Also (and this is the real reason for my post), I have been spending all ten minutes of my spare time each night reading coverage of the situation in Iran on The Daily Dish. For those who have not been following this issue, millions of Iranians have taken to the streets for peaceful protests against the stated outcome of the recent election there. My understanding is that the Iranian government has banned outside news organizations from covering the elections and their aftermath. News is coming to the the rest of the world via Twitter, text messages, and camera phones. It's gripping, and at times horrifying, to read updates and see images of the protests from people who are in the middle of them.
Usually, I shy away from politics in my writing because I can almost always see both sides of an issue, and that doesn't make for a very interesting piece. And as I try to sort through the various reports from Iran, I have the sense that it may be a while before we have the whole story of what has happened/is happening. But something isn't right when the government in power is hurting, and even killing, people who are peacefully protesting the results of an election.
I want to warn you that some of the images are very graphic, and if you (like me) don't do well with a lot of graphic violence and/or often have a little helper looking over your shoulder, you may wish to stick to the text updates and skip the photo galleries and videos. Also, you may need to scroll down quite a bit to get to the beginning of the coverage as the site is updated several times a day. One thing I like about this site is that the author, Andrew Sullivan, in an effort to present the whole story, provides links to writers whose views differ from his own.
And I have to love a political writer who intersperses his Iran coverage with poems by Rumi (a famous Persian poet of long ago - dig down, the poems are beautiful!).
You can read The Daily Dish here.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment