War Zone Yoga (a.k.a. Northwest by Middle East)

ABC News "The Influentials"

2006-05-10T04:38:00.000+04:00

Testing video on blogger.

Change Is Possible

2004-07-23T14:08:00.000+04:00

Friday, July 23rd 2004 Siena

"Change is possible."

Yes, that's merely a machine's bad translation in a Tuscan parking lot as it demands 7 euros for an overnight stay.

But during this time of transition, I'm open to all power of suggestion. So I'm happy to look for writing in the skies or messages on the screens of high tech parking meters.

We followed the only other passenger to alight from this last regional train from Chiancano (the main connection from Rome) as we walked from station to parking lot. He was a transplanted Englishman born in Mississauga, Ontario now residing in Siena for a decade. He was going to drive his moped home so he could get his cab and return to the station to pick up his "crazy Dutch friends."

He loves his life here he told us. "It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor. Here, you always eat well. You always drink well."

Amen to that brother. What could be more important? And Italian food is the lingua franca of global gastronomy. I've had pizza in Baghdad, carbonara in Tel Aviv, prosciutto in Skopje, bolognaise in Bombay, buffalo mozzarella in Kelowna, homemade lasagna in a hospital bed and taglietelles in Villefranche. The Italian love for good food and wholesome ingredients translates into every language. Wasn't it the Medici of Florence who taught the French how to cook and thus inspire the invention of the restaurant a mere few hundred years ago?

My third visit to Rome has been a revelation. The July sun beat us mercilessly. Our feet ached from kilometers of cobblestones.

But this town bursts with fervor and energy. With our good friend (and now good Roman) Amy's help, we got swept up by the enthusiasm. Like Pippin and Merry from "The Lord of the Rings," we searched out sustenance nearly every hour of the day - cafe, bar, geletaria, pizzeria, trattoria. We ordered with a smile in makeshift Italian and received a cheerful salutation and great food in return. On her birthday, Heather was ceremoniously presented with the classic "cacio e pepe" still in the pan. Our charming waiter encouraged her to eat from the silver skillet, which my lovely wife was only too delighted to do.

I had not been similarly captivated during my first visit to Rome eleven years previous. I had just completed my law degree in Paris and I was a uncorruptible Francophile. Compared to the City of Light, Rome was gritty and unruly.

But now, after having witnessed a bit more of the good and evil that men do, I believe I am now ready for Rome. There, to where all roads lead, First and Third worlds collide. Both efficient and inefficient, I now know there is virtue and vice in the two. In Rome, they balance trains that run on time (grazie Mussolini) with grown sons who still live with their mothers. Capital of content, Cradle of chaos with a three thousand year old foundation. This former seat of an empire whose influence still resonates today also best approximates my own yin and yang.

Content, chaotic, war zone yoga, come and go, give and take, to and fro, Rome has seen it all. Time means everything and nothing. Michelangelo's dome at St. Peter's is a masterpiece for the ages. But he did not live long enough to see its completion. Life and death catch up even with our most venerated human idols. If we understand this at some point during our lives, it can help us better manage this short time we have all been given on this earth.

I took the machine's message to heart and inserted a ten Euro note, getting back three coins in return. But I needn't have paid. The gates to the empty parking garage had long been left open and unattended at this late hour.

The Fantastic Place

2004-07-20T14:26:00.000+04:00

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

We watched a tired and aged Peter Gabriel perform last night in Lucca's Napoleon Square. He neglected his last album as he played nothing but old chestnuts, as if Nelson Mandela was still sitting in a South African prison cell ("Biko" the predictable encore). I had last seen my former hero eighteen years ago when he was just a bit older than I am today. His passion then was overwhelming. Last night, he reminded me more of Las Vegas Elvis with little new to say or do. And that was profoundly sad. Some of our favorite things are best left to memory.

Contrast this with the largely ignored Marillion and their triumphant performance in London two weeks ago. They blew the doors of a gay club on Charing Cross Road and left smiles on two thousand faces, behaving like they still had something to prove.

Some fantastic places too, are best left to memory. Like San Gimignano, the famous Tuscan "Medieval Manhattan." It had been a magical moment for Heather the Backpacker five years ago. And she wanted us both to relive this. But perhaps the same pride that led this prosperous village to build those six dozen magnificent towers (now only a handful remain) lingered long enough to convince modern-day residents to sell their souls to the high priests of mass tourism. We could not flee the hordes fast enough as they flooded the streets with their digital cameras -- poised to capture exactly the same image that was better left to the postcard professionals.

Happily, Tuscany still has Lucca, Siena, Montalcino and Montepulciano to keep the faith. We go grocery shopping, cook with gas in our rented apartment, buy cheap jugs of wine and have found reason to return to Trattoria di Pio twice more.

We entertain ourselves with books, cheesy but fun Italian radio and audiobooks on our iPod. Yesterday, Caesar Augustus' dying utterance to his friends resonated strongly under this Tuscan sun: "Have I played my part in the farce of life creditably enough? If I have pleased you, kindly signify. Appreciation -- with a warm goodbye."

All Roads Lead to Rome

2004-07-16T13:09:00.000+04:00

Friday, July 16, 2004

My yoga mat has now seen duty on three different continents. Happily, my stress here is mostly physical. The four hour drive from the French Riviera into Tuscany in our funky smart car consisted of narrow highway lanes, swerving trucks, and diving out of the fast lane before those
big Alfa Romeo's swallowed us whole. We let the audio recording of the 2000-year old "The Twelve Caesars" guide us along the roads that all eventually lead to Rome. Nothing like a bit of context before we head off to enjoy the delights of the old Roman town of Lucca today.

We enjoyed breakfast this morning at Villa Giovaninni to the sound of opera and conversation with our Belgian housemates. Of course there was no escaping talk of Iraq, but that quickly shifted to the upcoming U.S. election and then the joys of travel. This over strong coffee, orange juice, rustic bread, small pears, homemade jam and a plum tart.

Last night, we followed a truck into the nearby village of S. Quirico di Moriano. The driver had a thick, bushy mustache that he had meticulously curled at the ends. There was a graceful solitude to him, like the loneliness of the long distance runner. We both entered the same trattoria. If he was going to eat there as well, it had to be good. Also, our B&B hostess Lucia had recommended it. It was but a three-minute drive down the hill from her property, hidden among the olive trees, built three hundred years ago.

Heather and I quickly brushed up on our gastronomic Italian. We would need it. The woman who co-owned the trattoria didn't speak a word of English. Nor did anyone else who was dining there. So we agreed to the anti-pasto because we didn't think we could negotiate anything else. We knew full well that two more courses would follow.

Now that we were in Italy, we had to have a bottle of the table wine as well. it was even more local than the famous extra virgin olive oil that had been produced in Lucca. Our "vino de tavola rosso" came wrapped in red-stained wicker. Its cork was disintegrating. The wine was a produce of Pucci and Barsotti, made right here in S. Quirico di Moriano. By the end of the evening, we would have consumed two thirds of the 2 liter bottle.

My fear that the anti-pasto course would be nothing but pickled vegetables proved to be groundless. We received a large plate of prosciutto, Parma ham, Genoa salami and slices of melon. This would have been enough had this been our entire meal.

But we moved onto "primo." Heather had a hearty vegetable soup -- a thick, brownish green creation with beans, spinach and onions. I opted for the tortellini stuffed with ground sausage and covered with a small dollop of tomato meat sauce. Both were excellent.

I was ready to order a slab of meat for the "Segundo," but Heather indicated to the owner's husband (who did speak a bit of English) that she was full. So he started to list our dessert choices.

I ambled over to the ice cream fridge with him. I saw that everything inside was pre-packaged and labeled with the "Carte d'Or" brand. He added that chocolate cake was still in the "forno." So a few minutes later, I was relishing a piping hot piece of pie. Its crust had the consistency of soft biscotti. The chocolate filling was like pudding.

The grand total? Around $35. All that wine had cost us $5. The truck driver obviously knew what he was doing when he had chosen to eat here. We watched him as he finished his meal and lit a cigarette outside the trattoria. I wasn't sure whether it was the end of his day or just the
beginning.

Bastille Day: Let Us Eat Cake

2004-07-15T12:25:00.000+04:00

Villefranche-sur-mer, France Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Heather and I call it "travel karma." When we're in the right frame of mind during our worldwide adventures, people we've only just met will commit gratuitous acts of kindness on our behalf.

So it surprises me little that the first person with whom I had a substantive conversation here in France -- was an Israeli. We were shopping for a beach towel along the quay of this former fishing village (Nice and Monaco are ten minutes either way respectively). I thought that 25 euros (around $30) was a little steep, but the white and blue towel we were admiring looked straight out of a Cote d'Azur scene from the 1920's, and it said "Villefranche-sur-Mer." I decided we were entitled to at least one kitschy souvenir here, and it fulfilled a utilitarian purpose as well.

The salesman had a dark complexion. Judging from his accent, I thought he might be from the Maghreb. I paid cash for the towel and he asked us where we were from. "Canada" of course was the magic word. He happily gave us a fridge magnet with a photograph of the town as a gift -- and this was after I had paid him. He said that he had a sister in Montreal. And that he had moved here from Israel twenty-five years ago. So of course we got to talking about my other home-away-from-home (I consider France to be my primary adopted homeland). I took advantage of his chattiness from some restaurant recommendations, as well as some advice as to whether we should drive to Nice or take the train for the Bastille Day fireworks tonight. Our travel karma had kicked in. It felt great to be on the road again. Far, far away from Iraq.

We got in two hours late last night. British Airways had to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get a replacement bulb for the emergency light in the plane's cockpit. I guess that's a pretty important bit of electronics that should always be functioning properly. I was worried that we would get to Nice too late to pick up our rental car. Happily, we were not the only ones to rent from Hertz, and they stayed open. I thanked the attendant in French for staying late. She beamed.

"You're the first person to thank us," she said. "We rarely hear that. So you are welcome."

She then proceeded to hand over the keys to a brand new "Smart" car -- a four-door 1.3 liter compact, built as a joint venture between Mercedes and Swatch (I believe). It's a perfect size for the narrow lanes of southern Europe -- and a perfect engine for the astronomical gas prices here in the Old World. I had fantasized about a convertible, especially for our drive through Monte Carlo. But this will suit us just fine for our "Italian Job," with a decent stereo, air
conditioning, and Mini Cooper-type styling (and the Hertz fine print reveals that I cannot take a "prestige" car or a convertible into a shortlist of countries, including Italy. Perhaps they are afraid I will suddenly be afflicted with Grand Prix syndrome).

Then we were off, a midnight drive along Nice's famous Quai des Anglais. Belle Epoque-style hotels lined the coast as I struggled to stay within my lane and admire the scenery as well. It was late but the Beautiful People were out in full regalia.

Today in Villefranche, we ran across a lot of tourists. But the town is not flooded with them and they are mainly French. Everyone is nicely tanned, thanks to the wonderful Euro-shamelessness of topless bathing and Speedos (hey I'm no Puritan, we have a nude beach that doubles as an off-leash dog park in Kelowna). As Heather remarked during our stroll along the beach, it was a cross between Cosmopolitan Magazine and National Geographic. I gave full marks for the courageousness of the National Geographic-types.

We have quickly entered gastronomic tourism mode. For brunch, Heather enjoyed a Nicoise plate (we're close enough, aren't we?), replete with jambon cru, mozzarella and olive oil. I felt compelled to have a rare "steak frites" -- so succulently uncooked that it would have caused many a USDA inspector to run away, screaming in sheer terror. The chalkboard menu made it clear that this restaurant only served French-raised beef. Here, they are even "Chauvin" about their "bovin."

July 15, 2004

I await breakfast here at our modest but hospitable Hotel Patricia here in Villefranche. The trains between the Italian border and Cannes are back to their usual schedule after yesterday's national holiday. I know this because they roar by along the seaside here every ten minutes or so. Last night we took one to Nice to catch the awesome fireworks display along the Bay of Angels. It was very much like taking the subway in New York. It was just odd to have Monte Carlo on one end of the route map, and Marseilles on the other.

Nice is a well-worn, well laid-out Mediterranean city. At least as far as we could tell during our walk from the train station to the beach last night (Heather's pedometer recorded 12 kilometers of strolling for us in all yesterday). I like fireworks. And when in France, I try to catch the Bastille Day celebrations as often as I can. My last bash was the parade along the Champs Elysees in Paris in 1996. The orgy of explosions in the clear night sky here in Nice in 2004 was as enjoyable as the constant sound of gunfire and explosions in Baghdad two weeks previous was disturbing.

We enjoyed a nice dinner at Carpaccio Restaurant in Villefranche before our short evening expedition. The patio was fully booked, but we managed to convince them to give us a table there anyway. Heather had the artichoke salad and grilled fish that we assumed had been snatched that day from the waters of the Mediterranean. I obviously, had to try the restaurant's namesake as an appetizer -- thin slices of raw steak on a bed of lettuce doused in olive oil and smothered in Parmesan cheese.

For the main course, I opted for a salmon tagliatelli, generously seasoned with dill and sea salt. My choice of a half bottle of Alsatian Riesling met with a "trÃ¨s bien" from the waiter. I assume
that meant I had chosen well. I knew we had chosen dessert well when we wolfed down a shared portion of apple tart flambed in Calvados (apple brandy from Normandy). We then enjoyed the legacy of The Riviera's former landlords from the southeast as we sipped two perfectly-prepared cups of cappuccino.

9:45 a.m.

A classic French breakfast of dark coffee and a baguette with butter and jam. I love baguettes, but man are they devoid of any nutritional value! They are mere conveyances for the condiments that we spread upon them. I've heard that French bread was far more wholesome before the baguette was invented in the early 20th century as a cheap and easy way to feed the masses. Now we mistakenly believe that the denizens of "l'Hexagone" ate nothing but this crusty cylinder of white bread since the advent of civilization.

Famous Last Words

2004-07-09T19:40:00.000+04:00

Jerusalem Friday, July 9, 2004

My favorite scene in the surprisingly powerful movie "Fight Club" is also one of its most disturbing ones. It's when Tyler Durden threatens to kill an innocent store clerk. It's a random act of potential violence and there's nothing his tearful victim can do to stop it. Except when Durden gets the man to admit what he'd rather be doing with his life rather than his menial job. Then he lets him go, threatening that he will hunt him down again. If he hasn't done what it takes to pursue his dream, he will kill him.

TYLER: "Raymond K. Hessel, tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life. Your breakfast is going to taste better than any meal you've ever eaten."

The lesson: live everyday as if it is your last. In Iraq, as a foreign journalist, such a credo was not necessary. A violent death was not a mere possibility it felt like a strong probability. I will confess to this now that I am no longer there.

It sounds terrible, I know. But I learned much out of such a terrible experience. Especially this. When the proverbial gun is put to your head, you focus your energies and desires like never before. Still want that new car? Power? Glory? All the money in the world?

No. All you want is to keep your life. And you want to be with your loved ones. Everything else is suddenly distant and trivial.

You instantly also become grateful – and very aware – of what you do have. We are not entitled to live full and long lives. Nowhere is this written. Death can come to us at anywhere, at anytime. We just forget this sometimes when we're deep within our bubble of safety. It is more than apparent in a war zone, but frankly it shouldn't make a difference where we are in the world. It's just easier to grasp this notion in a place like Iraq.

There, a rocket could have come through my hotel room window while I was sleeping. I could have been ambushed while on patrol with the army. Our armored car could have run over a roadside bomb. A suicide bomber could have forced his way into the restaurant during my dinner. A sniper could have shot me while I was working out on the balcony. All of this I was very aware of, all the time. But it did not consume me. It did not stop me or anyone else I was with, from working, smiling, laughing, sleeping or eating.

There's nothing particularly special about us. This is probably how humans quickly adapt to the most extreme of circumstances. Life does, indeed, go on. Or to quote the title of the Jerusalem Film Festival's showcase movie about the Bosnian war -- which I and a few thousand of others watched last night in an open air cinema before the illuminated walls of the Old City -- "Life Is A Miracle."

I've been to Bosnia. And Kosovo. And Gaza. But somehow it was Baghdad that really made me see. I became conscious of every move I made. I did not know what was going to happen to me in the next hour – or even the next second. When I flushed the toilet, I was grateful the water was still flowing. When I showered and shaved, I was pleased that I still had the facilities to remain clean and presentable. When I took my morning multi-vitamin, I was happy to empty that plastic bottle of yet another tablet. When I spoke to my wife, I made sure that she knew that I loved her. Because I could have been doing any of these routine things at that particular moment for the last time in my life. It was so easy to perceive this in the Cradle of Chaos, but it also applies wholeheartedly to existence in the Capital of Content. Except that my mind is more focused in a war zone than it is in my comfort zone.

There are moments of grace in a country like today's Iraq – they are shorter, fewer and frighteningly more intense than anything we might experience in the developed, democratic world. To notice them is like taking one bite from a segment of the sweetest orange after you've eaten nothing but stale, bland bread for weeks on end.

Yoga was my recurring moment of grace. But it did not come from the actual performance of my regimen. It happened each time when it was over. As I conscientiously put the pillows away into the drawer under my bed. As I slowly rolled the mat and pulled the tie around it. As I put my list of exercises away, shelved away in its usual place. Every move a deliberate and unhurried one. I was flooded with gratitude and amazement that once again, I had been given the peace and quiet – the uninterrupted opportunity – to take 45 minutes out of my day to participate in this ritual. Not once, during my six weeks in this deadly, devastated place, did the phone ever ring, did someone knock on the door, did destruction come looking for me while I was doing yoga. It did not matter whether it was early morning or the middle of the afternoon. That, I believe, was the greatest gift to help me get through what I had to do.

#30

Surfacing

2004-07-08T09:16:00.000+04:00

Thursday, July 8, 2004 – Tel Aviv

The air conditioner's perpetual white noise has gone. That subtle form of torture dissipates as I distance myself from blazing Baghdad. I have replaced it with the gentle whir of a fan that was once mine when I lived here over three years ago. Now it belongs to my good friend Natalie (my best "woman" at our wedding, that's how close she is to us) who has kindly agreed to take me in for a few days as I make my slow transition from the depths of Iraq and come up for air.

Israel's water quality is not fabulous, but at least I can run my toothbrush under the tap. I gorged on fresh vegetables last night – Natalie had prepared three types of salad.

In Amman, Jordan, our first stop was at a small grocery store to load up on supplies for the two-hour drive from the airport to the Sheikh Hussein bridge – the crossing point from Jordan to Israel. I was nearly giddy with the sense of freedom. I scanned the shelves. The owner came up and introduced himself in English and asked where I was from (they usually expect to hear "India," I respond "Canada"), and I told him "Trinidad." He even knew where that tiny Caribbean island was.

I paid for my water and potato chips and would have gladly handed over three times the amount. How nice it was to be able to be out in public again, to do my own shopping, to be outside without fear of attack.

Of course, Iraq could not let me leave without reminding me of the danger that does not even trouble itself to lurk in dark corners. I woke up early enough for one last yoga session before I packed away my mat. After emotional goodbyes to the rest of my colleagues who remained to continue their tours of duty, I put my flak jacket on for the last time -- one last drive down "Death Road" to the airport.

For some reason, my Kevlar felt lighter than usual. As my counterpart Kevin remarked, that's because we were leaving. We breezed by the huge line of cars at the checkpoints because our centurion bodyguards now have all-access military ID's. And suddenly, we were at the airport.

The check-in process was remarkably smooth. All our luggage was x-rayed. We went through a metal detector. I got my passport stamped by an Iraqi policewoman. I had a Turkish coffee and a chicken sandwich in the restaurant. An air of civility pervaded this cavernous hall with its 1960's sensibilities and tens of thousands of PVC piping hanging from the ceiling, like white plastic chimes awaiting the tap of the percussionist.

But it was the sledgehammer of a mortar that struck nearby that shook the entire building. It was as if a short eartquake had struck. A few of us got up to look out the window to see where it had landed. But others remained seated. If the ceiling hadn't come down and the glass hadn't shattered, then we hadn't been close enough to be seriously threatened. We had been here too long.

On the tarmac, I handed over $2 to the baggage handler who needed me to identify my luggage before he threw it on the conveyor belt that would transport my three pieces into the plane's hold. Yes, it was extortion. But I didn't care. I wanted all of me to arrive in Amman in one piece.

The sun was beating down. It must have already been 40 degrees Celsius. The air hung heavily inside the plane. It got worse when our South African pilot informed us that we were going nowhere for at least another twenty minutes. The military had shut down all Iraqi airspace. I suddenly had a clear idea of how our dog Miles might feel stuck in the car on a summer's day. Except that it's illegal to leave a baby or a dog alone in such conditions. But a bunch of journalists in a war zone? Bring it on.

An hour and a half later, we finally took off. We had been perspiring so much, the powerful air conditioner frosted the condensation to an icy white gloss around the ventilation. The plane took off like it was being launched from an aircraft carrier (my home away from home last year). The pilot was determined to get out of range of any form of attack as soon as possible.

Only when he turned the seatbelt light off, did I know we were safe. Except that in the Middle East, "safe" is a relative term. Jordan, and the Israeli border, felt positively idyllic in comparison. But as we were having our luggage swabbed for traces of explosives, an alarm went off, and all the guards went running towards the gate. There had been a security breach. I waited for the big bang. It never came. False alarm. An hour later, after a serious interrogation by the passport officer about my father's name – and even my grandfather's first name (just to ensure it wasn't "Osama") – I was set free into the gentle air and dying sun of Israel's Jordan Valley. I was nearly home.

Grace Under Pressure

2004-07-07T07:44:00.000+04:00

"Forget everything."

Those were the parting words last night from one of our friendly Iraqi security guards who knows me by name even though we've never exchanged formal greetings. He kissed me on both cheeks and wished me a safe journey. But I was more shocked by the impact of what he said. Forget everything. Perhaps what he meant was that typical life here is not as I experienced it. That he hopes that should I return, all shall be normal once again. Which "normal": before the Occupation? Before the war? Before Saddam? His other salutation was more tangible – and more pertinent.

"Be safe."

One last battle with the surly wait staff at the hotel restaurant last night. I wanted Iraqi kebab as my final meal in Baghdad.

"So sorry, no kebab tonight," the waiter said, offering the usual unapologetic excuse.

So I ordered my next favorite dish, the mixed grill.

On my plate: chicken breast, beef, a lamb chop, and yes, one kebab. One of my colleagues astutely remarked, "What you need to do is order six mixed grills, and tell them to hold everything…except the kebab."

I finished "The Old Man and The Sea." What a magnificent book. Some say it's Hemingway's best, and I would have to agree. As my anonymous Iraqi annotator observed during the climax: "his ambition was greater than his ability." And yet, Santiago triumphed. Except that he ultimately lost his prize. And what's the lesson in that?

[UPDATE: 10:54 p.m.: I'm in Tel Aviv, safe and sound...]

O Periodista!

2004-07-06T12:40:00.000+04:00

Tuesday, July 6, 2004

My imminent departure from the theater of the absurd puts me in a mirthful mood. Allow me to point you to yesterday's Doonesbury cartoon strip, which only showed up at our doorstep today (it remains a miracle that we even get the excellent Beirut edition of the International Herald Tribune here, especially so regularly).

We all try very hard not to look like Roland Hedley, even as we're very aware of how our profession constantly draws unfavorable comparisons to this sad caricature. It's one of the reasons why I stopped wearing those silly photojournalist vests…(now I look so tough with a nylon "man purse" slung over my shoulder). Gary Trudeau's aim is true -- it probably helps that he's married to former NBC anchor Jane Pauley.

Just in case the link disappears, I'll paraphrase it.

Doonesbury reads the paper while the television news begins.

"For more on the continuing chaos in Iraq, let's go live to Roland Hedley. Roland, can you give us the latest in Baghdad?"

Hedley is on camera with his trademark journo hat and jacket.

"I'm afraid not Lou," he says with a TV correspondent's deadly earnestness.

"Why not?" the anchor says.

"I don't know anything. It's too dangerous to leave the hotel."

"Oh well, thanks anyway."

"No problem, I'm Roland Hedley, live!"

If you do find the link, check out today's strip as well (thanks to Slate.com). It's even closer to the mark. Here's the punchline:

HEDLEY: Bowing to network pressure, today I and my three bodyguards left my hotel in an armored car to cover the daily coalition briefing. After two hours of creeping along unsecure streets, I am now at the briefing. Where I can assure you, no news will be committed. I'm Roland Hedley. Alive.

ANCHOR: You mean "live" don't you?

HEDLEY: It's one day at a time here, Lou.

Bell Tolls For Thee

2004-07-05T23:18:00.000+04:00

Monday, July 5, 2004

Although I've written very little about my work here, I've had almost no time for leisure. Often meals were my "break." No one takes a day off, and if you're lucky, you'll get a couple of hours to yourself. I don't usually leave the office before midnight.

So it took me all six weeks to finally finish the one book I brought with me, Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True. It was very much an acquired taste. Still Oprah recommended it, and now, so do I.

I whipped through Richard's insightful A Fist in the Hornet's Nest, and now I've moved on to Hemingway's Old Man and The Sea. I borrowed it from our young Iraqi translator (name withheld for her own protection) who studied English literature at Baghdad University. This slender paperback has been handed down several times. It's heavily annotated with Arabic and English. There's a lot of 1950's-era baseball chatter in this book. I wonder how 21st Iraqis even begin to interpret DiMaggio's importance to post-war America.

Onion Shrapnel

2004-07-04T17:56:00.000+04:00

Sunday, July 4, 2004

I'm not sure if what I did last night would make my grandmother beam with pride or just shake her head and cluck with disapproval. The last time I saw her before she passed away, she insisted on showing me how to properly prepare a curry. This had been one of my staple meals in university, but it had never tasted right. As she quickly explained to me, I had to cook the curry in butter first, before adding the other ingredients. Raw curry is bitter. I had been sprinkling it liberally like a landslide of yellow salt over a chicken already simmering away. If this was to be the final lesson to her errant grandson, then I do declare it to be a good and righteous one.

We decided we needed to catch our breath this weekend. So once again, Tim announced that he'd fire up the charcoal and grill a few steaks. I concluded it was time that I made my own contribution to these regular feasts at Sundowners. I had been stealthily preparing for this moment.

We had received two care packages from the London bureau in June (which included DVD's, potato chips, cookies and magazines – I the computer geek requested Macworld, the real men asked for Maxim). For each shipment, I had ordered bottled curry paste. The first delivery consisted of two bottles of green Thai curry, which were useless to me (sure I could find the coconut milk, but the dish would be nothing without lemongrass). The next drop included four large bottles of curry sauce – already prepared and seasoned, just open, pour and bring to a simmer. It was the Indian equivalent of pouring a can of Ragu over spaghetti. Apostasy!

But then yesterday, I found a small container of powdered curry in the office kitchen cupboard. I was determined to improvise. So I offered to cook a side dish of curried chicken. I would do so with Trinidadian intentions but Mongoloid consequences.

At home, three hours is enough to meet Heather's high expectations when it comes to this, one of her favorite meals. Long enough to prepare the ingredients, and let it gently bubble until chicken, potato, tomato, spice and sauce unite into an exceptionally tasty goop.

Silly me. I had forgotten that the challenges of war zone existence extend to even the holiest of undertakings. And yet I was committed to focus all my energies on the task at hand to succeed. Who could I complain to? What good would it have been to lose my temper? Why bother to wonder how much better it would have been if I could work with a well-stocked kitchen? Here, I had no choice. Nor any expectations. With this liberating mindset, the stress of my surroundings melted away as my sphere of awareness was suddenly confined to counter, stove and cabinet top. What follows is a step-by-step recounting of the Zen of Baghdad Curry.

We sent affable Muslim out with a shopping list, which robbed me of one of the joys of cooking: selecting my own ingredients. As has been the case since I had arrived, our present threat level dictates that we Westerners cannot go out to the store. This disappoints me, because Iraqi vegetables and meat are fresh and abundant -- and probably fun to shop for.

I didn't have a cutting board, so I found out a few plates. I didn't have a sharp kitchen knife, so I unsheathed my Leatherman and pulled out the largest blade. It is said that in Australia, when you flush the toilet, the water turns in an opposite direction to the way it does in North America. Well in Baghdad, onion spirals seem to grow counter to the ones I'm used to in British Columbia. I didn't dice the onion as much as crumble it with my clumsy cutting technique on a plate that kept sliding along the countertop. This essential ingredient was so overpowering that I had to run to my room and put my new ballistic sunglasses to its inaugural test (I had purchased them to protect my eyes from shrapnel while on patrol with the U.S. Army). Miraculously, this high-end eyewear instantly dammed the river of tears that had been coursing down my cheeks.

