Persian Politeness with Dr. Kaveh Hoda

Our first guest is Dr. Kaveh Hoda of The House of Pod! Persian Tarof culture; a new supreme leader in Iran; the US can't decide on its war messaging; a disagreement over favorite Persian foods.

• Iran episode on The House of Pod
• Israeli oil strikes in Tehran
• All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror
• Iranian women's soccer players labeled traitors
• Churchill’s Hiccup/ Winston's Sneeze
• Samin Nosrat’s top 10 Persian recipes

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness with Drs. Arghavan Salles and Alyssa Burgart!

Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles and Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Theme Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Transcript

Arghavan (00:00)
Hey there, fellow nerds. Welcome to an extra special episode of The Present Illness. This is the podcast where two physicians try to make sense of an increasingly ill and difficult to understand world. ⁓ I'm Arghavan Salles, a surgeon scientist in your friendly neighborhood, doomscroller and Resident.

Alyssa Burgart (00:14)
and I'm Alyssa Burgart, an anesthesiologist and bioethicist who tracks news and health law cases like their EKGs, full of spikes and surprises. This is an extra special episode to update all of you on what's been happening in Iran with one of our favorite friends from the diaspora. Our special guest today is our friend and longtime podcaster Dr. Kaveh Hoda.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (00:32)
You

Nailed it.

Alyssa Burgart (00:37)
You should check out his great show, The House of Pod. We are fans of his show and he joins us today. Cheers with a little glass of whiskey. Tea. Okay, sure.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (00:46)
Cheers. Tea. This is tea. Don't don't don't throw me under the bus.

Alyssa Burgart (00:51)
Okay.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (00:51)
It looks

like tea. You never know people. It isn't a tea glass because I'm classy like that. This is yeah, am too. ⁓ I've never drink tea. Are you kidding me? Like I drink coffee or whiskey and sometimes water when I'm at work. So here's the thing. ⁓ I know that this is a special episode, so maybe it doesn't count.

Alyssa Burgart (00:53)
You never know.

I'm drinking whiskey.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (01:14)
But I also, I'm pretty sure, I think I'm your first guest on this pod. The first non-Alyssa Arghavan voice on this podcast. Am I correct about that?

Arghavan (01:25)
You are absolutely right. You are the first person we thought was so important that you should join us and you don't have to even have a name starting with the letter A.

Alyssa Burgart (01:25)
That's true.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (01:27)
I'm taking that.

I also kind of forced my way in and I was like, hey, we should do this. It'd be fun to come on. This is Alyssa. So let's maybe get right into something that's important about Iranians. Have you heard of the Tarof system? Let's talk about this because I think this will explain a lot to you. You need to know what this is actually. No, this is actually serious because you do need to know if you're going to be working with Argavan in any capacity. And if the listeners out there are listening to any Iran, having Iranian friends,

Alyssa Burgart (01:48)
No. Tell me.

Okay.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (02:04)
co-workers, person in their life. They should understand this concept. Arghavan, let's explain what it is. You want to give it a shot first? What tarot is? It's a fundamental tenet of the culture. So it should be discussed. Explain, please.

Arghavan (02:12)
Sure.

It is,

okay, in Alissa's defense, the reason she doesn't know about tarot is I'm terrible at tarot, so it hasn't really come up in our interaction. So tarot is this, it is like very integral to our culture, as Kave said. And what it describes is how people defer to each other all the time about everything, and it's not necessarily sincere.

but it's like mandatory. you go to a store, I know, hold on, you're going to add your point in a second.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (02:46)
OK, OK, because we're

going to debate this whole episode and it's going to start here with the definition of terror as I expected, as I expected, because I have a slightly different definition of it than most people. But please, yes, go on.

Arghavan (02:57)
So in practice, how it shows up is like you walk into a store, you see a tablecloth you like, sir, how much is this tablecloth or ma'am, how much is this tablecloth? it's not worthy of you. I couldn't even ask you for any money for it. Well, okay, but like how much is it really? no, I'm serious. Like it's not worthy at all. then.

you play this game and then they'll give you a price and then you'll go, no way am I paying that price. Then you actually like do your negotiation. That's like in a formal business setting with friends or people you know and have relationships with. be like, I love your earrings. And it'll be like, here, please take them. And that would be actually a sincere, I think that's what Kaveh was gonna maybe take issue with. That would be a sincere offer. Like it would be, I would love for you to have them. That's such a high compliment that you like my earrings. I would love for you to have.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (03:38)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that'll happen.

That's right. That's right.

Arghavan (03:50)
And then they genuinely are like fine with you walking away with their earrings. But you would say no. If you were a good Iranian, you'd no, no, no, no, no. I don't want your earrings, beautiful on you.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (03:58)
Yeah, but you would force them into you. You like

put them in my pocket or something as I was leaving. That's so OK. We're not that far off. I will say this most it's the way I think of it in. It's a pretty big broad concept across Persian culture, but it's like politeness to the point of rudeness. Like if you ever seen two Persian people fighting over a check, there is a it's pretty intense and sometimes it can get scary for the person that works there.

So we are always figuring ways to outgame each other to pay for that check, because that's what you want to do. And some people may say that that's sort of fake, but I don't think for most of us it is. We want to be the person who does that. So we want to be that person, and we want to make sure that we are, we want to be so polite it's rude, to the point of like, where we're like, you are, I'm going to pay for this, and if you don't, I will make a scene. And it's really kind of a game of chicken sometimes. So it's a broad.

Alyssa Burgart (04:27)
Yeah.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (04:55)
definition. And I hear people talk about it cynically, like, it's just Iranians faking it. And there is that sort of like, flowery language component that happens in the Persian language, I could get into a cab in Iran, and the cab drivers like, No, no, no, no, I don't need your money. And so if I just please, I just drove you here. And then, like every now and then there'll be an American will be like, Okay, cool. Thanks, bro. That was so people are so nice. That's crazy. It's weird. But like, you're supposed to still pay them. And there's like, you have to go back and forth a little bit. That's a little phony. But that's also about the floweriness of the language.

The actual components of Tarouf I like are that you are the one that's trying to be so hospitable that sometimes you have to take a real stand to do so. So what's happened is she's been on my show a number of times. So she Tarouf by saying, yeah, you can come on our show too. And I was like, instead of being typical Persian, I was like, yeah, let's do it. Sounds good.

Let's make it happen.

Alyssa Burgart (05:50)
Hey.

Arghavan (05:50)
Well,

it was a sincere invitation and I'm glad we didn't play any silly games about it. I'm glad you're here with us today.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (05:56)
Yeah, I'm here. I'm here.

Alyssa Burgart (05:56)
Well, and you know,

I've been on your podcast once and I'm still waiting for my next invitation. So if you want to, if you ever want to me back, I will, I will pull some tarot.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (06:01)
You're in. You're in. I would love to have you back.

You're hey listen, listen, it's it's I'm gonna say Argaven comes on the podcast and I'm like, hey, I should have Alyssa on. She's like, no, no, you got me. I'm good. You don't need you don't need to have her on. mean, I got this covered. I'm okay. Cool. I mean, I was gonna invite her.

Alyssa Burgart (06:22)
I

will tell you, I was very proud. I was out to lunch with a Persian friend and I did not know what it was called, but I also come from a family that has this check paying thing and it's probably just percolated out from the Persian culture into us white folk. I'll take that. And you should, that's fine. Absolutely. And I managed to pay for lunch before she realized and she was like,

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (06:31)
Mm. Yeah. Right. Mm

Arghavan (06:33)
Mm-mm.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (06:38)
We'll take credit for a lot of stuff. yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (06:50)
You're taking my Persian card. And I was like, it was great. It was great.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (06:52)
So good. So good. I'm so proud of you. I'm so impressed. That's it. Yeah. Well, I mean, to be fair, your Persian friend probably wasn't ready for it because when we go out with our white friends, it would happen so much. And I'm sorry, I know your listeners actually want to hear about what's happening in Iran. We'll get to it, I'm sure. But what will happen as Arghavan sure, can attest is we'll be out with our friends and they'll be like, we'll do like the thing where we're like, hey, no, I got this covered.

Arghavan (06:55)
And it's quite the feat actually to have done that to a Persian person.

Alyssa Burgart (06:58)
I was proud.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (07:17)
And and like you expect them and you're willing to pay it. You're OK with that. But you want to see them at least try to be like, no, do you know? And then you fight them. No, I got this. But when they're just like, thanks. Cool. Got it. Good. You got it. That then we're like, fucking shit. Kind of hang out less white people. That's like happens every time. Not every time it does happen.

Alyssa Burgart (07:25)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's rude.

Arghavan (07:39)
No,

my friends are honorary person. They've got the game down.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (07:44)
They know, they know the drill. Sorry, there's like real things we have to discuss, I'm sorry.

Arghavan (07:49)
Yes, yes, let's do it. Let's do it. OK, so obviously to state the obvious, as I said, obviously to state the obvious. Look at me with words. So good. ⁓ That's why I have a podcast, folks. I'm so good with the words. There's been a war that the United States and Israel declared. I guess even that is a controversial thing to say, because half the time our government is like, it's not a war, it's a combat. But then the other half of the time, like.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (07:56)
So good. ⁓

Arghavan (08:16)
Yes, we're gonna win this war. We're gonna annihilate them in this war. Anyway, there are definite war-like activities if nothing else happening ⁓ between like the US and Israel having started attacking Iran a week ago-ish from when we're recording this podcast. We're recording on Sunday, March 8th. ⁓ for folks who don't know, I did go on Kaveth's last week. There's a really ⁓ thorough conversation, I think, about what we knew a week ago. if you...

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (08:23)
Hahaha.

Arghavan (08:46)
hadn't caught that, I do recommend listening to it, mainly because I'm on it, you so it's good. It's called the House of Thought again. It's hard to believe he has episodes without us actually, because I mean, how is that? How do you even do it? I don't know. Yeah, I've heard. Anyway, so basically what we wanted to do today was start with an update, because Kavi and I had that conversation last week. Alyssa and I had another conversation.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (08:51)
Yeah, that's right. Don't listen to the other ones. Only listen to the ones with Alyssa and Argavan. That's it.

Yeah, barely do. barely do. ⁓

Arghavan (09:14)
few days ago so if you didn't catch that episode and want to hear what's happened from say Sunday ish to Thursday of this past week so from March 1st through whatever the date was fourth that's whatever I can't count again words counting not my not my thing that's why I have a podcast

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (09:29)
I there'll

be no math on this podcast, so don't expect me to help you with this.

Arghavan (09:34)
You didn't prepare for the calculus portion of the... Okay, all right. We'll give you a pass just this time though. Anyway, so today we're gonna focus on what's happened from Thursday to Sunday. But again, there were previous episodes if you didn't catch what happened before. And there are a few things I wanted to highlight as like the key kind of headlines that have jumped out to me at least about what's been happening in Iran in the last few days. The biggest one probably is...

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (09:35)
I did not, no.

Arghavan (10:00)
to me is that the US and or Israel, I think Israel actually has taken credit for most of these, has struck a number of oil refineries and oil depots around Tehran. And if you haven't seen these videos, I do recommend viewing at least one just so you can grasp the magnitude of damage that's being done. And we'll put a link for sure in the show notes. the, mean, you can imagine even if you haven't seen them, what it's like to strike oil with.

military force, obviously huge explosion, fire, just black clouds into the sky. And they did this again in multiple locations around Tehran. Tehran has these ⁓ gutters along the streets. I believe they're actually meant to hold water to water the trees that line the streets. But what ended up happening is that from one of these depots, the oil spilled into the gutters and you actually see the flames.

not just at the refinery, but running down the streets of Tehran. And it's very dystopian and apocalyptic, even though we use those words a lot these days, but it really is because you see like motorcyclists and cars driving down this road while there's literally the road is on fire. And ⁓ this morning, meaning Sunday morning, folks in Iran woke up to oily rain. Like it's literally raining oil now down on them. And so there's pictures of vehicles.

so that you can see like what's landing on the cars and it'll be a white car that's practically black from the particles that are in the air that that's what people are breathing now in Tehran. And we know from things like 9-11 how toxic those kinds of particles are. And we have a city of over 10 million people who those who haven't already left the city are now breathing that air. it was that Tehran has a

significant pollution problem already because the government really doesn't care to clean the air in any way. And so this is just adding to what was already a really bad situation in terms of people's lungs and anybody who had any chronic respiratory illnesses is likely experiencing significant exacerbations of that.

Alyssa Burgart (12:13)
This is just making me think about I was recently preparing a lecture I'm giving on AI and its impact on the environment and environmental ethics. And just hearing you talk about the catastrophic consequences of blowing up these, you know, oil ⁓ refineries or whatever they are and

It's going to have long-term impacts for anybody who's exposed to it and children in particular who have, their lungs are not fully developed yet are ⁓ especially susceptible to that. We see bad pollution, smoke inhalation, things like that really impacting cardiovascular and pulmonary health as well as a bunch of other indicators for kids. ⁓

Plus being in a war, it's just, it's traumatizing and it's bad for everybody. ⁓ So anyway, it's just.

Arghavan (13:02)
It's almost

like war is bad.

Alyssa Burgart (13:04)
Yeah,

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (13:04)
I'm starting

to think I'm sorry.

Alyssa Burgart (13:05)
I'm not for it myself.

Arghavan (13:09)
you

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (13:09)
I might

even say I'm against it. don't want to, don't send me letters folks. Okay, sorry, no emails. ⁓ But I have this, I know I'm a real daredevil.

Alyssa Burgart (13:12)
lot.

Arghavan (13:17)
Quite the limb you went out on there.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (13:21)
⁓ I have the same actual thought. The first time I started seeing this stuff, was obviously, we're always worried about the immediate casualties and deaths. And we've already seen that. That's already happening. But I also think to the future, like long-term health complications. And, you know, when we saw

the death toll rise in Gaza, for example, one of the first things that I started to think about was the things you don't see, the people that are going to be missing, regular people who not being killed by bombs, but are going to be affected by lack of healthcare access, who are going to not be getting their medicine, not getting their chemotherapy, who are going to be getting exposed to all this toxic stuff that's in the air and that they're being exposed to in the water now. This long-term stuff, not to mention, as you very astutely pointed out, the long-term trauma.

Arghavan (13:51)
Mm-hmm.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (14:08)
that this is going to leave to a generation of youth. ⁓ No, it's absolutely terrible. It does seem apocalyptic at times. And there are, from what we hear from people, what limited stuff we're able to get from friends and family over there, there's parts of the city that are just leveled. ⁓ And it is a horror show. The other thing that you mentioned, I felt like I had to bring up, because I've seen people say like,

Why isn't everyone left the city? Some people can, but yeah, and that costs money. is the economy. Part of the reason we've gotten to this point is the economy is terrible right now. People don't have a lot of money. And right now people have to like to go and live somewhere else, eat out all the time. That's a huge financial burden. And some of these people just can't do it. So what we've seen is that, yeah, a lot of people were able to leave Tehran, but some of those people have had to come back.

Alyssa Burgart (14:41)
Where's... where's everyone gonna go?

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (15:05)
Sometimes people just can't be out that long. And so they come back, you know? So it is terrible. People always ask that, why don't you just leave? would you, if it's that bad? Sometimes you can't. Sometimes you just can't leave.

Arghavan (15:14)
Yeah,

Alyssa Burgart (15:15)
I'm so

Arghavan (15:16)
and people are working too. As weird as that sounds, like during the war, people still have jobs. They still have to try to pay their bills. It's not like they're, know, not the bills are gonna stop coming in, that they're not gonna need to pay for food anymore. You know, they still have to figure out a way to make a living.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (15:19)
Yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (15:34)
Well, and, Argavan, when you and I were talking on the phone yesterday, you were telling me about people that you know, where they were traveling abroad when all of this happened and they have to go home and you're going like, it's a terrible time to be a not documented immigrant in the United States. So I, know, where where is it that people think everyone's going?

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (15:53)
Right.

Arghavan (15:54)
Yeah,

yeah. mean, I have ⁓ I think that's worth spending just a moment on like, I don't know about you, Kaveh, but I definitely have multiple relatives actually right now who are in the US who don't live in the US but are here legally, just to be clear. But they were here for vacation or a business trip. And the airport in Tehran that serves Tehran was also bombed. And it's not clear, to be honest, what the extent of the damage is. I've seen videos of the explosions, but I haven't seen any after.

photos, it's hard for me to imagine that that airport is still functioning in any way. So how are people who just happen to be right at any given time, there are people who are outside of any given country. There are US citizens who are right now in Europe or Asia or wherever they South America. And if something were to happen and we had like one main airport, if we were a much smaller country than we are, how would those people get back? And so that's another consequence of all of this. And I do want to go back to one last point on this oil is that

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (16:27)
Yeah.

Arghavan (16:52)
the environmental impact beyond humans just on the world that we live in is immense. I mean, that's true for war in general. Like the explosion of bombs is horrific for the environment. And I see all these people being like, here I am sipping through my paper straw while our government is just throwing bombs. And so it's this oil,

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (16:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Arghavan (17:20)
Attacks on these oil depots in particular are extremely damaging for the environment and we're going to be dealing with that specifically the people in Iran are going to be dealing with that for a long long time ⁓ and to your point Kaveh about healthcare, one of the other facilities that the again US and or Israel bombed is the facility where they make a lot of medications in Iran. ⁓ You know a lot of medications are not imported from outside if you think about

like lot of medications are made in the US, for example, Iran does not have any trade with the US. So they make a lot of their medications there and that facility was bombed. That is, you know, obviously not a military target. ⁓ Another non-military target that has been bombed by our, meaning, you know, US and Israel's campaign was a desalination plant that served approximately 30 villages. So that's a plant where they take saltwater, right? And then turn it into drinking water.

And that is clearly a civilian, that's an infrastructure to maintain civilian life and health that the US and Israel ⁓ attack.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (18:25)
And if I may add, this was done in one of the worst droughts in modern history in Iran. This is, was already a terrible time in terms of Tehran thought they were going to run out of water. This was like the question that happened before. And now on top of that, the little access to clean water is now gone. And you know, running through the water, the water, we've seen like water coming out of like pipes that is flammable. So it's, it's, this is a terrible, I mean, the, the callousness

of this, of these bombs has really bothered me and I know war is always bad. is. And I shouldn't be so surprised maybe, but I'm just, it's just being done in everything as, as with everything this administration does. And I'm sorry to get political, sorry to get political about war. ⁓ I imagine, I imagine, ⁓ there's just the, the, the incredible cynicism of this administration.

Arghavan (19:14)
We never get political.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (19:25)
that just don't give a, can I swear? Don't give a darn. Sorry, sorry ladies, sorry. Got a real sailor's mouth here.

Arghavan (19:28)
hehe

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (19:34)
And it was, just, the sheer fact that they just couldn't care less about what happens there. And this whole nonsense about like, we're doing this for the people, we're doing this for the women, all, whatever moving target that they say they're doing it for, that they're clearly just, they're not.

Alyssa Burgart (19:52)
I mean, if there's

one thing that I know about American motivation, it is not the well-being of women.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (19:58)
Right,

Arghavan (20:01)
Yeah, because you

know when they don't care about women in the United States, that's usually when governments go and protect women elsewhere when they can't even protect the women in their own country. We've known that to happen, right? That's just how it always is. Somebody to that point, by the way, who was it? I don't know if I'll be able to find this right this minute, but one of the officials affiliated with our government said that like actually out loud that we're going to seize all of Iran's oil. Whoops!

