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The audio of the speech by George Galloway, British member of Parliament, dressing down the shysters in the US Senate who enabled Bush's Iraq invasion (i.e., almost all of them, but his words are aimed at Norm Coleman), has to be heard. (1 MB .mp3.) His voice never wavers, his grammar and diction are a perfect sledgehammer beating those fools. Apparently the solons were squirming in their chairs "unused to such stark language in their polite chambers" or however the papers phrased it. The salient part of his speech is below:
"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.
“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.
"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.
"If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.
"Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.
"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.
"Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."
"Reggae Scratchin'" [6.6 MB .mp3 removed--see update below]
Bonus b-side: "Slowsteppin'" [mp3 removed]
(genius "scratch school" photo by anthony pidgeon, east bay express, via google images; bob marley graphic from fill in the blank fan site)
I will probably do a more complex version of "Reggae Scratchin'"; this is the bare bones "street" version, ha ha. Obviously the scratching could be varied more throughout the piece, some more instrumental voices could be added, blah blah good songwriting values blah blah.
Update, March 19, 2008: "Reggaedrome II" [4.3 MB .mp3] replaces the "street" version, which I took down.
Chris Ashley, The Infinite Line: List, 2005, HTML, 620 x 500 pixels
Blogging and the Arts Panel 2
Rhizome.org at the New Museum is having its second Blogging and the Arts Panel tomorrow night, Tuesday, May 17. You may recall the first panel, which yours truly was on and which got written up ad infinitum...on this page. Here's the prospectus for tomorrow's:
Rhizome.org Director of Technology Francis Hwang will lead a panel discussion on Blogging and the Arts. This panel, the second in a series hosted by Rhizome.org, includes painter and web-artist Chris Ashley, painter Joy Garnett, artist and programmer Patrick May, and writer Liza Sabater. The discussion will address issues such as ways that artists are using blogs to distribute their own work, and the influence of blogging culture on political issues of interest to those in the arts.Chris Ashley's work has been talked about on this weblog quite a bit; it's nice to see him getting over here to the east coast for some meat space confabbing. His work was described by some internet soundbite-meister as "Mondrian for your browser," and that's perfectly good but omits a few art historical steps and much of the innovation, as described here and here.
About Rhizome.org
Founded in 1996, Rhizome.org is an internet-based platform for the global new media arts community. Through programs such as publications, online discussion, art commissions, and archiving, it supports the creation, presentation, discussion, and preservation of contemporary art using new technologies. Since 2003, Rhizome.org has been affiliated with the New Museum of Contemporary Art.
Clocked in a solid six hours working in my cubicle today. Did this drawing, Chloe Stage Two (previously described here and slightly reduced in size for the blog), and another one I hope to wrap up on Tuesday.
UPDATE: I knew I was going to do this. I got up this morning and started tweaking this drawing. Above is the current state.
[via Travis Hallenbeck, who finds great stuff on the net.]
"Alpha Romeo" [mp3 removed].
"Alpha Romeo" is not actually made with a Vermona drum machine. It's all soft-synths, but the "kicks" are analog-modeling. I just posted this picture because I think it's beautiful, and kind of fits the vibe of the piece.
"There are some who, uh, feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is: Bring 'em on. We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation. “ - George W. Bush, July 2, 2003.
War News for Thursday, May 12, 2005 (from Today in Iraq)
Bring 'em on: Twelve killed in car bomb attack in central Baghdad.
Bring 'em on: Seventeen killed in car bomb attack in Shia market area in Baghdad.
Bring 'em on: Two marines killed and 14 injured in bomb attack near the Syrian border.
Bring 'em on: Iraqi army general assassinated in Baghdad.
Bring 'em on: Iraqi police colonel assassinated in Baghdad.
Bring 'em on: Car bomb kills two in Kirkuk.
Bring 'em on: Two Iraqi civilians injured in car bomb attack on US convoy in Baghdad.
Bring 'em on: Oil infrastructure attacked in Kirkuk.
Bring 'em on: Families flee as attacks on Al Qaim continue.
Bring 'em on: Large explosions heard near Japanese base in Samara.
Bring 'em on: Two Iraqi soldiers killed in attack in Baghdad.
Bring 'em on: Dutch troops involved in firefight in Basra.
Bring 'em on: Two killed and twenty injured in explosion in Umm Qasr.
We marched to prevent this thing, but the "majority" of Americans thought George Bush knew what he was doing (line from Animal House: "You fucked up! You trusted us!"). Another 80 billion dollars of our money was just appropriated by the U.S. Senate by a 100-0 vote (that means including John Kerry), to perpetuate this mess, bringing the total to 300 billion dollars wasted. And over 1600 American lives. Unbelievable. Apparently the news media don't think this is good TV anymore, so we little people are going to have to keep posting reminders, even if it's "boring." Just added Today in Iraq, where the above synopsis was taken, to the links over on the left. Impeach Bush!
Assuming this isn't a hoax about Susan Sontag writing lyrics for Fischerspooner, it should be noted that the words were a rather pale retread of Fear's "Let's Have a War" ("let's have a war/jack up the Dow Jones...let's have a war/so you can go and die, etc") from 1982 or so. May she rest in peace but this had to be said.