War! Good God, y'all!
Armies of analysts all over the world are putting on their makeup and going on the air to tell us what we're seeing in what is expected to be the most-watched event in world history. If you'd rather just watch and figure out for yourself what it all means, Reuters is offering a raw video feed, without narration, play-by-play, or color commentary, free online at Reuters.feedroom.com.
And for the perspective of an Iraqi citizen there in Baghdad, check out the bloggings of my Blogspot neighbor Raed. I don't know Raed, but I found his blog this morning via Daypop, a dandy search engine for news that sorts through more than 17,000 web news sites and weblogs. The better-known, more popular News Google only distills its news items from about 4,500 sources. Neither uses human editors, and the programs that sort through the news are oblivious to both nationality and proximity. If you're looking at stories about something happening in Chicago, for example, the top item in that category may be from a newspaper in Australia or India.
Raed was still posting after the initial attack, and follow-up, on his city, which means he still had electricity as of 10:33 p.m, his time, today. I'll be checking his blog often in the coming days, hoping for more updates.
Meanwhile, from the world of radio, an unusual programming note from Israeli radio:
<<"Quiet Radio" to begin broadcasting on Radio 1 tonight (19 March 2003)
Israel Radio announced that starting tonight "quiet radio" will begin
broadcasting on Radio 1(Reshet Aleph) starting tonight at 10:00 PM.
The station will broadcast a clear silence (so that it is possible to
sleep with it on, etc.). In the event of an alert, Radio 1 will
broadcast a siren and then instructions.>>
I hope that nothing but the sounds of silence comes from that station tonight, and every night. Meanwhile, I hope Raed's blog doesn't fall silent. In both cases, I fear otherwise.
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @6:13 AM