Front page news today was of course the campus shootings in America. This was indeed a terrible event- at least 30 people were killed- a death toll which has already earned the incident reams of news stories and analysis, and a place in America’s history of mass shootings. And what of Iraq yesterday? The list of casualties topped 60- according to www.icasualties.org, which keeps track of the reported deaths by news agencies. Inevitably of course, the death toll day by day is much higher than reported. Yet deaths in Iraq are now the NIBs (news in briefs) scattered throughout the media. They are no longer occurrences of note for us here in the west, instead, they are filler material for the lesser read pages of the lesser read newspapers.
We will soon know everything there is to know about the casualties of the American shootings- their faces, their names, their ages- all soon to be commemorated on a tasteful memorial no doubt. The Iraqi’s who die daily will remain faceless, anonymous and forgotten.
2007-04-17 @ 18:56