A wishbone was embedded in every piece of "boneless" chicken I set my blade to. I tore at the flesh, ripping out strips hoping the plate wouldn't slip and add a finger to the growing mountain of meat that began to rise in the baking pan next to me.

Normally at this point, I would season the chicken with salt, pepper, thyme, paprika and zatar (a Bedouin spice). But I forgot to do so. Probably because all I had at my disposal were the salt and pepper.

I washed the Leatherman under hot water. Then I took out my always-with-me Purell Hand Sanitizer ("Kills Germs without Water or Towels!") and rubbed down the blade before putting it away. I spread the tool open and pulled out the can opener and set upon the four tins of whole tomatoes. But they were flimsy containers, and their tops began to bend in from the pressure as I pried the opener along their circumference. Tim came to my rescue with his Swiss Army opener, which was smaller. It required more strokes, but they were shorter and didn't impact the rims as much.

The next Survivor Baghdad challenge: the stove. First I switched on the power. Then I turned all four burners on to see which one actually worked. Each of their controls were already at a different position. There was no way to tell whether they were properly aligned and if "0" really meant off, and if "12" was really the hottest setting.

The two burners to the right began to warm up. Except I needed the larger element in the rear for my large pot. It meant that I would have to be careful as I was reaching over the stove to make sure I didn't get burned by the smaller element in the front. I was forever fiddling with its knob, trying to figure out what position would actually turn it off.

I was also worried that if I had put the heat on too high under the pot (how was I to know except through constant trial and error?), I would burn the butter and the curry. But I had no choice. I had to proceed.

Luckily, Muslim had purchased cooking butter. It seemed to have a higher tolerance for heat than regular butter. Four heaping spoonfuls of the white, soft stuff simmered quickly at the pot's bottom.

When it comes to curry, I don't like to measure things out. I go by feel – something I learned from my mother. I was cooking for about fifteen people. So I sized up the chicken Tim had ordered and claimed two of the three packages. I sliced up a couple of large onions. I threw in a cooking spoon full of curry powder and swirled it through the molten butter. I watched it turn dark and prayed it would not burn. I could tell from the color and smell that it hadn't. But I added the onions as soon as I could to draw the heat's focus away from the spice, as well as to further season the pot.

Tim and Richard came in and pronounced it all to be a wonderful scent. By then, it was nothing more than onion, butter and curry. I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten about the garlic. It's not really necessary, but I put garlic in nearly everything. Except we hadn't bought any. Luckily, Richard has a strong affinity for Italian cuisine. He ran to his room to plunder his stash of garlic. He returned within minutes with finely chopped shards of the potent stuff, served up on an old thick-papered brochure. By then, I had already added the chicken to the mix. It didn't feel right to just toss in the diced head so unceremoniously. I consider it to be the sacred ingredient, the thing that magically lends its pungency and bite to every dish. France was to me what Italy was to Richard. I knew what I had to do.

I pulled out a small skillet and suddenly discovered the reason why the universe had not allowed me to turn off that smaller front element. It was now ready to fulfill my immediate need: the preparation of the garlic. I slabbed some more of that wonderful butter into the pan. Then I tipped the pamphlet full of garlic and quickly stirred. It didn't take long to brown the small bits. It was now a war of odors: curried chicken versus butter and garlic.

My colleagues walked by and made further declarations of fealty to the meal that was to be. The scent of freshly cooked garlic makes anyone smell like a pro. Conversely, a few of us North Americanized Trinidadians hate the stench of curry in the house. It's possibly part of a longstanding fear that we held when we were still new immigrants, worried that our neighbors would think ill of us once they detected our unassimilated presence even several doors down, merely because of what we were having for dinner (curry is like cigarette smoke, it soaks into your clothes and hair).

But here after weeks and months of uninspired Arab food, everyone was happy to deeply inhale the fragrance of my heritage. I was told that they could even detect it a couple of floors up.

I added the browned garlic and then the four cans of tomatoes to the growing stew. I would let that simmer for a bit so I could concentrate on the next set of ingredients.

I poured a liter of mineral water over an armful of potatoes and tried to rub the dirt away. Then I quartered them and threw them in a pot of more mineral water for a few minutes. I hoped the short soak would eat further away at the caked-on soil. I did the same for half a dozen green peppers. I missed being able to wash my vegetables under the tap, but I wasn't going to take a chance with Baghdad's poisonous water.

I threw it all in. The large, deep aluminum pot was now half full. Alas, my curry looked more like cacciatore. The redness of tomatoes had trumped the golden spice. It had come to this.

I opened the two bottles of curry sauce. Without ceremony or hesitation, I dumped them into the pot. Brown gained ground. I suddenly was afraid to turn my head, concerned my dear grandmother might be watching over my shoulder, wincing at every deviation I made from her time-tested ways. Yet, I knew my mother would approve. She knew the challenges of preparing a flavorful meal thousands of miles from home. And I know my wife's support would be unwavering, proud that I had decided to comfort myself and my colleagues with this attempt to cook something familiar.

So two and a half hours later, with head held high, I declared my part of the feast ready. The huge pot woudl be scraped clean in less than 45 minutes. However this symbolic vote of confidence satisfied me less than the sense of accomplishment I derived from an afternoon of narrowly focused movements. I know. I've cooked better. Still, at this place and time, it was everything I could have possibly wanted.

Saturation

2004-07-03T13:14:00.000+04:00

Saturday, July 3, 2004

This is wishful thinking at its best. Or the power of memory and suggestion. This morning was not the first time that I nearly confused the white noise of my room's rickety air conditioning with the gentle wash of the ocean. For a moment I imagined that what lay behind the heavy curtains and tape covered window (to keep the glass intact in the event of a bomb) was not the glaring Middle East sun and bleached out cityscape, but clouds, waves, sand and emptiness. Even better, rain.

The north Oregon coast would suffice. A good compromise: Taba, Egypt, the northern end of the Sinai along the Red Sea where it's so peaceful even the flies can't be bothered.

Four more days.

And two steps back in yoga. The handover, Saddam's arraignment, the Humvees, the Kevlar, the office chair, the exceptionally long hours -- they have all contributed to destroy much of the flexibility I thought I had gained from my regular practice in a war zone. Still one session today was enough to give me a shot of energy to run upstairs to our makeshift bureau even if I would rather sleep for seven consecutive days instead.

Under the Mercy

2004-07-02T13:31:00.000+04:00

A bunch of pranksters on their way to mosque decided to launch a few rocket propelled grenades at the Sheraton a couple of miles from our hotel. They missed mostly, and managed to set their own van on fire. I've always wondered whether the Middle East would be a more sensible place if its denizens actually got two days off every week. And so it is that my last weekend in Iraq begins.

Anyone interested in another nonsensical part of the world, read this article.

To clear my own head, I headed out to the balcony for a ride, even though the powers-that-be had long turned on the furnace that is Baghdad's daytime heat (how do meteorologists here maintain their sanity when it's all blue skies and forty?).

Maybe I look for connections in music when they don't exist, but Bruce Cockburn scored big once again with Fascist Architecture. Headphones on, I stared out at Saddam's former capital, spotted a brand new Iraqi flag fluttering in the wind and did not forget that the lyrics to this song have little to do with the best laid building plans of tyrants and megalomaniacs. It was just an excellent metaphor for something far more personal:

Fascist architecture of my own design
Too long been keeping my love confined
You tore me out of myself alive

Those fingers drawing out blood like sweat
While the magnificent facades crumble and burn
The billion facets of brilliant love
The billion facets of freedom turning in the light

Bloody nose and burning eyes
Raised in laughter to the skies
I've been in trouble but I'm ok
Been through the wringer but I'm ok
Walls are falling and I'm ok
Under the mercy and I'm ok

Gonna tell my old lady
Gonna tell my little girl
There isn't anything in the world
That can lock up my love again

The (long) playlist today:

Within You, Without You
The Beatles:Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Facist Architecture
Bruce Cockburn: Waiting For A Miracle: Singles 1970 - 1987

Born Again
Black Sabbath: Born Again

Jealous Guy
Bryan Ferry: As Time Goes By/Slave to Love

Buffalo Soldier
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Legend

Pick a Part That's New
Stereophonics: Performance and Cocktails

The Master & Margarita
The Tea Party: Interzone Mantras

Aaj Mera Jee Kardaa (Today My Heart Desires)
Sukhwinder Singh: Monsoon Wedding

Californication
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Californication

Old
Paul Simon: You're the One

Cheating On You
Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand

Don't Drink the Water
Dave Matthews Band:Before These Crowded Streets

Sail Across the Water
Jane Siberry: When I Was a Boy

Laughin
The Guess Who: Best Of The Guess Who

Breña
A Perfect Circle: Mer de Noms

In The Hole

2004-07-01T23:59:00.000+04:00

Thursday, July 1, 2004

Actually, it's Friday, at 1:52 a.m. in Baghdad. But I need to celebrate Canada Day.

We're sitting around the office, having a drink, waiting for Nightly News to air. Alcohol is very necessary to deal with the incredible stress of the day: even imprisoned, Saddam Hussein continues to inflict pain. His appearance in court today sent all the networks into a tizzy as they raced to get the first reports to air. It was supposed to be a "pool" affair – which meant that the networks would assign one crew to shoot the material and it would be shared with everyone else.

But CNN and ABC pushed their star power, pulled strings at the White House, and hijacked the whole affair. Jennings and Amanpour got into to the hearing, and were boasting about it a couple of hours later. A violation of the pool rules. CBS was supposed to feed out the military censored pool material – without sound. But they were so furious with the folks who broke the rules, and with the officials who were willing to bend them on behalf of a couple of overpaid blowhards (Christiane especially), that they fed Saddam's tirade out with sound. Which we took advantage of. The military and the new Iraqi government in charge of a high profile, showcase trial: the inevitable recipe for disaster.

Happily, we interview a wonderful man today to make us forget the asinine network wars. The political dissident spent 21 years living in a hole near his house to escape Saddam's tyranny. He's 50 and looks like he's 80. He has bad skin because he had little exposure to the sun. He's hunched over because he lived in a narrow, crypt-like room for over two decades. Now he lives in the same dirt-floored shack that stood over his hole, unmarried, apparently penniless.

Does he watch Saddam squirm with glee? Does he pray for a public execution of the man who stole his life away?

"The most important thing is that it's open and the crimes are openly discussed," he said. "The result is irrelevant, as long as the court is open and justice and exposes the crimes in front of the people. It doesn't matter. He doesn't have to be killed, or stay alive. But the important thing is to know what he did."

Does he feel pity? Does he demand justice? Compensation? Has he filled in the hole?

"I still go in it everyday, and I take water from the well that I dug, and I use the water. I use it for cleaning."

He's grateful for the place that sheltered him, that kept him alive. It is not a dark place in the ground, but a place of refuge that continues to give.

Spirits in the Material World

2004-06-30T21:02:00.000+04:00

Wednesday, June 30th, 2004

Yesterday, at the eleventh hour (of a fifteen hour day), I suddenly realized I was sitting in the office in an inadvertent yoga position, leg crossed, knees close together. I had read that once someone begins a regular routine, the poses and breathing rituals might pop up when the yoga mat is nowhere to be found. It's a gratifying discovery, and very necessary physical therapy after yesterday's punishing Humvee ride (which included a few sprints in the afternoon sun with flak jacket and helmet – the occasional sharp pain in my knee will not let me forget this unusual workout).

I am not a religious person. I don't believe I ever will be. But there is a strong spirituality to yoga. Spirituality means acknowledging the divine that surrounds us all, even as the profanity of our daily existence weighs us down. Commandments, priests or holy places are not necessary, but they do help many of us in our struggle to connect with the universe.

Unrolling my yoga mat one morning, I suddenly remembered my late grandfather's devotion when he prayed five times a day on his own mat. The rules and rituals are different, but the goal is the same: mindfulness, surrender, breath control, openness, connection and sacred spaces. I now have a better appreciation for the commitment he had made.

Fables of the Reconstruction

2004-06-29T16:23:00.000+04:00

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Baghdad 6:41 p.m. (updated)

First day in New Iraq…"eighteen hours in the tin can…" to steal a phrase from Pete Townsend. The work is as intense as the sun and the news does not stop shining on this particular corner of the planet. Another Who'ism: "meet the new boss, same as the old boss…" Just got back from a patrol with the 1st Cavalry through a Baghdad neighborhood. The handover clearly doesn't mean U.S. forces disappear. There are more Iraqi police, but it's certainly business as usual.

As of 6 p.m. here, my latest MSNBC article is front page news. If it disappears, you can find Civil Affairs Specialists Balance Dual Roles here.

Actually, I preferred my original title, so I'm including the unedited version, as submitted:

The Battle to Rebuild Iraq

by HRH Baghdad June 28, 2004

Dust fills the air at the U.S. Army's sprawling Camp Victory outside Baghdad. But that does not obscure the startling message of the roadside sign.

"Professional. Polite. Prepared to kill," reads the small billboard close to the First Cavalry Division's 3-82 Field Artillery operations office.

The slogan reflects the conflicting nature of Major Jeff Collins job as operations officer for his unit. One moment he'll take part in a deadly raid, the next, he's inspecting a contractor's work at a construction site.

Warrior or rebuilder at any particular moment, Iraq's exceptionally dangerous security conditions still demand that Collins step out of his office fully armed, even with the new Iraqi government in power. He straps a pistol across his chest and picks up a shotgun. He's protected by a flak jacket and helmet. Ballistic sunglasses will shield his eyes from shrapnel should his armored Humvee convoy run across any bombs insurgents have planted along the road.

Every expedition is an extreme risk for Collins and his fellow soldiers – as it is for journalists. Ironically, such restrictions on mobility may also partially explain why Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz felt compelled to complain on June 22nd to a House Armed Services Committee that "part of our problem (in Iraq) is a lot of press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad, and they publish rumors." Wolfowitz quickly apologized for accusing journalists of cowardice. But he had made his opinion clear: good news in Iraq is no news.

But despite all the horror stories, there have been a few positive developments. And Major Jeff Collins' battalion is behind some of them, with its 140 construction projects and a $7 million kitty to pay for them.

"It's something I'm very proud of," Collins said. "These are the kind of things I point out to the people that I know at home. To show them quantifiable things that we're doing here that make a difference everyday."

Such as the Mansour Women's Center in Baghdad. Its director, Manal Omar was worried that the building was not safe, especially after they found a bomb buried nearby. So the 1st Cavalry found a local Iraqi contractor, and is now spending $10,000 to build a new wall to secure the rear of the facility.