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (20:13)
Yeah, that makes sense. Don't Google it. Don't Google.

Arghavan (20:31)
Whoops! We didn't know it was about the oil!

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (20:33)
Yeah.

Is that Marco Rubio? I did hear that. I forget who said that. But yeah, that that's that came out.

Arghavan (20:39)
He may have also

said it, the person I'm thinking of actually was ⁓ not Rubio. was someone I had not heard. It's not like that level of official. ⁓ I'll see if I can find it and I'll put it in the show notes for sure. That could be, that could be. There was definitely someone who I was like, who even are you talking about? We're gonna seize your on soil.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (20:46)
Right, right.

Alyssa Burgart (20:51)
Keith Kellogg? Is that who you're thinking of?

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (20:58)
Nothing good

has come out of an American Kellogg. You can look back to the Kellogg medical history in this country. That's a different episode you guys should do at some point.

Alyssa Burgart (21:03)
That's true.

Arghavan (21:09)
What about Frosted Blakes?

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (21:11)
no, it's the same guy. was a lunatic Kellogg. yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (21:14)
yeah, well he

was the original wellness influencer, Argovan. The OG.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (21:17)
That's right. That's exactly right.

Arghavan (21:18)
same but I

like Tony the tiger gosh

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (21:21)
Yeah, well, I mean, it's very different. Yeah, great. Long

Alyssa Burgart (21:21)
Well, that was a great marketing campaign. ⁓

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (21:24)
after days

of the catalog guy. Do you guys? We won't talk about it. Sorry. Sorry. I was going to go on a tangent about graham crackers and masturbation and trust it. but that's a listen. Just don't worry about it. We'll do it later, folks. We'll do it later. Don't worry about it. We'll tell you all about later. It'll be a whole episode.

Arghavan (21:27)
Okay, yes.

Alyssa Burgart (21:27)
So, go ahead.

It's true. ⁓ Argevan. Next episode.

Arghavan (21:39)
Okay, I don't know. I don't know this story. think I don't know if I want to know.

Alyssa Burgart (21:45)
We're

gonna really blow your mind and maybe your colon with that story.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (21:50)
Yeah, right.

Arghavan (21:50)
Okay,

then I'll just head over to Kaveh. He can fix me up. ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (21:55)
All

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (21:56)
I'm gonna for it.

Alyssa Burgart (21:56)
right, so here's the, I found this quote, Keith Kellogg, the US Special Envoy for Ukraine appeared on Fox News Thursday, sharing his view of what the US should do as the conflict in the Middle East intensifies. Quote, what I would hope that they do would really go take Krog Island. And I apologize if I'm not saying that correctly. It's.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (22:15)
familiar with.

mean, listen, by the way, if you're my pronunciation of the, you know, about Farsi is probably a tiny bit better than yours, but not by much. So I apologize to your listeners for that as well.

Alyssa Burgart (22:29)
So

it is a continental island of Iran and the Persian Gulf, 16 miles off the coast of Iran.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (22:34)
Hmm, my family.

Huh.

Arghavan (22:37)
Yeah, I don't think that was the one I was thinking of, I'm obviously like, do think, look, just to be clear, I don't think that oil is actually the only thing going on here. But I think it's silly to pretend it's not part of the equation, which is what some people were saying to me online, that I'm a moron and that has nothing to do with it. But.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (22:55)
Wait, wait, wait, people

were telling you that oil was not at least in small, a small part, like some of the motivation for this. I mean, whether or not it's the motivation for Trump, I think it's probably not the main motivation for Trump. But is it something his administration uses as a leverage for like getting Republicans on board and like getting like, you know, that the financing for all this? I'm sure it's a part of that.

Arghavan (23:02)
Yes.

Alyssa Burgart (23:19)
But I think it's also a this this response that Arghavan has gotten, I think, is a real indicator of how effective greenwashing by oil companies has been in this effect of like, you know, just trying to make it so that they're not constantly seen as these as these villains. No, we're fine. Oil's no big deal. We don't even need to talk about it. Dummy.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (23:30)
Hmm.

Right.

Right. I have

Arghavan (23:41)
Right, that's right. And

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (23:41)
to tell you,

Arghavan (23:42)
that's not even part of the conversation. What kind of pose I would bring that up right now.

Okay, ⁓ wait, go ahead, go ahead. Yes.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (23:47)
I have, wait, if I may, I have to tell you the oil thing

is fascinating to me because I, oddly enough, I have not really done that much of a back deep, deep dive into Persian history. You know, I know the stories I've read a little bit more than the typical person, I definitely know more than the average American. But, you know, since this started, I've gone on a deep dive, and I've just like, gone through all these books, all the Shah's Men, History of Iran, Empire of the Mind.

Arghavan (24:13)
Mm.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (24:17)
Persians, the great kings, these books are amazing. And I will tell you right now that the finding oil in Iran was one of the best and worst things, probably emphasis on worst things that happened to the country, because that has been the root of a lot of Western involvement and oppression and subterfuge has been all about this oil. Nothing seems to change.

The more I learn about history in Iran, the more I learn it's just absolutely, I wouldn't even say it's rhyming, it's just repeating at this point. It's just like the same verses again and again.

Arghavan (24:53)
Yeah. Yeah.

By the way, it's this guy.

I don't know who that is. It could be... was someone... I will have to do research on who this is, but he went on Fox Business. No one will be surprised at what channel it was that this person was on when they said this. What? Wee wee. So anyway, that's the piece about oil. But I do want to, I'm going to text it to you, Alyssa. But in the meantime, I did want to also...

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (25:00)
I can't see him. He looks very pale.

Alyssa Burgart (25:07)
text that to me? Who is

What?

Arghavan (25:29)
bring up a couple more points. So one is, this is a ⁓ briefer update that when we talked in both of these previous conversations I've had on our pod earlier this week, and then with Kaveh, we talked about the ⁓ school bombing in Minab and it was even as late as Thursday, still not.

totally clear, but I was more confident when we recorded on Thursday that it was the US that had struck that school. And now we have even more reporting that says it was indeed the US. And not only that it was the US, but that there was more than one strike. One place I saw that there were three, but there were at least two that's widely reported that they hit the school. And then there was another strike either 30 or 40 minutes later, which is a tactic that the military uses to make sure that they basically can maximize.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (26:10)
Yeah.

Arghavan (26:21)
damage because after the first strike, often folks will gather in in a location together and then they target that location. So I'm not saying that they knew there were children there, but it was clearly an intentional strike on that specific location. And there are ⁓ theories around whether AI was used in selecting this, whether the data the US military was working with was over 10 years old and had indicated that that building was part of the

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (26:43)
Yeah.

Arghavan (26:48)
IRGC military base, because at some point many years ago it was, but it hadn't been for over 10 years. Neither of those possibilities reflects very well on our military. Yeah, go ahead, Kavya.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (27:01)
It,

it, yeah, sorry, but this, this one, I mean, this is the, if there was one thing that stuck in my brain that I can't get out, and it's the images of a ⁓ school being bombed in Iran, and I'll never get over that. And it just goes to show you how deeply unserious the people in charge of this country are. Any of those options are true. I don't think that they did it on purpose to blow up a school. I think...

And only because the optics of it are so bad that even like the most callous person in the Trump administration would have to know that's a problem. But the fact that either it was like some sort of weird AI error or more likely that they were using outdated maps and they still did the bombing, the double tap, which anyone who read the Hunger Games, by the way, it's in the Hunger Games. That's a tactic that they use in the Hunger Games at the end of, it's a long story. Anyways, but like anyone who like would have,

done that seriously in a serious way should have avoided that. And this was the first day. This wasn't even in the fog of war where we don't know what's going on anymore. This was the tax that they had some time to plan and approach. And that's what they chose to do. It shows you how little they care, how little they care about the rest of the world, especially the Middle Eastern world, the Brown world. It drives me absolutely up the walls, bonkers, crazy.

Arghavan (28:10)
Mm-hmm.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (28:24)
Cuckoo Bananas.

Arghavan (28:26)
Yes, and what is also interesting, is how many people outside of Iran and outside of the Iranian diaspora have expressed appropriate righteous outrage about the US having killed almost 200 children, but didn't really care at all about the tens of thousands, including almost 200 children who were killed by the Iranian government.

two months ago and they dare to lecture people like me about how I don't care about children in Iran when they were silent when that was happening, or I don't care about people in Iran when they were silent when that was happening. And I just wanna call that out because we see that. We see you doing that. We understand that you're upset about the US and Israel and you have every right to be, but you don't have a right.

to try to shame and judge those of us who have been here the whole time, caring about our people and being aware of what their own government is doing to them, just because it doesn't line up with your agenda at this moment and your politics of being opposed to the US. Cause guess what? I'm also opposed to the US. know, woo hoo! then cats out of the bag. ⁓

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (29:43)
would say it's pretty

fun watching you get called a Zionist. That's pretty fun. That's pretty fun.

Arghavan (29:46)
Or

the comparisons to Dick Cheney. That's been great. mean, things have been said about me that have never been said before. It's been a time.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (29:56)
As far as I know, you've never shot a man in the face. I will say this, this is really something that, this is something that really bothers me. Sorry, Alyssa, I have a lot of venting to do. ⁓ Here is online, the social media, and I don't know how much of your listeners are deeply connected or tied in to what's happening online, social media, but it's been really frustrating for me to see the back and forth attacks of Persian content creators.

Arghavan (30:00)
Don't even own a gun, folks.

Alyssa Burgart (30:06)
I'm here for it.

Arghavan (30:26)
Mm.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (30:26)
online.

