Both William Kristol’s Weekly Standard on the right and David Corn’s The Nation on the left seem to have similar positions about the events in Iran. A couple of weeks ago, I’d have bet the farm those two mags couldn’t have agreed on Mom and Apple or Cherry Pie. Astounding. I suppose even highly improbable events seem to happen on a quantum level and, thus, chaos in the macro and random events will happen, no matter how unlikely.
Meanwhile, I’m glued to my computer. The internet has been far and away the best source of news out of Tehran compared with television, radio and newspapers — with very few exceptions (I’m thinking NPR, Fareed Zakaria at Newsweek and CNN, the NY Times blog, TheLede) — and those exceptions are vacuumed up instantaneously. It’s a one-way line, it appears. You would think those journalism outlets would try to link up when nobody can be “on the ground” under the present circumstances.

In all events, it is a signal event that the situation in Iran, even in its smaller cities, is being provided by private individuals telling what they saw and heard and felt in real time. Photos are not far behind and there are rare bits of video that have escaped. This one from the storming of the Basiji militia barracks yesterday is amazing.

My friend, the Ultimate Webmaster, used to preach that “information wants to be free” is proving more correct than I believe he imagined.

One lesson I’ve learned is that I tend to think of Iran as a 2d level nation; not a “first-world” nation like the US or Europe. However, it’s obvious that the infrastructure for wireless communications are available even in small towns in Iran and that’s impressive to me. These events couldn’t happen this way in North Korea or the Sudan because no one has cellphones and the nations don’t have the infrastructure to make them work. Satellite phones, yes, but that’s a king’s ransom in those countries.
Meanwhile, nearby, about 15,000 American troops are deploying out of Kabul south towards the Pakistani border as the Pakistanis prepare to strike into Waziristan, part of their loosely controlled territories, making one big pincer movement against the Taliban and AlQaeda. Some of the top people in AQ are reported fleeing to Sudan and Yemen when they can get out. As far as I know, bin Lauden remains in Waziristan, but no one knows north or south and that’s two different Imam/Tribal Warlords. However, Waziristan is Pashtun and the Taliban are Pashtun and they don’t pay all that much attention to the borders. It is a very isolated part of the world.

Enough of my lecturing my friends about boring shit. I had a pretty good day. Saw Mom and spent a good hour with her. Sinatra stayed out all night and has been quite snuggly today. If I didn’t know he’d been cut, I say he acted all shagged out. I loaded 44 CDs into this computer and I’m playing through them randomized cut at a time. My Rose of Sharon is blooming outside my window. Life is still shit, but today wasn’t my day to bite that sandwich.
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