Caged & Lonely...

P.S: Incidentally, one of the parrot pets was taught to shout out "Down with Bush." Maybe the loneliness will ease after all.

Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
Iraq the model of American/Western democracy. In Iraq, you smell putrefied, decomposing bodies daily, it has become part of the National "flavor." So have abandonment and neglect – our new national emblems. And loneliness a by-product of our Liberation "à l’0ccidentale." You have managed to export not only, your "freedom" with its death, exile and misery. Not only your puritanical, perverted sexual repressions finding release- Abu Ghraib style. Not only your men and weapons that guarantee instant rapture. Not only your culture that consists of nothing but junk. But you have also managed to export your soul sickness over here...Loneliness. "Dozens of Baghdadis flock to the centre of the Iraqi capital on Friday mornings, ignoring the threat to their lives, with a sole aim -- to ease their loneliness in the company of a bird. Their destination is not a cinema, theatre or concert hall -- a rarity in the Iraqi capital -- but central Baghdad's Al-Ghazl bird market Fuad is one of them. "I do not go out of my home. Because of the dangers, I prefer to stay at home rather than seek work. So I decided to buy a parrot who can entertain me," says Fuad, an unemployed graduate.<(...) Ironic don’t you think ? Here is a people unable to venture out, unable to enjoy the fruits of "their liberation," unable to taste the "culture of democracy," unable to have a normal life like any other people. So they go and risk their lives, and head to a pet market. Braving it all, to buy a bird to entertain them and ease their loneliness. A caged people seeking a caged bird to give them the illusion of Freedom. How terribly sad. How terribly criminal... LinkHere