Does anyone else think that he looks like Jake Gyllenhaal? Just asking... something is weird about the connection between our entertainment and our wars (read: Jarhead). It disturbs me.

Someone just emailed me about a book she was reading...

It's not like ANYTHING has changed...things are just getting so sped up!

Here's the quote.

"This book is on the Victorians by A. N. WIlson, is so evocative of today, it is scary. He is discussing the Crimean War and the dispatches sent back to England at the time and describing how the British loved that war as this was the first time that war became 'a spectator sport." p 186

Since the editors haven't done it, I'd like to give Marijo Cook a red star. Well said, Marijo. You are obviously a big picture thinker.

I've read through the letters regarding the article about my project, "dead-in-iraq". What I find most fascinating is the underlying success of my online memorial/protest in creating dialogue outside the gaming context. Whether you agree with my actions - most gamers do not - it is truly rewarding to observe the intense level of dialogue and debate regarding "dead-in-iraq", the nature of computer gaming, army recruiting tactics, the war, etc.

I cannot say whether this project is an effective form of "protest" or "memorial". I can say that I do believe that this is an instance of an idea infiltrating an ideologically loaded cultural environment - no, it is not "just a game" - and taking a stand. It is dangerous and ill informed to try to separate America's Army from the culture from which it has emerged.

My gesture in the game is a simple, pacifistic action. It makes a point.

I am not a "newbie". I consider myself a gamer. I have been playing and investigating computer games in my work as a media artist, and, just for fun, for years. I do, however, have a passionate interest in questioning the role of such technologies in our daily lives. A game such as AA presents a fair context for such questioning activities (on a personal and a cultural level).

I have been very careful in talking with reporters to not refer to this work as "peformance art". I think this characterization, and my being a "media artist" perhaps allows others to tend towards easily dismissing my activities. I do this work as a citizen first, an artist second. I truly view this work as a memorial and a protest. The project is about trying to make a connection between what is going in our name, on our tax dollars, across the globe - in an online space that is created by our tax dollars - all to attract and distract in the name of recruiting. I believe that my actions are meaningful. All for now.

Peace.

... when your job is to follow orders without question? Forgive me, and I thank you for your service, but your suggestion seems either naive or disingenuous. I've never served in the military and at 42 years of age, it's unlikely I ever will, but last I heard, they weren't big on soliciting opinions from new recruits. Not long ago, I spoke at length with a young Marine machine gunner back from his first tour in Iraq, and one thing he made clear to me was the disgust many of his fellow warriors secretly felt about the war but were unable to express under all manner of punitive threats. One of the reasons I felt it was my patriotic duty to become part of the "focus group" that President Bush so haughtily ignored was that I knew the young soldiers dying in Afghanistan and Iraq didn't have the ability to protest for themselves. I understand the need for soldiers who are ready and willing to do as they are told, without question, and since these young men and women don't have the luxury of exercising choice about their actions, we civilians owe it to them (to you) to speak out in whatever form we feel is most effective to save your lives and sanity. If that's what DeLappe (who, at 43, is also too old to volunteer) is doing, more power to him.

In virtually dead the author makes a mess of her grammar because she wants to make a charge this not true and can't stand it, she says the army funded the game to:

to interest kids as young as 13 to join the Army

The army can get kids as young as 17 to join; it can interest kids as young as 13 "in joining" [and why not as young as 3?], but it can't have that causitive effect on 13 year-olds.

Surely the author knows this since I've never meet native speakers who misuse the cuasitive or who don't know when the gerundive follows the infinit [and surely there is no one single copy editor alive who can't follow this]. But the truth would be less sinister.

I started reading Salon when it was a well-writen site, backed by good politics. But it's become a badly written cite that excuses every excess in the name of good politics.

The Army's video shooting gallery is no game really. In real life the other side shoots back. What you are adding to this game, is something we did when we played soldiers as kids. We always staged elaborate death scenes, and writhed and wriggled around in the dirt for several minutes, and threw our last hand grenade. Then we spoke our last few words, we got up and played some more. So I consider this work additive to the Army's message, rather than running against it. The game seems more real is someone is really dying.

But as artists we are only here to fill the form, and make it complete.

Yes,

You are correct. In fact, in speaking with Ms. Clarren I noted that what I am doing could be considered a way of completing the content of the game.

At first this story touched me so that I almost started to cry.

Then I remembered what Tsvetaeva said about Mayakovsky in her essay "Art in the Light of Conscience"

If you want to do good works, join the Salvation Army, and leave poetry alone.

Luckily for her, she died before war became a video game.

Hey I have an idea -- someone could make a video game about a poet who hangs herself as an alternative to starving to death during a war.