Filtering by Category: 2009

Bunny Mailbag: Is Canada So Great We Should Kiss Its Ass?

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Posted by Bunny.

So I guess Jordan from yesterday's Bunny Mailbag was offended by my resonse and took it upon himself to write back. Here's an excerpt:

...I knew you guys would say that you hate Columbus becaues that's the typical response from socialist fucktards like you. I see you'll be in Canada soon so why not just stay there. YOu think they're a utopian paradise? WHAT A JOKE. THEY have the SAME SHIT going on over there and OVERALL it's WORSE. So enjoy your time kissing Canadian ASS and I hope you get detained at the border trying to re-enter the US! Jordan

Hilarious. I'll just make a few points:

1. I don't hate Columbus because I'm a socialist. (When did I say I was a socialist?) I just have a problem with greedy, slave-trading, genocidal maniacs. Plus, he was a poor administrator. Do I need more reasons?

2. Whether we live in Canada or the U.S., we'll still keep up with our critique of U.S. hegemony, thank you very much. Why? Simply because the U.S. remains #1 in messing up the planet. Don't take it so personal, sheesh. As soon as the U.S. steps back from these bad habits, we'll turn our attention to other topics, such as cross-stitching, which is an excellent hobby, by the way. Everyone - even Jordan - should try it.

3. And finally, here's a mini-checklist just I threw together to help answer that profound question advanced by our fan Jordan: "Should We Kiss Canada's Ass: Yes or No?"

Have single-payer health care? Yes.
Have massive drop-dead stupid-scary oil sand project? Yes.
Have homeless people? Lots.
Settler state structure? Yes, just like U.S.
Signed UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples? No, just like U.S.
Signed Convention on Cluster Munitions Treaty? Yes, unlike U.S.
Military spending as % of GDP? 111th in world (U.S. 1st, of course)
Invaded Iraq with U.S.? No.
n Afghanistan? Yes.
Have nuclear weapons? No.
Thinks they own the North Pole? Yes.
Hockey or Baseball? Hockey.
Responsible for making Top Gun & Pretty Woman? No.
Who has prettier flag, U.S. or Canada? Canada.
Tastier ice cream: U.S. or Canada? We'll find out when we get there.

So there it is. Go kiss Canada’s ass if you feel like it, nobody cares.

~Bunny.

P.S. When I get to Canada I will be looking for one of these things (below). A guy I know told me they are large enough to ride.​

canadiangoose.jpg

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Posted by Kim: Isn't Julia Roberts Canadian? Wouldn't that make Canada at least partly responsible for Pretty Woman?

​....................................

Posted by Bunny: No, she's not Canadian. Which is another plus for Canada, I suppose.

Bunny Mailbag: Celebrating Columbus Day

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Posted by Bunny.

From our e-mail:

Hi Pinky & Bunny, I notice you guys haven't been very actively lately. I was wondering How are you planning on celebrating Columbus Day today? What is your take on all these people who say he was a murderer? Do you agree? Josh

My reply to Josh:

"Not very active lately"? Don't piss me off.

And regarding Columbus Day, we're going to celebrate the same way most everybody else celebrates Columbus Day here in America. First we're going to watch baseball on TV, then we'll toast Columbus beer, then finally we'll drive our automobile to a shopping mall so we can BUY THINGS. We celebrate all our genocidal favorites (Alexander, Hitler, Henry Kissinger, Pol Pot, etc.) on their respective special days like this. Why, you do it different?

~Bunny.

Incidentally, Venezuelans should lay off the history books. ~B.

PS in Oh Dear! Magazine

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Posted by Bunny.

Oh Dear! magazine is a cool online magazine for all you D.I.Y. girls out there. And guess what - The Pinky Show is on page 78 in this month's issue. What does it say? I don't know but Pinky is translating it as part of her attempt to learn Spanish.

ohdearmag01.jpg

I hope we get huge in Mexico. Oh Dear! magazine is at:

[ www.ohdearzine.com ]

~Bunny.

Let's Crash Some Shit Into The Moon And See What Happens

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Posted by Pinky.

Okay, I think I'm a fairly reasonable cat when it comes to scientific inquiry, but this experiment just makes me sad beyond words. According to NASA:

illustration: NASA.

illustration: NASA.

"The Mission Objectives of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) include confirming the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the Moon's South Pole. The identification of water is very important to the future of human activities on the Moon. LCROSS will excavate the permanently dark floor of one of the Moon's polar craters with two heavy impactors in 2009 to test the theory that ancient ice lies buried there. The impact will eject material from the crater's surface to create a plume that specialized instruments will be able to analyze for the presence of water (ice and vapor), hydrocarbons and hydrated materials."

"Excavate"? Are they joking?

If you have a 10-inch telescope or larger you'll actually be able to see the impact from Earth. The resulting damage from the impact of these spacecrafts (actually missiles) striking the surface at over 5,000 m.p.h. is expected to be spread over an area several miles wide. Is this a respectful way to go about learning things? Does this remind anybody of settlers' attitude toward and exploitation of "frontier lands"?

Disgusting. The moon-bombing is set to happen on Oct 9.

To read more agency-speak, click here.

Better yet, watch this awesome video. (thanks Hugo & Jordan!)​

~pinky

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Posted by Kim: That's moon abuse. Scientists should follow some kind of ethical guidelines when they are designing experiments, like "Would you be okay doing this experiment to your own mommy?" If not, then probably you shouldn't be doing it!

I Want To Punch Your Face @ AK Press

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Posted by Bunny.

If you had to name the single most ass-kicking book publisher in the U.S., who would it be?

Well, I'm sure a lot of people would say "AK Press".

And guess what? The AK Press is now distributing I Want To Punch Your Face. So that is very cool. Oh, by the way, make sure you check out the rest of their offerings. They have amazing stuff.

[ www.AKPress.com ]

Over 5 million YouTube Views

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Posted by Bunny.

A couple of days ago we passed the 5 million views mark at YouTube. I'm pretty sure the majority of those people hate us but we're happy to be the fly in their soup.

Someone recently asked us how many total viewers we have. The short answer is we don't know. In addition to YouTube, we also have people watching PS episodes at our website (which also is easy to count), but there's also lots of people coming across our stuff on various public access TV stations across the U.S., or watching downloaded videos or DVDs in classrooms and other offline situations. So we don't even try to count those ones. I'm sure there are sophisticated methodologies that marketing people use to guesstimate viewership in circumstances like ours, but we don't bother because we wouldn't know what we'd do with that information anyway.

I think 7 million views (the ones we can easily count) is a pretty decent amount of views. We’d like to have more, but if you give me a choice between coming up with a marketing plan and reading a history book… you know. So, main thing - thank you to all of you who've taken the time to tell your friends about The Pinky Show.

~Bunny.

Bunny Mailbag: Stopping the Holocaust, Swimming, etc.

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cat_bunny_mailbag.jpg

I haven't done any public replying to e-mail in a while, but since Pinky is busy with painting at the moment I thought I'd answer some e-mail today. The first one is from a viewer in Germany:

dear bunny, there is something i've been thinking about, watching your film [Hawaii vs. U.S. Imperialism] i like how you point out and analyze american imperialism. (but) seeing germany in a list with vietnam and other countries as "colonized" is really weird for me. anti-facists, jewish people and non-fascists from all over europe were really glad the usa helped stop WWII... it finally put an end to holocaust, murder, and genocide by the germans [...] just to give you an impression from an anti-fascist post-war perspective. i'd love to see your work in an art show or in a discussion in europe somewhere. any plans in that direction? viele grüße, panda

My reply to panda:

hi panda,

if i remember correctly, including germany on the list (the long list towards the end of our hawaii vs. US imperialism video) was based on the US's extensive military presence there, plus US military and CIA activities on german soil. we were pointing to how the US has made germany a part of its global imperial structure; it is not a "colony" in the classic sense.

what you say about US fighting in WWII is true - if the US did not fight germany, i would guess that probably even more atrocities against jews and other marginalized people would have occurred. we are definitely NOT suggesting that anything like genocide should ever be unchallenged. what we ARE saying that it is important to examine the inconsistencies and contradictions of US interventionism. for example, if the reasons the US gave as a moral justification for fighting germany were true ("we must enter into this war to stop genocide" or "we must fight fascism/support democracy"), then why have these reasons not also required the US to intervene in parallel circumstances? even a quick look at history shows that the US intervenes in some cases but not others. in fact, there are many examples where the US goes to a foreign country and destroys their democratic government, or supports or commits genocide. why is this? does the US just not know what it's doing? (unlikely) or are there other factors besides moral imperatives that make the US leaders commit violent actions with their military and/or economic weapons? (i think so) this is why we say a situation like WWII cannot be analyzed only according to 'moral justifications' ("we have to stop genocide & fascism"). if we confine ourselves to this kind of logic we will not be able to understand why the US also engages in anti-democratic or even genocidal actions in other situations. however, when we do an analysis that takes into consideration 'imperialism' (what it is, how it works, what it needs to continue, and so on) - well, then suddenly a lot of things that at first seem like contradictions can be explained. so, there are many forces at work!

regarding pinky show in europe, we are going to have a small thing in a group show in belgrade in january. but besides that right now we have no invitations from anybody in europe. europe is very exciting to us, we have only been there one time, for a trip to slovenia last year. we get a lot of emails from germany though, so maybe one day something will happen and we will be able to go. we want to learn more about situations outside the US - our analysis is from a US perspective and often doesn't directly translate to other political & social contexts very well, so we are always trying to learn more.

peace,
bunny

Here's another e-mail from Valerie:

Hello Pinky and Bunny... I just watched the 13 Things I Learned at Kahoolawe episode and I really liked it alot. It has a sweet, gentle feel to it while sharing very valuable lessons and insights. You are amazing. Thank you. Valerie P.S...I think cats CAN actually swim, they just don't like to (except Tigers, I think)

My reply:

Hi Valerie. I'm happy you liked the video. We would be super happy if it moved even one person to start fighting against the widespread abuse of this planet. Even if we just started with a tiny sub-category of the broader problem, like, for example, challenging the military to stop destroying native people's most sacred places - we still would have TONS of work to do. Kahoolawe needs lots of help, and there are many other Kahoolawes too, not just in Hawaii but all over the world. Oh, regarding the other thing, yeah, I assumed I could swim too (I've seen videos of swimming cats before) but when I got into the water I found out that actually I can't swim and almost died. So I won't be doing that again. Tigers, yeah, I think they have huge feet. Take care, Bunny

Okay, last one, from a guy named Mark:

I watched the episode on illegal immigration. Weren't native American Indians settlers too? Nothing is fair and people have been taking other peoples stuff since human existence. That's just the way it is...

My reply:

First thing: "Weren't native American Indians settlers too?" Good question. The answer is no. Please study settler colonialism. I recommend Patrick Wolfe. It's not "easy reading" but it'll take you far. Do a search for Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology - it's on Google Books.

Second thing: "Nothing is fair and people have been taking other peoples stuff since human existence. That's just the way it is." This is a good example of using (arguably) true statements in order to justify moral weakness. Yes, human beings have been jerks througout history - so what? Surrendering to the inevitability of abuse just makes it far easier to continue. - Bunny

About a month ago Pinky and I were hanging out with a friend, and we were just talking about social justice or whatever, when he asked Pinky why she is so obsessed with learning about and fighting against all the bad stuff in this world. I work with Pinky day in and day out and we talk about these kinds of things all the time, but her answer surprised me. She said something like, "In the future, I don't want our descendants to look back and know that we were cowards."

So that's the end of today's Bunny Mailbag, cuz now it's my turn to cook lunch.

~Bunny.

Japanese Small Box Toys

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Posted by Bunny.

Yesterday Pinky and I made our monthly trek to the Marukai Store, which is kind of like the mother ship of all Japanese Supermarkets here in California. Besides stocking up on Japanese snack foods the one thing that jumped out at us was their large selection of small box-toys. You know those small box-toys from Japan? In case you don't know here's how they work: each toy-box shows a selection of possible toys on the back of the box, but then they don't tell you which toy is actually inside. Which means you have to keep buying boxes and boxes of toys until you finally get the specific toy you want. Some of the toys are really cool but making you buy a bunch of toys you don't want is not my idea of "exciting" - it's WEAK. Anyway, this is the toy-series that had my attention:​

j-cattoy_box_sm.jpg

​They have little cat statues inside. Most of the cat statues in this series looked pretty boring to me but two of them looked kind of like me and Pinky. And I figured out if I squeeze the box a certain way I could peek inside, so I stood there and squeezed all the boxes and eventually I found the two toys that I wanted. So here's what I bought - this one looks just like Pinky:

j-cattoy_pinky_sm.jpg

​Pooping. It even has a bunch of wheat grass, which is funny because she loves wheat grass for real. She's always saying, "Do we have any wheat grass?" even when we don't have any wheat grass, it's so irritating. Here is the other one, it looks like me, sort of.

j-cattoy_bunny_sm.jpg

​Actually I'm a lot better looking than this in real life but I thought it was good that it came with a computer because I really like computers.

I've never been to Japan but I want to go one day because their toys and food is really good.

In other news, Pinky is still painting every day in preparation for our upcoming Winnipeg show; I'm working on everything else.

~B.

We Are Painting

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Posted by Pinky.

Hi Everybody! I hope everybody is doing good. Some of your e-mails have been asking about what we've been up to since returning from our walk in the desert. Well, lots of things!

1. continue work on settler colonialism episodes
2. working with Teacup on hegemony project
3. planted a mini-garden (then we ate it)

But the biggest thing we've been working on is to prepare for our upcoming Pinky Show exhibition at the University of Winnipeg Art Gallery. The exhibition is going to be from November 12 to December 12, 2009 and is titled Class Treason Stories (excerpts).​

1c03-intaglio_v04.jpg

The show will feature a brand new video made specially for the installation, a whole bunch of big, hand-painted banners, a viewing station to watch old PS videos, and some other stuff. Bunny and I are working super hard to make sure it will be a fun exhibition to visit, but also that it will have some brain-poking function in regards to questions of class treason - especially "what is it?", and "what does that have to do with me?", stuff like that.

Here are some photos of the banners taking shape.

Special thank you to HR02 & HR03 who are allowing us to use their studio to paint all these big things!

For more information about the upcoming exhibition, here is a PDF flier from the UWinnipeg Art Gallery:

Okay, back to painting.

Take care!
pinky

Photos from the Long Walk & Ride

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Posted by Bunny.

I'm posting some photos Pinky made during our recent mini-journey.​

This tree is in Southwest Colorado, near Cortez.

This tree is in Southwest Colorado, near Cortez.

Burned trees, also near Cortez.

Burned trees, also near Cortez.

Lonely sign, Petrified Forest National Park.

Lonely sign, Petrified Forest National Park.

Billboard, Route 66. I think this was in Arizona.

Billboard, Route 66. I think this was in Arizona.

Right near home. Death Valley.

Right near home. Death Valley.

​We are making some of our photos into an art project. We will post it in the PS Commons Gallery when we are finished.

~B.

We Are Back, WITH FRY BREAD RECIPE

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Posted by Pinky.

Hi everybody. Bunny and I finally got back home - very dusty and tired - but we're fine and nothing bad happened to us on our walk. I'm writing this as Bunny is (voluntarily) taking a bath.

Trip summary: It's been so hot this past couple of weeks we could hardly believe it. In some parts it got almost to 120° F (49° C). In fact it was so hot we didn't walk everywhere as planned and ended up riding in people's cars whenever possible. We met a lot of nice people and another good thing was that we were able to go a lot farther than if we'd just traveled by foot. After about a week we found ourselves in the Navajo Nation so we wandered around there for a little bit. One day I'll write down some of our experiences, either here or in an episode or something, but right now I think I'm going to lie down and rest for the rest of today.

Okay I think Bunny fell asleep in the tub so I'm going to tell you one story. While walking a little west of Petrified Forest National Park, I found some really great papers stuck to a fence alongside Interstate 40 (I'm always finding good stuff alongside highways). One of the papers is a story about Navajo fry bread. I liked it so I put it in my backpack and brought it home with me and now I'd like to share part of it with you. I don't know who the author is - if anybody reading this knows please e-mail me as I'd like to credit them.

"I like to give a little history on the Navajo fry bread. The Navajo fry bread actually evolved in the mid 19th century. In 1863, approximately 8,000 Navajos spent 4 years imprisoned at Fort Sumner, New Mexico and were given little more than white flour and lard to eat. American Scout Kit Carson and his troops drove our Diné people from their land by destroying our means of survival. Kit Carson and his troops killed our sheeps, goats, and horses, poisoned our water wells, burned our crops and destroyed shelters and anything else that was value to our Diné people.

Carson and his troops then rounded up thousands of starving Navajo women and children and sent them on what is called the "Long Walk", a 200 mile walk from Arizona to Fort Sumner and Bosque Redondo, New Mexico, one of the saddest events in Navajo and U.S. history. As time went by, the U.S. government provided those on the reservation with wheat flour as part of a commodities program. Lard and wheat flour became the main ingredients in the making of Navajo fry bread. The Navajo women, back then had to make the best of what was often considered poor quality rations in concentration camps and the varying availability of government issued commodities.

Frying was totally new to Navajos because we were used to hunting game that was very lean and making bread in mud ovens. The iron pots were also introduced to us thus created fry bread.

As with many cultures around the world, Native Americans have an all purpose flat bread that is a staple of our cuisine. Fry bread is considered a food of inter-tribal unity and is made at all Indian pow-wows. The dough is a variation of that used for flour tortillas, consisting of flour, preferably Blue Bird flour, shortening, salt, water, and baking powder. Navajo fry bread is a tradition in Dinétah.

If you ever become a visitor to a Navajo family home or a family gathering and you're offered fry bread or other traditional food, please take it, even if you ate 10 minutes ago, this is to show respect to the family that offered you their hospitality. That famly that is offering their food to you put great thought and love into their work. They want you to be happy with a full tummy and a safe journey down the road of life.

THIS IS OUR WORLD FAMOUS FRY BREAD, ALSO MADE FROM SCRATCH.

5 CUPS OF FLOUR
2 TBL SPOONS OF BAKING POWDER
2 TSP OF SALT
2 CUPS OF LUKEWARM WATER (NOT HOT, WILL BURN YOUR HAND, AND NOT COLD, WILL HARDEN YOUR DOUGH)

MIX ALL DRY INGREDIENTS TOGETHER IN LARGE MIXING BOWL. SLOWLY ADD WATER, KNEED YOUR DOUGH TILL IT BECOMES A NICE AND FLUFFY.

NOW YOU ARE READY TO MAKE FRY BREAD!!

TO FRY YOUR BREAD:
1 CAST IRON SKILLET
1 1/2 CUPS OF OIL (YOUR CHOICE CORN, CANOLA OR 10W30)

TURN UP HEAT ON OIL, WATCH OUT THOUGH!!!

PUT A PINCH OF DOUGH IN HOT GREASE IF IT SINKS, IT'S STILL COLD, IF IT RISES, IT'S READY

NOW THAT YOU'RE AN EXPERT, LET'S MAKE A TACO!!

1 FRY BREAD
1 SCOOP CHILI CON CARNE
ADD THE FOLLOWING AS YOUR BASE - CHOPPED LETTUCE, DICED TOMATOES AND ONIONS AND GRATED CHEESE.

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE NOW FAMOUS!!!"

So that's the story and recipe I found. Maybe later this week when I go marketing I will buy some baking powder and try to make some fry bread. Oh - here is a photograph of some fry bread I ate at the Blue Coffee Pot Diner in Kayenta. I also ordered ice tea and that was the biggest cup of ice tea I ever saw in my whole life.​ Those people do not mess around.

Till next time - peace!
pinky​

frybread_sm.jpg

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Posted by Bunny: What's that comment about "voluntarily" taking a bath's supposed to mean? I TAKE BATHS. I remember that Kayenta fry bread. I ate something that looked like Chinese stir fry + french fries + half that fry bread. It was GOOD.

Chalmers Johnson on Empire: 3+10

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Posted by Pinky.

Here's a nice follow-up to the last blog entry re: empires - a short list-based essay by Chalmers Johnson titled Three Good Reasons To Liquidate Our Empire, and Ten Steps to Take to Do So. Again, in the interest of making this entry as brief as possible, I've taken the liberty of stripping the list down to small-size (apologies to Dr. Johnson). Please read the complete essay here, or better yet, read his trilogy of books on the subject: Blowback, Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis.

Three basic reasons why we must liquidate our empire...

1. We Can No Longer Afford Our Postwar Expansionism

2. We Are Going to Lose the War in Afghanistan and It Will Help Bankrupt Us

3. We Need to End the Secret Shame of Our Empire of Bases

10 Steps Toward Liquidating the Empire

1. We need to put a halt to the serious environmental damage done by our bases planet-wide.

2. Liquidating the empire will end the burden of carrying our empire of bases and so of the "opportunity costs" that go with them.

3. As we already know (but often forget), imperialism breeds the use of torture.

4. We need to cut the ever-lengthening train of camp followers, dependents, civilian employees of the Department of Defense, and hucksters — along with their expensive medical facilities, housing requirements, swimming pools, clubs, golf courses, and so forth — that follow our military enclaves around the world.

5. We need to discredit the myth promoted by the military-industrial complex that our military establishment is valuable to us in terms of jobs, scientific research, and defense.

6. As a self-respecting democratic nation, we need to stop being the world's largest exporter of arms and munitions and quit educating Third World militaries in the techniques of torture, military coups, and service as proxies for our imperialism.

7. We should abolish the Reserve Officers' Training Corps and other long-standing programs that promote militarism in our schools.

8. We need to restore discipline and accountability in our armed forces.

9. We need to reduce the size of our standing army.

10. We must give up our inappropriate reliance on military force as the chief means of attempting to achieve foreign policy objectives.

[ full essay here ]

Maybe it's too obvious to be included in the above list, but my favorite reason to dismantle U.S. imperial structures is simply because they're vicious and immoral. Enough is enough.

Okay, Bunny and I leave for our walk now.

Much love to you,
pinky

New Pinky Show Video: Kahoolawe

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Posted by Bunny.

I just posted our newest video in the archive: 13 Things I Learned at Kahoolawe. It's an unusual episode by Pinky Show standards, so I'm curious how people will react to this one. As always, if you have any comments please e-mail them to us. We're not able to respond to each and every e-mail we receive (sometimes we get over a hundred e-mails a day) but feedback definitely influences the way we approach future episodes.

Starting Friday Pinky and I will be going for a walk for two weeks. We don't know where we're going - the point is to see where we're going as we're walking. It's been very hot here these past few days (sometimes over 110 degrees Fahrenheit), so besides having a good look into our future, the #1 priority will be to not die from the heat.

Bye for now. Bun.​

We Love Museums w/ German Subs

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Posted by Bunny.

