Khamenei Won't Return My Calls

I've been reading Persiankiwi's tweets and feeling both incredibly proud of people and woefully helpless as a person.

The number of people who are protesting peacefully in Iran, shouting things like "my brother, my martyr, I will claim your vote for you" is moving beyond my ability to describe it. The population of Iran is nearly 50% under the age of 25 years old. The moment seems so fragile -- so full of possibility for either change or violence. To be without communication, to watch your internet connections shut down, your cell phones, etc., to hear gunfire late into the night, screaming, etc. must be so terrifying. We are lucky here. We have our democracy, such as it is, without having to chance being beaten for it.

But I also feel so powerless, because even though I live in one of the most powerful nations on Earth, there is very little I can do to help the people in Iran, and I want to so badly. I changed the time stamps on my Twitter to help confuse the authorities. I send them my verbal support. I try to raise awareness about what is going on with others. But I'm sort of limited to that.

In one fit of annoyance, though, I did try do something different. The Ayatollah Khamenei (head religious oppressor in Iran) has his own website. Internet hackers have been disabling his site throughout the last few days, but I toodled on over there at about 11:00 last night to see what was going on. Surprisingly, he had a "contact me" button. I was delighted, as I thought I could at least send him a sharply worded email expressing my severe disappointment in his behavior.

Yeah, I know, that'll show him.

Sadly, though, he had disabled his own contact link. He must've known I was coming.

I still wish there was something more I could do other than send hate mail to a religious leader. Good luck, Iranians.

-- DV