Lesbian donors take action over being shunned

College student Li Yu instinctively answered a call last week from the government for blood donation, but it was her honesty that caused authorities to turn her away.

“I don’t understand why and I feel discriminated against,” Li, 20, told China Daily.

Li is a lesbian. Healthcare workers rejected her blood because she declared her sexual orientation on a mandatory health form.

Li is one of the latest lesbians to face such treatment under regulations that bar homosexuals from donating blood because of health concerns.

More from China Daily

Peter Singer Why Go Vegetarian

excerpt: “the idea that ‘humans come first’ is more often used as an excuse for not doing anything about either human or nonhuman animals than as a genuine choice between incompatible alternatives . . . Granted, everyone has a limited amount of time and energy, and time taken in active work for one cause reduces the time available for another cause; but there is nothing to stop those who devote their time and energy to human problems from joining the boycott of the products of agribusiness cruelty. It takes no more time to be a vegetarian than to eat animal flesh. In fact . . . those who claim to care about the well-being of human beings and the preservation of our environment should become vegetarians for that reason alone. They would thereby increase the amount of grain available to feed people elsewhere, reduce pollution, save water and energy, and cease contributing to the clearing of forests; moreover, since a vegetarian diet is cheaper than one based on meat dishes, they would have more money available to devote to famine relief, population control, or whatever social or political cause they thought most urgent. I would not question the sincerity of vegetarians who take little interest in Animal Liberation because they give priority to other causes; but when nonvegetarians say that ‘human problems come first’ I cannot help wondering what exactly it is that they are doing for human beings that compels them to continue to support the wasteful, ruthless exploitation of farm animals.”

More on Peter Singer

The Life You Can Save

Christina Aguilera Global Spokesperson for World Hunger Relief

Five-time Grammy Award winner Christina Aguilera is giving hunger a powerful voice by becoming the global spokesperson for World Hunger Relief.

Aguilera will help raise awareness of the hunger issue this fall by appearing in a new public service announcement, advertising and posters made possible by KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. She will also get the message out by appearing on the World Hunger Relief web site, FromHungertoHope.com, and in other online hunger relief efforts.

Visit the World Hunger Relief Cause page, http://apps.facebook.com/causes/113795, for more information on how you can join in the fight to end hunger and help save lives.

Thanks for your support.
The World Hunger Relief 2009 Team

Protest slaughter of dolphins in Japan

Just saw a very compelling documentary about dolphin slaughter at the Melbourne International Film Festival. The movie called The Cove is utterly disturbing and you may well want to grimace, turn away or just shut your eyes while the footage of horrific scenes take place. But for how much longer can we turn away from the crimes we perpetuate against animals!?

Thank goodness people care and it’s kudos to the film makers who risked their lives to capture this untold story of how the tiny coastal village of Taiji, Japan is at the epicenter of this dreadful crime.

The website won’t give the plot away and it’s something that the director wants you all to take your friends to see! Who knew! But sometimes it’s not such a bad thing to make money to further influence a cause and get the word out.  I’ve personally learnt that you don’t have enough time to be complacent about the things you believe in, and I am trying to have some conviction and stop in my own complicity of killing animals.

See what you can do to help the campaign to raise awareness of The Oceanic Protection society and help spread the word.

http://thecovemovie.com/

Hooked on the Net?

The video game market is big business, worth around 2 billion dollars in Australia last year. The best games draw people into an exciting world where anything is possible; demons are slain, riches are made and worries about the real world left far behind. It’s great entertainment, but for a minority of players and net users who get hooked it can be a disaster. ‘Addicts’ deprived of computer access exhibit rage, distress and even violence. Should video game and internet ‘addiction’ be acknowledged as a recognised clinical condition? Pauline Newman’s documentary examines the scale and depth of this worldwide problem, and the drastic measures that some countries are employing to combat it.

Saturday 25th July 12pm
repeated Monday  27th July 7pm
Radio National

Earthlings one for the Animals

EARTHLINGS is an award-winning documentary film about the suffering of animals for food, fashion, pets, entertainment and medical research. Considered the most persuasive documentary ever made, EARTHLINGS is nicknamed “the Vegan maker” for its sensitive footage shot at animal shelters, pet stores, puppy mills, factory farms, slaughterhouses, the leather and fur trades, sporting events, circuses and research labs. The film is narrated by Academy Award® nominee Joaquin Phoenix and features music by platinum-selling recording artist Moby. Initially ignored by distributors, today EARTHLINGS is considered the definitive animal rights film by organizations around the world. “Of all the films I have ever made, this is the one that gets people talking the most,” said Phoenix. “For every one person who sees EARTHLINGS, they will tell three.”

