Happy Nowruz and happy birthday to the blog

Last year I wished Happy birthday to the blog and Happy Nowruz to all of you.  Since I'm an environmentalist, I'll recycle.

Today marks the second anniversary of the first post to this blog.  I already wished the blog a happy birthday last year, so I decided to do something different this year--appropriate Nowruz, the new year of Iran and its neighbors as an official celebration on this blog.

Although the holiday actually coincides with the Vernal Equinox, the United Nations has conveniently declared March 21st as the International Day of Nowruz.

International Nowruz Day was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly, in its resolution A/RES/64/253 of 2010, at the initiative of several countries that share this holiday (Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, India, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan.

Inscribed in 2009 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as a cultural tradition observed by numerous peoples, Nowruz is an ancestral festivity marking the first day of spring and the renewal of nature. It promotes values of peace and solidarity between generations and within families as well as reconciliation and neighbourliness, thus contributing to cultural diversity and friendship among peoples and different communities.

I celebrated Nowruz with my now ex-girlfriend once.  We went with one of her co-workers, a Baha'i woman, to what she called a "Persian New Year" celebration in Canada about ten years ago.  We had a great time.  In memory of that occasion and the remarkable coincidence that the blog's birthday just happens to fall on the day the U.N. declared for the holiday, I wish all of my readers a Happy Nowruz!

I do so again for the third anniversary of the first post to this blog.  Happy New Blog Year and Happy Persian New Year!


I'll have the past year's statistics tomorrow.  Stay tuned.