Zainab is most likely the first Iraqi woman to publish her thoughts to the web. I pasted her very first entry below. As of early Friday evening she had 197 comments. Thanks to Snail for reminding me about Salam Pax who notified everyone about Zainab’s blog.
“I know that one day there will be agreat revolution against the Americans and now we have the first seeds of that revolution . many Iraqi soldiers have demonstrated on june 18th in front of ORHA(the republican palace) claiming their rights of either having salaries or retired
Though this incident had been proceeded by many others , nevertheless, it is the first time like having a really organized activity , they where absolutely agitated or furious against the Americans . A convoy was trying to get inside ,one of the Americans got panic and started shooting at the masses ,two Iraqis got killed others wounded , terrible scarey scene . You have two sides each is inflicting the other great losses and its only the beginning . Did you know that at the beginning of the invasion everybody said it?s a bless getting rid of Saddam Hussien but it turns to be an ever lasting curse,haw could they just go leaving the biggest oil reservoir in the region, they have planned to stay, accept it or not ,the staunting thing is what the people want naw (the return of Saddam the tyrant)!!! . When you think thoroughly about it you find it logical & reasonable ,during the past regime there were safety &work chances(money) BUT, THERE IS NO FREEDOM, naw there is freedom without safety or public services with very very mini work opportunities , so normally they prefer the past time of saddam. They just want to live their life that?s all, they even start wishing if they were born in very poor country which doesn?t draw anybody?s attention. Naw we keep hearing news about incidents of Americans being missing or killed in different parts of Baghdad or other provinces ,also the Iraqi popular resistance movement have called other liberation movements abroad to come and work together for Iraq?s liberation , sparks ,sparks, of big fire , why all that should happen ? All you have to do is forming a decent real government! Is that hard to be done ? or is it been postponed for some hidden reasons which we cant realized naw but maybe later on we can, only God knows. “
June 28th, 2003
Ordinarily I would be suspicious if I read that a skatepark or spot had become the “newest American skateboard mecca.” It is sort of like when you’re reading the Austin Chronicle and they refer to Austin as the “so-called” Live Music Capital of the World, suggesting that the past few years of growth and change has corrupted the city’s bohemian spirit– and because of this, the live music capital must be somewhere else. But in the case of the Louisville Extreme Park, it’s true– not only is it arguably the best skatepark in the world, it has become a gets the scoop from a local skater: “One time, I met two German skaters who were walking around here with a German-to-English dictionary and were asking questions like `Hotel?’ and where to get food, stuff like that…” One thing that has impressed me is how the skatepark, located in a burgeoning section of downtown along the river, is seeing new businesses spring up as a direct result of the park. This has to be the only hostel in the world catering primarly to skateboarders, bikers, and fruit-booters.
June 27th, 2003
Sarah is back in town and had a great time in Chico. Her presentation at the conference went quite well. This was critical because it represented a significant milestone toward earning her PhD. A couple of well-respected people, who do similar research with yeast, attended her talk and later gave her good feedback. In fact, thanks to the solid presentation (and the reputation of her and her lab) she has already been offered post-doc opportunities at Rice University and the University of Maryland. Now if I can just figure out what exactly she does…
June 26th, 2003
At the end of a good vacation, you’re a little exhausted and ready for your own bed and day-to-day activities. But once you unpack, do laundry, run errands, and start to settle back in to familiar routines, you’d love just a few more days away from everything. I returned to Austin yesterday afternoon (Sarah flew to Chico, Ca for a biology conference) and was eager to see the cat, reacquaint my fingers with a keyboard, and just be back in the town that keeps it weird. Of course, now all I can think about is how much I’d like to be sitting on our cottage’s deck, sipping a margarita, and watching the waves crash onto the Outer Banks shoreline. Oh well. Sarah and I had a wonderful time at the reunion and we’ll have memories to last a lifetime. 
Some of these memories would probably be fun to post to the site (such as hitching a ride to our accessible-by-4WD-only cottage with a guy who may or may not have been Jesse Ventura because the folks that were to pick us up were stuck in the sand, praying that the rising tide wouldn’t send them out to sea). I think I will instead share some random thoughts and observations experienced last week…
The nearest airport to the Outer Banks is in Norfolk, Virginia. As we were walking down a corridor on the way to our gate yesterday morning, I was sleepily scanning the framed ads that showcase the region’s major employers, universities, and attractions. One of them caught my attention. It displayed a large image of a maglev train. Maglev (magnetic levitation) is a vaunted high-speed train technology that uses basic electromagnetic principles so that the train can “float” above an elevated guideway. Proponents say that the trains can reach speeds up to 300mph and argue that they should replace short, express jet flights. To my knowledge, maglev has never been fully implemented but is being tinkered with in places like Germany and Japan. The problem with the technology is that is has been way too expensive. But it turns out that the world’s first maglev train is up and running in the United States. Yes, it is in Norfolk, Virginia at Old Dominion University. Why Old Dominion? Why any university for that matter? Can’t the students and faculty be encouraged to ride their bikes if parking is a problem? Seems like this would make more sense connecting an airport to a dense downtown somewhere. A company called American Maglev Technology claims that it can build real maglev systems at a fraction of what was previously needed. Old Dominion partnered with AMT, Lockheed Martin, and Dominion Virginia Power to make the system a reality on OD’s campus.
As we drove past the ritzy beach resorts of Duck, and Corolla, I noticed the letters ‘OBX’ everywhere–license plates, stickers, flags, t-shirts, and store windows. OBX, which stands for “Outer Banks Experience,” is the area’s signature acronym. At first I wondered what was so unique about the experience one has here instead of at another string of beach towns and resorts. By the end of the week, it made a little more sense. For us, the Outer Banks Experience had a lot to do with having a large group of people in one house, about 10 miles from a paved road. There is something fairly extreme about having to look out the window to see if the tide is in or out to know whether you will be able to go to the grocery. And this isn’t Daytona Beach, hard-packed sand here, mind you. I regularly saw huge trucks, engines roaring, trying to get through the deep, loose sand. As weird and frustrating as it could be to have to look both ways before walking to the ocean, it was immensely satisfying to let my inner hessian run free as I blazed down the beach in a borrowed truck.
Any more it seems like instructional text almost always comes in both English and Spanish. The best situation, from a readability standpoint (though not as eco-friendly), is when this text is totally separted, such as a digital camera offering two instructional manuals, one for each language. In most instances, that is probably an unaffordable technique. If I can’t have the English instructions totally separated from the those in Spanish, I would prefer if you first see the English text, in its entirety, and then see the Spanish text. Too often the text is side-by-side, with no visual distinctions to clue the reader as to which is which. For example, I was relaxing on the beach, watching some kids ride boogie boards, and noticed the care instructions for my beach towel. The tag showed a big block of all-black text that read, “100% Cotton 100% Algodon Machine Wash Warm, Tumble Dry Lavar En Lavadora Con Agua Tibia” and so on. Simply having the Spanish text in gray would have made a huge difference. Or better yet, why not just have English and then Spanish? Public Realm, addressing the issues that really matter…
June 21st, 2003
