Sex Sells & Jill Carroll, Too

My husband "accidentally" deleted a very hot, steamy post. You'll have to come back tomorrow to read what I'll have to rewrite. (Let's see if this increases readership.)

Meanwhile, read this about the black eye on blogging--at least that's what some are calling the rush to judgement about Jill Carroll. A little bit of self-congratulation here, I have not rushed to judgement yet. That is to say, I'm not even rushing to judgement to condemn others who might have rushed to judgement.

Ms. Carroll came out against kidnapping and harming innocent civilians. True. She seems very grateful to have her feet back home. She made a propaganda video at the point of a gun, but her remarks to the Sunnis she says were "promised not to be aired". What does that mean, exactly? Did she speak freely but "off the record"? No doubt, she was under tremendous stress. Saying the wrong thing could still have gotten her killed in her mind, maybe.

I admire Ms. Carroll's courage, if not stupidity, in trying to report and get "the whole story" and not stay in some ivory tower in the green zone. She also didn't want to embed somewhere, evidently, which would be somewhat safer, because that would skew her perspective, too.

But I get the feeling that she is strongly against the war, views this thing as an "occupation" and only feels bad her captors mis-applied their methods. Had she not been an "innocent", for example, would it be okay for her captors to capture and behead say, a soldier? Their job is war, afterall. Would three months in solitary confinement, or torture or murder like her interpretor experienced be justifiable?

Anyway, so far, the answers are not crystal clear, yet. What is clear is that a reporter is freed and home and safe. The press is jubilant. She is one of their own.

One thing I do know: I wish this much joy and effervensence was expended for the contractors and anonymous people who get captured and found over there or a similar amount of grief when a worker is tortured, killed, hurt or kidnapped. They are courageous too, if working for different aims over there than journalists trying to get in the heads of guys on the losing side.

It's not that I don't like journalists, it's that I feel that other people's work counts just as much and their lives do too.