Asymmetric Music

A little much, no? It's not called "graciousness" when you're begging somebody for peace. If it were Bush, who had a Norwuz message last year (calling the government a "regime"), I'd say he was "brown-nosing" Iran.

We have Iran's response:

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Saturday he sees no change in U.S. policy toward Iran despite the U.S. promise of a "new beginning."
Ayatollah Khamenei said Iran would change its policy when the U.S. did so as well.

Ayatollah Khamenei said Iran would change its policy when the U.S. did so as well.

Khamenei said a change in rhetoric is not enough, and Washington must practice what it preaches, according to the English-language Press TV channel in Iran.

He also promised that Iran will change its policy if the United States does so as well, Press TV reported.

To be fair, what Obama says is not nearly as important as what he does. God help us if terrorist-supporting Iran gets a nuclear bomb.

On the other hand, Turkey will let us go through their territory out of Iraq. Good for them.

I'm not a big fan of Richard Strauss. I find his compositions bloated and pretentious, boring. Thus Spake Zarathustra is a good example. A few moments of distinction followed by some very unmemorable music, kind of like Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.

Zarathustra or Zoroaster was the founder of the Iranian religion Zoroastrianism. Nowruz is their New Years. Whereas most Islamic countries adopted Hijra, or the migration of the Islamic prophet Muhammad to the city now known as Medina as the beginning of their calendar, Persians kept Nowruz.

2001 Space Odyssey

Richard Strauss: Thus Spake Zarathustra

2001 - A Space Odyssey (Two-Disc Special Edition)