On Protecting Marginalized Perspectives

Posted by Pinky.

I just received an e-mail from my friend who teaches in an Asian American studies department at a university in New York. She was telling me that the university is seriously considering closing the department. What's really discouraging is that I've been hearing the same thing from other folks from other universities from around the country - not just Asian American studies but also African American studies, Chicano/Chicana studies, Native - the list goes on (same thing can be said for art, music, drama, dance...). Seems like every time matters of insufficient funding (or abundant controversy) come up at schools, the automatic response is to question whether or not these more marginalized areas of study are 'still necessary' or 'still relevant'.

And when I say marginalized, I don't mean less important. From a cat's perspective (small animals are very marginalized - think about it), these areas of study may very well be more important. Because to me, a university is one of the last places in society where alternative perspectives can truly be cultivated (I guess now I'm talking about an ideal-world scenario - I don't actually see this happening so much). And it's precisely because Asian American/African American/Native/GLBT/Other-related knowledge and experience are so marginalized, undervalued, and even attacked in society-at-large that these departments in universities become worth of our best efforts to protect them. They are absolutely essential to the well-being to our society. If university people really understood and believed this, wouldn't it make sense that they should work to protect these departments rather than periodically threaten them with termination? My humble suggestion to all you people at universities (that means you too students!):

1) Fight for the protection and development of the most marginalized areas of study. Especially in repressive or otherwise unimaginative times. Diversity of thought will help our planet and all living beings, but we can't have it if we don't fight for the structures that'll create it.

2) Fight for the redistribution of money (especially public moneys) from hurtful and exploitative practices - both national and international - that benefit the privileged elite, to practices that enlighten and benefit the majority of all living beings. Money spent on nuclear missiles means less money to pay all those hard working adjunct instructors!

Oh hey, here's an idea. If you want to save money, go after the business school - those guys have lots of other resources and their track record for improving the condition of the planet isn't so good. If you still need to cut more from your school's budget, consider shutting down or 'down-sizing' (I love that term!) your most widely respected, most deeply entrenched departments. Don't worry, people won't stop reading Shakespeare - he's had several hundred years of worship in hundreds of nearly identical departments everywhere, so his place in the world is pretty solid I think.

~pinky

p.s. You can hold the hate-mail, I don't have anything against Shakespeare; I think he's awesome, blah blah.​

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Posted by Bunny: All over the country Kindergarden-Grade 12 schools have cut physical education, health, music, art, and other good stuff from their programs. I think these decisions are being guided by an abnormal fixation on money, work, and competition. It is no longer fashionable for human beings to explore the full range of being human. Good luck with that.

New Blurbs & Diary Entries

Posted by Bunny.

I posted a couple of new blurbs a few days ago. One is about Thomas Edison, and the other is a message from Pinky's ants. You'll find both of them on our archives page. I also finally posted Pinky's diary entries from last month as well as this month's entries.

The Problematic Nature of Images

Posted by Pinky.

We have two new blurbs recently posted. You can find them here, on the archives page.

One is narrated by one of the ants from my AntFarm™, Ant 2-20. It's about the relationship between electricity and human beings' place in the universe. Very philosophical, those ants.

The other blurb is kind of/sort of about Thomas Edison. Before we posted the finished blurb online, Mimi, Bunny and I got into a discussion about whether some parts of it should be changed.

For example, there was a part in the video where I called Thomas Edison an "asshole". Personally I didn't think it was a big deal (because it's true and I still can't think of a more appropriate word), but in the end we edited that part out. Mimi especially felt that it wasn't necessary; that if viewers came to that conclusion on their own after hearing about some of the things he did, then that'd be a better way to present the material.

The other thing that was kind of difficult to decide on was the part where I mention Edison's interest in electrocution as a method of capital punishment. In the final version of the blurb I just show a picture of an electric chair during this part, but in an ealier draft I had included a close-up photograph of an electrocuted prisoner's face (Allen Lee "Tiny" Davis, convicted murderer, executed in Florida in 1999). I felt really conflicted about including that photo because on one hand, it's a very graphic and horrible photograph (face contorted/frozen in pain, blood spilling down from his nose and mouth) and including it felt a lot like exploitation and appealing to people's purely emotional side in order to make a point (i.e., that death by electrocution is not instant, painless, and/or humane, as it is often - and mistakenly - assumed to be). On the other hand, the image itself is shocking not only for how disturbing it is, but also because much of its power comes from the fact that the public never sees these kinds of images. It's kind of like images of war (real war, not glamourized/romanticized war) - I think it's easier for people to feel distant and disinterested when it's time to debate the morality of war (or capital punishment) when they've never been confronted by some of its more horrible aspects. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.

