Muara Teweh!

Few places conjure up as many iconic images of the American dream - movie stars and millionaires, palm-lined streets, the legendary Sunset Boulevard - as Beverly Hills, California. Jimmy Delshad added his own dream to that list when he became the legendary town’s first Iranian-American mayor.

In a close race that saw the top four finishers separated by only 3 percentage points, Jimmy Delshad won re-election to the Beverly Hills City Council on March 6. By local tradition, as the longest-serving member of the City Council, Delshad was chosen mayor by the other four council members. The formal selection took place March 27, the day election results were certified as official. » Read more after the jump →

Mexico’s National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City is hosting a rare display of Persian artifacts, providing a panorama of Persian arts and handicrafts from 6,000 B.C. to the early 20th century. This is reportedly the first such exhibition in Latin America.

“Persia: Fragments Of Paradise” was arranged in collaboration with the Iranian Embassy in Mexico and comprises items from Tehran’s national museum. It seems quite topical, coinciding with the March 23 screening in Mexico of the already polemical film “300,” which many Iranians complain paints a negative picture of ancient Persians. » Read more after the jump →

DURHAM — In the remaining 20 months of the Bush administration, America’s leaders have to avoid the sort of “spontaneous combustion” that could produce a disastrous escalation of the country’s Middle East military conflicts, a former national security adviser said at Duke University on Wednesday.

Specifically, the country has to avoid getting into an armed conflict with longtime nemesis Iran, said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter’s top adviser on foreign affairs throughout Carter’s four years in office, including the 444-day Iranian hostage crisis.

“If the war is enlarged in the next 20 months to include Iran — if that happens — for the next 20 years the United States is going to be bogged down in a war which spans Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and then you can forget about American global leadership,” he said. » Read more after the jump →

New York — A vibrant and spirited crowd celebrated Nowrouz, the Persian New Year, at the fourth annual Persian Parade in New York City as men and women in colorful clothing danced to traditional music and cheerfully promenaded down Madison Avenue.

On March 25, Persians and non-Persians, New Yorkers and tourists, lined 15 city blocks to watch California ballet groups perform time-honored Persian dances, popular local Iranian singer Jamshid Alimorad give a surprise performance from a float, and other participants carry flags and symbols of the ancient Persian empire.

The parade’s organizers estimate that at least 25,000 people attended the parade » Read more after the jump →

TEHRAN — I decided to move to Iran after having spent seven years living in and writing about the Arab World, where foreigners are generally handled as a rare and privileged species. As such, I approached reports of Iranian unilateralism in dealings with the West and Westerners with suspicion. Were these reports just another case of anti-Iranian Western propaganda?

The steady stream of reports coming out of Iran about Westerners being arrested, summarily tried and jailed on spying accusations did make me wonder, however. Iran is the only country in the region where this is a regular occurrence. This doesn’t mean that Arab countries don’t suspect that foreign spies operate within them; just that the Islamic Republic is the only state willing to throw them in jail and ignore the international repercussions.

Still, I had my doubts. Surely, I said to myself, the Iranian » Read more after the jump →

More than 30 Lawn residents put “For Sale” signs on their doors yesterday in response to the possibility that Bob Sweeney, senior vice president for development and public affairs, is being considered by the Board of Visitors for Lawn pavilion residency.

Lawn resident A-J Aronstein said the signs are the expression of many Lawn residents’ concerns about both the pavilion selection process and Sweeney as a potential resident. Sweeney is a non-teaching member of the University community who currently oversees fundraising for the Capital Campaign.

“After we found out what was going on, we started circulating e-mails on the Lawn list,” Aronstein said. “Somebody suggested signs, and it kind of went from there… residents printed them out and put them on their doors.” » Read more after the jump →

If Vladislav Sekanina, principal of the 5th Elementary School in Cheb, west Bohemia, were to have his way, all of his English teachers would have university degrees in teaching the language. The trouble is he can’t find them, or rather afford them.
The math is simple. “The starting salary of a teacher is between 15,000 Kč [$716] and 16,000 Kč,” Sekanina says. “If I know English well and know how to work with computers, I will go to Prague and earn 50,000 Kč.”

And so he has to make do with what he has: one high school graduate who spent two years in England as an au pair and two career teachers — one of Czech and history; the other used to teach Russian — with a patchwork of requalification courses.
Low pay turns many teachers away from public schools.
Sekanina is not alone in struggling to staff his school with qualified English teachers, those who have university degrees in teaching English. » Read more after the jump →