My name is Little Miss Workety-Work, and I think I’m going to knock off, here in hour 12 of my day-for-pay. Since nothing happened other than phone calls and copy manipulation, not much to report. Although we got some more fish! Fish, Round 3! Stay tuned!
But, there was some most excellent bloggage around the dial today, so here you are:
First, a Wall Street Journal correspondent’s personal e-mail to friends describing her daily life in Iraq becomes an overnight internet sensation. Small wonder: It’s some of the most vivid eyewitness reporting from Iraq I’ve yet read.
Second, Lance Mannion on Cat Stevens, old girlfriends and dad when he’s pissed off. Enjoy.
John Scalzi points out some cross-talk from Justice Scalia.
My beloved Poor Man, master o’ snark, gets ayn-gray, uses dirty words, makes sense.
I’m thinking of starting an every-Monday open thread for discussion of “The Wire.” Any takers?
Also, I was wrong about the Anne Hull series. The next two parts run next Sunday/Monday, not this week.
‘kay? See you all tomorrow.
michael g said on September 30, 2004 at 9:52 am
Farnaz Fassihi’s email, scary as it is, would be no real shock to regular readers of a few blogs on the subject. There are many blogs out there written by expert commentators, Iraqis, GIs and others. The following are a few of the best.
Riverbend is a young woman who used to have a job in IT. I recommend reading her blog from its beginning last year to the present. She’s a thoughtful and compassionate young woman and the developing feelings she expresses over the course of the last year are wonderful to read.
http://www.riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
Healing Iraq is written by a young dentist. He gets into some excellent history and background material along with some day to day items.
http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/
Raed was maybe the original Iraqi blogger. His story is well known but he is excellent still.
http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/
Juan Cole is a prof at the University of Michigan (Nance!). Extremely knowledgeable and extremely good.
http://www.juancole.com/
This is a blog by a guy named Colby Buzzell who is an SP4 with a Stryker unit in the ‘rak. Another one I recommend going back and reading from the beginning.
http://cbftw.blogspot.com/
The Star is a delightful kid — a 16 year old girl. I should write Arabic a tenth as well as she writes English. Her sunny optimism provides a spark of hope for Iraq.
http://www.astarfrommosul.blogspot.com/
Damn! Those were all links when I inserted the text into the comments section here. Oh well. They’re all worth typing in.
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michael g said on September 30, 2004 at 9:55 am
OK, I forgot a bunch of colons. And I know you don’t have to type all that stuff — just cut and paste. It’s early here, about 0530 and I’m just into my first sip of coffee.
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Dorothy said on September 30, 2004 at 10:37 am
I love THE WIRE and would love to read other comments and thoughts on the show. To be honest, much of what happens takes time to sink into my brain because it’s so complicated and layered. But it’s compelling to watch and I won’t give it up so I vote a big YES for the open thread of discussion!
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Nance said on September 30, 2004 at 3:47 pm
Yeah, Michael, I’ve seen most of those. Riverbend was a regular stop until I fell away for one reason or another. Juan Cole spoke to our F’ship group last year and was very impressive — he speaks Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu and at least one other language, and reads the local media online, in their original language, so he’s invaluable, too.
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