Na Ono o ka Aina / Delicacies of the Land

Posted by Pinky.

Hi everybody! Bunny just posted a great mini-documentary by Na Maka o ka Aina in the Pinky Presents area - it's called Na Ono o ka Aina / Delicacies of the Land. Some of you may not know much about kalo (taro) and its significance in Hawaii. Here's a little bit of background from Hawaii SEED:

"[Taro] is one of the single most well-known, important, and reliable plants in all of Polynesia, and the locals take a deep pride in its profound history. Various names for parts of the taro plant indicate its interwoven history with the Hawaiian people: the place where the stem meets the leaf is called the piko, or navel. The stem is the ha, the breath, and the cluster of shoots (or keiki, meaning children) that surround the mother plant are called an ohana, or family.

Here in Hawaii, the growing and cultivation of the kalo plant is a tradition that stretches back for more than a thousand years. The Hawaiians loved, honored, and cared for kalo and were in turn, as the creation story implies, fed and supported by it for generations and generations. By tending carefully the kalo, the Hawaiians eventually cultivated more than 300 varieties by selecting the plants for certain conditions, climates, and soils..."

Besides being an absolutely delicious food to eat, kalo has also been on people's mind lately for another more disturbing reason: there are bio-tech corporations who are trying to control, own, and exploit kalo in all kinds of very inappropriate ways. Many of the issues surrounding kalo are very similar to what's going on all over the Fourth World, as these corporations rush to own and commodify not only indigenous knowledge but also life itself. This is the context in which this mini-documentary was made.

A sincere thank you to Na Maka o ka Aina for allowing us to share this video with you on our website for a while.

Take care,
pinky

[ Update: This video is no longer available on our website. ]​​

I Want To Punch Your Face Now Shipping!

Posted by Pinky.

IWTPYF Update!

Monday afternoon: Two big boxes of I Want To Punch Your Face books arrive from the printers.

Monday night: Bunny & I stuff stuff stuff envelopes. I was happy that we were able to use all that wannabe recycled bubble-wrap we've been collecting over the past several months.

Tuesday morning: Go to the post office and send all the packages along on their way. We sent books all over the U.S., plus Hawaii, Canada, Mexico, UK, Germany, Italy, Poland, Italy, Slovenia...

All of us here at the Pinky Show want to say a big THANK YOU to everybody who ordered a book! We really enjoyed making it and sincerely hope you like it.

For those of you who ordered IWTPYF, if you have any comments after you've read it, please e-mail us. Mimi is in charge of marketing the book and wants gushing, hyperbolic reviews for the back cover. :o)

Take care,
pinky

New Episode + IWTPYF Update

Posted by Bunny.

Two things to announce.

1) We have a new episode: Hawaii vs. U.S. Imperialism. You'll notice that it says "Part 3" - yeah, due to some scheduling weirdness we finished Part 3 ahead of Parts 1 and 2. No biggie. It'll be easier to grasp the broader implications of "the Hawaii thing" when all the parts of the series can be seen together, and in-sequence, but I think there are still quite a few things in the episode that stand on their own, so I hope you enjoy this one in the meanwhile. Special thanks to Dr. Teacup, expert and teacher on the subject of U.S. Imperialism in the Department of Political Science, University of the Devastated Wilderness, who was a real joy to work with over the past year or so, while we collaborated to research and write this episode.​

Dr. Teacup

2. I Want To Punch Your Face update: We are expecting our first shipment of IWTPYF books from the printer on Monday, so this is your last chance to pre-order! All pre-orders will be signed by me and Pinky and also include a secret, special 4"x6" Pinky Show photo that you can't get anywhere else. After Monday, no more fun promotional gimmicks! [ click here to order ]

Okay, that's all for now. More stuff coming soon.

~Bunny.​

Today in Congress

Posted by Bunny.

I know I spend a lot of time bad-mouthing American politicians - I don't like them. Recently I've decided to stop watching those guys on CSPAN while I eat lunch - two times I threw up because of the ridiculous lies they heap upon the American people, not to mention the rest of the world. But once in a while someone has the audacity to say something honest and clear, like today, while debating the war supplemental:

"Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, had no intention or capability of attacking United States, had nothing to do with Al-Qaida's role in 9/11, and each and every statement made by the previous administration in support of going to war turned out to be false.

"Yet here we are. A new administration and the same old war, with an expansion of the war in Afghanistan. We cannot afford these wars. We cannot afford these wars spiritually. They are wars of aggression and they are based on lies. We cannot afford these wars financially. They add trillions to our national debt and destroy our domestic agenda. We cannot afford the human cost of these wars, the loss of lives of our beloved troops and the deaths of innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. So, why do we do this? Why do we keep funding wars when they are so obviously against truth and justice and when they undermine our military? These are matters of heart and conscience, which must be explored. Our ability to bring an end to these wars will be the real test of our power." - Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)

This guy ran for president the past couple of times. It's easy to see why he got pounded each time.

~Bunny.

6/16 Update: Congress approves the funding. How did your representatives vote? (link to Office of the Clerk)

The Challenge: How To Kill Faster, and From Farther Away

Posted by Pinky.

Every day, Bunny and I try to find at least a little bit of time to sit and chat about what we'd like to see happen during our lifetime. Sometimes we discuss desirable futures that lie beyond our approaching deaths. We know we won't be able to achieve all of it - in fact, much of the things we end up talking about invariably involves the efforts of many others we aren't even in communication with. But still, we think it's important to keep our eyes focused on the future even as we do our day to day work with our minds and bodies rooted firmly in the present.

One of the reasons why we started making time for this kind of (symbolic?) conversation a few years ago, was the realization that our ideological adversaries have been engaged in this kind of productive-dreaming for a long time. They've got the process institutionalized. And while we may not want the same things they want, we are very impressed with their ability to make their dreams come true. Just a few examples: the automobile, the machine gun, public schools, the atom bomb, the ICBM. Now the professional dreamers at the Pentagon are offering up a new dream - it's called PGS, short for Prompt Global Strike. Given their creativity and the enormous material resources they have at their disposal, I would not be surprised if eventually PGS becomes real.​

Illustration from Popular Mechanics' Render Room.

Basically PGS works like this: 1) You find out - somehow (satellite, unmanned spy drone, or even some old-fashioned form of "intelligence" gathering) - that there is a person or a group of people somewhere, doing something, that you'd really like to kill. They can be thousands of miles away or even on the other side of the planet. 2) You input your "intelligence" into a computer, which then feeds the information to a super-high-speed missile, and press the big red 'DIE' button. 3) The missle launches, travels to its far-away destination via the exoatmosphere at hypersonic speed, then falls down on the unsuspecting target (and, presumably, any other non-lucky non-targets in close proximity) and *poof* - the 'target' is 'neutralized'. It's kind of like an ICBM, except WAY faster, non-nuclear, and the target doesn't necessarily have to be big and stationary (like a whole city, or a military installation) in order to be shot at.

The Pentagon says "we" "need" a weapon system like PGS because of the "ever-evolving" "nature" of "threats" to "national security". No mention of how complicated things get when our so-called enemies are forced to live under a purpose-built umbrella of instant death of human design. I wonder, do these Pentagon guys really want to live in the world they are creating? I don't mean that rhetorically, I really do wonder that in the most practical way.

Feeling more than a little creeped out,
pinky

....................................

Posted by Bunny: I think you are missing the point on the question of motivation. To be able to strike down a rival person or group of people without having to actually fight them - can humans resist such God-like powers?

....................................

Posted by Pinky: I think there are plenty of human beings who would be happy to resist that kind of "power".

....................................

Posted by Bunny: Name five. This is an example of how you like human beings way more than I do.

....................................

Kim: How come you guys keep saying "human beings" when it's mostly people in the U.S. that's on the leading edge of innovating this stuff?

....................................