To me, images are especially powerful, in some ways even more powerful than words. And sometimes only pictures seem to be able to engage people's emotions and prod them towards right action. Even off the top of my head I can easily think of quite a few photographs that, although emotionally wrenching to look at, moved human beings all over the world to demand action be taken - Ronald Haeberle's photographs of the My Lai massacre and Huynh Cong Út's photograph of napalmed civilians are only two obvious examples from the Vietnam war.

Actually, we had this discussion many times while we were making the Vietnam War episode - there are a lot of very disturbing photos in that episode and we actually sat around and debated the pros and cons of including or exluding every image. If there is a guide book regarding how to make ethical judgements regarding images in educational cat videos we haven't seen it yet. We make our own rules as we go along. [ post-entry note: I'm actually still kind of surprised that we have not received even one complaint or comment about the violent images in that episode. Those images made me so uncomfortable and sad on so many levels and I'm curious as to why no one has questioned our decision to include them... ~ p. ]

So anyway, in the end we decided to remove the electrocution photo. Which doesn't mean that we'll never use provocative or unpleasant photos in the future. For me it just means that I want to be careful about showing these kinds of images. If I honestly think that showing these pictures creates an opportunity to learn or change consicousness, I tend to think that it's okay. What I feel more uncomfortable with is reducing an image to pure shock value or (guilty) voyeuristic pleasure. In this particular case, we thought that the blurb-format is so short that it's more difficult to surround the image with some context for better understanding. It's a judgement call.

Anyway, I just thought I'd mention this discussion we had. It might seem like a 'nothing' thing to everybody else, but this kind of stuff seems really important to us and it's a big part of our learning.

~pinky

Doomsday Clock Moves Forward

Posted by Pinky.

Mr. Peter Weiss, interviewed for Pinky Show episode 061211-01 (What is a Crime Against Humanity?) sent us this memo:

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) will move the minute hand of the "Doomsday Clock" on January 17, 2007... the first such change to the Clock since February 2002. The major new step reflects growing concerns about a "Second Nuclear Age" marked by grave threats, including: nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere, the continuing "launch-ready" status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia, escalating terrorism, and new pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks.

I didn't know what the Doomsday Clock was, I had to go look it up. Now I can't stop thinking about it. I'm trying to schedule an interview with John Burroughs of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, I have some questions about nuclear weapons and stuff to want to ask him about.

~p.

Recording Booth; Mimi Wire

Posted by Pinky.

Happy New Year! Things have been pretty hectic around here these past few weeks. You probably thought we were just lazying around not producing new episodes, but actually we've been doing all kinds of stuff recently. First, we've been building a small recording booth. It was pretty rough going for a little bit (we have no construction experience) but finally we are almost done. If this works out like how we hope it will, this new recording booth will allow us to make episodes faster and easier. A heartfelt thank you to everyone who made a donation over these past few months. We saved up the money and used it to buy wood, screws, foam, paint - all the materials. Tomorrow I'm going to build a little table to use inside the recording booth (just something to put our papers on while we're in there); many thanks to our friend Tim in Los Angeles who donated the very nice table legs that I'll be using.

So anyway, here it is, our current production que: two new blurbs; a follow-up Q&A episode to the Lt. Watada episode (061222-01); an episode about pollution in the Pacific Ocean; a tutorial on how to videotape an interview; a mini-biography episode (Bunny's current pet project); and hopefully, if we can coordinate it, an episode about nuclear non-proliferation.

Very scary: Last Sunday (Jan 7) Mimi was playing with some wire and we don't know exactly how she did it but somehow she got it wound around and around really tight on her hand. The more she tried to get it off the tighter it got and I'm sure it was really painful. By the time we found her a few hours later it was almost impossible to take off but after a long struggle we finally cut it off with pliers. It's been four or five days but Mimi still can't walk good (nerve damage?), but we're just relieved that she didn't lose her paw. So everyone out there, please be super careful when playing with wire, rubber bands, and things like that.

