www.nytimes.com

Some people look at Coney Island and see a paradise of carefree entertainment. Others see a cesspool of gritty squalor. Few are those who gaze upon its shrieking kids, grizzled wanderers and fast-talking flimflam artists and see an opportunity for engaged political discourse.

But it was just that improbable impulse that drove the artist Steve Powers to open the new “Waterboard Thrill Ride” on West 12th Street, just off Surf Avenue, in the shadow of the Cyclone and a mere corn dog’s throw from Nathan’s.

It looks at first like any other shuttered storefront near the boardwalk: some garish lettering and a cartoonish invitation to a delight or a scam — in this case there’s SpongeBob SquarePants saying, “It don’t Gitmo better!”

If you climb up a few cinderblock steps to the small window, you can look through the bars at a scene meant to invoke a Guantánamo Bay interrogation. A lifesize figure in a dark sweatshirt, the hood drawn low over his face, leans over another figure in an orange jumpsuit, his face covered by a towel and his body strapped down on a tilted surface.

In one of the blogs I read, someone responded to this by typing: “If you don’t like it, don’t pay the $1.”

Easier said than done. The world we live in isn’t a boardwalk attraction that we can casually opt out of. While there’s no threat of violence for passing up Coney Island’s Waterboard Thrill Ride, there’s a gang of armed thugs that will come to my home, pull me away from my family and throw me in jail if I choose not to participate in the current system that helps fund the War in Iraq and the goings on at Guantánamo Bay.

I think Powers created a fantastic reveal of what the tax payer’s dollar gets them. It’s unfortunate that most of the viewers, both visually and vocally upset with the display, missed the message and connection completely. Yes, Power’s crude display is disturbing, barbaric, and tasteless–and so is his inspiration.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

http://www.vanityfair.com/…

You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning-or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered. This was very rapidly brought home to me when, on top of the hood, which still admitted a few flashes of random and worrying strobe light to my vision, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited for a while until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose. Determined to resist if only for the honor of my navy ancestors who had so often been in peril on the sea, I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and-as you might expect-inhale in turn. The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me. I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted.

This is because I had read that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, invariably referred to as the “mastermind” of the atrocities of September 11, 2001, had impressed his interrogators by holding out for upwards of two minutes before cracking. (By the way, this story is not confirmed. My North Carolina friends jeered at it. “Hell,” said one, “from what I heard they only washed his damn face before he babbled.”) But, hell, I thought in my turn, no Hitchens is going to do worse than that. Well, O.K., I admit I didn’t outdo him. And so then I said, with slightly more bravado than was justified, that I’d like to try it one more time. There was a paramedic present who checked my racing pulse and warned me about adrenaline rush. An interval was ordered, and then I felt the mask come down again. Steeling myself to remember what it had been like last time, and to learn from the previous panic attack, I fought down the first, and some of the second, wave of nausea and terror but soon found that I was an abject prisoner of my gag reflex. The interrogators would hardly have had time to ask me any questions, and I knew that I would quite readily have agreed to supply any answer. I still feel ashamed when I think about it. Also, in case it’s of interest, I have since woken up trying to push the bedcovers off my face, and if I do anything that makes me short of breath I find myself clawing at the air with a horrible sensation of smothering and claustrophobia. No doubt this will pass. As if detecting my misery and shame, one of my interrogators comfortingly said, “Any time is a long time when you’re breathing water.” I could have hugged him for saying so, and just then I was hit with a ghastly sense of the sadomasochistic dimension that underlies the relationship between the torturer and the tortured. I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

Bosco, how come you didn’t write something like this after your experience?

I’m glad he went through with this. It seems to me that anyone who would defend this practice, especially those in government who institute these procedures, should go through them themselves to judge on experience.

http://www.nytimes.com/…

The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The only change made in the chart presented at Guantánamo was to drop its original title: “Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance.”

Reduce, reuse, recycle.

The most recent political book I’ve read is Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture on loan from Blog of Bile’s very own xyz.  It is a collection of short essays in the field of anthropology and sociology.  Each essay attempts to shatter preconceived notions and explain in greater detail human actions which the author has deemed befuddling.  Amongst the topics discussed are cows as sacred animals, pig lovers and haters, primitive warfare, the idea of an aggressive male, extreme consumption and extreme donation, cargo cults, a history of messiahs, the violent origins of Christianity, early witchcraft and witch trials, and the contemporary resurgence of disdain for objectivity.

