> chris d wrote:
>
> I haven't expressed any opinion on what is going on in Iran at all.
>
> ...............
>
>
> Which means that your postings to threads such as "Hamid Dabashi on
> Iran", "On Iran", "values and social change - WAS Re: Hamid Dabashi on
> Iran", "Zizek on Iran" and "Tell them we are democrats (was: freedom
> to swim)" -- all of which were about the Iranian election, subsequent
> unrest and general political scene -- have been almost entirely
> off-topic.
>
> Shag, on the other hand, has been consistently on-topic offering the
> informed opinions of Azadeh Moaveni. You're free to ignore those
> opinions (a freedom you exercise with zero restraint). But it's bad
> form to criticize her for attempting to broaden the debate.
>
>
> It's even worse form to dismiss her efforts (which, again, were always
> ON topic) as being somehow idiosyncratic.
coming from an american ex-pat in russia, a journalist, who once declared on this list that he couldn't believe people wouldn't take his word for it because of that identity!
LOL
I'm working so maybe I'll take it up later, for now: My husband, who loves to read Doss, asked me if I'd been talking about Doss.
"No," I replied. "Doss, were there a revolution, wouldn't gloat if you were shoved up against a wall and shot. It'd make him profoundly unhappy, in fact. Doss would probably want to observe the revolution for a dive bar somewhere, hoping we'd all join him after our days of struggle, having beer and playing pool, while obsessively checking email on the mysterious black laptop. He's interested in friendship -- just not around political practice. It would be fine to talk about politics abstractly, just not do anything about it concretely. That way, there's no need to destroy friendship."
"so you mean," said hub, "that the list is like his chew toy?"
"Exactly," said I. "Only we are also what Doss thinks of as a dorm living room. We're his social life and his chew toy."
shag