When Salam Met Riverbend...
Ken posted something in the comments relating to Riverbend's relationship with Salam and how well they know each other:
"[Salam] posted this to his blog on the 3 August 2003:
"People, I have the most amazing surprise for you, well for those who have been reading the blog before the war. do you remember [Riverbend]? she's in Mosul now she is OK but she had to quit her job because some shia fundi took over wher she used to work and made life miserable. and she sent me something to put on the blog."
[Ken:]
Now, I have not checked his pre-war postings, but from this I would be inclined to conclude that Riverbend is rather more than some bird who sent him an e-mail. It looks to me as if they actually know each other. "
The first mention of Riverbend in Salam's blog came way back in March (so when Salam said "Do you remember [Riverbend]?, it was this earlier mention he was referring to):
In one of the posts down there I wrote that I seem to have only one Iraqi reader, well i was wrong. I have two and a half (half Iraqi half Chinese). what is really exciting is that the second reader is a girl here in baghdad, she's 23 years old and is a computer geek (well, engineer), and she agreed to write something for the blog. she will go by the name "riverbend". pleae give her a warm welcome, i hope she decides to join the weblog and write as often as she can in the next couple of weeks, without further ado i give you "Riverbend"
[Snip Riverbend's entry]
the next time,if riverbend decides to join she will be part of this group blog (yes it was supposed to be a group blog but raed is such a lazy bastard). I'll be happy to forward ant mail to her until she makes up her mind whether to put her addy here or not.
Perhaps their relationship is not 100% clear from these couple of scraps, but I am sticking to my earlier interpretation that Salam only has an online relationship with Riverbend.
I'd like to be able to say that Salam has vouched for Riverbend based on a "real world" relationship, but I would not be being honest if I said I really believed that.