That really depresses me. I hate seeing this. I hate seeing that. I mean, I don't agree with every Persian content creator and their take on what's happening. ⁓ mean, mean, Arghavan and I agree on a lot of things, but we don't even agree totally on all this stuff. And that's okay, because we agree. And we agree on the important parts. There are some fundamental things that we care about. We care about what's happening in Iran to the Iranian people. We want to give the Iranian people a voice. We want them to have a voice more importantly than anything. And we're worried about what's going to happen to them.

Arghavan (30:42)
Somehow we're still friends.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (30:56)
And seeing like all these people go back and forth, Iranian content creators attacking other Iranian content creators, going back and forth on this. It's, it's driving me crazy. We're there's, there's a lot of reasons to be angry and frustrated right now. And there are a lot of people to focus that on. And right now it's there's, there's right. We're attacking each other. It's what it's going to do. And I'm afraid it's going to do. And maybe this is by design. It's going to make people want to tune out.

Arghavan (31:26)
Mm.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (31:26)
It's gonna

make people be like the whole what happened with Israel in Gaza in the past, people like it's too complicated. I can't deal with it. I don't know who's right and who's wrong. I'm done. And that's the last thing I want. I don't want people taking their eyes off of Iran. I want people staying tuned in. I do not want them to tune out no matter how complicated it is. And it is it's not easy. It's not black and white. We like to have black and white things here in the United States. Good versus evil. Jedi versus Sith. Lakers versus the Warriors Warriors of the Good.

And like we like that sort of stuff, you know, but we can't always have that. And we have to keep people tuned in to this. so please, all I ask is two things. One, if you're a content creator out there, focus on the people who deserve your wrath. There's lots of oppressors out there who deserve your wrath. Focus on them, not each other. Focus on the good people here, which are the Iranian people in Iran fighting. And please try to just...

continue to check in and tune in on this. Do not check out because it's too complicated. That's the only things I ask and that's a lot I know, but I do think it's super important.

Arghavan (32:34)
I agree and we did have, that was one of the questions that came up, know, as we said, we're preparing for this episode, we asked folks what they wanted to talk about. And so one of them was not so much the fighting, cause I don't know how many people outside our community are super tending to that, but ⁓ how to get accurate.

information because people are understandably, I think, very concerned about propaganda. Propaganda, like I think people in the US in particular are more aware of propaganda than probably in a really long time. And so they're rightfully questioning almost everything they see. And ⁓ this was a good yet difficult question of like, how do I know?

What's a reliable source? And I think especially when you're talking about this, the social media space that you're just talking about, it's really hard because people I think are reliable that I think actually we have a lot of overlap on COVID. Someone else from our diaspora might come in and be like, no, that person's a terrible source. Why would you ever listen to that person? But in terms of new sources, I, and Alyssa and I have put this in our episodes before.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (33:36)
Sure. Right.

Arghavan (33:45)
I recommend that people try to get news directly from Iranian sources when they can. And I don't mean Iranian state media to be clear because that's going to be problematic. ⁓

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (33:53)
Right. That's pretty,

actually there is a certain bit of, so it's actually pretty great. If you have the chance, you should watch some Iranian state media because it is hilarious and wild. Like the way that they address the situation. We are doing so great. Everything is perfectly under control and we are winning so hard. It's, it's so great. It's so great.

Alyssa Burgart (33:57)
Everything's fine here.

It sounds like Fox News.

Arghavan (34:19)
It's like that, but

it's worse than you can imagine. Like some people might have seen this clip and if you saw this, you get a sense of it. There was ⁓ a news person who had invited on the foreign minister, Iran's foreign minister. And this person, I don't know why he asked this, but he goes, well, Trump is now talking about a ground invasion. How do you feel about that? And he's like, it's great. We look forward to it. And the guy was like, huh? And he goes,

Aren't you like worried about a ground invasion? And he's like, no, we feel very good about our chances. We have prepared for this. And a lot of people who saw it were like, what did he think he was gonna get as the answer? Did he not understand like these folks in this regime, they are masters of bravado. Did he think they were gonna say, ⁓ no, please don't do that, we're scared.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (35:08)
What's it going

to be like? Wait, they're really they're really going to do that.

Alyssa Burgart (35:12)
But

did they offer to pay the bill for the ground troops?

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (35:16)
I don't think America would tarot very well on this one. I think tarot, the concept of tarot would make Trump's brain explode. Trump couldn't understand the concept of tarot. It would make his brain melt. He couldn't handle that.

Arghavan (35:20)
Trump would be like, yes, please, here you go. It's a billion dollars a day. Sorry. ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (35:32)
I'm okay with trying it.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (35:34)
It's worth a shot. It's like in those old starts, you know what it's like, you probably didn't watch but like the old Star Trek original Star Trek every now and then there'd be an episode where like, Kirk Kirk would like run into like a computer and the computer would he had to beat the computer he had to like ask something like, what is love and the computer be like, I don't understand and explode. And you would have to be the same thing with Trump like, what is generosity and he'd like his brain would blow up, you know.

Alyssa Burgart (35:41)
Excuse me, how dare you? Of course I did.

Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep.

Arghavan (36:03)
Okay, so continuing on our little tour of updates, this does connect to a point I wanted to make around what the rhetoric is from the US government lately and what problems that might be causing. And the first one I'm gonna point out connects back to what you said, Kave, about the attacks on the schools showing just how little the US government cares. And by the way, there's not been an apology from anyone about that or an acknowledgement that maybe they were working without data.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (36:26)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Hegsith is looking into

it. Yeah.

Arghavan (36:31)
Yeah, right. Anyway,

so Hexath said, to our Steadfast partner Israel, your mission is being executed with unmatched skill and iron determination. And I wanna share that because a lot of people are like, it's just confirmation of something that Rubio actually said before that.

This is not the US's war. This is Israel's war and we are subservient to Israel and their goals in this war. I'm not saying that I'm just saying that that's what between this quote and what Rubio said about how the reason we attacked Iran was that Israel was going to attack and there was going to be a counter attack. And so we figured we would be part of the counter attack. So we might as well be part of the attack and you know what I'm saying? So that there does seem to be this narrative rising, which I think doesn't sit well with a lot of US citizens, including

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (37:19)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (37:26)
those in the government. And related to that, want to say one more thing about Hegseth and I want to hear your responses. He was asked about Russia and whether Russia is helping Iran or if he's worried about Russia wading into this war and supporting Iran because they have long been allies. And he said, the only ones that need to be worried are Iranians that think they're going to live.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (37:48)
Yeah, yeah, that was a weird one. That was a really weird one. Very telling. wasn't like, again, it goes to show he doesn't look at the IRGC versus Iranian people. He sees Iran as one monolith over there of like angry Brown, and that's all he cares about. And that's all he wants. Yeah, that I have to say, I heard him say that and I was chilled. I really did not enjoy that.

Arghavan (38:01)
Mm-mm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (38:14)
Well, because

he announced he wants a genocide.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (38:17)
Yeah, yeah, and I don't think we're reading too much into that. Like, you know, ⁓ he is a dumb dumb and he doesn't think carefully about what he says. I think that's clear. But, you know, I think at his point, he is used to communicating with people on TV. He knows there's certain things that you can and cannot say. And when you go to that point, he's like, he's basically and the crowd loves it. I think he's like bass still love it. You know, I mean, there's a.

The Republican party is still on board. They're on board.

Arghavan (38:51)
To be honest, mean, even Megyn Kelly, who, Elissa and I have talked about on our show, we don't, we're not fans, just to be clear, but she's been, I can't imagine why, ⁓ she's like 15 year olds or adults, no problem. Anyway, ⁓ she has been very vocally against this war. Piers Morgan, who's not in the US, but he's also been like, what are you all doing? What are you doing hitting a school? ⁓

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (38:57)
Really?

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Arghavan (39:16)
I mean, Nick Fuentes, just to go there, hold on one second. Nick Fuentes is like, I've had it with this administration. We all need to vote for the Democrats. Like literally that is what he said. We all need to vote for the Democrats in the next election.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (39:18)
Nick Foyntez, yeah, sure.

Yes, he says that

now he says at first I so I saw that Nick Fuentes piece when he said that and I mean, boy, that's weird. Yeah, Nick Fuentes is a white nationalist creep for sure. there's but I honestly, the difference between the people on the far right, the right in general, and the people that are not are that when it push comes to shove, they are going to stand together.

Arghavan (39:38)
mean, he's a wackadoodle, so I'm not.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (39:57)
And when push comes to shove, Nick Quentin is going to vote for whoever Republican comes in. ⁓ So I don't feel strongly about it. the polling so far shows Republicans are on board. But yeah, I mean, is it really polling? I don't know, because it certainly doesn't seem to fit like the thought leaders. The thought leaders seem to be against this. But how that shifts over time and how the Republican Party goes, I'm pretty cynical about that myself now. So I don't. We'll see what happens with the midterm elections.

Arghavan (40:15)
Hmm.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (40:25)
I think it'll be really an interesting, very telling, and I'm very hopeful about that. But I'm also not gonna be shocked if the line holds and they stay, they totally stay on board.

Arghavan (40:37)
Yeah. Okay, wanna, know we really wanted to get to some ⁓ listener questions. So let me try to wrap this up. ⁓ Couple of other key points though. One that we don't really have to spend too much time on is that Iran did announce the new Supreme Leader to replace Khamenei and drum roll, please, it's his son. Wow, what a change. Yeah. Okay, so I do wanna just make one point about this, which is that actually,

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (40:56)
How weird. Nepotism.

Arghavan (41:04)
Khomeini, so the first supreme leader of Iran, the guy who was in charge after the 1979 revolution, was very explicitly opposed to hereditary succession. And that is supposed to be a key tenet of this Islamic revolution that happened in Iran, is that it was going to be distinct from having a king, right, and having a monarchy in that there would not be hereditary succession. And yet...

