Here’s a little waste of your time that hopefully will take your mind off of your shrinking 401(k), WaMu buyouts, bullshit debate dodging, and the rest of reality:

Damn It Feels Good To Be A Banker — A Wall Street Musical from Leveraged Sell-Out on Vimeo.

And The Official Obama/McCain Debate Drinking Game

As I’ve posted before, I spend part of my week reading up on the life of Riverbend (at the Baghdad Burning blog). Today, a new post appeared with what I can only describe as a heartbreaking statement:

The first evening we arrived, exhausted, dragging suitcases behind us, morale a little bit bruised, the Kurdish family sent over their representative – a 9 year old boy missing two front teeth, holding a lopsided cake, “We’re Abu Mohammed’s house- across from you- mama says if you need anything, just ask- this is our number. Abu Dalia’s family live upstairs, this is their number. We’re all Iraqi too… Welcome to the building.”

I cried that night because for the first time in a long time, so far away from home, I felt the unity that had been stolen from us in 2003.

That paragraph came at the end of her most recent post on moving to Syria, and admitting that she and her family are now refugees.

Why does the world tolerate our war?

I don’t usually get sucked into the Bush-era scare tactics, but this message on the Seattle Metro bus (line #8) scared me a little this morning.

I’ve heard about these ads on metro buses in New York, some that even listed the number of 911 calls and incidents (I don’t have the exact quote, but it was something like “19,000 people saw something - and did something about it!”). That kind of “watch your neighbor” stuff scares the bejesus out of me. Way to go, Homeland Security. Way to go.

For the past couple of years, I have read the Baghdad Burning blog by Riverbend, a woman that posts a regular blog about living in pre and post Iraq war from Baghdad.

For the last few months, I have checked nearly daily her blog to see if there’s been an update. Any length of time without a post fills me with worry that something bad has happened. She’s had raids, family members gone missing (and then found dead), and a multitude of disasters that any normal person living in our world today should never have to face, let alone accept as the norm.

Until today, her last post was from April, a post about her leaving Baghdad and the great wall of segregation that was being erected in Iraq. Since that time, I have been worried about whether she and her family had gotten out, and whether or not there had been any problems or death. Mind you, this is a person I’ve never met, a person I know little about other than the careful words she has written on her Web site and have been published in a book. Strange to have so much care for a stranger. Stranger still that such care is considered odd for a fellow human being.

Today, she posted an update from Syria, outlining her exit and the long road, physically and mentally, that lead to her exodus. I wish as an American, as a human even more, that there was something that could be done. Something that would keep a person from having to go through what she’s endured.

I’m glad she and her family are safe. Her blog has been a beacon into an otherwise media-saturated story of lies and deception. I hope she continues to write, and I certainly hope there comes a day when she can return to her home and hang her photographs back on her walls. That will never replace the neighbors and family that have long since disappeared, but at least it’s something. Something that someday may be called ‘normal.’