Michael Totten Back from Beirut Getting the story straight from a blogger is a lot like drinking beer right at the brewery. Drinking beer at the brewery while a blogger tells you the story is a lot like what I just did after picking up Michael Totten at the airport. The fresh story from Beirut is going to have elections, but it looked like a close thing for a while. Michael is a bit shocky right now, so I don't know if he'll be blogging tonight. ("Bit shocky", defined as the way that traveling halfway around the world, twenty-three hours in a jet leaves you. Spending a month in Beirut on the cusp of a revolution was the cherry on the top of that particular cake.)
Because he's Michael, he was still coherent. I threatened that a bit by greeting him at the airport by waving a Lebanese flag in his face after he got out of the international flight corridor. He says that for a moment he thought that the plane had flown in a big loop. He was very surprised that I could get a Lebanese flag in Portland. They are flying the flags practically everywhere in Beirut, Hezbollah controlled areas excepted. I gave him the flag, since I thought he deserved a trophy for his collection.
