Wondering What Else is Going On

Here's another favorite track one of mine, again from a Brazilian album. Clara Nunes' 1978 album "Guerreira" is pretty tight and this is the first track (and the title track) off of it:



Clara Nunes - Guerreira

Anyway, so what else is going on? I want to try to avoid talking about that one place I've been spending a lot of time on recently to kind of quickly run over some other stuff since I've actually got a ton of work to do.

Less than a week before US soldiers are supposed to turn control of Iraq's cities over to Iraqis, a bomb goes off in a crowded marketplace in Baghdad, killing at least 69 people. I'm trying to learn a bit more myself about the implications of the US withdrawal and what it means for Iraqi civilian life; if anyone has any insight I'd appreciate it.

A four-year diplomatic absence in Syria is coming to an end for the US! We are sending a diplomat there, although it will take some time. No names have apparently been brought up and they would have to be approved by the Senate.

Around 1,370 Palestinians were killed in Israel's 22-day invasion of Gaza, and another 5,000 were injured. The blockade is still on for Gazans, so here are some statistics I pulled off of the BBC article provided by UNRWA and the World Food Bank:

- 40% unemployed
- 750,000 (that's out of only 1.5 million people) are getting UNRWA food aid.
- No petrol or diesel has been allowed in since November 2008, except for UN vehicles.
- Virtually no building materials are allowed in

I particularly like that last one - no building materials allowed in. Now, I wonder why it is that the Israeli authorities wouldn't want Gazans to rebuild?

Well, I can't help it, because I saw this in the middle of writing. In what is surely the final nail in the coffin of my plans to go to Iran after I graduate in December, the US has withdrawn its invitation to Iranian diplomats to attend parties at US embassies around the world on July 4th in light of the government's refusal to make any sort of compromise with the protesters. They were the first invitations extended since 1979.

In the meantime, the leaders there repeated how much they love and support those awesome election results, and how nobody will be allowed to protest, disagree, huff and puff up the stairs, be able to talk to any of their friends via telephone or internet, or be able to see what's actually going on anywhere else in the country than what they can see out their window without being viciously beaten and possibly shot. Meanwhile, politicians in the US are trying to score points with their respective bases of support by making grandiose, sweeping, symbolic statements about freedom and democracy that are likely made for more self-serving reasons rather than protecting the lives of innocent people. Good times.