"Calif. Grandmother Blogs From Baghdad"

[GreenPartyVoter]

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - Jane Stillwater is an unlikely war correspondent. She's 64, a self-described Berkeley "flower child, 40 years later" and broke. So how did this mother of four grown children end up in Baghdad, churning out commentary ranging from shock at Thursday's bombing of the Iraqi parliament cafeteria, to the weirdness of touring Saddam Hussein's bathroom?

Inspired by a sense of outrage and determined to blog from inside the war zone, Stillwater ate peanut butter sandwiches for months to save up for a ticket to Kuwait. She got a small Texas newspaper to help her secure press accreditation, and eventually boarded a troop transport to Baghdad.

"I'm really glad I came," she said Thursday by phone from the Coalition Press Information Center in Baghdad's Green Zone. "I don't know whether I would ever come back."

Some of her entries deal with everyday life during wartime. Others are strongly political, musing on issues like using violence to fight violence in what she sees as the "broken egg" of Iraq.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20070414/D8OG93HG0.html