You should go listen to last Sunday's This American Life, if you can and you haven't heard it yet. You can download it for free right now. (Go to archives, click on 2006, click on "complete archives," select the yellow "free download" icon.) The show is called "What's in a Number," and it's about the civilian death count in Iraq. It's one of the most calmly horrifying things I've ever heard, and also some of the best radio journalism. There's no hysteria here, only very solid reporting -- and yet, as Alex Blumberg says during "Act One" of the program, "counting civilian deaths is always political."
Labels: death/mourning/corpses, politics, representation
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