The good news about the internet is, as we've all discovered, the bad news. Cheap, more or less instant, emails from people we love, respect or want to get close to call us to sign petitions, write mass emails to save the seals, the polar bears, the carriage horses....(fill in your cause here). I try to respond until my wrist gets tired, never to send an appeal on to my friends ...but.

Please consider signing on the the current campaign of a group which I like (but not because I like it). The Campaign For Peace & Democracy asked me -- and I ask you -- to sign a petition to Iranian authorities to safeguard human rights, women's rights activist, 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi .

Why bother? Will the Ayatollahs listen to me, you and any number of other US leftists? I don't know. But I do know the sense of isolation which oppresses people like Shirin Ebadi. Besieged by a hostile and oppressive government, this petition is a lifeline. Invisibility is death; visibility can save lives and promote freedom where it is at risk. Click here or read the statement in full after the jump  read more »