E-mail response from one of our readers:

Dear Cats, Thanks for your thoughts on the omnipotent killing device our military is planning. Unfotunately, we have a simillar system now known as UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). These can be flown in Afghanistan yet operated from Virginia, USA. Imagine that, fly an unmanned plane around half way around the world, locate a target and "Take them out" all with just a joy stick. Then, hop in the car and hit Arbie's for lunch and maybe run the Mustang through the car wash on the way back to the office. To kill some more. The problem I see is this fellow in Virginia keeps mistaking Wedding Parties in the dessert for terrorist meetings. It must be that the thinking is - who the heck would have a wedding in a dessert? They must be terrorists! (from Ian)

....................................

Posted by Pinky: Funny you should mention UAV. About a yearor two ago we were in the desert outside Las Vegas on the way back from visiting NTS (Nevada Test Site - by some standards the most heavily atomic-bombed place on this planet). We kept seeing these weird airplanes in the sky, at the time I remember thinking they looked like really big paper airplanes. After getting home we did some research and found out that those were MQ-9 Reapers flying out of Creech Air Force Base, Indian Springs, Nevada. We live so close to a major component of the U.S.'s War On Terror, "Remote Control Division", and didn't even know it.

photo from Wikipedia

The saddest part of this story is the death and dislocation this program has imposed on innocent civillians in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. It continues to be wrapped in an enormous lie, and most American people could care less. UAV stories here and here. ~ p.

Burned Kitty Needs Help

May 25: Doakes and Riggs got caught in a house fire. Riggs perished in the fire, somehow Doakes found a way to survive. He needs a lot of medical care now, please help him out.

Posted by Bunny.​

Doakes.

Extra 30 Minutes Before Bed Yields Yet Another T-Shirt Design

Posted by Pinky.

Thirty minutes ago I was somewhere between too tired to work and not quite sleepy enough to fall asleep immediately if I'd climbed into bed. So I decided to make another t-shirt design (as if we didn't already have too many). Here it is:​

I made this because today Kim and I were talking about how lately Bunny has been the grumpiest thing ever. So grumpy.

Okay, now it's 3:30am and I'm really ready for bed. Goodnight!

~pinky

....................................

Posted by Bunny: Okay, so I'm grumpy for a few days in a row. Who cares. Not like I talk to you guys everyday. I would like it better if it said "NOT A LOLCAT".

....................................

Posted by Kim: Maybe you don't say anything but we still have to look at your big, grumpy face all day and listen to the sound of your big feet stomping around. And you keep on going "grrr" and "rrgh!" and stuff like that, which is really annoying when I'm just trying to enjoy my coffee.

....................................

Posted by Bunny: Excuse me for living.

....................................

Posted by Kim: I'll excuse you for being so grumpy if you put a bag over your head.

....................................

Posted by Bunny: Same result if I put a bag over your head.

The U.S. vs. Gog & Magog

Posted by Bunny.

Apparently there is some anecdotal evidence coming to light that President Bush actually did have a really good reason to invade Iraq: God told him to do it. He (Bush - not God) was very determined to fight the forces of Satan and rid the world of God's enemies in the Middle East. Somewhere in this whole bizarre story are Satan's allies, Gog and Magog.

View fullsize

"In 2003 while lobbying leaders to put together the Coalition of the Willing, President Bush spoke to France's President Jacques Chirac. Bush wove a story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and how they must be defeated... In the same year he spoke to Chirac, Bush had reportedly said to the Palestinian foreign minister that he was on 'a mission from God' in launching the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and was receiving commands from the Lord."​

Interesting? Completely insane? Read more here.

~B.

....................................

Posted by Kim: I asked Pinky to draw Gog wearing a very dense fur coat, that’s how I imagine him.

Tiny Bird Story

Posted by Pinky.

Yesterday afternoon Bunny and I were wandering around a school campus, just passing some time before a meeting we were going to got started. We were walking under a tree when I heard a sound - pat!

Bunny: Hey, that bird just fell out of the tree.

It was a very tiny bird, looked like she had just hatched pretty recently. She was lying on the grass, not able to walk or speak.

Me: Do you think we should feed her?

Bunny: I think she's going to die.

Me: Maybe we can find a paper cup or a little box or something and put her in there.

