A BAGHDAD BLOGGER.(Internet diary of resident of Baghdad, Iraq)

During the past five months, a Manhattan office worker named Diane has exchanged nearly a hundred e-mails with Salam, a young architect in Baghdad. She is an unmarried Jew who lives on the Upper West Side; he is a closeted gay Iraqi from a wealthy family. What unites them is the fact that they are both the secret authors of blogs--Internet diaries that allow them to share their pent-up thoughts with the masses. Diane uses her Web site to express caustic opinions about the Middle East crisis. Salam's blog, which has somehow avoided being shut down by the Iraqi regime, is devoted to letting the world know how awful it is to be governed by "freaks"like Saddam Hussein (and how the only thing that's worse is having his home town pummelled by American bombs). Although Salam and Diane often disagree about politics--Diane supports the war, for example--they are fellow-cynics who have rapidly become confidants.

The day after the Bush Administration began its aerial attack on Baghdad, Diane was relieved to see that Salam was unharmed, and that, almost as important, he remained connected to the Web. (Iraq's official Internet service, Uruklink, was still providing spotty service.) Salam's site appears to be the only blog written by an Iraqi citizen.

"These first bombs completely missed his neighborhood,"Diane said, sitting in front of her office computer, which was fringed with magenta Post-it notes. After closing the door, she said that nobody she worked with knew about her friendship with Salam or about her blog, which she calls Letter from Gotham. "I enjoy living this sort of parallel life,"she said.

In his new posting, Salam had noted with relief that the bombing was "not yet comparable to what was going on in '91."He described wandering around town with his father after daybreak, looking for an open bakery. He wrote about Saddam's most recent speech, and noted, sarcastically, "This morning, he's got verse in it!!"Salam seemed starved for information. Iraqi television, he wrote, "says nothing, shows nothing."His family had furtively hooked up a forbidden satellite dish in the hope of picking up the BBC.

Diane had just received a personal message from Salam in which he referred to the first American bombs as "fireworks."She began typing a hasty response. "The bombing campaign will start in earnest tomorrow,"she wrote. She paused briefly before pounding out, "I hate those silly people who tell you to stay safe, but stay safe."

Much of the appeal of Salam's blog lies in his brash sense of humor. He calls himself a "heretic fag"and confesses to having his own "ABBA costume."Complaining about government rations, he wrote, "We have been getting really nasty Egyptian ...