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Post by grainnerhuad on Feb 27, 2013 19:25:40 GMT -5
Hey, I really hope everything is okay. The last we heard your home had been vandalized again. I'm really hoping you aren't having to deal with anything legal and you are just taking time off, not just because I wanted to help you get the almond tree piece out but also because I worry. When you get back, check in.
Cheers.
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Mar 3, 2013 2:26:32 GMT -5
I just went through the worst couple of weeks of my life. Came back to the city today, and I'm completely uncertain as to what I'm gonna do, where I'm gonna live...
But I'm still alive, and I guess that's gotta count for something eh?
Sorry to disappear on you like that Grainne.
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Post by karlsie on Mar 4, 2013 7:44:37 GMT -5
Gee, are we all developing a psychic link? I just checked in tonight after being gone for awhile, and bingo! There you are, and there is Grainne. Been working on articles that don't really even get my bills paid, but some money is better than no money. I lost my jeep client, which is rough. Those articles accounted for half my income.
It sounds like you're going through a pretty rough time yourself, ADP. I wish there was something we could do to help. The whole world seems to have gone insane. Nothing seems to move forward. It all seems to keep going backward and no news at all seems to be the only good news to come around. It's no wonder a zombie apocalypse show is so popular. I think everyone longs for it, because it seems better than this long, slow strangulation. And, well. In a zombie apocalypse you have to form groups to survive. You have to learn to get along. There are no laws, no oppression other than the oppressing feat of trying to stay alive. Oh, yeah, and in a zombie apocalypse, you don't need money. The stores are all abandoned. You just take what you need and get out as fast as you can. I'm going to learn to wield a big ass sword.
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Mar 4, 2013 13:14:17 GMT -5
Actually, things are looking up already karlsie. But I appreciate your concern. And I'm glad you're back.
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Post by karlsie on Mar 4, 2013 21:12:12 GMT -5
Oh good. I like your usual positive outlook; disturbed by wrong-doing, but still gregarious by nature. Struggling with difficult obstacles has a tendency to produce a bit of a depressive state and manic depression has become the norm.
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Mar 5, 2013 11:49:36 GMT -5
I don't like to talk about myself and "my" crap, 'cause I think peoples personal shit is all garbage, nonsense. But this mess I seem to have gotten myself into is turning into somewhat of a story. And I can't help myself, I'm always looking for a story, for some reason.
So, just to fill you in real quick, let me begin by saying that the amount of excellent arable land and water at my disposal is nothing to sneeze at. There's plenty of trees, but there's also a lot of empty land that could be used to cultivate wheat and barley, maize, potatoes, alfalfa, etc. which is what everyone in the region grows. Under "normal" circumstances, considering the magnitude of land under my care, I should be making shitloads of profit every year. I'm not saying all this to brag or anything like that. On the contrary, I'm not making any real money there, because the property is too much for myself to handle alone.
Just taking care of the orchards (ie. trees) takes up all my energy. And whatever fruit the trees bear gets stolen mostly, so you know I've been starting to get the feeling that it's generally a lost cause. If I had decent help however, things would be different. But no, no one wants to help me. No one will even work for me. And anyone who has worked for me so far, only ended up stealing from me or destroying my property.
I have a few friends, but they are constantly getting threatened by other people in town. Their kids get bullied at school, even by the teachers, because, I quote, "My dad says your dad is a fuckin idiot. Why is he helping that guy from the city?" And their wives have to put up with abuse from the other women in town pretty much all the time now. Generally speaking, the village people are making their lives miserable, to get them to stop associating with me.
They believe that if I get left alone, I won't be able to manage the land, and so I'll have to give up and leave. So far, their plan is working.
I used to live in a single room "shack." But last year, I decided to spend everything I earned that year to expand and add three more rooms to my house. Unfortunately, the whole thing has now been completely destroyed and rendered uninhabitable. I can afford to build another place to live in, but shit, I _just_ spent so much time and money doing the same thing!
This is probably the most aggressive attack against me so far. At the rate things have been going the past six years, I'm guessing they're gonna kill me this year.
