On The Margins

Monday January 28, 2008

[ Travel ] Dizin in December

Dizin had enough snow for skiing in this late December day. In the middle of the week, the slopes see only a few Russian and British ski tourists and some folks from Tehran and other nearby cities. So much snow and so few people to share it with!

2008-01-28 23:32:44.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
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Saturday July 21, 2007

[ Sports ] Where I hope to be skiing this winter

My wife just handed me the August 2007 edition of the Outside magazine which a good family friend had given her while she was visiting her hometown, Santa Barbara, last week.

The magazine features a full report by Josh Dean on skiing and snowboarding the slopes around Tehran. (The photo gallery, by Alex Tehrani, can be found here. Other photos, including some from the runs and lifts at one of the resorts, can only be viewed by subscription. They were included in the magazine report but not free online.)

This is good news. Last month, I bought tickets for the whole family to visit Tehran this coming December. We are hoping to do some skiing. While the report makes me somewhat more hopeful, I'm still not sure whether there will be enough snow that early in the season but what can I do? That's when I have my vacation. In the meantime, I'll keep my hopes alive. The best thing is that we can live with rental skis and don't have to lug our own from California.

2007-07-21 00:02:31.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
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Saturday January 27, 2007

[ Society ] Payvand

Payvand, a Silicon Valley Persian community web site, has published a summary of "Answering the Charges Against Iran: Dispelling the Demonising Myths" report by U.K.'s Campaign Iran. You will need to scroll down through Payvand's introduction to see the list of charges and the summary debunks.

Another article on a roughly similar topic has been written by Edward Herman and David Peterson for Z Magazine. The latter article contains some misunderstandings regarding the social make-up of Iran although it does expose some of the other demonizing myths propagated by the mainstream mass media. In their article, Herman and Peterson have included a scholarly exposé, complete with references, of the realities hiding behind the rhetoric against Iran including those of the Democratic party leaders.

Less tersely, you can partake of a youthful skier's visit to Iran on YouTube. (It was the first video listed under Iran on YouTube.) You need to be patient through the introduction but I think recreational skier Jasin Nazim has done a much better job of reporting than many other professional journalists who have visited the country. I certainly learned quite a lot from the video. It motivates me to ski the same mountains!

2007-01-27 02:36:47.0 -- Comments [5] ; Permalink ; Trackback.
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