Here we are, we're somehow, it just worked so well. There was no one else.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (41:32)
See, but it just works so well.

Alyssa Burgart (41:37)
I mean, we need someone and

we need them fast. So I guess we'll take this guy.

Arghavan (41:41)
And

he's still alive at the moment, unlike some of the other folks. But the thing I would just mention for folks who aren't aware is that in Iran, the Supreme Leader is seen as a representative of God and as like a conduit to God. That's part of why it's not supposed to be like someone's kid, because that's not a, I mean, we can laugh about this, but it's not a hereditary trait to be a conduit to God. So it was supposed to be like,

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (42:01)
Hereditary god godliness is hereditary. You know that right?

Arghavan (42:08)
Like, you know, our government here loves to talk about meritocracy. It was supposed to be a meritocratic method of choosing like this supreme religious leader based on their scholarship and their blah-bitty blah, how close they are to God, blah. I mean, like, obviously none of that is real, but that's what it's supposed to be. And they're just throwing all that away to pick the last guy's son.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (42:26)
Hot.

man,

I for one am shocked that the Islamic regime has not picked the best person for the gig. That's wild to me. By the way, I should say, it's Sunday night we're recording this. There is a little bit of reporting out there. Now, it hasn't been validated yet, but that he might have been injured in the attacks and how well he is at this point isn't quite clear. ⁓ But he is somebody that is

probably going to be carrying along the hard line. That's probably what we're going to see. We're not gonna see any change. There was a little bit of discussion of like, ooh, could they maybe pick like a moderate, like reformer or something like one of the former presidents, but it seems unlikely. He is an interesting guy in that he is, you know, apparently fluent in English. He did psychology and studied psychoanalysis and he's like very modern, et cetera. But I mean, you know what that means, probably very little at the end of the day, probably the figurehead.

Arghavan (43:25)
No, I mean, think people

expect that he's going to be even more harsh than his father was. And he, by the way, is a grifter.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (43:31)
Yeah, we killed his whole

family. Yeah, he's not going to be great about it.

Arghavan (43:35)
Yeah, exactly.

Alyssa Burgart (43:35)
I mean,

we have a government run by a bunch of people that supposedly also went to college. So I don't know. I mean, I just don't think that that in and of itself is like this indicator.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (43:42)
All

Arghavan (43:45)
No, but he has really exploited the wealth of the country to his own personal benefit in ways that even... Yes, it's a very...

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (43:45)
Good point. Good point.

Alyssa Burgart (43:54)
Very American.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (43:55)
Yeah, right. We're so

alike. Why are we fighting with just we have so much in common? Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (43:57)
Who did it best? It's the next Us Weekly edition.

Arghavan (44:01)
I mean, I think Iran mastered the oligarchy before the US did. They were really like ahead of the game on that one.

It's just a religious oligarchy or at least on the surface of it superficially. ⁓ So yeah, think the concern is he's probably going to be ⁓ worse ⁓ than his father was. Yay for the people of Iran. Thank you, ⁓ US and Israel for having helped us get to this point. ⁓

I will say, to your point about his injuries, there were multiple reports that he was dead. ⁓ They were wrong, I think, although we haven't seen proof of life. But he could become... Anyway.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (44:33)
Yeah. Right. Thank you. Mostly dead is

Alyssa Burgart (44:37)
I'm not dead yet.

Just a flesh wound.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (44:44)
mostly dead.

Arghavan (44:47)
Trump has said that this is not his preferred person to be the next leader in Iran, not that anyone really cares.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (44:53)
As if he knows

any names of any of these people. He knows none of them.

Arghavan (44:56)
Well, he did say,

you probably saw this, but he did say that like the people he had hoped or who he had in mind for potential next candidates were all people he killed in the initial strike. So, you know, who knows who those people were or whether they would have been like any good at all. But anyway, ⁓ more incompetence all around from our government. OK, I want to say two more things. ⁓ One is the Iranian U.S. women's soccer team has been in Australia playing in a tournament called the Asian Cup.

the first match, the opening match that they had in this tournament, the team did not sing the national anthem while it was playing. And that is a great offense to the Islamic Republic of Iran. ⁓ State television broadcast a message saying that they were traitors during wartime and that they needed to be punished severely for their treason. And Sunday in Australia, which they're ahead of us. So it happened probably actually like a day ago now.

But for us, but anyway, so they played their last match Sunday and they got onto this bus. They were supposed to somehow make their way back to Iran with the whole airport situation, whatever, I don't know the logistics, but on the bus as they're leaving, multiple of these women are seen making the international signal for distress and SOS, which is this for people who are seeing this on video. And then if you're not, it's your palm facing that other person, your thumb crosses over and then your four digits make a fist over your thumb.

So multiple, can see them through the windows, multiple of these women making that signal. And there's a crowd around them saying, save our girls and like wanting to protect them as the bus is driving away. And there's calls in Australia to get the politicians to do something to prevent them from being taken back because they risk detention and they risk honestly, because of this whole wartime thing, we need to be punishing people more severely. They are at risk of being executed for, I mean,

Alyssa Burgart (46:55)
mean,

literally just a few weeks ago, they were executing just tens of thousands of people. Like, why would we think that those girls are going to be able to go back there and like live their lives?

Arghavan (47:04)
Yeah, so that's another story that we're obviously watching closely and I'm very, very concerned for the safety of these women.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (47:13)
God, I hope Australia does the right thing and keeps them.

Arghavan (47:17)
Well, even do they have a chance, you know, because there's been stories that they've been, ⁓ that there's like somebody from the IRGC embedded with, or at least with, from the regime embedded in their, not their team, but their kind of entourage. Exactly. They're not even allowed to talk to people. I just saw a video today actually of a woman who is a soccer fan, in Australia. And she said the only way she can see any of these players is if she goes and sits in their hotel lobby and she can wave at them while they.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (47:28)
Well, I'm sure they have a handler. They must have a couple.

Arghavan (47:46)
walk by because the Iranian government will not let them talk to anyone, even people they may personally know, friends who they have in the country. ⁓ So their movements are tightly controlled. I genuinely don't know what's going to happen.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (48:02)
Yeah, that's so scary. mean that. And it's so it you know, sometimes it does take a couple of human stories like that to bring people into it. Like there's a there is this component of like Americans are able to sort of tune out what they hear that we're bombing a country. We've been doing it for so long. Yeah, so it's easy to tune out like I mean, making the stories real is like incredibly important.

Arghavan (48:21)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (48:22)
we've been doing it our whole lives.

Arghavan (48:24)
Thank

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (48:31)
Maybe we'll get lucky and Ben Affleck will do a movie about it and people will care, you know? Like, that's all we can hope for because like we do need to like have somebody, like we need stories like this that will show people the human component of what's happened.

Arghavan (48:44)
Yeah,

and it's so hard to get those stories because no one's allowed to get into Iran except for as we're talking about, I think before we started recording one CNN guy and who knows, you know what they're approving of him to share with the world. Okay, the last thing I want to say before we get into at least hopefully a couple of questions is something that Trump said and I want to play you this audio. This was within the last couple of days. It's very short. Don't worry. It's not great.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (48:57)
Yeah, right.

I'm gonna hate it aren't I?

Arghavan (49:14)
Okay, it's a very short

Iran looks the same after this is all done? No, I can't tell you. Probably not. That's it. So, yeah, understandably. So he's asked, will the map of Iran change after all this? And he said, well, I don't know, but probably is not going to be the same, essentially. ⁓ And the reason I want to highlight that is

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (49:23)
fucking hate this guy so much fucking hate this guy so much absolutely hate him

Arghavan (49:43)
You know, I've talked before and Kaveh and I have talked too about how some Iranians have been so desperate with the current regime that they have that they thought, okay, maybe if an outside source can destabilize the regime, maybe that gives us an opportunity to overthrow the regime. Not because they think the US is gonna do it for them or that the US cares about them at all, but that they just don't have resources themselves. I mean, they've tried many times out in the streets with their voices and rocks and all that's happened is they've gotten killed.

⁓ What I've said before is that I don't think bombing like IRGC military sites is going to make the average Iranian More supportive of their government, which I understand people call me all people that really upset people when I said that people call me lots and lots of names Said I didn't know anything about history and it's not like it's happened every single time in every other country and and so on and and I'm not disagreeing

Alyssa Burgart (50:36)
I'm sorry, so the response is not all men?

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (50:39)
Hehehehehe ⁓

Arghavan (50:41)
The response was

you're a moron as per usual. But basically, and I don't know, I mean, I don't know, the reason I said what I said is I know and Kavan knows, a lot of us know how much Iranians, the majority of Iranians hate that regime. So you go in, whoever you are, you could be an ally of Iran, you could be anybody.

and you take out the people who are responsible for tormenting them or at least their bases, I don't see how that makes people rally around the government that's been killing them. That's all I said, but apparently that was like totally ludicrous and a historical. Anyway, that calculus changes once you start doing things like they're doing attacking these oil depots, the desalination plant, the pharmacy or the drug manufacturing facility. And then you say,

we're going to also take your land. That, well yeah, also that.

Alyssa Burgart (51:38)
And by the way, we're down with genocide. Totally fine with it. So, I mean,

but this is the thing, right? I'm like, I also don't understand people who are like, but now they're gonna love Americans. And I'm like, are you what?

Arghavan (51:50)
yeah, that I don't think is gonna

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (51:50)
Mmm. Mmm.

Arghavan (51:51)
happen. yeah.

