Keeping out the Ephraimites

[muckefuck]

A coupla weeks ago, Zompist lent me a copy of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, billed as "the first Iranian comic book" ever. Notwithstanding the dubiousness of the claim, it's a solid, worthwhile work. Perhaps mollpeartree, who owns the English translation, will review it in a future entry? In any case, Satrapi recently flew to NYC to promote it and, as reported in the New York Times, got a lesson in how our hired guns protect the security of our homeland:

Upon arrival at Kennedy International Airport last Wednesday, she said, she was fingerprinted, photographed and interrogated by an immigration official who questioned why she called her home country "EE-rahn" instead of the Americanized "EYE-ran," and insisted that Ms. Satrapi pronounce it the American way.

As someone who habitually says i-RAHN, I'd be tempted to put "American" in scare quotes, however little that does to minimise the embarrassment of seeming like the kind of country that hires rural deputy material to secure the airports of cosmopolitan metropoles.

Furriners, consider this fair warning: Practice saying "EYE-rack", "suh-DAN", and "KIN-yuh" if you don't want to be cavity searched. And god help you those who blurt out "FRAHNS"!