"The center will have a few hundred women in a month's time," Major Annette Dawson said. She's part of the unit's Civil Affairs team, which spearheads the division's construction projects. "We also have a safe house [for battered women] located in the Green Zone," referring to the U.S.-administered section of Baghdad.

"How's the security of your area lately?" Collins asked Omar during his latest visit.

"It's been much better," she said. Omar has been giving classes to Iraqi women who want to start their own businesses. "We're using your unit as an example of co-operation. And we're very happy with this contractor."

There's a large blown-out building behind the women's center. It was formerly the headquarters for Saddam Hussein's feared Republican Guard. But Captain Dave Minashek intends to transform it into a modern, air conditioned shopping mall, with movie theaters and restaurants. He said it was important to gauge the opinion of local shopkeepers

"There's been some pretty positive feedback," Minashek said.

The 1st Cavalry's reconstruction work is a relatively small success story compared to the oft-delayed multi-million dollar projects throughout the country. Collins' battalion employs only local contractors. Many of these Iraqi businesspeople have complained they have not been able to bid on the huge, lucrative contracts that were doled out to foreign companies such as Bechtel and Siemens.

"The Iraqi construction industry has a challenge," David Nash told MSNBC. He's the retired Admiral who runs the U.S. government's Project Management Office in Iraq, and holds the purse strings to an $18 billion reconstruction fund. "They don't have any equipment. They've been deprived from learning about the latest techniques. They don't know about a lot of the things that some of these companies from the outside will bring in."

Except that the dire security situation here has considerably slowed those big projects. They're faced with higher security costs, as well as with a mass exodus of many international contractors who say it's too dangerous to stay and work. A hundred Russian technicians returned home after two of their colleagues were recently killed in an ambush. Which left Baghdad's crumbling electrical power station without the foreign expertise required to repair it.

Only half a dozen men are working for the 1st Cavalry on the Mansour Women Center's wall. But about 60% of adult Iraqis are unemployed. And both Nash, and Omar Al-Damluji, Iraq's new interim Minister of Construction and Housing say that's what inspires much of the violence.

"The security problem will remain for some time now. Not unless we bring investments to make people work and to strengthen the economy," Al-Damluji said.

Other Iraqis share this opinion, especially those who don't have jobs, like Ali Jabir. Every morning, he takes his place among a group of men who line up on a sidewalk in a poor Baghdad neighborhood. He hopes a prospective contractor will come by and offer him a day's work.

"Unemployment is creating crime, theft, murders," Ali Jabir said. "Tomorrow, if they would come up to me and ask me to join 'jihad' with them – to get paid to kill and destroy -- I would go. What am I expected to live on? I will do anything for a living."

The soldiers of the 1st Cavalry say they're aware that their projects might help to abate the violence. That gives Captain Evans Hanson a sense of urgency as he scours his battalion's neighborhood regularly for able local contractors.

"Sometimes we go right up to their office and say, 'hi we'd like you to submit a proposal for this particular project, are you interested?'" Hanson said.

But it doesn't end with the hiring of the contractor. Hanson talks to each one of them on a daily basis to make sure the work is done properly. The civil affairs specialist studied international relations and economics at the University of Southern California said this is exactly the kind of work he was hoping to find.

"This is the most fun I've ever had in my life," the Houston native said.

Lt. Abu-Baker Senge echoed that sentiment. He's a civil engineer from Portland, Oregon who oversees much of the battalion's school reconstruction. "Schools are where the most people can see the most change. There's a school in everybody's neighborhood" he said. "This is what it's all about. Help the people. Help the transition."

Senge was greeted warmly by a group of children with special needs at the Dina Institute. They all wanted to say hello to him as he inspected the new air conditioner and stove – both purchased with 1st Cavalry funds. But while he did that, a group of soldiers remained on guard outside the gate. Just by being there that afternoon, they had made the school a target of insurgents who see the American handover of power to the interim government as a sham. The 3-82 Field Artillery clearly had to remain vigilant even as it wages this counter-insurgency to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis.

"We can't shy aware from the danger, to hide away somewhere," Collins said. His mission will continue as his unit now begins to collaborate with the new Iraqi government. "We'll be out here everyday until we redeploy finding ways that we can make our part of Baghdad, a better part of Baghdad."

Surprise! Handover...Part 2

2004-06-29T00:20:00.000+04:00

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

12:12 a.m.

It's still Monday in New York, even if our working day has already extended further into the week – 15 hours and counting. Washing my hands in the office bathroom I heard some pretty serious pumping action from a firearm. My small consolation: in the event of an explosion or gunfire, tiled bathrooms are usually a safer bet than a room with a view.

We sent out for ice cream tonight. The shop is just around the corner from the hotel, but I've only seen it fleetingly through the thick, bulletproof window of the armored car. We're not allowed to go inside. The chocolate ice cream is thick and sticky: it tastes like it was freshly made, similar to the wonderful concoction I ate last year with Heather in the covered market of Damascus' Old City.

Surprise! Handover....

2004-06-28T12:41:00.000+04:00

Monday, June 28, 2004

12:37 p.m. Baghdad time

It didn't take long for the sounds of popcorn popping to float over the city. Someone was shooting in the air in celebration or shooting at another person in defiance. Helicopters buzzed the hotel rooftop, close to our live position. Paul Bremer is leaving later today, the Coalition Provisional Authority is no more. The June 30th handover date was just a deadline after all – but we all thought it was going to happen then, not now.

Who's going to pay attention to the Canadian elections outside of the True North Strong and Free today? Not that anyone really was before anyway. Though I did get a kick out of squinting at TV here in the office a couple of days ago and shocked to see the dateline "Kelowna, British Columbia" on CNN International's dateline (it was Conservative leader's Stephen Harper's rally in my little city). And renowned anchorman Tom B came by for a visit yesterday and verified that I was still a B.C. native. That's because he's heading to my "Super Natural British Columbia" soon for an outing in the wild.

Survivor Baghdad

2004-06-27T12:35:00.000+04:00

Sunday, June 27, 2004

We descended upon the new shipment of fresh bananas like survivors on a desert island. I craved the potassium injection. I know how imbalanced my diet has been these last four weeks (and it's been that long). Last night, Tim the Californian treated us all to an impromptu barbeque along with some fabulous grilled tomatoes and green peppers. He also bought a couple loaves of the Iraqi version of Wonder Bread from a nearby bakery. It was all a great treat.

You may have noticed that I've been quite guarded in the details that I provide about our security and editorial operations. You can imagine why. But for a more no-holds-barred account of what's it like to work out here, the most recent issue of Rolling Stone has an interesting article about the foreign press corps: The Baghdad Follies.

Yesterday's workout serendipitous playlist: The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Alison Krauss, The Clash, U2, Pink Floyd, Tom Waits, Peter Gabriel, The Flaming Lips and Marillion. Most inspired moment on the bike: "I Fought the Law (and the Law Won)."

I Pray You Stop Covering the War Entirely

2004-06-25T14:28:00.000+04:00

Friday, June 25, 2004

"Better late than never" was the message someone wrote on the chalkboard in our office directly above Paul Wolfowitz' letter of apology. A few days ago, the infamous U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense told a Congressional committee that "part of our problem (in Iraq) is a lot of press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad, and they publish rumors."

Wolfowitz was universally condemned, hence the quick retraction hanging at the NBC Baghdad office. "I extend a heartfelt apology and hope you will accept it. I understand well the enormous dangers that you face."

Thanks to my sharp-eyed brother, may I direct you to the sadly funny analysis of the apology letter, Thursdays with Wolfie: Smallest Violin Edition.

Dark Nights Bright Lights

2004-06-24T12:24:00.000+04:00

RENAULT: What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?

RICK: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.

RENAULT: Waters? What waters? We're in the desert.

RICK: I was misinformed.

My sore muscles this morning have helped me further understand the symbiotic relationship between flak jacket and yoga mat – one that I only slightly grasped at when I nearly packed the two into the same bag before leaving home a month ago. Had I done so, they would have probably engaged in a metaphorical battle – one without victor. An endless struggle that would have endured until pulled apart during the unpacking ritual. The necessary good in the necessary evil.

I spent six hours in my blue covered Kevlar plates yesterday. It protects me, and weighs me down. My yoga mat in the corner of my hotel room taunts me when I don't regularly roll it out. But when I do, it announces a period of healing is about to begin, as long as I'm willing to sacrifice the time. Today I had to. My stiff back and legs made me feel as if someone had injected an unhealthy dose of plywood into my bloodstream. When I return home, I will go and see Jeff at Trinity Yoga (it's about time I provided the link) immediately. I'm in need of some stronger stuff.

I noticed white salt stains on my worn, saddle-leather belt today as I looped it around my waist. This is the product of perspiration from yesterday's long outing in the summer sun. I deliberately left my good belt at home because I knew this would happen. I'm on the verge of mastering the art of packing for such expeditions. You have to be prepared for every eventuality, but you can't stuff too much into your luggage. You need to look good, even when you're not on camera, out of respect for the people you're interviewing. But you need clothes that won't tear, easily stain, or get too wrinkled if you have to wear them for more than two days in a row.

There is the stereotypical male foreign journalist's uniform: the generic blue long-sleeve cotton shirt and basic khaki pants. This pairing covers all the concerns someone might have about appearances in the Middle East, and on-air. It's also predictably boring. For variety, I brought along a khaki shirt work shirt from Banana Republic and blue Ralph Lauren chinos (aye, reverse the order of things, now that's creative), which is what I'm wearing today.

Yet I am uncompromising on one particular item of clothing: my footwear. To celebrate this latest assignment, I purchased my third pair of Blundstone boots from my favorite testosterone-laden men's workwear store, Robertson's in Kelowna. This time, I opted for the new chunky-sole version of the Tasmanian-leathered wonders. They're indestructible and easily cleaned. They're so versatile, they're all I need for an extended tour of duty. They look good in a decent restaurant, but can weather the worst of a dusty army camp or the horrible detritus on the scene of a suicide bombing. Most importantly, because they're made in Australia with down-under sensibilities, I can wear them during the most infernal of days. My belt might get wet, but my feet still breathe. Which is why I've gone on so long in this unsolicited infomercial about this journalist's vital gear (along with the Leatherman Wave surgically connected to my waist, my Suunto Metron watch, a Maglite torch in my bag, and Sony video and digital cameras that are always with me). One day, I want to design the ultimate foreign correspondent's shoulder bag, with enough pockets and protection for all the gadgets I like to tote around.

I'm still not done with the theme of yesterday's entry: how the brightest light can shine during the darkest night, as it does in uncomfortable places like Iraq. And I remembered how Bruce Cockburn eloquently captured this terrible dichotomy in his classic "Lovers in a Dangerous Time." U2 lifted the last line of this song in their clumsy but well-meaning "God II." And Heather prefers the Barenaked Ladies cover. Either way, it's a sad, gorgeous composition.

Lovers in a Dangerous Time
by Bruce Cockburn

Don't the hours grow shorter as the days go by
You never get to stop and open your eyes
One day you're waiting for the sky to fall
And next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all
When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Lovers in a dangerous time

These fragile bodies of touch and taste
This vibrant skin this hair like lace
Spirits open to the thrust of grace
Never a breath you can afford to waste

When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Sometimes you're made to feel as if your love's a crime
Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight
Got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight

Folks are basically decent...

2004-06-23T21:51:00.000+04:00

…conventional wisdom would say
but we read about the exceptions,
in the paper everyday.

This song lyric popped into my head as we were running around Baghdad this morning – chased by all 109 degrees of heat that literally made my ears sweat (43 degrees Celsius for those of you who count that way, it just sounds less impressive).

Our mission? To find a "good news" story. I doubted our success. Here? In a country where we can't even set foot out the door without suiting up in Kevlar? Where we have to find shelter behind concrete barricades and bulletproof glass? Where we must make sure we don't get caught in traffic -- or get caught alone on the last lonely stretch of the deadly airport road?

The exceptions in the paper -- and on the air -- are about the Arab who gleefully slits the throat of an innocent Korean man, and then booby traps his headless body for the Americans to find. Or the soldier who tortures a naked Iraqi and disregards the rule of law, ironically, in his fight for democracy. Today, a car bomb detonates near a hospital and kills a pregnant woman and her husband.

In this line of work, I must remain disconcertingly vigilant. But I must also continue to believe that folks are basically decent. I could not function without entrusting my fate to strangers who don't speak the same language as I do. I could not stay sane in these so-called conflict zones if I believed everyone was out to get me.

Indeed, I've always contended that I feel more "at home" in places where the struggle between life and death is more apparent – existence is visceral and appreciated, not taken for granted. In the hot, developing world, the scent of decomposition is in the air, as death consumes, but then dissolves into the dirt or evaporates and gives birth to even more life. This is true in the tropics of my family's native Trinidad and Tobago as it is in the slums of Baghdad. It's the perpetual reminder that no one lives forever. It is healthy not to forget this, especially in North America where we often strive to hermetically seal ourselves off into a sanitized existence.

It probably explains why I need the figurative "Middle East" as much as the "Northwest" – my own brand of yin and yang, the balance between heaven and hell (which is which, varies from day to day), the transition from peace to conflict and back again.

"I see more handshakes. I see more kids waving then I see frowns," Major Jeff Collins told us as we drove around with his First Cavalry. We traveled in an armed convoy. His pistol was prominently displayed on his chest. He kept a shotgun at his feet while driving through the city. A hopeful, articulate man who bristled with weaponry.

We joined him as he did the "rounds" of some of his unit's civic projects: a women's center, a soccer pitch, and a school for autistic kids. The war may still be raging here in deadly Iraq, but someone still wants to make the effort to sustain life.

I don't believe Collins is spinning us. I have seen the same thing in the "awful" places I have been to as well: the children who don't know any better but to greet you with a smile; the parents who will welcome you into their homes to share what meager provisions they have, only minutes after they've made your acquaintance. The beauty and grace of humanity struggle to emerge even in the darkest of holes. That is what continues to inspire me even as all that is rotten about who we are threatens to drag us all down.

It's nearly 10 p.m. I hope to knock off early tonight and maybe fall asleep to Casablanca on the DVD player.

#30

Two Minutes to Midnight

2004-06-22T23:58:00.000+04:00

It's two minutes to midnight and I'm still plugging away. The beheading of the South Korean hostage has us busy. There's nothing academic about this horrible violence -- we know we're not far enough away from what's happening all around us.

