BOARD POLITICS Kelly Slater explains the Abu Ghraib images on his board

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By: Kelly Slater June 27, 2007 Mr Slater: Could you explain the picture of Abu Ghraib on your board: political, metaphorical, nihilistic, Dadaistic? --Asked by Christopher McGuire Kelly Slater used his otherworldly skills to beat Kieren Perrow in Round Three of the Rip Curl Pro Search Chile, was summarily mobbed by the media on his way out of the water, and this photo inspired a few letters from Surfline readers in the same vein. After losing to Dingo yesterday, Kelly took time out to respond: It's my favorite images of the war...no, not really. It's just a poster a friend of mine made to bring some awareness to what's happening in iRaq and a funny play on iPods. Pop culture meets political awareness.

Bruce Gilbert, my traveling partner and one of my best friends, started doing posters with this image on them. His website is www.forkscrew.com/. It was originally made with numbers of troops and Iraqis killed to date but it's far outdated and the numbers are way up there now -- around 3500 US troops and between 700,000 and a million Iraqis killed since the beginning of the war! Why is Paris Hilton going to a halfway house for three weeks bigger news than 500 Iraqis a day being killed in their own country everyday as well as lots of American troops? This is not to mention the injured, which is about ten times higher than the fatalities. It's life-changing for so many people. A crime of humanity. But wait...I'm off track. I just liked the way the colors looked, I guess. Yeah, that's all. --Kelly ** HAVE A QUESTION OF YOUR OWN? EMAIL WHO KNOWS SURFLINE HOME PAGE SURFNEWS ARCHIVE

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