In 1999, writer/producer/director Shaun Monson began work on a series of PSAs about spaying and neutering pets. The footage he shot at animal shelters around Los Angeles affected him so profoundly that the project soon evolved into EARTHLINGS. The film would take another six years to complete because of the difficulty in obtaining footage within these profitable industries. Though the film was initially ignored by distributors, who told Monson that the film would “never see the light of day and should be swept under the rug,” today EARTHLINGS is considered the definitive animal rights film by organizations around the world.

B’eau-Pal water

“B’EAU-PAL” WATER SCARES DOW EXECS INTO HIDING. Plans to contribute to climate action in lead-up to Copenhagen begin to take shape.

Photos

London – A new, beautifully-designed line of bottled water – this time not from the melting Alps, nor from faraway, clean-water-deprived Fiji, but rather from the contaminated ground near the site of the 1984 Bhopal catastrophe – scared Dow Chemical’s London management team into hiding.

Twenty Bhopal activists, including  Sathyu Sarangi of the Sambhavna Clinic in Bhopal, showed up at Dow headquarters near London to find that the entire building had been vacated.

Had they not fled, Dow employees could have read on the bottles’ elegant labels:

B’eau-Pal: Our Story
The unique qualities of our water come from 25 years of slow-leaching toxins at the site of the world’s  largest industrial accident. To this day, Dow Chemical (who bought Union Carbide) has refused to clean up, and whole new generations have been poisoned. For more information, please visit http://www.bhopal.org.

The launch of “B’eau-Pal” water came as Bhopal prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal catastrophe, and coincides with the release of an official report by the Sambhavna Trust showing that local groundwater, vegetables, and breast milk are contaminated by toxic quantities of nickel, chromium, mercury, lead, and volatile organic compounds. The report describes how a majority of children in one nearby community are born with serious medical problems traceable to the contamination.

The attractive yet toxic product, developed by the Bhopal Medical Appeal and the Yes Men with pro-bono help from top London creative design firm Kennedy Monk, highlights Dow’s continued refusal to take responsibility for the disaster. (Five years ago, the Yes Men impersonated Dow Chemical live on BBC World Television and announced that after 20 years, the company was finally going to clean up its mess in Bhopal. That hoax, which temporarily knocked two billion dollars off Dow’s share price, is featured in the Yes Men’s new movie, The Yes Men Fix The World)

* B’eau-Pal water: http://www.bhopalwater.com
http://theyesmen.org/

Lance Armstrong TREK Art Bike by Yoshitomo Nara

Source: Slamxhype| Author Adam Bryce

Australian artists acknowledged at Prix Ars Electronica

Silent Barrage at Exit Art, New York, 2009.

Can the movements of an audience through a mechanical forest help to calm-down cultured nerve cells in a lab thousands of kilometres away?  The (not so quiet) Silent Barrage is the work of two Australian artists Phil Gamblen and Guy Ben-Ary. This interactive and aural experience combining art and science has been awarded a prestigious Honorary Mention in Prix Ars Electronica.

“We hope that this might help us better understand how to quieten the barrages (activity) in the culture dish, and this in turn would assist in treating epilepsy.”- Dr. Steve Potter.

Silent Barrage – is an art and science collaboration between art researchers from SymbioticA at The University of Western Australia and scientists from Steve Potter’s Laboratory for Neuroengineering at Georgia Tech, Atlanta. The installation consists of thirty two sculptural robotic objects (the ‘robotic body’). Each of the objects amplifies and represents the electric activity that occurs in a real biological neural network (the ‘brain’) that have been grown and nurtured in a Petri dish in Dr. Steve Potter’s lab. The behaviour of each robotic object is directly dependent on the signals generated by the neural network. The interface between the ‘robotic body’ and the ‘brain’ is done via the Internet. The audience is invited to interact with the neural network by moving through the space completing a closed feedback loop between the robotic objects (and viewers) in the gallery to the neurons in the lab.

Silent Barrage provides an immersive and somewhat overwhelming sensorial manifestation of questions that are at the core of our understanding of the stuff that make us think. Using the presumption of free will of the audience, who chart their own path through the space, this work draws real and imaginary parallels between the person and nerve cell.

The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the most important awards for creativity and pioneering spirit in the field of digital media. Prix Ars Electronica has established itself as a barometer for trends in contemporary media art with artists from over 70 countries participating in the awards.

For more information:
http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/silentbarrage
http://www.aec.at/prix_about_en.php

The Heart Library Project – St. Vincent’s

Visitors and staff at St Vincent’s Public Hospital, Darlinghurst, (Sydney) are invited to explore The Heart Library Project ­, George Khut’s heart-sensing interactive art project that combines biofeedback interaction with video interviews, drawing and story-sharing to explore interactions between body, mind, heart and breath.

Exhibition dates: July 7th – 19th (two weeks only)
Exhibition launch: Thursday July 9th, 6:30pm

Level 4, Xavier Building, St. Vincent’s Public Hospital
Victoria St Darlinghurst  Sydney NSW 2010

For more details visit www.georgekhut.com/heartlibrary