(To see photos of a famous graveyard in Najaf and Ali's holy shrine; Richard Engel, etc. at the Book Expo; and me and my son, my three daughters, two granddaughters and daughter-in-law having our four-year reunions at my housing co-op and Epicurious Gardens in north Berkeley while eating Ciao Bella gelato, go to my blog. PS: My two oldest daughters are the ones who look they might have even come close to beating me in the hair-growing contest! But I won.)
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Yep, I'm still writing about the 2008 Book Expo. There was so much to learn, so many authors to meet and so MANY free books being given away at the Expo that I probably will be writing about it for the rest of the summer. Word.
When I was there, I went to an authors' panel featuring Ariana Huffington, that Daily Kos guy and Richard Engel. Kos said, "Back in 2002, we thought we were all alone [in the fight against Bush corruption] so I started a blog just to get things off my chest. And now, thanks to the internet, we no longer need a gatekeeper to tell us that we need permission to write about what we want to say. The media asked me what my credentials were but the people who read me didn't care. Now we are engaging people on the cutting edge. One and a half million people per month read the Daily Kos." Well, if what Kos said is true and Bush's corruption is now hanging out there for all the world and its wife to see, then why isn't George Bush in jail?
Then Huffington talked about John McCain. "He used to be a good guy back in 2000 but that John McCain no longer exists. The hero who was tortured now VOTES for torture. He is the oldest candidate ever and Iraq is his Viagra. My advice to him? If the war lasts for over 100 years, pull out!"
Then Huffington spoke about using fear as a control mechanism. "Without the use of fear, Bush would never have been elected." Guess what, Ariana? Bush WASN'T elected! "McCain is using fear already. This is both laughable and loathsome."
Next she talked about amnesia and how Americans keep forgetting all the many times in the past they have been duped. "These guys have no credibility left," yet Americans keep forgetting about past fiascoes and/or lies fed to them by the Bushites -- and then actually start getting ready to believe the next ones.
"The Democratic leaders have not lead in the past. But all we have to do [in 2008] is tell the truth relentlessly and repeatedly because the Right isn't at war against the Democrats. The Right is at war with reality. Make the McCain voters look at the facts. We cannot afford a third term for George W. Bush."
Then Richard Engel, an NBC correspondent working out of Baghdad for the last five years, spoke about the "war" in Iraq. "I have had the opportunity to see what has unfolded in that country from the beginning. People there now are ready to move on -- with a lot of healing and reconciliation. Violence is down 70% from a year ago -- although the gunfight in Sadr City was one of the fiercest I've ever seen."
But has Bush's "war" on Iraq helped Iraqis? "I was in a home with a boy whose leg had been shot off. How has the last five years improved his life? People have been through such incredible hardships that I don't know how they survive. My translator's wife doesn't leave the house, he's terrified of every militia man on every corner and resents that he is dependent on US troops for his safety. It is an incredibly complex picture. In my new book, I have tried to show all this -- how things have developed over time."
I went up to Engel after the talk and asked him if he really thought that things in Iraq were getting better. He looked me in the eye and said yes. He was really a nice guy, open and easy to talk to. Plus I got a free copy of his book!
I had planned to write up my report on this authors' panel as soon as I got back from Los Angeles, but then Life got in the way and I spent most of June pushing a shopping cart back and forth between my old apartment and a new downstairs unit in my housing project where I moved because of my bad knees, spending time with baby Mena and being visited by my two older daughters, so I didn't even get around to reading Engel's book -- let alone writing about it -- until 3 am this morning!
My daughter Ashley had loaned me her copy of the new Janet Evanovich book, "Fearless Fourteen," and I'd been reading it all evening and laughing so hard that I thought the neighbors might end up calling the cops on me for disturbing the peace -- especially the part where Stephanie and Lula do backup in a bounty-hunter reality show and get attacked by an over-sexed monkey! But then I couldn't get to sleep because I had been laughing so much, so I pulled out Engel's book on Iraq, figuring it would be dull enough to lull me to sleep.
Wrong!
Engel's book was a real page-turner. Plus it put Bush's "war" into perspective too. Apparently, what happened in Iraq as a result of Operation Iraqi Freedom has had very little to do with bringing democracy to that country, and everything to do with unleashing religious animosities that have existed just below the surface in Iraq since way back in the day, right after the death of Mohammed (PBUH) back in the seventh freaking century! Apparently, Bush had no clue what he was getting into there five years ago -- and, sadly, he still doesn't have any clue.
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