Well, I poked around in the AIR documentation, and I think I found their preferred method (and the only method I tried that would let me grab data from another domain) of connecting to a backend script:

[cc lang=”javascript”]

function appLoad(){
var request = new air.URLRequest(‘http://www.php.net/news.rss’);
var loader = new air.URLLoader();
loader.dataFormat=air.URLLoaderDataFormat.TEXT;
loader.addEventListener(air.Event.COMPLETE,completeHandler);
loader.load(request);
}
function completeHandler(event){
var loader2=event.target;
air.trace(loader2.data);
alert($(‘//rdf/item/title’,loader2.data).length);

$(loader2.data).find(‘item/title’).each(function(k,v){
alert(v.text());
});

$(‘item’,loader2.data).each(function(k,v){
$(‘#mytbdy’).append(‘

> ‘+v.childNodes[0].nodeValue+’

‘);
});
}

[/cc]

I think the code above’s a little flaky when it comes to inserting things back into the table, but the connection code is sound. It grabs the actual RSS file from php.net and pushed it into the table below it.