gay. After the war was over, Alan Turing was arrested on a morals and decency charge and he could not tell the world who he was and so he was sentenced to some kind of chemical castration, I believe and he killed himself. And all of this remained a secret for the next 55 years before the world's, you know, learned and suddenly there was a play called Breaking the Code and then there was the Enigma novel by Robert Harris and then there was the movie, which is very inaccurate, and very troublesome to me, The Imitation Game. Because in The Imitation Game, the first thing he does when he's arrested, is tell the cop who he is. With a crushing irony, as well as inaccuracy, is it there's no way he was allowed to tell. That was the price you pay when you sign the Official Secrets Act. So that movie kind of bugged me. Whereas for example, Enigma, which I think is one of my favorite movies, doesn't bug me at all because it doesn't call him Alan Turing and therefore, he's not gay, and it's a different story entirely spun out of inspired by, but not pretending to be Alan Turing.Jim Cunningham: Well, now I'm gonna have to watch that movie because I don't think I've seen it. Nicholas Meyer: You never saw Enigma?Jim Cunningham: I don't believe I saw Enigma.Nicholas Meyer: It's the only movie produced by Mick Jagger and Lorne Michaels, written by Tom Stoppard. Kate Winslet, Dougray, Scott, Jeremy Northam. Anyway, it's a fantastic movie, but you have to watch it like five times in order to understand everything that's going on because Tom Stoppard is not going to make it easy.John Gaspard: Just a quick side note here. I remember reading somewhere that Mick Jagger was a possible first choice for Time After Time Nicholas Meyer: Yeah, for Jack the Ripper. John Gaspard: Okay, interesting. I prefer the choice you came up with.Nicholas Meyer: Well, when they—Warner Brothers—were trying to sort of figure out how to make this movie, quote, commercial (they were so surprised when it was a hit), they suggested Mick Jagger as Jack the Ripper. And he was in LA at the time touring and I really didn't understand the politics of not just filmmaking, but you know, sort of office politics generally. And my first reply was no, you know, you might believe him as the Ripper, but you'd never believe him—or I didn't think you would believe him—as a Harley Street surgeon. And they said, You mean you won't even meet him? And that's when I said, oh, okay, I get it. I have to agree to meet. So I met him and then I said, fellas, I still don't, you know, think this can work. And so we went on to David Warner.Jim Cunningham: I think that was the first film I became aware of David Warner and of course, it colored my opinion of David Warner for everything I've seen him in since, including him as Bob Cratchit in a version of A Christmas Carol. I kept thinking to myself, don't turn your back on him. He's a killer. He's a stone-cold killer, because of Time After Time, which is still one of my favorite movies.Nicholas Meyer: Oh, thank you so much.John Gaspard: We promised not to geek out too much. But I have to tell you that the hotel room scene between him and McDowell, I still pull up once or twice a year to look at the writing and the acting in that scene. “You're literally the last person on Earth expected to see.” They're both so good in that scene.Nicholas Meyer: They are that, they are.John Gaspard: I think you mentioned in your memoir in passing that when you did The 7% Solutionthere was some back and forth with the Doyle estate. We—Jim and I—have a friend, Jeff Hatcher, who wrote the screenplay for Mr. Holmes, which is based on a book. Once the movie came out, it did run into some issues with the Doyle estate, because the writer had taken some characteristics of Holmes from the later books …Nicholas Meyer: It's all bullshit. All that is bullshit. The Doyle estate, which was once the richest literary estate in the world, was run into the ground by his descendants and their in laws and they don't care anything about Sherlock Holmes. All they care about is money. And what they try to do is to stick up movie companies and book companies and say you've got to pay. And back when Holmes legitimately fell into copyright, which is when I wrote The 7% Solution, yes, I had to pay and I understood that. I mean, I didn't understand it when I wrote the book because I was a kid. But I understood it when it was explained to me. What since happened is they continue, even though he's out of copyright, to try to pretend that he is or that one or two stories are etc. My friend, Les Clinger, who is a business manager but also happens to be a lawyer and a Holmes' enthusiast, took the estate to court and won. He broke that bullshit stranglehold that they were trying to exercise on anybody who wanted to write or create or make a movie about Holmes. Now, it's also true that big companies like Warner Brothers, or Paramount or something, if they make a Sherlock Holmes movie, and the Doyle estate comes sniffling to their door, find it cheaper to say, here's $10,000, Go away, than it is to bother to do what Les did, which was take them to court. It's just, it's blackmail, you've all seen the Godfather, you know, give me a little something to wet my beak is what this is all about. I have nothing good to say about them and what they did with Mr. Holmes, your friend's movie, was they waited until the movie was about to come out before they hit him.John Gaspard: Jim, I should mention, you probably don't know this, that and this is the truth, the man we're talking to is the man for whom the thing at the beginning of a DVD that says the opinions expressed here are not those of this company. He's the reason that's on DVDs. Jim Cunningham: Is that right?Nicholas Meyer: Yes, I will explain because I'm very proud of it. I've made a couple of contributions to civilization. One of them is the movie The Day After, it's my nuclear war movie. And the other is this little sign. And it happened when they were preparing the DVD release of Star Trek Two: the Wrath of Khan. I was interviewed and asked to explain my contributions to the making the movie, the script, the directing, etc. So, I told the story about how I came to write the script. And the DVD lady who subsequently became a very good friend of mine said, “Gee, the lawyers say we can't use any of what you told us.” And I said, “And why is that?” And she said, Paramount was worried about getting in trouble with the Writers Guild, because you are not credited as the author and you wrote this sort of under the table, the script. And I said, Well, why don't you just take me out of the whole DVD? Because if I can't tell the truth about it, I don't want to be in it.And she said, “That's what I hoped you would say. Now, I've got some ammo.” So, she went back and she came back and she said, okay, here's the deal. And the deal now applies to every studio. “The opinions expressed in this interview, are not those of Paramount Pictures, its employees or affiliates.” What this does is it stops those interviews from being bullshit puff pieces and allows them to become oral histories. Now, different people may have different oral histories of the same thing. You put them all on the DVD, but suddenly, you've opened up a whole world to telling things that really happened or that the tellers think really happened, or are their opinions without the studio, worried that they're going to be sued, because of that little disclaimer. And they all have that now and that's my contribution.Jim Cunningham: It's great. Now, I promised John before this interview that I would not talk Star Trekwith you, but since you've opened the door a little bit here. Now, that you say that you wrote Wrath of Khan under the table, can you just flesh that out for me? It might not ever be in the podcast, but I'm an incredible Star Trek fan. So, I'm interested in this story.Nicholas Meyer: Well, very quickly, I knew nothing about Star Trek when I met Harve Bennett, the producer of what was going to be the second Star Trek movie. He showed me the first movie. He showed me some of the episodes and I got kind of a jones to make an outer space, a space opera. And I realized once I started to familiarize myself with Captain Kirk that he reminded me of Captain Hornblower, which were the books by CS Forester that I read when I was a kid, about a captain in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, who had adventures and a girl in every port, which sounded good to me. I was 12. I think it was 13 or something and so I thought, “Oh, this is Hornblower and outer space. This is destroyers. This is submarines.” So, I made a deal with Paramount and Harve Bennett to direct a Star Trek movie for them, which was going to be their second movie. And Harve said, draft five of the script is coming in. So, I went home and waited for draft five. And, you know, I looked up and it was three or four weeks later and wondered whatever happened, because I was starting to think about spaceships and stuff like that. And he said, “Oh, I can't send you the script. It's not good. I can't.” I said, “Well, what about draft four, draft three, whatever?” And he said, “You don't understand. All these different drafts are simply separate attempts to get another Star Trek movie. They're unrelated.”And I said, “Well send them all to me. I want to read them.” And he said, “Really?” I said, “Yeah.”And in those days, you didn't hit Send. A truck, drove up, a van, and it had a lot of scripts. And I'm a very slow reader and I started. I read all these scripts and then I said, “Why don't you and your producing partner, Robert Salem, come up to my house and let's have a chat about this because I have an idea.” And so they showed up, and I had my ubiquitous legal pad and I said, “Why don't we make a list of everything we like in these five scripts? It could be a major plot. It could be a subplot. It could be a sequence. It could be a scene. It could be a character, it could be a line of dialogue, I don't care. Let's just make the list and then I'll try to write a new screenplay that incorporates as many of these elements as we pick.” And they didn't look happy and I thought, I don't get a lot of ideas. This was my idea and I said, “What's wrong? What's wrong with that?”And they said, “Well, the problem is that if we don't have a screenplay within 12 days, Industrial Light and Magic, the special effects house for the movie, say they can't deliver the shots in time for the June opening.” And I said, “What June opening? “And I only directed one movie in my life, and these guys had booked the theatres for a movie that didn't exist. And I said, “Well, okay, I'll try to do this in 12 days, but we got to pick the stuff now.” And they still weren't happy. And I said, “So, what is it? What's the problem?” And they said, “Well, you know, let's be honest, we couldn't even make your deal in 12 days.” And at this point, I was like, foaming at the mouth. I said, “Look, guys, forget the deal. Forget the money. Forget the credit. I'm not talking about directing. We've already got that signed, sealed and delivered. But if we don't do this, now, there's gonna be no movie, yes or no?” And I was an idiot, because I at that point gave away you know, what turned out to be significant. So, I didn't invent Kirk meets his son. I didn't invent Khan. I didn't invent Savak. I didn't invent the Genesis Planet. I didn't invent any of those things. I just took them and played with them like a Rubik's Cube and poured my, essentially it's all my dialogue, Harve wrote a few lines, but I wrote most of it.John Gaspard: Well, it certainly worked.Jim Cunningham: Oh, boy. Yeah, absolutely. And I will not bring up The Undiscovered Countrybecause I promised John I wouldn't. The 7% Solution is very interesting. You took one thing, and you extrapolated out from that an entire kind of reality about Holmes that had not been explored. And it's similar to kind of what your father did with Houdini. And did that ever occur to you that there was there's a similarity there somehow?Nicholas Meyer: Well, I did 7% before he did Houdini.Jim Cunningham: He owes you then.Nicholas Meyer: Oh, yeah. He does. It's interesting. I was not the first person to put together Holmes and Freud. In fact, Freud knew that he'd been compared to Holmes. Freud loved to read Sherlock Holmes stories. That was his bedtime reading and at some point, he even wrote in one of his case histories, “I follow the labyrinth of her mind, Sherlock Holmes-like until it led me to…” So he knew about this comparison. And there was a doctor at Yale, a famous psychiatrist/drug expert, who wrote a paper that my father gave me to read about Holmes, Freud and the cocaine connection. Because Holmes is a cocaine user and for a time, so was Freud. And when my book came out and was the number one best-selling novel in the United States for 40 weeks, I got sued by this doctor at Yale for plagiarism. This is like the first successful thing I'd ever done in my life and this guy was saying I ripped him off. Because he was probably walking across campus and people were saying, “Hey, doc, hey, professor, that guy in the New York Times you ripped you off.”So, I got sued. This is how you know you're hot is when you get sued. But it was devastating to me. It was devastating and it was expensive, because I had to defend myself. I had a lawyer and the lawyer said, “They have no case. We will ask for something called summary judgment.” And I said, “Does that mean we have to wait till July?” And he goes, no, no, no, it's not about that x couldn't resist summary judgment. Yeah, that happened in the summertime.Summary judgment turns out to mean that the facts of the case are not in dispute. No one can dispute that I read his essay. I put it in my acknowledgments. I thanked him. I read it. The question is, what is the definition of plagiarism? It turns out, you cannot copyright an idea. You can only copyright the expression of an idea. The words. I hadn't used his words. I haven't used any of his. I didn't write an academic paper. I wrote a novel. I wrote a story. So, I won and then he appealed and I won again, end of story. So, it didn't originate with me, nothing originates with me. Moby Dick was based on another whale. Emma Bovary was a real person, on and on and on. If you read the history or a biography, you understand that in good faith, efforts have been made to lay out the facts. But when you read a historical novel, you understand that the facts have been mushed around and dramatized, that the author has assumed the dramatist's privilege, his prerogative, to help things along. There's an Italian phrase, se non è vero, è ben trovato. If it didn't happen that way, it should have. I'll give you another example: Queen Elizabeth the first and her cousin and rival Mary Queen of Scots, whom Elizabeth subsequently had beheaded, never met in real life. They'd never met. But of all the 4,622 movies, plays, operas, novellas, ballets, whatever that are, they always meet. Because it ain't cool if they don't meet. John Gaspard: It's a better story.Nicholas Meyer: It's a better story.

