Persia: Not Ahmadinejad's IranMy girlfriend is Persian, which is a nice way of saying "Iranian" if you live in America and want to draw a line between yourself and, say, ululating, consulate storming terrorists and elected Holocaust deniers. I'm serious. I believe it is this distinction that allows her brother, who is an actor, to get parts on Law and Order as an evil doctor or evil TV executive rather than being put in a long beard and told his character is planning to blow up mini-malls in Totowa.

Apparently, 6' 2" Persians are even harder to cast on TV than Mexicans. Or, as George Lopez, who's show was replaced by "Caveman," which is based on the Geico ad character, put it, "So a Chicano can't be on TV, but a caveman can?"

Of course, anyone who would confuse my girlfriend, a North Carolina born, Ivy-league educated lawyer who works for a bank with a terrorist would be the kind of person who doesn't doubt that Bin Laden has Totowa's famed Holiday Inn high on his list. ("They provided transportation to the mall.")

But growing up in the South in the '70s, she faced the pressure of being lumped in with the students holding Americans hostage--this despite her parents having moved to the US to avoid exactly the same extremist Islamic government.

Calling yourself "Persian" was the only recourse. Either people could understand the reason for distancing oneself from Iranian politics, or they simply had no idea where Persia was anymore than Paraguay. Either way, conflict avoided.

However the issue hasn't gone away and it's the same as it always has been: racism. It's what keeps Carlos Mencia on TV making the kind of fat, gay, black, Asian, Mexican, Jewish, jokes that frat boys, anonymous website commenters, and Beavis and Butthead enjoy. At least Beavis and Butthead was supposed to be ironic.

It's the same thing that Jewcy has been pointing out about the ADL selecting which kinds of genocides qualify as "mean spirited enough" to be real genocide.

There's no point trying to shut up the idiots, but at least we can call their bluff and remind them that they are what they are. On a trip to Australia an old man I'd met said to me, "New York City? You know there are 3 million Jews there?"

"No," I responded, "Actually, there's 2,999,999, because I'm here with you."