KUCI: Subversity

Former Guide features editor Bill Andriette, who has written on sex panics, critiques the report on Catholic priests and sex for ignoring research on youths who did not regard sexual relationships with priests as "abuse." He is interviewed by Subversity host Daniel C. Tsang

The issue of sex with altar boy (and girls) by Catholic priests has saturated the media, but what does the research tell us? Subversity host Daniel C. Tsang talks with UCI alumna and criminologist Karen Terry about the 143-page report that her research team at John Jay College just submitted to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Her key finding in The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors

by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010: Only 5% of the priests were "pedophiles" (sex with pre-pubescents), with the majority of the cases relating to sex with pubescent or adolescent boys.

The UC Irvine Libraries celebrate the history of Irvine, California with an exhibit, Irvine: the Vision, the Plan, the Promise, curated by UCI librarian Yvonne Wilson, opening later this week (Wednesday May 11) at Langson Library on the UCI campus.

On the 9 May 2011 edition of KUCI's Subversity, we talk with a speaker slated for the exhibit opening, Irvine council member and long-time politician Larry Agran (pictured), about the City of Irvine and his perspective on issues of "town and gown" over the years. Agran also made an unsuccessful bid to run for President in 1992.

We talk with Byron Q, the director of Bang Bang, a film about gang life. Bryon Q studied under renowned French New Wave director Jean-Pierre Gorin at UCSD and this is his debut film. It features Justin (Thai Ngo), trapped in the gang lifestyle, and his rich Taiwanese best friend Charlie (David Huynh), in the film's strongest role. The multi-ethnic cast brings additional realism to the film. The ever youthful looking Huynh (actually a Vietnamese from Canada) was the focus of a Subversity interview back in 2007.

We also talk with Act Up and Riot Grrl activist turned director Billie Rain about his new film, Heart Breaks Open, featuring queer activist and poet Jesus (Maximillan Davis) whose life implodes when he finds out he is HIV-positive. Set in Seattle, the film shows how Jesus comes to rely on his friends as he struggles to make sense of his predicament.

A bold new documentary dares to address something only whispered about in the Vietnamese diasporic communities in North America -- the existence, especially in the 1980s, of a violent group of thugs -- masquerading as "freedom fighters".

Enforcing the Silence director Tony Nguyen, himself having been a youth advocate in Washington D.C. and San Francisco, in resurrecting the shortened life of Vietnamese immigrant activist and journalist/editor Lam Trong Duong, pays tribute to those in the Vietnamese diasporic communities that were anti-war and progressive. Lam Doung founded the first Vietnamese youth center in America (Vietnamese Youth Development Center), and published a progressive Vietnamese-language newspaper, Cai Dinh Lang, that reprinted stories from Hanoi. That he supported Ho Chi Minh -- he was an early immigrant in 1971, prior to the fall of Saigon, and he attended Oberlin High on a American Field Service exchange and later stayed to attend Oberlin College -- may have led to his murder in 1981 at the young age of 27.

Note: This particular show was an Internet edition only, interview recorded at KUCI studios on 25 April 2011 beginning around 5:30 p.m.

If ever there is a list of the top films that address the underside of Los Angeles, Mun Chee Yong's Where the Road Meets the Sun will surely be on that chart. A multicultural cast interact in various languages (mainly English) as they seek to survive on the rough streets of urbanized Los Angeles.

Not a documentary by any means, Mun Chee Yong's script casts four men whose lives intersect at a decrepit hotel as they live from day to day, job to job...

We aired the 10 April 2011 Vietnamese International Film Festival Filmmakers' Panel Discussion on "Expanding the Audience Base" that took place at UC Irvine.

Panelists were: Anderson Le, director of programming at the Hawaii International Film Festival; Ann Le, with international division of Universal Pictures; Charlie Nguyen, director of The Rebel; Fool for Love; James Nguyen, director/writer, Birdemic: Shock and Terror; Jenni Trang Le, Assistant Director, Bi, Don't Be Afraid, and of Clash; Khoa Do, Director/Writer, Footy Legends, Mother Fish; Le Thanh Son, director/writer, Clash, and Nguyen Nu Nhu Khue, producer with HK Films in Vietnam.

He's a Viet Kieu filmmaker with conscience. Hailing from Australia, and emerging as one of the most exciting new filmmakers from the Vietnamese diaspora, Khoa Do presented "Mother Fish," his dramatic and creative take on the boat people's exodus to the West at the 5th Vietnamese International Film Festival ongoing at various venues in Southern California, including UC Irvine. As he discusses in the interview, he made this film to counter anti-refugee prejudice in Australia against a current wave of boat people from more current wars.

For the second half of Subversity, we air Making Contact's report on the Toxic Truth about Nail Salons. It focuses on the health effects of prolonged chemical exposure on the salon workers and the move toward "greener" salons.

With more countries in the Middle East erupting in protest, we return again to a focus on one of those, Yemen, whose president seems tottering on the verge of quitting. Who are the protesters? And were the pro-U.S. regime to fall, what comes after?

On this evening's edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, we talk with William Picard of the Yemen Peace Project again about those questions and analyze recent developments, some horrific, some encouraging.

An enterprising Asian Studies undergraduate class at McGill University in Montreal has an intriguing mission: Create an experimental radio program to document social change in Asia and the Asian diaspora by interviewing activists, scholars and the like.

Samantha Chrisanthus, who studies Political Science and Women??s Studies at McGill University, interviews Dan Tsang about his work in libraries and radio stations, as well as his efforts to document and archive injustice and harm. Sam begins by asking Dan how Subversity started and what led him to radio...