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Post by grainnerhuad on Mar 5, 2013 23:14:24 GMT -5
Good Grief, what an aggrivating sounding situation. On the one hand it sounds like a lovely area and completely worth staying in, yet dealing with people who don't like you makes nobody's day. I really hope you are able to sort it out. I am glad you are back. We missed you.
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Mar 7, 2013 3:34:38 GMT -5
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Mar 7, 2013 4:37:13 GMT -5
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Mar 7, 2013 12:03:44 GMT -5
Today was the first day resembling anything like winter this year. It's really cold in Tehran tonight, and there's plenty of snow everywhere. The whole winter this year was totally mellow, sunny and warm, and then just a few days away from Spring, we get a heavy snow and sub-freezing temperatures.
I think historically Iran is a country with an exceptionally stable climate/weather patterns. I say this because the Iranian plateau has been continuously inhabited for over 3000 years by people who were for the most part farmers. I think the Iranian/Persian people have been a relatively prosperous people with a remarkably stable economy through the ages. As far as I know, Iran has very rarely experienced anything like the poverty that Europe was famous for before the modern age; I can only think of a single example right now, which is during WWII when Iran was occupied by foreign soldiers. In those days Iranians were starving left and right because practically all the food in the whole country was being fed to British and Russian soldiers.
I think it's a strange coincidence that the economy has fallen to ruin (I mean totally fucked) at the exact same time as the enormous fluctuations in weather patterns. These past years it's like the weather has gone absolutely crazy. The Iranian plateau, afaik, has always been a region with extremely cold and snowy winters, and mild/warm (but not hot) summers. This past decade or two, the winters have been increasingly warmer and drier, and the summers have been _much_ hotter than usual. Areas that were grassland/steppes a hundred years ago are now deserts, I know this for a fact.
Fruit tree yields have decreased greatly because warm winters have resulted in early bloom, which gets killed off by untimely frost almost every year these past few years. And the lack of snow has resulted in qanats drying up, and entire agricultural communities have been abandoned in certain areas. In any case, less water means smaller yields.
Coupled with the sanctions, everything is just going to hell. Pretty much every young person I know wants to leave Iran. None of them have any hope of making a living here. I'm not talking about rich people, 'cause they just keep getting richer no matter what, but the average person who has to work to live. The average salary is now so low that very few young people are willing to work, they'd much rather stay at their parents' house. I mean, if a months salary buys you a pair of sneakers, would you bust your ass every day from 8 to 5?
A pattern I've noticed is that every year a couple more young guys in my neighborhood start selling drugs. There's like 15 of 'em now, all aged 20-30. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said one in two of the kids (boys, not girls) in our neighborhood are selling drugs now, and I live uptown. I guess it just makes a lot more sense than "working."
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Mar 8, 2013 12:27:20 GMT -5
There's this character named Almas Zamani who lives in the town close to where I live. He's possibly my biggest enemy. I say biggest because he's very rich and powerful, relatively speaking. This guy used to be really dirt-poor, and he's from a very low-class family. His father, and his grandfather before that, all cultivated a few hectares of our land, you know as our peasant-servant workers.
The story I want to tell about this guy is about how he got rich.
After the revolution, about 30 years ago, the government proposed that where possible, modern agricultural projects should be developed. In contrast to the old qanat-fed traditional agriculture of the arbabs, these new projects were all irrigated with water pumped from wells and rivers, which in most cases meant A LOT more water than the local qanats. Our village was found eligible of receiving government-loans in order to develop such projects about thirty years ago.
The first project was named Islam-abad. In Farsi the word "abad" literally translated means a place that is inhabited or cultivated as opposed to "biaban" which means desert. So, Islam-abad means "the place made inhabitable/cultivated by Islam." The town's Islamic "democratic" council held a meeting where all interested townspeople could attend, and they decided to elect one person from among themselves to act as their representative in making the project happen. Almas Zamani was elected by the people; in those days the criteria for getting nominated/elected was basically that he wasn't of noble birth and he was very poor, as opposed to the Shah and his lords.
So, Almas, ~30 years old at the time, went to the city and visited all the pertinent government offices and got the paper-work started. Each villager had to pay 1 million tomans to sign up for a 1 hectar plot of land + water in the Islamabad project. They had to fill some forms and deposit the money into Almas' account. Over 200 people signed up.
