Dr. Mossadegh: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Iran

For my paper in the Politics of Nationalism class I originally wanted to write about Turkmenistan, but UCD only had one book on Central Asia, so I went to plan B: Iran. Reading about the coup the C.I.A. pulled off in 1953 of a democratically elected government, only to appease the corporate interests of a British company, I wondered: did we skip this one in history class? The whole episode of Mossadegh nationalizing Iran's oil fields and the Western response pretty much sums up why the rest of the world hates the United States. Not only did it lead to the re-instatement of a brutal dictator, but it radicalized a progressive people into anti-American fundamentalist Shiism. Kind of makes you worry when you have Rudy Giuliani campaigning on the fact that there is no such thing as blowback and the only reason terrorism exists is due to people being irrational freedom haters. I guess its easier to understand something by just calling your opposition crazy, rather than thinking about a way to solve the problem.

So this weekend's been filled with research about Iran. Should I lead a discussion on Iran and US foreign policy at the O'Connell House? Probably not, I don't think it's something that could easily integrate humor, especially since I rely on my vast knowledge of poop jokes that would just be inappropriate at something like this.

Things are going pretty slow around here recently. I had a meeting yesterday to "see how I was doing." Well, aside from the fact that the term's almost over, this meeting appeared useless. Not only was it useless, it was boring. I had to meet two members of the staff at a coffee shop, and basically they just wanted to know if I was happy, so if I complained when I went back to ND, they wouldn't be held accountable for not caring. As I told them how I was doing, I realized I could be saying anything, and they would just try to put in a light so they wouldn't feel responsible. Like this: "How are you doing?" "I don't know, this is the first time I've talked to anyone in 12 days." "Good, you're being your own person. See Ireland has made you more independent." Or: "How's your dormitory?" "Actually, I was kicked out, I've been sleeping on a park bench for the past month." "Ah, so you're experiencing the real Ireland?" By the end of the interview, I started asking them questions about me. Like, "How could I improve your experience here?" Or, "If you could get rid of one person in the group, who would it be?" To say the least, they weren't amused.

I went to Greystones last weekend. It's a beach in the South of Dublin. When I'm at the beach, I look at it and say, I get it. Now what? Then I walked up the cliffs to Bray. It beat working.



And now at the risk of being crass, an even stranger sign than the one I saw in Glendalough. Please give your own suggestions as to what this means: