The Pinky Show: The American War, The U.S. in Vietnam

Link: http://www.pinkyshow.org/archives/episodes/060809/060809_vietnamwar.html
Who is she? http://www.pinkyshow.org/about/about.html
In her words: “A double puppet government? I’ve never heard that term before…”

In my words:

The Pinky Show is one of two places where talking cats explaining the Vietnam War just… makes sense (the other being a late-‘60s drug haze). And their explanation is chilling. In 40 minutes they distill one of the most complex wars ever fought (or not fought?) to its bare, factual core. No bearded hippies. No wacky conspiracy theories.

But that factual core is made up of thousands upon thousands of documents, resolutions, treaties and news clippings. Sounds pretty exciting right?

It is The Pinky Show’s ability to present this mind-numbing complexity in an engaging manner that makes their explanation of the Vietnam War great. Two curious cats, Pinky and Bunny, break the Vietnam War down into a dialectic talk. Pinky, the novice, asks Bunny simple questions with increasingly complex answers. This breaks the issues into digestible chunks and walks the viewer down a garden path to understanding Vietnam. Pinky draws the viewer in and keeps them hooked.

More importantly, The Pinky Snow demonstrates the value of creative thinking when it comes to communicating complex ideas. The curious cat premise of this and every episode allows The Pinky Show tremendous latitude in exploring controversial, complex ideas. In a media world dominated by talking heads, we reflexively question a speaker’s slant and motives right off the bat. And though these are critical questions, answering them can interfere with understanding new or controversial ideas. Rejecting an idea strictly because of who is promoting it is the logical equivalent of shooting the messenger. And who would shoot a cat?

Using a symbol to communicate an idea is something that superheroes have been doing for decades. The hope behind this is that people will judge the idea on its own, without a real identity to complicate the matter.

Noodle Scratchers:

Do you buy this superhero-style presentation serious issues? What limitations do you see? On a percentage basis, how much did this video increase your understanding of the Vietnam War?

Stuart Brown: Why play is vital – no matter your age

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHwXlcHcTHc
Who is he? http://nifplay.org/about_us.html
In his words: “The opposite of play is not work, it is depression.”

In my words:
All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. Studies show that if such a play deficit occurs early enough, Jack may snap and kill people later in life. So there’s no wonder that the conference Stuart Brown speaks at here is called “Serious Play.”

Thankfully, Brown doesn’t spend too much time wallowing in the play-or-kill dynamic his background suggests. He focuses, instead, on the everyday battle between play and depression. He suggests play allows us to achieve balance and happiness, and who doesn’t want to balanced and happy?

He does this with a combination of persuasive rhetoric and hard research. For example, he cites a rat study (no body of research is complete without one) showing rats who play are better able to adapt to a changing environment and not die in the process. He wants us to be the happy, living rat. He even suggests how the listener can change his or her life through examination of their play history (see key quotes).

This talk’s greatest strength is in its immediate applicability: “If you’re having a bad day, try this, jump up and down, wiggle around. You’re going to feel better.” Truly incorporating play into one’s life is something we can do on the individual level. So many of these talks are about changing the world, which is a pretty big place. Starting small is a good way to start.

Though Brown’s research is precise and compelling, his delivery is not. He lacks clarity as he gets further into the weeds of the his theories about play. He doesn’t explain the real-life application of the rat tale, and his speculation about Al Gore is a pretty big stretch. He also doesn’t really address the questions he faces at the end of his talk.

Key Quotes:
“That fixed behavior which is rigid and stereotyped and ends up with a meal, changes.”

“It’s that state that allows these two creatures to explore the possible. They are beginning to explore something that would not be possible without the play signals.”

“The unit of intelligibility for most of our brain is the story.”

“What I would encourage on an individual level to do is to explore backwards as far as you can go to the most clear joyful playful image, whether it’s a toy or a birthday or a vacation and build on the joy of that into how that connects to your life now.”

Noodle Scratchers:
How have you played at work or school? How would you answer the wheelchair man’s question about putting kids in pens to play all day?

Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe on Lamb Castration, PETA and American Labor

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-udsIV4Hmc
Who is he? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Rowe
In his words: “Follow your passion. What could be wrong with that? Probably the worst advice I’ve ever got.”

In my words:
Mike Rowe’s show, Dirty Jobs, exists between two often irreconcilable worlds: Rowe calls them Clean and Dirty. Believe it or not, this division has defined our politics since Richard Nixon. Eastern media elite, Rednecks, radical liberals, southerners: it’s all code for Clean and Dirty. Clean’s knowledge of Dirty (or vice versa) is little more than what he or she sees in media, which usually distorts the truth beyond recognition.

