One of the best discoveries I made in the US blogosphere, is "BagNewsNotes" by Michael Shaw in New York.
Shaw is a psychologist. He writes about images: Analyzing attitudes and expressions of people, discovering manipulations by (mainly) the Big Media, and, he does so in a humane-, level-headed way. He is not prone to conspirational theories and he respects the photographers and artists, who, often risking their own lives, or at least fat earnings, provide us with images like the one he deals with below. Shaw is in Spain, this year, which helps him, I think, to keep a certain distance from the hectic American public opinion gestation.
His May 1st post starts here:
Michael Shaw: Reflection On "Mission Accomplished": The Death Of Suaada Saadoun
I found this a tragic, if fitting image to offer you today, the fourth anniversary of the pronounced end of major U.S. combat operations in Iraq,
One month ago, the NYT ran a story about the lead up to, and aftermath, of a sectarian killing in Baghdad. The photographs were taken by Ashley Gilbertson, a freelance photojournalist who has been working on contract for the Times in Iraq since 2003. The photo -- taken on his last trip over March and April -- appeared inside the print edition, but never made it into the on-line slide presentation.
Ashley has provided the image to BAGnewsNotes so it might be viewable on the web. He supplied the following background about this symbol of still another Iraqi life lost:
Ed Wong and I had been out for a few days on an embed in Baghdad when we chanced upon two Shiite militia men attempting to evict a Sunni family -- Suaada Saadoun and her family of seven -- from their home in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood. American and Kurdish soldiers intervened and arrested the two men, then returned to base. The next morning we found out that Suaada had been assassinated on her way home from the market. I accompanied the Americans to the house and the crime scene. I saw her family grieving, the bullet that killed her, and the upper plate of her dentures that had fallen out when she was killed. [..]
And then -- my copy-paste operation stalled. It is too bad. Too sad. Read the rest for yourself, please.