Golnar Nikpour on Iran, History & the Current Moment (Hour 1)

From Washington to Hollywood and right back to Wisconsin.

It's Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

Connecting the dots on the stories shaping our world with smart takes, sharp humor, and plenty of personality.

You know, I really expected more professional behavior from you.

It's news and culture without the noise.

Yeah, come on!

Here's Pete Schwabba.

Dude.

And Greg Bach.

Dude!

Welcome to Nightlight, folks.

Happy Tuesday, everybody.

It is great to have you here with us tonight as we commence yet another edition of Nightlight with Peach Waba and Greg Bak.

I am Peach Waba coming to you live from northeast Wisconsin.

And my compadre, Greg Bak, is live from Radio Park and Racine, just down the coast, as we like to call it.

And Dom Lee is holding down the fort in Madison.

Gentlemen, how are we?

Pretty good.

Not too shabby.

I'm not doing

too bad.

Well,

pretty good.

Don has the floor apparently,

because he's

younger.

Is it happening today?

It's Taco Tuesday.

I'm going to have to do this.

It's true, it's Taco Tuesday.

Your roommate must be so excited.

Yo man,

you better do some dishes.

Does he even know

that you talk about him on the air?

He

has no idea.

Not a clue.

Yeah.

Take that Trevor or Brendan or Skyler, Kyler, Tyler.

He's not a

regular listener.

He's not.

Well, he's listened to our shows, but he's not, he's not a regular listener.

He needs to be.

You still

make him tacos.

You still

feed the guy.

I still feed the guy.

Yes.

I still, I love him like, I love him, you

know.

I love him like a adopted brother who I don't see often.

Maybe a Christmas

every few years.

Well, happy Taco Tuesday, everybody.

It is Taco Tuesday in Dom's house, and he's going to feed his roommate, even though he's not a regular listener, because that's the kind of guy Dom is.

What is happening?

He feeds people.

There

you go.

This is great.

We got a really fun show for you guys tonight.

I was in a weird mood last night because I got off the air, and then I had like a whole bunch of errands to run.

And I have this old Land Cruiser.

It used to belong to the director, David Mamet.

I'm very proud that I own

his

car.

Yeah.

Honest to God.

Um, he bought it, gave it to his nanny to cart his kids around Beverly Hills or wherever.

And then I got it from an auto auction.

I wanted, I wanted to buy it from her, but she had just traded in, I tracked it down and I thought maybe David Mamet's writing skills would rub off on me.

That really never happened, but I have this awesome Land Cruiser.

So anyway, now it's 26, 27 years old.

And it still runs like a champ.

It's perfect, but I have a slow leak.

So you ever drive around and look for air?

Like I haven't done that in so long.

But I go to this gas station.

There is a line three cars deep for tight for air in your tires.

Yeah, it was like a 30 minute wait for air.

If you take it to a tire place, they usually a lot of times they'll take care of you.

I know there's a place called Discount Tire here down by me.

They got a couple locations and you just take it there, they'll fill it up and on your way.

Well, I'm going to drop it at my mechanic.

I have a great mechanic.

I've gotten lucky with mechanics my whole life and I got an outstanding one here in Christmas City, USA.

I don't do anything because I, every time I feel like I take my car somewhere, whether it's like a Jiffy Lube type place or somewhere, they always find something else that you need to fix.

And I've had it, Dom.

A Vaveline, Vaveline's prime example.

What do

you mean?

I don't know.

They just oil change place?

Yeah, the oil change place.

They always add a few things.

I

don't know if it's really needed, but

that's when you said, okay, guys, all right, let's have a moment here.

Let's, no, no, let's have it.

Well, first of all, they, they, they should not be touching your carburetor.

Let's have a moment, the three of us.

First of all, they can't do any repairs without your say so.

They say, we found this thing, just say no.

And if you're taking your car to a place like that, Dom, and I'm not, I'm not disparaging the company.

All that stuff you should learn to do yourself.

You'll save

so much money.

I've done an oil change like myself maybe

two

times in my life.

But other than that, other than an oil change, I need to relearn.

I change my own oil.

I change my filters.

I mean, the filters alone, the filters are so cheap to buy.

But if you go to a place,

it's the labor cost that kills you.

Like they'll charge you twice as much as you can buy for, and then they'll charge you on top of that for the labor.

All of that stuff, oil changed, checking your fluids.

I mean, I'm this summer most likely gonna learn how to do like break jobs, because I am, the more and more I look at it, the less and less I want to give these companies more money than they deserve, because it's no longer just like,

Oh, bring it in for a realignment and a break job or blah, blah.

And it's an it's amount of money where you save yourself.

Okay, I get that.

That makes sense to me.

Now it's just so expensive that right.

And they count on you not knowing how to do it yourself or even more so.

They count on you saying to yourself, I can't do that.

I got a lot.

I have to let in a professional do that.

I

think when I was like your age, Dom, I would say

you know, it was a fear thing.

And I was young.

I'm like, Oh, yeah, yeah, I changed the air filter.

If you think I don't want to get caught with a dirty air filter.

But then I realized I always say no, everything I do is through my mechanic, but

it

wouldn't kill me to learn how to change my own well.

So

we'll all meet at a place.

I'll change.

I'll show you how to do some basic stuff.

It will save you hundreds of dollars a year.

Wow, great.

Wow.

And you know what?

Let's do this because this is a perfect segue.

That leads us into our Question of the Night.

It is National Superhero Day.

You can list Greg Bach, if you want, based on what he just said, but let's get to the Question of the Night.

Let's

talk about the question.

Okay, question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

Okay, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Question.

Questions.

