{"id":933,"date":"2011-01-21T02:14:05","date_gmt":"2011-01-21T08:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/?p=933"},"modified":"2011-01-21T02:14:05","modified_gmt":"2011-01-21T08:14:05","slug":"the-red-flowers-growing-on-the-graves-of-our-martyrs-fill-the-air-with-the-fragrance-of-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/?p=933","title":{"rendered":"The Red Flowers Growing On The Graves Of Our Martyrs Fill The Air With The Fragrance Of Freedom!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/iranpostcard-front.jpg\" alt=\"iranpostcard-front\" title=\"iranpostcard-front\" width=\"600\" height=\"802\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-934\" srcset=\"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/iranpostcard-front.jpg 600w, https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/iranpostcard-front-224x300.jpg 224w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><br \/>\nWhen I started this site, my idea was that I would use it to write the occasional post that had nothing to do with cars. Time to dig into the Ephemera file, which happens to contain a nice 1980 Happy New Year card that the Iranian Ministry of National Guidance sent me when I was 14 years old.&nbsp;<br \/>&nbsp;<!--more--><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/iranpostcard-back.jpg\" alt=\"iranpostcard-back\" title=\"iranpostcard-back\" width=\"600\" height=\"801\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-935\" srcset=\"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/iranpostcard-back.jpg 600w, https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/iranpostcard-back-224x300.jpg 224w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><br \/>\nNot every 14-year-old gets such personal attention from the Iranian Ministry of National Guidance (now named the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ministry_of_Culture_and_Islamic_Guidance\">Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance<\/a>), especially when the Iranian government has its hands full with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Iran_hostage_crisis\">holding a bunch of US Embassy employees hostage<\/a>, but I spent my adolescence obsessed with Brezhnev Era Cold War madness in general and government propaganda in particular. Back in those days, just about every country on the planet had its own shortwave propaganda station broadcasting in English and beaming the signal at North America (Radio Moscow cranked out so many watts that their signal would come in stronger than most local AM radio broadcasts), and so I saved the money I made delivering the San Francisco <em>Chronicle<\/em> (remember when newspapers were delivered by boys on bicycles?) and bought a shortwave radio to listen to The Voice Of South Africa, Radio Vilnius, and so on (this radio, which I haven&#8217;t used for decades, is <a href=\"http:\/\/cgi.ebay.com\/ws\/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&#038;item=110637257304&#038;ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT\">now up for sale<\/a>, which is what inspired me to dig up my Iranian Revolutionary New Year&#8217;s Greeting card). All those stations wanted to know how their signal was coming through, so if you sent a postcard they&#8217;d send you <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/QSL_card\">QSL cards<\/a> and often a bunch of weird\/cool stuff. Naturally, I preferred the stations of scary dictatorships, Warsaw Pact client states, and pariah states in general, and so I tuned in to Radio Tehran&#8217;s apeshit-crazy rants, sent them a card saying that said apeshit rants were coming in loud and clear, and got this great card in return. Thanks, Ministry of National Guidance! Glad you were able to take a break from stoning adulteresses to send me a card!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I started this site, my idea was that I would use it to write the occasional post that had nothing to do with cars. Time to dig into the Ephemera file, which happens to contain a nice 1980 Happy New Year card that the Iranian Ministry of National Guidance sent me when I was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[312],"tags":[67,45,479,313],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":940,"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions\/940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murileemartin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}