HRC to Columbia University Faculty

This, today from Laura Rozen sparked my interest, but not for obvious or predictable reasons. Of course the Secretary of State will speak up for Americans unfairly imprisoned abroad by states and entities with which we do not have diplomatic relations. (Just to be clear on this, we do have diplomatic relations with Italy and Haiti, and and we trust our friends and allies to be fair in their charges/convictions, so please do not try to align the Iranian case with Amanda Knox or the Americans being held in Haiti.) In this case, the American is a Columbia University scholar being held in Iran on baseless charges. The faculty had written to the Secretary, and today, Rozen put up this story with a link to a pdf of the letter.

Laura Rozen
February 13, 2010


Clinton writes colleagues of imprisoned Iranian American scholar

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has told academic colleagues of an Iranian-American scholar imprisoned in Iran that espionage charges levelled (sic)against him are groundless, and that the U.S. government is using every diplomatic tool it has to gain his release.

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Here is the link to the letter.
HRC Letter

My interest in this letter has nothing to do with Iran, the charges, the faculty at Columbia, or, actually, Dr. Tajbakhsh, who is, I am sure, innocent of the charges and a fine person. No, my interest is in the letter as a artifact. Could that header be any more minimalist? There is not a single elaboration on this stationery. I have never seen such simplicity, and I have spent a good deal of time with letters and stationery both in my daily routines and in my research. Simple, minimal, direct. I am equally impressed with the signature, also very simple - no title necessary - it is up there in the header.

Lastly, why does this letter have the look of something that was typed with carbon copies? It appears it was scanned, not electronically generated and shared as a document, but rather saved as a scanned document which has characteristics closer to a photo than a document.

We have memo forms where I work that are more complex, and when you look at the address, that is clearly more complex by far that the stationery and signature. I guess it is quirky of me to find this interesting on a slow Hillary-news Saturday before she leaves for the Persian Gulf, but it speaks to me. It says the more obscure we are, the more tags and specifics are needed to clarify who we are. The more notable we are, the fewer tags and specifics. The only way this gets simpler is to address something to HRC, D.C. Heh! I bet she would get it!

Now you sincerely did not think I would end this without a picture of our girl, did you? I love this picture. I hope we see this beautiful smile again very soon now that she knows that Big Dawg's intervention was just routine maintenance.