Après le coup d'Etat de 1953 - où le premier ministre du Shah est démis de ses fonctions - et dans un contexte de guerre froide, l'Iran se rend de plus en plus dépendant des Etats-Unis. Cette seconde moitié du XXe siècle verra le Shah devenir toujours plus mégalomane, dopé par les pétrodollars, épaulé par une police politique terrorisante, la Savak. En 1971, le banquet exubérant organisé par le Shah à Persépolis en plein désert constituera l'une des illustrations les plus marquantes de cette démesure. Laurent Huguenin-Elie reçoit Yann Richard, historien, spécialiste de l'Iran contemporain, professeur émérite à la Sorbonne nouvelle et auteur de nombreux ouvrages dont "l'Iran - De 1800 à nos jours" (Flammarion) et récemment "Le Grand Satan, le Shah et l'Imam, les relations entre l'Iran et les Etats-Unis jusqu'à la révolution de 1979" (CNRS-Éditions). Photo: banquet donné en l'honneur des représentants des nations étrangères et à l'occasion de la célébration des 2'500 ans de la fondation de l'Empire perse, en octobre 1971. Ce repas fastueux avait réuni plusieurs dizaines de têtes couronnées, présidents et chefs de gouvernement. Le menu affichait, entre autres, cinquante paons rôtis farcis au foie gras, le tout arrosé d'un Dom Pérignon rosé 1959. Le coût total des festivités, qui incluaient des parades et la construction d'une ville de tentes, est estimé à 300 millions de dollars.

Birinci meselem şudur bugün: Diyelim Taksim'deki bombayı PKK ya da TAK patlatmadı. Yani, Banu Güven'inden Hayko Bağdat'ına, Ayşe Hür'ünden bilmem kimine kadar bütün barışsever(!) zevat haklı çıktı. Bombayı da diyelim DAEŞ, CIA, MOSSAD veya SAVAK patlattı. Hatta bir anlığına bu leş barışseverler(!)in yaygınlaştırmaya çabaladığı o iğrenç propagandayı satın alalım. Bombayı, seçim sathına girdik diye AKP patlatmış, bunu da Süleyman Soylu organize etmiş olsun. Söz konusu PKK isimli terör örgütünü vurmak, ortadan kaldırmak, kökünü kazımak olduğunda ne fark eder ulan? Bombayı kimin, ne amaçla, hangi saikle patlattığının PKK isimli terör örgütünü ortadan kaldırmakla nasıl ve şekilde bir ilgisi olabilir? Bu ilgi nasıl ve ne şekilde kurulabilir?

İran-Irak Savaşı'nın (1980-1988) bütün hızıyla devam ettiği bir dönemde, 1986'nın ekiminde, İran kamuoyunun çok yakından tanıdığı isimlerden Âyetullah Hüseyin Ali Muntazerî, Dini Lider Âyetullah Humeynî'ye hitaben bir mektup kaleme almıştı. Muntazerî, mektubunda, hapishanelerde devlet eliyle korkunç suçların işlendiğini anlatıyor; öldürülen hamile kadınlardan, iftar vakti katledilen dindar gençlerden, her gün düzenli biçimde atılan dayaklardan dolayı hafızasını yitiren mahkûmlardan söz ediyordu. Vahşi muameleler ve yargısız infazlardan dolayı insanların “İslâm Devrimi”ne sempatilerini yitirmeye başladığını vurgulayan Muntazerî, satırlarında şu çarpıcı kıyasa da yer vermişti: “İran İslâm Cumhuriyeti'nin zindanlarında işlenen suçlar, Şah'ın yaptıklarını geride bıraktı!” Söz konusu mektubu yazan kişi, sıradan bir insan değildi: Âyetullah Hüseyin Ali Muntazerî, İran Şahı Muhammed Rıza Pehlevî döneminde hapis yatmış, işkenceler görmüş, ardından Şah'ın devrilmesi sürecinde aktif rol oynayarak, “Humeynî'nin sağ kolu” mertebesine yükselmişti. Öyle ki, Humeynî 1979'da zafer kazanmış bir lider olarak İran'a dönünce, Muntazerî'yi kendisinin halefi ilân etmişti. Humeynî öldüğünde, yerini Muntazerî alacaktı. Ancak Muntazerî'nin hapishanelerde yaşananlar sebebiyle Humeynî'ye gösterdiği tepki (“Âhirette bunun hesabını veremem” diyordu), iki adamın arasının açılmasına yol açacaktı. 1988 yazında, Tahran'daki işkenceleriyle ünlü Evin Hapishanesi başta olmak üzere, zindanlarda binlerce tutuklunun toplu şekilde infaz edilmesi, iplerin koptuğu noktaydı. Uyarılarının dikkate alınmadığını gören Âyetullah Muntazerî, bu defa kamuoyuna yönelik açıklamalar yaparak işkence ve infazları kınadığını duyurdu. Gerginliğin büyümesi üzerine, Humeynî 26 Mart 1989 tarihli bir mektupla Muntazerî'yi halefliğinden azletti. Âyetullah Muntazerî, 19 Aralık 2009'daki ölümüne kadar ev hapsinde yaşayacaktı. (Muntazerî, 1988'deki toplu infazlar sırasında, Evin ve diğer hapishanelerde öldürülen toplam mahkûm sayısını 3 bin 800 olarak tahmin ediyordu. Bazı rejim muhalifi kaynaklar sayıyı 30 bine kadar çıkarsa da, bunun abartılı bir rakam olduğu açıktır.) İran halkının hafızasında korku ve travmalarla eşleşen Evin Hapishanesi, 1972'de Muhammed Rıza Pehlevî'nin emriyle kuruldu. Şah'ın acımasızlığıyla ünlü istihbarat teşkilâtı SAVAK, sonraki 7 yıl boyunca burayı bir sorgu, işkence ve idam merkezi olarak kullandı. Binlerce insanın yolu Evin'den geçti, yüzlercesi de burada can verdi. SAVAK'ın farklı mekânlarda ve biçimlerde yok ettiği binlerce siville birlikte... 1979'da Şah devrilip de yerine “İslâm Cumhuriyeti” kurulduğunda, Evin Hapishanesi bu defa artık yeni yönetimin muhaliflerinin tutulduğu bir korku evine dönüştürüldü. Görünen oydu ki, idam ilmiği sadece el değiştirmişti. İran'ın Ortadoğu'daki uydusu ve ana üssü konumundaki Suriye de, ölüm kusan hapishaneleriyle ünlü. Manda yönetimi sırasında, Fransızlar tarafından çölün ortasına kışla olarak inşa edilen Tedmur Hapishanesi, ilk akla gelen örnek. 27 Haziran 1980'de gerçekleştirilen “Tedmur Katliamı”nda, binlerce tutuklu hücrelerinde ve hapishanenin avlularında otomatik silahlarla taranarak öldürülmüştü. Hayatını kaybedenler arasında, siyasî sebeplerle tutuklu bulunan çok sayıda akademisyen, doktor, mühendis ve âlim vardı. Baas rejimi, 1982'de Hama'da son noktayı koyacağı kitlesel Sünnî kıyımına Tedmur'den başlamıştı. Aynı şekilde Şam'daki Mezze Askerî Hapishanesi, Şam yönetimi muhaliflerinin sağ çıkamadığı ikinci bir adresti. Burada can verenlerin en ünlüsü, 1960'larda Suriye Baas Partisi'nin yöneticilerinden biri olan Salâh Cedîd'di. Hâfız Esed'in sağ koluyken, onunla düştüğü ihtilaf sonucu kendini Mezze'de bulan Cedîd, 19 Ağustos 1993'te “kalp krizinden” ölünceye kadar zindanda tutulmuştu.

This week the Cultist visit the town of Midwich California where nine little creepy kids are born, plus this movie has a Superman, a Savak, and a Luke Skywalker in this.  Its kind of bonkers.  Our Jellicle Jester brings the fun facts of 1995,  Our Lady of Libations has a Lemonade recipe thats going to knock you on your behind and Scotty brings up the X-men, all of this and more!  The Cult Movie Cantina is a Podcast that takes a look at favorite Cult Films, pairs it with a cocktail or alcoholic beverage, shows it to someone who hasn't seen it and then talk about it.  The show is filled with great trivia and fun facts along the way. Join the Cult https://www.facebook.com/CultMovieCantina Get Show Notes http://www.scottywhite.com/ See us on YouTube https://www.Youtube.com/MopcastNetwork

