stealing into baghdad

too soon to say how many poll points you gain by spending 22 hours round-trip in the air to touch down for a less-than-6-hour mid-way surprise.

if it turns out to be 2, 3, 6, or 7 points, you can use a football metaphor: safety, FG, TD, or TD+PAT. if it's only one, a soccer image might be appropriate, but it won't impress anybody, especially after our world cup czech bounce, so maybe we'll stick to our good ol' "national pastime" and say a one-bagher, a stolen base, and driven home by another single. in any case, no one will call it cricket.

the culture-gap trouble is, in the war of words we call the other side "ali baba." we somehow forgot he's the hero of the story, not one of the thieves.

it's the sort of devil-in-the-details lapse we get accustomed to in the old doubleheaded reptile, the r-complex: mr & ms rummy-rice. but that's par for the course.

PBS, meanwhile, must be following the blogs: next week's frontline will be titled "the dark side." and, yes, it's about darth cheney.

so, steal away, lord, steal away.