You wouldn't know it from the western mainstream press, but the political battle within Iran continues. These videos were brought to my attention through a newsletter (and website) titled "Windows on Iran." This first video demonstrates that mass protests continue: But the senseless violence also continues. For instance, notice this "brave" Iranian police officer protecting public order by smacking a young female protester on the legs:
Mahmoud Vahidnia is my newest hero, based on this startling account of his intense public challenges to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His brave exchange with Khamenei is a crime punishable by prison in Iran.
According to Glenn Greenwald, if you want to see what Iraq journalism looked like, read the the hyped up news on Iran. Take, for example a recent Washington Times piece by Toby Warrick, which is:
purely one-sided, unquestioning and entirely anonymous series of dubious, unverified, fear-mongering assertions that can have no purpose other than to create the most sinister picture of the "Iranian threat" possible.
Israel is one of the countries most fervently criticizing Iran in Iran's quest for nuclear research (see here and here). Al Jazeera English notes, however, that Israel hasn’t even signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
While many Americans continue to try to halt embryonic stem cell research, Iranian scientists are forging ahead with this cell research with the aim of curing people suffering from real life medical conditions, especially military veterans who have suffered disabling spinal cord injuries. That is the issue brought front and center by this episode of Frontline. In the Shiite view, the soul enters the embryo only once it is viable--only after viability is can the organism growing in utero be considered a "human being." In the U.S., many of us continue to treat stem cells as though they are harvested from organisms that are fully human, even though these embryos lack the biological equipment necessary for any semblance of sentience. As best I can understand the dispute, many of those in the U.S. who oppose embryonic stem cell research consider an embryo to be fully human even though it has merely the potential to someday become a thinking human being. They focus on the potential rather than sentience--on what will someday be rather than what is. The Iranians, in focusing on viability, illustrate that two versions of religious practices (conservative Muslims and conservative Christians) that both believe in supernatural "souls" and are both conservative look at the exact same thing (embryos) and come to opposite conclusions.