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Sometimes Real Art seems to write itself. When I got home today my aol mailbox had some neat stuff in it from my buddy Kevin of Fatnoise fame. Check it out.

First a link from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Live from Iraq, it's the real story

My current favorite is www.riverbendblog.blogspot.com. It is written by a woman, a resident of Baghdad not otherwise identified, and it's funny and sad and constantly informative. I offer as an example one tale from last week. It's one of those "you thought this was going on but you had no data" deals.

Here's the setup: Riverbend has a cousin who works as a structural engineer. He is, says Riverbend, a "bridge freak"; he can spent hours talking about trusses and pillars and stuff. (It is useful to remember that Iraq, before we started destroying it, had a pretty good infrastructure of roads, bridges, water and power, education; all that. Iraq ain't Afghanistan.)

The Iraqi company that employees Riverbend's cousin was asked to bid on rebuilding the New Diyala bridge south and west of Baghdad.

"They did the necessary tests and analyses (mumblings about soil composition and water depth, expansion joints and girders) and came up with a number they tentatively put forward -- $300,000. This included new plans and designs, raw materials (quite cheap in Iraq), labor, contractors, travel expenses, etc.

"Let's pretend my cousin is a dolt. Let's pretend he hasn't been working with bridges for over 17 years. Let's pretend he didn't work on replacing at least 20 of the 133 bridges damaged during the first Gulf War. Let's pretend he's wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge is four times the number they estimated -- let's pretend it will actually cost $1,200,000. Let's just use our imagination.

"A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company. This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be around -- brace yourselves -- $50,000,000!!"

Wow. Do you get a White House intern and a cigar with that?

Of course, this anonymous blogger could be just about anybody, as Kevin observed, but she raises quite a good point: Bush is giving his corporate buddies and campaign donors, quite literally, the spoils of war. And American taxpayers are being gouged, to boot. For the rest of the article, click here.

Kevin also sent me a link to another SF Chronicle article:

Johnny Depp likens U.S. to an aggressive, 'dumb puppy'

Depp recalled that French fries were renamed "Freedom fries" in the House cafeteria on Capitol Hill at the height of U.S. anger over France's refusal to back the administration of President Bush over the war in Iraq.

"Nothing made me happier than when I read that -- grown men and grown women in positions of power in the United States government," Depp said. "I was ecstatic because they revealed themselves as idiots."

It's short, but pretty funny. Good thing Depp's fan base isn't a bunch of rednecks. Click here.

And finally, Kevin brings to my notice this letter to the editor published in today's Houston Chronicle:

Bohac and Texas kids

State Rep. Dwayne Bohac, R-Houston, has every reason to be proud, as he stated in his Sept. 1 Outlook article, "Proud to teach patriotism through Texas pledge." After he and his political friends in Austin cut off health care benefits to more than 500,000 Texas children effective Sept. 1, he consoles them with the pledge of allegiance to the Texas flag. This will, undoubtedly, keep Texas children healthy and prevent them from becoming Taliban or communist or even from liking Arkansas or Louisiana too much.

The law he sponsored also mandates a "moment of silence" in all Texas public schools. This is a wise measure because it allows students time to reflect daily on the good things that state Rep. Bohac and his cohorts are doing for Texas children such as cuts to school funding and other services.

Manipulating people is an art and nobody does it better than self-promoting politicians.

J. Kusters, Houston

Heh. "No child left behind," indeed. The piece of Republican crap-as-essay to which Kusters refers in his letter can be found here, if you really want to read it. Maybe it's good for an ironic laugh...

Anyway, thanks to Kevin for providing the material for today's Real Art post. Really, he ought to get his own blog; I know I'd read it.

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