BACK IN MOSCOW: Well, I am finally on line whenever I want to be. it's given me a chance to visit some news sites and hear CNN international. I think the Georgian and Ossetian situtation is so complex - it's a challenge to really digest and understand the dynamics of what is going on over there. Our media oversimplifies as does the Russian media.

I just watched an in-depth panel discussion which some of you may find interesting:
http://www.aei.org/events/type.upcoming,eventID.1769,filter.all/event_detail.asp#

I'm on a Georgian cultural yahoo group that I joined when I was in California. The sparks flyng there are incredible, but many of them are bringing up alternative news to share. Gorbachev was on Larry King Live last night - I didn't see the whole thing since I had access only to the web video today.

It's already 10:30 a.m. here! I have to get out for the day. My time here is going to go really quickly.