I think that's also part of what happened to me, by the way, is that people made an assumption that when I said I like waffles, or that I like waffles, I hate pancakes. Nope, nope. Talk about waffles separate from talking about pancakes. So if I say no, I don't think it's bombing IRGC military bases is going to make the Iranian people rally around the Islamic Republic of Iran, that does not mean I think they're going to rally around the US. Like that's not likely to happen either. But anyway, my point is just that if,

It seems as it does based on that clip at least that they are the US is interested in breaking up the country in some way taking some of the land away. Then now you're on in people I think on the whole are going to be like no, no the fuck you won't.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (52:36)
It shows such little care and knowledge about the history of the Middle East and the Western involvement in it. I can't imagine he knows about how the lines of the Middle East and countries were drawn after World War II. I'm sure he has no idea what Churchill's hiccup is. I'm sure he doesn't care about any of these things. But people there will. And the fact that he doesn't understand that tells you like how unserious this is.

Arghavan (52:41)
Mm-hmm.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (53:06)
I'm going to remain hopeful because it's easier for my brain that something good could potentially come out of this for the Iranian people. But I've our track record and seen the Western powers track record when they get involved in Iran and also in the Middle East in general. And it's very concerning. It's very concerning to me. I will be the first, maybe not the first, I will be one to begrudgingly hand it to him if something good comes out of this. I mean, won't forgive

the approach and how many innocent people got hurt from this. But if something good were to come out of it and you know, Ron were to have a quote unquote democratic election, things were to work out in favor of the Iranian people, you know, that's something we have to at least credit him for and understand. But the thing is, when you come at it with this perspective, like, yeah, maybe the maps will get drawn differently, who cares? What's the big deal? Like, we'll just change a line here and a line there and whoever lives here is obviously now going to be over there and

They'll clearly all be fine with it, no one will mind. I mean, it tells you how little they care about the actual history of what's happened and how it brought us to this point. How Western involvement in drawing lines in the Middle East has created so much conflict and got us to the point we're at right now. And that part really bothers me.

Arghavan (54:25)
Mm-hmm. Yep. So on that note, should we answer some listener questions?

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (54:31)
Yay.

Alyssa Burgart (54:31)
Absolutely,

and I'm ready to read some of them to you. All right. ⁓ Well, one person had asked, what do you wish the average American knew about Iran? And the two of you have obviously dropped a lot of knowledge. But tell me something lovely that every American should know about Iran.

Arghavan (54:34)
All right, let's do it.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (54:53)
Archivon, wanna go first?

Arghavan (54:54)
Sure, so Iranians love poetry. I'm probably not like the best example, but in general, because I'm like, not that. You see how bad I am with words. Iranians, you know, like we have, I mean, obviously such a long and rich history of philosophers and poets, writers, and our people get quoted all the time, you know, on inspirational, whatever, notepads and whatever.

that's embedded into like the fabric of our entire society. I was just at an event today because Persian New Year is coming up as we've talked about before and they have this fair every year that is ⁓ for helping people prepare for New Year's and so there's certain things that you need to have for your half scene which is a table we talk about that anyway there's all these things and they have like artwork and they have jewelry and they have

food. I was there selling jam that my mom made from the fruits in her yard. And then she signed me up for this job of selling them. so there was an artist there who had these paintings that they had made with Persian rugs, like tactile pieces of Persian rugs and then sayings that are written. mean, people have definitely seen our script. It's gorgeous. Like you see it on mosques, for example. It's just beautiful.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (55:59)
Nice.

you

Arghavan (56:22)
But that means you can't really read it all that well, just like my necklace. Like this is Farsi, but even people who speak Farsi and write Farsi can't really read it. And so I would ask like, what does it even say on this thing? And it's always some like elaborate thing. I have walked the earth to find you, my tiny piece of gold, whatever, I don't know. I don't remember exactly what it but it's like very romantic and poetic. Yeah.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (56:43)
Yeah. There's a floweriness to the language that

like, that is unparalleled. There's like poetry and everyday speech. Like when you miss somebody, it's not just I miss you, it's my heart tightens when you're not there. When your friend wasn't at a party, it's not, oh, dude, we miss you, man. It would have been great if they are. It's your space that we held for you was empty, and we kept it there empty. That's the little things that we say.

Arghavan (56:54)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (57:10)
that it seeps into the everyday like vernacular and that's in our brains. So yeah, and every Iranian man thinks he's a poet. So I mean, I don't know if it's true for Iranian women as much, but every Iranian man thinks he's a poet. And so there is something deep in the core of Iranians in that way.

Arghavan (57:18)
Yeah.

There's also like one expression

of warmth is it's like an I love you, but it's I would sacrifice myself for you. And it's not like you save these things for special occasions. It's just like how you talk.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (57:39)
No, you see a dog that's cute,

you're like, I would die for you. You'll hear people say like a baby, we'll show them a baby and they'll be like, I would give my life for you right now. And it sounds like not dark when they say it too, which is what's funny. It's like really sweet and like, it's not like that heavy. It's like really like fun and like light in a way. And so yeah, no, that's a good one. Yeah. For me, I think Iranians really want, are really proud and they really want people to know

Arghavan (57:43)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (58:01)
Excellent.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (58:08)
their history because we've been largely written out of the history book. Our contributions have been massive from everything from high heels to neurosurgery. Iranians like ancient Persians were like the first people to do that and they don't get credit for that. I'm gonna tell you something right now it's gonna blow your mind. The first pizza was the Aqmined Empire. Soldiers in the Aqmined Empire were the first people to develop pizza. They would have their fires, they'd have they all be out, the soldiers would be out, they'd have a fire, they put two poles.

They put their shield over it. They put the bread out. It wasn't like pizza, as you know today. It was like a little bit of feta cheese and dates, and they put it over there. The concept of a pizza was there. The first evidence of noodles was actually probably from the Persian Empire. These are little things, and people are going to go crazy. You have an Italian listener right now who's about to lose his mind. ⁓ But they're just going have to trust me on this and Google it. Little things like that just constantly were written out of history.

Arghavan (58:59)
What?

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (59:06)
And like people are now starting to realize the first beer that was ever fermented on purpose was in the Zagros mountains. Where was it? Zagros mountains? There's some mountains in Iran. Like there's all these things that we were like a part of that like we totally got written out of it. Persians want you to know that. So like it's going to sound like we're

Arghavan (59:27)
We're cool

too man, we're also cool. We did cool things.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (59:29)
Yeah, you're gonna think it sounds

like we're doing the whole like, like, big fat Greek wedding where they say Greeks did all this stuff, but we actually did. And you can Google it. And it's there. Like, I swear to God, this is an example. Like a couple of weeks ago, or maybe longer, I'm sitting around, and someone talks about goats because the movie goat came out with like Steph Curry's movie goat. And I was like, you know what, what sort of goats is, and I pull up the Wikipedia page, I'm just looking up goats.

Alyssa Burgart (59:37)
you

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (59:58)
and you know where they were first domesticated? Ancient Persia. I'm like, we domesticated goats. We gave you people goats. And I'm like, it's just so random, like the stuff like that. we're like super like, so anyways, that's something people should know is that we're very proud of our contributions to the world. And we feel that we've been written out and we're trying hard, many of us, to push that now and to show that. I actually have a new podcast coming out.

Alyssa Burgart (1:00:06)
You're welcome.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:00:24)
That's going to be just about that. It's a separate podcast. I'm sure Arga Vans, you're to come on at some point. ⁓ And I have Shaheen Davari from the show Survivor. He's going to be ⁓ doing it with me. It's going to be a fun show. So we'll be doing that as well as of course, the House of Pods. So that's what I would say.

Alyssa Burgart (1:00:39)
Is that

what all those books are for? You're prepping?

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:00:42)
No, this

is just for me to finally learn what the hell happened to Iran. You know, really, no.

Arghavan (1:00:46)
So.

Alyssa Burgart (1:00:49)
Wonderful. ⁓ we, Argaman and I have talked before about the ⁓ internet blackout and I've read a little bit about these like white SIM cards. These are clearly big effects on freedom of speech and propaganda. Like what should people know about those or about that blackout?

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:01:11)
That's a good question, Nargill.

Arghavan (1:01:11)
Yeah.

think it's important for people to know that this is part of the propaganda that we were talking about before. The government in Iran shuts down the internet anytime there's discord and that prevents ⁓ a few things. It prevents the people inside Iran from telling their stories and getting any narratives out about what's actually happening on the ground, or at least it prevents to a great extent. Some people are able to use VPNs, satellites, other...

methods to get around the internet blackout, but it's a very small proportion of people. And so they're basically just squashing people's voices, silencing people so that they can put out whatever they want, you know, via their state-sponsored media or journalists on the rare occasion that they let in people like the CNN journalist, they still have ⁓ veto power over anything these folks make. And so they're controlling that too. And that's

powerful in an information age, they have by shutting down the internet, they have complete control almost of the narrative about what's happening so they can push out their propaganda and it's very, very hard to counter it.

Alyssa Burgart (1:02:24)
And it seems like the IRGC really infiltrates every industry, every aspect of Iranian life. And so it seems like being able to overcome that is extremely difficult.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:02:38)
Yeah, I mean, it's pervasive and the fear of it is pervasive. And there's a good reason to be afraid. mean, they'll disappear people. That's not an unheard of thing. They'll take people, they'll arrest people. Yeah, so what happened to protesters? Yeah, yeah. So people are afraid. mean, and whether or not they all need to be afraid or not, it's hard to say, but they have ruled through fear. And it's worked ⁓ very well and people have stood up to it recently.

Alyssa Burgart (1:02:49)
I mean, we saw all the dead bodies.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:03:07)
really bravely and been murdered in the tens of thousands for it. So it is a challenge. that kind of goes through another thing that like people ask a lot, which is like, well, what should we be doing? I think Argofond would probably agree with me. We're just two voices in the diaspora and we're probably not the same voices you would hear on a different podcast. Everyone has a different opinion. And what I think most of us should agree on is that what's important is getting internet access to those people so we can hear what's happening.

