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From his weblog, Where Is Raed?:
Today while going thru Karada street I saw a sign saying “Send and receive e-mail. Affordable prices” I am checking out the place tomorrow. If the price really is affordable I might be able to update the blog every week or two. Let me tell you one thing first. War sucks big time. Don’t let yourself ever be talked into having one waged in the name of your freedom. Somehow when the bombs start dropping or you hear the sound of machine guns at the end of your street you don’t think about your “imminent liberation” anymore.I don’t always agree with Salaam Pax, but I like him. When he kvetches, he sounds just like my friends.
Later: On second thought, what I’ll say is that Where Is Raed? is back. The tone is different. That’s something that can happen to real writers, so maybe it’s still the same Salaam Pax. For now I’m content to keep reading and let the texts accumulate.
When he kvetches, he sounds just like my friends.
Yes. I was boggled to hear that some people were questioning his "authenticity": he just sounds so much like a person to me that it never occurred to me.
You know, Kate, while reading the most recent entries I found myself wondering for the first time whether SP is genuine. He sounds too much like my friends. I don't really think he's a fake -- there are plenty of reasonable explanations for the way he sounds -- but there was something indefinably "off" about those catchup entries. Did anyone else have that feeling, or is it just me?
Yes. It's slightly off. I can't tell why. I can imagine reasons for that, but they'd all be non-falsifiable and unnecessarily multiplied entities. I'll watch and wait and keep reading.
Well, I've read just fragments of his post-invasion entries, but I did notice that many American journalists have sounded different since 9/11. As Theresa points out, people's tone can change, and having your city invaded might do it.
I guess I'll have to look and make my own mind up.
I was never a very regular reader of his blog, but the big update did look a little different than the previous stuff. I think it was mostly an editing thing, though-- those entries seemed a little more polished than his usual stuff. Which isn't actually that surprising if you think about it-- if I were stuck for weeks with blog entries I couldn't actually upload, I'd fiddle with them endlessly, and the end result would look and sound different than my usual output.
The new stuff that's up there this morning looks much more like what I recall him posting in the past.
I agree with Chad. The new entries read like the old Salam. The drop-in of the twenty odd entries read a bit different, as if edited and polished, and also written by someone in a somewhat different headspace. Which is what I'd expect during the actual bombing.
Turns out Salam is a William Gibson fan.
http://dearraed.blogspot.com/2003_05_01_dear_raed_archive.html#200265616
I think Salaam Pax is a fraud. I heard him on the radio and he is a native speaker of English affecting a false Arabic accent. In my opinion, he is definitely a native speaker of English, raised in America.
Your ear is of course your own, Gerard. What's your background?