Salam Pax has an update from within Baghdad. Good to know he's safe. As I thought, the internet was out for a bit during Shock and Awe.

Also, on the propaganda watch, here's what's coming out of the American Enterprise Institute. Key quote is the second paragraph, "The American campaign in Iraq is barely 60 hours old, but already it is inflicting terrible casualties upon the deceptions and delusions of the pre-war period." Sounds good, except that it's not about how the PNAC-sponsored visions of rapid surrenders and a war that's over inside a week are being gruesomely ripped asunder. It's about how predictions of doom and gloom were out of whack, and protesters are supporting tyrants, and all that other nonsense. Fuggin' disgustin'.

Broadway at about 10th stree. It was like this all the way back to Times Square.

Plenty of folks lining up for falaffel after we got to the park.

Plainclothes cops bust some random kid for no apparent reason.

Photos are here!

Protest march was fantastico. People were filling B'way from 42nd to Washington Square Park, no idea how to estimate the numbers. While most cheered, a few people lining the road were not enthusiatic. One young man held an American flag and looked tense. I pointed to the flag patch I was wearing, looked him in the eye and gave a thumbs up. One old woman said, "you're all traitors." I responded, "I'm here because I love my country." That's the truth, kids.

The crowd was pretty diverse. I saw young people and old people, white people and brown people. There was a contingent of monks there doing some cool deep chanting that I felt like joining in with but didn't for fear of getting it wrong. There were hipsters and Jim Jarmush and Amiri Baraka and a contingent from el Puente (the primarily latino neighborhood in south w-burg). It was a good group, with lots of witty signs and positive vibes.

I also met a few people who liked to talk politics. Some kid who's studying to be a tour guide and who was all for hearing about real alternatives to war. I talked to people about how this has to all lead up to the 2004 election. Many were skeptical about who among the Democrats would stand up to Team Bush. I told them about Howard Dean and his spot on anti-war/pro-america message. Hopefully that movement will continue gathering steam.

Dean on the War:

"The threshold for what America does militarily has got to be higher than anyone else's. America has always set the moral tone in foreign policy. And if we attack a nation unilaterally that's not a threat to us, it means that someone will try the same thing, somewhere down the line, and justify it by our actions."

All and all it was a pleasent and eventful afternoon. Once we hit the park we were told to disperse, but of course that didn't happen. Washington Square had a festival atmosphere, full of people and music and the energy of spring. I got a falaffel and stooped it on W4th for a while with joe Felice and a few others. Met up with Henning and her crew eventually. It was a beautiful afternoon.

Later on I swung back through and the inevitable clashes with the Law were underway. It's like high school: some protesters want to fight, and so do some cops. They antagonize each other, offering little provocations back and fort until finally someone snaps and there's a flurry of activity. The air was pretty tense for a while as the NYPD moved to clear Washington Square West. I was a bit disturbed watching a couple of plainclothes cops bust some kid at the back of the crowd for no reason I could detect. He was simply taken out seemingly at random, thrown to the ground and arrested. A few things were thrown at the cops -- plastic water bottles, signs, a slice of pizza and one glass bottle -- but the crowd did a pretty quick job of self-policing, so that didn't really escalate too much. Some people near the front got the old mace in the face.

Afterwards I went to Julia's and we watched the sunset from her roof, a stunning and inspiring view of our fair city. Strange days are coming, it seems.

Apparently, "Shock and Awe" is in progress. I keep perversely flashing back to Star Wars, and Obi-Wan's line "I feel a great desturbance in the force."

In other news, CNN has been forced to pull their reporters out of Baghdad. That leaves those ministry of information steadycams, Al-Jezera and Dubai broadcasting video from inside the Iraqi capitcal. BBC still has a corrispondent on the scene. I'm finding their brand of commercial-free coverage stomachable.

And in other other news, as I've been watching the BBC I want to reiterate that Mishal Husain is a fox! And not like fox news, quite the opposite actually. However, according to this she's engaged.

This is the kind of think that keeps me going. Thanks to NDW for (indrectly) linking me up with this image.

Waching the 24-hour news like a good info-junky, observing the fog of war, I can't help but balk at the resemblance between the war coverage and a football pre-game show, right down to the drawings on screen and the "tale of the tape" run-ups. I'm just waiting for John Madden to pop up with some commentary: "And here comes the MOAB -- you know Jim that's short for 'Mother of all Bombs' -- and boom! That's gotta hurt."

Plenty of Hummer commercials too. Yeah, baby. "Like Nothind Else."

A fragment of conversation coming back up to mind, maybe from St Pats. "This war is more fucked up than incest. It's like watching your dad go over and kick the crap out of your neighbor's dog, and then being told to 'stand up for the family' when you try to raise a voice in protest."

I just re-read a bunch of my own postings here, and it was kind of boring. I'm really getting tired of mouthing the same basic sentiments dressed up with whatever "news" makes it through to us today. I'm starting to feel like everything is pretty predictable, which is not really a very good feeling. Like the great Marvin Gaye, I just want someone in charge to answer me, "what's going on?"

Brits training in Kuwait... a kind of strange visual resemblance to Baywatch, no?

If you've become a radiation mutant with a deformed hand, remember to close the window. No one wants to see that shit.

Lately I've been countering this growing sense of zombification by perusing direct postings from the field, real words from real people in real places as an antidote to the more or less plastic reality that surrounds me. Today this site from Kuwait is reporting that the US has already entered Iraq. I suppose that's referring to the DMZ, so we knew this. They also have live pictures from the area (where I got the running gas-mask guys here) and are reporting rumors that the "official" push will begin at 4:15am tonight, which makes it 8:15pm eastern. Sounds about right, providing that sandstorm dies down. Precisely 24 hours after the prez's little ultimatum, at least that's on-target.

I'm a little demoralized, politically. Even the rage is beginning to dissipate. I'll probably watch the jolly little war on CNN just like everyone else. God, what a tragedy. I don't even belive in God, but it's still a tragedy.

I shared the "give the statue of liberty back" site with Frank today, being as how we'd joked about spreading that idea around in Jest. His response was quite good:

... I had seen it before but now I posit another sarcastic commment/prediction: the use of french words in US military vocabulary. I mean, most of our military organization was done by the French and therefore many of common vocab words are French ones. For instance the word "sortie", (a mission) is the from the french verb "sortir" to go out. Will we have "Freedom" instead of "triage" units? Will combat units "freedom" instead of "rendez-vous" at a given pick-up point? Keep your eyes peeled, young Koenig, the stupidest is yet to come.


Wars aside, the rest of life continues to go well. Went to see comedian Rick Shapiro last night w/Sasha. Holy shit, that man is channeling something. Maniac rants against all things mediocre, scum-bellied sweaty-chested honesty, and a way of snapping back from tangents that makes Spaulding Grey look like an ameteur. Sign him up as the official comedian for the subculture of truth. We can still laugh, so we are still alive. On that note, here's another good ready.gov parody (link from doc).