German subtitles, that is.

A very nice person in Germany named Alexander was kind enough to subtitle our We Love Museums... episode in German. I don't speak German so I can't vouch for the accuracy of the translation, but from reading his e-mails I can say that his English is way better than my English, so I am going to guess that the subtitles are good! I also love the way he used a font that looks just like the font we often use - that's attention to detail...

Here it is, embedded from his new YouTube channel (pinkyshowgerman):​

Big thank you to Alexander. Everybody please forward to all your German-speaking friends!

~Bunny.

10 Lessons re: Empire (Thank You Brits!)

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Posted by Pinky.

I know I said I wasn't going to blog any more this month, but I'm always a sucker for a "Top 10 List". When I saw Stephen Walt's article in Foreign Policy about the ups and downs of empire maintenance, of course I couldn't resist copy-and-pasting the main points here. I mean, it's basically a two-for-one: favorite topic + favorite format! I like!

The basic question Dr. Walt poses is simple: Is there anything we (U.S. Americans) can learn about current place in the world by studying the rise and fall of the British Empire? Well, "yes"...

1. There is no such thing as a "benevolent" Empire.

2. All Empires depend on self-justifying ideology and rhetoric that is often at odds with reality.

3. Successful empires require ample "hard power."

4. As Empires decline, they become more opulent, and they obsess about their own glory.

5. Great Empires are heterogeneous.

6. When building an empire, it's hard to know where to stop.

7. It takes a lot of incompetent people to run an empire.

8. Great Powers defend perceived interests with any means at their disposal.

9. Nationalism and other forms of local identity remain a potent obstacle to long-term imperial control.

10. "Imperial Prestige" is both an asset and a trap.

Okay, I admit posting the above points is only a cheap come-on to try to get people to read the whole article (find it here!). But the article's so short and won't take more than 10 minutes to read (pondering time extra) - definitely waaay faster than reading Piers Brendon's The Rise and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997 plus Gibbon's multi-volume The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Thank goodness for internet mini-summaries!

Take care,
pinky

I Want a Hamster

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Posted by Bunny.

I hardly ever see stuff on TV that I want but this looks really good.​

[ update: video no longer available. ]

[ Update: Sadly, this video is no longer available. ]

July: Ridiculous Packed

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Posted by Pinky.

To everybody who reads this blog, my apologies for neither of us blogging much lately. Bunny and I have been keeping ourselves busy with lots of stuff that all together seems to have sucked all our diary-keeping time away. And since our July and August work-calender is looking very full, I doubt we'll be blogging for a while.

On the other hand, it does feel nice to finally be wrapping up work on several of our 'projects'. The IWTPYF book is finally done; now Mimi is trying to figure out how to get it 'out there' whenever she's not working at the hospital.

Everyday morning Bunny and I have been working on preparing work for an upcoming show (November/December 2009) at the 1C03 Gallery at the University of Winnipeg. Right now it's a lot of planning / reshuffling using our cute little gallery mock-up that Bunny made (thanks Bunny), plus making lots of drawings, some of which will eventually become much larger paintings. The working title for the show is The Pinky Show: Class Treason Story (excerpts).

A second art exhibition we are preparing for is scheduled for a bit later (late January 2010 opening) and will be held in Belgrade, Serbia at the Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art-Belgrade. That one is called Lecture-Performance and is a historical survey of the lecture-performance format and it's development from the 1960's onwards (Robert Morris, Martha Rosler, Andrea Fraser, etc.). The short video we posted on YouTube last night is related to our preparation for this exhibition. Bunny and I will have to sort through the questions, fashion that into an interview, and finish writing the answers to the questions and submit to the folks in Belgrade by July 20th. (*low-level panic*)

A third event we're kinda-sorta preparing for is to do "something" with the Center for the Future of Museums (a project of the American Association of Museums). We were asked by their director if we would like to work with them to create a fabulous spectacle (j/k) for the AAM's 2010 annual meeting in Los Angeles. It's a big conference with about 6,000 museum people from all over the world all converging to... talk about museums (duh). We're currently bouncing some ideas back and forth, trying to figure out what's possible. Not sure if this one is going to happen or not, but (*cat alternative to crossing fingers*).

Also, we're working on finishing up episodes 2A (Daisy) and 2C (Patrick Wolfe) of the Hawaii series - two of the parts that focus on Settler Colonialism. On our calendar we scheduled things out as if we're going to be able to finish both episodes before the start of August (yeah, right). We're pretty far along, but still, media production and unforseen delays go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Also, we're still working on an episode about "nations". I think we've been working on that one on and off for almost two years and now I just want to smash it with a large, rubber mallot. We just keep re-working it because I just don't like the way it's coming out.

