Anthropomorphic animals in children's programs freak me out!

When I was growing up, I didn't think much about anthropomorphic animals in kids cartoons. These kind of programs provided learning opportunities or entertainment or just a time to unwind after school.

But now as an adult, I am freaked out by the implications presented by these programs. Granted, it probably is just me delving too deeply in mostly innocent programs catering to kids from around 6-12 years old. But then just as Star Trek and some other sci-fi shows mainly presents a utopian view of future humanity without showing the wars, famines and massacres that surely featured in the precursor to this utopia; these childrens programs don't show what happened beforehand to create a world where monkeys, pigs, dogs and cats are driving cars, working, cooking, reading newspapers and running infrastructure.

Where the hell are the humans?! Did genetic splicing and uplifting go too far? Maybe the humans wanted some intelligent yet subservient animals that they could rely on for chores and other sorts of tasks. Then, did the uplifted animals just get tired of subservience and mankind's crap in general? Did they band together, rise up and kill all of their former masters? Or perhaps, because of these programs are targeted at children, the humans which have been fortunately spared are not shown, maybe they are used as slave labour or for some other nefarious purposes which our various future animalian overlords have.

There is one program in particular which perplexes me.

It is Arthur, now this was one of the favourites of my childhood. I watched it almost religiously during my childhood. But nowadays,it just doesn't provide the same entertainment and in fact, provides some strange questions.

What disturbs me most in this screwed up Arthur fictional world is that these uplifted animals did not learn from their prior idiotic human masters and decided to keep ethnic and religious divisions. It is mentioned several times that Maxine (a monkey) and her family are Jewish and that Brains (a bear)and their family are black or assumedly so as they celebrate Kwanzaa. I personally don't see the need for these animals to perpetuate race and religion. I mean, I get the purpose, the writers of Arthur want to promote multiculturalism and tolerance, and that's something good to teach kids. But I don't see why inherently human concepts would serve any purpose for these animals, but hey that's just me.

Also Buster, a rabbit eating meat by the kilo and Arthur, an aardvark eating everything else but ants, is seriously fucked up. Also in Arthur, the Dogs own smaller less intelligent (like the ones we're used) pet dogs, this seriously freaks me out, it's like the makers of the show want to subtly imprint a message of slavery. But then again, the pet dogs are pampered and fed well, so perhaps not.

Anyway I just felt the need to share this thought, I know I rant about some really irrelevant things and that sometimes I might make more out something than I should do. However, it's been on my mind ever since my last viewing of Arthur.

思捷 (Sijie) does World Music 1: Qawwali

A friend recommended that I post my musical interests as he found them interesting , I believe my writing skills are inadequate for critiquing and am no real authority on world music. So the purposes of posting these entries are to introduce possible readers to just a small part of my musical tastes and just a little bit of information on the genres discussed.

I've been into so called world music for a long while now, I'm not really sure how it came about, but I've had a passion for languages for as long as I can remember and so I guess music correlates with that somewhat. I simply love listening to music from other cultures in other languages besides English. I'll give any genre a listen, and I'd say from personal experience, I've mostly been rewarded. In this entry, I'll just give short introduction to a genre called Qawwali, however to my knowledge it is also called Sufiana.

Qawwali is a form of music that is most popular in Southern Pakistan and Northern India. Qawwali is usually a large group effort, with a few singers and instrument players. Instruments used in Qawwali to accompany the group of singers include the tabla, dholak (a low pitch drum) and the harmonium, handclapping is also used to achieve some rhythmic effect. It is said that it's steadily building percussive and melodic layers have a somewhat hypnotic effect and can induce euphoria in listeners. Personally, the longest Qawwali song I've listened to is around 15 minutes long and though I wasn't exactly euphoric, it was quite a pleasant listening experience.

The vocals are usually in Punjabi, Hindi or Urdu, however other languages are occasionally used. I've only heard Qawwali in the former three languages. Qawwali historically was introduced to the Indian subcontinent by travelling sufis (Islamic missionaries) from the Middle East. As such, a lot of Qawwali has strong Islamic flavour often including poetry, quranic verses and the such. However a significant amount of songs also have secular lyrics, many being devotional love songs. Though from what I've read, some of these devotional love songs can be re-interpreted as being devotional to Islam.

As I'm not a muslim nor do I have a working knowledge of Hindi/Urdu, I usually listen to Qawwali for pure listening pleasure's sake. Personally I just love the melodies, percussive elements and strong vocals . I'm really fond of Hindi/Urdu poetry and lyrics, to me they possess a lovely aesthetic. I personally don't know many artists at all, my favourite is Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who sadly passed away in 1997. In a sense, it can be said his musical legacy has been carried on by his nephew Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, whose music I also enjoy, though I haven't had the real opportunity of being exposed to much of it.

If anyone out there has more artists to recommend for me, I gladly appreciate it. I'd really like to expand my collection for Qawwali/Sufiana.

Below I've posted two songs, just to give you a taste of what the genre is like.

Allah Hoo- Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Long Version Part 1



Long Version Part 2



Short Version (I prefer this one)



Aaya Tere Dar Par from the Veer Zaara soundtrack- Ahmed Hussain, Mohd. Hussain, Mohd. Vakil, Javed Hussain (A longer 7 minute edition is available on the Veer-Zaara soundtrack)



^This one has English subtitles, so that you can know more about the lyrics.

Enjoy and feel free to offer feedback!