And here is a blogger in Baghdad that's causing quite a stir. His last entry seems to be on Monday of this week. Reading through it is fairly amazing. The guy is an architect and gay, and he lives in Baghdad, which is... you know... a city. A city with a population of a few million. There are avenues and side streets and parks and good neighborhoods and trendy neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods. Around the university there are doubtless lots of student hang outs. People work as accountants and shop keepers and telecommunications specialists and janitors and cooks and waiters and teachers. They buy papers on their way to work and watch tv when they get home at night. The get aggravated with neighbors. They complain about the weather, although in addition to heat and rain, they also have sandstorms to contend with. (Raed mentions at one point, "from the smell of it, we're going to have sand."

The Ba'ath party members seem to be the people with guns. Raed's mother is Shi'ia. The Shi'ia are, I believe, a majority of the population, and are oppressed by Saddam and his Ba'aths.

Another interesting thing: Karbala comes from arabic meaning 'Calamity and Harm.'

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"Candles, duct tape, kerosene lanterns, and lavendar."

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