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling as we discuss our favorite music of the first half of 2022. Show notes: - Recorded at Clicky Clicky World HQ - Breitling's laptop is acting up - Concerts are mostly back - Kate Bush sees a resurgence in popularity - R.I.P., the iPod - RL Mathews discovers the new stuff - Breitling's honorable mentions: Graveyard Club, David West, Big Cream, Peaness, Golden Apples, Stomptalk Modstone, Pillow Queens, Pinchpoints, Flash Hits - Kumar's HMs: Papercuts, Kurt Vile, Savak, Sasami, Kids on a Crime Spree, Yard Act, Adulkt Life, Mister Goblin, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, Elvis Costello - Good reissues from Pavement and the Flashing Lights - Kumar's #10: Pink Mountaintops bring the psych/sludge/synth pop - Breitling's #10: Lo Fi Legs, a musical band with a terrible name and good indie rock - Kumar's #9: Dan Bejar brings a little more danceability to the latest Destroyer joint - Kumar's #8: Jon Spencer's back with a fun record - Breitling's #8: Spiritualized is worth repeat listening - Kumar's #7: Wet Leg proves they're not a one-trick pony - Breitling's #7: Tremendous release from Pet Fox, featuring doods from Ovlov and Palehound - Breitling's #6: Yawners with the Spanish indie rock - Kumar's #6: Moody change of pace from Fontaines D.C. - To be continued Completely Conspicuous is available through the Apple Podcasts directory. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Once again, the monthly new release episode of The Ledge features some great new tunes from a variety of genres – Americana (Wilco, Drive-By Truckers, John Doe), power pop (Nick Piunti, The Sweet Things), indie rock (Dehd, Savak), and punk (Malta Vista, Screeching Weasel), among others. There’s also great new releases from our friends at Rum Bar Records, Big Stir Records, and Spaghetty Town Records. What I’m most excited about, however, is the premiere of the new single featuring one of our Real Punk Radio DJ legends. Greg Lonesome, host of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Manifesto, has a new supergroup which also features Preacher Boy, Olsen Twin, and El Flyin’. Their two track single, which can be found here, is released tomorrow, and both smoking tracks can be heard on this week’s episode! I would love it if every listener bought at least one record I played on either of these shows. These great artists deserve to be compensated for their hard work, and every purchase surely helps not only pay their bills but fund their next set of wonderful songs. And if you buy these records directly from the artist or label, please let them know you heard these tunes on The Ledge! […]

Querida nietada, Volvemos con un juego que detrás tiene una historia fascinante; 1979: Revolution in Irán que trata la caída del Sha de Persia y los acontecimientos que llevaron a la misma desde 1951. La relación con el petróleo y la Anglo-Iranian Oil Company y una historia en la que tiene mucho que decir la CIA, los islamistas, los comunistas y el SAVAK, la terrible policía secreta del Sha. Para hablar de todo esto tenemos la suerte de contar desde Teruel con Fernando Murciano (@Fermurciano en Twitter) que nos descubrió y sugirió el juego y nos hablará del mismo. Tenéis más información sobre el juego y el periodo histórico, así como recomendaciones en nuestro blog https://jugandoconlosabuelos.blogspot.com/2022/06/1979-revolucion-en-iran.html Muchas gracias a todos por seguirnos.

Conan Neutron's Protonic Reversal

Topics: Neighborhood report, COVID numbers, Commonwealth in Park Slope, Wingbar on Smith Street, Henry Public, out of town visitors, continued return to office, Rough Trade, Other Half Rockefeller Center, Savak at Littlefield, Bob Weir at Radio City Music Hall, Wet Leg by Wet Leg, Live In New York City February 8 1975 by Alan Braufman, Terror Twilight by Pavement, The Bear by Walter Martin.

US Foreign Policy & the Deceitful Presentation of our ‘War on Terrorism' & of Iran in Iraq & Syria as a Prelude to War Bringing Light Into Darkness continues to bring forth the ‘light' of concrete examples of the fact that what we are told or led to believe about our “adversaries” by our government and the mainstream media which fails us, are so often untruths and misrepresentations. Dr Muhammad Sahimi leads a discussion on the recent misrepresentations surrounding the assassination of General Qatem Soleimani in January 2020 as well as the ‘rationale' used by the Biden Administration for June 2021 airstrikes. Current considerations regarding Iran's nuclear behavior in response to US unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA are presented that contradict the MSM led image making that it is Iran that is acting outside of international legal expectations. Is our foreign policy actions towards Iran about provoking a response that would give us an excuse to attack Iran or is it based on reasonable diplomatic expectations from both sides? Was General Soleimani deserving of being assassinated as a war enemy of the United States or was it an act of State Terrorism? Would a closer understanding of the truth reveal Soleimani instead as a national hero of Iran whose military strategic skills were invited to come to Iraq to help Iraq deal with an impending takeover of ISIS as well as help to train Shiite militias from Pakistan and Afghanistan to help fight terrorist forces fighting the Syrian government on behalf of US foreign policy interests ? The history of the creation of the Taliban and the Mujahedin by US has its roots with our relationship with Shah of Iran and their ruthless SAVAK intelligence arm. Is it true we created the very terrorist forces of al qaeda and the Taliban that most Americans believe we are so committed to defeat? What Senate testimony did Hillary Clinton testify to that further confirms the Untied States complicity in the very terrorism we all deplore? Our well informed and studied guest, Dr. Muhammad Sahimi provides an array of important insights and reminds us why if you want to get much closer to the truth you are well-advised to tune into Bringing Light Into Darkness every Monday night at 6-7pm CST on 91.7 FM in Austin Texas and through koop.org on the worldwide web, if you do not want to be played by our major media again and again. So please, listen in and study the content of our show and join the discussion by emailing the show and tell us what you think.

US Foreign Policy & the Deceitful Presentation of our ‘War on Terrorism' & of Iran in Iraq & Syria as a Prelude to War Bringing Light Into Darkness continues to bring forth the ‘light' of concrete examples of the fact that what we are told or led to believe about our “adversaries” by our government and the mainstream media which fails us, are so often untruths and misrepresentations. Dr Muhammad Sahimi leads a discussion on the recent misrepresentations surrounding the assassination of General Qatem Soleimani in January 2020 as well as the ‘rationale' used by the Biden Administration for June 2021 airstrikes. Current considerations regarding Iran's nuclear behavior in response to US unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA are presented that contradict the MSM led image making that it is Iran that is acting outside of international legal expectations. Is our foreign policy actions towards Iran about provoking a response that would give us an excuse to attack Iran or is it based on reasonable diplomatic expectations from both sides? Was General Soleimani deserving of being assassinated as a war enemy of the United States or was it an act of State Terrorism? Would a closer understanding of the truth reveal Soleimani instead as a national hero of Iran whose military strategic skills were invited to come to Iraq to help Iraq deal with an impending takeover of ISIS as well as help to train Shiite militias from Pakistan and Afghanistan to help fight terrorist forces fighting the Syrian government on behalf of US foreign policy interests ? The history of the creation of the Taliban and the Mujahedin by US has its roots with our relationship with Shah of Iran and their ruthless SAVAK intelligence arm. Is it true we created the very terrorist forces of al qaeda and the Taliban that most Americans believe we are so committed to defeat? What Senate testimony did Hillary Clinton testify to that further confirms the Untied States complicity in the very terrorism we all deplore? Our well informed and studied guest, Dr. Muhammad Sahimi provides an array of important insights and reminds us why if you want to get much closer to the truth you are well-advised to tune into Bringing Light Into Darkness every Monday night at 6-7pm CST on 91.7 FM in Austin Texas and through koop.org on the worldwide web, if you do not want to be played by our major media again and again. So please, listen in and study the content of our show and join the discussion by emailing the show and tell us what you think.

