Boing Boing tv Week in Review

Perhaps you missed an episode or two of Boing Boing's daily original video programming this week? Here's a recap, so you can watch while you pretend to be productive at work for what's left of this fine Friday.

♦ MONDAY: In our Weekly Update, we caught up with the people behind the BB post "Donate Your Used Digital Camera to LA's Skid Row Photo Club. BB readers donated used gadgets to the Skid Row Photo Club, and project participants join us from the heart of Skid Row. Then, we LOLled as Mark's chickens dance to Yakety Sax, and watched some gory splatterpunk claymation videos from Japan. WATCH IT. Here's a direct MP4 Link.

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♦ TUESDAY: In our weekly Boing Boing Gadgets Video feature, Joel reviewed the Philips Norelco Bodygroom ($50) a shaver for men. Strategic kitteh were deployed as figleafs to shield our viewers' eyes from inadvertently exposed people-parts. WATCH IT. Here's a direct MP4 link.

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♦ WEDNESDAY: Brandon Boyer, editor of Boing Boing Offworld, updated us on iPhone games and arty Wii avatars. WATCH IT. Here's a Direct MP4 Link.

♦ Also on Wednesday, we began a three-day commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in partnership with WITNESS. First episode: this video about the treatment of mentally disabled youth at a hospital in Paraguay, and proof of the power in video to stop human rights abuses. WATCH IT. Here's a Direct MP4 Link.

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♦ THURSDAY: I interviewed WITNESS digital archivist Grace Lile, and she spoke about the importance of preserving and making available video that documents human rights abuses -- here in the US, and around the world. WATCH IT. Here's a Direct MP4 Link.

♦ Also on Thursday, we aired a WITNESS video feature about the lives of child soldiers in the Congo, and a man who works to demobilize, rehabilitate, and protect them. WATCH IT. Here's a Direct MP4 Link.

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♦ FRIDAY, today -- we aired our final WITNESS feature in this week's series. This video told the story of a Mayan man who witnessed the Rio Negro Massacre in Guatemala. WATCH IT. Here's a Direct MP4 Link.

♦ And finally, today -- we ended the week with a Unicorn Chaser at a music festival, featuring our old pal from London, Russell Porter. WATCH IT. Here's a Direct MP4 Link.

• [JoshuaTerrell]

  I’m thrilled that you’ve used that picture of the restrained suspects as an link to an article about human rights abuses.

  Very subtle, I suppose you would like to have the suspects transported in fluffy pink handcuffs, with pillows and an in-flight movie?

  Just keep in mind: War is Hell.

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    @Joshua Troll: The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed 60 years ago this week. We’re airing these WITNESS videos on BBtv as a commemoration of that document, and all that it stands for. Are you aware that it was a reaction to atrocities committed by the Nazis, and other warring parties, during WWII? The point then, and now, is: human beings have inalienable rights, as human beings. War does not excuse torture, rape, or abuse of detainees who may or may not have committed any crimes and may not have even been combatants. Seriously, you ought to read the UNDHR and learn a little history before popping up here to slam WITNESS.org’s valuable work.

• [inerxia]

  Cada vez que leo Boing Boing encuentro una hermosa imagen de una hermosa escena de un hermoso pais de latinoamerica. No mas!
  Por Favor.

  Everytime I read Boing Boing I find a beautifull picture of a beautifull scene from a beautifull country from latinoamerica. Stop it!
  Please.

• [Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

  Homesick, Inerxia?

• [Antinous]

  It keeps suspects disoriented and it limits their communication with each other.

  You don’t even bother pretending that they’re criminals. Face it, you’re just into it.

• [Antinous]

  Joshua Terrell,

  I’m utterly confused. Are you saying that you like the picture? And if you like it, is it because it’s a good representation of human rights abuses or because you just like looking at pictures like that? And the part about the fluffy, pink handcuffs – is that a joke or another fetish? Your comment leaves me thinking that you feel that a graphic for human rights abuses should be, say, a pink fluffy unicorn versus, say, an actual picture of human rights abuses.

