⁂ Asterism: Flying Over the Iraqi Blogodrome

I am holiday and in a flat with no Internet and no telephone. Yet I still get that urge that keeps drawing me back to the Internet café. My one-hour a day fix to feed my blogging habit. And the Iraqi bloggers are keeping me hooked.

Hacked

After an anonymous hacker temporarily brought down IraqBlogCount Konfused Kid is speculating about conspiracy theories.

As one blogger bows out...

I am sorry to see one of the most active of Iraqi bloggers leave the 'drome. In a short post Ladybird says goodbye..

Cyber-Life finished, Real-Life continues

I apologize if I said anything bad to anybody here.

These are the last words.

Bye all

And the best blog-bituary comes from her arch-nemesis Mister Ghost:

I didn't often agree with Ladybird. Our political philosophies were radically different. I winced at her constant proliferation of posts critical of the United States. ... But I always had a soft spot in my heart for Ladybird. She had high hopes for a better Iraq, and grew disappointed like many Iraqi bloggers, which may have fueled her distrust, ...

And that Ladybird was a tough gal who made something with her life as a member of the International Red Cross in Africa and parts beyond, helping a wide range of people. She survived wars, being shot at, snakebites, was kidnapped, I believe, more than once. Ahhhh, what a book she could write about her life and experiences.

Lets hope that new life involves writing that book!

...another steps in

With a name that will probably blow a hole through all but the best Unicode convertors, ĒL DELILÂH gives us her Not-So Humble Opinion about other Iraqi bloggers. Her blog reviews tear through the victims blog with keen wit that has others waiting in fear of the day she notices them. "i am in anticipation of being reviewed by El Delilah, i hope i will not be found wanting" writes aNarki-13.

El Delilah's first target was Meemo

In the July 20th post which is the most recent, titled "Midnight Chitchat", he goes on as though he's got ADHD. I realize it's a chitchat, but it's one of those things where you lose interest after the first...there are no paragraphs but say chunk. He starts off with how he can't think of anything to talk about, and how they found a decapitated man near the house and all of that. As I read through, I found it no more than "blabber". You would expect a person to be slightly more affected by the fact that a decapitated body was at their door.

And then she lays into The Mesopotamian fists swinging wildly.

He's the All-Knowing Oracle, he warns and warns and people just never listen. Media's the green serpent that is sometimes mean and sometimes plain idiotic, while his majestic self carries on warning...et cetera. You should go to this blog if you've got low self-esteem issues, but you should go with a bucket, because there you can collect some of the bloated ego which drips from his lines.

Ouch. Her review of Meemo also provoked a counter-review from Asterism (that's me). "People are getting beheaded on Meemo's doorstep and Dulilah is moaning about him to grow up. Get a perspective little girl! What is you problem? Were you potty-trained too early? Did your parents force you to study instead of playing. Are you harboring deep grudges of a lost childhood?"

Reading blogs just became more fun!

Word from the streets

Hell on earth would be an understatement for life in Baghdad these days. Baghdad Treasure just moved to Amman and explains the difference between living in a peaceful city and Baghdad:

My life has changed now. I can breath, walk, laugh, joke, cry, run, have fun, and meet with friends and relatives. I missed these things for years. For the last three years, I was like a robot. Living and working for the sake of work and nothing else. No kind of life was represented in my previous life. Fear was my companion. Wherever I go I feel worried and whatever I do I feel cautious. I thought about each step I walked in Baghdad several times before I took its risk.

For those that remain in Baghdad, life is a mixture of dealing with day to day crises...

Anyway, what made me extremely worried was the news that spread like lightning in the neighborhood, the news (or the rumor) says that leaflets were found in the neighborhood carrying threats to Sunni families and telling all Sunni residents to leave.
What the….!!

Do I and my family have to leave our home now? Impossible! That was the first thing I thought of…No, I'm not running away, I'm not leaving the home I was raised in and I'm not abandoning my country…what do these people want from us?!

... or saying sad goodbyes to friends and family who are leaving Iraq indefinitely. Miraj's favourite aunt is trying to leave Iraq. She writes, "Once they are gone from Iraq, we won’t have any family left in Iraq, just another reason that keep us hanging on to Iraq is being dissolved, like every other reason." Or just reacting to the daily horror of it all:

I just wonder how can we continue doing our jobs and go to schools or to work?! A week before, my father came home terrified! He said that some gunmen stop their office bus on the highway that leads to “Albayaa area” in Baghdad. He added and mentioned that those hirelings obliged the driver to pull over and grabbed that poor driver out of the bus and aim their AK47s over his head. One of them ordered the passengers to show their ID cards! The other gunmen yelled: “Fuck them, let’s move on from here quick!”. They took that poor driver with them and quickly drove their four wheel drive Toyota.

And finally...

Iraqi bloggers are still meeting in Amman. The latest discussion have gone from the price of Iraqi petrol: "While I was enjoying the time with my new friends last night, I got a call from an Iraqi friend here in Amman. he told me that the prices of oil products in Baghdad have reached a point where when it’s become impossible for the average Iraqi to buy them." to singing "the famous Phoebe [of F.R.I.E.N.D.S] song, 'Smelly Cat, smelly cat. What are they feeding you?' ".

And finally, finally...

Here is the best blog post I never read: