He is, hopefully, shaken. But unharmed. Whereas the journalist who threw the shoe was beaten till “he was crying like a woman” (Times). The shoe thing is deeply disrespectful in Arab culture, as is calling him a dog (unclean). I guess I don’t disapprove of what the journo did, well, actually, I think it’s OK. I wish more problems were aired symbolically rather than bombically. I mean, I wish people could see that there are other more creative ways to garner media coverage than dead bodies. And what he said was, well, coherent. “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!” He then threw a shoe at Mr. Bush, who ducked and narrowly avoided it. As stunned security agents and guards, officials and journalists watched, Mr. Zaidi then threw his other shoe, shouting in Arabic, “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!” (ibid).

Right now Jaffna is under effective siege, cut off via A9 (road) and sea. I’m not going to dwell on the specifics so much. The A9 was opened under the cease-fire but now it’s closed. The reasons are twofold, one is that the LTTE collects millions of dollars in tolls from the road. Two is that the LTTE has been blowing shit up in Colombo and Galle. Explosive people things and people move down the A9, hence. Unfortunately, food always moves up and down the A9. And ordinary people who just want to get out. Hence hence. Trouble. In fact the peace talks broke down over this point, and the fact that the talks had no point. I’m not going to address this issue cause it’s a motherfucking bramblebush, but rather the general drift of the thing. I’ve been reading this book that describes the nature of modern conflict. PM Barnett describes the conflict as this age as not being ‘Democracy vs Terrorism’ or ‘Islam vs West’ but rather as ‘Connectivity vs Disconnectivity’. I think there may be a better word for that.

Saddam has been sentenced to death. I’m not all for the death penalty, but he and his sons terrorized his own people (and now they have to do it themselves). Saddam was (hopefully) the last consciously Stalinist tyrant, using fear and a vicious security force to cow an entire nation. He wasn’t insane and at one point many in the Arab world held out hope for him, but he ultimately stepped too far. It is good that he was deposed, but that has proved far from a silver bullet for Iraq. Due to a completely botched occupation, there are now about 3,000 people a month dying there and the war is – by most accounts – a failure. Saddam’s head is some consolation, but not much. It’s like sinking the 8 ball prematurely. If you don’t get the other pieces in you’ve still lost the game. Regardless, Saddam was a very cruel and destructive human being. I don’t get any pleasure out of his death, but it’s good that he’s received some justice.

2141-2122 B.C.; Mesopotamian, Neo-Sumerian period; Paragonite; 41 cm (16 1/8 in.); Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund; 82.64 This guy Gudea ruled his Iraqi mini-state competently. I have no clue what’s going to happen to modern Iraq. I actually have no place commenting at all, but it’s the Internet, wtf. What follows is [...]

Abu Ghraib means ‘father of the raven’ This is a Photoshop I did on Abu Ghraib… or at least my impressions of it. The background is a Saddam era prison-pass to Abu Ghraib. The colorful people are sampled from the excellent work “Hurricane” by the Iraqi artist Sadiq Toma (purchase). The hand is a medical [...]

The Iraq flag does look like a shoe. This is a metrosexual version from D-Squared (on sale at eBay). The Agitator has a nice list of flag reviews, for background. This is weird, cause I usually steal headlines shamelessly from Wonkette, but this time I actually know the guys selling the shoe. It’s weird cause [...]

image source: Last Judgement, Hans Memling (1430-1494), via Google Images My dad sent me a cryptic note about Iraq, refering to this Brooks article. I think I’m supposed to brainstorm ways to fix Iraq rather than talk about shoes that look like the Iraqi flag. The only problem is that I don’t know anything, so [...]