Utopia

To be, or not to be (from Hamlet 3/1)

saeed-zr — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:24:39 GMT

هاملت، پرده سوم ، صحنه اول:
ببودن یا نبودن، بحث از اين است!
آيا عقل را شايسته تر آنكه :
مدام از منجنيق و تير دوران جفاپيشه ستم بردن
و يا بر روي يك دريا مصائب٬ تيغ آهيختن
و از راه خلاف ايام آنها را سرآوردن
بمردن، خواب رفتن، بس!

William Shakespeare -

To be, or not to be (from Hamlet 3/1)

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

نگاهي به جنبش زندگي مستقل براي معلولان

saeed-zr — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:41:18 GMT

خدمات و رفاه- ترجمه وتنظيم سعيدضروري:
«زندگي مستقل معلولان به معناي در انزوا و دور از ساير افراد بودن نيست.

زندگي مستقل يعني اينكه بتوانيم در خانواده خود رشد كرده، در نزديك‌ترين مدرسه تحصيل كنيم، سوار همان اتوبوسي شويم كه همسايه غيرمعلولمان مي‌شود، شغل مرتبط با علاقه و تحصيلاتمان را انتخاب كنيم، ازدواج كرده و خانواده تشكيل دهيم. ما افرادي كاملا عادي هستيم كه مي‌خواهيم كشف شده، در نظر گرفته و دوست داشته شويم.» (دكتر ادولف راتزكا).

زندگي مستقل در واقع يك فلسفه است، راهي است براي نگاه به جامعه و معلوليت و حركت جهاني معلولاني است كه به‌دنبال به‌دست آوردن فرصت‌هاي برابر، عزت نفس و كمال هستند. در اغلب كشورها، طرفداران جنبش زندگي مستقل (Independent Living Movements) بر اين باورند كه پيش‌داوري و وجود نگاه غالب مدل طبي به معلوليت، منجر به ايجاد نگرش منفي نسبت به افراد معلول مي‌شود و تصوير بيمارگونه، ناقص و ناسالمي از آنها مجسم مي‌كند و آنان را باري بر دوش خود و خانواده‌شان معرفي مي‌كند كه وابسته به كمك ديگران‌اند.

در نگاه جنبش زندگي مستقل، اين تصاوير موانعي براي داشتن خانواده، تحصيل و اشتغال فرد معلول به‌شمار مي‌روند كه به‌وجود آورنده بخش عظيمي از افراد فقير در هر جامعه هستند.

All Clear! Idioms in Context (Book 2) + MP3 Audio کتاب اصطلاحات انگلیسی همراه با فایل صوتی

saeed-zr — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:57:18 GMT

کتاب اصطلاحات انگلیسی همراه با فایل صوتی

All Clear! Idioms in Context (Book 2) + MP3 Audio [2nd Edition]
Considered by some as the best idioms books on the market, these enticing texts splash through the world of idioms with an irresistible charm! Each two-color book offers 8-12 units of theme-grouped idioms. Each idiom is introduced with a humorous illustration where needed, a clear definition, background on its origin, and sample sentences.

One day I decided to quit...

saeed-zr — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 04:23:17 GMT

One day I decided to quit...
I quit my job, my relationship, my spirituality. .. I wanted to quit my life.
I went to the woods to have one last talk with God.
"God", I asked, "Can you give me one good reason not to quit?"
His answer surprised me....
"Look around", He said. "Do you see the fern and the bamboo?"
"Yes", I replied.
"When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them.
I gave them light.
I gave them water.
The fern quickly grew from the earth.
Its brilliant green covered the floor.
Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo..
In the second year the Fern grew more vibrant and plentiful.
And again, nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo. He said.
"In year three there was still nothing from the bamboo seed.
But I would not quit.
In year four, again, there was nothing from the bamboo seed. I would

The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe

saeed-zr — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:35:18 GMT

“The Cask of Amontillado” (1846)

Edgar Allan Poe

Summary

The narrator, Montresor, opens the story by stating that he has been irreparably insulted by his acquaintance, Fortunato, and that he seeks revenge. He wants to exact this revenge, however, in a measured way, without placing himself at risk. He decides to use Fortunato’s fondness for wine against him. During the carnival season, Montresor, wearing a mask of black silk, approaches Fortunato. He tells Fortunato that he has acquired something that could pass for Amontillado, a light Spanish sherry. Fortunato (Italian for “fortunate”) wears the multicolored costume of the jester, including a cone cap with bells. Montresor tells Fortunato that if he is too busy, he will ask a man named Luchesi to taste it. Fortunato apparently considers Luchesi a competitor and claims that this man could not tell Amontillado from other types of sherry. Fortunato is anxious to taste the wine and to determine for Montresor whether or not it is truly Amontillado. Fortunato insists that they go to Montresor’s vaults.

Traffic Camera داستان کوتاه

saeed-zr — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:47:58 GMT

Traffic Camera

A man was driving when a traffic camera flashed. He thought his picture was taken for exceeding the speed limit, even though he knew he was not speeding.

Just to be sure, he went around the block and passed the same spot, driving even more slowly, but again the camera flashed.

He thought this was quite funny, so he slowed down even further as he drove past the area, but the traffic camera flashed yet again.

The Chairs by Eugene Ionesco

saeed-zr — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 20:10:18 GMT

The Chairs

by Eugene Ionesco

context

Eugène Ionesco was one of the major figures in the Theatre of the Absurd, the French dramatic movement of the 1940s and 50s that emphasized the absurdity of the modern condition as defined by existential thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre. The existentialists followed Soren Kierkegaard's dictum that "existence precedes essence"—that is, man is born into the world without a purpose, and he must commit himself to a cause for his life to have meaning.

Born in Romania in 1912, Ionesco spent his childhood in Paris until the family returned to its homeland. Ionesco developed a hatred for Romanian's conservatism and anti-Semitism and, after winning an academic scholarship, returned to France in 1938 to write a thesis. There, he met anti-establishment writers such as Raymond Queneau. He lived in Marseille during World War II. His first play, The Bald Soprano (1950), a one-act piece that borrowed its phrasing from English language-instruction books, garnered little public attention but earned Ionesco respect among the Parisian avant-garde and helped inspire the Theatre of the Absurd.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man خلاصه کوتاه فارسی

saeed-zr — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 19:48:18 GMT

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

James Joyce

Context

James Joyce was born on February 2, 1882, in the town of Rathgar, near Dublin, Ireland. He was the oldest of ten children born to a well-meaning but financially inept father and a solemn, pious mother. Joyce's parents managed to scrape together enough money to send their talented son to the Clongowes Wood College, a prestigious boarding school, and then to Belvedere College, where Joyce excelled as an actor and writer. Later, he attended University College in Dublin, where he became increasingly committed to language and literature as a champion of Modernism. In 1902, Joyce left the university and moved to Paris, but briefly returned to Ireland in 1903 upon the death of his mother. Shortly after his mother's death, Joyce began work on the story that would later become A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray رمان

saeed-zr — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:34:18 GMT

Vanity Fair

William Makepeace Thackeray

Book Summary

Amelia Sedley, of good family, and Rebecca Sharp, an orphan, leave Miss Pinkerton's academy on Chiswick Mall to live out their lives in Vanity Fair — the world of social climbing and search for wealth. Amelia does not esteem the values of Vanity Fair; Rebecca cares for nothing else.

Rebecca first attempts to enter the sacred domain of Vanity Fair by inducing Joseph Sedley, Amelia's brother, to marry her. George Osborne, however, foils this plan; he intends to marry Amelia and does not want a governess for a sister-in-law. Rebecca takes a position as governess at Queen's Crawley, and marries Rawdon Crawley, second son of Sir Pitt Crawley. Because of his marriage, Rawdon's rich aunt disinherits him.

First introduced as a friend of George Osborne, William Dobbin becomes the instrument for getting George to marry Amelia, after George's father has forbidden the marriage on account of the Sedley's loss of fortune. Because of George's marriage, old Osborne disinherits him. Both young couples endeavor to live without sufficient funds. George dies at Waterloo. Amelia would have starved but for William Dobbin's anonymous contribution to her welfare. Joseph goes back to his post in India, claiming such valor at Waterloo that he earns the nickname "Waterloo Sedley." Actually he fled at the sound of the cannon. Both Rebecca and Amelia give birth to sons.

The room by Harold Pinter ترجمه نمایشنامه اتاق

saeed-zr — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:18:12 GMT

The room

by Harold Pinter

The Room is Harold Pinter's first play, written and first produced in 1957. Considered by critics the earliest example of Pinter's "comedy of menace", this play has strong similarities to Pinter's second play, The Birthday Party, including features considered hallmarks of Pinter's early work and of the so-called Pinteresque: dialogue that is comically familiar and yet disturbingly unfamiliar, simultaneously or alternatingly both mundane and frightening; subtle yet contradictory and ambiguous characterizations; a comic yet menacing mood characteristic of mid-twentieth-century English tragicomedy; a plot featuring reversals and surprises that can be both funny and emotionally moving; and an unconventional ending that leaves at least some questions unresolved.

Setting and characters

Pinter has confirmed that his visit, in the summer of 1955, to the "broken-down room" of Quentin Crisp, located in Chelsea's Beaufort Street (now renovated and part of a "smart building"), inspired his writing The Room, "set in 'a snug, stuffy rather down-at-heel bedsit with a gas fire and cooking facilities'."[2] The bedsit is located in an equally rundown rooming house which, like that of Pinter's next play, The Birthday Party, becomes the scene of a visitation by apparent strangers. Though the single-dwelling two-story house in the later play is in an unidentified "seaside town," and it is purportedly a bed and breakfast-type rooming house run by a childless middle-aged married couple, the building in which Rose and Bert Hudd inhabit their "room" is a multi-dwelling rooming house of more than two stories, and, while Rose accepts being addressed as "Mrs. Hudd", Bert Hudd and she may not actually be legally married to each other, which may be a factor leading to her defensiveness throughout the play.