April 2009 Archives

Linkage for 04/30/2009

April 30, 2009 11:55 PM

New York Street Advertising Takeover

April 29, 2009 12:45 PM

Video spotted via enjoybanking. Visit Barbara Celis's blog for more info, James's post, and this flickr stream.

Linkage for 04/28/2009

April 28, 2009 11:55 PM
  • How ABC Interview Shaped a Torture Debate - NYTimes.com
    Some critics say that the now-discredited information shared by Mr. Kiriakou and other sources heightened the public perception of waterboarding as an effective interrogation technique. "I think it was sanitized by the way it was described" in press accounts, said John Sifton, a former lawyer for Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group.
    tags: torture warcrimes alqaeda

Linkage for 04/27/2009

April 27, 2009 11:55 PM

Altar detail at Cathedral of St. John the Divine

April 24, 2009 3:44 PM | 1 Comment

Altar detail at Cathedral of St. John the Divine

I saw this when we were visiting the Cathedral of St. John the Divine with friends last week. I recognize Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, and Mahatma Gandhi. Who is the woman?

Update: We have a winner. Paul Schmelzer of Eyeteeth says it's Susan B. Anthony.

On banana republics, torture, and war crimes

April 22, 2009 5:32 PM

I don't have a link for this yet, but I was watching CNN at the gym just now, and saw Arlen Specter say that we can't prosecute people in the previous administration for committing torture or war crimes, because "that's what banana republics do."

Meanwhile, after hearing that we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times, we learn that administration officials and members of Congress discussed torture but didn't know anything about the history or efficacy of the techniques. I had certainly heard of waterboarding before 9/11, thanks to reading about the Spanish Inquisition.

In a series of high-level meetings in 2002, without a single dissent from cabinet members or lawmakers, the United States for the first time officially embraced the brutal methods of interrogation it had always condemned.

This extraordinary consensus was possible, an examination by The New York Times shows, largely because no one involved � not the top two C.I.A. officials who were pushing the program, not the senior aides to President George W. Bush, not the leaders of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees � investigated the gruesome origins of the techniques they were approving with little debate.

According to several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago, they did not know that the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, had been created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans.

Even George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director who insisted that the agency had thoroughly researched its proposal and pressed it on other officials, did not examine the history of the most shocking method, the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding.

The top officials he briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.

They did not know that some veteran trainers from the SERE program itself had warned in internal memorandums that, morality aside, the methods were ineffective. Nor were most of the officials aware that the former military psychologist who played a central role in persuading C.I.A. officials to use the harsh methods had never conducted a real interrogation, or that the Justice Department lawyer most responsible for declaring the methods legal had idiosyncratic ideas that even the Bush Justice Department would later renounce.

The process was �a perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm,� a former C.I.A. official said.

The graphic accompanying the New York Times article (click to see it larger) would make a great list of people to prosecute if we could have our own Nuremberg trials. That list includes Nancy Pelosi.


nytimes-key-players-torture.jpg



Banana republics are the kind of states that torture people, and many democracies in Latin America are now prosecuting former officials for their crimes while in office, such as Peru's conviction of Fujimori.

We are the banana republic in this case.

Linkage for 04/20/2009

April 20, 2009 11:55 PM

Chelsea Court Meat Market: goodbye note from owners

April 20, 2009 5:42 PM | 1 Comment

chelsea-court-meat-market2.jpg

chelsea-court-meat-market-full2.jpg

Here is a blog post on the closing from Jeremiah's Vanishing New York. A larger version of the note is here.

Linkage for 04/19/2009

April 19, 2009 11:55 PM

Linkage for 04/18/2009

April 18, 2009 11:55 PM

Linkage for 04/16/2009

April 16, 2009 11:55 PM

Linkage for 04/12/2009

April 12, 2009 11:55 PM

The Civilians benefit party + silent auction

April 6, 2009 2:54 PM


benefit2009_logo.jpg


The Civilians are holding their annual performance and benefit party on Friday, April 17th at Galapagos DUMBO. Their current projects include an investigation of the monstrous Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn and its effects on the surrounding communities.

Please join us at the newly reopened Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO for a one-night-only performance created from your stories. After a season spent investigating community in Brooklyn and Colorado Springs, we turn our attention to you and invite you to participate in an original Civilians piece by sharing personal insights about what HOME means to you.

They also have a silent auction page up for bidding. Items include theater memberships and a print by Mixed Greens artist Coke Wisdom O�Neal.

Linkage for 04/05/2009

April 5, 2009 11:55 PM

Luke Murphy at Canada

April 5, 2009 8:19 PM

Here is a short clip from Luke Murphy's video installation at Canada. Visit the ArtCat listing for more information on the show.

Linkage for 04/03/2009

April 3, 2009 11:55 PM
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