Oh yeah, you probably guessed.

Who is your favorite superhero?

Let us know 855-752-4842-855-756.

You can also text us on the app.

Or if you're listening, watching the stream that's available tonight, drop us a stream comment and be part of the show.

Be part of Nightlight, folks.

We want to call this show eventually Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach and all of you.

And list

all of the names.

But here's the thing.

You all have to go to our meetings.

So anyway, let us know what your answer is to the question tonight.

We have an outstanding show tonight, folks.

Golnar Nikpur will be here after the news at the bottom of the hour.

She is a scholar of modern Iranian political history, and she will be here to talk about her perspective on the war that's happening right now.

She was a lot of fun to talk to you.

And then Kristen Lighty, very funny comedian, Northeast Wisconsin based comic, Kristen Lighty will be here.

In the second hour.

So there you go.

We got some some insightful Iranian stuff some laughs also folks Nightlight movie club.

We are in full swing, baby.

This thing is happening Thursday night again second hour this week's movie is good fellas another classic with a lot of quotable lines Famous scenes iconic actors.

Yep, it's gonna be a blast tune in second hour Thursday night.

Hopefully you can join us for the whole show, but

If you get a chance, watch the movie, refresh your memory a little bit and join Nightlight Movie Club, all kinds of fun stuff.

So that's a good one.

I'm looking

forward

to that, guys.

Yeah.

That was a very good one.

I will say this.

If you're interested in watching it, I would also go online.

YouTube has some great breakdown videos about the truth of that story, the truth of the characters.

Yeah.

All of them.

All of them.

Like we got a shiny version.

We'll talk more about this on Thursday.

But the real lowdown of, of the people who were, who were, you know, the characters who were played essentially and the history that was told that we watched versus the reality.

So

that's awesome.

I think, I know Henry Hill is real and I think Jimmy Conway right after that.

I don't really know.

They were all real.

They just have different names.

Yeah.

Well, it's a great movie.

It's a Martin Scorsese at his finest and we'll break it down and talk about some of those.

great lines and scenes and Scorsese directing, all kinds of stuff.

So

be part of the Nightlight Movie Club.

It's going

to be a

fun, fun hour, if you will.

So what do you think?

Should we get to some news?

Let's get some news.

Let's

do

the first big story.

Stand up comics under attack, Greg.

As a former stand up myself, you are a current stand up.

Am

I?

Yes.

This will not stand.

Jimmy Kimmel is being attacked for not knowing there was going to be an assassination attempt two days after he did a skit on his show.

Kimmel said the joke was a light roast.

Basically, he said that... I'm trying to find it right here.

He made a joke about Melania saying she had the glow of an expectant widow.

That's

what it is.

You have the glow like an expectant widow, our first lady.

That says nothing about assassinations or murder.

It's a talk show joke.

Well, it was

also 48 hours before the event happened.

And they're blaming Kim.

The press secretary today, Carolyn Levitt, added the word murder to it, which is totally misleading.

And let's just, you know, and what I love about this too is Melania said, his monologue about my family isn't comedy.

His words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.

Let's talk about that.

Here are just some of the words the president has used to describe the left, speaking of political sickness.

Enemy within, scum, vermin, lunatics, enemy of the people, treasonous animals, degenerates, Jew haters, lowlives, Marxists, fascists, lunatics.

I mean, where did this come from, Greg?

And

Kimmel said nothing that was close to any of that.

No, exactly.

Kimmel went on to say that, you know, he is, he is not, he has a no way shape or form, you know, saying it should have happened.

He has talked about the fact he has spoken out against gun violence for years.

And he said this too in this BBC article, I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject.

I think great, a great place to start would to be to dial that back as having a conversation with your husband about it.

And here's what I really love too is

She went on to say Melania or as Dom calls her Melonia.

My Melonia has her first name.

She said, quote, people like Kimmel shouldn't have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.

Well, I'd also talk to your husband and say, stop letting ICE agents enter people's home to spread hate and disgust.

And, you know, it's that kind of thing.

I mean, it all goes back, you know, Patricia Heaton from everybody loves Raymond posted something a couple of days ago saying, you know, I didn't like when Obama and Biden and, and.

Clinton were elected, but I didn't say all these.

It's like, you got to stop doing that because the moment you post that, you can find 200 examples of people on your side saying the same thing or worse.

And again, what?

He wasn't even the same thing.

Jimmy Kimmel didn't do anything, but a roast joke two days before the event.

And oh, and by the other thing too.

is now the FCC is looking at ABC's license, which are even up for renewal until 2028.

But now they're going to take another look because they feel, and here's the really funny part, guys.

It's not so much about Kimmel.

It's a weather and not that ABC is violating anti-discrimination rules based on their corporate diversity policies.

And here's the other thing too whenever this was a joke there was no mention of anything It was just her outliving her husband because they have an age gap that is where

the joke was

was Targeted but when and that was a joke But whenever the president says something distasteful or stuff about grabbing women in a certain area or making fun of handicapped people

or plenty

of instances where he suggested death

They all have issues taste wise with a late night talk show.

Those were what they claimed were jokes, but they were hateful thing.

I mean, horribly.

And okay, maybe you even say that's a joke and I don't agree with it, but you can't come after Kimmel after the president has said stuff like that.

It just makes no

sense.

Well, of course they can.

They have no other choice.

They've been, they wanted to.

Yeah.

And they want to fire him.

They want, they want to show Disney, even though Disney has kowtowed to them already by the tune of like $16 million.

Like this is just, it's just, it's boring.

And it's, it's like you're going after a late night host, like tell me you have thinner skin.

My God.

Take your ball and go home.

Yeah.