Die Geheimdienste im Nahen Osten haben eine lange Tradition. Jeder von ihnen unterscheidet sich vom anderen. Die Strukturen des heutigen iranischen Geheimdienstes gehen noch zurück auf den Savak, den Geheimdienst des Shahs. In Syrien, Ägypten und im Maghreb versuchte man es mit mehreren konkurrierenden Geheimdiensten, die untereinander ein unsicheres Gleichgewicht bildeten. Gemeinsam ist und war ihnen die Grausamkeit. Wilhelm Dietl, Geheimdienstexperte und früherer Mitarbeiter des Bundesnachrichtendienstes über die Geheimdienste der islamischen Welt. Erstausstrahlung am 04.07.2011

This week on the WarriorU Podcast, Bram Connolly and Trent Burnard continue their Leadership Analysis Series. During this series Bram and Trent will be forensically analysing leadership styles throughout history and attributing them with a score for different facets of leadership. By doing this, they hope to find knowledge, skills and attributes that modern leaders may, or may not want to emulate.This week on the WarriorU Podcast, they dissect Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Due to his status as the last Shah, or King, of Iran, he is often known simply as, The Shah. He was born on the 26th of October 1919 in Tehran. His rule started in 1941 until his overthrow in the Iranian Revolution on the 11th of February 1979. Throughout his reign, aimed to achieve two broad goals – consolidate his personal power and Westernize Iran.Leadership AnalysisInspiration and Motivation - Score: 4/10The Shah used his image of being a young, confident, wealthy and progressive to gain public support for his visions and bring political stability and reform to Iran.Used vibrant celebrations of Iranian culture and history to inspire the people, while also being seen as a Westernised leader.Had a personality of being timid, indecisive and hesitant was both a strength and a weakness.Established the SAVAK, secret police, and had the Army be loyal to him personally in order to use coercion to force people to follow his vision.Was able to nationalise the oil fields, creating a new economic flow of wealth into the country.Providing Purpose and Direction - Score: 5/10The Shah aimed, throughout his reign, to achieve two broad aims – consolidate his personal power and Westernize Iran.In 1946 he sent the army to defeat separatist leaders in Persian Azerbaijan, leading to public popularity of the Shah increasing.An assassination attempt on the Shah in 1949 was blamed on the Communist Party of Iran (Tudeh) and the Shah used this an opportunity to ban the party, who he saw as a political threat to his power.Effectiveness of Leadership Style - Score: 4/10The Shah was an authoritarian autocrat, and had a dictator's approach to leadership.Introduced social reform which gave women the rights to vote, decreased the role of Islam in Iranian culture and promoted Western culture and customs.Although being in power for a long time, his dictatorship wasn't enough to sustain his rule and he wasn't comfortable with responsibility nor the accountability that comes with being dictator.Enduring Legacy - Score: 4/10The downfall of the Shah and ushering in of the Islamic Republic saw all of the Shah's reforms reversed and conservative Islamic social laws introduced – many of which still continue today.The Shah's legacy is highly contestable – some hold him and his leadership's accomplishments in high regard and still follow these ideals now, however the Iranian state has effectively criminalised any adoration of the Shah and his ideas, and many also see him as a weak and ineffectual leader, and his lasting impact in Iran is heavily suppressed.How it ended for them - Score: 0/10The Shah's indecisive leadership and increasing unpopularity amongst all social classes of Iran saw him flee Iran in the face of a popular and increasingly violent revolution aimed at overthrowing him and all of his Western initiatives.He died in 1980, from cancer, in Egypt.Overall Leadership Summary - Score: 18/ 50The Shah's ability to pursue his goals of consolidating power, modernising and westernizing Iran was able to occur through the inspiration and motivation he was able to utilise through his centralization of power, coercion through SAVAK/Army, and pandering to social groups in order to pursue his vision for Iran, which was achieved successfully for much of... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Podcast #516 pushes on with new music from Melenas, Savak, Giants Chair, Red Forty, Coriky, Kiss Disease, The Fallout, & Darren Hayman.

JC and Kiki tell the tales of the infamous Hawk Mountain, a globally known and first class bird sanctuary that is on cursed land, was once home to a deranged killer and the more recent stories of skinwalkers and wendigo. Kiki sifts through all the muck - from previous owners, to death bed confessions and discusses the First People's Tribe, The Delaware/Lenni Lanape, and the legendary creatures that may be haunting the forests still. . Random Chatter: ends at 9:32 #COVID19 #quarentine #Discord Big thank you to Ghost Story Guys https://www.ghoststoryguys.com/ for introducing us to Bad Custer. Bad Custer has a new album coming out in June, until then, go check them out! https://badcuster.com/#/home Also listen to Savak's new song on our Spotify playlist and hit them up on their website https://www.savakband.com/ . Our musical guest is Angela French with her song "Feel Something" (used with permission). All of Angela's Music can be found on Spotify and this song appears on our Mission Spooky 2020 Spotify Playlist. https://www.angelafrenchmusic.com/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

JC tells his terrifying tale of a shadow being that followed him home from a cemetery. Kiki talks about the possibility of ancient Egyptians understanding of the shadow as a separate entity. . Random Chatter ends at 5:55 - #StopSmoking #coronavirus . Our Promo today is from Happy Hour Gets Weird. Go show them some Spooky love! https://anchor.fm/castiff . Our Featured Music is from SAVAK https://www.savakband.com/ called "Alive in Shadows" from the live session on the Evan Davies Show in 2016 and was used under CC License 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You can find all of our featured music on our Spotify Mission Spooky Playlist 2020. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Sorry we've been away for so long! But like Chance the Rapper, we're better than we were the last time. In this poignant, eye-opening and emotionally vivid novel, Mahbod Seraji lays bare the beauty and brutality of the centuries-old Persian culture, while reaffirming the human experiences we all share.In a middle-class neighbourhood of Iran's sprawling capital city, Tehran, 17-year-old Pasha spends the summer of 1973 on his rooftop with his best friend Ahmed, joking around one minute and asking burning questions about life the next. He also hides a secret love for his beautiful neighbor Zari, who has been betrothed since birth to another man. But the bliss of Pasha and Zari's stolen time together is shattered when Pasha unwittingly acts as a beacon for the Shah's secret police.

