Our religion is wise and foolish: wise, because it is the most learned and most strongly based on miracles, prophecies, etc., foolish, because it is not all this which makes people belong to it. This is a good enough reason for condemning those who do not belong, but not for making those who do belong believe. What makes them believe is the Cross. Les the Cross of Christ should be made of none effect.

And so St. Paul, who came with wisdom and signs, said that he came with neither wisdom nor signs, for he came to convert, but those who come only to convince may say they come with wisdom and signs. -- Blaise Pascal, Pensees, PG 264

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• Most popstars in Baghdad are imports from Syria and Jordan (Asala and Pascal are both Syrian and Ibrahim is Jordanian). The local market for pop music was decimated after the first Gulf war so the young people of Iraq had to get most of their pop music from outside the country. Iraq still had a healthy traditional music scene, but pop music is has very narrow parameters regarding both class and history (as in high class and no history), and the local millieu simply couldn't support these illusions, especially after the war.
  
  
• Arabic pop music was not the only flavor in town. Oday Hussein, one of Saddam's sons, ran a 24 hour pop radio station devoted to Western pop music. I heard Shakira's odd pop hit "Underneath your clothes" in Baghdad on New Years Eve. I also heard Missy Elliot and Coldplay.
  
  
• During my three months of preparation for my trip to Iraq and the month stay in Baghdad I listened to one song and one song only: "Under Pressure" by David Bowie and Queen.