Bunny: She just fell 20 feet onto the ground. I think we should prepare her for death. Oh, she's dead.

I looked at the bird again and she'd stopped moving.

Bunny had some napkins in her backpack so I put the tiny bird on some napkins and then loosely wrapped her up. I could feel through the napkins her body was still warm. The ground in the area is hard and sandy and we didn't have anything to dig with, so I just put the small bundle under a small pile of leaves next to the school building.

Me: Is this disrespectful?

Bunny: Worms and ants have to eat.

Today, out of the blue, I receive a postcard from my friend. It had a quote on it:

"Thus shall you think of all this fleeting world; a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. ~ Buddha

I'd been wondering to myself why that tiny bird would be born into this world, only to leave just a few days later. But I suppose that’s all of us.

~pinky

Pinky Show featured in elPeriódico!

Posted by Pinky.

¡Hola! A couple of days ago we received an e-mail from a Mr. Hernández of elPeriódico de Guatemala (a daily newspaper) informing us that he wrote a short article about our We Love Museums... episode, as this past Monday was "International Museum Day". We are always very happy to be written about, but to make an appearance in a Guatemalan newspaper is extra special for us since we got to meet some of the H.I.J.O.S. people last year in Slovenia (we miss you!!!). We have been doing some studying about the history of Guatemala since then and also (slooowly) trying to learn Spanish.

Here is the article - please click on the picture below to open a bigger PDF version.​

Or you can read a translated-to-English (thanks Google) version by clicking here.

Thank you to Mr. Hernández! The elPeriódico de Guatemala website is at: http://www.elperiodico.com.gt/

Take care,
pinky

....................................

Posted by Kim: I have never seen my face that big before! Wow! I feel famous!

Visit to Lynette's Class

Posted by Pinky.

Please don't mind me - just parking some resources here for a presentation I'll be doing next week. The following illustrations are from Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis's classic Schooling in Capitalist America (1976):

View fullsize

​Bowles & Gintis, Figure 5-1.

View fullsize

​Bowles & Gintis, Table 7-1.

View fullsize

Bowles & Gintis, Figure 8-1.

View fullsize

​Bowles & Gintis, Figure 5-4.

The first page of Chapter 1 from the same book:

Those who take meat from the table
Preach of contentment...
Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry
Of wonderful times to come...
Those who lead the country into the abyss
Call ruling too difficult
For the ordinary.
- Bertolt Brecht, 1937

"Go West, young man!" advised Horace Greeley in 1851. A century later, he might have said: "Go to college!"

The Western Frontier was the nineteenth-century land of opportunity. In open competition with nature, venturesome white settlers found their own levels, unfettered by birth or creed. The frontier was a way out - out of poverty, out of dismal factories, out of the crowded Eastern cities. The frontier was the Great Escape.

Few escaped. Railroad companies, mine owners, and before long, an elite of successful farmers and ranchers soon captured both land and opportunity. The rest were left with the adventure of making ends meet. But throughout the nineteenth century, the image of the frontier sustained the vision of economic opportunity and unfettered personal freedom in an emerging industrial system offering little of either.

And now a couple of old quotes from the same book.

The government of schools... should be arbitrary. By this mode of education we prepare our youth for the subordination of laws and thereby qualify them for becoming good citizens of the republic. I am satisfied that the most useful citizens have been formed from those youth who have not known or felt their own wills til they were one and twenty years of age. (Benjamin Rush, 1786)

In order to compensate for lack of family nurture, the school is obliged to lay more stress upon discipline and to make far more prominent the moral phase of education. It is obliged to train the pupil into habits of prompt obedience to his teachers and the practice of self-control in its various forms. (from a statement signed by seventy-seven college presidents and city and state school superintendents and published by the U.S. government in 1874)

Blocking exercise:

1) Time spent in life. (sleeping, eating, transportation, TV/movies, etc.)
2) Time spent at work.
3) Areas of study and consciousness.
4) Participation in Dominant Economies.

And finally, two points of reference that I'll be using in the talk (from Terry Eagleton's Ideology: an introduction):

1) Ideology is a group of ideas characteristic of a particular social class which help to legitimate a dominant political power over other social classes.