Hmm. Looking over my diary entries from last year, it's pretty obvious that I am not a write-in-your-diary-everyday kind of cat. But I want to be - I do know how important it is to keep a written record of your thoughts, ideas, feelings, and so on. If you don't write things down, after you’ve forgotten them it's almost like they never happened!

~pinky

Watada Video

Posted by Bunny.

Hi folks! Forgot to tell you last week that we posted a new episode. You can watch a video of Ehren Watada speak about his decision to refuse to go to Iraq. Click here to watch the episode.

Presents

Posted by Pinky.

How embarrassing. I got presents from Bunny, Mimi & Kim and I didn't have presents for them. They didn't seem upset that I didn't have anything for them and I honestly don't think they are but I still felt kind of bad about it.

Mimi & Kim gave me one of my favorite things in the whole world - food. Well, not actual food, but they gave me a coupon for a free Burger King cow sandwich and small order french fries. They said they found it on the ground near highway 127. Bunny made my present herself - I can most accurately describe it as a cross-stitched doll of me (photo below). As you can see I tacked it to the computer monitor with double-stick tape, it's really neat. It looks like pixel art except it's all stitched by hand (paw) in thread.​

Any suggestions for how to have a money-less Christmas?

~p.

Christmas & Buying Stuff

Posted by Pinky.

Tomorrow is Christmas, isn't it? "Merry Christmas" to everybody out there! I mean, only to all of you who like to hear that, and for those of you who are offended by Christmas wishes, my apologies for even bringing it up. I'm actually not Christian, whatever that means. Actually, since I don't really know much about religion, maybe I should use my delete key to erase all this and keep myself out of trouble.

Except for one thing: I'm actually totally fascinated by how pissed off some people get when it comes to religion. I'm not religious myself, so it's not something I'm apt to understand easily. I do know that religion is a major factor contributing to people acting very, very badly towards each other. I've also heard of many examples in which religion is apparently the reason behind some very wonderful human behavior. I'd like to understand more about how people reconcile these two apparently opposite realities. Maybe this year I do some episodes about religion?

Actually it's easy to get confused about Christmas. Bunny and I hopped a truck to Las Vegas last week to check out the mall action - you should see the crazy activity at the shopping malls out there. It was intense, kind of like a frenzy. People were stressed out and spending tons of money. It reminded me of when I used to think Christmas was a holiday invented by retailers (I only found out about the Jesus-God connection like, maybe two years ago). I like the idea of giving gifts, and I like the idea of receiving gifts too. The thing is though, we don't have lots of money and what little money we do have goes directly to buy food, water, electricity, maintaining equipment, and so on. You know, the necessities. So we certainly don't have any money to spend on presents.

Which raises a logical question: If you want to show somebody that you appreciate them (during Christmas, during whenever), what's an appropriate way to do this other than buying them a present? Because judging from what we saw at the malls, there's probably no real alternative to buying stuff right?

Please e-mail me any ideas you might have. Because tomorrow is Christmas (it snuck up on me) and I don't have any presents for anybody, and I don't want them to think that I don't care about them.

~pinky

Bunny X-stitch

Dear Bunny,
My name is Geena and I really like The Pinky Show. Good work! I also happen to enjoy cross stitching as a hobby. Since I know you like cross stitching too I made this portrait of you. I hope you like it. By the way, why is the show not called The Pinky & Bunny Show?
Best wishes, Geena

Hi Geena, Thanks so much for the cross stitch art! I really look cute as a cross stitch. Thanks for doing me instead of Pinky. The reason why the show is named after her is actually kind of a long story but I agree with you that the show would be better with a different name (like, The Bunny Show?). I used Photoshop to put the cross stitch art in a frame until I can find a real frame the right size to put it in. Also I'm going to post the pattern so that other people can have a x-stitch Bunny picture too. Again, thanks for the art! Love, Bunny

​[ download the free cross stitch pattern ]

Crimes Against Humanity Video

Posted by Bunny.

Great news everyone. We have a new episode available. You can learn all about crimes against humanity and war crimes by watching this interview with Peter Weiss from the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Pinky’s Nightmare

Posted by Bunny.