Also, we are collaborating with the Center for Hegemony Studies on a really great community education project. We've been working with them every Monday or Tuesday for a little more than a year now, but I think from now is when our collaboration will really start going in all kinds of new and interesting directions (sometimes good things take a long time to take root). I'll write more about this collaboration later in the year, after we've accumulated more documentation of said 'things'!

One last thing - Bunny and I will be taking a long walk in the first two weeks of August. We'll probably stay in desert-areas, but if we can get a ride with someone we were hoping to go as far as... I dunno, maybe New Mexico? We'll see. But during that time we probably won't be able to do e-mail everyday. We'll try to get to a computer every few days to check in if possible. Kim & Mimi said they will take care of things like book orders or make t-shirts while we are gone, in case we get any PS Store orders.

As I'm writing this diary entry I just realized how much coffee we're going to be drinking this month. There was a pretty good sale on coffee at the drug store and we bought 5 bags. Good thing.

Take care,
pinky

Questions for Pinky & Bunny?

Added on by Guest User.

Posted by Bunny.

The Pinky Show has been invited to be in an exhibition in Belgrade. We're going to be including an interview in the catalogue so for the next few days we are accepting questions from our viewers. If you have a question that you'd like to ask, please email it to us. We'll choose the most interesting questions and arrange them into an interview for inclusion in the catalogue.

~B.

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July 5 evening update...

Holy macaroni! We're not even 24 hours into collecting questions and we've already received so many questions! Some of the questions are really good so we're excited and really looking forward to answering them! I think it'll be good to keep collecting for at least a few more days - you never know when a 'wow' question will arrive. As of right now our video has received 94 comments at YouTube (not all of them questions though). In addition to those, below are the questions we've received so far via e-mail.

Hello there, congratulations for your show, it's great. I have a question for your interview: Why do you have a policy of anonymity, i.e. why do you introduce yourselves only with pseudonyms? Also, I'm from Zagreb, Croatia, and I'd be interested in seeing the exhibition you'll be participating in in Belgrade, so if you could give me some information on that, that would be nice. Thanks and keep going, anja

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What is your mission? What has been the most interesting project for you? What has been the most rewarding experience for you? If you had a wish, what would you wish for? What have you learned about your guests/visitors who have visited your site over the years? To fry your brain on.........why is it so difficult to be so simple (in conveying a thought, demonstrating a concept)?

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good cat *scratches your head*

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Hello Pinky, I love your show =) the topics u talk about are pretty interesting and valuable. Recently I made a pseudo summer camp with some friends of mine, we went to my summer house and watched some documentaries and movies about topics that we often ignore or don't talk about, here's the whole list: Surplus /Zeitgeist / Jesus Camp / Das Experiment / The Corporation / Flow / Besides, I showed em' a lot of your videos, mostly the ones about education, injustice, war and some other... they really liked you and claimed each day for more D= but I ran out of videos. / We talked about the topics we saw in those videos, mainly they were: Animal and environment cruelty (Actually Im a vegetarian and I tried to explain my friends the benefits of it =P individually and for the world), Control systems (schools, jails, religion), Consumerism (a way of keeping people ignorant and silent), Warfare and the human race decadency (Zeitgeist scared them). Finally, possible solutions to that stuff, a hope (Your video about a global fundamental mind change was inspirational at this point). / Well, after 4 days of watching videos, talking, reading (specially a novel named Buda Blues from Mario Mendoza, maybe not yet translated but is worth reading-) and thinking about all this things... well we got pretty much scared, but still we want to do something, at least try to educate people, to pass the information that most ignore, make them conscious about certain things... / Something you should know, after hearing this, is that... we are from a third world country, we are from Colombia and that usually means to foreigners that we live in a jungle and only exist to produce guerillas and drugs, and that's quite not true. / Ok, sry for writing too much, actually this all goes to a question my friends and I have, how can we start making a difference? how can we approach to people to talk about those kind of topics? well we thought a lot about it and had some ideas: / We have and advantage, being from a third world country sometimes means we are ignored, but also could mean that we are hidden, like a stealth technique. / Internet, this powerful tool of communication can either mean the end of human race or it's salvation, it depends on the use we give it, I think u know more about it than we do. / It'd be nice if we can gather a bigger group and do things like the summer camp, and extend this stuff more, we thought about doing something like the pinky show, of course =P not making a copy or anything, we love your show and just want to ask you some advice about this things. Thanks for hearing me, I appreciate your response, take care Pinky & Co and keep working, your work are really making a change, goodbye.