Our podcast today was recorded in front of a live audience on March 18, 2019, to a sold-out crowd at The Wilma in Missoula, MT. 8 storytellers shared their true personal story on the theme “Stranger in a Strange Land”. Today we hear from four of those storytellers. Our first story comes to us from Dick King, who, In the 1970s, is traveling in Iran and has an uncomfortable encounter with the SAVAK, the Shaw’s secret police. Dick calls his story “Being With the People in the Land of the ‘Lynchpin’” Dick King was born and raised on the Hi-Line. He is a sugarbeeter from Chinook, Montana. Dick  attended the University of Montana, and received a masters degree in American history in 1971, after which he became a Peace Corps volunteer, and served four years in Afghanistan. He returned to Montana in 1975 and married Tove Elv-rom in 1980. They have one son, Alex. Dick has  worked in community and economic development, and moved to Missoula in 2000. Our next story comes to us from Ibrahin Mena who encounters a racist at a local grocery store in Missoula, Montana. The encounter causes him to reflect with empathy despite his anger and hurt, and he responds with love and kindness. He calls his story “What’s Wrong with my Skin?”. Ibrahin Mena is from Caracas Venezuela. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Education and a Master degree in Journalism. He has more than ten years of experience teaching at the primary, secondary and university levels. He was honored as teacher of the year in Caracas in 2014. Ibrahin lived in Malta, Europe for a year and half and arrived in Missoula in 2016 to teach at Missoula International School. He loves dancing, writing and traveling. Ibrahin created a video about his experience upon returning from the grocery store. You can watch that video below. Love & Tolerance at the Grocery Store (original Facebook video) Jesse Ballard grew up in East Africa. Her first visit to an American grocery store leaves her amazed at all of the choices of cereal in the US. Jesse’s story is called “The Cereal Aisle and Other Strange Places”. Jesse Ballard is a local childbirth educator, lactation counselor and birth doula (in other words, all things birth, boobs and babies.) She is married with two kids and loves travel, international food and being involved in local theatre productions. In our final story, Carissa Benjamin thinks that she got lucky when a stranger holds the door for her at a pay toilet in Nice, France. She calls her story “Stranger in A Strange Water Closet”. Carissa Benjamin is originally from Miami FL, and moved to Missoula in 2001, eventually making it her forever home which she shares with her husband, two young children and elderly yellow lab. She works as a physical therapist for Missoula County Public Schools and moonlights as an ice hockey referee. She also owns and operates a mobile physical therapy practice,where she enjoys working with individuals in their natural habitat. She also loves all things story.

Les Envahisseurs repartent avec une soucoupe pleine comme un oeuf! Au programme, Myriam Myle nous présente Le Noyau, nouvel espace de création artistique autogéré et mutualisé, ainsi que la soirée d'inauguration et de dénoyautage. Ma Rion nous présente sa fameuse chronique 'Cinéma et Priapisme' et Hippo nous fait part de sa 'Mauvaise Influence', le tout bien emballé dans du bon son et quelques bonnes blagues.

One Tough Bastard, aka, One Man's Justice is yet another three-word lunkhead action film. And boy, is it a hell of a lot of fun. Starring one of our faves, Brian Bosworth, this one involves a corrupt FBI man (Savak) who is overseeing an illicit weapons trade, procuring arms from corrupt US Army types. Bosworth … Continue reading Really Awful Movies: Ep 231 – One Tough Bastard →

In the last days of the English empire, the people of Iran wanted to shake off the economic imperialism of British Petroluem. The movement spread, and the Americans got involved to defend the status quo. Grant teaches us about the factions in play, the tactics used, and the beginning of the US's policy of regime change. When has imperialism improved the lives of people living under it? How can we accept the narrative that inciting chaos creates stability? Who's next? Links! Declassified CIA documents Confession of a SAVAK torturer 1953 British news report Support Final Bid on Kickstarter now! Please help our show succeed by sharing it. Send a link to someone you know and tell them what you enjoy about History Honeys. Rate and review us on iTunes, Stitcher, or whatever other platform you use to hear us. It helps so very much and we do appreciate it. You can connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or by emailing us at historyhoneyspodcast at gmail.    Logo by Marah Intro and outro by Thylacinus Censor beep by Frank West of The FPlus

Nykyään katkera viha suurta saatanaa eli Yhdysvaltoja ja länttä kohtaan sekä antisemitismi ovat Iranin koossapitävät voimat. Mutta toisin oli aiemmin. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi nousi Iranin valtaistuimelle toisen maailmansodan aikana 1941 brittien ja neuvostoliittolaisten syrjäytettyä hänen natsimielisen isänsä vallasta. Iranin öljy oli länsimaille äärettömän tärkeä ja se piti länsimaiden teollisuuden rattaat pyörimässä. Varaa virheille ei ollut, ja shaahista tuli länsimaiden öljynsaannin korvaamaton takuumies. Britannian M16:sta ja Yhdysvaltojen CIA:sta tuli puolestaan shaahin vallan takuumiehiä lähes 40 vuodeksi. Shaahi oli viettänyt nuoruutensa vahvan äitinsä johtamana ja isäänsä peläten. Pelko oli eräs shaahia ohjaava voima. Tultuaan valtaan Reza Pahlavi oli idealisti. Shaahin tarkoitus oli tehdä Iranista johtava moderni länsimaalainen maailmanvaltio. Ei ainakaan itsevarmuutta ja kunnianhimoa nuorukaiselta puuttunut, mutta ehkä järkeä hivenen. Shaahi antoi kansalle toivon mutta vei sen itse. Iranin salainen palvelu SAVAK tukahdutti poliittiset vastalauseet kovin ottein ja tästä kidutus- ja murhakoneistosta tuli vallan säilymisen vahtikoira, ei niin kovin länsimainen tapa. Yritystä kuitenkin oli. Vuonna 1963 shaahi aloitti Iranissa niin sanotun valkoisen vallankumouksen, johon kuului paljon uudistuksia. Mm. huntupakko poistettiin ja naisille luvattiin tasa-arvo, naiset saivat äänestää, ajaa autoa ja käydä töissä. Naiset myös pääsivät ehdokkaiksi parlamenttivaaleihin. Näin shaahi sai lisänimen äijäfeministi. Iranin uudistusohjelmat kuitenkin epäonnistuivat, koska shaahin vastustajista yhdet syyttivät Irania demokratian puutteesta ja toiset perinteisen šiiapapiston syrjäyttämisestä uudistuksia tehtäessä. Shaahin kerrotaan valitelleen julkisesti, että kun en hoitanut asioita minua sanottiin playboyksi ja kun ryhdyin hoitamaan asioita minua sanottiin itsevaltaiseksi. Iranin nykyisen virallisen kannan mukaan shaahi oli homo ja länsimaissakin shaahia pidettiin vähintäänkin biseksuaalina, mutta tätä ei haluttu turhaan korostaa, koska Iran on muslimimaa. Shaahin voimakas länsimaalaistamispolitiikka ja Israelin tunnustaminen sai monelta iranilaiselta kupin nurin. Shaahi halusi saavuttaa nopeasti Ruotsin elintason ja olla itsevaltias modernissa länsimaisessa Iranissa. Shaahin mukaan vain diktatuuri pystyi takaaman länsimaalaisuuden. Niinpä shaahi rupesi pönkittämään asemaansa diktaattorimaisin ottein ja poliittinen oppositio tehtiin toimintakyvyttömäksi muun muassa lakkauttamalla kommunistinen Tudeh-puolue. Tehtiin myös maauudistus, metsien kansallistaminen ja teollisuuden voitot jaettiin osittain työntekijöille. Aikaisemmin teollisuuden omistus oli jaettu pääosaltaan yläluokille, joista tulikin sitten älyttömän rikkaita. Vuonna 1976 vähemmän kuin yksi prosentti väestöstä omisti 80 prosenttia kaikesta yksityisomaisuudesta Iranissa. Epäsuhta oli kestämätön. Shaahi lapioi rahaa omiin taskuihinsa ja shaahin tulonlähde oli jopa kolehti, jota kerättiin pyhiinvaelluspaikalla, jonka suojelija shaahi oli. Englantilainen lehtimies Robert Graham on onnistunut jäljittämään kolmen ja puolen sivun mittaisen listan Pahlevi-säätiön omistamista osakkeista, joille arvoa kertyi likimain 3 miljardia dollaria. Totuutta Iranin korruptiosta on kuitenkin vaikea sanoa, sillä perinteisesti Lähi-idän monarkioissa on ollut vain vähän eroa hallitsijan ja kansakunnan aarteiden välillä. Shaahin motto oli, että jos totuuden puhuminen on vaarallista, sen puolustaminen on uhkarohkeaa. Shaahi puhui niin kuin eli. Väestön pitämiseksi kurissa tarvittiin uudenaikainen kalusto armeijalle ja siihen tuhlattiinkin rahaa valtavat määrät, samaan aikaan kun maanviljelys oli kuokka-asteella ja maaseudulta tapahtui valtaisa pako. Shaahi, jonka sanotaan katsoneen paljon televisiota ja pääosin täyttä roskaa - länkkäreitä, salapoliisielokuvia ja huonoja romansseja, ei kyennyt näkemään ruudun takaa kuinka syvästi kansalaiset vihasivat korruptiota ja poliisiterroria, kuinka vakavasti länsimaistuminen uhkasi islamilaisia perinteitä, kuinka paljon keskiluokka, johon hän oli kohdistanut toiveensa, kaipasi poliittista ilmaisunvapautta ja aineellista vaurautta. Shaahi oli rakentanut ympärilleen muurin, jonka yli hän ei kyennyt näkemään. Shaahista oli tullut M16:ta ja CIA:n tukema despootti operettikeisari ja länsimaat kompastuivat omaan ahneuteensa, kertoo Israelin Ystävät ry:n toiminnanjohtaja ja Shalom-lehden päätoimittaja Ilkka Vakkuri. Toimittajana Raimo Tyykiluoto. Kuva: YLE

