I have been getting a ton of letters and can’t publish them all. Special thanks to all who wrote–some as far away as Singapore and Australia to wish me and my arm well. I can only write in spurts and am told it will get better eventually. I will struggle on as best I can. What nerve!

One amusing get -weller comes from “The Walrus”

Danny
Whose nerve was a pain in the fanny.
It stung really bad,
Like central Baghdad;
As for rest, well he didn’t get any.

ON IRAQ

Adam McDonnel writes from Turkey:”As for Iraq, the Turkish media is focusing on Kerkuk because of the election shenanigans played by (and denied by) the Kurds there. Reporters from two separate stations reported lots of gunfire from around Kerkuk which continued essentially all Friday night. Doesn’t sound too stable to me. Kerkuk is apparently VERY tense, the Kurds on one side and the Turkmen and Arabs on the other side. . .”

READ THIS

Peter White writes from Tennessee:

“Nashville is one of five American cities where expat Iraqis cast their votes for a new Iraqi government. I covered the vote Sunday morning for the local ABC affiliate and around 9AM in TN as the polls closed in Baghdad, one man was escorted out of the tent set up at the TN State Fairgrounds where the voting took place. He had not brought enough ID to confirm his registration and was not allowed to vote. He was very upset. We will return to him in a minute. But first a little tale of media management and strongarm tactics by the Bush administration to control the election news coverage.

The election media minders had required all press covering the vote to sign a contract promising not to film ballot marking, asking permission before filming voters, and a code of ethics to be balanced and fair, etc. —an Orwellian screed the likes of which I have never been asked to sign in more than 20 years of covering the news–and that includes mafia dictatorships like Mexico under the PRI and the so-called communists of Nicaragua who used to send me around with minders during the day and sent pretty hookers to my hotel at night in order to get favorable coverage.

A bunch of security people were inside the polling area and had the hapless Iraqi man surrounded. They were trying to get him out of there. The entire fairgrounds was ringed with off-duty metro cops, park police, and out of town cops brought in to keep order, prevent the errant car bomber from blowing themselves up, and otherwise spoiling this great day for democracy. There were cement barricades surrounding access to the voting site and our live van was kept 250 yards away from the action in a muddy field.

“It was like Baghdad writ small. Except for the mud. There is no mud like Tn mud.

I started to film the altercation between the man and the security people who ringed him as he called out for journalists to come talk to him. I kept rolling even after the press minder for the federal agency running the election turned to me and said “Don’t film this” and went over to the man. Three or four goons immediately descended on me and hustled me out of the area, pulled my credential, and sent me packing. A guy named Brian who would not give me his last name or the name of his superior threatened me when I told him I had broken no rules and would file a complaint. But with who? The Dept of Homeland Security?

“My reporter, bless her heart, as they say here in Tn, went back with pluck and another photographer to do the story we were sent to do: cover the final day of voting in the Iraqi election here in Nashville. She did not focus on the hypocrisy of hooligans roughing up the press who were there to cover this great experiment in exporting democracy to an Arab nation.

“As the US media touts the election in the coming days as a great victory for apple pie it would be well to peruse the newspapers of Europe and elsewhere to get another flavor about what will turn out to be just another dog and pony show. When less than half the five million voters in Baghdad cast ballots — and the two million poor Shiites in Sadr City turn out in dismal numbers–essentially boycotting an election they could easily have won — it is time to admit the whole Iraqi venture was a pathetic failure and just come home.”

ON BUSH

Jf Dunphy:”In the Houston Chronicle, Jan 15, 2005, there is an interview with Laura Bush saying she has discussed a “presidential Library” with W.,,That would have to be the smallest architectural contract on record for a presidential library. One book–My Pet Goat. That’s the only thing we know he’s read. He was incoherent on even reading the Bible. Worthy of being highlighted.”

Nima-Abu Wardeh who appears in WMD send this item along from The Guardian:”It is perhaps not the best omen for US foreign affairs. Local historians in Wexford have discovered that George Bush is a descendant of Strongbow, the power-hungry warlord who led the Norman invasion of Ireland thus heralding 800 years of mutual misery. With a long line of Scots Irish presidents including Woodrow Wilson, the Irish are normally quick to claim US leaders as their own. But, despite President Bush’s large Ulster Scots vote in the American Bible belt, Ireland had let his family escape the genealogical microscope.”

SPECIAL THANKS

To the Freedom Cinema Festival for honoring with me with a new Orwell award, to the NEW METRO Theater in NY (99th and Broadway) for running WMD starting Feb 4 along with the Village East Theater. If you live in NY, please tell your friends… to Kristine Cardoso and Kozo Okumura for getting a TV ad done in record time — check out www.wmdthefilm.com to see it… Now, let’s hope that Time Warner cable will run it… Check out my new State of the Media piece later today the MediaChannel.org home page….

Your emails welcome: dissector@mediachannel.org