2011/04/27 20:46:14 Taipei, April 27 (CNA) Elementary and junior high schools in Taiwan will include gay issues on their curriculums from September this year, when the fall semester begins, to teach students to respect and accept people of different sexual orientations, a Ministry of Education (MOE) official said Wednesday.
The decision to put gay issues on school curriculums was in accordance with the Gender Equity Education Act and was meant to promote gender equality and raise students’ awareness of diversity, said Eric Ker, section chief of the MOE’s Student Affairs Committee.
However, some civic groups and parents have expressed concern that the primary and secondary levels are “too early” to educate students on gay issues. It would be “inappropriate” to teach students at that level about gay sex and sexual desires, they argued.
Several groups have also launched an online petition against the MOE decision.
In response, Ker said that gay issues will only be a small part of sex education in schools. The focus will be concepts of gender equality rather than on details of individual sexual desires or behavior, he said.
For example, a discussion on gay pride parades will focus on gay civil rights, he said.
The Gender Equity Education Act was passed in 2004, banning gender discrimination in schools in Taiwan, and stipulating that school curriculums should include gender equality education. (By Hsu Chih-wei and Christie Chen) Enditem /pc
May 2011
April 2011
by Caleb Denison, April 21st, 2011
Researchers at the University of Michigan have made a scientific discovery that is intriguing all on its own but it is the breakthrough’s potential applications in solar power generation that have them excited. According to Stephen Rand, a professor at the university and author of the paper that discusses his team’s discovery in the “Journal of Applied Physics”, the researchers found a way to make an “optical battery” which harnesses the magnetic attributes in light that, until now, scientists didn’t think amounted to much of anything.
The report explains that light has both electric and magnetic components but, until now, scientists believed the magnetic field effects were weak enough that they could be ignored. Rand and his fellow researchers, however, found that at the right intensity, when light is traveling through a material that does not conduct electricity, the light field can generate magnetic effects that are 100 million times stronger than thought possible. Under these circumstances, says Rand, the magnetic fields become similar in strength to a strong electric effect.
image via NASA
William Fisher, a doctoral student in applied physics, says that what makes this possible is “a previously undetected brand of “optical rectification.” In traditional optical rectification, light’s electric field causes positive and negative charges to be pulled apart in a material. That sets up voltage, similar to battery. Before, this effect had only been observed in crystalline materials that possessed a certain symmetry. This process works with materials such as glass, but presently requires light that surpasses the sun’s natural intensity Fisher indicated they were working on finding materials that would at lower light intensity.
The research team believes that this discovery could lead to a solar cell that requires no semi-conductor. Since semi-conductors constitute a bulk of a solar cell’s processing, eliminating it represents an opportunity for a considerable reduction in costs. Fisher notes that a solar cell using this new energy harvesting technique would only require lenses to focus the light and fiber to carry it. “Glass works for both,” said Fisher, ”it’s already made in bulk, and it doesn’t require as much processing. Transparent ceramics might be even better.”
http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/04/28/is-stephen-harper-a-hologram/
Rick Mercer on what he learned on the campaign trail with the party leaders
by Rick Mercer on Thursday, April 28, 2011 11:30am
Chris Wattie/Reuters
Grown men all over North America pay big money for the privilege of riding on a horse, sleeping on the ground and spending 12 hours a day driving cattle down a dusty trail with actual cowboys. For me, going out on the campaign trail, riding on the planes and following the leaders is pretty much the same thing. This wasn’t so much an assignment as it was a trip to a dude ranch. Some men want to strap on leather chaps and breathe in the aroma of cow dung; I want to slap on a press pass and breathe the same air as Harper, Iggy and Jack.
To get a seat on those planes is not an easy proposition. The Conservative party charges media organizations $50,000 for a seat. In return you get fed and watered—after that, all bets are off. There is no guarantee you get to ask a question, just the guarantee you won’t.
My week at the dude ranch started with the big gun: Team Harper. I met up with them in Rivière-du-Loup, Que., rode the bus to Edmundston, N.B., flew to Fredericton, crossed the pond to Conception Bay South, Nfld., back to Sydney, N.S., and then on to the Nation’s Capital.
In hindsight, I spent too much time with the front-runner. To get a feel for the Harper campaign you only need a few hours. The differences from one event to the other are minuscule. In English Canada they start each event by singing “O Canada,” and Stephen Harper tells the crowd he’s proud to lead a party that starts every event this way no matter where they are in the country. In Quebec they skip this part and they hide the Canadian flags in the plane. Barring this nationalism of convenience, if you have seen one Harper event you have seen them all. The Harper campaign is far and away the most disciplined, the most professional and the most scripted. Every word is on a teleprompter, it is delivered in exactly the same way, and the Prime Minister does something I have, in a lifetime of watching live performers onstage, never seen before: he actually stops and sips his water in the same spot every time. Nothing is left to chance. Either that or he is a hologram on a loop.
http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20110426-275780.html
AFP
Tue, Apr 26, 2011
TOKYO - Taiga Ishikawa, the first openly gay politician in Japan to win an election, Tuesday hailed the result as a victory for the rights of sexual minorities.
“I hope my election victory will help our fellows nationwide to have hope for tomorrow, as many of them cannot accept themselves, feel lonely and isolated and even commit suicide,” he told AFP.
Ishikawa, 36, won a seat in a Tokyo ward assembly in local elections on Sunday. Prior to his victory, no openly homosexual politician had won office in Japan.
He said he hoped his victory would help lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
“Many LGBTs, or sexual minorities, realise the fact when they are at elementary and junior high schools, many of which are operated by the municipality,” Ishikawa said.
“As a ward assembly member, I would like to reinforce support to LGBT children at schools.”
Ishikawa disclosed that he is gay in his autobiographical “Boku No Kareshi Wa Doko Ni Iru” (Where Is My Boyfriend?),” published in 2002.
“Many readers of my book told me that they are isolated and the situation I wrote about in the book is so similar to theirs. So I started to host events that offer opportunities to have links with friends,” Ishikawa said.
He founded the non-profit organisation “Peer Friends”, which hosts events in Japanese cities to provide young gay men with opportunities to meet other gays.
Since February 2010, he has served as a private secretary to Mizuho Fukushima, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, a small opposition group.
I remember as a child hunting for the pastel coloured Easter Eggs that were hidden for us by the bunny. I hated them and couldn’t really be bothered to look very hard. Once or twice we dyed our own hard-boiled eggs and some of my friends would actually eat them on Easter morning as part of their tradition. I think we just threw them at each other instead. And there was the time we blew out the eggs and tried to decorate the fragile shell. After seeing what the Ukrainians could do with a blown out egg our efforts seemed rather pointless to me. Mostly, I conspired control over the chocolate bunnies that were left on the kitchen table for us. I ate mine about as fast as I could while my younger brother savoured his and used it to bribe me into doing stuff for him post-Easter. If we were going to our grandparent’s for Easter (which we usually were) I learned to put his solid milk chocolate bunny on the dash of the back window of the car knowing it would melt by the time we arrived at my grandparent’s farm (these bunnies came in a plastic tray — and still do) and his would be a puddle in the plastic packet by the time we reached our destination. I would tell my darling brother his bunny was ruined and then put it in the freezer and save it for myself. The bunny was resurrected!
More than a few Easter’s later I was staying at a favourite B&B located in the queer end of Vancouver. I had come to know the owners quite well and we were (still are) good friends. Late that Easter’s eve, I hid a bag or two of the high-fructose pastel coloured Easter eggs throughout the public areas of the B&B. Some in obvious places, so other guests would find them, and some in not so obvious places, so the owners would continue to find them long after the holiday weekend ended. The other B&B guests loved the impromptu egg hunt and thanked our hosts for reminding them of Easter pleasures past. Our hosts didn’t let on that they were not the ones who hid the eggs as they also had a Polaroid I had left for them in their private living quarters featuring a close-up shot of my pasty, pimply, winter-white butt with a pastel blue egg apparently coming out of it with the caption “where the Easter eggs really came from”.
Q.
I’m not much of a fashionista, but I do like functional design.
Q.
Versatile scarves meld Japanese fabric and American ingenuity by Karen Day in Style on 20 April 2011 Versatile scarves meld Japanese fabric and American ingenuity
For a contemporary spin on the traditional wrap scarf, check out Los Angeles label Symmetry. Function balanced with quality make up this emerging accessory brand’s latest collection.
Drawing on their shared affinity for scarves, the husband-and-wife design duo first launched their accessory brand in 2010. After a well-received first run, Symmetry has kept it simple, continuing to focus on premium textiles and usefulness.
High-quality Japanese fabrics (some organically produced) are cut and sewn in L.A., which gives the scarves a nicely handcrafted feel. Symmetry plays on the innate versatility of scarves by adding supple leather strips that connect by clasp to leather-backed grommets, allowing the user to their own imagination in wearing the piece. Possibly the most versatile piece in the Spring 2011 collection is the Dixon, which, like the Japanese all-purpose fabric Furoshiki, easily turns from a scarf to a large tote bag.
New for Spring 2011, the collection has grown to include some small leather goods as well. Each are made by hand and feature custom-cast brass hardware. For a better look and to get your own check out Symmetry’s online shop. Prices start at $155.
by Eliot Coleman
21 Apr 2011 10:18 AM
Coleman’s Four Season Farm: Start with biodiversity and well-nourished soil, add some appropriate technology, then harvest lots of healthy food. Photo: Barbara DamroschOrganic farming is often falsely represented as being unscientific. However, despite the popular assumption that it sprang full born from the delusions of 60s hippies, it has a more extensive, and scientifically respectable, provenance. If you look back at the first flush of notoriety in the 1940s, the names most often mentioned, Sir Albert Howard and J. I. Rodale, rather than being the initiators, were actually just popularizers of a groundswell of ideas that had begun to develop some 50 years earlier in the 1890s.
A growing coterie of farmers, landlords, scientists, and rural philosophers in both England and Germany had begun questioning the wisdom of the chemically based agriculture that had grown so prominent from its tiny beginning in the 1840s. Advances in biological sciences during the late 19th century, such as those that explained the workings of nitrogen fixation, mycorrhizal association, and soil microbial life supported their case. Those new sciences set the stage for a deeper understanding of natural processes, and offered inspiration as to how a modern biologically based agriculture might be formulated.
These new agriculturists were convinced that the thinking behind industrial agriculture was based upon the mistaken premise that nature is inadequate and needs to be replaced with human systems. They contended that by virtue of that mistake, industrial agriculture has to continually devise new crutches to solve the problems it creates (increasing the quantities of chemicals, stronger pesticides, fungicides, miticides, nematicides, soil sterilization, etc.) It wouldn’t be the first time in the history of science that a theory based on a false premise appeared to be momentarily valid. Temporary functioning is not proof of concept. For example, if we had a book of the long discredited geocentric astronomy of Ptolemy, which was based on the sun revolving around the earth, we could still locate Jupiter in the sky tonight thanks to the many crutches devised by the Ptolemaists to prop up their misconceived system. As organic agriculture has become more prominent, the orthodoxy of chemical agriculture has found itself up against its own Galileo. It will be interesting to see who recants.
The new thinking in agriculture was focused on three issues — how can long lasting soil fertility be achieved? How can pest problems in agriculture be prevented? How can the nutritional value of food crops be optimized? By the 1940s the answers to those questions had coalesced into a new biologically based concept of agriculture that can be simply stated as follows:
- Soil fertility can be raised to the highest levels by techniques that increase the percentage of soil organic matter, by rotating crops and livestock, and by maintaining soil minerals through using natural inputs such as limestone and other finely ground rock powders.
- The plant vigor resulting from doing #1 correctly renders plants resistant to pests and diseases.
- The plant quality resulting from doing #1 correctly provides the most nutritious possible food for maintaining human beings and their animals in bounteous health.
