Middle East - The Not So Pretty Side

Where natural selection is vigorously at work. - Bryan Gueri

Suicide bombers: Darwin's solution to ignorance and fanaticism - Bryan Gueri

Iran: A Land of Great Beauty & Great Ugliness Part I

Source of photos unknown. I collected them over the years

The images below barely do justice to the beauty in Iran. But, this is just one side of the story. Radical Islam is the other.

I lived, traveled, studied, and worked in the Middle East for many years; spent my teen years in Iran, graduated high school there, and continued to travel throughout the region as an adult. This series of blog entries comes from direct knowlege of the area, people and culture unlike most journalists who report someone else's research or spend a couple days in or near the country. This image is of a bridge in Isfahan.

This is the Shayad Monument in downtown Tehran. It was built while our family lived there in the mid 1970's.

Another image of the Shayad Monument.

This is a mosque in the town of Yazd.

Another image of the Shayad Monument.

Enter at Your Own Risk!

Just so you know where I'm coming from, here's one that sums it up (from my uncle):

Gift Wrapping Tips For Men (author unknown)

This is the time of year when we think back to the very first
Christmas, when the Three Wise Men; Gaspar, Balthazar and Herb, went
to see the baby Jesus and, according to the Book of Matthew,
"presented unto Him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh." These are
simple words, but if we analyze them carefully, we discover an
important, yet often overlooked, theological fact: There is no
mention of wrapping paper.

The words "wrapping paper" do not appear in the Bible, which means
that the very first Christmas gifts were NOT wrapped. This is
because the people giving those gifts had two important characteristics:

1. They were wise.
2. They were men.

Men are not big gift wrappers. Men do not understand the point of
putting paper on a gift just so somebody else can tear it off. This
is not just my opinion: This is a scientific fact based on a
statistical survey of two guys I know.

One is Rob, who said the only time he ever wraps a gift is "if it's
such a poor gift that I don't want to be there when the person opens
it." The other is Gene, who told me he does wrap gifts, but as a
matter of principle never takes more than 15 seconds per gift. "No
one ever had to wonder which presents daddy wrapped at Christmas,"
Gene said. "They were the ones that looked like enormous spitballs."

I also wrap gifts, but because of some defect in my motor skills, I
can never completely wrap them. I can take a gift the size of a deck
of cards and put it the exact center of a piece of wrapping paper the
size of a regulation volleyball court, but when I am done folding and
taping, you can still see a sector of the gift peeking
out. (Sometimes I camouflage this sector with a marking pen.) If I
had been an ancient Egyptian in the field of mummies, the lower half
of the Pharaoh's body would be covered only by Scotch tape.

On the other hand, if you give my wife a 12-inch square of wrapping
paper, she can wrap a C-130 cargo plane. My wife, like many women,
actually likes wrapping things. If she gives you a gift that
requires batteries, she wraps the batteries separately, which to me
is very close to being a symptom of mental illness. If it were
possible, my wife would wrap each individual volt.
My point is that gift-wrapping is one of those skills like having
babies that come more naturally to women than to men. That is why
today I am presenting:

GIFT-WRAPPING TIPS FOR MEN:

* Whenever possible, buy gifts that are already wrapped. If, when the
recipient opens the gift, neither one of you recognizes it, you can
claim that it's myrrh.

* The editors of Woman's Day magazine recently ran an item on how to
make your own wrapping paper by printing a design on it with an apple
sliced in half horizontally and dipped in a mixture of food coloring
and liquid starch. They must be smoking crack.

* If you're giving a hard-to-wrap gift, skip the wrapping paper! Just
put it inside a bag and stick one of those little adhesive bows on
it. This creates a festive visual effect that is sure to delight the
lucky recipient on Christmas morning:

YOUR WIFE: Why is there a Hefty trash bag under the tree?
YOU: It's a gift! See? It has a bow!
YOUR WIFE (peering into the trash bag): It's a leaf blower.
YOU: Gas-powered! Five horsepower!
YOUR WIFE: I want a divorce.
YOU: I also got you some myrrh.

In conclusion, remember that the important thing is not what you
give, or how you wrap it. The important thing, during this very
special time of year, is that you save the receipt.