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1. From The New Republic: War coverage as "unreality TV"*; NYT on TV coverage
2. From Christianity Today's weblog: a nation on its knees
3. News updates from CNN, the BBC, NPR, NY Times, Wash. Post, and more.
4. Previous Filter: Media violence and worldview

Note: This category normally highlights cultural stories outside of the media's "news cycle." This week it features stories measuring the effects of the war in different places in and outside Iraq, from the New York Timesand Washington Post:

SAFWAN, Iraq, March 21—Happiness and dread rose together today from this desolate border village, where some of the first Iraqis liberated by American and British troops found the joy of their deliverance muted by the fear that it was too good to last. As hundreds of coalition troops swept in here just after dawn, the heartache of a town that has felt the hardest edges of Saddam Hussein's rule seemed to burst forth, with villagers running into the streets to celebrate in a kind of grim ecstasy, laughing and weeping in long guttural cries. "Oooooo peace be upon you peace be upon you peace you oooooo" cried Zahra Khafi, a 68-year-old mother of five, to a group of American and British visitors who came to the town shortly after Mr. Hussein's army had appeared to melt away. "I'm not afraid of Saddam anymore." http://nytimes.com/2003/03/21/international/worldspecial … *

DEARBORN HEIGHTS, Mich., March 20— … Like about 15,000 Iraqi refugees—mainly Shiite Muslims—who settled in Detroit's suburbs after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Zeid Husseiny longs for an Iraq in which people can freely express themselves, where residents have a hand in their governance … Already, hundreds of Iraqi Shiites from the Detroit area, refugees from the Gulf War, have volunteered in the current military effort to serve as translators and guides. … Detroit suburbs, including this one, include some of the largest concentrations of Arab Americans in the United States. And many of them—like much of the Arab world—adamantly oppose the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, voicing suspicions that it is about imperialism and a desire to control Iraq's oil wealth. But among Iraqis there is much more support for U.S. intervention. Many here say they have their reasons. Abdulelah Assayegh, a poet and university professor who published 20 books, said he was jailed three times and had his nose broken for writing about political freedom. "Saddam was afraid anyone educated would say something he didn't like," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1317-2003Mar20.html

Related:

Reverberations of war in Washington D.C., New York City, and St. Anne, Illinois— population 1,300; home of a fallen Marine.

• Last week's Places & Culture

For links with an *, you can enter "bcread" for both member name and password

• A report on the eerie Christmas performance of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra, and a reading of the cultural barometer of Baghdad, from the New York Times last December.
  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/26/international … *
  Also: The New Yorker's Jon Lee Anderson's "Letter from Baghdad" on the history of British occupation of Iraq.
  http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030324fa_fact
• A day in the odd and out-of-touch life of Saddam Hussein—the most in-depth profile in the American media—by Black Hawk Down author Mark Bowden in the Atlantic last year.
  http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/05/bowden.htm

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