• [Takuan]

  Joshua, you think you have the right to do anything you want to anybody, whenever and however you please. This means we can’t talk.

• [Takuan]

  this should be good

• [Takuan]

  bring him over here
  http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/12/rumsfelds-decision-a.html#comment-354960

• [Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

  Joshua, when your old writing teacher taught you to write in an exploratory spirit, he or she didn’t think you’d be using it as your final draft.

• [zuzu]

  But how do you know that the friendly fellows with the hoods on are innocent?

  Call me old-fashioned, but a public trial where the accused confronts their accuser, is required to determine guilt according to rule of law.

• [JoshuaTerrell]

  #18 You assume that the people in the picture have been prejudged, and that the bags over their heads are punishment.

  I’m simply pointing out how media can be misrepresenting, like the picture used as an illustration for civil rights abuses that doesn’t actually depict civil rights abuses.

  See my point?

• [JoshuaTerrell]

  #14 Insult me if you want, but keeping people who could possible injure or hurt you from doing just that is a pretty good idea. Why do you think police officers handcuff suspects? For the same reasons. Yes it’s scary, yes it’s mean. But hooding a suspect is a legitimate way to keep those other people in the picture, you know, the people putting their lives in harms way for of you, from getting hurt.

  #15 How do you know that? That’s speculation. From what I’ve said, all I believe is that in a war zone, soldiers in the line of duty sometimes have to take steps to insure the safety of themselves and their comrades, and sometimes this is at the expense of the comfort of people who might possibly be trying to kill them.

  #16 You still handcuff and shackle prisoners who have been accused of violent crimes don’t you? These suspects also occasionally are forced to wear humiliating orange jumpsuits. Are you saying that we should treat all suspects equally, regardless of the crime they are accused of?

  • [Antinous]

    Are you saying that we should treat all suspects equally, regardless of the crime they are accused of?

    In the US that I live in, every suspect gets handcuffed, put in the cruiser and taken downtown, so yes. If you can’t get behind ‘innocent until proven guilty’, maybe the US is just not the right country for you.

• [JoshuaTerrell]

  #11 Apparently this universe. It keeps suspects disoriented and it limits their communication with each other. If you had a large amount of prisoners you wanted to transport in very close proximity with limited resources, the last thing you would want to do is let them talk to each other. It’s just bad security to allow it.

  #12 Yes, this sort of thing happens all the time. But how do you know that the friendly fellows with the hoods on are innocent? Or that they have been subjected to this “arrested-beaten-drugged-gagged-hooded-ear-muffed-shackled-and-tied-in-a-kneeling-position” treatement? (I’ll concede that they are hooded and shackled, just to save you some time in your counter).

• [Takuan]

  walll…’cept th’ colors o’ course… a-yep.

• [JoshuaTerrell]

  @Xeni et al: Yes, I have read the UNDHR. I think it’s a very important part of the global human rights movement.

  My point is this: Using a picture of properly restrained insurgents as a graphic to an article dealing with civil rights abuses directly implies that restraining prisoners in this manner is inhumane and unjust, and that it is somehow associated with the various atrocities committed in Iraq against innocent people by members of the US Armed Forces (Abu Ghraib etc. etc.). I disagree, and I think this image is misused in this context, and misrepresents the members of the US Armed Forces who are just doing their jobs correctly.

  @Antinous and Teresa: I apologize if the hyperbole was a little too subtle.

• [Antinous]

  Dude,

  In what nightmare universe are black hoods ‘proper restraints’? Do you live in a leather bar?

• [Takuan]

  “insurgents”? Many of those arrested, beaten,drugged, gagged,hooded, ear-muffed,shackled and tied in a kneeling position for agonizing hours proved to be total innocents sold for an American “terrorist” bounty by local gangsters. Insurgents? Yes,now they are.

• [Takuan]

  a suggestion for WITNESS to cover:
  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/tanzania/3661836/Albinos-hunted-for-body-parts-in-Africa.html