"I'm Persian"

I'm surprised to learn just now when I looked him up that he helped form the band Moxy Früvous in 1990. I loved their music (King of France, etc.).

I knew a girl used Persian and Iranian interchangeably - she was a translator and referred to the language as 'Farsi'.

I suspect 'Iranian' is political/geographical and 'Persian' is cultural.

And now that I think about I helped out an Iranian sport scientist on a placement at the AIS, he never used the P word. He said Australia and Iran were very similar, I told him I couldn't see it - but hey, at least he'd been to both places.

Farsi, also sometimes but rarely rendered Parsi, is the ancient language of the Persians, and has been a living language for literally thousands of years. There are more than one hundred million speakers of Farsi world-wide, and it is an official language of Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and is also spoken in many other areas of southwest central Asia. There is a large community of Parsees or Parsis in India, in Gugerat and in Mumbai. They fled to India not quite 1500 years ago to escape the Muslim invasion of Persia, because as Zoarastrians, they were treated as pagans by the mad Muslim holy warriors. The invasion of Persia was originally lead by Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, and the founder of Shi'ism. (Farsi is called Farsi and not Parsi because 7th and 8th century Arabic lacked a "P" sound.) Farsi was at one time a prestige language of central Asia, and to speak and write it was a mark of an educated man. Modern day Farsi is rendered with Arabic characters, but is still distinct.

Yeah, Jian gets some great interviews. This is a link to a page listing and giving audio links to some of his interviews.

Ghomeshi interviewed Billy Bob Thornton, and in the course of his intro mentioned Thornton's movie career. Thornton sulked, and at one point was saying that he had told the producer that there were to be no mentions of this movie career. (He was there to plug his band, who were opening for Willie Nelson in Toronto.) Jian politely told him that his producer doesn't tell him what to say or what questions ot ask. Thornton was a complete dick throughout the interview, and the result was lots of bad press for him, and a good deal of international attention for Ghomeshi.

Here's the interview, and Thornton is a dick from the get-go.

I really think Persians are very honest and I really admire the people who are Persian. The above post is very informative and i really had a great time while going through the above thread.

So you're a f*cking bot, eh?

Thanks so much for the link. Can't wait to hear it. FWIW, my impression about him is that Billy Bob is his own worst enemy in his own war that BBT has long since lost.