The Dentist Blogger from Downtown Baghdad

"In the first bloody hours after insurgents destroyed a revered Shiite shrine in Iraq in February, Baghdad dentist Zeyad A. watched his Sunni neighbors grab machine guns and cobble together roadblocks to keep out marauding Shiite gunmen. Zeyad had a different response: He booted up his computer and began blogging about what was going on.

Zeyad's blog, Healing Iraq, has become a primary source of information on Iraq's daily deterioration for readers around the world. An agnostic of Sunni descent, Zeyad has written of friends manning impromptu neighborhood-watch patrols and religious leaders being murdered and dragged through the streets by mobs. He has also posted photos of uniformed Iraqi police driving through the streets in cars emblazoned with photos of radical Shiite clerics."

As an interesting adjunct to the last post on how the US media "deals" with the Iraq War, the Wall Street Journal has this piece throwing another dimension on the topic. Read the full article here.

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Reading the Chilcot Inquiry Report more closely

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Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

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An unpalatable truth!

Quinoa has for the last years been the "new" food on the block for foodies. Known for its health properties, foodies the world over have taken to it. Many restaurants have added it to their menu. But, as this piece " Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa? " from The Guardian so clearly details, the cost to Bolivians and Peruvians - from where quinoa hails - has been substantial. "Not long ago, quinoa was just an obscure Peruvian grain you could only buy in wholefood shops. We struggled to pronounce it (it's keen-wa, not qui-no-a), yet it was feted by food lovers as a novel addition to the familiar ranks of couscous and rice. Dieticians clucked over quinoa approvingly because it ticked the low-fat box and fitted in with government healthy eating advice to "base your meals on starchy foods". Adventurous eaters liked its slightly bitter taste and the little white curls that formed around the grains. Vegans embraced quinoa as

Mahler's Prodigal Son

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