Why a Blog?

I've thought often during these past few weeks that I ought to be writing this all down, creating a record for posterity of what I've witnessed, or at least, less ambitiously, jotting down reflections, feelings, opinions. Journaling. Keeping a diary. I don't care to prove my own presence as a spectator of history; what commendation is there, what bravery, in watching another people's revolution? What matters to me is that I don't forget, and to this end I started saving emails, committing a few thoughts here and there to the semi-permanence of my computer hard drive.

But then I thought -- why not blog instead? Why not write not only so that I don't lose what I've seen, but so that others who have not had my front-row seat on these events can see them too?

I ask you, any of you reading this blog from outside of Egypt, to be patient with the imprecision of my recollections. I will try as much as I can to reconstruct the past eighteen days faithfully, but I am not a journalist (I'll leave that species of reporting to others).

So here we go....