Iranians in the U.S. During the Hostage Crisis

I just went over to the local sandwich shop to grab dinner so I can work into the evening. The guy who owns it is interesting, but he talks my ear off everytime I go there, so I avoid it sometimes. When I stepped in the door he was talking to a couple also buying dinner. I picked up from their conversation that the owner was Iranian. I knew he had been in this area for a few decades, having originally come here for school. He had just taken a citizenship exam and grilled me on a few questions (I passed). He complained that most people he asked didn't know the answers and they were Americans. It reminded me of the Simpsons when they were deporting illegal aliens and Moe said, "They ain't even bothered to learn themselves the language!" and Homer replies, "Those are exactly my sentimonies." Touché

We got talking about Iran. He said that while he was at Utah State chaos broke out in Iran, during the time American hostages were being held there and Carter bravely rescued them (I'm into the whole revisionist history thing). He said that the Iranian students didn't want to return to the chaos.

The problem was that their visas only let them stay if they were students. Solution: stay a student. He said he knew one guy who had seven bacholor's degrees. At the time the plan for most students was to come and get a bachelor's degree, then go back to Iran. They didn't originally have the agenda to get Ph.D.s, but they wanted to stay and apparently a graduate degree was more appealing than multiple bachelor degrees, thus many Iranians at school ended up getting graduate degrees.

Roger opened a sandwich shop (and I strongly recommend trying them if you ever come to Logan -- Logan's Heroes) and married a borderline woman who left him and told the FBI he was a terrorist. This was before terrorism was so "in," but still it was unflattering to the tune of being detained and interrogated until they figured out he in fact did not own a machine gun and run a training camp up Logan Canyon (although I've had my suspicions about that scout camp on Bear Lake, Camp Hunt . . . hmmm). In any case, that is just his side of it, but if he is lying it is such a good story that it deserves to be believed.

Anyway, pending a background check that can take up to five years now, congratuations on passing your citizenship exam Roger, and welcome to the family. (It is largely dysfunctional but the best damn family on the planet.)

But don't take my word for it. If you have an hour stop by and he'll tell you all about it.

The Case For Democracy

I just finished reading "The Case for Democracy." I was way more interesting than I thought. I figured I would agree with its premise before I even started it, and that was true, but this man's history is fascinating (jailed Soviety dissident to Israeli government figure) as is the fact that it is an insider's account of what has been happening behind the scenes of the Israeli-Palestenian conflict over the last couple of decades.