March 6, 2004

Yet on today's 20/20 on ABC (which ended about two minutes ago), Barbara Walters interviewed Farah Diba, the wife of Iran's former Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Obviously, it would be foolish to think that Farah Diba would give a fair and unbiased account. But Barbara was little better. Never before have I seen such flimflam and chichanery. The program was blatantly anti-Iran (as a Theocracy), making it look more like Mordor than Persia. The Ayatollah Khomeini, when he was shown, was made to look like Sauron.

When the former empress, with her Let them eat cake attitude, noted how terrible it felt to fall from grace because of such an 'evil' man, Walters didn't move on to the next question, like a credible reporter- first she _agreed_.

Walters' closing line was the clincher, though: she hoped for a day when the former queen could return to her home country, when it is 'Free and democratic'.

Even ignoring the issues (for instance, the current Iranian government has a _much_ smaller political-murders-per-year rate than the Shah ever had), it is disgraceful for any journalist to so blatantly take a side.

Shame on Barbara Walters.

So, I'm instant messaging this girl I met online. We've been talking for a bit, and the subject of exchanging pictures comes up.

This scares me. On the one hand, I'm not a bad-looking guy (for a geek, anyway) and on the other hand...well, I don't hold a candle to the other guys trying to meet people online. I'm a little short, a little round, a little poor and a little blind, a combination which seems to make most women go "Next!" and start peering over my digital shoulder.

Anyway. She sends me her pic, and she's cute. That's always a relief - the digital world is great and all that, but if we're talking about someone who might exist for me in the real world one day...well, let's just say I've been surprised before.

I email her a pic, but something goes wrong in the transfer - she just gets bars of primary colors. Odd. I figure it's something to do with the program she's using view it, so I post a temp webpage with three pictures on it and shoot it her way, figuring a web browser can handle a few simple .jpegs without thinking the station's gone off the air. I put some effort into it, adding some color and a few photo captions. Nothing fancy, but not three pictures on a white background, either.

I wait, chewing on my nails, and I finally get this response:

"You're dorky cute, did you just make that page?"

To which I say, Thank you, E2, for teaching me html. I am forever in your gratitude.