That’s the line Dirty Jobs toes in each episode. Rowe’s appearance is that of a classic Clean. He holds a college degree, is a former opera singer and uses words like anagnorisis. He is Clean America’s tour guide into Dirty.

Rowe fails to really focus on this conflict until the final minutes of his talk. He spends the bulk of his time telling fabulously engaging stories about his time in Dirty, but the real take-home messages are muddy. His explanation of anagnorisis and parapatea only confuses the relatively simple moral of the lamb castration story (“Hey, maybe established ideas are wrong!”). He stumbles again in the crab boat story, which he uses to prop up the idea: “what if it’s really safety third?” At the end of the story, he decides for himself that it’s “safety first.” There’s certainly room to debate the meaning of this story, but in short talks like these, it’s “clarity first.”

A lot of this talk’s muddier moments may be attributed to the complexity of the issue. Perhaps simply raising an issue like this is all a speaker can really hope to do in 20 minutes.

But it’s not all bad. The lamb castration story is attention grabbing, and the kind of story you can’t un-hear. During it, Rowe showcases masterful use of repetition, and hand gestures. His description of the PETA castration method (“The band is applied to the tail *snap* tightly. And then another band is applied to the scrotum *snap* tightly”) demonstrates both of those qualities in spades.

His talk is also populated with several great one-liners, which are detailed in the quotes section. These kinds of lines are great to keep your audience from feeling like they’re being lectured.


Key Quotes:
“Hmm, that’s not rubber at all.”
“What I hear is a Slurping sound, and a noise that sounds like Velcro being ripped off a sticky wall.”
“My responsibility is not to get home alive. My responsibility is to get you home rich. You want to get home alive? That’s on you.”
“The ones who really get it done, they’re not out there talking about safety first. They know that other things come first. The business of doing the work comes first, the business of getting it done.”

Noodle scratcher:
Do you agree that there is a war on work? Is it a weakness for Rowe to only raise these issues without suggesting some kind of solution?

Captain Charles Moore on the seas of plastic

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7K-nq0xkWY
Who is he? http://www.algalita.org/charles_bio.html
In his words: “Hundreds of thousands of the goose-sized chicks are dying with stomachs full of bottle caps and other rubbish, like cigarette lighters. But mostly bottle caps. Sadly their parents mistake bottle caps for food tossing about in the ocean’s surface.”

In my words:
Americans have been battered, bludgeoned and bruised by the three R’s: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle. Honestly, I’m little sick of them. Everyone know that littering is technically a bad thing, but take a look at the shoulder of just about any highway and you’ll see how effective the three R’s have been (hint: not very). For many Americans, consumerism, and all the disposables that come with it, is a way of life.

Behold! Charles Moore to the rescue! Right off the bat, he challenges the sacred cow of American consumerism, saying “we had to be taught to renounce the powerful conservation ethic we had developed during the great depression and World War II.” Moore does not dispute that his and other conservation efforts are an attack on consumerism. He bypasses the whole conflict and suggests that consumerism has nothing to do with being American. Perhaps conservations is even the true American tradition.

The second part of Moore’s assault on litter apathy is a crystal-clear depiction of its environmental impact. There is no more powerful depiction of this than the images of rotting albatross carcasses full of plastic junk. He backs these images up with research demonstrating the far-reaching effects litter has on the ocean.

Moore communicates these weighty issues with a mix of humor and powerful wording and pronunciation. His first words, “let’s talk trash,” reflect this humor. His description of the destination of half of plastic pellets (at 1:27), as “fast. track. trash,” illustrates his use of inflection to drive home a critical point. This mix of humor and power is critical to prevent the talk from turning into yet another environmental lecture.

Furthermore, if you’ve ever wondered how to use PowerPoint effectively, Moore is simply a master. Each slide adds to what he is saying, be it the melting point of plastic or a photo of the two million plastic bottles America uses every five minutes.

Key quotes:
“Over a third had polluted plastic fragments in their stomachs. The record holder, only two-and a half inches long, and 84 pieces of plastic in its stomach. Now, you can buy certified organic produce, but no fishmonger on earth can sell you a certified organic wild-caught fish. This is the legacy we are leaving to future generations.”

“The market can do a lot for us, but it can’t fix the natural system in the ocean we’ve broken. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men will never gather up all the plastic, and put the ocean back together again.”

Noodle scratchers:
How persuasive did you find Moore? How will this talk change your litter behavior? What weaknesses did you see in his talk?