We're at war right now.

And you're upset about a guy making a joke.

Get out of my face.

Exactly.

Well said, Greg Bach.

All right, we are coming right back with two more stories, folks.

One of them is extremely important and deals with movie prices.

You don't want to go anywhere.

This is Nightlight with Peach Wabba and Greg Bach on the Civic Media Network.

Summer breeze makes me feel fine, blowing through the jasmine in my

mind.

What?

All

right.

Welcome back tonight, folks.

I'm Pete Chihuahua.

Greg Block is here tonight.

Dom Lee is here tonight.

We're usually all here tonight.

Did you play that?

Like to soften my mood because I get ticked off when...

politicians and their wives attack comedians.

Do

you think I

needed to dial it back a little bit?

I thought he played it

for

me.

It was for

Greg.

Yes.

Before the

show,

he was really hyped about it.

I hear songs like that.

I want to slow dance.

I love that song so much.

Oh, I

love that

song so dearly.

We got a text Greg just pointed out from Andrew, who says, what are the chances we can find more than one comedic attempt or joke by Kimmel about Biden's age while he was president?

I would bet greater than 50%.

I would bet 100%.

Yeah.

And same thing with the Daily Show.

They made fun of Biden's age all the time.

And that's what this joke by Kim was.

Anyway, we do have other stories to get to, guys.

I think we should probably go on.

Let's go.

The second big story.

this just in from the hill folks go my goodness gracious steak and shake you know that restaurant you pass on the highway and go I didn't know they were still around has hired a new employee the chief maha officer I am not making this up quote his we're going to we're going to we're going back to the glory days of fast food I came and read it

This is real but not lowering

prices though.

This isn't the onion.

I'm not making this up steak and shake is revamping its ingredients and has hired a chief make America healthy again officer and he is going to restore

the restaurant to quote, the glory days of fast food.

His name is Michael Bose.

He appeared on Fox and Friends.

He said, quote, our message is simple.

We want Americans to eat food and we want to go back to the glory days of fast food when that occurred.

First of all,

I don't know what the glory days he's talking about.

One, two, if you didn't say we're gonna make fast food great again, you missed an opportunity.

And also third, Michael Bose just happens to be the guy who previously served as senior advisor at the Department of Health and Human Services.

So he went from Trump's office to steak and shake.

Is that a lateral or is that up or down?

I don't know.

Probably a little better if you're working for Steak and Shake.

However, I used to love Steak and Shake.

And you know

what?

Frankly, I don't have a problem with this if they really mean it.

They're going to serve the Mexican sugar cane coax.

Okay.

That's not really health food.

It's better than high fructose corn syrup.

If I have soda, I try to do that.

But what can you do to fast food to truly make it healthy unless you swap it

all out for veggie burgers?

Well, and here, and I'm glad you asked that question because this story in the hill is really just littered with all sorts of these conspiracy theories as far as like what kind, what food is good and what isn't good.

And one of the things they cite is that they went from vegetable oil to beef tallow.

We're talking about like beef fat, if I'm not mistaken.

Also, I'm sorry, but if I drink one Coca-Cola with high fructose corn syrup and I'm fine.

If I drink 10 sodas with pure cane sugar, that's not good.

Again, this is not about the ingredients per se, especially in fast food.

It's about your moderation.

It's about how much you're actually eating.

But the other thing too, they said in this story.

is I want to find this real quick.

Yeah, Steak and Shake has also begun transitioning away from seed oils and microwave use in its restaurant.

Seed oils are like one of the biggest things.

If you go on social media and you find an influencer who talks about seed oil, they talk through there, took us so hard on this.

Seed oils are not bad for you.

That is not proven.

And when people tell you it's bad for you,

They don't know what they're talking about.

So this whole, this whole move from steak and shake is to suck up to the Trump administration, in my opinion.

And also to say like, oh, we're going to, we're going to still serve bad for you food.

We're just going to change a few ingredients, which button, and one more thing before I, and then I'll get off my soapbox.

I swear to God.

Everything that these companies have been doing in the past few years, like, you know, putting in like high fructose corn syrup or, you know, bad.

chemicals or whatever, the stuff that's in our food every single day.

Those companies fought for years in lobbying and laws to get that done so they could loosen the regulations so they could put whatever they wanted in there and charge more.

Like this is just the biggest ridiculous story to me.

They are sucking up to the Trump administration and they just sound like a restaurant.

Like I swear to God, Joe Rogan will plug this place soon.

Well, I was just, oh, that's so funny you said that.

I see grift all over this.

Like a guy's leaving.

This is like the lobbyist that leaves his government job and then cash is in as a lobbyist and is a high powered lot.

This guy is doing that for steak and shake.

And now it's, you know, people will beef tail.

Oh, they got beef towel.

We got to go there.

Okay.

Why don't you look up what all this stuff is first, but, and, you know, whatever, both sides do it when they leave government, they make money lobbying money, but this is kind of like, you're right.

Joe Rogan is going to do it.

They'll be selling beef towel.

Oh, and they'll be buying stock and steak and shake.

Yeah.

It's like free advertising.

I mean,

It's

just to get a story.

It's just to suck up.

Like the fact they hired a guy from health and human services to help us.

It's just so absolutely insane.

I can chief maha officer.

God, how come I'm not more like I should be rich.

I'm smarter than that.

My goodness.

Sorry.

So frustrating to me

to play some seals and crops again, Tom, because Greg is all right.

Let's get to our third story before he pops a stitch.

The third.

big story.

Greg very simply movie prices.

Recently movies went up to 50 bucks.

I should this is not I'm not trying to use the fear issue here but

People that wanted to see Dune 3 on opening night in New York City paid 50 bucks to see it on 70 millimeter.

Um, that's, that's a high and they sold out in minutes.

Now I like, I don't mind paying a little bit extra for my movie tickets so I can go and sit down whenever I want to.

And when you pay a little more, you don't have people being allowed around you.

Typically they're better patrons, but this is crazy.

However, the good thing is regular movie prices are still 12 75 at your local Cineplex.

And I got that kind of money.

Is there okay?

Is there a movie though?

You okay really quick?

We got to go really quick.

Yeah, really quick.

Yes or no Is there a movie you'd pay a new one not a classic?

No Q&A just a movie is there any movie you pay 50 bucks to see

it's hard to say because you don't know that until I have to see the movie sinners one battle after another I would have paid 50 bucks to see okay, all right Yeah, but you know if you know that going in you never do yeah, so all right Golden our neek poor will be here folks our Iranian scholar resident Iranian scholar.

She will be here after the news This is nightlight with peach Waba and Greg Bach

There's a gas burn in my body.

Welcome back tonight, ladies and gentlemen.

I am Pete Chihuahua, coming to you live from northeast Wisconsin.

Just down the coast is Mr. Greg Bach, coming to you from a radio park in Damley, holding down the fort in Madison, producing the show.

We are the Otterhay Triangle, and it is great to have you with us tonight.

It is my pleasure to welcome our first guest of the night.

She is a scholar of modern Iranian political and intellectual history with a particular interest

in the history of law, incarceration, revolution, and women's rights.

Golnar Nikpur joins us now at Nightlight over the Stream.

Good evening.

Hi there.

Thanks for having me, Pete and Greg.

Well, it is our pleasure.

I hope you're having a great day, and I'm looking forward to having you enlighten us and give us a perspective we might not have had yet regarding the Iran conflict here.

Just jumping right in, can you give us a little bit of your background?

And I know you were born in Iran, but tell us how you got to this point in your life in a thumbnail if you could.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's right.

I was born in Iran in the early 1980s, so amid the Iran-Iraq war.

And I spent the first several years of my life there before my family came to the US.

where we lived around New York State eventually settled on Long Island.

I professionally got interested, or I should say intellectually got interested in Iran as a college student.

I didn't think I would be a historian when I started college, but I...

took a class and then another class I was interested in the politics of the world and in US politics, but also interested in Middle Eastern history, Iranian history, sort of going back further than the modern period too, and just got sort of passionately interested in the topic of history.

I realized at some point that history

at the higher level is not like in you know I never liked history as a high school student because you just have to learn you know kind of memorize names and dates but once you get a little bit further along you see that it's a lot about reading and analysis and critical thinking and trying to figure out

what things actually mean.

You know, there's not one concrete answer sometimes, but you try to work through the details and figure it out in a way that makes sense.

So that's still what I do.

I just kept taking one, putting one foot in front of the next until I got to this point where I'm now at Dartmouth College.

And I have to say, since you've given me this opportunity to talk a little bit about myself, I'm particularly gratified to be on this show because I lived in Madison for a few years.

I was

a

postdoc at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and I love.

I love Wisconsin.

So I'm

really happy to be on

the show.

I was

going

to ask you about that.

So I'm glad you mentioned that.

It's great.

Well, that's lovely.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate that.

And really, you know, we appreciate you being on the show because, you know, I am, I am a child of the late, I am born in the late seventies and I grew up with the presence of Iran in my life, but always being fed information, whether it's from politics, whether it's from the news, whether it's from.

family or whatever that may be.

But as far as Iran now, what is modern life in Iran like right now versus what we are told it's like, our perceptions versus the reality, even in the face of this war happening right now?

But what are the things that Americans need to know about Iran and Iranian life?

Yeah, that's a great question.

I mean, in some ways, that's my own interest in studying Iran and has been since I was, you know, in my teens is trying to get a understanding of what what's really true about this place that I spent part of my childhood in, but that, you know, once I came to the US, I got a very different sort of.

upbringing and education on the country.

So I would say that the first thing that I always tell people who are interested in learning about Iran beyond the headlines is that it's a big country and it's an extremely diverse country in a way that I don't think that most people in the US have a clear sense of.

In the first place it's 92, 93 million people total.

And that's not including a diaspora outside of the country of some six or seven million to the best of our ability to count it.

So maybe a hundred million people who call themselves Iranians all over the world.

But those people are enormously diverse.

They have dozens of different linguistic backgrounds.

So Persian or Farsi, that's the same language, is the main language of the country and the one spoken by its government and in schools.

But only about 50% of the Iranian people speak Persian at home because the country has historically been

extremely diverse, many different dialects, many different languages, some of the ones you may have heard of, Ozeri Turkish or Arabic or Kurdish, but there's so many small sort of groups that speak different languages, even if they have a common cultural.

heritage they're still distinct distinct sort of ethnic linguistic religious and certainly political identities throughout the country.

So there's you know I'm always suspicious or skeptical when people say Iranians want this or Iranians are like that because you know we're talking about lots of it's a country maybe not quite as as big and diverse as the US but on some level we should think of it more like that than like a modern life right where you can really get

radically different views depending on who you're talking to, depending on their class background, their ethnicity, but also just their worldview if they're a city person, a country person, you know, so you have this very distinct kind of diverse place.

The other thing I would say that is extremely sort of important to understand is that I think a lot of people in the US don't quite grasp, is that for whatever we may think of Iranian government, which is indeed authoritarian, it has invested a great deal into the

the development of the country and its infrastructure.

So that's why this, this sort of, you know, that would be something to talk about when we get into the war is this kind of war on infrastructure that we've seen.

I've seen Americans and my students even say over the course of the last several weeks that they're surprised to see all the things, you know, when they see the images of what has been bombed or what has been sort of targeted, they're surprised at how sort of modernized the country is because the

impression that people have is of this very sort of religious and maybe even um you know sort of steeped in the past

type

of place but it's it's it's invested in you know like Tehran has beautiful subways and streets and cafes where you can go get uh you know like complicated coffee drinks just as you would

hear like third wave

kind of like

oh thank goodness whoosh are they as expensive yeah yeah

Yeah, and just like any country that has sort of big cities and country life, what you see is going to depend on where you are.

So there's rural Iran, there's mountain Iran, there's big city Iran, and Tehran is a big global cosmopolists, some 20 million people.

So again, it's one of the things I think people are least accustomed to thinking about is just that it's an incredibly rich in terms of cultural heritage, artistic heritage, literary film heritage.

place and it's incredibly developed in ways that I think we don't quite always take into account and it is a highly educated country in terms of literacy rates, in terms of education rates.

All these things are part of the social fabric of the country over the last decades.

Our guest is Golnar Nikpur.

She is a scholar of modern Iranian political and intellectual history with a particular interest in the history of law, incarceration, revolution, and women's rights.

She joins us here on Night Light and is sort of enlightening us a little bit about what's happening in Iran during this war and her background.

I think for me, just the most horrible thing about this conflict so far, Golnar, is the bombing of the girl's school in Menav, the Israeli airstrike.

the news cycle changes so much and it's the Strait of Hormuz.

Is it open?

Is it not?

I can't believe that's not still, and maybe it is in Iran, but how if people, are they still talking about there?

Is there outrage over that one incident?

Because I'm not seeing like on the news, at least not in the American media, you know, that much outrage from Iran.

And I can't tell if that's from our news media or where people are at with that.

Yeah, that's a great question.

The bombing of the girl's school in Minot was absolutely foundational to how Iranians are perceiving this war.

And the country is absolutely still mourning the deaths of those children.

It's been in the news in Iran

constantly, consistently, including memorials to each child and their names have been circulated and so forth.

And I think that it was a sort of foundational moment.

I should note that to the best of our ability to know the sort of military experts who look into these things believe it was a U.S.

airstrike and not an Israeli one because it was a U.S.

tomahawk missile, which the Israelis don't have.

So

So so yes, I think there's a huge gap between how people in the US have experienced the trauma of that that girl school being bombed and people in Iran I've even seen people who were maybe you know because of their opposition to the Iranian government To some extent and their exhaustion with you know, not knowing how to move forward They

were sort of not certain how they felt about the bombing initially but as soon as that girl school was hit there was a sense okay war actually means the death of ordinary people civilians little kids you know so this is these are images that are circulating and when the Iranian national soccer team played a match just a few weeks ago they they held little backpacks to signify and that was

from from the reporting their own decision.

I mean, they wanted to sort of say that they were playing on behalf of those little ones who had been killed.

And so I think, yeah, that's one of those things that has made an enormous impression in Iranians hearts across the political and social spectrum and has really hardened, you know, you see a rally around the flag effect with with things like war and and the mean of bombing allowed made that happen right away where people were really quite disturbed and

grieving the loss of that of those lives um and that hasn't been quite as you know even on the first couple of days after the bombing there was not first page there was not quite as much first page news about this mass casualty incident as you think that there would be and really one of the worst sort of mass civilian death incidents um

instantiated by the US military in decades.

I saw some people say the worst in Vietnam.

I saw other scholar myself.

I won't say definitively which

one that

is the case, but I could certainly, you know, one would certainly like to see more.

And one of the things that I'm, you know, I hope as a scholar to be able to do is to keep a kind of, you know, the memory of those civilian lives lost.

um on the table because I mean you know hopefully for us to understand what happened and to learn from it we have to look at the what actually happened quite closely and I'm not sure that we've publicly done that um as you know the broader American citizenry but on the Iranian side yes that is and it's been used by the government as well so on the one hand it's been sort of effective propaganda for the government but I think also

genuine kind of outpouring of rage and grief from all walks of life among Iranians about people who very clearly are innocents, right?

Like small children who

have no

way to protect themselves.

We only have about a minute before we have to go to break them.

I'm gonna piggyback off of something Pete says.

What is something that our media often gets wrong about Iran, whether it's misconception or just the way it's presented?

Well, I think the kind of...

the things I said about the Iranian populace holds true.

But as far as the government itself, which of course has been an enemy of the United States government since 1979, we tend to think of it, you know, we'll hear American leaders or media call it like the Ayatollah, the regime, whatever.

And they'll often talk about the Ayatollah, the Ayatollah.

But

in

fact, around government, again, regardless of what your position on it may be, is actually quite

complex.

And it's not about one guy.

It is about one person at the top, but it's actually quite systematic.

And many, many people have responsibilities, military, security, civilian, state building responsibilities.

And it's for that reason that you can't just decapitate it and expect the whole thing to collapse.

So I think that's very clear that our current administration doesn't quite grasp that about the system in Iran.

Uh, very well said.

We'll have more after a very short break with our guest.

She's a former Madisonian folks, uh, professor.

We are coming right back on, uh, with more nightlight with peach wabba and Greg Bach on the civic media network.

Welcome back.

This is Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach coming to you over the Civic Media Network.

Great to have you with us tonight.

We are in the middle of a talk with our guest, Golnar Nikpur, who is a, she is a scholar and a professor and she's even spent time in Madison, Wisconsin.

She is enlightening us on the Iran War.

Professor, tell us about your book and you could probably spend a long time on this, but I mean, why have...

prison situation.

Why has that gotten so much worse in Iran?

Yeah, so really what my book is about is about the making of the modern prison system in Iran.

And what really surprised me and the sort of, if I could say that there's one thing that the book is about, I spent 10 years on it so I could probably say it's about

more,

but if there's one thing that it's about is that, you know, I found that

We all know, you know, we hear about your own prisons all the time.

And even now, as the war continues, there are a quarter of a million people incarcerated in the country, although that's everyone.

I mean, that's the full carceral sort of group.

But what I've learned is that if you go back even to the 1920s, which is really, I mean, just a century ago, right?

We're talking about a place that had only a few hundred people in forced confinement, and if you go even just a little before that, a decade or two before that, it would have been a tiny number, you know, dozens

or

even a hundred or two hundred.

So how do we go from Iran being a place where prisons are really not a big part of the punishment apparatus?

There's no such thing as sort of long-term forced confinement.

Of course, there's punishment and there's executions, but there's not

really modern prisons, as we understand them, to being a country where there's now, as I said, about a quarter of a million prisoners.

So my book tries to uncover how that infrastructure gets built.

And what I'm trying to make the case for in the book is that Iran has over that 100 plus years that I study, three really distinct different governments, two different monarchies.

and then a revolution that brings about the Islamic Republic.

There's coups.

There's two coups.

There's two revolutions.

It's an enormously transformative era in Iranian politics.

But all the same, the prison infrastructure undergirding those governments only increases in size and expands and grows regardless of what type of government is in power.

exponential numbers of prisoners beginning when the Iranians start building the modern prison system in the 1910s and 20s and 30s until today.

And what I uncovered is that a lot of this is being done in conversation with these trends happening all over the world and with models coming first from European context and then from the American context.

So a number of the prisons in Iran today are built on blueprints based on actually a prison in the Midwest, a prison called USV Marion in Illinois.

So that was something that I found as well.

I mean, those prisons were built before the revolution with sort of at an era of aid and help and technical help between the US and Iran.

basically Iran's story is not unlike other carceral states this is not actually very different from the US story either prisons are a modern phenomenon all over the world then of course there's forced confinement dungeons and so forth at earlier times but not these big sprawling carceral sort of systems and

Once you build the system, once you put laws on the books that mandate that you have to incarcerate people for certain periods of time, the prison system expands and grows.

And so my book is trying to make sense of the ways in which we shouldn't think of Iran as an exceptional space that it has these prisons because of its medieval kind of Islamic politics, but rather as a quintessential modern cultural state that uses prisons, surveillance, policing to control

Trouble populations now in the context of contemporary Iran Some of that process or much of that process has the veneer of Islamic legitimacy But the technology and the or they're trying to give it that veneer right but the technologies and the the The practices are actually global right so I'll give you one quick example to illustrate what I mean Iran started about during

the pandemic actually in 2020 using traffic monitoring cameras to issue tickets and summonses for the typical things that that happens here like traffic cameras might catch you speeding or running a red light but also added to that sending tickets to people to women who were alleged to have violations of the hijab law so you see the way in which

When I say that this is a global process, it doesn't mean that it's identical to other places in the world, but that the technologies, whether it's the prison itself, so USP Marian model being used, or technologies like ankle monitors, traffic surveillance cameras today, those are used.

for the specific needs of the government in that moment.

But if you only look at what's happening internally, you miss a bigger picture of carceral economies, of private companies that are selling surveillance tech, of all sorts of things that are happening around the world, and that if we exceptionalize Iran and sort of imagine that

what's happening over there is only because of something pathological about Iranians or Islam or whatever.

We actually miss all of these connections that help us see the way in which our struggles are linked, the way in which these histories are linked, and miss the connections that can help us imagine a different future together, one that's more free for everyone.

Boy, this has been great stuff.

Amazing.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Check out Golnar Nipur's book.

It's the incarcerated modern prisons and public life in Iran in like 20 seconds.

Do you get back there ever?

And do you have plans to go back?

Well, I'm not sure when I'll get to go back given

the

current context of war.

I mean, people...

in general there's difficulty going in and out and that might be the case especially if bombing begins again.

I haven't had

a

chance to go back since before the pandemic and I'm not sure if and when I'll get to go back but I do hope I can.

Iran is a beautiful country and I miss it.

It has untold numbers of natural beauties and

human

beauty too so hopefully

I'll get

a chance to go back there at some point soon.

Well, please come back here anytime you want.

I'm happy any time.

It's been really insightful and fun talking to you and great meeting you.

Thank you so much.

Yeah,

thank you so much, Greg, Pete, and Dom.

I really appreciate it.

No problem.

You got it.

All right, we are coming right back for hour number two of this edition of Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

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Here's Pete and Greg.

Welcome, welcome, welcome back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach here on the Civic Media Network.

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Give us a call 855-752-484-2855-755 Civic.

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You could also text, call, leave a voice message, listen to shows live.

You can get your news by downloading the Civic Media app.

It's absolutely free.

So see what I did there, Pete?

See what I did there?

That

sounds good.

Too good to be true.

In this day and age, I mean, what am I talking about now?

You never catch me.

That voice, by the way, is the wonderful stupendous award-winning I have to assume at this point.

You've got to have won awards, right?

You've gotten, you know, like me?

Yeah, you.

Yep.

Beach Beach Waba up in Marinette, Wisconsin, AKA Christmas city, USA.

And then all the way over in Madtown, USA at HQ.

World headquarters of civic media is Mr. Dom Lee on the ones and twos.

We're here with you in the second hour of nightlight.

So happy you're a part of this.

Got great things coming up, including a great conversation with our friend, Kristen Lighty, standup comedian union union organizer and just all around good human being.

She'll be on the program in just a little bit, and then we'll wrap everything up with the nightcap where we figure out what we learned and kind of, you know, just have our moment.

Like, you know, the night's lesson, if you will.

You know, we'll kick back, enjoy, and there'll be like a shooting star that just says, the more you know, and then we'll get sued by NBC, so.

Well,

I mean, Hey, it's a FCC is going after ABC.

Let's be cool and be next.

Come on.

Come on now.

All right.

So, uh, we are, we are in the second hour, which means we are going to take a look again at the question of the night.

But before we do that, Tom, can you set us up?

Let's talk about the question.

Okay, question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

Okay, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Questions.

The question of the night is, it's National Superhero Day.

Who is your favorite superhero?

Again, 8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2-8-5-5-7-5-Civic.

You can leave a comment on the live stream we're currently streaming on.

We're kind of, I mean...

If you're interested in looking the live stream, we are currently on a lot of Facebook pages and I think one YouTube page, there is a gubernatorial forum going on right now in civic media and they are covering that live.

If you are looking for that as well, but stick here for a little while,

weirdly cutting into our listenership.

Be our friends.

Be our

friends.

You're our friends.

We knew

you

first, but that is the question of night.

Who is your favorite superhero?

And let's start with this crowd right here.

Pete Schwabba, what about

you?

You know what?

I go, I mean, I went back and forth and some people are saying their parents and or their dad or their mom and I get that.

And that's great.

And I thought about that because my parents are my heroes, but superhero.

My parents are

not

superheroes.

Sorry, mom and dad.

You're not as much as I love you.

But no, I went Batman because Batman, here's the method behind my man is like, okay, Batman is a regular dude.

No superpowers necessary.

He's not a regular dude, Pete.

But he doesn't have magical powers like Superman does or Flash or Spidey.

You know, Batman is a dude who is angry and he's a vigilante.

And that works for me.

And he's

got

the dark, the dark costume on.

And he taught himself, you got to make a few leaps as to what he could get through.

And but it's all grounded somewhat in reality.

I mean, also, it doesn't it doesn't hurt that he's worth like.

You know, $10 billion.

Sure.

He couldn't pull it off for that.

Absolutely.

I mean, there's

no such thing as poor, poor Batman.

No, but like Donald Trump, Elon Musk, George Soros, all those billionaires, you know, they have a super.

None of them could

jump over anything.

Their cars suck.

Okay, cool.

I mean, that's a solid answer, and that's only a solid response, but a solid reasoning.

I've heard a lot of people say that over the years.

Dom, what about you?

Does John Wick count

or

no?

It's

whatever you want to

be.

It's

whatever you want to be.

I

mean, apparently the both of you are going very revenge tonight, I guess.

It's the long lines of Pete.

He's just kind of like a normal dude, but he really... Is Pete your superhero,

Dom?

You guys are both my

superheroes.

Reviews are coming up.

Is Pete your superhero?

Oh, wow.

He's kissing his sleeves.

Kissing my non-guns.

Kissing my derringers.

If you know guns, you

know that reference.

Derringers.

Oh, nice.

Oh boy.

Okay.

So John Wick for you, the Batman for you.

I am going, thanks for asking.

I am going to go with.

He's like, I don't care who your favorite superhero is.

I mean, now that you said it, but point is, is for me, it's, it used to be Batman, but I've come around to Captain America.

And

I was, and

the, and my friend Nick on my Facebook page said,

He agrees with me or he has similar reasons.

I should say the thing I know I love Captain America But what I really love about it after listening to someone discuss the origins of the characters that his beliefs in freedom in democracy in You know the the when we talk about the greatness of America a lot of times you can say that with a you know

Tongue-in-cheek because you know as great as we want it to be there's a lot of problems Well, what how he views America as far as like you know all the reasons we fought World War two for freedom for justice for the rights of all to be great none They never change so when he was fighting in World War two those were his morals

As he got older and the morality of the people around him changed on what the definitions of freedom were and all those things, his never changed.

His was always about, this is a country where you're supposed to be free and be able to, you know, be good to one another and help and all those good things.

And his morality never changes ever unless he's with hydro.

That's a different storyline.

That's the point is, but I just love the fact that

Captain America, his sense of values are always rooted in a certain type of morality, and those don't change no matter how the world changes around him.

And to me, that's like, that's amazing.

That

works.

I love Captain America.

And we're seeing some, you know, well, I think we should go to Dom first.

The text is the text line.

No, no, no, I'm asking you who your favorite superhero is John.

We already

asked him

John.

I'm sorry.

I was gonna read.

Sorry.

I'm barely paying attention.

I got distracted because one of the textures Tony the trucker put Wonder Woman on my brain because he

said

gentlemen Wonder Woman because all women are wonderful.

Some are just more wonderful than others.

That could have been its own question of the night because you got Linda Carter

one of my all-time favorite crushes, and Gail Godot, who I thought was outstanding as Wonder Woman as well.

And I said, it's

really just a 50-50

shot.

And who's your favorite Wonder Woman?

It's, it's a, it's a coin talk.

I would go Linda Carter still.

Linda Carter is a great follow on Twitter, by the way.

She does not hold back.

I

think I said this before.

Did you ever watch that kiss thing I told you about with her?

Yes.

Yeah.

What did you think of that?

It was weird.

She comes off smelling like a rose though.

Yeah, this is like

whoa because kiss is weird.

I don't So we got Tony what other what other text messages do we have running right now there Dom?

All right, we have a John from Madison said underdog pops a pill complete fentanyl kicks, but my god puts away the bad guys and lands in pause of white hot Polly pure bread doesn't get any better than that Wow

Yeah, that's a good argument.

Okay.

Well, that's a thank you.

I know I know someone writes in fanfiction go on

now We have a Brett from Brownjeer said my favorite superhero was always spider-man from the comics until the movies Toby McGuire was too wimpy In the movies, I'll take Iron Man.

I like how Robert Downey Jr.

played the part

I'd like to know why he thinks Toby McGuire was too wimpy versus Andrew Garfield or Tom Holland or

The characters in that he's like, he was always kind of like, as Peter Parker, he was always kind of, you know, he was a teenager.

He's a wimpy teenager.

That's,

you know what?

I kind of liked, uh, I never knew how I felt about Toby McGuire, but sometimes you find out something about someone and it makes you root for them a little more.

My buddy Pat Francis, who did respond to this question on social media, he went to see Spider-Man when it first came out.

The first Toby McGuire one.

At

a place called the Grove in LA and he's looking around for a seat and who does he see standing in the corner in the back of the theater Toby McGuire On the phone going it's packed.

This is so cool.

I love this It's just like a regular dude very excited.

He'd already got big movies, but so I you know and Toby McGuire

You know spider-man's a kid.

He's not a big tough guy.

He's supposed to be just kind of a regular dude I think that totally fits.

Yeah,

absolutely.

So yeah,

I

mean, but you know all opinions are

of course.

Yeah,

absolutely.

What else we have on the tax

line?

Yeah, Brett also says man I wouldn't pay $50 to see a movie even if I was in it All right, okay, then we got Jewel from cross plane said gonar is a great guest tell her thank you very true.

Oh

And then we also got Nick from Marshall said I chose the flash.

That's a really good answer.

That's a really good answer.

I

mean, I'll take I'll take the flash, you know the comic book not so much the movie version.

That's And

then we also have Eric from Madison said wonder twins which I'm not too certain what the wonder twins are

The one

said unite or something like that wonder twins

activate in the form of and then they would change into a form of like bunny rabbit or rocket ship It was very convoluted and weird the super friends were very is it was like a bunch of adults saying what do kids like and then they just miss the mark completely so

We also have Tyler from Wisconsin rabbits says Ron Perlman as hellboy or underdog or both wait

Ron Perlman as underdog because I'd watch that movie

as Hellboy or underdog or both and then we also We also had up for Madison said my favorite super superhero is Superman my favorite in the best Superman is Christopher Reeves I saw the Michael movie MJ's nephew did a great job portraying him Coleman Domingo was great as Joe Jackson

Yeah, okay, I love Coleman Domingo

Great.

I love him.

His hosting stint in SNL was really good past couple, like a couple of weeks ago, but I'm going to steadfast with my belief on this movie and that, uh, no, thank you.

Uh, going to, um, going to the social media comments, Mike Desitel says, my parents, my mom will stay at home and raise five children to become self-sufficient adults who love freely and respect others.

My dad worked harder than any person I know and had time still for each of us, his community and his faith.

I put my superheroes up against anyone.

Sorry, Mike.

They can't beat Batman.

That is a lovely text though.

Thank you.

Are your

parents as

rich as Batman?

But then Mike says otherwise, definitely Batman.

Otherwise, I like my superheroes rich, privileged, and angry.

Therapy is for dorks.

And then Mary Ash just posted, she's got flash, but flash is a woman.

I like that.

Is she making a statement there, which is fine?

Or was there a character I didn't know about?

I'm sure.

I mean, the flash.

as played I'm sure in the in the annals of comic books there are so many versions of the flash or so many versions of characters that are played that have a like there's a spider woman there's super girl there's there's bat woman back girl there's all like they're always switching all these different things as far as there was one on the TV show there was the flash

It shows a bunch of different versions.

There's other key characters, but yeah.

Um, ladyflash.

That's great.

Yeah.

That's a great one.

Um,

Stacey says

ladyflash sounds weird

though.

No, just the flash doesn't sound good either.

Uh, Aquaman, uh, Stacey says Aquaman.

Love it.

Our friend, Amanda Nimmer says squirrel girl.

Have not heard of squirrel

girl.

Well, that's a deep cut Amanda.

Okay.

Matt Harper, rock rap artists from Green Bay says rocket raccoon and Pat Francis, captain America.

We'll get to some more of these texts later, maybe during the nightcap.

We're

going to be talking to our friend.

Stand up comedian all around good person union organizer.

Kristen Lighty is coming up in just a little bit, so don't go anywhere.

You are listening and or watching nightlight with Pete Schwab and Greg Mock here on the city network.

Stay tuned.

Stay close.

Welcome back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach here on the Civic Media Network.

You can always call or get in touch.

Text numbers the same.

855-752-4842-855-755.

Civic, leave a comment on that live stream.

We are currently streaming on every Facebook page possible.

It seems we are on a bunch of them.

And also...

Let us know your thoughts on your favorite superhero.

That's the question of the night.

It's national superhero day.

So who is your favorite superhero?

It could be your mom, your dad, a teacher.

It could be a comic book character.

It could be a movie character who spends every single one of his films absolutely decimating his enemies.

But whatever that may be, let us know.

Leave a comment on the livestream.

Text it in.

You can also get in touch with us via the Civic Media app and call text.

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Listen, get your news all right there.

Download that Civic Media app and coming up in just a little while, we will get into the nightcap where we wrap things up.

Talk about what we've learned and hear from you, your thoughts on the show.

So don't go anywhere.

We're hanging up.

Yep.

Yes, Pete.