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Iranian Woman Is First Female Space Tourist; Agrees To Wear Spacesuit

by: Tom Attea

Just when we thought all Iranian women were contentedly hiding behind their veils, what do we read but one not only made it to America but just made it into space?

The daring and successful Anousheh Ansari, who grew up in Iran dreaming, not of memorizing the Koran as a safe substitute for original thought, but of space, has become the first female space tourist.

She blasted off from Kazakhstan in a Soyuz rocket with astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria of NASA and cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin of Russia.

“Ever since I can remember,” she said, “it has been in my soul and in my heart. I’ve always been interested in and fascinated by space.”

How did she do it?

Ansari left Iran, where she was born in 1966, with her sagacious parents, shortly after the grim Islamic revolution. Once here, she studied electronics and data processing, got her American citizenship, and went on to graduate from George Mason University in Virginia and George Washington University in DC.

She learned well and filed patents in telecommunications. She convinced her husband to leave the comforts of corporate corridors and set up their own venture in 1993. The telecommunications company they started grew and had 250 employees, when the Ansaris sold it in 2000. Which helps explain how the lass could come up with the $25-million for the ticket to history.

But there’s more. Her family, apparently widely successful, has invested in technology, including space exploration, to which they gave $10 million to a foundation that encourages advances in space flight.

The venturesome Iranian woman is also studying for a diploma in astronomy.

“I hope that not only my flights, but the life I have lived so far, become an inspiration for all youth all over the world, especially women and girls around the world to pursue their dreams,” she said. “It may seem very hard… but looking at my background they can see that sometimes the impossible can be possible and dreams can come true.”

As a fillip to diplomatic amity, earlier in the year she displayed the flags of Iran and the United States on her spacesuit. “I felt that by wearing the two badges I can demonstrate that both countries had something to do with making me the person who I am today,” she said.

May she be an inspiration to many in her homeland.

She certainly qualifies as one in a world weary of hearing just how far along the radical road to earthbound conduct Iran has trod.

About The Author

Tom Attea, humorist and creator of http://NewsLaugh.com, has had six shows produced Off-Broadway. Critics have called his writing “delightfully funny,” “witty,” with “great humor and ebullience” and “good, genuine laughs.”

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New York Is The Safest Big City; Now, That’s Scary.

by: Tom Attea

New York has just been ranked as the safest of America’s ten biggest cities in 2005, where, according to the FBI, about one crime was reported for every 37 people. This is the second year in a row that New York has been named America’s safest big city. How scary is that?

While Mayor Michael Bloomberg was quick to say the report ‘’shows that our innovative efforts to reduce crime and increase New Yorkers’ quality of life are working,” the bigger question is, just what is going on in our other nine biggest cities? Easygoing murder? Robbery as a workaday job? Really bad in and out of marriage spats?

And guess what city among the leading offenders has the highest crime rate? You guessed it: the apparently unruly metropolis of Dallas, where the FBI checks in with about one crime for every 12 people. One in 12 people is involved in a crime within the space of a year? Does that make you scared to go to the mall or what?

Just in case you thought you were living in a city that’s safer than New York, here’s the spooky rundown: San Jose came in second safest. LA came in at number three. San Diego was fourth. Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, San Antonio and Phoenix followed in that order.

Now, here’s the kicker. On a national basis, violent crime went up by 2.3% last year, but in Gotham violent crimes – including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault – fell by 1.9%.

So, in case you’re paranoid about living in a big city, head for New York, where you can feel safer than ever.

Just don’t do two things: Do not, whatever you do, go for a run in Central Park after dark. You can’t run fast enough. And at night stay on the avenues as much as possible and, whatever you do, don’t enter dark tunnels or side streets that give you the creeps just looking at them.

You don’t want to ruin New York’s safest-city reputation, do you?

About The Author

Tom Attea, humorist and creator of http://NewsLaugh.com, has had six shows produced Off-Broadway. Critics have called his writing “delightfully funny,” “witty,” with “great humor and ebullience” and “good, genuine laughs.”