Shahrnush Parsipur @ UCSD / Rant / Sunday night conversation

And another thing: Lester now imitates us imitating him. He says "peep peep peep."

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Shahrnush Parsipur (شهرنوش پارسی پور) read at UCSD last night. Here's an official bio: "born in 1946, worked for Iranian National Television and Radio and as an editor and producer while studying sociology at Tehran University She began writing during this period, publishing her first novel, Sag va Zememstaneh Boland (The Dog and the Long Winter) in 1974. Arrested for her political stances and imprisoned twice between 1974 and 1984, she nonetheless continued to express her critical and provocative stance on women's issues in Iran, views that led to more arrests and a ban on her works. One of her few books translated into English, Women Without Men, was particularly troubling to authorities due to its open reference to the issue of virginity. Parsipur currently lives in the United States as a political refugee"

She read from Touba and the Meaning of Night. I took notes and then gushed to her about my mother living in and then leaving Shiraz in 1978 with my older brother (a toddler) and very pregnant with me. I didn't talk about the neighbor whose kitchen used to catch on fire--after all, I wasn't there. I shall now have to buy her books.

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Sunday night conversation:


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Rant:

I am very anti-death penalty, but I'm upset (surprise!) with the recent coverage of Michael Angelo Morales.

On the one side, folks are saying, well, let's execute him--he's evil and Hispanic! and on the other we have people rejoicing that the state of California failed to murder him--no one qualified would administer the lethal injection. Good, I'm glad--way to take a stand medical community! But...

Is anyone paying attention to their language? He shouldn't be executed. No one should be executed, not even a murderer and rapist. But do we (we, the Left who are anti-death penalty and paying attention to this) really have to make him into a martyr?

No one should be murdered / executed, but Morales is not a hero either.