Last week, novelist Andrew Klavans got some play in the blogosphere with “Draft Hollywood,” a piece in which he tried to enlist the popular entertainment industry in the war effort by asking them to make movies glorifying our soldiers and the sacrifice they make for their country.***

Today, we find out he got his wish:

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - USA Network has joined forces with
Mel Gibson’s production company to develop an Iraq war drama, the cable channel said Tuesday.

“Peace Out,” from Gibson’s Icon Prods. banner, is envisioned as a six-hour series that tells a fact-based story of two young American men who head out for adventure in Iraq after the fall of Baghdad.

—————

***

There is only half a sentence in Klavan’s piece that I agree with:

In taking our self-examining ethos to…extremes, we have lost a kind of wisdom, wisdom that acknowledges the complexity of human life…

The Farceur-in-Chief of Iran wants to know if Americans are better off today than they were ten years ago.

“Are you pleased with the current condition of the world? Do you think present policies can continue?”

Ahmadinejad’s talking points should give the anti-Bush Mob pause, because he sounds just like them. Indeed, someone writing for The Simon picks up his refrain in an article titled “Why President Ahmadinejad is Right”:

It’s surreal to read the words from a political leader considering I’ve essentially been saying the same things for years. How does the President claim to be a follower of Christ yet eschew his most basic teachings? How does a country wage war on a lie? How does it win a war against terrorism while torturing hundreds of men, women and children and financing rebel groups? And how does it promote freedom and equality while simultaneously supporting discrimination against Palestinians?

Ahmadinejad also highlights disastrous American involvement in Latin America and Africa; it’s a virtual laundry list of every weakness the United States government has birthed abroad over the past 50 years. It’s disturbing, quite frankly, to read succinctly what Americans have let our government get away with.

I am ashamed of the moral bankruptcy shown by Americans who accept, without reservation, the preaching of the Iranian dictator. And I will leave it at that. For now.

In stark contrast to the benighted views  mentioned above, Azar Nafisi, the Iranian author of the memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran, who is a professor at Johns Hopkins University and a shrewd and knowledgeable observer of Iran, summed up the real significance and meaning of Ahamadinehad’s 18-page sermon to President Bush:

This letter is very timely. It comes right on the eve of when the U.N. is going to make decisions about Iran. And this is to delay those decisions or to confuse…. He’s obviously also targeting the audiences in Muslim countries and coming out as the leader of the faith.

Let there be no mistake. Ahmadinejad is dangerous. Obviously, however, we must proceed with caution. The right thing to do is to support the real reformers and democrats in Iran, and to let them know that we support their efforts to overthrow the tyrants who have been holding them hostage since 1979.

And lest we forget the extraordinary, varied, and delightful culture of Persia, here’s an introductory guide from Nafisi:

[T]he only way to know about a people is, as “To Kill a Mockingbird” reminds us, by wearing their shoes and walking around in them. So the books, music and other reference points that I have chosen to recommend are based not on the politics of the day but on the ways through which the Iranian people articulate and shape their experiences, namely through what goes by the name of culture. It is when they discover this “other Iran” — enigmatic, humorous, self-critical and sensual — that Americans will celebrate the differences that make each culture unique but also experience the shock of recognition, discovering how much they have in common with Iranians.

General information
“Encyclopedia Iranica.” This compendium of Iran’s history and culture is a work in progress by Columbia University’s Center for Iranian Studies. More than half of the volumes are now complete.

The Iranian experience past and present
MEMOIRS I have chosen memoirs of wonderful Iranian women from two different perspectives and eras, one writing about her life before and the other about life after the Islamic Revolution: “The Blindfold Horse: Memories of a Persian Childhood,” by Shusha Guppy, and the forthcoming “Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope,” by 2003 Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi.

ARTICLES Roya Hakakian’s “A Demonizing Call” in The Washington Post (Nov. 20, 2005). Also see Laura Secor’s “Fugitives” in the New Yorker (Nov. 21, 2005) on Iranian youth.

WEB SITES www. TehranAvenue. com Marvelous insight from Iran into the experience of living there, especially from a young perspective.

www.fis-iran.org , from the Foundation for Iranian Studies, a mine of information on modern Iran, both scholarly and cultural.

www.abfiran.org , the site of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation for the Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy in Iran. An amazing poetic tribute to the victims of the Republic.

FICTION I have chosen samples of fiction to show how different the Iranian people are from the political images of them in the news. These books celebrate the sanctity of the profane, the world of imagination and thought:

“My Uncle Napoleon,” by Iraj Pezeshkzad

“Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood” and other graphic novels by Marjane Satrapi

“Strange Times, My Dear: The PEN Anthology of Contemporary Iranian Literature ,” edited by Nahid Mozaffari and Ahmad Karimi Hakkak

“The Secret of Laughter: Magical Tales from Classical Persia,” by Shusha Guppy

CLASSICAL POETRY Edward FitzGerald’s translation of “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” ; Dick Davis’s translation of Ferdowsi’s “Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings “; Gertrude Bell’s translations of Hafiz; and the works of Rumi.

VIDEO ART AND DVD: Shirin Neshat’s video art; “Babak and Friends: A First Norooz,” a story for children about the Persian New Year.

FILM “Under the Olive Trees,” by Abbas Kiarostami. A story about love in a country where the public expression of love is forbidden.

MUSIC Kayhan Kalhor and Ali Akbar Moradi’s “In the Mirror of the Sky”; Kalhor and Mohammad Reza Shajarian’s “Night Silence Desert.”

FOOD AND CULTURE OF FOOD “New Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies,” by Najmieh Batmanglij.

PHOTOGRAPHY “Iran the Beautiful,” by Daniel Nadler.

Of course, these are but snippets to give you a taste of Iranian culture. You could also take a stroll and have lunch at a Persian market and restaurant such as Yekta in Rockville to get a whiff of Persian scents and spices. . . .