Viral News of Attacks

More than any event since the US elec­tion, I’ve been receiv­ing news of the attacks on Gaza through viral means.  There was a text mes­sage that a Nor­we­gian doc­tor sent to his friends in Nor­way that made it to my friend’s email box to be posted on a mes­sage board:

They bombed the cen­tral veg­etable mar­ket in Gaza City two hours ago. 80 wounded, 20 killed, all came here to Shifa Hades [hos­pi­tal]! We are wad­ing in death, blood, and amputees. Many chil­dren. A preg­nant woman. I have never expe­ri­enced any­thing so ter­ri­ble. Now we hear tanks. Pass it on, send it around, shout it out. Any­thing. DO SOMETHING! DO MORE! We are liv­ing in a his­tory book now, all of us. Mads G. 3.1.09 1:50PM, Gaza

And then there are the notes com­ing over face­book from dif­fer­ent Israeli friends link­ing to clips from local news reports, mostly the demon­stra­tions against the attacks.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc9DN2Oi0-w]

This reminds me vaguely of the war in Lebanon, when sud­denly some 4 or 5 peo­ple I know took off to cover the events, and video clips and emails streamed in.  Talk about the inter­net com­press­ing space and time.  The world just crowds in on you, as mar­velous and dis­turb­ing as that is.

Now help me out with some bril­liant quote on the pol­i­tics of wit­ness­ing in a medi­ated world…