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“You have a great rabbit house set up, and seem to advocate the HRS,
but why do you have the Joy of Cooking quote on your assembly page?”
—Allison, email, May 2001
Letter to Allison
Another way of reading would be…
This and another note previously discussed “deconstruction” and eventually led to the page below. Now that page is the feature.
 
“The rabbits are for the children.”
—Children’s Centers Directors, Feb. 1995
Practice in Deconstruction  Rabbits and Easter Don’t Mix
Below are several photographs of rabbits taken at two Children’s Centers associated with a university in northern California, in February 1995. In an unpublished letter to the local newspaper, I wrote, “I asked each center to surrender their rabbit to a better home and also to promise not to replace it with another rabbit, but neither director—despite their obvious mistreatment of the rabbits—would agree to the second request.” For their part, the directors argued that “the rabbits are for the children.” Your challenge is to deconstruct the photographs to determine what lesson lesson the children are likely to learn.
Rabbit hiding under wooden cage
Mary Warren House, outside
In this photograph, taken at the Mary Warren House center, you can see Black Rabbit taking shelter under the wooden hutch. The ground cover includes wet hay, dirt, and feces. What lesson are the children learning from this?
Extra Credit: In your deconstruction practice, what sense do you—not the historians—make of the name Mary Warren (cf. Miller’s The Crucible)?
View inside rabbit hutch
Mary Warren House, inside
A look inside of the cage revealed that the food box was also used as a litter box; the alfalfa pellets, having been soaked and dried, were like a soft mulch. Not shown are the spider webs which I brushed away.
Extra Credit: “The rabbits are for the children,” but the children never see the inside of the cage. In what ways does the condition of the cage therefore contribute to the lesson being learned by the children?
Rabbit outside of hutch
Baiocchi House, outside
In this photograph, Gray Rabbit eats the carrot & hay which I brought. Though the metal cage was covered with a tarp, the rabbit has been soaked by the cold winter rains.
Extra Credit: Considering the delicacy of the flora of a rabbit’s digestive tract, critics might argue that my bringing unfamiliar food was, ironically, more hazardous than the living conditions. Discuss.
Postscript: When I confiscated the two (which were inexplicably caged separately), Black Rabbit had fleas and digestion problems, and Gray Rabbit could not hop properly. Living in the rabbit hutch I built, and with veterinary care, Black Rabbit lived another 2½ years, though I had to wash her in the sink a few times a week. Gray Rabbit lasted nearly as long, and though covered in lumps and probably with Pasteurella, he eventually learned to hop.

Posted: May 5, 2001
Edited: March 20, 2009