Ever since Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have thwarted the takeover of Egypt by the Islamists (a civilian, but no less lethal version of ISIS), the liberal press has been at their throats. The Washington Post, the New York Times, and on occasions, the Boston Globe, are out to get them no matter what. Why? Because the Obama-Hillary-Kerry axis had depicted the Muslim Brotherhood as the modern way to democratize Islamic countries, a sort of Christian Democrats of Europe. The plot went as follows: once Mubarak, a corrupt military ruler is removed from power, justice and equality will prevail under the edicts of Islam as implemented, and worse, as interpreted by the Muslim Brotherhood. Except that the dreadful naivety of the Obama administration at the time the Arab Spring hit the banks of the Nile, was almost identical to the Carter's administration ‘deer-caught-in-the-headlights' reaction to the early rise of Khomeini and the downfall of the Shah. The Shah was feted in D.C., London and Paris, his SAVAK trained by the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies, and the National Iranian Oil Company was the darling of oil majors. Suddenly, all were vilified and viewed with disdain by the liberal press of such erstwhile supporting nations. All eyes and ears were now focused on the secluded and charismatic religious leader, living in the Paris suburb of Neauphle-le-Chateau. Khomeini would send-in, every week, his vitriolic speeches by tape cassettes to his growing followers in the streets of Tehran, Qom and Mashhad. He was viewed by the left-leaning press as a religious reformer and a genuine leader of a nation that has been governed for too long by a corrupt, puppet of the West. Michel Foucault, a French philosopher, was precisely seduced by the popular uprising in Iran, which he claimed might signify a new "political spirituality", with the potential to transform the political landscape of Europe, as well as the Middle East. Thus, for example, in his October 1978 article, "What Are the Iranians Dreaming About?", he adopted an almost mythic rhetoric to describe the revolutionary struggle: The situation in Iran can be understood as a great joust under traditional emblems, those of the king and the saint, the armed ruler and the destitute exile, the despot faced with the man who stands up bare-handed and is acclaimed by a people. The Shah was thrown to the dogs, whereas the religious zealot, anti-Western agitator Khomeini was hailed as the candidate chosen by the ‘Street'. The ‘Street' is assumed to reflect the true sentiments of the populace in countries where parliaments are rubber-stamp institutions. President Carter at the time, just as Obama at his own time, misjudged the moment and miscalculated the consequences of such seismic shift in regional politics. Not only was an ally (the Shah, for those who remember) allowed to free fall, but a sworn enemy slipped in, with much fanfare and rhetoric about the need for Iran to move past the Shah. Iran did indeed move, but backwards. From 1978 it went back few decades at all levels: socially, financially, and politically. Mass migration of the educated people commenced in the aftermath of the revolution, so did the dispossession and chasing out of the Jews, Baha'is and other minority groups. Then soon followed the severing of ties with the US and most of the civilized world, with the wanton ransacking of the US Embassy in Tehran and the hostage-taking of US diplomats for 444 days from November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981. Would such repeat scenario be pleasing to the pundits and experts at major newspapers and media outlets in NY and London if it were to occur in Cairo? Have they ever read, let alone learned anything from the history of the Middle East? After King Farouk of Egypt was removed, he was replaced by Col. Nasser. The quintessential popular hero, the darling of the ‘Arab Street', the conscience and father of the nation,

Alright, here we are, finally. The Iranian Revolution of 1979. There’s still some groundwork to be laid, but we’re getting there this episode, full stop. Let’s take a look at some of the folks coming to center stage. Here we’ve got the two principal players from at least the first half of the episode, both of … Continue reading Iran VI: Revolution →

Here we are, the absolute last episode (I promise) before we get to the Iranian Revolution and, I think, the Iran-Iraq War. In this episode, we’re covering the Shah’s White Revolution, the new liberal, socialist Shi’ite theologians like Shariati, and the dark reign of SAVAK in 1960s and 1970s Iran, along with the Shah’s famous … Continue reading Iran V: The White Revolution →

Hey folks. We’re getting on with it, but research and length got away from me again, and it’ll be another episode before we’re edging up towards Revolution. For now, though, we’ve got the reign of the Shah. Here’s our boy at his coronation in ’67 with the incredibly British commentary that Pathé apparently monopolized: The … Continue reading Iran IV: America’s Dictator →

A brief historical overview of theatrical performances in prison, particularly in Iran. The presentation is based on an essay. Nasser Rahmaninejad, a foremost, celebrated Iranian artist started his career in theatre in 1959 Iran. In response to the authoritarian cultural policies and harsh censorship of the Shah’s regime, he founded his alternative, independent theatre group, Mehr in 1966. His group, which later changed its name to Iran Theatre Association, became very influential in the field, competing with other well-financed, state-sponsored theatre groups until it was closed down by the SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police in 1974. All members of the group were arrested and Rahmaninejad was sentenced to twelve years in prison to be freed by the 1979 revolution that toppled the Shah’s regime. After the revolution Rahmaninejad resumed his artistic activities, staging several plays while teaching in the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, and writing articles and lecturing on theatre and politics for a range of audiences. Following the Islamic regime’s crack down on the opposition Rahmaninejad was forced into exile. However he continued his artistic activities writing essays, translating into Persian articles on theatre and politics, giving invited lectures in variety of academic and artistic organizations in Europe and the United States, such as the International Writing Program (University of Iowa), and the Center for Iranian Research and Analysis (CIRA). His plays, in exile include My Heart, My Homeland, produced by the Society for Creativity and sponsored by the Lilly Foundation, Office of Student Life, Liberal Education Department and Hokin Center and performed by Department of Theatre of the Columbia College of Chicago (1995); One Page of Exile, in the first festival of New Windows on Old Pasadena (1996). Rahmaninejad lives in Berkeley, California.

