Cy's Film

I started labeling all my posts from Baghdad 'Profiteer' partly out of guilt for coming over here to make money and partly because I liked the edge on the word. Now that I've been here a bit and all the guilt has been polished off by 84 hour work weeks, I've decided I'm not really a profiteer after all. So all the new posts from Baghdad will be labeled 'Drinking the Tigris'. The river has long been one of the main travel routes through the region and since I'm definitely on a journey of sorts...

I finished setting up the translations two weeks ago and next week will start back at the beginning to take notes on the footage for the paper edit. In the meantime I've been reading a couple books to learn more about Iraq. The books were recommended by the instructors at the Foreign Service Institute in D.C. Here are a couple quotes that I found interesting.

From Understanding Iraq by William R. Polk:

"The Arabic looking word Iraq (Arabic: al-Iraq) actually comes from the Persian eragh, which means simply 'the lowlands'."

From Understanding Arabs by Margaret Nydell:

"The God Muslims worship is the same God Jews and Christians worship (Allah is simply the Arabic word for God; Arab Christians pray to Allah)."

Who knew. This gives me more ammunition to yell at the TV with. Watch your ass Lou Dobbs.




	Drinking the TIgris I started labeling all my posts from Baghdad 'Profiteer' partly out of guilt for coming over here to make money and partly because I liked the edge on the word. Now that I've been here a bit and all the guilt has been polished off by 84 hour work weeks, I've decided I'm not really a profiteer after all. So all the new posts from Baghdad will be labeled 'Drinking the Tigris'. The river has long been one of the main travel routes through the region and since I'm definitely on a journey of sorts... I finished setting up the translations two weeks ago and next week will start back at the beginning to take notes on the footage for the paper edit. In the meantime I've been reading a couple books to learn more about Iraq. The books were recommended by the instructors at the Foreign Service Institute in D.C. Here are a couple quotes that I found interesting. From Understanding Iraq by William R. Polk: "The Arabic looking word Iraq (Arabic: al-Iraq) actually comes from the Persian eragh, which means simply 'the lowlands'." From Understanding Arabs by Margaret Nydell: "The God Muslims worship is the same God Jews and Christians worship (Allah is simply the Arabic word for God; Arab Christians pray to Allah)." Who knew. This gives me more ammunition to yell at the TV with. Watch your ass Lou Dobbs. Cy Kuckenbaker :: 08.24.07 :: Permalink post a comment (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) Name: Email Address: URL: Remember personal info? Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)	This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on August 24, 2007 5:36 AM. The previous post in this blog was Bush League: Aug 17, 07. The next post in this blog is Drinking the Tigris: Mos Def in Malawi. Many more can be found on the main page or by looking through the archives.

Drinking the TIgris