Persian Food and Comparative Politics

Went to a Persian restaurant called Simurgh last night. I'm pretty sure it's the best food I've had since arriving in London. I got the spinach and apricot. All the meals were pairings like that, as in lamb and lime, chicken and banana, etc. They all came with three different types of rice and an amazing salad. Everything was delicious.

During the dinner, we started talking about how citizenship works in different countries in terms of marrying into it (whether you have to stay married in the country for a while before you get citizenship, etc.). I brought up that there's a proposed bill in the US that would allow that process to work for same-sex couples the same way it works for opposite-sex couples, and how it's a politically dicey area because it involves a combination of immigration policy and gay rights, both pretty hot-button issues. This transitioned into an explanation of what current gay rights policy is in the US, and the Canadian and Europeans at the table got grossed out at how backwards it is. They thought Don't Ask Don't Tell was unbelievable, and they were shocked gay people weren't protected from employment discrimination.

BUT, just to prove the US doesn't suck at everything, we also talked about how the US has what's called the "exclusionary rule," which is a principle in criminal procedure that says any evidence that is illegally obtained by the state is automatically inadmissible in courts. A couple of us had just read an article in the NY Times about how that rule is being put in jeopardy by the Roberts court, but it's of note that we're the only country that does it that way. Most other countries have some process of balancing the costs and benefits of admitting the evidence rather than an automatic rule, which means the US provides greater protection for criminal defendants. And the Canadian girl told me that in Canada, if you get detained and ask for a lawyer, the police are still allowed to interrogate you for a really long time without providing you the lawyer (whereas in the US, as soon as you ask for a lawyer, they have to stop asking questions and get you a lawyer). So that's cool.