Male newsreader: "It looks -- for now -- like the Iraqui missiles have stopped dropping on Kuwait, although the all-clear sirens haven't sounded. Tonight should see the beginning of Operation Shock and Awe."
Female Newsreader: "And the Big Question on Everybody's Lips is -- How will all this affect the Oscars?"
Male newsreader (realising that this may be a slight gaffe, trying to fix it): "Er, the big Entertainment Question, you mean."
Female Newsreader (irritated at being interrupted): "Well, it's all we're thinking about in LA."
I turned off the news at that point, feeling like I was living in a rather broadly written satire.
...
Neil -- This article ran in the Washington Post this morning, and immediately I thought of Sandman #50. Under the circumstances, it's one of the saddest things I've read, but I think it would still be terribly sad even if the bombs weren't flying.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56350-2003Mar19.html
-Karin
and
Neil -- You may have already seen this article in today's Washington Post on the glories of Baghdad's past at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56350-2003Mar19.html. I couldn't help but think about your story Ramadan, and Haroun al-Raschid's desire to keep his glorious city just as he knows it. I think that it's appropriate for all of us to remember that what is now Iraq was once the paramount center for learning and science. -- Laura Gosling
I find myself remembering someone telling me off on Genie because, according to whoever was telling me off, Baghdad was virtually unscathed in the Gulf War, and I had the kid who heard the story limping home across a bombsite. I think I'd rather that they had been right and I had been, and remained, wrong. Right now it looks like Sandman 50 will have been more accurate than I knew.