Day: March 30, 2008

copied and pasted:

young woman preparing to go out on the town speaks in internet acronyms, including actual enactment of rotflol-ing
funny, angry video from the 70s where woman contemptuously displays kitchen implements
fans on floor make "wind drawing"; metronome turns radios on and off so they have a "conversation"
Water samples from the Red Sea, the White Sea, the Black Sea and the Yellow Sea--no, really
screenshots of whenever Kevin Bacon's name appeared in movie, TV titles
donald judd-like cabinet with bad, bowed wood shelves
Greimasian rectangle connecting Robert Smithson with three rock and roll artists
flow chart connecting brass band music with acid house music
kippenberger/oldenburg-like giant soft streetlamp
motor scooter bedecked with multicolored drippy wax candles
cartoony cubist construction swallowed up in room with old paintings
worst splash page ever
bubble boy ca 1971 re-enacted
evil Donald Duck face in sky seen from airplane
chainsaw on tripod in empty landscape; bumpersticker with jonathan borofsky-like saying
some dude is narrating vvork on twitter--get a life!
blog of owls and owlabilia with minimal commentary patterned on vvork
feed from NastyNets blog inside VVORK blog--promises not to be very active
installation work shown on VVORK for a month photoshopped out
custom 'sexy armor' computer game mods floating in trees
giant wood sculpture of red google map locator-balloon is positioned in real space, photographed
marker pen drawing which contains the Google search string of the portrayed person in encoded form (supposedly)
stack of wood on sawhorses with crinkly stuff inside
sculpture of psychedelic striped standing waves (computer modeled)
white globe hanging from ceiling looks like earth or basketball
glass vase is covered in five layers of foil. When you tear one layer off a new one will appear and change the pattern of the vase.
kasparov vs deep blue replayed with spraypaint spritzes on masonite (supposedly)
rectangle moves like marquee through photo of spooky tree branches
white rectangle moves like marquee through photo of spooky churchyard
shoes hover over bowl; rocking rug with packages
living sculpture with knickknacks; burned-out scooter spraypainted magenta
smashed car windshield with colorful doodles; toothpaste smeared over hiphop magazine
partially painted heap of wood
utility for adding friends to dude's MySpace
damaged heavy equipment penetrated by spiky things
super-8 footage of half-time show runs through two different projectors, combines into one panoramic image
sentence consisting of 1007 palindromic coined words
link to Virilio-inspired paper dealing with "real-time" perspective of instantaneous digital communications
link to 1997 interview with Paul Virilio

Americans' tax dollars are currently being burned up by the US military, which is helping one Shiite militia fight another Shiite militia. According to Reuters, US Special Forces are "operating alongside" the government (dominated politically by ISCI and its paramilitary Badr Corps) in its battles with Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army. The British are also fighting. This is what the Bush Administration and John McCain call "winning" in Iraq--rousing the followers of a cleric who is politically and militarily powerful in the south of Iraq and slums of Baghdad. Cindy Sheehan lost her son last time the US engaged with them, in Najaf.

Read blogs, foreign press, McClatchy News Service, and indie news sources to get a handle on this--the New York Times and TV networks unfortunately can't be trusted to report it accurately. The Times recently held an Op Ed roundtable of nine commentators on "what went wrong" in Iraq and didn't include a single person who opposed the invasion five years ago. They also underreported the size of the marches back in the day--I was there, hundreds of thousands were out in the streets of New York and now not one person can be found for a panel?

In reporting about the Shiite-on-Shiite fighting today, a Times headline (copied at noon and pasted here) says "Among the differences between the ongoing Shiite battle in Iraq and the wave of Shiite attacks of 2004, one is that the Shiite rebels are fighting Iraqi soldiers, not Americans." This is government spin, and not true according to the Reuters article. When you jump to the actual Times story, the wording is different; it reads "For starters, the Shiite rebels are fighting mainly Iraqi soldiers, rather than Americans." Mainly.

Update: According to an AP story "al Sadr has pulled his fighters off the streets." They'll be back. The article confirms that "Several clashes have involved U.S. forces and the U.S. military launched airstrikes in Basra. The military said 16 enemy fighters were killed in when an AC-130 gunship strafed heavily armed militants attacking Iraqi troops during clashes on Saturday." 16 enemies--enemies of whom?