On July 6, 2006, President George W. Bush turns 60 years old. To mark this occasion, Sheryl Oring is planning a cross-country tour of a new interactive performance work called "The Birthday Project." For this performance, Oring wears a 1960's party dress and sets up a portable "birthday party" in various public spaces. As people pass by, she will invite them to send birthday wishes to the President on birthday cards specially created for this project. Using a manual typewriter, she will type their thoughts onto the card.

"The Birthday Project" will be include eight cities. Each city is a letter of the word 'BIRTHDAY'. Brooklyn, Indianapolis, Raleigh, Tampa, Houston, Des Moines, Albuquerque, and Yosemite.

For more information about the project visit Sheryl's website.


I dictated a card to Sheryl at her Des Moines stop.
This is the inside of the card.

 


This is the letter that I included with the card.

Bush, it’s your Birthday July 6, 2006. You will be sixty. Twenty-five other Americans born July 6, 1946 served and died in the Vietnam War and will forever remain dead at 19, 20, 21 ,22 , 23, 24, and 25 years of age. 
Justin Marshall Lynch			Hezekiah George	
Guadalupe B L Garibay			Brian Francis Gibbons
Lawrence Raymond Hagedorn		John Michael Henderson	
Donald James Sheehy			Vins Ronald Hooper	
John Patrick Collopy			Henry Robert Hocknell, Jr
Norman Ellsworth Fine, Jr		Robert Lee Stanek			
Ronald Michael Obenour			Terry Lee Baxter		
John Arleigh Nixon			William Henry Boswell
Samuel Reyna				John Joseph Cimorelli, Jr
William Henry White			William Joseph Oskilanec
Thomas Michael Casey, Jr		Lawrence Raspberry	
George Joseph Fuerst			Nicholas Allen Berger	
Raymon Horace James, Jr

Four of these men were married. Five men have junior attached to their names because their parents had such great hope for their sons that they were named after their fathers. These soldiers parents will not celebrate with cake and ice cream, they will mourn and cry for their son who didn’t or couldn’t get a deferment from war or a non-combat slot in the National Guard.

You were sheltered from combat by ‘attending college’ and by being inserted into the Texas National Guard.

Now you of all people are known as the ‘War President’ and you send young men to kill and die. You were pro Vietnam and Iraq wars, but neither you nor your children will go and fight. Appropriately enough your college dropout personal aide, Blake Gottesman, carries on the tradition of ‘fortunate son’ by bypassing the standard Harvard Business School entrance requirements. Why doesn’t he join a combat infantry unit? Is he as unpatriotic as you?

Golda Meir said “…there is no difference between killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It’s exactly the same thing, or even worse.”

If there is a hell, you will surely preside over the hypocritical Christian section. While only God knows how many Bible passages condemn you to hell, we can certainly start with these; It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. - Matthew 19:24; Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Thou shall not covet …anything that is your neighbor’s. - Ten Commandments; Greed, Wrath, Pride, Envy - Seven Deadly Sins.

Greg Wilcox


I also printed an image from one of Botero's Abu Ghraib paintings on the back of the envelope.