I took my laptop out on the balcony this morning for my workout, for the sake of a new mix. iTunes's "Party Shuffle" feature created a nice serendipitous playlist -- I never knew what song would come next. A lot of energetic, pounding music (Rush, Iron Maiden, Sugar, Smashing Pumpkins, the Butthole Surfers, The Beatles), finished off by Thunderball from Heather's personal favorite chill out CD, "Indian Sunrise." The climax came halfway through my Baghdad morning spinning routine on the exercise bike, with Paul Weller's poignant "Brand New Start." That was my personal anthem when I left NBC three and a half years ago and embarked on this unusual journey that has me shuffling back and forth between Northwest and Middle East. The random programming algorithm on my computer's music player reminds me once again what it was all about.

Brand New Start by Paul Weller

I'm gonna clear out my head
I'm gonna get myself straight
I know it's never too late
To make a brand new start

I'm gonna kick down the door
I'm gonna get myself in
I'm gonna fix up the yard
And not fall back again

I'm gonna clean up my earth
And build a heaven on the ground
Not something distant or unfound
But something real to me
But something real to me

All that I can I can be
All that I am I can see
All that is mine is in my hands
So to myself I call

There's somewhere else I should be
There's someone else I can see
There's something more I can find
It's only up to me...

Terror in the Digital Domain

2004-06-21T11:36:00.001+04:00

No pithy personal entry today (a reminder that this is not an official NBC News site, and only reflects my personal views and opinions). But I do have an MSNBC.com article, Terror in the digital domain. Here's the unedited version of what's on the website:

The Terror of the Digital Domain

also at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5261602/

by HRH

June 21, 2004 BAGHDAD

"Created with Nero."

No, not Nero, the infamous emperor who watched Rome burn and threw the Christians to the lions. Nero, the popular CD and DVD authoring software used by many a computer user to burn their favorite tunes and video to disk.

It's the first thing to appear on the screen when I popped in one of the dozens of video CD's created by the Iraqi insurgent group, the Mehdi Army. That's Moqtada Sadr's militia – he the thirty-something Shiite firebrand who led an uprising against the American occupation here this spring.

It's been a quick rise from obscurity to fame for one of the most popular leaders in Iraq. Sadr's message of violent resistance has spread even further thanks to tools such as these cheap, mass produced CD-ROM's. Once the exclusive preserve of teenagers in the developed world, adolescents here on the front lines are now using digital technology to further their bloody cause.

Dozens of these disks sit in a pile at our NBC News bureau. They're in clear plastic envelopes with a flimsy, bright coverpage, obviously produced by a color inkjet printer. Collect them all and you can treat yourself to various images of a serious-looking Sadr, or his iconic father Mohammed who was assassinated by Saddam Hussein five years ago.

Individual CD's often share the same sequences: Sadr addressing thousands of admirers, intercut with images of President George Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair looking downright confused in comparison to the jutted-jaw strength of the Muslim cleric. Then it's on to the news of the week, set to triumphant-sounding battle hymns: shaky digital video shot by kids who get closer to the street fighting than we can, given the current tenuous security situation for journalists here.

Military transports burn in the night. Teenagers set up mortars in the center of town and fire them off one after the other. The pictures tremble at the far end of the camera's digital zoom as a huge American tank rumbles into frame and lowers it turret. Dead Iraqi men lie in pools of blood on the sidewalk. A bloodied child lies in a hospital bed. The English subtitles tell us that he lost both of his arms and his entire family when a missile was fired at his house.

"Is this the way you liberate?" the child says. "You kill us? This pain. How will I live with it? Sound up – an angry sermon. Dissolve to the mosque.

"The images from Iraq that would last will be more like those from Vietnam than from World War II," said Professor Floyd McKay, a media historian at Western Washington University in Bellingham. "The digital camera is one of those things that will prove to be important. We've always been able to benefit from footage shot by amateurs who've been at the right place at the right time. But digital takes it to a whole new level."

A level that will keep media ethicists up at night, as groups with a subversive message – such as the Mehdi Army or Al-Qaeda – bypass even the popular Arab cable news channel Al-Jazeera to broadcast their activities to the world.

Many of the digital literati have already developed the perverse habit of quickly locating whatever Al-Qaeda-related website is hosting the latest execution video. One particular discussion board site was immediately overloaded last week when word got out that American engineer Paul Johnson had been beheaded in Saudi Arabia. The search was on for images of his decapitated body already online. You can still find the brutal clip of the slaying of Nicholas Berg on dozens of sites – a short, fuzzy bit of amateur video disseminated for free around the planet. It's cheap, effective public relations available to any extremist.

"It's a double-edged sword, it depends who's holding on to it," said Charlie White, Executive Producer of Digitalvideoediting.com. "It can be the sword of justice or the sword of evil."

White said the Berg video suddenly alerted him to the incredible power that technology has placed in the hands of video editors.

"My eleven year-old daughter can do it without any instruction from me. It's cheap and accessible. You can use iMovie, it comes free with a Mac. Windows Movie Maker comes with every copy of Windows." White added that it doesn't matter if the quality of the video doesn't look like it was shot for the evening news. "The Berg video sucked. It was lame. But if you have a compelling piece of video, be it good or bad, the power will be if the content is there."

And without the benefit of a respected news organization's journalistic standards, that content can be distorted to suit the aims of a particular cause. The digital photographs of the prison abuses of Abu Ghraib (taken, ironically, by American soldiers with their digital cameras and shared by CD and e-mail) are also widely distributed by the Mehdi Army. You'll see the now familiar images of naked human pyramids, the hooded prisoner connected to electrodes (with a "60 Minutes II" logo in the bottom corner).

But they're interspersed with the front page headlines of the London tabloid Daily Mirror's allegations of similar abuses by British soldiers – which were quickly proven to be fake photographs. There are also still frames taken from pornographic movies of actors wearing military fatigues in various sexual positions. All of this meant to given the viewer a factual impression of the horror perpetuated by the occupiers.

"The Abu Ghraib scandal CD's are very popular – there is a lot of demand from them," said Rael Abdul Elah, who sells the disks in his Baghdad shop. "People are angry at what the American soldiers are doing."

These 75-cent CD's are especially popular with poorer Iraqis who can't afford to shell out the $150 it costs to buy a satellite dish one local manufacturer told MSNBC on condition of anonymity. "And because these pieces haven't been broadcast before on TV," he added.

Some images do make it to mainstream media, such as the Berg video and the Al-Qaeda website announcing the execution of Paul Johnson. And that has Western Washington's McKay worried that the competitive pressures of 24-hour news will lower news editors' standards when it comes to getting the most compelling shots out there first.

"News media has to exercise some good judgment. We have to subject these images to some strong questioning," he said. "It's very hard to catch the fakes. The software for manipulating is terribly powerful."

Cheap digital compression tools and the Internet may give groups like Al-Qaeda and the Mehdi Army the power to bypass traditional media outlets like Al-Jazeera and NBC News, but Charlie White doesn't believe that doesn't mean our days are numbered as journalists in this digital free-for-all

"There'll always be these regulated outlets that will be the respected sources of news, that's not going anywhere," the digital video expert said. "But there'll be these rogue sources of video. And they'll have a brand new power we've never seen before. They will usurp our stranglehold on the reins of this electronic beast. "

LINKS: www.digitalvideoediting.com

#30

Sunday Half-Sequiturs

2004-06-20T14:11:00.000+04:00

Sunday Half-Sequiturs

Sunday, June 19, 2004

The young turks of the foreign press corps miraculously materialized early Saturday morning – after midnight -- around our hotel swimming pool. They were mostly freelancers who showed up before the war and then earned their stripes when all the staffers evacuated. I felt like I was hanging around a bunch of well-soused energetic university frat boys. One of them was almost finished chugging down a bottle of Bulgarian red wine. He said it wasn't very good. I told him the Bulgarians make decent wine, it's probably because this particular bottle got spoiled by the heat. I don't drink wine here. Cold beer is a safer bet.

Air conditioning is still shielding us from the worst that summer can throw at us. But the electricity failed about a dozen times yesterday. This morning, I stood by my doorway and felt the hot air come rushing through the crack below, like water through a tiny hole in the dam.

A broken pipeline explains why one side of the major roadway near our hotel perpetually glistens with moisture. Car tires plow through the raw sewage and spread it around the neighborhood. If we open the window, the smell hovers around the office.

In the next room over where our Arab-speaking crews like to hang out, Khaldoon the Palestinian cameraman lay on the couch watching an English-language episode of Yogi Bear. I silently applauded him for his choice of mindless, innocent entertainment.

A few hours later, two other guys are in there watching television. This time, it's a sports channel broadcasting women's beach volleyball. It's a scene that brings to mind that famous New York Times quote from a freshly liberated Iraqi local back in April of last year in the town of Najaf when asked what the Americans would bring. "Democracy. Whiskey. And sexy!"

Last night at Sundowners I chilled out to a beer and Neil Young's unplugged version of his heartbreaking "Like a Hurricane." That was enough to send me to my room, inspire me to order some grilled chicken and put "The Lord of the Rings" on my laptop DVD player. It's my fourth viewing of this epic (hey, I read the trilogy a dozen times as a kid), but this time around, it seemed to resonate the most. Especially Peter Jackson's effective repetition of Gandalf the Wizard's pearl of wisdom: We cannot choose the time we live in. We can only choose what we do with the time we are given.

Delicious Moments

2004-06-18T14:59:00.000+04:00

Friday, June 18, 2004

The boys who work at this hotel will never deliver your laundry unless you're actually in your room. This is not an issue of security or courtesy. They just want to make sure they get a tip for the trouble. So, despite my 20-hours of work yesterday, I got an 8 a.m. wake up call from downstairs today.

"Mister? Laundry?"

I never know where I could spend my next night. So I always want to make sure I've got enough clean clothes to pack in a hurry. I may have been groggy, but I was happy to receive the delivery, exchange dirty laundry for freshly pressed. I handed over the tip to ensure everything came back intact, and not smelling like gasoline (which they use to dry clean here, so I'm very emphatic to make sure they only wash my clothes, not send it down to the refinery in south Baghdad).

I now see Friday mornings as a chance to slow my heartbeat. Barring breaking news, all good devout Iraqi men and insurgents go to mosque by midday. So there's a reprieve on this one-day weekend. We're unlikely to go out and shoot any serious interviews. With the handover twelve days away, we need a chance to regroup and catch our breath before the news whirlwind begins (also known as the "news wheel of death" for veterans of the 24-hour a day cable news wars).

For me, it's a chance to wear flip-flops, shorts and my "Taj Mahal" ball cap (most Iraqis think I'm from the subcontinent, so I play it up, because that's a safer place of origin than North America or England – except that "Taj Mahal" refers to the American blues outfit, not Shah Jahan's mournful palace of love). The guys in the crew plan their weekend meal. John collects a five dollar contribution from everyone to pay for the groceries. Steve gets Richard to translate his list of demands to Muslim, our cheerful driver and errand man.

He emphasizes "fresh parsley, not the dried stuff." A kilo of ground lamb, and make sure the two kilos of ground beef is lean. Steve the Bronx-accented Sicilian is making macaroni and meatballs. I'm hungry already. I'm up in the office mulling over story ideas and haven't eaten breakfast. I wanted to do my first yoga session in nearly five days (postponed due to my illness and the overnight at Camp Victory). But I smelled fresh brewed Starbucks coffee, and spied a bit left in the French press. So I poured some, and fabricated a cheese and boiled egg sandwich out of whatever was sitting on the kitchen counter.

"News of the day" can still strike. It's early. But we take our pauses when we can. They are to be relished and recalled during the toughest moments of this marathon -- when inevitably, we shall get caught up with our mad, breathless dash for the finish line that is June 30th. Except that the race doesn't truly end there. False starts can lead to false finishes.

Postscript

Just finished today's yoga session. I view the end of each one as an accomplishment. I never relax entirely until I'm nearly done. I find it hard to tune out the expectation of an urgent telephone call, or the possibility of an explosion. Such things are as demanding to a journalist as a baby's cry is to a parent. Fortunately, from the moment that I roll out the mat, to the moment that I secure the tie around it and put it back into its corner, I have yet to be interrupted. As if the universe knows I have put out the "Do Not Disturb" sign.

Today, it was my lower back and waist that complained the most, part of yesterday's flak jacket hangover. Jeff always says receive the gift of yoga when we're done. "Back at you" is usually my muttered response. Which always makes Heather laugh. And that's one of my favorite sounds.

The Three P's

2004-06-17T19:54:00.000+04:00

Thursday, June 17, 2004

Professional.
Polite.
Prepared to kill.

We drove by this sign on the First Cavalry side of Camp Victory a couple of times in the last twenty-four hours. And I never failed to notice its deadly punchline.

It all seems more manageable when I'm out again and can see everything firsthand. Instead of just hearing about the nasty stuff at the office. Then the imagination runs wild.

The sun shines. Families pack into cars for an outing. Street vendors pile Crayola-colored fruit into pyramids near a busy intersection.

We head out towards the airport before sundown so we can meet up with the First Cavalry. We want to join them on a 5 a.m. joint raid with the newly trained Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. But we have to overnight because we're not supposed to be out after dark.

Suddenly, we're the only two cars on the most dangerous stretch of road in the city, still a kilometer away from the army checkpoint. Deep breaths as I wait for the punchline. The drivers accelerate.

I spent more time in my flak jacket than out of it over the last few hours. And my shirt is soaked with sweat. Nothing breathes very well under the Kevlar plated garment, so my perspiration doesn't evaporate in the dry heat. I suck down water with a plastic aftertaste, my three-liter canteen strapped to my back, the attached tube hanging over my shoulder. The Camelbak provides a cushion when we're riding around in the armored Humvee (which bears not one single resemblance on the inside to its lamb-skinned wrapped civilian brethren, the luxurious Hummer).

The raid goes well, but does not net the soldiers' target. We head back to their office for breakfast. Eggs, ham, French toast. It doesn't taste mass-produced like the outsourced stuff on the base, but it probably is. I've spoken to a few soldiers recently about whether food is better now that someone else prepares it. The old-timers are unanimous. Meals were more special when their colleagues injected their upbringing into the preparation – from Cajun to southern fried. Now there's more variety, but something is lost in what some have described as "fourth grade cafeteria food."

We sit back and relax. We have time to kill. The conversation with our kind host is professional, polite, and refreshingly candid. I quickly chat with Heather and tell her it's nice and calm here.