You know, I do have limited contact, ⁓ partially because of the podcast has helped, you know, with people ⁓ abroad, people who are able to get around the blackout. And I hear from those people, but is it the voice of is it representative of the country? can't say I mean, it's just what I'm hearing. So it's I would we would love to hear it. We'd love to hear I mean, are the majority of Iranians saying this is terrible, and we're willing to do it. We're willing to go through it. That's one thing. ⁓ It's not what I'm hearing. But

⁓ I'm only hearing a limited sample. So that would be for me the most important thing is finding ways to work around the blackout.

Alyssa Burgart (1:04:16)
Great. And on that note, are there any humanitarian organizations that folks should support ⁓ that are able to currently help Iranians who are trying to survive these attacks? I know it's very early in this current situation, but are there any groups that you would recommend people look to?

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:04:35)
It's a good question, Argument. I don't know if you know, I mean, I'm a big fan of Doctors Without Borders. I think they've done good work, they're solid. know politically, not everyone will align with that, and there's gonna be some issues, but I think in terms of big scale service, I think they've done a good job, but they have, to my knowledge, not been there at all. So, a little bit loud. Yeah.

Arghavan (1:04:56)
No, I would be surprised if they're allowed to enter.

It's a great question and I really love where it's coming from too. So I shout out to the person who asked that question. There are organizations like Hanga or Hrana or Iran Human Rights ⁓ that are organizations that track human rights issues in Iran. ⁓ But my knowledge, I don't think even Hanga, I have to fact check myself on Hanga, but the other two are not based in Iran. ⁓

it's hard to do that work from inside Iran, you'd be shut down. And I think this person wasn't even asking about that. I think they were thinking about like actual aid, right? How do we get food to people? How do we help people if they do want to leave, how do we help them get out? And one of the major challenges that every Iranian in the US has been aware of our whole lives is that there's no trade between the US and Iran.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:05:27)
Right? Yeah.

Right.

Arghavan (1:05:47)
There's no wire transfer, bank transfer, getting money in and out of Iran when you are based in the US is really, really difficult, even when there's not a war. You kind of have to have a mediator who can go buy money on the black market and exchange it for you. And so getting money to folks is, I'm not personally aware, if anybody listening to this has an organization that they think can help people financially in Iran, please let us know, but I'm not aware.

of an organization that is well publicized that is able to do that. And part of it is because they would probably be at risk if they did and people knew that they did it. So it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I'm just not personally connected to them. And they don't, I think, really advertise because it's a risky, risky thing to do. So basically, I appreciate the question. And I don't know that I have a great answer.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:06:30)
Yeah.

Right.

Yeah,

I don't think anyone does. I don't think there is one.

Arghavan (1:06:44)
I mean, there is

Alyssa Burgart (1:06:44)
Yeah.

Arghavan (1:06:45)
the red crescent, which is the Iranian version of Red Cross. But again, I don't know how we would support them financially because they're in Iran.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:06:47)
Iranian version of the Red Cross, yeah.

And there is

now stories that they aren't even really, that they are actually contributing to numbers for the regime.

Arghavan (1:07:01)
It's very hard to tell and

we've seen people wearing their ⁓ uniforms and saying regime propaganda and it's not clear if they're people masquerading as Red Crescent or if that's the Red Crescent basically part of the regime. I agree, it's hard to know.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:07:10)
Yeah. Right.

Alyssa Burgart (1:07:17)
Okay, well, we will keep our eyes and ears out for places that hopefully are going to figure out how folks outside of Iran can help support. ⁓ But I thought we would close on less of a downer question. ⁓ I've gotten the impression, and correct me if I'm wrong, that Iranians like to eat. And so I was hoping we could talk a little bit about some Iranian foods and like naruzas coming up. I there's some very special holiday foods like

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:07:38)
Mmm.

Alyssa Burgart (1:07:47)
Tell me what I gotta eat.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:07:49)
Oh, man. This is you shouldn't have asked me this question. This is this is not a question you're going to get a short answer. I'm okay. All right. All right. Okay. So let me let me just put you this. This is my thought and and I'm going to try and super simplify what I have a ton of thoughts on one I will say this. I don't think Iranian sweets are the best. That's

Arghavan (1:08:01)
Kavehora's dissertation is coming.

Alyssa Burgart (1:08:01)
All right, how about this? Top

three Iranian foods.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:08:20)
We do a of things really well. know, I know this is controversial. I don't like rose water. don't like, okay, just take your time. I will tell you this, our dinners, our lunches, our savory meals, our meals are on par with the best food in the world. If you talk to like some of the best chefs, like the people who know food, like

Arghavan (1:08:22)
No, I'm gonna, no, I can't stand for that. I'm gonna, gonna, I'm gonna be...

I'm just warning you, I will be responding to that.

Alyssa Burgart (1:08:30)
Yeah, but Argovand is going to bring you a plate of cookies.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:08:45)
They clearly love Persian food. It's like up there for them with like French or whatever, like, you know, they consider like the best food. So if you have the opportunity and you know, here in the Area, listen, you do, ⁓ you should go to a Persian restaurant. Now, this is not gonna be the case for everyone. So I mean, for you out there, you're gonna have to Google some recipes. Samin Nosrat has a couple of great cookbooks. ⁓

Batman Glitch. can't, I know got her name right, but she has a famous book called The Food of Life. She's a very interesting lady. Her two sons are like these really cool twin gay guys who one of them is in the band Vampire Weekend. The other one is a ⁓ film director. They're very cool, very talented family and she wrote a very famous cookbook. So you're stuck there. But if you have the opportunity to go to a Persian restaurant, I would say there's two things you should probably get between you and whoever you're there with, hopefully.

one of you should get the chicken, the jujia kabob, which is like the chicken thighs, they're marinated overnight, usually, it's really simple, it comes with rice and there's lots of ways to eat that and there's lots of things to ornament it with, but that's like one of the main ones. And the other thing to get, which is kind of like the bread and butter of a good Persian restaurant is a dish called kubideh, which is either a mixture of ground beef and lamb or just ground beef. ⁓ And it is like ground beef on a skewer and it's charbroiled and it's

absolutely delicious. if you do those two things, you're gonna be in good shape. And you can do lots of other things. There's lots of other options. But if you do those two things, that's kind of a good introduction to Persian food. All right. Give yourself

Alyssa Burgart (1:10:24)
Excellent. Well, I did just look up Samin

Nozrat's 10 essential Persian recipes and I will put a link to it in the show notes for anyone who wants to try.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:10:31)
Yeah,

she's great. She's great.

Arghavan (1:10:33)
Okay, so Khanumah Badmangilij, her name is Najmia Badmangilij. That's the other book that he was talking about. That's the author. So this is interesting. understanding, just bear with me for a moment. It's gonna be short, but it's a little detour. There is a book, a cookbook for any Farsi readers out there. You will already know this, but it's Kitab Khanumah Montezami. So Montezami is the name of the person and it's a woman who wrote, I mean, this is like the Bible for,

every Persian cook really. She has every recipe for any Persian food you have ever heard of, including the sweets that Kaveh doesn't like because he has bad taste. We're gonna come back to that. just because you haven't had...

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:11:17)
Just being honest, let's call it. Let's call it what it is. Rosewater stinks.

Every Persian person tries to be like, ⁓ you haven't had it done right. You need the right mixture of rosewater. ⁓ I'm sorry. OK, I'm going to hit. OK, you're right. You're right. Sorry. Sorry.

Arghavan (1:11:30)
Okay, put a pin in it. My turn, my turn. So anyway,

this Kitab al-Khani al-Mu'intazani, as far as I know, there is not an English translation. So if any enterprising person out there is in the book world, like I do think that's a major opportunity, translate that thing into English. It will sell like bonkers. But in the meantime, I believe, Najmeh Badmagiddi,

kind of created the part of the reason she created that book was aversion in English. It's not nearly as thorough as the book that I'm talking about, but it's a good, you know, basic go-to for anyone looking to get into Persian cookie. Okay. Like, just to give you a sense, anytime I talk to my mom, mom, how do I make da-da-da-da? She's like, well, what does it say in the Kitab-e-Khanim-e-Montez-e-Zami? I'm like, I don't know because you know that I don't read Farsi fast enough to be able to figure that out. So why don't you tell me, look it up in your copy, you know, let me know. So that's how it goes.

Especially with as is obvious the older generation who grew up in Iran Okay, this I do want to make a point about the sweets. Yes. I do think that they're not necessarily For everyone with us tastes there is as a cover was alluding to like a lot of Persian sweets have Rosewater in them and some people are like why yeah, why do want roses in my dessert? That's weird

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:12:39)
Aromatics and stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (1:12:44)
see, and I love a rose flavor, so I love Persian food that has rose flavored.

Arghavan (1:12:48)
You know what, I

am with you 100%.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:12:49)
Got good news for you, sister. You're

gonna love it.

Arghavan (1:12:54)
So that

is one thing, but not all of them have that. So, you know, we, as I told you last week, Kaavé, like, you know, our family ⁓ and our friends make Persian New Year cookies every year and we make a lot of different kinds. So there's the rice flour cookies that, I mean, do you also, do you really not like even the rice flour cookies with the poppy seeds?

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:13:15)
Listen, listen, this is the most American thing about me. I do love my dessert. I think I hear what you're saying. It's a really good point. It's like it is really, they're delicate, they're interesting. I just have a very American palate. But I will say, person food is universal. I mean, that's everyone who like that. Which one's that? No, I mean, it's fine. I'll have, I'll eat it.

Arghavan (1:13:28)
You have American taste. Okay, what about...

