I’m just a feather on your breath

* A view of Bagdad. excerpt:

"Fear is ravaging Baghdad. Its partners are the hatred, crime and violence that intrude into daily life. Eighteen months after the capital's fall, this city of 5 million is increasingly unpredictable.

"A simple trip to the supermarket turns disastrous when a gunfight erupts. A well-to-do doctor drives a beat-up jalopy while keeping his two Mercedes on cinder blocks, fearful he'll be carjacked. Rockets tear into hotels in the heart of the city's most secure areas.

"And the car bombs, which happen daily now, are so common that some people don't even halt sentences for the explosions, much as a New Yorker might ignore a car alarm.

"This is the emerging picture of life on the streets in Baghdad, where citizens and foreigners alike live with constant fear, and new questions about the country's future abound."
...
"Most of Iraq gets no more than 12 hours a day of electricity, so the fans and air conditioners in schools, which were donated by coalition forces, can be useless at times.

"And posters of fundamentalist religious leaders, including Muqtada al-Sadr, adorn the walls of many schools, placed there by bands of religious enforcers. A wall near one school is covered with graffiti that says: 'Long live the resistance. Long live the holy warriors. The occupier will leave, by God. Traitors and spies, beware.'"

* The Land Grant College Review is hosting a party Thursday night, in New York at the Tank. A $10 cover gets you unlimited booze and cigarettes, as well as the music of we are scientists. Festivities begin at 9pm.

* Check out the poster for the Tim Burton remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.