the guy by the door …

At 8:55 PM Baghdad time [12:55 pm US/Eastern] CBS4Boston issued this fairly enigmatic report Officials Believe Jill Carroll Is Alive. There is not a hint of why they believe this. I hope this turns out to be more than a peak on a roller coaster ride for Jim and Katie. True or not, at least it suggests that our government and the would-have-been proxy government in Iraq have a suspicion that the whole world is watching.

We are.

At 8:55 PM Baghdad time [12:55 pm US/Eastern] CBS4Boston issued this fairly enigmatic report Officials Believe Jill Carroll Is Alive. There is not a hint of why they believe this. I hope this turns out to be more than a peak on a roller coater ride for Jim and Katie. True or not, at least it suggests that our government and the would-have-been proxy government in Iraq have a sense that the whole world is watching.

We are.

Several sources cite midnight as the deadline set by Jill’s kidnappers. I have lost track of which ones. I’m not totally sure that midnight Feb. 26 doesn’t mean 11 hours and 59 minutes ago. Or does it mean a minute from now?

The important thing. I’m not giving up.

I got distracted and lost track of the time. The sun went down in Iraq perhaps four or five hours ago.
Editor and Publisher has posted about the so far fruitless attempts to rescue Jill. To readers of Al Jazeera and ‘the guy by the door’ this is not news. Musafir picked up on the Monitor’s coverage of Allan Enwiya, the Iraqi interpreter [2nd story down] killed when Jill was abducted. Musafir adds background from Riverbend’s Baghdad Burning. Riverbend knew Allan and fondly remembers him in his January 12 post Thank You for the Music... It seems Allan loved his wife, his young children, his community and Pink Floyd.

The blog Mia Culpa has a vigil for Jill.

It is already past noon. The net is quiet of new news about Jill. Someone at the Boston office of AP has not forgotten Jill. TV outlets around the country are running this fairly bald release. Two US soldiers died overnight. Five Iraqi’s died this morning. It is an ordinary day in Iraq.

“Our forces raided some suspected places, but she was not there,” said Maj. Falah
al-Mohammedawi, an official at the Interior Ministry. “We are watching the situation
closely.”

I suppose I believe that they are making some effort. It would be quite a feather in their cap, if they could recover her. But it seems far less likely than negotiating.

And for Jill.

In Baghdad it’s 3:00 AM Sunday February 26, the day Jill Carroll’s kidnappers have set as a deadline for their demands. There was reasonable press about Jill on Tuesday February 21, but the bombing of the Askawira Mosque on Wednesday February 22 caused Iraq to erupt and pushed Jill to the back pages. Those wanting to negotiate her release would have found it quite hard. Three hours ago Agence France Press posted “Iraq’s Sunnis and Sadr’s movement make peace“. Hopefully, this will make negotiation for her release possible. Since we are going to take more time on the Dubai Ports World deal, we could focus on Jill for a bit. I have yet to find a good e-mail address that might be timely. It is only hours to sunrise.

Three Arab TV Jounralists Die in Iraq

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Atwar Bahjat [inset]. Remains of her and her crew. [Al Arabiya.]	Atwar in Western dress. [Al Jazeera]

Three journalists reporting for the Arab satellite TV
network Al Arabiya died covering the bombing of the Askariya Shrine [also
known as the Golden Mosque] in Samarra. Anthony Loyd of the Times leads
his article “Half Sunni, half Shia — a target for everyone” with:
 
There were so many reasons not to kill Atwar Bahjat. She was half
Sunni, half Shia, a woman, an Iraqi, 30 years old, a native of Samarra
and a renowned journalist for the Dubai-based al-Arabiya news channel.

Yet kill her they did.  …

Reporters sans frontières, in addition to expressing outrage at the murder of Atwar and her crew,
also have had a mobilisation in effect for three jounalists held hostage in Iraq.

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Jill has already joined Marla Ruzicka and Margaret Hassan
in the ranks of monumentally brave women. But Jill, as far as we know
is still alive.  Threatened with execution unless the U.S.
Government releases women prisoners held in Iraq, Jill has so far
gotten two stays of execution despite chest beating by the
administration.Gareth Porter reports in Inter Press Service, that the release of  six women previously cleared of suspicion was delayed.
He also points out the 98.6% of all detainess have ultimately been
cleared. The claim that the U.S. doesn’t negotiate with terrorists was
questioned when 66 American hostages held in Tehran were released twenty minutes after Ronald Reagan’s Inaugural address.
Wikipedia, citing an impressive array of sources, finds these
suspicions unproved. Still the timing of the hostage release is
worrisome. Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton,
publishing an op-ed in the Los Angelos Times, points out that the Israeli government has successfully negotiated the release of hostages from Hezbollah. 
And given the 98.6% clearance rateof detainess, what fraction of one of the five
remaining women detainees is a big enough security threat to be worth
Jill’s life?

I heard mention of a rally today for Jill sponsored by students of the
UMass student paper where Jill once worked. However, I could not find a
time and place. Jill graduated from UMass Amherst so it might 
have been out there. The Mass Media news room at Umass Boston did not
answer the phone.
I’ll try to get to the Vietnam Memorial by sundown.

Let’s honor the memory of Marla and Margaret. Bring Jill home.

..[or even flood for that matter] shall keep my scholars from their chosen labors. I simply won’t allow it.

The Littauer Library is was Open Sunday

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Of course, I can’t do it alone. He has a stronger [and younger] back. a better Union …	… and a bigger shovel.

I would like the MBTA Police to please notice that I was not actually in Andrew Station when I took the gentleman’s picture. Also, I would like to show the circulation people who came to work to today, but I can’t because HCL management doesn’t allow pictures in the library. [I would have liked to show you the throng of intrepid scholars that came today, but the same rule forbids it.]

�H�la, compa�ero!

I have lived my whole adult life in “mixed” neighborhoods, yet I have learned very little Spanish. Google Translate says compa�ero means “companion”, but as I have heard it spoken, it seems to have much more “la vida” than that.