jsguntzel's blog

So my copy of #80 just came shrink-wrapped in the mail. I don't think I'm gonna open it. I don't want to. I can't figure it actually...the impulse NOT to open it. It's not wanting to say goodbye, sure, but there's something else. Anyway, for now, I'm leaving it wrapped.

I have a shelf of Punk Planets in my office. The collection only goes back to my first collaboration with the magazine, a cover story about Iraq in 1999.

I just put the wrapped #80 in its rightful place: squeezed in right next to #79. It's all working out fine. There's no room for a #81.

It's fine and it isn't. I'm going to miss this magazine. Not because the world will be empty without it. The world will not be empty without it. If you disagree (Dan and Anne, you are exempted here), you are foolish. Whatever you got from Punk Planet - and there was so much to be gotten - go and find it somewhere else. Whoever is offering it can surely use your support.

I read a lot of Middle East news. It's my job. I edit a site called Electronic Iraq. Our sister site, Electronic Intifada, has been covering the Israeli attacks on Gaza this week (it seems they are always covering Israeli attacks on Gaza). I was reading through a week's worth of reports from Electronic Intifada and listening to a mix I just received from one of my closest friends.

Now, reading the news from the Middle East every day I can get numb. Not numb exactly but cold. I don't react to every tragedy detailed on the screen before me...even when there are pictures.

Okay Punk Planet readers, this is Jeff Severns Guntzel, former PP contributing editor. You might know me by my other identity:

The-Punk-Planet-Guy-Who-Only-Writes-About-Iraq (perhaps that should be my PP online username?).

Actually, I've written about bands, too (Okay, twice in eight years--Slint and Papa M), but still...

Punk Planet is not the only place I only write about Iraq. I run a website called Electronic Iraq. At eIraq, I have a blog (War Every Day) and I work hard every day to keep original content flowing (see PP's own Daniel Sinker on eIraq here), including "diaries" written by Iraqis. Please stop by some time!

I wasn't looking for it. I was undertaking no study on coverage of American foreign policy in domestic vs. international mainstream publications. But there it was taking up the upper-left-hand corner of Newsweek's site: a small thumbnail of each edition of the magazine--Europe, Asia, Latin America and the United States.

The covers of each edition NOT distributed in the United States were identical. The photo: a striking close-up of an Afghan fighter with a rocket launcher propped on his shoulder. The headline: LOSING AFGHANISTAN. "Losing"
was in particularly large type.

The photos lined up in a vertical row: