Closed for the holiday

Sorry folks, the cafe's going to be closed for a week or so as I reel from Independence Day festivities. To ease the blow, I've included a picture of my puppy.

Zombosis

So about 15 years after I saw George Romero's last zombie movie, "Day of the Dead," Last night, I finally got to see the next installment in the series. I can't say "Land of the Dead" was one of the best movie's I've seen, but it accomplished the one thing I wanted, which was to try something new with the genre.

The biggest problem with all of Romero's flicks - Night, Dawn, Day, Land - is that they're just not scary in the traditional sense. They're gross and they're kinda philosophically creepy, but if you've seen the remake of "Dawn of the Dead," you know how much freakier they could be. Romero's just not that good of a director. His pacing and timing are awkward, and he pretty much just keeps trying the same gags. ("Nope, nothing in this room. Hold on, I've got to turn around.....agh, a zombie!!!")

All that aside, the movie plays around with some interesting themes. (Don't worry, I won't include any spoilers if you're jonesing to see it still.) Humans have staked out a safe enough life that they worry little about moron zombies raiding their fenced-in city. So they get cocky and distracted with infighting, and don't notice the zombies evolving into smarter creatures focused on goals other than eating braaaaaaaiiinnnnnnssss.

I noticed a lot of allusions to Iraq...we have the more formidable military and assume it gives us an unbeatable edge. But then we start losing the smaller skirmishes, and next thing you know, we're getting spanked.

Maybe you'll see a different message (that's half the fun of zombie movies...the other half is watching guts get pulled out), but there's definitely a vibe of insurrection and some hefty social criticism.

OK, so if you're not on the zombie bandwagon with me yet, here's a film checklist to get you started. These are my favorite zombie movies -- not to say they're necessarily great cinema.

1. "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) The daddy of them all. If you think about it, before this, zombies were considered more like brainwashed Voodoo victims. Romero's idea that the dead just suddenly start walking is a pretty incredible burst of ingenuity, and it's that concept that still freaks people out. In most movies, it's just a scientific experiment gone awry or a limited problem. I like Romero's epic scope, told in a very confined rural environment.
2. "Dawn of the Dead (Remake)" (2004) This one went with the new wave approach of "fast zombie" and really made it work more than "28 Days Later." It's handily better than the original "Dawn," but it lacks the social commentary that made the first one pretty funny. The remake is clever and fast-paced, with good acting and a nice balance of gore. The first 15 minutes, as everyone who's seen it knows, are just plain freaky.
3. "Bio Zombie" (1998) This Chinese movie is supposedly a spoof on the original "Dawn of the Dead." But other than the fact they both take place in shopping malls, there's not much similar. Despite a low budget and some seriously bizarre subplots, this one's a lot of fun. It's worth it just to see the zombie sushi bar.
4. "Return of the Living Dead" (1985) This comedic sequel of sorts wasn't endorsed by Romero, so Return's director insisted it be a funnier take on zombies than the original. If nothing else, this is the one that popularized zombies saying "braaaaiiiinnnnsss." But there are a few good gags, including a zombie who spends the whole movie wearing nothing but leg warmers.
5. "Dead Alive" (1992) If you know much about Peter Jackson, you know that his pre-Lord of the Rings movies were ... um.... completely insane. This is one of them. It pushes the gore factor waaay over the top. My favorite scene is when the hero clears out a room of zombies by holding up a lawn mower. If you bother renting this, be sure to get the unrated director's cut. Otherwise, it's only 45 minutes long and makes no sense.

OK, you have your assigned viewing. Feel free to post your favorite in the comments section.

A few good links

Big cheers to Flying Lemur guitarist Christian for keeping alive the band's old Web site I designed in college. I never get tired of that photo of me with nappy hair down to my shins.

Also, I hired a young videographer to assemble a digital clip for our Web site of the recent Nevada City Classic bike race. Be sure to check it out. The guy did the whole thing for free, so I don't know if he'll go through the trouble again. But we hope to get the public access station involved. Most of the private videographers wanted $300 or more to do a 1-minute clip. I can't afford to pay $50 for a free-lance article, though, so that ain't going to happen.

Hope all is well with you guys. If you haven't posted your randomly generated band names below, you better do it. Yeah, I know, it acts like it's making you sign up for a blog when you register, but you don't have to. It just sets up a profile that can be as minimal as you want.

Did you see that Bitch Ratio show on Friday?

I think we, as a culture, are finally moving back away from rock band names with "The" followed by a plural noun.

I mean, when The Strokes came out, I liked the throw-back sound of the name. I even got on board with The Hives, The Vines, The Thrills and, god love em, The Black Keys (but the adjective sets them apart). No one was more excited than me to see a return to stripped-down roots rock. Now it's just crazy. The Killers, The Kills, The Glands, The Alternators, The Bravery, The Raveonettes, The Futureheads, The Perceptionists.

How about, The Forgettable? I used to have a hard time keeping The Cure and The Cult straight, but The Kills and The Killers?

Luckily, as I said, it seems we're moving past this period, so it's time we decide what the new fad will be.

In high school, I teamed up with my friend Bill to create the perfect band. We decided the name had to be "The" followed by an adjective, followed by a noun. The noun needed to be zany but recognizable, the adjective conveying action.

We chose The Flying Lemurs. To this day, I believe it's the best band ever. Someday, we'll play a song.

Today, I think a band needs to have a name that's vaguely offensive, even if you can't quite put your finger on the reason why.

I would go with "Congenital Harpies."

But I decided to hit a few Random Band Name Generators on the Web. Here were their picks for my new operatic prog powerhouse:

Flaming Agenda (good for an all-journalist band)
Bowl Full of Zealots
Arizona O'Clock
Violation of the Soiled (fits my vaguely offensive rule)
Criminal Catalyst
Clean Caution
Bitch Ratio
Atrocious Yet Dumbfoundingly Popular

So try it yourself here, here or here, and post a comment with your favorite results. This is as good a time as any to get all five of you writing comments.

On another musical note, Bill sent me this new video from Brenden Benson. The song's not so great, and Benson looks horrid, but the animation's fun and creepy.

Maybe I should just try Paris...

We just returned from four days on California's northern coast, a few hours up from San Francisco. Karen and I brought Jonas and stayed at a nice cabin with an ocean view outside Mendocino. It was just a quick getaway -- no anniversary or anything.

We saw some amazing parts of California -- parts that sometimes looked more Apalachia than Left Coast -- but it's funny how much differently I'm absorbing these trips than just a year ago. I feel like I'm squeezing in the last bits of my great California adventure before heading...somewhere.

I doubt I ever thought we'd live here forever, but it always felt like an accomplishment to have made it so far from where I started. After a youth in Alabama, even the nice northern parts, I was starved for a place with culture. And strangely, the neon Santa sign in Fort Wayne, Ind., just didn't cut it.

To be honest, I've about had my fill of California culture. Some days it drowns you, like a mint chocolate shaving submerged in a grande decaf mochachino, no whip. In each town where I've lived, I have learned to appreciate the pockets of greatness that make you feel at home. In Indiana and Alabama, they were the places that broke away from the anti-intellectual vibe. Here, they're the places that break away from the sea of pretense that has drenched as far inward as the Sierra foothills.

Part of me still longs for that Hemmingway-in-Paris excitement about my location and my career. But then, Hemmingway didn't stay in Paris for good. And he self-prescribed a 12-gauge shotgun for his crippling depression, so you always have to be careful about role models.

The moral is, this weekend trip made me realize that my mental switch has already flipped over from "arriving" to "leaving" California, like I just crested a hill and am fighting the urge to run down and be done with it. But then you're faced with the only potential worse than having to move: What if that new offer doesn't come? What if I have to go about my daily life indefinitely, distracted with the future to the point of endangering it by messing up the present? (I was at a management training seminar once where they referred to those as "employees who have quit but haven't left." I love that phrase.)

Luckily, there are a few reasons to be optimistic. And, of course, there are worse places to be stuck than in Northern California.

My PowerPoint kung fu

If you've got a copy of PowerPoint, and you're waaaay too bored at work today, you can download the presentation I gave the other week at the NAA Readership Conference in Chicago.

This link will take you to the page of presenters and the slideshows available for download. A few others worth checking out are the presentations by Your Mom Online; the Guelph, Ontario, paper (I was on the panel with the editor, and she busted out a Strong Bad reference. I got served.) ; the Janesville, Wis., Gazette; and the honking, 56-megabyte slideshow by the Times of Northwest Indiana.

I haven't actually checked to make sure mine looks right. Let me know if it's just a bunch of dirty animal photos or anything.

