1:40 PM
With today's story by Slate writer Peter Maass following up on the interview a couple weeks ago, the web continues to hone in on Salam Pax. There are unsurprisingly few who seem to understand the concept that someone who writes under a pseudonym might, you know, want to remain anonymous. Even Maass pretends to play the game but can't help feeding out a few more details ("this is his real first name", a physical description, etc.) for those filling out their Farley Files.

Meanwhile, others have chosen to treat Salam as an example and would like to encourage more blogging in the area as a next-gen free press. It's an idea I could get behind--I'm always a fan of bootstrapping whose tools are as multipurpose and as powerful as Internet-connected computers. However, the situation I fear would be international readers linking in from across the blogosphere...but the national (in this case Iraqi) audience consisting of only that small percentage who can get to the few hundred computers at the Net cafes. The beauty of print mediums is that they're more universally accessible, the sneakernet distribution network is already in place, and the literacy operating system is installed and accesible by 58 percent of the population. Much like they are here, blogs would make a nice alternative source and review system, but I can't believe that they would (yet) be an adequate substitute for a good national daily newspaper.