BuzzMachine

Blogging
: Been crazed; blogging light; back any moment…

Flying to Baghdad
: I shipped a camera to Zeyad in Baghdad (to be picked up at the FedEx offices; it’s not a great thing to have a U.S. truck rumbling into your neighborhood). It will take a week to get there. And what’s shocking — here’s the point of telling you — is that the shipping cost half as much as the camera itself. I’m more than happy to do it; not complaining. But if others are going to help more Iraqi bloggers (not to mention bloggers from other countries), there has to be a better way…

: Zeyad also translates a wonderful story from Iraq today:

On a lighter note. Fuad, an Iraqi citizen has been displaying Saddam Hussein’s infamous

military suit at Tahrir square in downtown Baghdad. He confessed to Azzaman that he got the suit from one of Saddam’s presidential sites in Baghdad after the war. He has been offering it since for rental to interested customers to wear for souvenir pictures. His fees range from 500 Dinars (25 cents) wearing the suit to 1000 Dinars for a walk in it. An American officer offered Fuad 200 Dollars for the suit but he refused stating that he depended on it for his livelihood, he was making 15 thousand Dinars a day from renting the suit to Baghdadis. The funniest thing is that Fuad employed 2 of his relatives as bodyguards for fear on the suit from getting stolen. (From Azzaman)

It’s the first door on the left
: NY Times Public Editor Dan Okrent responds to all the talk about him blogging in the comments at Jay Rosen’s blog:

All: Interesting stuff, every bit of it. But please give me a little time to figure things out; I haven’t even found the bathroom yet.

Dan let me know in email that we’ll be seeing something from him in good time. And I replied that the good news is, your public awaits, Mr. Public Editor.