He’s back — which is at the very least a welcome change from the bland and homogenized (and often censored) reporting that has been sliding further and further off our front pages.

And it’s a real relief for those of us who got caught up in his first-person accounts of life in Baghdad in the days leading up to “Son of Desert Storm”. When the bombing started, the entries ended, and we worried as we would about a family member who had suddenly gone missing.

Things are looking kind of OK, these days. Life has a way of moving on. Your senses are numbed, things stop shocking you. If there is one thing you should believe in, it is that life will find a way to push on, humans are adaptable, that is the only way to explain how such a foolish species has kept itself on this planet without wiping itself out. Humans are very adaptable, physically and emotionally.

Salam Pax provides a human face to circumstances and events that are usually only described in abstract and high-minded terms like “liberation” and “freedom”. I’m happy to learn that he’s managed to survive his own liberation…