Baghdad blogs

First there was "Salam Pax" (aka "Where is Raed?") the Baghdad blogger, commenting on his life and the city's anxiety as the US forces (and the B-52s) approached. Now Salam/Raed has apparenlty become a commercial product The Baghdad Blog: a book, a promotional video, and paraphernalia:

Salam’s 7 May post offered a tantalising clue to his identity. In passing he mentioned that his close friend G., a regular fixture in the blog, had done some translation work for the Guardian in Baghdad. We immediately mailed all the Guardian correspondents who had reported from the Iraqi capital asking if they could identify G. Two of them could and within a week or so, a meeting had been set up with Salam himself. The interview he eventually gave to Rory McCarthy filled in many of the blanks that had preoccupied his legion of fans. We learned that his command of Western culture – if not his elegant English – was the product of two lengthy spells living in Vienna, one of them while studying for a degree in architecture. We learned that he posted either from the offices of the architecture firm where he worked or from a CD-strewn bedroom decorated with a poster for The Matrix. His own father, he told McCarthy, had not known about his illicit chronicle until hearing an item about the Baghdad Blogger on the BBC World Service and confronting his son. And more than once, he feared Saddam’s secret policemen had finally caught up with him: ‘I spent a couple of days thinking this is the end. And then you wait for a couple of days and nothing happens and you say, “OK, let’s do it again.” Stupid risks, one after another.’
Since there were still plenty of people in Baghdad who might take exception to his candour, the one piece of the puzzle that Salam asked us to withhold was his real surname (Salam is his real first name). But elsewhere, others were making their own deductions. The New York Times reporter Peter Maass wrote memorably about the moment he realized the Baghdad Blogger had been right under his nose. ‘I laughed out loud . . . I howled. Salam Pax, the most famous and most mysterious blogger in the world, was my interpreter.’
Unusually for an Internet phenomenon, Salam successfully made the transition into old media with a fortnightly column in the Guardian.
...
By the end of the war Salam’s celebrity had spread far beyond the Internet. There were Salam Pax T-shirts and mugs. Nick Denton called him the ‘Anne Frank of the war’ and Peter Maass added ‘and its Elvis’. But his increasingly high profile attracted a new, less welcome form of attention too. Those who thought his blog was unduly critical of Iraq’s ‘liberators’ made dark insinuations about his parents’ Baathist connections. Eventually Salam blew his top, advising his detractors to ‘go play Agatha Christie somewhere else.’ His mother, he said, had been a sociologist at the Ministry of Education, but had given up her job when she was told she could not make progress in her career without becoming a Party member.
His father had been an eminent economist, but had made a similarm decision when faced with the same choice. ‘You are being disrespectful to the people who have put the first copy of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four in my hands . . . go fling the rubbish at someone else.’

and now there's "Baghdad Burning" from riverbendblog, authorship claimed by a 24-year-old female who, like Salam, has marvelous English and passion and another front-row seat at the post-war show. She came to my attention a couple of days ago, when a friend emailed an excerpt in which she decribes a cousin's engineering firm's estimate of $300K as the cost of rebuilding a bridge on which the occupation authority seems ready to pay US firms $50M.

I’m a computer science graduate. Before the war, I was working in an Iraqi database/software company located in Baghdad as a programmer/network administrator (yes, yes… a geek). Every day, I would climb three flights of stairs, enter the little office I shared with one female colleague and two males, start up my PC and spend hours staring at little numbers and letters rolling across the screen. It was tedious, it was back-breaking, it was geeky and it was… wonderful.
When I needed a break, I’d go visit my favorite sites on the internet, bother my colleagues or rant about ‘impossible bosses’ and ‘improbable deadlines’.
I loved my job- I was *good* at my job. I came and went to work on my own. At 8 am I’d walk in lugging a backpack filled with enough CDs, floppies, notebooks, chewed-on pens, paperclips and screwdrivers to make Bill Gates proud. I made as much money as my two male colleagues and got an equal amount of respect from the manager (that was because he was clueless when it came to any type of programming and anyone who could do it was worthy of respect… a girl, no less- you get the picture).
What I’m trying to say is that no matter *what* anyone heard, females in Iraq were a lot better off than females in other parts of the Arab world (and some parts of the Western world- we had equal salaries!). We made up over 50% of the working force. We were doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, professors, deans, architects, programmers, and more. We came and went as we pleased. We wore what we wanted (within the boundaries of the social restrictions of a conservative society).

About Riverbend
A lot of you have been asking about my background and the reason why my English is good. I am Iraqi- born in Iraq to Iraqi parents, but was raised abroad for several years as a child. I came back in my early teens and continued studying in English in Baghdad- reading any book I could get my hands on. Most of my friends are of different ethnicities, religions and nationalities. I am bilingual. There are thousands in Iraq like me- kids of diplomats, students, ex-patriots, etc.
As to my connection with Western culture… you wouldn’t believe how many young Iraqi people know so much about American/British/French pop culture. They know all about Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brad Pitt, Whitney Houston, McDonalds, and M.I.B.s… Iraqi tv stations were constantly showing bad copies of the latest Hollywood movies. (If it’s any consolation, the Marines lived up to the Rambo/ Terminator reputation which preceded them.)
But no matter what- I shall remain anonymous. I wouldn’t feel free to write otherwise. I think Salam and Gee are incredibly brave… who knows, maybe one day I will be too. You know me as Riverbend, you share a very small part of my daily reality- I hope that will suffice.