Issues news

Man, I don't care what anybody says when it comes to Amy Winehouse. Yeah, she's got a good voice and maybe I'm just being a hater, but she's like the international mascot for a junkie. Nuff said.

Want to shave a few inches of that carbon footprint but not sure where to start? Convinced that sustainable food is expensive and time consuming? Disillusioned by the proliferation of "greenwashing"? Well toss and turn not as The City of Sydney Live Green Festival is back for a second year this Sunday August 17 and promises thousands of easy and simple ways for greening your life. Held at Victoria Park in Camperdown this one-day expo offers highlights such as sustainable cooking demos from Joanna Saville and Kylie Kwong; practical workshops; a "green bar" with organic wines and beer; free valet bike parking; music; lifestyle and organic food stalls and even tutorials on how to make your own worm farm and  low-impact cleaning products. For more info on Live Green, head to the website. Otherwise, see you Saturday (I'll almost definitely be lurking wherever my girl Kylie is cooking).

Last issue of Yen featured an article on ethical eating, with 5 keen eco chicks willing to test out the vegan life style for a few days. Now I know that giving up your ice cream and late night Maccas runs sounds nightmarish, but Dreena Burton's creations are anything but bland. Far from the soggy lettuce and mungbean burger stigma, Dreena Burton is the author of best selling vegan cooking books Eat, Drink and Be Vegan, Vive le Vegan and The Everyday Vegan. She updates her blog weekly with her amazingly tempting recipes for those of us who haven't gone out and bought her books yet. I don't know about you, but I'm quite partial to the sound of Orange Chai Cream Pie and Cashew Banana Ice Cream. MMmmm.

With soaring petrol prices, food prices, interest rates and housing prices, we could be entering into an "age of scarcity" which could drag millions of people into poverty, according to a new book released by Oxfam.
Author of From Poverty to Power, Duncan Green, said we need to do something about it now.
"Unless we act quickly, the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ will grow uncontrollably, exacerbating existing inequalities and condemning millions more people to poverty,” said Mr Green.
The Oxfam book argues that poverty has to be dealt with from the ground up, rather than having the wealthy being the only ones to try resolve it.
“Now it is clearer than ever that the only way to end the gross inequalities that have condemned more than a billion people to linger in poverty is through a massive redistribution of power, assets and opportunities.”
Green said that success in dealing with poverty depends on how effectively we respond to the increasing impact of climate change and rapidly diminishing resources, such as oil.
“Dirty, carbon-hungry growth is no longer an option.
“Unless we can find a route to low-carbon growth then we face either catastrophic climate change or serious economic decline.”

With Olympic-fever pervading national and international media outlets once again, a swag of associated socio-political concerns have been brought to a necessary fore. Whilst we may, as global citizens, be desperate to alleviate pressing calamities, the sheer size of these devastating circumstances and mass human rights abuses can often seem beyond the realm of personal ability to aid.
Then again, maybe not.
Team Darfur is a non for profit organization comprised of over 400 athletes, which seeks to publicly elucidate the unprecedented violence in the war-torn Darfur region. Co-initiated by US Olympic speedskater Joey Cheek (who is unable to attend the Beijing Games following the retraction of his Visa by Chinese authorities), the advocacy group has called for an 'Olympic truce', which would see a pause in all global conflict and a subsequent opportunity for government mediation during the games period. Since 2003, over 2.5 million people have been completely displaced as a result of the Western Sudanese conflict. Member athletes of Team Darfur, such as Lopez Lomong, are utilizing their status to raise awareness about genocide. Lomong, who is the designated flag bearer of the US Olympic team, was only six years old when he was kidnapped by a militia group from a Sudanese Church to be trained as a child soldier. He managed to escape and walk for three days to Kenya, where he endured ten years imprisonment in a refugee camp before his eventual immigration to the US. You can do your bit by giving some encouragement and words of thanks to Lomong and the other Team Darfur athletes here. These athletes need more resiliance than some sweaty physical training can provide to make an audacious political stand in Beijing.

We all know sex sells. We all also know flaunting a lack of sex sells too (think Britney’s celibacy PR spin back in the day). But the Parent’s Television Council in the US thinks shows like Gossip Girl push the boundaries, with most prime time television not paying enough respect to maritial sex. A study released last Tuesday by the council found that practices like extramaritial sex, voyeurism and sadomasochism out number sex within marriage by a ratio of roughly 3:1. And it’s the bright young things who are targets with these messages. Programs can be incorrectly rated, and a lack of consistency is said to make it hard for parents to monitor what their kiddy winks are viewing.
Gossip Girl seems to be the main target for the PTC. But instead of caving into criticism, a recent string of Gossip Girl Season 2 teaser posters feature stinging criticism from a variety of media. Blake Lively appears to be in a state of pre-coital bliss as the words “Every Parents Worst Nightmare” are splashed across the page. Similar advertisements have followed. On the other side of the spectrum, ABC Family’s new teen drama The Secret Life of an American Teenager is said by critics to be too preachy, and paints abortion and pre-maritial sex in a negative light. Surprisingly, the break through series, which is aired only on pay TV during the American summer, has proved to be more popular than any Gossip Girl episode during the normal ratings season. Only in its 5th episode, American Teenager is beating the CW favourite in the ratings race by 11%.
Perhaps all that Disney teen talk about Purity Rings isn’t going astray afterall…

SEVERAL past U.S. presidents had vegetable gardens on the White House lawn. Eleanor Roosevelt started a victory garden on the White House lawn in 1943, which encouraged millions to do the same in their own front yards. When WWII ended, home gardeners were producing 40 percent of the United States' produce. Roger Doiron, founder of Kitchen Gardens International (an organization that promotes kitchen gardening and home-cooking) hopes to convince the next US president to make a small vegetable garden on the 19 acres of grass surrounding the White House. His video about making a garden in the front yard of his own "white house" is entertaining and inspiring. Source: Boing Boing.net