Reading the news about Iran, you're likely to miss its biggest story — the story that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently said was part of a "soft war," and the reason the regime refuses to allow foreign journalists to leave their offices for the next three days. That is, the story of the Iranian people, as opposed to that of their increasingly militant and illegitimate government.
Despite heavy and ongoing opposition protests, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in for a second term as Iran's president Wednesday. This Iranian is one of many who saw his inauguration as no cause for celebration.
It has been reported to death since last month's Iranian presidential election: Young Iranian women are at the forefront of the opposition movement, maybe even at the forefront of the next revolution. What hasn't been effectively reported, however, is the fact that this isn't some new, mysterious phenomenon. As an Iranian woman, I can assure you, we weren't just drinking tea and doing our makeup in the lead-up to all of this.
On the eve of the Iranian presidential elections, people are pouring into the streets of Tehran in support of the reformist opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. Mousavi is the leading candidate opposing incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and this election promises to be a close one. Should Mousavi win, it would be the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic that an incumbent failed to win a second term. But people are comparing this election to a revolution, and the enthusiasm around Mousavi has extended far beyond Iran's borders. Even Iranian-Americans are trying to get in on the action. That is, we're trying to vote.
The first thing people say when I tell them that I'm bipolar (after some awkward condolences) is that I should keep quiet about it.
Yesterday morning, this country lost one of its finest. Ms. Willie Knight died at the age of 107. She was my friend. In our nearly three years of visits together, I saw lots of people come to see her. They always asked the same question, what's your secret? She told me on many occasion that her long life was undoubtedly the result of one of two things. Either I did something good to please the Lord or he's still got something for me to do. I met Ms. Knight on her 105th birthday and began visiting her nearly every week.