Zahra's Paradise

If you only read one web comic...

From the Editor—

Dear friends and readers of Zahra’s Paradise, from New York to Rio, from Tehran to Tel Aviv, from Cairo to Cracow, from Paris to Istanbul, from Amsterdam to Seoul,

You are an integral part of this unprecedented project.

Thank you for joining us in Zahra’s unfolding quest for Mehdi, even when it’s through the bowels of the Iranian regime, its prisons and cemeteries—and yet, you’ve caught an underlying spirit of Zahra’s Paradise, an indefatigable hope and celebration of life. Unlike the despots who wield illegitimate power, life draws from an infinite wellspring.

Someone wise once said “All the concentrated darkness in the world cannot put out the light of a single candle.”

This is a first. Two Muslim authors in America are making history. Zahra’s Paradise is revealing itself in a dozen languages. It’s freely given away online, ahead of its publication as a book—simultaneously around the world, this September. We’ve kept this website as an offering, ad-free. The first measure of its success is in the traffic it draws. Zahra’s Paradise needs champions. It needs friends. It needs you.

Please take a moment and share Zahra’s Paradise with all your friends.

Send them the link to this front page, or to the very first page. Together, let’s make a mighty noise and keep this vital conversation alive.

Thank you Amir, thank you Khalil, for your brilliant, inspired work.

Sincerely,
Mark

"The Alot is Better Than You at Everything"

From Hyperbole and a Half: The Alot is Better Than You at Everything:

But there is one grammatical mistake that I particularly enjoy encountering. It has become almost fun for me to come across people who take the phrase "a lot" and condense it down into one word, because when someone says "alot," this is what I imagine:

I would say, "Seriously, go read the whole post" only the whole post is hysterically funny, so just go read it.

NPR Monkey See: Paying a Penny at Bedlam

On last night's Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, the host explained that he wasn't going to be doing any more Charlie Sheen jokes. He's done them, he acknowledged, but he's not doing them anymore. And he explained why.

This post, by the ineffable Linda Holmes, says exactly what I've been thinking for the last day or so, but she expressed it much more clearly.

Bravo to Craig Ferguson for walking away from the mess, and shame on all those other networks for exploiting a man's illness.

And no, I'm not much of a Charlie Sheen fan, but whether it's "just" drug addiction, or something more like manic-depression, he's clearly in need of help, and nothing about those interviews is going to provide it.