Pinky's been having nightmares about schools recently. You can watch the episode here.

Christmas Card

Posted by Bunny.

Pinky made a Christmas card. It's in the Fight! section, here. Download and print, preferably on a color printer. The blue snowflakes are pretty. The cat shaped snowman was my idea.

The Health Care Crisis version 2.0

Posted by Bunny.

New/old episode posted: The Health Care Crisis, Part I. Previously posted way back in January as a text-only episode, we finally updated it to include sound and (moving) pictures. It feels a bit like we just took a step backwards but it was bugging us that that episode wasn't available in video form. Now we try to go forward with finishing up the new episodes.

Things have been slow around here because we ran out of money a few months ago. Things are hand-to-mouth.

Halloween Riddle From Kim

Posted by Kim.

Q: Why didn't the skeleton cross the road?
A: Because it was too chicken! lol

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Posted by Bunny: ?? That doesn't make any sense…?

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Posted by Mimi: Kim… Actually the punchline is supposed to be "Because he didn't have any guts"... *rolling eyes*

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Posted by Bunny: Oh… wow. Okay.

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Posted by Pinky: Come on you guys. This diary is supposed to be project-oriented, or maybe educational, in some way.

Today's quote courtesy of: Frank Zappa

Posted by Pinky.

I don't know what kind of music Frank Zappa composed or played, but I like Frank Zappa because he's funny and gives good parenting advice:

The first thing you have to do if you want to raise nice kids, is you have to talk to them like they are people instead of talking to them like they're property. 

Seems like a good idea, but also seems like a principle not too many adults believe in.

~p.

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Posted by Bunny: Lots of Frank Zappa content on YouTube. Check him out.

Bunny Was Here

Posted by Bunny.

Last weekend Pinky and I went into the city (Los Angeles). It was really hot and it took us a long time to get there. Pinky had a lot of stuff on her mind and almost got run over - twice. While she did her meetings I took the opportunity to go visit the house where I was born since it was nearby.​

It's right next to the Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City. The place still looks about the same although I didn't see anybody there who I thought I might be related to.​

​I had several brothers and sisters but they just disappeared one by one; cars. I left home when I was the last one. And I met Pinky literally minutes after deciding to leave. I took a picture of the exact spot where we first met (below). So much trash around here.

~Bunny.

Mr. Stroud Responds Again

Posted by Pinky.

I just heard back from Mr. Stroud in Syracuse. His e-mail:

Idiots,
So what were we supposed to do? Just let them kill our families as we sit around and do nothing? Do you even know anybody who died at ground zero? Go tell their children how you plan to do nothing to bring those terrorists to justice. I'm so sick of all your whining about peace and consider this conversation over. J. Stroud

You know, I read Mr. Stroud's e-mail several times, and the most striking thing for me is how he apparently sees retaliating with violence as the only ‘real' or ‘legitimate' response to violence - fighting for peace, or understanding, or healing looks a lot like 'sitting around doing nothing' to him. I think his inability to even imagine an alternative to violence is actually a large part of the problem. Of course he's not the only one - we (all of us on planet Earth) wouldn't be in such a giant mess if we'd put as much effort into fighting violence instead of supporting it.

~p.

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Posted by Bunny: This is America. You’re going to have to give some examples of exactly what “fighting for peace” looks like.

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Posted by Kim: I hang out with you guys all the time and even I have a hard time thinking of examples. But punching someone in the nose is super easy to imagine!

Mr. Stroud Responds

Posted by Pinky.

I received quite a few e-mails in response to yesterday's (September 11) diary entry. Most of them went kind of like ‘hey pinky i didn't know there were so many other things that happened on other 9-11s', stuff like that. This one interested me the most though:

Dear Idiot,
I mourn on September 11 because as an American I feel we all need to remember those who lost their lives to the terrorists. I'm not going to feel bad for people killed in a battle 700 years ago in England. We are talking about New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania in 2001. Different time, different place - get it? You have no right to tell me, or anybody else, how to mourn. Fuck you very much. J. Stroud
Syracuse, New York

He raises an interesting point (the part before the fuck you part) and I thought that responding would be a good way for me to explain a bit more regarding my reasoning and intentions. Here it is:

