A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

The following passage--found in this story--is an excellent description of a dysfunctional society:

RENTS are soaring, inflation hovers around 17% and 10 million live below the poverty line. The police said they shut 20 men's barber shops last week because they offered inappropriate hairstyles, and women have been banned from riding bicycles in many places, as a crackdown on social freedoms presses on.

Read it all. And by the way, I don't put as much stock as others appear to in the stories about how sanctions are helping Iran's leaders keep Western influences away from the Iranian people. The Iranian people still have access to the Internet and to satellite televisions and they are able to purchase other American goods on the black market. Their respect and admiration for American society has likely not gone by the wayside. It is one thing to argue that sanctions, as a policy, are not as effective as many people believe them to be. It is quite another to argue that the sanctions against Iran have fundamentally changed the prevalent philo-American beliefs of Iranians.