Two shows, one poorly documented theory

We hit two great events this weekend that seemed to showcase what's great and what's weak about U.S. culture. Or at least California culture. Or, you know, greater Sacramento Metropolitan Area culture.

First was a three-act concert in Nevada City, with the headliner being a band one of my friends recently joined. We missed Act 1, but a moderately skilled rock band came on next, then our friend's band, Black Bear (scroll down in link).

The good news: They were really mellow and impressive. I don't know why I've settled in on this description, but they're like a folksy Belle and Sebastian, which I have to say is not what I expected from a local band. Essentially, they had half a dozen people playing pretty simple, melodic guitar/bass/banjo parts, creating a complex, somewhat droning sound. And our friend, David, was great and somehow elegant on the drums.

The bad news:(It's not really bad, I'm just being overly simplistic.) It reminded me that there's just not much to do at a concert these days. Dancing consists mostly of head nodding and maybe some adventurous swaying -- and that was during the rock band's performance. And that level of inertia was limited to a dozen or so high schoolers and folks with crushes on the band. For their part, Black Bear at least gave you some moments of introspection ... it's the kind of show where a long, dirge-like song can leave you thinking, "Wow, I really should apologize to all the people I maligned in my youth." Maybe that was just me.

My point is, American rock and such just aren't interactive. The dancing is arythmic, and, let's face it, boring, even with high-energy bands. You just end up feeling like you're watching a theatrical production...one with a very static set.

So jump from Friday to Saturday night, when Karen's capoeira school hosted its Festa de Sao Joao in Sacramento. It's traditionally a Brazillian corn harvest celebration, but it feels about like any Brazillian party I've been to ... nonstop music and dancing, great food, scantily dressed attendees with bodies like Olympic athletes.

Don't get me wrong, the music was good (even though it centered around a ukulele...swear to god). But what was most impressive was that it really felt like a group experience, like you were interacting with the musicians, the performers and each other throughout the night. Most of my life, I've been ashamed to dance in public. Here, you would only be embarassed if you were one of the three lepers standing off to the side.

Although we spent most of the night drenched in sweat, I left feeling about 50 times more awake than when we went in. Now picture yourself leaving a concert, shuffling in a mob and trying to remember where your car is.

So do we have emulate another country to get Americans truly involved in a performance? Do Americans even want to feel involved, or is our comfort zone just too damn narrow?

Get yer Uganda

OK, we're finally getting a moderately steady stream of e-mail dispatches from Brittany, my reporter on assignment in Uganda. We're trying to update every day or two. Another of the volunteers at the Pygmy clinic is writing, too. So far, the highlight is Brittany almost getting attacked by a gorilla.

All grows up

When did you become an adult?

Can you narrow it down to one year, one day, one instant? Didn't it just seem like you woke up and realized, despite what you'd been saying for the better part of two decades, that you really had been pretty stupid and worked up about the wrong stuff?

I'd like to think it was an early moment for me. I was a relatively mature teen, which really just means I was a boring teen. Someone was telling me the other day about how maturity is related to your brain development, as you build inhibitions that pull you away from your reptilian core, blah blah blah. So maybe my brain developed quicker, but that's not to say I had my shit together for a few more years.

Talking about this with a friend the other night, I realized that my right of passion really did come down to one day, when I was a sophomore in college. Sorry, guys, but it's not a very sexy story.

After a year of working at the student paper, I agreed to help fill in as arts editor at the student magazine for their last few issues of the year. I didn't know anybody on staff, and my job was minimal. Next thing I knew, the year was done, and it was time to elect a new editor.

The choice was obvious. The managing editor had been with the magazine for more than a year, she was the No. 2 editor, she was close friends with everyone on staff, and she was the chosen successor of the editor. But for reasons I still don't understand, I decided to try for it. I literally had people asking what I was thinking, wasting everyone's time like that.

I realize now that I was trying to prove something to myself. I had been passive for 19 years, standing by and waiting for someone else's orders. I was fed up, not with how I was treated by others but by how I was treating myself. There was nothing to lose by running for editor, and at least I would feel I made the new boss do some homework instead of waltzing into the job.

So I gave a speech. The first of what would become several ad-lib talks to crowds of strangers. Just like my recent presentation at a conference, I couldn't have told you what I said if you had asked three minutes later. Something about how we could embrace new technology to make our mag one of the best in the nation. Or, you know, something. Maybe I just beat-boxed and ripped a phone book in half.

Whatever it was, it worked. They tallied the ballots, and I won by a slim margin. Over the next year, we did redesign the magazine into what was probably the state's best student publication. I stepped down after six great issues. The next editor put together four. The next editor put out none, and the magazine died a quiet death.

But getting back to the point, I realize that my turning point with maturity was the moment I stepped up and decided to stop letting others make my decisions for me. It wasn't until I scraped together this confidence that I could really hold my ground with anyone, confident that I was someone whose opinion mattered.

So why is it that this remains so difficult throughout your adulthood? Why are so many people still so quick to let others dictate the flow? Lately, I've found myself falling into that same trap. With a new boss and a more hostile work environment, I often think, "It's just not worth the energy." It takes a lot out of you to stand up for yourself, especially when you're constantly losing. It seems so easy to submit, the way death must start to sound good to someone crawling through the desert.

Maybe now I just need to harness that energy to get the hell out of Dodge and find a place where I can feel like an adult again.

Wait, maybe we're not dying after all

It's a little spooky that when you get hundreds of newspaper executives in one room, it can start to get this Jonestown vibe, like we're all on some doomed carousel.

People keep saying this is the worst time ever for newspapers. I think that's preposterous. It's definitely one of the most challenging times to be in the business, but we're suffering as an industry because we've been lazy and selfish.

So it was nice to see a few shining beacons of excitement at the Readership Conference in Chicago. Here are some worth checking out.

Your Mom Online -- The Quad City Times in Iowa launched this Web-focused publication for and by teens last year. I had heard buzz on this site before the conference, but the editor's presentation blew me away. They've pulled off a fun site that actually treats kids like "we" instead of "they." That's a hell of a lot more challenging than most people realize. The site also comes off looking so effortless, you can tell that there's a mountain of effort going into it.

Bluffton Today -- These folks in South Carolina have taken blogging and forums to their logical extreme for local news. It's soft, I'll admit that. There's little in the way of hard news screaming at you. But the navigation is light and airy (as compared to ours...*shudder*), and the community seems to be latching on well.

The Janesville Gazette -- This Wisconsin paper recently redesigned to focus on getting lots of quick hits onto the front page. I have to say, I'm not a big fan of the teasers on the right, but the new centerpiece format is classy and reader-friendly. You can find the day's front page on the bottom left of the site.

Juan Antonio Giner -- (Sorry, no good Web links for this guy.) Juan Antonio pretty much walked away with the Best In Show at the Readership Conference. He's a Spaniard who serves as an international consultant to newspapers. He is candid, hilarious and, most importantly, dead-on. He pointed out that all major newspapers (and us smaller ones, too) continue to think the same way each day, creating a bland and repetitive product. Twenty-four hours after a plane crash, we still say, "Plane crashes!" The modern reader's left thinking "no shit." Our niche is to explain more than to simply report, he said. He really knocked my brain around, in the good, non-concussive way. I ended up in an elevator alone with him. Luckily, before I could say "You're dreamy," he told me he loved my presentation. Then I just stood there like a moron.

So maybe it's just my masochistic side, but I have to say I'm more excited than ever about working in newspapers. The challenge is finding one that's willing to quit screwing around, biting its collective nails and sighing.

Speakeasy

O’Hare International Airport, Chicago

I’m still not quite sure how this happened. How did I end up on a stage, in front of a packed conference of top-level newspaper executives, sitting next to the CEO of a massive newspaper for which I slaved thanklessly just seven years ago? By all rights, I shouldn’t even have been in the audience, but there I was, with a nametag, and a little green ribbon that said “Speaker.”

OK, I mean, I guess I know how it happened. It’s not like I got drugged in a Mexican brothel and woke up at a podium in Chicago.

A few months back, our publisher asked if I would fill his spot at the Newspaper Association of America’s Readership Conference. They wanted us to talk about how we’ve increased circulation, which I assumed was a rare success. Turns out, it’s borderline unheard-of, and newspaper executives are desperate to learn that some paper somewhere is not bleeding to death.

People were grilling me for info before I even got to make my presentation. It felt like a high school lunch table, where I’m the only one who’s actually seen a girl naked. My explanations just didn’t seem to satisfy.

Anyway, my time finally comes, and I take the stage next to the CEO of the Arizona Republic, where I interned at age 20. (A quick tangent. What was that job like, you ask? Well, if you ever want to know what it feels like to be a coffee bean in the hands of Starbucks, go snag an internship in Phoenix. You might produce a nice product, but it's a shame you have to be charred, ground up and urinated back into suburbia. The hiking was nice, though.)

So the last thing I really remember is my name being called, and a polite applause, and approaching the podium. Then I was floating outside my body, watching my lips move but hearing nothing. I saw the crowd. Some guy was yawning. A really crappy PowerPoint presentation fluttered on a large screen, and the color theme seemed like an homage to Albuquerque.

Then it was over, my body’s defense mechanism relaxed, and I was pulled back into my own skull. It was time for questions. Someone asked if I knew our paper’s market penetration. I said, “No.” Right then, the moderator announced the session was over. Strong finish, Griner. I’m such an ass. How could I not know our market penetration? They were onto me. They knew I didn’t really know what the hell I’m talking about.

But I was wrong. A few people came up to tell me they liked my presentation. Then there were a few more. Then a woman offered me a job. Seriously. Wait, what just happened? Even more people came up to me in the back of the room, in the hallway, in the lobby. It was like winning some kind of credibility lottery.

So the moral is, it went pretty well. Shame I didn’t bring any business cards. Such an ass.
More to come, with actual information about the cool parts of the conference, and not just self-deprecating reminiscences.

The great rib experiment

A few years back, on the eve of a friend’s wedding, I found myself quickly organizing a rehearsal dinner of sorts. In need of fast and plentiful food, I turned to a supermarket butcher.

“Spare ribs. They’re cheap, easy, and everybody loves ’em.”

All I had to do, he said, was drop a bottle of Dale’s seasoning into a pot of boiling water, drop in the ribs, let them burble for 45 minutes, then wrap them in aluminum foil and toss them on the grill for another 45 minutes.

It worked, and it became my SOP for ribs. But I could never remember the times…was it really 45 minutes each? Was it 25 boil and 45 grill? More importantly, the meat never really fell off the bone the way I would have liked.

So after consulting with my friend from the aforementioned wedding, I tried something a little different this weekend. And the results, my friends, were wonderful.

In short, I converted Alton Brown’s baby-back rib recipe to work with the tougher (and more rewarding) spare ribs. And I added some grilling. Oh, and some beer.

So here it is:

Griner’s Beer-Braised BBQ Spare Ribs

1 jumbo slab o’ pork ribs, cut into two sections
Chaka’s Mmm Sauce (or similar marinade)
1 bottle beer (I used Dos Equis)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 Tbs.honey
8 Tbs. Brown sugar
3 Tbs. Salt
Some cayenne, chili powder, other stuff you like.

1. The dry rub: Mix up the brown sugar, salt, and other assorted spices (enough to equal a tablespoon or two) in a medium bowl. Use it to coat the ribs liberally. Let them sit in the fridge, wrapped in foil, for a few hours.

2. Set the oven at 250.

3. The braising liquid: Mix the beer with about half a jar of Mmm Sauce (it’s just a soy sauce-based marinade…I’m sure anything similar would do). Add the honey and garlic. Microwave for 1 minute and stir.

4. Open foil packets of ribs at one end and pour half of the braising liquid in each. Tilt the ribs back and forth to spread out the liquid. Make sure the packets are secure and not leaking. Put each on a cookie sheet and bake for 2.5 hours. I rotated the cookie sheets half-way through.

5. When there’s an hour left on the oven, fire up the charcoal grill. Let the coals cook down a bit with the lid on, then push them to the center, to form a line bisecting the grill.

6. When the braising’s done, drain out the liquid from each into a medium sauce pan and start it simmering.

7. Toss some soaked hickory chips onto the coals. Close the foil packets back up and drop them onto the grill, bone-side down. Try not to let them sit directly over coals. Grill with the lid on for 1 hour.

8. In the time it takes to grill the ribs, the braising liquid should thicken nicely into a fantastic sauce. Unwrap the ribs when they’re done, braise them, and grill them naked for a few minutes to caramelize the sugars in the glaze.

Hope you enjoy.

Six degrees of The Fort, p. 1

Like most who have lived in Fort Wayne, Ind., I feel myself constantly trying to defend its value to the world.

Today, consider this:

Basketball legend George Mikan, who died this week, led his Minneapolis Lakers in a clash with the Fort Wayne Pistons in 1950. The result, because of the Pistons' slowdown tactics against the giant Mikan, was the lowest-scoring game in NBA history. Pistons won, 19-18.

