He's really f'in something, this Blogger from Baghdad. Describing a more militarized area of the Iraqi capital, where hand grenades sell for $0.25 on the street:

The streets markets look like something out of a William Gibson novel. Heaps of cheap RAM (stolen of course) is being sold beside broken monitors beside falafel stands and weapons are all available. Fights break out justlikethat and knives come out from nowhere, knives just bought 5 minutes ago. There are army sighting thingys, Weird looking things with lenses. And people selling you computer cases who tell you these are electric warmers, never having seen a computer case before. Really truly surreal.
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American civil administration in Iraq is having a shortage of Bright ideas. I keep wondering what happened to the months of "preparation" for a "post-saddam" Iraq. What happened to all these 100-page reports, where is that Dick Cheney report? Why is every single issue treated like they have never thought it would come up?

Salam Pax is an international treasure. I can't stress enough how amazing and unique an opportunity it is for a worldwide audience to read the candid observations of even one actual Iraqi citizen. Gives me the good feeling, even when the picture he paints is less than sunny. That's something I can agree on with most of my conservative netizen bretheren: information is a good thing.

You know, I don't think of myself as a doom and gloom lefty, one who's always complaining and seeing the end of the world in the cards. Though things look bleak at times, and I'll admit I've frankly considered expatriating -- counting on Canada or my Dutch connections -- if we get four more years of Team Bush, I'm always on the lookout for silver linings. Salam Pax, Chris Albritton's Back to Iraq and The Agonist (esp. at its wartime peak of a post about every two minutes) all point to the possiblity of a brighter, equitably global, citizen-centric future. It seems at least possible, if less than certain, that the information revolution and seemingly unstoppable metamorphosis of globalization can make the world a better place for the people who live here.

About a year ago when we were living at the old pad with Christina and Miranda, Miranda introduced Frank and I to makeoutclub.com, the premere place to meet indy rockers and emo people online. I got a kick out of it and Miranda -- I think -- made some friends. We kind of equated the whole thing with the parts of Bilzburg we were less than enthusiastic about. When we made the move to the Meek, the guys thought the whole thing was hillarious. We even made ourselves a profile for kicks.

Well, now I'm doing a couple of related jobs for money, constructing community/social sites. I've been seeing what's out there, and there's this: face the jury .com, which is kind of... shocking. It's everything makeoutclub.com is (and more) except seemingly aimed square at the c-students. Your odd cute gothy chick from Australia aside, it seems to be the domain of trixies and rock-hard-abs.

Anyway, it was kind of startling. Most of the people on this site are 2 or more years my junior, and I suppose this is what happened to all those teenagers I used to see who would use email and IM like second-nature, whereas in my day it was somewhat less integrated into mainstream living. The internet is now officially for everything, baby; even popularity contests and flirting. Kind of exciting, too.

Thanks to Frank, I just now realized that the latest content had not been appearing. Bug fixed. Enjoy the past few days worth of posting. I'm feeing better today healthwise and in general after getting 12 hours sleep and seeing Sasha (who as it happens has a show tonight, 10pm at Sin-e: 148-150 Attorney at Stanton in the LES, plug shill plug).

And while I'm trying to stay clear(er) of politix than I have been in the past few days -- too much stress, I tells ya -- I did find this a welcome addition to the infosphere: rumsfeldlies.com.

I've fallen ill, as is somewhat traditional after Ren Fayre. It's a long weekend, and I'm apparently not quite on the upswing of recovery. Things are starting to change, rearrange in my mind more. I'm working as well I can considering my compressed cranial state. And until I do and write something of more consequence, go look at Where is Raed. Salam Pax has managed a mega update that spans most of the war. From the horses mouth, people.

Oooh, oh! oh! And in case you just can't get enough of the twins, here's proof they've been supporting terrorism. Come on, you remeber this.

I'm back, but still not quite in action. I slept in very late -- worst travel day ever -- and then managed to go through all my old email and stumble down to Bilzburg for a peacewilliamsburg event. Mainly I went because on my walk back to my house from the airport I saw a flier and noticed that the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players would be there and I've wanted to see them for a while. It was a good evening. I especially liked Jennifer Miller's Allen Ginsburg light bulb eating act and Jeneane Garaffalo's "pushing 40" political satire. She's sharper now (to me) than she's ever been, especially now that she's not exclusively making fun of herself. It's a better performance tactic: let's the audience love you a little more.

The event as a whole was impressive. I still think my generation is going to eat the current crop of gen-xers alive when the chips are down, but these kids are allright.

