I had another opportunity to visit Iran and am writing this and hopefully other blogs (trying to stretch it into a few :-) for the handful of readers who've read my blogs over the years. There have been so many changes over the past few years and I've chronicled them to document the changes as I've seen them.
So this was the year when the moderate President Rouhani has been able to secure a nuclear framework. Last year hopes were dim and economy in tethers, sort of like how W left America in 2008. This year hopes were high and moods on the uplift. The main point of discussion surrounded around the mood that "while the inflation is still here, it's always here, it's more like what we've been used to, like 15% - 20%, not like 200% - 500% when Dollar jumped from 1000 Tomans to 4700 tomans." People are not afraid to spend as much as they used to. Everything is still mighty expensive but people are not afraid of waking up to astronomical inflation overnight.
On a personal note I was really surprised when the EU Representative read the text of the framework agreement in April, really surprised. Those clauses were major headlines. However, it soon followed by major BS when first Obama made statements such as we've reached unprecedented agreement to go anywhere, inspect anything at any time, any military site and basically piss anywhere we want without getting taharat as we wish! Iran has agreed to this and in return we will only remove sanctions when our piss dries and Republican congress agrees not to do anything that would embarrass me on the world stage! Then it followed by Khamanei saying if this doesn't work we go back to the "resistance economy"!
My hope is still high (much higher than before the framework agreement) that the final agreement will be made and sanctions will be lifted (perhaps not the Senate sanctions) and at least the Europeans will be back picking up where they left off and not allow Russia and China to continue to take advantage of the sanctions.
In future blogs I'll post more about some other changes since my last visit.
Photo captions: on the billboard picture it's warning not to play volleyball in the park due to previous "bodily" injuries such as head injuries as requested by the public (they go crazy on volleyball like in Meet the Parents' Ben Stiller's waterpolo spike that injured the bride by breaking her nose :-) but instead play harmless games like badmington!
Another billboard shows the restaurants in a mall and it's call the "green way" as in the Green Movement 2009, wink! wink!
The handful of readers you mentioned are really the total users of this site. I said it so you know,
On the second note please do write about any developments on lesbian activites in Tehran, haha
We don't have any gays in Iran so no developments there!
I am interested to hear about lesbian activities in Tehran!
Haji...."moderate president"................which term is more funny in reference to a brutal theocracy like Iran?
Haji (you're the real one :-) you are so predictable! the bolding didn't give it away?! I'll be sure to use terms like Moderate, Reformist, Hardliners and such more often in future blogs so that as we say in Farsi "felies gather around the sweeets!"
I guess a better question is, what does a word 'moderate' mean in this context? so people who know what it means should explain it to the rest of us infidles.
Basically the word moderate in this context was used to annoy the usual suspects on this site who are old men acting like crying little girls!
They are the same ones standing on the street corners of Tehran twirling their key chains, cat calling and making fun of passersby’s for no reason. They call it “challenging” and proving me wrong, all with their two bit comment and two sentence blogs about me! Some of them have no other contribution to their names other than their sorry ass blogs about me!
Of course more is not expected of them since they don’t have anything to say other than to “challenge” anyone who actually writes something instead of their fahhashi and lot-baazi and gang up against anyone who dares to do otherwise.
Oooa! Oooa! Hey buddies he didn’t let me comment in his blog! Oooa! OOOOAAA!