Here’s one more outside reading option, the recent “Letter from Iran” by Robin Wright in The New Yorker magazine. I found this helpful in trying to understand what it is like day to day undernearth the bombastic headlines and political artillery shelling here in the U.S. I know very little about Iran other than what I’ve gleaned from media reports and books in the past 40 years. I met a poet from New Hampshire who had relocated from Iran. And I met one of the former embassy hostages from that horrible time when the Islamic extremists occupied the U.S. Embassy in Teheran in 1979. His name is Victor L. Tomseth, and he was one of the 66 hostages held for 444 days (“America Held Hostage” was the headline each late night on TV). He was on a study-tour of American places organized by the State Department. It was the early 1980s. Not that long after the men and women who had been detained and abused in Teheran returned to the U.S. Lowell was on the itinerary because of Lowell National Historical Park and the big news about Lowell’s transformation from a beat-up post-industrial city to a model or urban revitalization. It was a refresher tour for foreign service officers and other staff who have to keep up with what is going on in America to represent us in the best way overseas. About 25 people in the delegation stopped at then ULowell for a reception with the top administrators. I recognized his name from the embassy conflict. He was on the tour just like any other State Department staffer. No big deal. Just back to work. I was impressed by that.

Here’s the link to the Robin Wright article. If you want more writing like this, subscribe to the New Yorker..