Dear J. Stroud,
I wasn't telling you how to mourn. My point was that everyone remembers some deaths while omitting others. For example, my friend Pat was killed by a truck this past January 31. If I want to light a candle for Pat this coming January 31, without having to light candles for all other bunnies run over by trucks on every January 31 since the beginning of time (and believe me, that would be a lot of candles) of course I'd be totally entitled to do that. But a personal memorial service for a single bunny is not the same as a national day of remembrance wherein an entire nation reflects upon a violent, traumatic, history-changing event. One is personal (me & Pat), the other involves the transformation and re-writing of an entire nation's identity - isn't that a big difference? What I'm saying is that for certain things I’m more interested in what nations end up doing, rather than individuals, especially when armies, bombs, and thousands of civilian deaths later become involved.The official response of the U.S. government to the September 11, 2001 attacks was to answer violence with more violence. So apparently revenge is a justifiable response to killing, which of course is not a new idea. That's why I placed September 11 (v. 2001) alongside the other September 11s (versions 1297, 1649, 1683, 1709, 1944, 1973, and 1982) - it was my way of pointing out that throughout history, many human beings have rejected life and peace in favor of death and war. I know there are always more than a few people out there who believe that life and peace are good, but the fact is that horrible things like these still happen. I'm trying to understand how and why.

Remembering September 11, 2001 as yet another example in a long line of human beings' failure to overcome their violent tendencies helps me to keep my eyes fixed on one of my long term goals: I want human beings to be more conscious of the suffering they create through their selfish thoughts and violent actions. I'm going to keep working towards that.

~pinky

Anniversary of the Modern Non-Violence Movement

​Posted by Bunny.

While Pinky posts her gloomy, all-bad-news September 11 entry over in her diary area, I'm going to remind everybody that September 11th is also the 100th anniversary of the birth of the modern non-violence movement. On September 11, 1906, Mohandas K. Gandhi first publicly put forth his call for a method of resisting violence with non-violence. Ironic, isn't it? Find this on the front page of your local newspaper!

We were also surprised to find out, after the fact, that Oahu public access TV Channel 56 aired our Pinky Show episode The American War: The U.S. in Vietnam this morning at 6:30 a.m. When we first submitted the program for broadcast we had actually been told that they were going to show our program starting September 30, but apparently somebody at Olelo decided to kick off their September 11's broadcast schedule with our show. We only found out when we started receiving phone calls from people telling us they had just finished watching it and really liked it (public access TV requires contact info at the end of every program). Nice…

~B.

Other September 11s

Posted by Pinky.

Those terrible airplane attacks happened on today's date, exactly five years ago. I just saw a newspaper poll that concluded that for Americans, "September 11 ranks as the most pivotal event in history".

The poll did not need to explicitly state that September 11 refers to the destruction of the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93 - everybody knows; it is assumed. But a quickie review of world history shows that September 11 has been a violent day many times over. Just a few examples:

September 11, 1297: The Battle of Stirling Bridge between Scottish and English forces. Over 5,000 people killed.

September 11, 1649: Oliver Cromwell's forces (English) massacre the Irish at Drogheda. Approximately 3,000 people killed.

September 11, 1683: The Battle of Vienna begins between the armies of the Ottoman Empire and various Central European kingdoms. Around 20,000 people killed.

September 11, 1709: The Battle of Malplaquet (France versus England/Netherlands/Austria). About 40,000 dead or wounded.

September 11, 1944: The RAF (British Air Force) firebombs Darmstadt, Germany. About 12,000 people killed.

September 11, 1973: A U.S.-supported coup deposes democratically elected President Salvadore Allende of Chile. From 1973-1990, military dictator Augusto Pinochet would murder, torture, and ‘disappear' the Chilean people by the tens of thousands.

September 11, 1982: Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila camps (Lebanon) are abandoned by international forces assigned to protect them, allowing Phalangist militia to enter the camps and massacre Palestinian refugees while Israeli forces seal the camps' perimeter. No one knows exactly how many civilians were killed - estimates range from 700 to 3,500 people killed.

Those who perished on those airplanes, or at the World Trade Center, or at the Pentagon, will be remembered today. These other victims of violence, for the most part, will not be mentioned or even remembered. If we believe that all life is precious, and we want to be respectful to all, then what to do?

~pinky