Soon after, the shot clock was born. Because no one wants a basketball game with a baseball score.

So there you have it.

Small-town livin

Karen and I recently made our first trip up to the self-described "Tiny Town of Washington." It's a rustic, scenic, largely lawless settlement about 25 minutes into the Sierra Nevada from here.

Pretty much everything I know about Washington I learned from Vivian Herron, my paper's longtime columnist who reported each week from what she called Littletown (which has about 120 permanent residents).

Every Saturday, Vivian painted potraits of a town where everyone seemed to be a Hells Angel with a Heart of Gold. They met at the Washington Hotel to swap stories, rumor or recipes -- and chuckle at the Bigtowners.

Sadly, Vivian died a few months back, severing one of the only connections between Washington and nearby Grass Valley and Nevada City, which are small by most folks' standards.

It's not rare for someone at the paper to remember Vivian fondly, but I have to admit I was surprised when she came up during my trip into Washington this weekend. Karen and I walked with our two traveling companions up to the Washington Schoolhouse, a one-room wonder that turns 100 this Saturday. One friend brought up my favorite of Vivian's columns, which, sadly, I can't find on our Web site.

She wrote about baking a fresh batch of cookies, then calling the schoolhouse to let them know. She left a message on the answering machine, then stood out on her porch, plate of cookies in hand. Suddenly a kid exploded out of the door, yelling "cookies! cookies! cookies!" She snatched the plate, thanked Vivian, and ran the goodies back to the class.

What's interesting is that our friend remembered the column largely for a different reason. Vivian ended the column by noting: "I can, and I do. Do you?"

Her point was that small-town life isn't about being in a small town. That was really the point of most of her columns, I think. She was trying to demonstrate that getting to know your neighbors and helping them out can build community anywhere.

I hear people complaining all the time about how growth is driving neighbors apart. These are usually the same people who lock their doors, don't know their neighbors, and glare at just about everybody.

Sadly, that's me, too. Even in a small town like Nevada City, it's tough to break out of the easy lifestyle of ignoring everyone but your own. It's funny that most folks I know are journalists, but we always seem to stop short of actually connecting with the communities we try to educate every day. But I think I'm making progress in becoming a local, and I don't think we should expect to build these connections overnight.

Plus, I'm getting really good at harumphing the word "tourists."

Better than the movie

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The Ugandan connection

Today, one of my reporters heads to Uganda for a project we've been working toward for a year now. She'll be living among a group of Pygmies who've been kicked out of their ancestral home and now face extinction through disease, poverty and violence.

A local couple's been working to help them by opening a medical clinic, and Brittany, our reporter, will be staying with them for the better part of three weeks. About 11 other folks from our county will be along, too.

I'll keep you folks posted on the progress as we start getting her dispatches online. It should be pretty incredible. Check out this diary of another girl who stayed at the clinic. It's intense. Here's Britt's preview of her trip.

As excited as I am about this project, it also has me thinking about how international reporting has always been such a mark of distinction for a journalist. It seems those are about the only folks who still have a positive image in the public's eye. As the Internet makes the world smaller, the public has a stronger appetite for news around the world.

But is it something I'd really want to do? Not really.

Don't get me wrong. I'd jump at the chance to do an international assignment. The more international journalists I meet, the more I realize how detached they are -- not just from their own countries, but from all countries. They're people without nations, and that's not always as romantic as Hemmingway made it seem.

We recently got a visit from the LA Times' Moscow bureau chief, who's friends with one of our editors. Each of her stories, though dramatic, centered around the heavy logistics involved in doing anything overseas. Translators, guides, sat phones, transportation, border restrictions, lodging, finding a place to write...it doesn't always leave a lot of time for reporting on increasingly tight deadlines.

Then there's my old friend Aamer, who was an embedded journalist during the war and has spent a lot of time in Iraq since. I'd have to scrape to find any remaining jealousy. I'm sitting in a warm house on a beautiful California day, drinking coffee and playing with my dog. Getting shot or taken hostage would sure put a damper on that lifestyle.

In the end, there are people who can do it and people who can't. The ones who pull it off...are they better journalists? Maybe, but if the cost is losing your connection to the home you're serving as a correspondent, I just can't say I'm as excited as I once was.

Oh, and in case you care, that LA Times bureau chief went on to win the Pulitzer a few months back. So check out her stuff. Pretty great.