Then "boom." The large picture window that faces our table shimmers as it vibrates. It holds. A cloud rises over the palm trees in the distance.

I have had my fill of suicide bombings over the last seven years. Actually, the first was already too much. But this one was horrible. Young men, many of them poor, lined up to sign up as new recruits in the new Iraqi army. An easy target. I am no stranger to the glass, twisted metal and ripped clothing underfoot – the telltale detritus of this brand of warfare. But it's always those small details that grab you. Today, it was the bloodstain on the sidewalk. Next to it a man's pair of cracked, contorted wire-frame glasses. Our Iraqi fixer pointed at it and shook his head.

B+

2004-06-16T13:32:00.000+04:00

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

My first meal in 24 hours. I knew this affliction would pass within that period of time. It always does. Although it's easy to put it down to the malignant bacteria that fly through the air and settle in the drink and food here, there's a more simple reason for my illness. It was dehydration.

That shouldn't have happened. I spent little time outside on Monday, and none of it in the sun. There was my morning workout in the shade. But that evening, I spent an hour at "Sundowners" with the guys in the camera crew and drank a beer and a glass of Lebanese wine. A hot wind was blowing, even as the blood red sun sank below the Baghdad TV tower and the mosque's cupola to the west of our hotel. I probably sweat more than I think here because perspiration immediately evaporates. I was already feeling woozy after those two drinks, and I didn't compensate with enough water.

What had I done wrong? I let down my guard. I had relaxed but had not remained mindful. Alcohol out here has the same impact as it does at 36,000 feet in an airplane. It packs a punch.

Now, I sit here in the hotel restaurant. I'm drinking black tea, the ultimate panacea for stomach ailments. I've actually been able to eat a boiled egg and some bread. But I'm avoiding all dairy and produce. At least for today.

Further definition comes as I get further into this assignment. "War Zone Yoga" is how I learn to maintain my wellbeing under fire. But you can draw lessons from this to apply beyond an area in conflict. It's also the need to snatch moments of peace during times of intense stress. Thirty minutes of yoga in the morning. Deep breaths when it looks like everything is about to fall apart. Some meditation at the end of the day. My personal drive to achieve this balance despite my current living conditions comes from years of experience as a law student, a journalist on deadline, a long-distance traveler, and generally, as a Type "A" Personality. In this new chapter of my life, I am striving to find a way to downgrade to B+ -- and learning to live with that.

That's also why I like the dichotomy of my subtitle: "from the Capital of Content to the Cradle of Chaos." I'll never entirely understand why we chose to move to the small city of Kelowna in the middle of British Columbia, Canada after years in what many would consider the "big time."

Kelowna has its shortcomings: it's conflicted by its resort-like tendencies and its overdriven aspirations to grow. A journalist there recently described it to me as akin to living in a beautiful poppy field, one that gently lulls you to sleep. People do move here to turn off – which is both a blessing and a curse. (I just noticed as I type at this table -- as I might at my favorite local hangout "The Grateful Fed" -- that I wrote "here." For a second I had transported myself back home.)

But this narcotic place has also given me the gift of time. To go running with Miles and Steve. To go to the Farmer's Market with Heather, pop into one of our local wineries or sit outside and admire our garden. To provide sanctuary to both of our families. To write and to explore new possibilities. To make the best of winter and go skiing with Brian. And to give me the strength and peace of mind when I need it most. Because when I'm thousands of miles away in a place as dangerous and menacing as this, I like to know that the Capital of Content is where we call home.

Blah

2004-06-15T22:04:00.000+04:00

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Off sick. Dehydration? 24-hour flu? Food poisoning. Turned the air conditioning off for the first time because of the chills. Nice not to hear white noise, a torture technique that can eventually cause brain damage (as experimented on by the British Army in Northern Ireland). Expect to be back to 100 percent by tomorrow. Happily, no car bombs today.

An Ill Wind Comes Arising

2004-06-14T15:13:00.000+04:00

Monday, June 14, 2004

At home in the Okanagan Valley, a fierce wind can whip up out of nowhere. It comes hurtling across the lake -- not too far from our house -- to wake the dog, tear off a bit of siding, and shake the foundations. Winter or summer, we take comfort in knowing that nature has been engaged in such tomfoolery well before we arrived. And it will continue long after we have gone.

Far from home, here in Baghdad, an ill wind continues to blow. The windows groan, the doors want to fly open from the reverberation. It's almost a daily occurrence. Today, it happened at 8:15 a.m. Sometimes, I like to believe it's because someone's slamming a door down the hall. Or a jet fighter breaking the speed of sound during a city flyover. I've never been proven right.

The phones start to ring. The computer system starts to chirp. And my workout is postponed so I can head up to the office and find out more. It was a massive car bomb downtown, about five miles from where I am. Journalistic instincts cry out for us to run towards the scene while more sensible civilians flee in the opposite direction. But we can't. It's too dangerous. Instead, one of the local fixers who works for us will go and shoot video on his small camera and ask questions. He will slip under the insurgents' radar.

After all, the bombers were targeting foreigners. Contractors -- this time -- trying to get the Iraqi power grid up and running before the worst of the summer heat descended up on this city. I'm lucky. My air conditioning works better than ever. And the hotel has a powerful generator.

Even if I were an Iraqi opposed to this occupation, I'd be of another mindset than these devout killers. I'd take everything the foreigners were willing to give and spend, and then ask them to leave, grateful for the free assistance, but happy to be rid of them. Unfortunately, these people have a different motivation. To which it's nearly impossible to apply reason. Or appeal to their humanity. Yesterday, they released a Turkish and Egyptian hostage. They were frustrated that their respective governments couldn't care less what the kidnappers did with them. It seems the more value a particular society places on an individual's life, the more vulnerable they are to these people.

There's only so much I can do. After I make my last e-mail and phone call, I run down to the balcony so I can squeeze in a workout. I point the bike towards the smoke over the horizon, just to keep an eye on it. The helicopters are out in full force today, more like angry worker bees than fluttering wasps. A couple of double-rotor Chinooks take deep turns around the Sheraton hotel. More gunfire. I manage to get forty-five minutes on the bike, but forego the weights for today.

While I stretch, I peer over the balcony. There's an improvised landfill near the hotel that's growing, mainly with clear plastic mineral water bottles. Cases of water line the halls of our office. I go through at least three large ones a day. It's hard not to feel guilty as I throw the empty ones away, knowing it'll take hundreds, if not thousands, of years for them to disintegrate. Yet another mess that someone else will have to clean up.

A Fleeting Taste

2004-06-13T13:41:00.000+04:00

Sunday, June 13, 2004

In the end, no one from the other networks came to our little summer bash on the balcony. But we got some print journalists along with our newfound CPIC friends from the Green Zone. It was great that they made the effort to come, given the security concerns. For the first time, they were able to have food that hadn't been imported, cooked, deep fried, processed and served on a tray by the fine foreign help from Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton.

So we fed them excellent steaks purchased from a local butcher, superbly seasoned with salt, pepper and charcoal smoke. It was the Atkins Diet, Baghdad-style since these American press officials left before (1) the sun went down; (2) their humvees could turn into pumpkins; and (3) the salads arrived from the restaurant downstairs.

Yes, I eat the local vegetables. No stomach afflictions yet. It might be my daily dose of the pink pill. The cucumbers and tomatoes here are excellent, much tastier than anything in a North American grocery store, unless it's late summer produce from sun-kissed regions such as California, Tuscany, or my very own south Okanagan.

I had my first glass of sweet Arab tea yesterday. It's testimony to our bunkered down-strategy that it has taken two weeks for that to happen. Normally, it's "de rigueur" that anywhere you go as a guest, Arab hospitality demands that you be served tea, coffee and sweets. But we're not very welcome here right now. I was only able to get this kind of treatment from a government minister's handlers after being thoroughly searched, and leaving my Leatherman knife behind at the security desk.

There is a danger that I will begin to repeat myself. But there were more window-shaking bombs during yoga – yet happily, no phone calls from the assignment desk.

Whatever

2004-06-12T17:20:00.000+04:00

My friend Trisha, back in the Capital of Content, says I should write an entry everyday, just so everyone knows I've made it through the day. Which is a nice request. One that I'm happy to honor. There have been a few days when I felt as if I had nothing to say, either due to fatigue or frustration. This may be one of them.

We're in this odd purgatory between round-the-clock work and the great lull. The Reagan story gave us a reprieve, but I still work until late at night. Tonight, we've invited the other American networks over for a barbeque. Hey we're all this same sinking ship together aren't we? A nice social gathering that will be more CNN, ABC, Fox, and CBS than NBC because a number of us have to run out for a variety of shoots we have scheduled before sundown. Before the demons come out at dark.

We've got a new cameraman from Ramallah, Khaldoun. I caught him on the phone last night talking to his mother. She told him not to go outside, it's too dangerous. She's a Palestinian…who lives in the West Bank…telling her cameraman son, not to go outside. Surreality bites.

I discovered today that the air conditioning in my room is on the verge of delivering cold air. Either it's been fixed, or I'm acclimatizing. I will take that to an extreme degree in about ten days when I shave off part of my beard to leave only a mustache. We predict chaos for the June 30th handover, I thought I had better try to look like a local, at least from afar. I'll get rid of the whole thing before I see my dear wife in July. I don't think she's into the Magnum P.I. look.

Neverland

2004-06-11T12:43:00.000+04:00

Friday, June 11, 2004

I'm watching a live feed of the mourners walking by Ronald Reagan's casket in Washington. It's 3:23 a.m. eastern time. Such devotion. The clarity of the Cold War: a clearly-identified enemy and the obvious threat of nuclear annihilation. It must leave a residue of happy memory compared to the thick haze of fear and confusion during this guerilla war of the 21st century. Who can blame us for re-weaving the emotional fabric of history to conceal the stains of the 1980's and momentarily forget the ongoing hardship of 2001-2004?

This morning, the boys with toys wallowed deep in their Peter Pan syndrome as they opened fire sporadically around the city. Noise carries easily out on the 5th floor open-air gym on a Friday – Iraq's one day weekend – so I found it difficult to triangulate the source of the fighting. I kept cycling.

I should have just stayed in bed. I had gotten enough exercise yesterday. Once again, I did the hot and sweaty four hundred-yard dash from the deadly Baghdad traffic circle where we left our drivers (the hotspot for R.P.G.'s and I.E.D's), to the heavily fortified convention center. This entails carrying camera gear through a Berlin Wall-styled corridor of sandbags, barbed wire and concrete barricades. You have to pass through three checkpoints. All are supervised by American soldiers and their better-paid private security counterparts from the Philippines or Nepal. I got frisked and searched, each time by Iraqis. They still haven't found my money belt. They must be shy. I'm grateful for this. But I'm not sure it's a good thing.

I underwent this ordeal to get my media accreditation from the Coalition Press Information Center. I'll let you google the terms "Fubar," "Snafu," and "Fugazi," but they all have a military origin. Foreign press can only apply from 9 to 12 on Wednesdays and Thursdays. We got there at 10 a.m. only to be told that we would have to wait until 2:30 p.m.. That's because they only had one nine-page application left, and it would take them four and a half hours to get more for the rest of the team.

This efficiency blip concerned me. So we pulled rank, and uttered the magic letters "N-B-C." We declared that we needed the pass immediately to go out on a shoot with the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Suddenly, the well-meaning, kind people there figured out how to make more copies of the application. Forty-five minutes later, I had my shiny, new press card. I could finally retire the faded one I had gotten from the United States Central Command during my embed last year (expiry April 26, 2003).

This old standby had successfully gotten me past all the checkpoints and security checks up to now. I always carried it when I crossed the border to prove I was a patriot. Or at least to sell myself as a pre-approved non-threatening foreigner. A seasoned colleague of mine used to call any official-looking, plastic I.D. a "dago dazzler" – a pejorative way of saying that men in uniform were usually impressed by any credential that had a logo and a photo, even it was a Safeway card.

The stern-looking soldiers who guard Paul Bremer's CPA fiefdom in Saddam's former main palace are not "dagos." So much so that they rendered my morning's work irrelevant. They laughed at my shiny new C.P.I.C. I.D. and insisted that I pull out my passport. S.N.A.F.U.

Serious young men and women in camouflage march through the corridors of Saddam's tribute to Louis the 14th (badly painted frescoes, gaudy chandelier lighting). Near the main stairwell the photocopied sign: "During an attack, turn off all cell phones." Inside the offices, we are assured that everything is going to plan.

Outside the conference center, the sprinklers spray wildly about in the midday heat – the lawn is nearly a swamp. I sit crouched in the cargo compartment of an S.U.V. as our team of four and our equipment are driven back to the checkpoint. I'm happy to travel in the back of the bus with the tripod and lights. It gives me a chance to test my newfound yoga powers of serenity and agility. I realize I have become more flexible in tight places.

A Few Ounces of Prevention

2004-06-09T16:10:00.000+04:00

Wednesday, June 9, 2004

The almost cool breeze took me by surprise this morning. I was nearly disappointed. I knew I would not sweat as much as usual during my exercise bike routine on the fifth floor balcony.

Tim the cameraman appeared when I was halfway done. I thought he was interested in getting a few scenic shots of the Baghdad skyline in the morning light. It was only after I was finished that he told me security had shut down all the roads around our hotel. There had been a bomb scare.

I went up to the office to check out the latest wire stories. Chris the centurion appeared and told me to close the curtains. "There might be a couple of explosions," he said. "And I don't want the glass to hit you."

We found out a few minutes later that someone had detected what looked suspiciously like an I.E.D. – an Improvised Explosive Device (the counterpart to that other common acronym of destruction here, the R.P.G. – Rocket Propelled Grenade) on the main road. So police were now investigating, and might have to detonate it. And tattered, old curtains were all we had to protect us from injury.

"It's always something!" Mike the correspondent said when he entered the office and was briefed on our absurdity-of-the-day. He punched me affectionately on the shoulder.

And that hurt. Because yesterday, that's where I got injected with a typhoid fever vaccination, after we found out our kitchen attendant had contracted the illness. The medic was a kindly man, dressed in body armor, bristling with a sidearm and phosphorous grenades to confuse assailants during an attack. If that wasn't enough, he also had two heavily armed bodyguards. He put on his spectacles, gave us his best bedside manner and set about the task of pricking our shoulder. The used needles found a novel home inside a small empty mineral water bottle – biomedical waste Baghdad style.

Flimsy prevention is still better than no protection at all. A new morning ritual of mine: popping a Pepto Bismol to shield my insides from nasty organisms, while listening to another excerpt from the fabulous Audible.com version of NPR reporter Anne Garrels' "Naked in Baghdad." Today, she described how pleased she was with the kitchen facilities in her room after she switched to the very hotel I'm staying at right now. I have already begun to draw a Hollywood-style "Star Map" for Baghdad...

Sacred Spaces

2004-06-08T13:37:00.000+04:00

Tuesday, June 8, 2004

Reporting Under the Gun in the Ambush Zone is the Washington Post's daily contribution to the feeling of unease amongst those in our profession here in Iraq. Perhaps their writers have become so prolific on the subject of journalists in the line of fire because one of the Post's senior editors has popped in for a review of his troops (see June 6th entry, The Enemy Within). It doesn't matter. These Post articles are as jolting as the strong cup of Nescafe I prepare for myself every morning in the office kitchen.

The universe is slowly beginning to reveal why I picked "War Zone Yoga" out of the air as the title for this journal. The irony makes sense. It's not just about finding a way to live with the anxieties of working in a dangerous place. Incredibly, there's also a benefit to being here.

When you have to pay extra attention to your surroundings in a conflict region, when security concerns prevent you from flexing every journalistic muscle and exerting yourself to go all out after the story, what happens? Your physical stress level reduces, you become aware of your boundaries. You become mindful – the common denominator to the successful practice of meditation, and yes, yoga (forgive me Jeff yoga master, if I, the novice, grossly misinterpret this).

Compare this to living on auto-pilot in familiar surrounding during our lives of convenience and affluence in North America. When you don't have to worry about walking outside, whether the phone is going to work, if you have enough water, or the intentions of the faceless bystander in the shopping mall. It is, by contrast, oblivion. You can afford to focus on all those things that worry you in your life: career, health, bank account, love life, inevitable death. You know, the big picture that can cause so much misery.

This is why I've taken to calling my advocacy of shooting and editing my own stories the "Zen of Solo TV Journalism." Television news is a deadline-infested, competitive occupation. But it is also a craft, like photojournalism. And when I, the videojournalist, am obliged to pay extra attention to the minute settings on the camera to capture the best possible image – in that specific moment – then I am mindful of the present and can tune out whatever it is that has been plaguing me for days or weeks. Call it the triumph of the Little Picture over the Big.

Forgive me generous reader, but I can already tell this is going to be a lengthy entry. I hope you'll allow me this indulgent self-therapy as I think things through. I'm amazed that a daily topic for this journal will come to me so easily out of nowhere. And it always seems to be different from the previous day. Today, as I was pulling out my purple yoga mat, it was "Sacred Spaces." How to carve out a place in this unfamiliar setting to call your own -- when you're working with others nearly 18 hours a day, living in a small hotel room, confined to a noisy office or sharing an armored car to a video shoot and the kingdom you reign over is half a world away.

The Space I speak of is multidimensional.

There is, of course, the physical. I have set aside a carpeted spot between my bed and the television for my yoga ritual. That's where I roll out the soft, spongy yoga mat in the morning. When this happens, I know that for the next thirty minutes, that's where I'm supposed to be. I, king of hurried, spastic movements, quite deliberately (and mindfully) establish my invisible walls. The long canvas tie for stretching at the foot of the mat. The laptop with external battery-powered speakers on the bed for the occasional video reminder from my teacher. Two pillows at the head of the mat because I'm still not very flexible to perform some of the poses. Two small stones nearby that I pick up with my feet so I can practice flexing my arches (I "stole" the stones from the ubiquitous gravel that covers the dusty ground at Camp Victory. I figured the American war machine could spare them for my quest for inner peace). It is my portable temple.

I eat my breakfast with the curtains closed, blocking out the already blazing morning sun. I pour Raisin Bran into a bowl. Find a spoon. Pull the milk out of the small fridge. Pour it. Put away the box and the bottle. Cereal in the corner of my kitchenette, a solitary endeavor before I joined the madding crowd three floors up and connect with the rest of the world.

The temporal can also be sacred.

I find daily pleasure in pouring water into my newly-acquired Camelbak nylon canteen. It's military strength. I carried three liters of water, enough to last three hours in the Iraqi heat. The one-liter consumer version I had brought with me is the equivalent of a quick sip out here in the infernal Middle East. This new one calls for two large bottles of mineral water to be tipped slowly into the reservoir, taking care not to let it overflow or spill. To fill this black-strapped beast is to find assurance that I'm taking care of the eventuality of heading outside on an assignment. On an adventure.

When I return back to the hotel, I walk up the five flights of stairs, unlock my door, step into my room, close the door, put down my bags, and slowly, with care, begin to rip away the Velcro straps that bind the flak jacket to my torso. I pull the blue, Kevlar plated bodice over my head and put it in its special corner. There is no rush. I have made it back. I am now in a more secure place.

And that time of the morning, and night, when I dial the eleven numbers to call Heather, is the most sacred of all. A chance to reconnect, to breathe, to let go with the one I love.

This is what works for me. My own attention to detail. I now understand that it is similar to what a devout Jew practices when he rocks back and forth, occasionally touching the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Or when a Shiite pilgrim kisses the shrine of a holy figure within a mosque in Sadr City. It is the moment, the importance of the insignificant physical action, the focus on the sacred, the great tune-out that results in an even greater tune-in.

Erasing the Deficit

2004-06-07T17:42:00.000+04:00

Monday, June 7, 2004

Sweet, delicious sleep. I believe I've finally broken the four-hour barrier for the first time since I arrived here nine days ago. It is said it takes a day for every hour's difference between the time zones you have traveled. Which would mean I've got two days to go before reaching equilibrium. I look forward to that moment and the clarity of thought that it brings.

The previous night, the 91st Engineering Battalion was hospitable enough to put us up after we finished shooting their raid on a house. NBC Baghdad policy is that no one travels after dark. So our hosts brought in four standard-issue cots and we slept in their briefing office. I may have gotten three hours in all. The benefit? I got to see the sun rise for the second time at Camp Victory. And we also enjoyed a midnight snack at their mess hall. Don't tell my wife but I had a hamburger, onion rings and chocolate milk. Something about being around American soldiers makes me crave old-fashioned diner food.

I really wish I were allowed to drive in Baghdad. Our vehicle collection is a driving aficionado's mad dream. No need to fear the bad habits of others when you're piloting an agile four-ton tank in disguise. Our new favorites: two armor-plated German luxury sedans with bulletproof glass. They blend in better on the highway.

Except when we got to Camp Victory on Saturday the soldier announced that they had orders to search every second vehicle of the same make as ours. Apparently this is the insurgent's conveyance of choice in his war against the occupation. Their tactics may be brutal, but their tastes are not.

On the drive back to the hotel, the American-accented DJ proclaimed 104.1 to be "Baghdad's Stuck-in-Traffic" radio station. This after playing the doom-and-gloom classic "Black Sabbath." It wasn't exactly what I expected to hear from a military-sanctioned broadcaster. My colleague Richard -- who has been here from the time that Saddam was in power -- said that he had heard that armed forces stations were not allowed to play country-and-western music for example, because its wistful longing would make the soldiers pine away for home (somehow I doubted that Canadian songstress Shania Twain's "Man, I Feel Like a Woman" could have such an effect). Ah hah, I thought. Good old-fashioned wartime censorship has kicked in. And then the station started spinning the 60's classic anti-Vietnam anthem "American Woman." A brave but unusual choice.

Time to head to the work-out balcony and cycle for fifty minutes or so on the 1970's era stationary bike. Headphones on, I can drown out the sporadic gunfire in the distance and look out at what looks like a peaceful city. Palm trees abound under a cloudless sky. Black smoke and Blackhawk helicopters over the horizon are inevitable. But when Steve Hogarth from Marillion sings in my head, "The open road -- is infinitely hopeful," all is serene.

To further nurture my "inner peace for outer chaos" while here, I brought along Grace Cirocco's book "Take the Step, The Bridge Will Be There." It came highly recommended by my friend Rod in Kelowna. It's a very useful guide in times of turmoil. Today, I came across one quote from an old Sufi Muslim saying: "Overcome any bitterness that may have come to you because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain that was entrusted to you…you are called upon to meet it in joy instead of self-pity. The secret is to offer heart as a vehicle to transform cosmic suffering into joy."

Sleep helps too.

Fifty-two degrees Celsius today, according to the car thermometer. That kind of physical pain is difficult to embrace.

The Enemy Within

2004-06-06T22:04:00.000+04:00

Sunday, June 6, 2004 (revised June 7th)

When our existence is threatened, do we quickly drop the shiny baubles that are our principles for the universally accepted gold standard of security in the Swiss bank safety deposit box?

This is something I've wondered about for years: as a writer, a journalist, a lawyer and as a firm believer in civil liberties. I've always thought that the declaration of martial law when under the gun was a cheap and easy way out, with a huge price to pay later (for example, as many worry, with the American Patriot Act).

Even the father of Canada's lauded Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau once invoked the War Measures Act in 1970 after a terrorist kidnapping. What exactly does it take for us to hit the "panic" button and abandon everything we thought we stood for? The premise to our society? Our reason for being?

I have the opportunity to examine that question firsthand here in Iraq. Journalism is about the investigation of ideas, an open mind, and the freedom to explore and express. It is incredibly challenging to practice this right now in Baghdad. War zone reporting is always dangerous. But it's because you're playing with the laws of probability as you take chances. You work with the fundamental premise that no one bears you any ill will, and may actually see the benefit to your presence on the scene – friend or foe.

This is not the case in Iraq. Journalists are foreigners. Agents of the Occupation. Targets of intimidation and destruction just like an American soldier or the Polish contractor. Noble thoughts of getting the story out to the world have suddenly been pushed under the seat as we hide behind flak jackets, bulletproof glass and the safe story (see this weekend's Washington Post article, "The Press: Too Far From the Story?") – I hear that a Washington Post car was riddle with 40 rounds of bullets coming out of the U.S. base in Fallujah today). Now we all worry that our first priority is to manage our security – to stay safe – at the expense of the story.

The first casualty: local reporting. It has become nearly impossible to spend time in the open with Iraqis on the street. We need to make appointments, and go to their homes or offices. If we are outside, it has to be a surgical strike, with our nervous security guards keeping a close eye on us.

The safe thing to do is to bunker down. To hang out with the military. I wanted to go to Tikrit to join up with the storied First Infantry Division – the "Big Red One" – for a D-Day related story. Our Centurions say "no way." The road is too dangerous. A division of the First in Ramadi say they'll do anything for us to come their way. But that takes us through the dark heart of the Sunni Triangle. Too dangerous, once again, our Centurion friends say. The Army ponies up and offers to send a Humvee convoy to come and fetch us. Even worse, the team of ex-commandos advise, we're even more visible.

So we resort to a division based closer to Baghdad. We still get the armored Humvees, but it's a raid about ten minutes from Camp Victory. It's still dangerous, but it's a calculated – hopefully manageable -- risk. It's a gentle operation: knocking on doors, quiet interrogation. They find traces of TNT on a cellphone and pliers. A bombmaker associated with Al-Qaeda has been using this Baghdad mansion as a safehouse. But he's fled. Maybe the story would have been better in Ramadi. If we're lucky, we'll find out later this week. Still, only if the Marines accommodate and give us a helicopter ride there.

On the news today: Israel sentenced Palestinian militia leader Marwan Barghouti to five consecutive life terms. How civilized of them not to condemn to death someone who was responsible for the death of at least a dozen people. Indeed, Israel doesn't even have the death penalty (which may surprise many even as the U.S. is the only country in the western world that does).

But there's always a convenient way out. Assassinate a Hamas leader before they make it to the courtroom steps and due process need not apply. We've decided that loopholes are absolutely necessary to fend off our deadly enemy.

America has learned this lesson well. Which is why it interrogates terrorism suspects in Pakistan or Guantanamo Bay, far from the annoying, prying eyes of courts obliged to uphold the rule of law, based on the constitution and the founding principles of our civilization.

Terrible how everything we stand for can be so conveniently brushed aside when we're trying to defend everything we stand for. When we're trying to survive. Fear can be an awful thing when we let it determine our actions. Fear can make some Iraqis even say Saddam's despotic regime is preferable to this current state of incredible danger. Fear makes us run away and hide. It can drain the lifeblood from all that was once vibrant, like empty city streets after curfew. This is what happens when we make security our first priority. This I now understand all too well as I focus on my own wellbeing.

Feed the Soul

2004-06-04T14:33:00.000+04:00

Friday, June 4, 2004

I could work all day and night if I wanted to. It's not hard. NBC has mastered the art of long-term overseas operations. They take over part of a hotel. A satellite dish ("fly away") is carted in with the first wave of troops. Computer terminals linking us with New York, telephones with New Jersey area codes and satellite TV hookups are established. A few years ago, it was a challenge to get a clean telephone line out to get online with a laptop in less developed countries. Now, we've got a wireless high-speed network complete with an iron-clad NBC firewall.

So Too Much Information can lead to Too Much Work: staying on top of the news wires, making phone calls back to the eastern seaboard (eight hours behind), e-mail, gathering string on stories yet-to-be pitched. What else can you do when you're not allowed to stray too far from your hotel, but you're sitting on the biggest story on the planet?

You carve out personal time. And resist the temptation first thing in the morning to run up to the office (I only take the stairs so my muscles don't atrophy) and get online. This morning, I made a triumphant return to yoga. Well I wasn't celebrating, but I felt much better after I was done. Then I put on some music. That's very important. As Heather can attest, I've been listening exclusively to the same album since mid-May, the fabulous and majestic "Marbles" by British group Marillion (highly recommended for fans of thoughtful, well-written music, check out www.marillion.com). So it is that my laptop has multiple personalities: Internet research centre, personal communications assistant, receptacle for written musings, home theatre and DJ.

Our camera crews have the same idea. For the second weekend in a row, soundman Steve is putting together a home-cooked meal. Last Saturday, it was a barbeque. Tonight, he's drawing on his Sicilian roots: macaroni and "gravy." It will have to compensate for our missing the season finale of "The Sopranos." They even given our makeshift open-air recreation centre on the large fifth-floor balcony a name. "Sundowners" is part restaurant, part weight-room, part place to sit back and chill.

When you're required to make daily contributions to the "military-industrial-entertainment complex" (my update on Eisenhower's farewell warning to a nation), it's absolutely crucial to find creative ways to disengage from the reality of your surroundings. Especially when there seems to be a new threat everyday. Today: we hear our local kitchen man is taking two weeks off to deal with a bout of typhoid fever. We had to laugh at the insanity of it all. And we did.

Fast Food Occupation

2004-06-04T08:17:00.000+04:00

Camp Victory Thursday, June 3, 2004 (click this link for photo of Saddam's Palace)

"They want to put a Starbucks in there," my military escort told me.

"There" is an alcove on the second floor of Saddam Hussein's ostentatious Victory Palace, near Baghdad International Airport. "They" are the American military, whose occupation of Saddam's fiefdom have turned Palace into a Camp. For 14,000 men and women and all the private contracting staff who support them, from cash register attendants, to latrine cleaners to fry cooks.

It's already a small city. I can now say I have enjoyed a Whopper in two different war zones. First at the Burger King at Camp Bond Steel, in Kosovo, and now here, at Camp Victory. The sandwich, a can of coke and fries costs $4.50, served up by migrant workers from India and the Philippines. You have to sit under the harsh Iraqi sun to eat your meal, but they're nearly done building a few gazebos to shelter the tables. Further evidence that a particular army is going nowhere anytime soon.

And not just because the Occupation is building a Fast Food Nation right here in ancient Mesopotamia. The new PX just opened – it's just a smaller version of a Wal-Mart or Costco. You can buy CD's, DVD's, a flat-screen television, firearm cleaning kits, toilet paper, magazines, lingerie, utility knives, camouflage Camelback water bladders, nacho chips and t-shirts emblazoned with "Who's your Baghdaddy?" in both Arabic and English. And for a further variation on the Middle America theme, the dusty parking lot is full with the kind of vehicles Combat Soccer Moms might drive. In the military economy, sky rocketing gas prices just don't register. Hence late-model SUV's with military license plates (but no armored minivans) and camouflage-green Humvee's parked side-by-side.

Extravagant perhaps, but so what? If you're going to serve a year in a place like Iraq, you might as well get comfortable: from air conditioning in your tent to fishing in the artificial lakes that surround the palace (despite drought in the rest of his country, Saddam kept the small oceans of stagnant water moving with a pumping station).

This is another place we can relax. After we take the harrowing journey from hotel to checkpoint. I've never had bodyguards before. With guns in plain view, and safeties off. The Centurions point out the most dangerous road in Baghdad, where insurgents hide behind walls and fire mortars and RPG's at their targets. I figure it's a question of probabilities, and there's nothing I can do about improving my chances. Other than not being here in the first place. But that wouldn't be good either would it? Would it?

I watched the sun set last night here at Camp Victory. Two helicopters circled around over the artificial lake, the orange light bouncing off the water, palm trees silhouetted. Apocalypse Wow. As soon as the sun disappeared, dopey large mosquitoes appeared, having spawned so easily from the once stagnant waters. A full moon rose over Saddam's palace and the bats came flying out to feast. Other winged insects snuck into our trailer and fell onto the white sheets of my bed. Maybe the intense cool air of the air-conditioned shot them down in shock. I was just happy that nothing was biting me inside our makeshift room. I allowed my guard to drop, surrounded by thousands of heavily armed soldiers…in the dark, because the camp lights are turned off at night to make it less of a target.

This morning I woke after only about 3 hours of restless sleep. The air conditioning was loud and the mosquitoes returned to pick at my vulnerabilities. I got up and walked around the compound, a nice open-air luxury I am not afforded back at the hotel. A fresh breeze blew and I watched the sun rise behind Saddam's palace as the waves of his moat gently lapped up against the sloping concrete breakers. I longed for my yoga mat, but I contented myself with a few deep "Breaths of Joy" and a bit of stretching before the mustachioed megalomaniac's legacy.

Then, I went to the mess hall and enjoyed my Army-regular scrambled eggs, French toast, bacon and coffee. Correct that, I relished them. Despite the lack of sleep and all the helicopters buzzing around, it felt like a day off in some kind of tropical resort. That will all come to a sudden end with the mad, dangerous dash back to the city in an hour.

Daily Bread

2004-06-02T12:07:00.000+04:00

Wednesday, June 2, 2004

Pizza last night. Frosted flakes for breakfast this morning in the kitchenette corner of my room. The German-produced Kellogg's product oozes with Arab feel-good labeling: the kids' quiz on the back ("Arabic has more words for 'love' than any other language,' "The Middle East introduced many new words to Europe: algebra, sugar, magazine, orange lemon, and tariff" – they left out "assassin").

I pay two dollars for a European—made beer. Chicken fried rice goes for $5 in the hotel's Chinese restaurant, not much cheaper than what it would cost in New York. We have crates of mineral water because it's hot and just like in many other developing countries, you should even rinse out your mouth and toothbrush with bottled water.

Every day out local staff bring in fresh flatbread, which I snack on in the afternoon, with peanut butter or that soft French cheese that comes in a foil-wrapped triangle. The diner downstairs is decorated like some joint out of The Jetsons, with space-age white tables and swivel chairs, hundreds of odd lamps that project like tentacles from the ceiling, and 1960's boom-town sensibilities (i.e. bad taste).

This is why we have begun to take refuge across the street in the slightly more authentic Arab coffee house. Except last night, two out of their three nargilas were broken, so we had to share the water pipe. As consolation, a duet was playing Arab folk songs. When they took a break, they let me play the "oud" – a stringed instrument that probably gave birth to the guitar. Its owner complimented me on my playing, he said it was obvious I played guitar. I thought I made a mockery of his noble instrument, and promptly gave it back to him before I embarrassed either of us any further.

Explosive News

2004-06-02T10:02:00.000+04:00

Tuesday, June 1, 2004

I found it hard to achieve inner peace when an explosion rocked my hotel room window this morning. Luckily, the wily ex-special forces security guards who we pay thousands of dollars a day to keep us safe had put film over the glass, which prevented it from shattering. I got a whiff of the smoke, took a quick look outside, and resumed my attempt to master basic yoga.

Explosions abounded today as the Coalition Provisional Authority had its way with the United Nations and the Governing Council and a new temporary Iraqi government was announced. On several occasions, we trained our roof camera on the smoke rising over the Green Zone. Insurgents were trying to disrupt the announcement by lobbing mortars. Local staff made morbid jokes, saying they were just celebrating the new government, and the new president didn't have long to live.

The riskiest thing I did today was give my laundry to the front desk using my pillowcase for a bag. The clerk took out a ballpoint pen and put my room number on the white cloth. That should guarantee the safe return of my clothes, right?

It's Good to Get Out

2004-06-01T00:17:00.000+04:00

Monday, May 31, 2004 11:48 P.M. Baghdad

I just got back from the restaurant across the street. It's as far as our security escorts will allow us to go by ourselves it's still well within the secured hotel compound. I ate grilled chicken and vegetables, drank a Heineken and smoked a nargila with apple tobacco. Two excellent Iraqi musicians riffed on Pink Floyd, the Bee Gees, the Eagles, and most surreally, John Lennon's "Imagine." Could it be a coincidence that all their western musical influences dated from before Saddam turned on his country?

It was a welcome unwinding to a difficult day. Old hands still call this the calm before the storm. But the dark clouds are still there. The car bomb. The convoy ambush. Our hotel lockdown. We made the tense drive to the "Green Zone, where the U.S.-led administration is based. Still, it was good to get out. It was nice to see a bit more of Baghdad, even it was through the thick, bulletproof windows of an armored vehicle. Once on the other side, I felt a little more relaxed. There was little traffic. Soldiers jogged by in shorts and t-shirts. No one was hunting Westerners here. The Coalition Provisional Authority's press conference was interesting, but badly attended. Yet, it was a nicely subdued atmosphere compared to the overpowering traffic and noise on the sweltering streets of Baghdad.

We had to wait in an improvised bunker until our drivers returned to pick us up. It's not a safe place to be. There have been shootouts and suicide bombs here. A kind soldier let us take refuge there. "We're not doing any good right now," he said. I feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for the Iraqis I've met. Everyone deserves better than this.

Health and Wellbeing

2004-05-30T21:33:00.000+04:00

Sunday May 30, 2004 Baghdad

I once had a membership at Tel Aviv's most exclusive health club, high atop the Middle East's most prominent skyscraper, and hence, its biggest target. I remember entertaining paranoid fantasies as I showered as quickly as I could, determined not to be caught unprepared (and unclothed) should it come tumbling down. It seemed silly at the time. But this was before September 11th.

Maybe those jet lag pills didn't work as well as I had hoped. I woke at 4:30 a.m. (which to give homeopathy some credit, is just 45 minutes before my usual time at home). I knew I wouldn't get back to sleep, so I turned on my laptop and watched Jeff give me yoga counseling back in that kinder, gentler place. I hear Heather speaking in the background to Jeff's wife, which further soothes my nerves. I rolled out my new purple mat between my bed and the kitchenette and got to work. I worked on my breathing, I stretched, I relaxed and I fully expected to see an RPG come screaming through my window.

A strange crash startled me out of my bliss a half hour after I was done. Only after I went into the fridge and took out that last piece of cheese that I had pilfered from the Air Canada business class lounge in London did I realize that the noise had been a sheet of ice that had fallen from the freezer compartment onto the rack below. I was suddenly grateful for those mundane things that go wrong but don't hurt us.

Hide The Jewel

2004-05-30T07:41:00.000+04:00

May 29, 2004 Baghdad

"Hiding the jewel" is yoga's more sophisticated way of sucking in your tummy. Both Jeff the Kelowna Yoga Guru and Heather suggested that I use this technique when engaged in heavy lifting in Iraq. It could save my back at an opportune moment.

First instance: hoisting all my luggage (which miraculously made the 36-hour trek from Kelowna to Baghdad) through the window of an Iraqi Airways bus that took us quickly along the lonely road from the airport terminal to the heavily fortified American checkpoint where our armed guards met us and transferred to NBC's armored vehicles.

Second instance: the airport's in a dangerous part of town. So we were told to put on our flak jackets for the drive to the hotel. I twisted my back a few years ago in Kosovo when I picked up my jacket from the floor of a van in a hurry. We had suddenly come upon a motley crew of Serb Army regulars. Happily, the standard issue, Israeli-made Kevlar I've been carting around since last year is much lighter. I slipped it on as easily as the Grade 9 student from Dr. Knox Middle School who was happy to cooperate during my presentation to his class a few weeks ago.

Baghdad is not a happy place. We've had our security briefing and you just have to assume the worst. I managed to get four hours of sleep this afternoon. I broke out my new "Tempur-Pedic" travel pillow, which I bought in Kelowna before I left (the sweet Dutch-accented shop owner kindly made me a cobalt blue pillowcase to go with it). The easy-going NBC team managed to have a barbeque on the hotel balcony this evening. Grilled chicken, steak and lamb chops, and a copious amount of beer and laughter. Call it inner calm before the outer storm.

During my early morning drive through Amman to the airport today, I realized that I no longer pinch myself when I make the transition from Northwest to Middle East. This is my fourth trip here in the last three years. It seems entirely natural to be running down the Mission Greenway with Miles in the morning and then negotiating with Arabic-speaking baggage handlers the next.

The Jet Lag Pills Work

2004-05-29T03:45:00.000+04:00

May 28, 2004 London Heathrow

The trip's been fifteen hours so far, and I haven't pulled off any cool yoga moves in the bathroom or anything. A bit of deep breathing once I encountered the crowds at London Heathrow's terminal 3...the unique manageability of Kelowna INTERNATIONAL Airport is eight time zones back.

I'm popping homeopathic jet lag pills every two hours to cope. So far, I just need some sleep. None of that familiar buzzing in the head or burning in the pit of my stomach.

This Royal Jordanian flight is popular. It's the best way into Iraq. There's a bunch of guys in green soccer jackets with "Iraq" sewn on the back. That's probably still a novel sight since the embargo fell upon their country after the first Gulf war.

I'm now in the hands of Arab hospitality. Which is almost as relaxing as yoga. Except for the guy in the badly-fitted suit sitting up by the cockpit. Life in Israel taught me how to identify a security agent immediately. These days even genteel Jordan has to watch its back. And its planes.

Packing Up

2004-05-28T01:58:00.000+04:00

Almost there...to the airport I mean. It's been an indulgent 48 hours. Heather and I have taken advantage of a couple of the finer restaurants in town as I look forward to a month of grilled meats, chick pea by-products and pita. To balance that out, I'm trying to pack in as much exercise because I can't imagine jogging in Baghdad. It's already 110 degrees there. So Miles the black Lab and I went for two runs within 12 hours. He didn't mind the exercise. My knees did though.

I've added "War Zone Yoga" to the title of this blog. I like the contradiction in terms. I also intend to practice yoga when I can in Iraq. I've only taken a couple of classes, but I can already tell that the breathing and stretching exercises will make a huge difference "in the field." I got our instructor Jeff to show me a few tricks that I can do on my own. He should know all about the onslaught of stress -- he used to be a U.S. Navy air traffic controller.

I have a terrible memory though. So I decided to videotape Jeff going through the moves. This morning, I digitized it to my laptop, and then compressed the video and put it on my Palm Pilot. Digital wankery at its best. I'll have no excuse now. I also decided that if I could find room for my flak jacket and helmet, I could squeeze in a yoga mat. The juxtaposition intrigues me.

What it means

2004-05-26T18:48:00.000+04:00

May 26, 2004

"Northwest by Middle East." An awkward play on words inspired by that classic Hitchcock film, "North by Northwest." You know the one: Cary Grant gets hunted down in some Midwest cornfield by a crop duster. I believe "The Simpsons" has parodied that scene to great effect.

Filmsite.org says the film's theme includes "mistaken identity for the innocent, ordinary, 'Wrong Man' hero. Another of its themes is false pretenses…"

My derivation of the title sprung into my head three years ago when I left my position as NBC's Mideast producer and moved to a town in British Columbia to learn how to live another way of life, and maybe even practice a different form of TV journalism. Except that it's not entirely accurate. We speak of Washington and Oregon as part of America's northwest. In Canada, Kelowna is really southwest. I guess it goes to show that I truly do have an American bias.

This blog might be one of the two million out there that lived and died and now float through some sort of binary purgatory. It's about how I will spend a few weeks in Baghdad as I return to my old job for a while. Past "Northwest by Middle East" journal entries can be found on my website.

Believe me, Tel Aviv to Kelowna was an interesting transition.

I leave for Baghdad tomorrow. Except that it'll take two days to get from "Northwest" to "Middle East."