2) The process of legitimating these ideas generally follow one or more of the following strategies: promoting agreeable beliefs and values; naturalizing and universalizing such beliefs so as to render them self-evident and apparently inevitable; denigrating ideas which might challenge them; excluding rival forms of thought, perhaps by some unspoken but systematic logic; and obscuring social reality in ways convenient to itself (a.k.a. 'mystification').

Aung San Suu Kyi Needs Your Support NOW

Posted by Pinky.

One of the people I respect a lot is Aung San Suu Kyi.

After nearly two decades of almost continuous imprisonment she is in imminent danger of being re-sentenced to another 5 years of confinement. The international community needs to show the government of Myanmar that we are all witnesses to their actions - please help us flood their offices with demands for her release! The Amnesty International website has a pre-written letter that you can send if you don't want to (or don't have time to) write your own personalized letter. It literally takes only 1 minute - please go here: These letter-sending campaigns often really do make a difference!

Thank you,
pinky

1st Pinky Show Book ETA: June 2009

We finally have an estimated arrival time for our upcoming book I Want To Punch Your Face: a picture book by Pinky & Bunny - assuming all goes well it looks like it'll be available around mid-June. Thank you to everyone for being so patient!

• Story by Pinky and Bunny
• 20-something cat drawings by Pinky
• Pretty red cover with Bunny's big grumpy face on it
• Softcover; approx. 8 x 6 inches

And finally, here are a few answers to questions we've received via e-mail. (answers by Pinky)

Q: What's the book about?
A: We made the book to help people think and talk about the effects of violence.

Q: Is this a children's book?
A: The book does look sort of like a children's book but actually we wrote it with adults in mind. This book is mostly pictures and not so much text (probably a third grader would have no problem reading it), but we see violence as being a problem more among adults than children. So I guess you could say that this is a children's book (format) for adults (intended audience).

Q: Where can I get this book?
A: For starters IWTPYF will be available through our website in June 2009. We'll post more information about this as soon as the books arrive from the printing people.

Posted by Mimi.

Friday, 5/29 UPDATE!

We finally have new information to pass along to you today. The printers say they are 14 days - maybe less - away from shipping our first batch of I Want To Punch Your Face books to us. Then the books will probably take another week to get to us via USPS. I've asked Bunny to set up a pre-order form in the PS Store (go here), and for anyone who pre-orders a copy (or copies) of IWTPYF, I will personally see to it that Pinky & Bunny tastefully autograph your book on the inside cover. I already have a nice pen selected. Is that cool?

IWTPYF will be $12.95 per book, and as always, the shipping cost will just be whatever the U.S. Post Office charges us plus the cost of the mailing envelope (we don't make money on shipping).

ALL PROCEEDS FROM THE SALE OF THIS BOOK SUPPORT THE PINKY SHOW PROJECT. Pre-order the book here.

Posted by Mimi.

Friday, 6/5 UPDATE!

The first shipment of books is scheduled to arrive Monday, June 15. We promise to stuff envelopes that night as fast as possible and hopefully we'll have the orders sent out Tuesday. For every one who has pre-ordered IWTPYF, thank you! We've already received orders from all across the U.S., the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Slovenia, Italy, and more! Exciting!

Posted by Mimi.​

Marketing IWTPYF: Mimi in Charge

Pinky & Bunny have assigned me the responsibility of marketing the I Want To Punch Your Face book. I don't know anything about marketing so if any of you have ideas about how to market an anti-violence picture book please send comments to me care of the info@ e-mail. Click the book's cover (below) for more info about the book.

In other "news", recently I found a very interesting PBS/Bill Moyers interview of Dr. William K. Black on YouTube. It's a nice compact summary of how the financial industry imploded and the logic behind the subsequent bailout. I highly recommend it.​

Posted by Mimi.

Bunny Mailbag: Where are the solutions?

Posted by Bunny.

E-mail from anonymous moron, with my comments interspersed in green:

Hey Bunny, From your past blogs I noticed that I consistently don't like you. [Please excuse me for not caring.] Your always grouchy. Why are you always grouchy? [I'm not always grouchy. You should see me with ice cream in a cone.] Why so negative? [Since I'm too "negative" for you, perhaps instead you should write to Pinky. She has very good manners and won't actually tell you what a douchebag you are.] Maybe someone forgot to brush you ha ha. [Ha ha... *bored*] So my question is this the Pinky Show is always pointing out what's wrong with the whole wolrd but you don't ever provide solutions to anything. It's a lot harder to come up with a solution and easy to complain. That's what I had to say. [That's not a question but alright...]

Okay, this is something Pinky and I used to disagree on a lot, especially when we first started working on the Pinky Show. We couldn't agree on whether or not at the end of each episode we should include spelled-out "solutions" for people to take away. Pinky's position is that human beings are intelligent and flexible enough to come up with all kinds of possible solutions; my position is that there's a lot of stupid people out there and it wouldn't hurt to spoon-feed them answers. So we've had many, many conversations and arguments about which way to go.

To make a long story short, basically we agreed to focus more on the process of asking questions (short episodes) or doing structural analyses (longer episodes) without wrapping each episode with a set of "solutions". The rationale for this is that, in general, we think too many people tend to fixate on "solving" problems they don't actually understand. By eliminating or minimizing the solution part, we're hoping to direct more attention towards understanding the nature of problems. So, it is a calculated trade-off. Pinky has a tremendous amount of confidence in people's ability to produce fair and sensible solutions to a problematic situation when the situation is seen for what it really is. (For all you postmodern losers out there asking yourself "But what is really real?" - forget it, you're hopeless) Personally I am less impressed with human beings' track record regarding fairness and logic; I'm more interested in the open nature of Pinky Show episodes because I think that lets it function a little better as a sort of ethical Rorschach test.

Next e-mail, this one from Patricia:

Hi Pinky, I enjoy your show but I am curious why you only criticize America? Why don't you have any episodes about Chinas treatment of Tibet? What about suppression of Buddhist dissent in Myanmar?...

Thanks Patricia, I'll respond to your question even though you weren't talking to me. Simplified answer: 1) Our focus is America because we live here. 2) Because 60% of our viewers are U.S. Americans. 3) The most direct way for us to reduce the total amount of violence circulating globally is to stop/reduce America's contribution to the international violence-economy (unfortunately America is #1 when it comes to cultivating and exporting many forms of violence). Which isn't to say that violence perpetrated in other places is any less worthy of criticism - we're happy to note that there are many others out there criticizing away and I'm sure they'll keep going till the cows come home. For ourselves, our main goal is to tidy up our own house before going over to someone else's house to vacuum, dust-mop, and so on. Not that "we" actually own this house, but that is a whole other can of worms.

End of Bunny Mailbag for today. See you all later.

~B.

Life Over Death

Posted by Pinky.

For many reasons, I don't believe in the death penalty - a very practical one being that it has been well-documented that many innocent people have been wrongly put to death.

Troy Davis is two weeks from execution in the state of Georgia, even though there is a considerable amount of evidence to suggest that Troy Davis may be innocent. 7 of the 9 prosecution's witnesses at Mr. Davis's trial have since recanted or contradicted their testimony. Several of the witnesses have said that they made their statements under intense police pressure and coercion. There needs to be a hearing on the question of the reliability of the evidence that was used to convict Mr. Davis - not an execution!

In order to stop his execution, people need to speak up. Please send a pre-written letter (or write your own, that's great too) to Sonny Perdue, the Governor of Georgia, regarding this matter. It only takes a minute and really could save a man's life (it's happened before). [ click here ]

Short, powerful video: Interview with an Executioner (2003). Please watch and forward to friends!

Take care,
pinky​

World Pinhole Photography Day

Posted by Pinky.

Hi everybody! Did you know that today is World Pinhole Photography Day? Oh okay you already knew that, sorry. Anyway, to celebrate the great history & fun of pinhole cameras this morning Bunny and I pulled our pinhole camera out of the closet and we'll be going out in a few minutes to make some pinhole pictures. Maybe your pinhole camera would like some exercise too? Have fun today!

