Only the good die early or no rest for the wicked

Bob at Let it Bleed is signing off the blog, and the down-low shame of it is, that Bob was one of an elite group of bloggers who could either make me laugh hysterically or piss me off.

I learned to put the coffee cup down before I ever read any of Bob’s legendary Heather Mallick’s posts. Splewing coffee all over the keyboard is just not good computer maintenance and the IT people get a tad annoyed about that – not to mention the children at home found nothing redeeming about Momma causing the keys to stick together. I got into the habit of reading Salon when I originally discovered Bob from Let it Bleed.

Anyhoo, in honour of Bob, I found this first hand account of the “Gaza Meltdown” by Photojournalist Mitchell Prothero posted at Salon. Here’s an excerpt:

A little background here: Palestinians are the easiest people in the world to cover as a journalist. They respect the work, know journalists take risks to tell their story, and, frankly, know that stories of their suffering under Israeli oppression are good P.R. But it's not just cynical and calculating; they're Arabs and that stuff about Arabs' respect for guests is very real and sincere.

Having said that, a lot of the goodwill toward the foreign journo dries up when it's Arabs fighting each other. Suddenly, you're not documenting a noble struggle against occupation, you're just some foreigner. And if you're in a hospital full of pissed-off Military Intelligence officials tending to their wounded, it's a disaster. As I tried to take pictures, I was suddenly surrounded by a mob of armed men grabbing at my cameras. Luckily, the son of a wounded official jumped into the fray and dragged me to a side room. Once he checked my digital images, he informed the angry crowd I had done nothing wrong and I was free to take pictures outside the hospital.

One frame later, I was chased off the hospital grounds by a half-dozen armed, screaming men. A local photographer -- one smart enough to not even take his cameras out of his car -- yanked me to safety.

"You know they'd kill me for saying this, but I miss the Israelis," one droll local journalist told me after we watched the men beat another photographer and destroy his gear. "Sure they occupied us, but there were fucking rules, man. 'Go here and we'll shoot you. Stand there and you're cool.' We could work. We could live. Now we have this shit."

Ever notice how everyone always misses the Israelis, but not until they are gone? I guess Americans suffer from the same 'missing you after your gone' syndrome too. Shame about that, and Bob blogging off.