Chip and Jeff enjoyed yet another blazing hot night of running while talking! They are joined by legendary WPRB deejay and Comedy Minus One record label head honcho, Jon Solomon, who guides them through the serene and bucolic Delaware Canal Towpath in New Jersey. Chat topics include: bagels, coffee, half marathon training, running hats, Star Wars, tall grass & brambles, deer sightings, music documentary recommendations, running clothes, Mummenschanz, NJ pizza, Albert Brooks and Seltzer! Music played: “Reaction” by SAVAK and “Settle Down” by Rutabaga Comedy Minus One Records http://www.comedyminusone.com Jon Solomon on WPRB http://keepingscoreathome.com Rutabaga https://theseknottylines.bandcamp.com SAVAK https://savak.bandcamp.com Good Evening with Chip Chantry https://philadelphia-heliumcomedy-com.seatengine.com/shows/39962 Junk Miles Twitter: https://twitter.com/junkmilesshow Chip Chantry https://twitter.com/chipchantry Jeff Lyons https://twitter.com/usedwigs Fun Photo http://www.junkmilesshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/ep5.jpg

Conan Neutron's Protonic Reversal

Sohrab Habibion is a talented guitarist, singer, graphic designer, and engineer based in Brooklyn, New York. He has played in wonderful punk rock bands in the past, including Edsel and the Obits. His new band is called Savak and features members of Holy Fuck, Nation of Ulysses, The Cops, and his fellow Obit, Greg Simpson. […]

Come along as Mahbod Seraji leads us on a familiar coming-of-age journey in a distant land threatened with revolution. At times, humorous, at others, heart-wrenching. Open your experience to the universal truths of Middle Eastern culture and see the world--your world--a little differently ~ You’re bound to recognize your brother, your parents, your friend in those once nameless faces and consider ROOFTOP's poignant message of love, courage, grief, and hope. ROOFTOPS OF TEHRAN Book Description from Mahbod’s Website:This stunning literary debut paints a vivid portrait of growing up, discovering love, and awakening to the reality of life in a nation on the verge of revolution in the 1970s.  Rooftops of Tehran opens in a middle-class neighborhood in Iran’s sprawling capital city. The rooftop of the narrator’s house – the tallest in their alley - is the perfect spot for sleeping on hot summer nights. It’s also the perfect location for stargazing, sneaking cigarettes, talking about American movies, and confiding, analyzing and agonizing through the typical trials of being a seventeen year-old boy, including being in love. This is the spot from which the narrator quietly watches his secret love, his beautiful next door neighbor Zari, promised since birth to his friend and mentor, nicknamed Doctor, a man adored and respected by the whole neighborhood.  It is from this high perch that the narrator witnesses the SAVAK's brutal hunt and arrest of Doctor and realizes the oppressiveness of the regime under which he resides.  And the rooftop is where the narrator and Zari ultimately find quiet refuge in each other after the shock of Doctor’s senseless faith ripples through their close-knit community and brings about terrible, unexpected repercussions. With the candor only an Iranian can offer, Seraji's narrative bares the enduring struggle between beauty and brutality infused into the centuries-old Persian culture while reaffirming the human experiences we all share: contentment, terror, love, helplessness, ferocity, and hope. "On the Plane with Annette Bening" Blog Excerpt (I'm glad I got to read the rest of it after speaking with Mahbod--don't miss the "Continue Reading" message at the bottom):...Wow!  Annette Bening in Iran, I thought to myself.  I looked up and suddenly noticed a cheerful, beautiful, blond lady walking toward the snack bar, happy, carefree and relaxed, talking to the person who was walking along side of her, smiling, moving her arms—great energy for someone who like me must have woken up in the wee hours of the morning to make the damn flight!  Wow, the Academy Award wining Annette Bening and Alfre Woodard, one of the most underrated actors of all time!  Both their pictures were in the paper in front of me.  The ladies checked out the meager snack bar counter, and settled for a cup of coffee.  I have to admit, I felt a little giddy being in the same room with an Oscar winning actor, but I decided to rise above my giddiness and pretend like I hadn’t noticed her.  I buried my head back in the paper. For more, visit Words To Mouth. Mahbod is reading CITY OF THIEVES, by David Benioff ~ Check out the “early days” Words To Mouth interview. Visit Words To Mouth for links to ROOFTOPS website and other Words To Mouth interviews. To Enter to Win a FREE Copy of ROOFTOPS: Subscribe to the Words To Mouth e-newsletter (how winners announced) Leave a Comment Below telling us what piqued your interest from the interview/blog post Call 206-309-7318 and leave a voice mail message I can play on-air U.S. & Canada residents only; No P.O. Boxes, please Deadline: June 30th, 2009 ~ midnight, EDT ~ "Thanks" to Natalie Brown for her song You Gotta Believe from the Podsafe Music Network ~

{col. writ. 10/7/07} (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal There are forces in this country and in this world that are expending energy to ensure war with Iran. That's right -- Iran. Many of those forces were the same ones that suckered the nation into Iraq, with media - megaphoned fear- mongering. Iran has become the feared bogeyman of the hour; the latest in the simplistic media projection of 'bad guy.' And, just as in Iraq, the media's demonization of the leader becomes reason to destroy, attack, bomb, and occupy a nation. "He's a bad guy!" "He's a ruthless dictator!" Doesn't this sound familiar? Famed scholar and linguist, Noam Chomsky, interviewed recently by radio host David Barsamian, gives a powerful example of the impact of media upon us. Chomps explained: Take a classic example, Germany. Under the Weimar Republic, Germany was the most civilized country in the world, the leader in the sciences and the arts. Within two or three years it had been turned into a country of raving maniacs by extensive propaganda--which, incidentally, was explicitly borrowed from Anglo-American commercial propaganda. And it worked. It frightened Germans. They thought they were defending themselves against the Jews, against the Bolsheviks. And you know what happened next. {Fr.: Barsamian, David, Targeting Iran (San Francisco, Ca.: Open Media/City Lights, 2007),p.47} And speaking of brutal, ruthless dictators, the U.S. backed Shah of Iran used his secret police, Savak, to drench the earth with blood and terror. But, to the U.S., he was cool. Has the nation learned nothing from the Iraq debacle? The U.S. Senate recently passed a non-binding resolution supporting the partition of Iraq. It makes a certain diabolical sense; the U.S. bombed it, invaded it, overthrew its government, and replaced it with puppets of their liking -- all this, not now being successful, why not shatter it into threes? This argument is now being made, not by rabid neo cons, but by so-called 'liberal' Democrats. Why? Because imperialism is a truly bipartisan American project. The newest target may well be Iran, despite the fact that if Iran is indeed more influential today, it's because of the U.S. invasion, occupation, and near destruction of Iraq. In sum, Iran was strengthened by Iraq's fall. The U.S. has a Middle East policy driven by fear and ignorance. It is reactive, emotional, and driven by faith --not reason. Those are dangerous forces to justify war, and unworthy of a nation that considers itself a superpower. Super in power, but petty in reasoning. --(c) '07 maj