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Goin' to war tonight.

Flying to Baghdad--Washington to London to Amman, Jordan.

Hope to be in-county Thursday for about six weeks where I'll represent McClatchy Newspapers and, of course, the Sun-Star. Leila Fadel, our intrepid bureau chief, will guide me while there, and McClatchy vets Mark Seibel, Roy Gutman and Joh Walcott in our Washington bureau will help along the way.

Please give props to Joe Kieta, my editor and boss, who let me do this just 11 months after he hired me as local news editor. And, please, do your best to help the reporters and photographers I've worked with for nearly a year who must work without me for a couple months. (Judging how they performed on the courthouse shooting while I was away at war training three weeks ago, they probably won't even know I'm gone.)

I came into work today ready to be another one of the journalists who have skewered James Frey, author of "A Million Pieces."

Walking through Target last week, I noticed his latest book on the shelf and was floored. They gave this hack another chance to write a book? Seriously? The dust jacket called him "celebrated and controversial." Well, one of those is correct.

So I began organizing my outrage in my head as I walked the isles. As a journalist, you don't make it up. It's a simple rule. Authors of a memoirs (accounts of one's personal life), shouldn't make it up either.