seen from T1
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L’Iran del food a caccia di autenticità e originalità
Immaginate una metropoli con ottanta milioni di abitanti – circa il 60% sotto i trent’anni – un livello di istruzione piuttosto elevato e una grandissima voglia di benessere, di qualità, di riscatto e avrete il quadro delle opportunità offerte da questo incredibile Paese che ama profondamente il Made in Italy. Organizzare la seconda edizione di netFOOD a Teheran è stato fonte di ispirazione e ci…
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Winding Down 2015: On Our World, #Outsiders & Remembering the Fallen (First in a Series)The year 2015 is fast coming to a close. Although the team has been "dark" on the properties, the team has been busy with the daily social media curation on our World as we all here @ #outsiders gear up for 2016. It has been quite busy on the US Political Scene as the Democrats had their debate and the Republicans exploded with demands for apology. This is as Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina dropped out of the Presdeitnail race noting that he had "hit a wall". The prospects of the Senior Senator from South Carolina losing in his home state was not too pretty a prospect. It is going to be quite a year as Brazil has hit a wall, Argentina goes through a transition process, Spain will have a new Government and the Right in Europe will continue to make inroads--as Syria and Iraq continues to burn. I have also been quite fascinated by how the Oil Market has literally fallen apart--and the bottom is yet to be recognized at the detriment of the Gulf States. The challenge with Islam is also quite disturbing to say the least. One of the interesting scholars I have been following is Akbar Ganji who has been quite vocal in debunking a number of key myths that the Islamic Republic has advanced (On the essence of Shiism) which is quite controversial. It is also of note that there is a struggle for power in the Shiite World as we speak between Khameini in Tehran and Sistani in Najaf. It was interesting to note how Khameini's mentor, Shahroodi (an Iraqi currently in Iran and a former Chief Justice of the Country), is being mentioned as a replacement for Sistani. What is also of importance to note is that Shahroodi has been the "mentor" to Moqtada Al Sadr, the troublesome cleric that caused so much trouble for US Forces--some of the very forces at the forefront of the fight against #Daesh. Iran, though, came out forcefully against the Visa waiver provision noting that it violated the agreement. As I have been reflecting upon this, there is plenty for the team to research, comment and assess for 2016. As I "wind down" the year, I wanted to remember the fallen in Afghanistan. Six US Soldiers died in a Taliban attack atBaghram Airbase in Afghanistan which underscores the profound challenge faced by the World on the eve of 2016. As I remembered them, I shared this earlier as a "Virtual Good Token" and hope that others throughout our nascent #Outsider community consider installing this APP and contributing to the worthy initiatives spearheaded here by Johnson & Johnson (as we in the Social Grid refer to as #jnj) (Please check out the tweet by clicking here....many have seen it when I have released “daily thoughts’))) Tomorrow also is the anniversary of General Patton's death. I could not help but wonder what his reaction would have been at the wars raging on by the United States throughout the World. Will there be the courage found to truly transform?
I wonder...
Originally Published 12/21/2015 @ http://thefounder.thedailyoutsider.com/2015/12/winding-down-2015-on-our-world.html
Circumstance: reviews reviewed
‘This film isn’t about fucking, it’s about human rights’, says the Iranian-American youth in Maryam Kesharvaz’ Circumstance, which opened in the UK on Friday. Surprisingly, despite winning the Sundance Film Festival's audience award last year, it doesn't seem overly to have impressed any audiences over here. Reviews in the national press have called it ‘crude and predictable’ and essentially making excessive use of the ‘trowel’ as a laying-on utensil where the teaspoon would do. Perhaps the most attention-worthy criticism, however, would be that of Leila Mouri, Iranian women’s rights activist and writer for the Huffington Post, who calls the film ‘a very trivial portrayal of Iranian youths’ sexual desires,’ as opposed to the revolutionary portrayal of sexual minorities that it could be. The opening comment on human rights and fucking does not, I should add, reference Circumstance itself. The speaker is attempting to persuade his Iranian friends to help him dub Gus Van Sant’s ‘Milk’ into Farsi, and to understand the seriousness of his agenda. Mouri’s contention is with the latent message that the Iranian teenagers in the film need an American to stir their political conscience. As it appears in the 107mins on offer, the only right they particularly care about is the right to fuck. I wonder, though, whether the same would be said of a film that dealt specifically with the right to freedom of speech or freedom in education. In a film which tells the tale of two female lovers in a country where ‘morality police’ form a menacing presence and homosexuality is a hang-able offence, the right to sexual freedom seems a pretty important one, no? Circumstance doesn’t undermine other political travesties, it just doesn’t have space to deal with them all. It’s like saying Milk didn’t pay enough attention to the civil rights of California’s dairy farmers. I will not pretend that the film’s various episodes of sexual fantasy weren’t sometimes lurid and a teeny bit cringe-inducing. The porno-style music and lingering closeups on one particularly full-lipped characters mouth might justify the trowel comments, but the excess and sexual freedom (however jarring) of these scenes are precisely what the film seeks to champion as common rights. The protagonists are teenagers, seeking rebellion in underground parties fueled by booze and drugs. They haven’t had time to prune their sexual fantasies to nice respectable and tasteful ones. The desires of the film’s two lovers are real and devastating, and as relevant to the cause of Iran’s sexual minorities as those of any fully-fledged adult. Following release, both Circumstance and its director are now banned substances in Iran. In London, the film is currently showing only in the Institute for Contemporary Arts – hardly apt for an ‘audience award’ winner. Superficial flaws aside, the film is deeply affecting. As I see it, this makes the disappointment of critics, and the indifference of distributors, a real shame.