Okay, but what about Nuh-uh-dee? You don't like Nuh-uh-dee either? That's the chickpea flour one that is like...

It like just melts

in your mouth.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:13:41)
someone will give it to me and I party and be like, you're gonna love this. I'll be like, thank you.

Arghavan (1:13:46)
Okay, that one doesn't even have any rose water. It's just cardamom, butter, flour, sugar. mean, like what's more pure than... Me too.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:13:51)
I know, but it doesn't do it.

Alyssa Burgart (1:13:52)
See, that's the other thing is I love cardamom, so

it's great. Well, listen, listen, I have already been to the cookie party at Argavan's friend's house and I like walked away. got a whole container of the rice cookies and the seeded cookies and they were fabulous.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:13:55)
You're gonna, you're, listen, you're gonna love, have her try to do as well while you're...

Arghavan (1:13:57)
She's Iranian, basically.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:14:03)
party.

Yeah, hey, that's great.

Arghavan (1:14:11)
See, listeners,

Alyssa knows what she's talking about. Kavis sometimes does, but not on this point. Just give us a chance. Huh? ⁓

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:14:20)
people I know my food. I know my food. Look at me. I'm a large

mammal. I know food.

Arghavan (1:14:28)
All right, anyway, I'm just saying there's the okay, there's the rice flour cookies. There's the there's two different chickpea cookies that we make ⁓ And then the second one I bet you actually have never had the second one. It's much more less common. It's called their stock their sugar no, Hachi Anyway, maybe if we ever meet up in real life since we don't live that far from each other. I'll give you It's true. It's true. I meant again, you know in the future ⁓ So bear sugar no, Hachi we have the raisin cookies. The raisin cookies are actually like pretty American

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:14:46)
We have! We've met up in real life.

Yeah, okay.

Arghavan (1:14:57)
Palette friendly, they're just, yeah. And you don't like those either? Okay, they're fine. Okay.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:14:58)
Yeah, yeah. They're fine. They don't I mean, I'm never like craving them. I never see them

on a plate. I'm like, Oh, well, I'm gonna ruin my diet for that. No. If I see like a bowl of cookies and cream, I'm gonna be like, Yeah, I got I'm gonna have to do that. Yeah.

Arghavan (1:15:13)
Okay,

raisin cookies, what else? have, I bet you've never had gandomi, but I think just based on what you're saying, I don't think that would matter for you. I don't think you really love them that much. There's the walnut cookies, the almond cookies. I'm guessing you don't like this. You do like the walnut cookies.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:15:24)
I do like the Walnut cookies. I do

like there's an almond cookie. It's an almond cookie, sorry. There's an almond cookie that gets like the same concept. And I like that. And I like almonds a lot.

Arghavan (1:15:33)
Okay,

we found one thing. See, I told you it's not all bad. We found one thing that even Kaveh liked.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:15:35)
Sure. course,

it's not all bad. just saying, listen, I want credibility here. And for that reason, have to call it as I seize it. And I think our food is up there. I have to live my truth. I think clearly we do rice better than anyone. Sorry, the Japanese. But we do rice better than anyone out there. And then our savory meats and soft cheese. And also, I will say this. Speaking of that same author, how do you say her name? Batman Glade?

Arghavan (1:15:46)
You have to live your truth,

I think

it's Batman Gilead.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:16:06)
Batman Glitch. She also has a new book. It's called June, J-O-O-N, which means deer in Farsi. And it's a book she wrote for her sons and for younger generations of how to cook ⁓ Persian food. And one of the great things about Persian food is it's really easy to make it as a vegan meal because you don't, there's no dairy that goes into it. And you don't have to do the things with meat. There's lots of legumes. There's lots of stuff you can do that are just as filling, give you all that protein.

And you can have a really great Mediterranean diet with Persian food, particularly Northern style Persian food, which is where my family's from. So you look at you. It's a fancy. Who's more gilaki here? I don't know. ⁓ Let's not do this in front of let's not fight in front of the lady.

Arghavan (1:16:40)
Mine too.

We in Arabic. Sorry.

Okay, wait, what I want to say real quick, I'm so glad you brought up this vegetarian vegan point because Alissa doesn't eat meat and neither do I. Ha ha!

Alyssa Burgart (1:16:58)
I know.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:16:59)
Yeah.

Yeah. So it's great. It's perfect. I mean, so, so like, it'll work. But then you for that, though, you don't get the stews, which are like really what Persians eat at home, you don't get that as good at most restaurants.

Arghavan (1:17:11)
It's true. the stews, this is a great point. You know, like we've talked many times about whore mishapsi, which is one of our favorites or fish in June, which is another good one. Those are generally, I'm not, no offense to anybody who owns a Persian restaurant. They're generally like less good at a restaurant than they are when you make them at home, mainly because there's so many regional differences in how they're made. And even like just your own family's version of it that you grew up with is usually what you're wanting if you're Iranian, of course. And then it's...

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:17:26)
Right.

Right.

Arghavan (1:17:39)
Unlikely to the restaurant is going to make it exactly that same way, but but it's not bad at a lot of places

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:17:44)
It's

still worth trying and you can get it vegetarian sometimes at the restaurants, but that's something you might want to make at home.

Arghavan (1:17:48)
Exactly exactly and there's something

There's some like eggplant dishes that ⁓ like there's one called mirrors of awesome me, which is a northern specialty That's not like everywhere. But if you see that any on any menu, it's worth a try. It's eggplant eggs and tomato It's really good. or cashew butterm June, which is ⁓ another eggplant dish That's usually these are usually served more as appetizers, but they're really Delicious if you like eggplant, both of those are wonderful

And then I cook usually what I do just so for folks at home listening, what I do with my stew.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:18:20)
Alyssa is

so regretting asking this question. ⁓

Arghavan (1:18:23)
It's

like, a few minutes later.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:18:28)
Yeah. ⁓

Arghavan (1:18:31)
Okay, last thing is what I was going to say is if folks want to make adaptations of those stews, like if you see them in these cookbooks, but you don't eat meat, I ⁓ this is pretty simple and maybe too boring for folks, but I just don't I do don't do the meat and then I put tofu so I have some protein for us and then I add mushrooms because I love mushrooms and they like make everything better. ⁓ And then I do the rest pretty much the same way. I mean, I don't just to be clear, I don't cook off of cookbooks. I don't actually know exactly what they say in them for like most of my Persian food, but

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:18:46)
Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Arghavan (1:19:00)
That's my general adaptation that I do to make it a turn.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:19:01)
Yeah, that's great. I recommend

it. I would include beans. There's a lot of Persian stews that already have beans as a part of it. think we should. No, yes. We could go into greater depth about the sour palate of the North versus the sweet palate of Tehran, which is disgusting. But that is not, it's neither here nor there. Neither here nor there. Well, that's for a different podcast completely.

Arghavan (1:19:08)
Yep. Yep.

Mmm.

Yeah, that's when we become food influencers. ⁓

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:19:31)
my god, that

would be the life and not worry about ⁓ vaccines not being taken and RFK Jr. my god, that'd be amazing.

Arghavan (1:19:40)
You just have to get out of the pocket of the pharmaceutical companies, and that'll be fine.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:19:43)
deep in the pocket of big fiber.

Arghavan (1:19:49)
the gastroenterologist. ⁓ I don't know, Alyssa, were there any other like burning questions that we can try to answer more succinctly than we have?

Alyssa Burgart (1:19:50)
We're back to Kellogg full circle.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:19:51)
Yeah, that's right.

I don't,

I think your show is done. ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (1:20:01)
I think we're,

I think we did it. I think, I mean, I purposefully ended on that, that food question because I thought it would be a joyful thing. I'll be honest, we did not expect the fighting.

Arghavan (1:20:06)
Well, that's right.

I it.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:20:13)
⁓ no. You're going to see that diaspora has different opinions. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Alyssa Burgart (1:20:17)
I get it. Sounds great.

Arghavan (1:20:18)
on literally everything. Anyway,

well, on that note, thank you so much for joining us, Kaveh June, a friend of the pod, as they say. ⁓ That's it for this.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:20:30)
you're getting the lingo

down. Look at you. Natural.

Arghavan (1:20:33)
Look at me. It's almost like we have a podcast. ⁓

That is it for this week's episode. ⁓ If you didn't like what you heard, this has been the House of Pod podcast.

Kaveh (The House Of Pod) (1:20:42)
That's a great,

you should listen to the House of Pod. I'm gonna plug it right now, the House of Pod. If you like this show, it's a lot like that, except it's not as smart, which is probably good for most Americans. So listen to us at the House of Pod. You'll enjoy it there. And you'll hear these two people.

Arghavan (1:20:56)
These two people. We do.

Alyssa Burgart (1:20:57)
We love the house of pod. Also

follow us on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. We are at the present illness and you can stay on top of all of our TPI related news.

Arghavan (1:21:06)
And if you did like the podcast, please subscribe or follow us on any of those platforms. And obviously wherever you get your podcasts, leave us a review and a rating if you can. And we'll be back next week with more headlines, hot takes and doom scrolling, hopefully wrapped in some laughs.

Alyssa Burgart (1:21:21)
And you won't believe it, we'll be back this week at the end of this week, because this is our bonus episode.

Arghavan (1:21:26)
You're right, is this week. It's

like five days from now, it feels like next week, but you're absolutely right. It's this week. We'll be back this week.

Alyssa Burgart (1:21:32)
So until then,

agitate, hydrate, take a nap, and we'll see you next time on The Present Illness. Production by Arghavan Salles and Alyssa Burgart. Editing by Alyssa Burgart. Social media by Arghavan Salles. Original music by Joseph Uphoff. Don't take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This shows for informational purposes. It's meant to be fun, and it is certainly not medical advice. So take your medical questions to a qualified professional.