Dean points out their similarities, and then suggests that the difference in the coverage they're receiving might have something to do with bias in the mainstream American media.

Pretty fast with that trigger finger—aren't you, Buddy?

Posted by: Attila at 10:26 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Well gosh it would be so unsafe to assume....

Posted by: Dean Esmay at August 24, 2005 11:03 PM (fUXNc)

2 I GUESS YOU'VE LEARNED YOUR LESSON, YOUNG MAN!

Posted by: Attila Girl at August 24, 2005 11:21 PM (1Veel)

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In Montrose there is a little street with a bunch of small businesses on it. There's a vaguely old-fashioned feel to the street, as if a few of the stores have been there since the fifties or sixties or seventies. Toward the end of the street there's a block with a tailor, an antique dealer, a beauty salon and a beauty supply store.

Back when we had money I used to get my nails done on that block (the manicure shop has since moved), and I got to know the proprietor of the beauty supply store. So I've been going back there for all the things that we get the "brand names" of (hairspray, for example: that's one thing I don't like to get at Rite-Aid).

The woman who runs the shop is a Christian from Iraq. A few weeks before we invaded her country I went in to ask if she had family in Baghdad.

"My uncle," she told me. I expressed concern, and told her I'd pray for him.

"What can we do?" she responded. "This has to happen. They must get rid of Saddam." She told me stories of being taken down to the street as a child to watch mandatory viewings of bodies: people Saddam's henchmen had killed. "It's awful," she told me. "Horrible."

Two doors down is my tailor. She's from Lebanon, and was there a few months ago, visiting her sister. She told me stories about relatives of hers who left for work and never came back—victims of the random violence of Islamists. She was less angry about the Syrian occupation than I expected, but outraged that every time a bomb went off her relatives had to call everyone, counting their children and hoping that no one had been killed or maimed.

"I'm optimistic about the future," I told her. "I'm an American." And I know it's stupid: the departure of the Syrians doesn't stop the bombing. Not yet, anyway.

Whenever I go to get hairspray, or have my pants hemmed down to dwarf size, I see the Iraqi woman in the doorway of the Lebanese seamstress's shop. She always goes to her own shop when she sees me park my beat-up old Saturn, and I usually go there first.

I pray that one day neither of these ladies will have to live in fear of what Islamists might do to their loved ones. In the meantime, I ask God to look out for their families.

And up on Foothill Blvd. there's a new beauty supply that's closer to my house. And a dry cleaner that advertises $7 to hem pants (vs. $10 in Montrose). I can't go either of these places, of course. Just can't.

Posted by: Attila at 03:49 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The President of Kyrgyzstan, President Askar Akayev, has just resigned, according to James Joyner. Holy shit.

This democratic-leanings thing: it's like bobbing skirts in the 20s. All the rage. And authoritarian rulers are those ugly girls in the long skirts that no one wants to kiss.

Happy Easter.

Posted by: Attila at 11:57 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 I thought when I first saw this that Kyrgyzstan might be the former SSR where capital punishment consists of boiling in oil, but I think that's Uzbekistan. Still, nice to see another tinpot despot being brought down.

Posted by: Simon Dodd at March 25, 2005 05:31 AM (o+ba9)

2 23 skidoo!

Posted by: Daniel at March 25, 2005 06:33 PM (HhZDf)

3 Do you think it's possible to airlift this place some surplus vowels?

Posted by: tdothen at March 25, 2005 07:14 PM (Enafl)

4

Posted by: Attila Girl at March 25, 2005 10:26 PM (R4CXG)

5 Being a "Zell Miller" Democrat, I am pleased that the United States of American overwhelmingly professional military has lit a fire that may never smolder again, but will burn brighter and higher as time moves forward. Personally I was reluctant to get involved, as we have, in Iraq, but was/am supportive of the action once initiated. I wish my parties leaders would simply publicly admit that they were wrong. No matter, at this point, why we did what we did (my belief is that it was faulty intelligence relying on Iraq insiders who were also decieved by Saddam's counciler's who couldn't admit the truth or lose their heads) the incredible impact it has had on the most troubled/troubling region of the world is so positive that they need to back off and support it with all they have. That they have'nt makes me ashamed. The United Sated of America and our military have done an incrdibly good thing here, it is time, it is time now, to acknowlege it and support our troops efforts unequivicably-now-stand up and probe that you deserve to lead the Democratic party.

Posted by: P Mann at March 26, 2005 08:04 PM (f+6vj)

6 sorry, but this is an emotional topic for me and sometimes I forget to spell check.

Posted by: P Mann at March 26, 2005 08:07 PM (f+6vj)

7 No matter; well stated.

Posted by: Attila Girl at March 27, 2005 12:19 AM (R4CXG)

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Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities does a kind of roundup called "Freedom on the March," mostly focused on changes the Middle East, but also discussing events in Western Asia and Africa. Some quibble with the exact examples he chose, but the specifics are less important to me than that sense of expectation in the air—the zeitgeist of self-determination that's spreading, virus-like, in several areas all at once.

And suddenly I'm humming Buffalo Springfield:

There's something happening here

What it is ain't exactly clear

There's a man with a gun over there

Telling me I got to beware

I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound

Everybody look what's going down

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

For real, this time: the sixties got nothing on us now.

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