Step Right Up to The 'Waterboard Thrill Ride' at Coney Island

NEW YORK — Guantanamo waterboarding as a Coney Island sideshow — that's what one political-minded artist has created on the Brooklyn seashore.

The "Waterboard Thrill Ride," by Steve Powers, is a stone's throw from Coney Island's famed Cyclone roller coaster and Nathan's hot dog stand.

For a dollar, visitors get to look through a barred window on a Guantanamo-like interrogation, enacted by animated robots. The hooded figure leans over a man in an orange jumpsuit, his face covered with a towel and his body tethered to a tilted plane.

Lights come on and water pours into the man's nose and mouth, producing convulsions for 15 seconds.

The display sits in the midst of Brooklyn's decaying entertainment mecca, the perennial object of redevelopment battles. A sign on the outside pictures SpongeBob SquarePants saying "It don't GITMO better!" as Squidward, another character in the SpongeBob cartoons, pours water over him. ....