Also, I've a full grop of tales from my trip to tell you: leaving new york is hard, suck my coolo chica, port wine relaxation, sunny friday breakdown, poop jokes at the trap, puke rock/samba participation, lamp array, the tall fashionista read my website, someone dosed my drink, rome is burning, we're getting old, the blazers always loose, young republicans, dirty and wounded in suburban Portland, and the long trip back.

All that and more over the coming weeks. I'll probably write them up as non-blog pages attached somehow to the previous Ren Fayre reportage.

In addition to that it's time to put the screws to it. There's a ton of work to be done, art to be channeled, friends and love to be made; yep, time get the old praxis machine humming yet again. We've been stalled out for too long here. Pump the gas twice, spark the ignition, let the clutch out easy...

There's a kind of romance buried within the stinking hung-over puke-crusted heart of punk rock. We dance in circles and fiddle while Rome is burning, and people are too paranoid and unsure of themselves to step out of the trance. It takes five seconds to decide. Lamp-Rey silliness threatens to capsize the whole affair, and I can't seem to spell worth crap. Keep it together. All will be told. It's been a good weekend so far and now the Blazers are on. It's opposite year, so maybe we have a chance.

Comments anyone?

I'm gone to Portland, Ren Fayre bound. I'm sure you'll get by quite allright without me.

So I struggle for relevance, trying to keep everything spinning the way it needs to spin. Axiom went off last night and I'm bouied by the whole thing. I love it. People share. People laugh. People hook up afterwards and have sex. It's a real thing, and it gives me strength and passion and a sense of well being.

Also, for anyone thinking about or running a website, a piece of advice. Letting your yankee doodle sweetheart know about some other girl you hooked up with -- even if it was way back when, before things were serious -- via the public internet is not likely to engender good feelings. Maybe I have a secret inner subconscious thirst for scorn. Dunno. But here's the real story of Sasha and Josh.

And now with Janes Addiction pumping new wine into my exquisite corpse, I feel like exploring a new trail. I feel very high on life, but maybe I'm just a day tripper. I want to be more than I am, and maybe that starts with leaving the house more, with not disclaiming so much, with full automatic guns blazing honesty. The road to utopia is charted with the ability to open it all up.

Other News

I know this is all over blogdom, but William Gibson is discontinuing his. His reasons are apt: it hurts his creative process. This gives me pause, for I can feel that all this content I push out might stand more of a chance if I were patient and considered and coelesced my energy. Food for thought.

Finally, a website and concept I know and love and don't link to often enough. If you're looking for soul, splash around in the storytelling pond of the fray.

It happened again. For the second time this week, US troops fired on a crowd of Iraqi protesters, this time killing "only" two. They were protesting the killing of 14 protesters on monday night, who were in turn protesting -- interestingly enough -- the quartering of US Solders at a local school, shades of the third amendment and the Boston massacre.

Again our troops make the claim that they were fired on, and the locals dispute that claim, though they were throwing rocks.

Maj. Michael Marti, an intelligence officer for the division's 2nd Brigade, said soldiers in a passing convoy fired on the crowd after rocks were thrown at them and a vehicle window was broken by what was believed to be automatic weapons fire.

I don't quite know what to say about this except we've got to stop. We've got to do something different than we've been doing because this is going to get cyclical real quick. Right now the mayor of Fallujah has asked troops to stay away from sensative areas. They are "considering" the proposal. If these two incidents are anything other than serious strategic screwups that are being dealt with swiftly and from the highest level, we are deep in the stinky stuff. That this war was the brainchild of the Likudnik wing of the Pentagon makes me even more nervous. The last thing we want is our own Gaza the size of California.

ABC's The Notepad, which features messages direct from each democratic campaign, continues to be of interest, though I doubt the content they summon forth there will still seem engaging after a few weeks. Leiberman's message is almost laughable. Dean's looses points for being a bit too cheeky on the most recent Kerry spat. For people to honestly try and disagree with the satement "we won't always have the strongest military point" is laughable. It's a fact. Our dominance cannot last forever, though it will likely continue for some time yet. From a political-elitist point of view you can make hay from this by citing the fact that American voters don't care about the future. I think that's debatable. The point is that we must be prepared for a day when we are matched or overmatched in military strength -- again, in the fullness of time this is inevitable and to seriously think otherwise is hubristic folly -- by building a world free from wars of impunity.

Actually the biggest surprise for me was Sharpton's entry. Not because it's all that revolutionary, but because it's actually well written. Then I realize it's attributed to the Rev. himself and not some campaign flunky and I understand why, but it strikes me how poor the written communiques for all the other candidates are and makes me think I wouldn't mind working as a speechwriter for someone. I don't know how you get that job though. Probably a lot of dues to pay. Oh well.