Busted Out My Green

So, I'm sure everyone who would ever look at this has already read everything released regarding the recent Iranian elections. Right? Haha. Well, I've been keeping up on it, and as I'm sure anyone who knows me could tell you, I'm a little upset by it. I don't like hearing about riots in Tehran. I don't like reports of student protesters being shot. I'm not going to dedicate this whole post to talking about what's going on over there, but I did tie a green ribbon onto my bookbag. It's an Arbor Day ribbon, but it's all I had, and I really wanted to do something. Green is the campaign color for Mir Hussein Mousavi, the one who, chances are, had the election stolen from him. The race was tight, though, so it's hard to say exactly who came out on top, but this "landslide victory" shit just ain't flying. I think Ahmadinejad's re-election has less to do, though, with Israel and what not, as I've heard people say, and more to do with the resurgence of the Reform movement in Iran. In the 90's, Khatami won as a Reformist, and the clerics had to fight to keep him from getting too many reforms passed and to keep the party from becoming a threat to Ayatollah Khamenei's power. I think re-electing Ahmadinejad is more reactionary to that than anything else. As far as where things will go from here, it's hard to say until the election hubbub is completely set straight.

Anywho, what else? Ben came up for a week, just left today. Oh, if you haven't gone to see Away We Go yet, definitely go see it. It's one of those really sweet movies that still manages to be totally realistic. Burt drives Verona crazy (one scene particularly cracked me up, as Ben too has a "Casey Casum" persona a lot like Burt's) and he doesn't totally get her all the time, and they are just completely great together. It's really, really a great movie -- equal parts touching and hilarious. So, stop reading this and go see that.