The book is a relatively easy and quick read, only slowing down at the end where the author feels it necessary to defend himself from the hordes of sandal-wearing druggies that are going to attack him.  The author is selling his theories as to why certain anomalies in culture exist.  Unfortunately due to the imperfect nature of his science the results are quite subjective.  Despite Mr. Harris’ ardent pleas for objectivity at the end of the book I find some of his explanations to be lacking in sufficient evidence to support his claims of causation.

On a positive note, he does an excellent job of introducing the history surrounding these topics.  There is a lot of good information in the book, mostly revolving around things that are not easily disputed such as recorded history.  This book is an excellent catalyst for debate.

Rather than go through each topic, here are some of the highlights that stick in my mind:

• A good analysis of childbirth and war are used to attempt to explain why males are dominant in most of our societies.
• Some interesting history of egalitarianism, reciprocity and “the big man” in primitive societies.
• A decent early history of Christianity, including the movements leading up to it and Paul’s initial reformation of the church following the death of Jesus.
• A scathing essay on the futility of modern movements attempting to change society by changing individual consciousness.  Scathing is an understatement, perhaps scalding, blistering or even face-melting would be more appropriate.  I think this is the essay bile would enjoy most.

Here are some problems I had with the book:

• He starts with a good premise, “I hope to present probable and reasonable solutions, not certainties.”  But by the end of the book he is so wrapped up in defending himself he comes across like an early evangelical minister telling “God’s honest truth”.
• Don’t quote the King James translation of the bible when entering into debate over the origins of Christianity.  Sometimes Mr. Harris addresses the original Aramaic, but at other times he seems to disregard the translation process that led to the quotes he chooses to use.  This part of the book could use bolstering.

http://abclocal.go.com/…

Also Wednesday, the USDA questioned why the Humane Society waited months to inform the authorities about problems at the plant. You can read more about that aspect of the story in the I-Team blog here.

Why did they wait 6 weeks? If they truly cared for the animals I’d expect them to release the info as fast as possible. If they were concerned with the possible tainting of the beef and humans becoming sick I’d also expect them to alert the USDA and media ASAP. Lena Johanson on Gardner Goldsmith’s radio show yesterday said that in fact the Humane Society sat on the info while waiting for more video footage to be taken and that being against industrial farming actively work to increase regulation in hopes of effectively legislating them out of existence. They must have figured the impact of more video was more important than the lives of the cows or the humans eating the meat. That’s assuming they actually believed there was a possible health risk. Seems pretty despicable to me.

Not the blog they refer too also. The author claims the video is the worst they’ve seen in their 25 year career. They must have had a fairly sheltered career. Meet your meat is far worse.

http://thinkprogress.org/…

Today, the Senate brought the Intelligence Authorization Bill to the floor, which contained a provision from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) establishing one interrogation standard across the government. The bill requires the intelligence community to abide by the same standards as articulated in the Army Field Manual and bans waterboarding.Just hours ago, the Senate voted in favor of the bill, 51-45.

Earlier today, ThinkProgress noted that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a former prisoner of war, has spoken strongly in favor of implementing the Army Field Manual standard. When confronted today with the decision of whether to stick with his conscience or cave to the right wing, McCain chose to ditch his principles and instead vote to preserve waterboarding:

Mr. McCain, a former prisoner of war, has consistently voiced opposition to waterboarding and other methods that critics say is a form torture. But the Republicans, confident of a White House veto, did not mount the challenge. Mr. McCain voted “no” on Wednesday afternoon.

The New York Times Times notes that “the White House has long said Mr. Bush will veto the bill, saying it ‘would prevent the president from taking the lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack in wartime.’”

After Bush vetoes the bill, McCain will again be confronted with a vote to either stand with President Bush or stand against torture. He indicated with his vote today where he will come down on that issue.

John McCain: He was against waterboarding before he was for it.

The pandering to conservatives has just begun. I recall McCain and Paul being in agreement during a debate a while back that it was in fact torture and shouldn’t be done. I’d love to see him explain why he voted against this if it truly was just what the article claims.