Goddam Good

I pretty much stopped reading Salon when they started charging or making one watch that goddam advertisement, but what a great publication. I was just reading it now and they had a great article describing the discussions between Allawi and Kofi Annan last week about taking Falluja. Apparently, Annan sent a letter to Allawi encouraging not using force in Falluja for risk of hurting elections in January. He though massive civilian casualties in Falluja would have a negative impact on the elections. Allawi responded that he could not believe in Annan's letter, that Annan did not even mention what has been going on in Falluja, a Taliban-style state, where headless bodies lay in the river and beating and excutions are regular. This type of violence has been spilling outside the city into the rest of Iraq, blowing up police stations, and other types of institutions accused of collaborating with the coalition. This thinking is typical amongst the anti-war group, seeing only the bad possibilities of going into Iraq or further action in Iraq, and completely ignoring the horror of the status quo situation.

The second great article was called the Uber Teen, which talked about the new type of teenager featured in TV, super fast talking, clever, referential, hip versus the earnest teen of the 80s - John Cusack versus Lindsey Lohan. This article came down hard on the gen x writers who write the clever beyond anything else, referential crap, that underneath is completely hollow. So much of this writing is a list of what's cool. I admit to writing like this sometimes, and I'm struggling to get away from it. Sorry.