Iran

I spent part of the weekend watching Iran unravel. Most of this has been on the net, since the networks and the print media have been pretty darn useless (the Seattle Times managed to get a Page-One-Below-the-Fold headline on Sunday, but had two more articles on the official meme of North-Korea-Ohmighod-its-dangerous).

The best combined coverage so far has been from the generally sane conservative Andrew Sullivan over at the Atlantic. Most of his sources are twitter feeds and cellphone pics from the sources themselves - notable in the lack of gatekeepers and filters.

My freshman year in college, I had an Iranian roommate, and as a result had front-row seats for the fall of Shah and the depredations of SAVAK. There is an extreme Animal Farm vibe in the current uprising, as the heirs to the previous revolution embrace the tactics of their former oppressors to keep their positions of power.

More later,

Updates: By Tuesday morning, the Times finally kicks in with the Iran story as the major story of the day. Andrew Sullivan turns his site green in support, and the site nearly collapses from the amount of traffic sent its way. And Twitter puts off a scheduled downtime in order to keep the feeds coming out of Iran.