Welcome...and initial guidelines...

This blog will be used in the spring of 2008 by 80+ students at Drexel University to investigate the effects of Iraq on culture and the reverse. Our goal will be to better understand why the US is in Iraq, and to question whether literature can help us on this journey.

Weekly plans and other materials will always be posted in Vista, not this blog. So go to Bb Vista to get the discussion prompts and other instructions.

I intend this blog to manage our discussions and track our collective investigation.

You should have received an email from me inviting you to become a contributor to this blog. The email was sent Monday afternoon to your official Drexel email address.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Effect of War on Pop culture.

The effect of War on the American pop culture can be most easily seen in the 2007 album of the band Linkin Park, named ‘Minutes to Midnight’. In my opinion, the cover song of the album named ‘What I’ve done’ is easily the most relevant song for the topic because, the lyrics of the song have a lot of meaning in them which isn’t apparent at a glance but which becomes increasingly clearer with each listening. I think the whole idea behind the title of the new album "Minutes to Midnight" can be interpreted as the awaiting for the dawn of a new day, because once a clock hits midnight, 'it's a whole new day' so to speak, which can very much symbolize a lot of people's desire to start afresh once more. The lyrics of the song can also be viewed as portraying the general feeling of confusion, emptiness and frustration that all people worldwide and particularly Americans, due to the deeply unpopular War on Iraq and the economy’s dismal economic slowdown, are currently suffering from. A lot of people are voicing their interest in ending the War on Iraq and they seem to feel that it probably would have been wiser not to have engaged in a war at all, in the first place. The War has generally made the masses more insecure about the future and more uncertain about solving the problems that lay in store for them. The lyrics of the song ‘What I’ve Done’ from the band Linkin Park encompasses this very idea of recognizing the faults of the past, and suggests moving on with the future in order to make progress. The fact that a lot of people listen to music implies that inspirational messages such as these will touch base with a lot more people than through the other mediums such as the print media.

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