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Janesville man blogs during trip

JANESVILLE — One trip to Iraq wasn’t enough for independent journalist Bob Keith of Janesville.

He’s on his second trip traveling through the war-torn country to build on what he learned when he went to Turkey and Iraq in fall of 2006. Skeptical of mainstream media and wanting to see things for himself, he explored northern Iraq alone.

As of Friday, Keith was journeying from the northern city of Erbil to Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. He is sharing his adventures on a new blog on The Janesville Gazette’s Web site. You can find his blog at http://gazettextra .com/weblogs/janesville-iraq.

“I hope as an independent traveler I can shed some small slivers of information about Iraq of which we are not already aware,” he wrote in his first post. “It is a region and war we see back here at home as controversial. It is a world so very complex over there. And it is after all, a place we have invested so much time, money and lives.”

In a post on Monday, Keith described his hour and a half “ordeal” getting from Silopi, Turkey, to Zakho, Iraq.

“For $140 I have left for sure, what Americans might call one of the strangest countries on earth,” he wrote. “And with that same nominal fee as well, I have in turn entered perhaps one of the most dangerous countries on earth.”

Keith set a goal of posting an entry every day, though logistics might not always allow for that.

Keith has worked in the Gazette circulation department, but has set about both of his journeys as an independent journalist.

“For the purposes of this journey as with the one before, I am a ‘traveler’ taking a look at the culture in that complex region,” he wrote.