Now, something you have to know about Iran is that all the banks pay enormous interest to you for the money in your account. For example, 100 million tomans generates 1,500,000 tomans interest per month. Almas had collected 200 million tomans from the people of the village. Almas was then a simple, naive young man.
It took a month for the paper-work to move a step forward, and in that month the money in Almas' account generated 3 million tomans (think 5000 US dollars) interest. Long story short, Almas stalled for exactly 7 years before he executed the project. He payed the government the original 200 million and no one was the wiser (except the office-people ("officials") who were in cahoots with him, who were helping him delay the project)
The village people were so glad that Almas had succeeded, that they elected him 4 more times for four more projects. Almas pulled the same scheme every time. Today, he is one of the richest people in town and no one else (maybe except me) owns more land than him. He is a major shareholder in every single one of the projects he was in charge of. Needless to say, he's a very corrupt character...and he knows all the right officials to bribe to get his way.
Moral of the story is, after the revolution the people in positions of power were discarded and replaced by other people who were elected by the people themselves. Those elected assholes have become just as corrupt (maybe more) than the previous generation. And the imbecile Iranian youth of today are calling for another revolution: "The elite must go! If we get rid of them all our problems will be solved."
History repeat itself much?
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Post by grainnerhuad on Mar 8, 2013 15:07:53 GMT -5
The thing that can be a problem I think, is that when you have a "ruling class" in place for several generations, they begin to be taught at least to a certain extent, that they have to practice good husbandry. At the very least it pays to keep the land and people healthy so they can stay fat.
Rapid change means poorer people who were never taught this lesson in leadership, come in and out at too fast a rate and are constantly hungry, devouring the resources and the livihood of everyone in their own insatiability- which was caused by being so long deprived.
That is not to say that ruling classes are necessarily "good" but stability breeds more of an understanding of symbiotic roles.
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Post by karlsie on Mar 9, 2013 9:12:54 GMT -5
ADP, you have a habit of feeding a lot of information all at once, making it difficult to sort through the thinking process. The websites you directed us to are by far the easiest. All I could think was, "hmm, didn't they go on a witch hunt looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq during the Bush era?" Nor can I truly blame anyone for building their own nuclear arsenal, although I think a nuclear war is about as foolish as it gets. It's a no-win situation. Then we have North Korea, which boldly states they are developing nuclear weaponry, but their claims get downplayed, with the Western alliance saying, "they can't deliver". Very strange that the US focuses so hard on Iran, creating more hostilities, instead of earnestly striving for peaceful solutions.
On the rats... It's true that they can get rather gigantic. I saw a few in Mexico that were huge. What's puzzling is why Iran suddenly has this infestation of giant rats. Maybe there was a smuggling operation Iran officials didn't know about.
On this matter of politics, I need more time to digest it. Poverty has a way of making people angry and resentful of anyone who has more than they have. Anyone who even appears to be benefitting them in some way is a hero, no matter how corrupt that person may be. Is there a way of giving the villagers some incentive for wanting them to work for you? I don't know the legalities involved, but it seems with so much land just laying idle, something could be done that would make everyone happy.
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Mar 9, 2013 13:53:23 GMT -5
The villagers aren't poor in the slightest karlsie. They are the most prosperous village in the province, and among the most prosperous villages in all of Iran. Our town has more orchards than any other village of similar size in Iran. Pretty much every villager has at least 1 hectare of land to cultivate. The really talented ones make bundles of cash each year.
The norm in Iran is for people to migrate away from villages, to cities. The village where I live has been growing at an incredible rate the past few years due to people from other places moving there. I'm sure the population will reach 10,000 people in the next few years.
What prevents people in the region from working for me is clan politics. If the elder of a large clan proclaims that no one should work for asiaticdarkperson, no one in their right mind will work for him, and those who do will be excommunicated and branded an enemy of the clan. It's not too unusual for such people to get murdered or go missing. Although, the murder rate has decreased considerably in the past few years.
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Post by asiaticdarkperson on Mar 10, 2013 15:02:36 GMT -5
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