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Will Iran remain the same (as in a theocratic govt)? Q2: Is there a possible way 3rd world countries can get out of poverty without help from foreign loans? If possible, is a self-suffiecent based economy more suit for them rather than a globalized economy? Q3: Can Islam possibly coexist peacefully with other religions since it's a religion based on hate? Q4: All religions claim to be peaceful. Why are their followers so violent and intolerant of people of other faiths? Q5: Will the world ever stop hating and instead embrace each other as fellow human beings? Q6: How will the balance of power change as countries like China, India, and Brazil become more economically powerful? Q7: We live in a post-America world now? The "post-America" part means that the US is not the superpower it once was and it's likely on it's way to post superpowerdom. Which country or countries shall become the next global superpower? Q8: If we have WW3, what or how do you or people think will be different from the previous world wars and where will the lines be drawn? What alliances will be formed?

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Pinkie, can you tell me why American citizens don't recite the Preamble to their Constitution every day (in school, at work, at civic meetings, in city, state & federal legislatures) as a reminder of what it stands for–in only 54 words–and a reminder that it is "We the People" who have all the power and delegated only SOME of it to the government we created, like Jefferson and his team wrote in the Declaration: / We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. / That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. / And starting a new government from scratch is one of the other rights retained by the people, as the Ninth and Tenth Amendments remind our government. We're the boss of them; they're not the boss of us, as my daughters used to tell me at bed-time. / Pinkie, Why do presidents and all other government officials lie to us all the time? Howcome President Bush was called The Unitary Liar-In-Chief? / Pinkie, why is our government paying rich banker-gamblers $7.2 Trillion because they made such an "amphibian fraud"* (* Tom Paine wrote that phrase; I love it. Today he probably would have used the "ph" word) out of mortgages to poor and not-so-bright people when it could have solved the whole problem by paying to keep people from being forced out of their homes? I think it would have cost us less of our money. Do you think it's fair for the people who caused a problem to be rewarded for what might even be criminal conduct? / Pinkie, can the President and Vice President of America be sentenced to death for killing people they ordered tortured to death? (see 18 USCode §2441) (125 total so far, 25+ thus far ruled "homicides". (answer: Yes, but it certainly is unlikely, given that rich and powerful people are above the law in our nation of men and money, not of laws.) / I could go on.... / best, bw

Okay, that's some of what we have so far. Even after one day I think we've already received better questions than if we'd been interviewed by a "professional interviewer" (whatever that is), or worse, if we had made up the questions ourselves. I'll update again tomorrow or the day after. Take care, pinky

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Posted by Bunny: You know, even though a some of the questions we've received so far kind of have a "HEY CATS I DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS SO WHAT IS THE ANSWER???" feel to them - I still think this has been a good thing to do. It's a very direct way of finding out what's on people's minds. Reading these questions may reveal future episode subjects we would have otherwise not considered.

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Posted by Pinky. July 8 Update...

It's only been about three days but probably we can stop now. I think we have more than enough good questions to make into an interview. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions! Currently there are over 140 comments at YouTube (many of them questions), plus the following that came in via e-mail:

dear pinky show, i would like to know - what drives you to find the issues that are sometimes hard to talk about, like the iraq war and other pressing issues? thanks, ben p.s. i feel this show should reach teens in high schools in America to make them understand the world around them. ben

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I often hear that the military might have wanted John F. Kennedy dead and that Oswald was innocent. What do you think of the subject matter? CL

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Greetings! I and I think a lot of people first discovered the Pinky Show by searching for "international law" or some such, and were astonished. On the other hand, I instintively think schools and museums are good things, even though they may create cultural collateral damage, so to speak. So the critique is a little murky for me. Will pinky and bunny continue to explain, say, why we are in Afghanistan even though it is stupid and immoral and illegal? Etc? Or the Obama approach to torture? Etc. Of course Afghanistan is something of Museum piece. If people had gone to the Museum a few more times they would have thought twice. Such a long email, I trust Belgrade is treating you well, JOEL

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What is the next phase of your project? Will you keep making videos by yourself forever or do you have plans to expand? Or are you moving into something completely different? I ask because I noticed that you cover other mediums such as books and art. Do you find these more enjoyable or effective than videos for getting your message across? A.A.

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Have you ever thought about making a whole movie? Or at least a feature length documentary? (no name)

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Instead of just talking, why not DO SOMETHING ABOUT ALL THE PROBLEMS?????? Do you realize how talk is cheap? ALSO YOUR VOICE IS SO ANNNNOOOYYYYYIIIINNNNNGGGGGGG and greats against my ears !!!!!!!!!! (no name)

Bunny and I will sort through all the questions and pick out our favorites. I'll post something here in the What's New section when the interview is done and posted. Please stay tuned! Take care, pinky

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P.S. A viewer named Jon sent us a wordle he made from all the YouTube questions:

​Thanks Jon!