Okay, I'm up waaaaay past my bedtime, but I'm up and looking around online. So much for my stern resolution, hm? Well, I happened to link to a blog from Lileks.com, which linked me to another blog - this one is reportedly written by a 24 year-old dentist in Baghdad, called Healing Iraq. Interesting stuff. Looking over one of the postings, this segment struck a chord with me. Not precisely sure why, but here it is:

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One thing is certain. The attacks are less frequent than say two months ago. The attacks lately have been harming more Iraqis than Americans. Mortar shells in Ba'quba three weeks ago took 12 innocent lives at a grocery market. A bomb planted beside the sidewalk in Adhamiya exploded when a bus stopped next to it killing 7 people. This has made people very bitter and critical whenever they hear about attacks. More and more people are informing against others they know involved with attacks. Large numbers of Arab infiltrators have been arrested. Of course they came from Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

A serious problem with attacks is that on many occasions American soldiers start to shoot randomly in all directions after they are attacked. This leads to deaths and injuries among many innocent bystanders. When I'm driving and I spot an American patrol I usually stop or slow down until they are far away so I wouldn't be caught in any cross fire. Obviously they are being briefed to shoot and ask questions later.

Most of the attacks are overrated. I know this. The following story is an example:

One afternoon I had just got back from work and was going to change my clothes when suddenly *BOOM* The windows shattered all around me in pieces, there was a smell of something like gunpowder. I looked out but there was dust everywhere. I remembered that my brother was outside. I carefully opened the door, and to my surprise found 4 American soldiers in our garden, they were knocking on my grandmothers house door, I worriedly asked them what happened. They told me to stay away. I offered to open the door for them, which I did. They entered and went upstairs all the way to the roof, I stood in the hall with one of them who informed me that a bomb exploded behind their humvee just in front of the house, no one was hurt. They were suspecting someone attacked them from this house. The others came down, apologized to me and my grandmother (who didn't understand what was going on anyway) then left the house.
I went out to find a crater in front of the house. My god that was close. By a miracle nobody in the street was hurt. The idiots who planted that bomb were dumb enough to put it inside a sewers drainage which absorbed the shock of the blast. The only damage was the sound it made. Most of our windows were shattered.
After a while the soldiers left the place. Suddenly a reporter and a cameraman from Al-Arabiyah station appeared, they were so fast. I crossed the street to take a look. They were talking to some bearded guy who I hadn't seen before in the neighbourhood. He was enthusiastically talking about the humvee that flew in the air, and the 4 injured soldiers. I didn't see any of that. I was bewildered. Someone next to me told me that nothing like that happened at all. My brother and a couple of friends of his started to chant in front of the camera: LIAR, LIAR,... Everyone laughed at this, but the bearded guy started to swear by Allah. Someone pointed out that the bearded guy wasn't even in the area when the bomb exploded. Uh oh, I thought, he seemed to know about it before it happened. The cameraman violently shoved my brother and his friend aside telling them to shut up. I stepped forward and gave hime a push from behind. He almost fell over. I warned him that the camera he was holding would be in a thousand pieces if he dared touch my brother again. He backed up. A neighbour of ours hollered them to come and see the damage in their house. They refused to do so and left.
In the evening, Al-Arabiyah reported the following: 3 Americans badly injured and one Jeep damaged at .... in Baghdad. They showed the bearded guy talking and edited the rest of it.

Thats the way media in present day Iraq works.

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At this point, I'm inclined to take my news from this fellow over CNN or BBC. Minus the shoving, I don't really know that the news media is much different over here.

Do I need to state how thankful to God I am that I'm pretty unlikely to say to anyone, "So I get home from work when suddenly an explosion shatters all of my windows..."? How easy is it to become complacent with my goofball websites and Bananas Foster ice cream and forget that real live people live their lives in these conditions?