Take care,
pinky

View fullsize

Sample pinhole camera photo by Valeriy Kapenko @ Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day website. Pretty, isn't it?

Here Comes a Pinky Show Book

Posted by Bunny.

I just posted a "What's New" about this but also wanted to mention here. Pinky and I recently finished work on a picture book on the subject of violence. It will be available pretty soon, but we don't actually have a firm arrival date for the first shipment. All I know for certain so far:

• it will have a soft cover;
• the size will be about 8" x 6";
• it has many excellent pictures of cats-in-conflict inside;
• you'll like it so much you'll keep reading it over and over until the corner of each page is filthy;
• my face is on the cover.

I don't think we're going to stop making videos but I have to say, making this book was a lot more fun than making videos.

If you're not already signed up for our newsletter and would like to be kept up-to-date re: the upcoming PS book, please sign up for our newsletter.

Ttyl,
Bunny

Lots of New Stuff Getting Done!

Posted by Bunny.

Sorry, it's been a long while since I last posted an update. We've been in a good work-groove lately and working crazy long hours. We like to get as much work done as possible when things are flowing nicely. So finally, here are some updates:

First: Kaho'olawe was super good. Pinky and I came back physically very tired, but also feeling very inspired to jump back into work. So we did. We made a short video slideshow about our trip to Kaho'olawe, which we'll probably release in June.

Second: We're done with Part 3 of our Hawaii series - Hawaii vs. U.S. Imperialism. I'm happy with the way it came out. We learned a lot doing the research for this episode. Our favorite part was that we got to work closely with Dr. Teacup from UDW, who is totally amazing. And, in the video, I got to wear a nice-looking suit in one part. We're currently planning to show this episode to a Hawaii audience in mid-May. We're organizing a series of community education events to go along with that. It's funny to finish Part 3 before Parts 1 & 2 are completed, but that's just how the scheduling worked out. Watching the series out of order may make it a little hard to follow for the moment, but a year from now none of this will matter.

Three: We've been preparing for an interview we'll be doing with Dr. Patrick Wolfe, one of the world's foremost experts on the subject of settler colonialism. Unless Pinky or Dr. Wolfe prove to be totally boring and/or uninformative, which I doubt, we'll be releasing that video soon as well.

Four: Pinky and I just finished making our first book. It's a picture book on the subject of violence. When the books arrive from the printers I'll send out an announcement to everybody who's signed up for our newsletter. The subject matter is a little dark for something that kind of looks like a children's book, but that’s okay, we wanted to do it anyway.

Stay tuned!

Bunny

Bunny & I going to Kaho'olawe

Posted by Pinky.

Hi everybody!

Sorry we've gotten so behind with our e-mail correspondence lately. Bunny and I are furiously trying to finish up some production work before heading off to Kaho'olawe. We got an unexpected invitation to go to Kaho'olawe and we immediately jumped at the opportunity. For us it will probably be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I'd heard that if you want to go there usually you have to put your name on a waiting list and then you sit there for maybe a couple of years before it's finally your turn. But the way this unfolded was that we were talking to an anthropologist friend of ours the other week and out of the blue she says, I'm going to Kaho'olawe - you wanna come too? YES WE WANT TO GO TOO!​

View fullsize

View fullsize

​While we're there we'll be planting various flora (long-term re-vegetation project) and moving rocks around. In our spare time we'll try to take photos and record our impressions of whatever we see there. The U.S. military seized Kaho'olawe immediately after the start of World War II and bombed & shot at that tiny island for around 50 years as a "practice target" and training area. As you can imagine this little island is pretty messed up so we're going to try our best to try to heal it at least a little bit.

We're not going to have computer access or even electricity while we're on Kaho'olawe. I hear the stars are amazing but I'm not looking forward to bathing in the ocean (yuck). We'll get re-attached to the internet as soon as we get back, unless we step on UXO or drown during the landing. Please cross fingers for us!

[ click here if you never heard of Kaho'olawe ]

Take care,
pinky