All three begin with and depend upon how the soil is treated. But the fertility of that crucial soil factor is not a function of purchased industrial products. It evolves from intelligent human interaction with the living processes of the earth itself. These are processes that are intrinsic to any soil maintained with organic matter. They are what the earth does. I am puzzled by how the practical success today of the many farms managed on biological rather than on chemical lines can coexist with the striking lack of interest (antagonism actually) from scientific agriculture in exploring why these farms succeed. The foundation upon which our Maine farm operates — a sense that the systems of the natural world offer elegantly designed patterns worth following — appears to be an indecipherable foreign language to agricultural science.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-fishberger-md/gay-suicide_b_851107.html
Jeffrey FishBerger, MD
Psychiatrist and LGBTQ Youth Mental Health Specialist, On-Call Clinician for The Trevor Lifeline
As the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, The Trevor Project has served the needs of LGBTQ youth at a dark moment in their lives for the past 13 years — offering hope and expertise when few others are can.
The findings in Dr. Hatzenbuehler’s recently published study in Pediatrics largely mirror what we have learned through the Trevor Lifeline regarding social environments and the risk for suicide among LGTBQ youth — namely that young people who live in areas with a more negative sociopolitical climate towards LGBTQ young people and without affirming resources are at an increased risk for suicide when compared with their peers in more supportive environments.
More than 70 percent of the thousands of calls to the 24/7 Trevor Lifeline originate in the southern and central regions of the United States, where there are traditionally fewer legal protections, in- and out-of-school support services and accepting environments for LGBTQ young people. While there are wonderful programs in these areas that do excellent work, some youth in these areas receive less support and face tougher challenges in their communities and schools.
For example, 1.95 percent of the United States population resides in the state of Missouri, yet 3.37 percent of the 2010 volume to The Trevor Lifeline originated there — illustrating a disproportionately high demand for LGBTQ crisis intervention and suicide prevention services in that state.
Other states with disproportionately high call volume include: Nebraska, Indiana, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi to name a few. The youth in these states, along with countless others, are in need of help that just is not often accessible at the local level.
Dr. Hatzenbuehler’s research serves to highlight what we have seen for more than a decade: Non-accepting community, school and familial environments are associated with an elevated risk for suicide attempts among LGBTQ youth. Examining counties across Oregon, he finds that youth living in environments with less support for lesbian and gay people are 20 percent more likely to attempt suicide than those youth living in areas with support.
We applaud Dr. Hatzenbuehler’s work as a starting point, but do want to stress that there is much work to be done in examining the interplay of social environments and suicide among LGBTQ youth. For example, this study does not include transgender youth and those who do not fit into narrow gender stereotypes. Examining how social environments react to gender non-conforming behavior among youth is critical. From what we have seen in our own research and experience, social environments for transgender youth are likely even tougher and may play a role in their elevated risk for suicide attempts.
Nonetheless, the data here are drawn from a population-based sample, a relative rarity in LGBTQ youth research, which has largely depended on smaller convenience samples. This study highlights why asking sexual orientation questions on larger population-based surveys is so important; those data allow us to make larger generalizations and better target our programs to the young people most in need. The absence of data speaks to an even greater need for gender identity data in large research studies like this. Dr. Hatzenbuehler highlights several valid limitations to his ecological study, but these limitations should inform future research about the complex nature of suicide among LGBTQ young people.
Protective factors against suicide among LGBTQ youth include school safety, support and connectedness (including Gay-Straight Alliances), wider community support, and strong connections with parents and families. It is our duty, as caring adults and allies, to ensure that youth have connections and support — regardless of the social environment in which they live. We must also remember that young people in more progressive cities can struggle with community and personal acceptance, just as young people in rural, more conservative parts of the nation can flourish with support and acceptance. The research finds that: “Characteristics of the social environment increase the risk for suicide attempts among LGB youth, over and above individual-level factors.” Therefore a larger scale approach that focuses on changing environments for LGBTQ youth is suicide prevention.
More info:
The Social Environment and Suicide Attempts in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth
Mark L. Hatzenbuehler, PhD
04/19/11 05:19 AM ET
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysian authorities have sent 66 Muslim schoolboys identified by teachers as effeminate to a four-day camp where they will receive counseling on masculine behavior to discourage them from being gay, an official said Tuesday.
Gay rights advocates decried the measure as a symptom of widespread homophobia in this Muslim-majority country where gay sex is illegal.
The boys between 13 and 17 years old reported Monday for what is officially being called a “self-development course” after their schoolteachers in Terengganu state identified them as students who displayed effeminate mannerisms, said Razali Daud, the state’s education director.
They will undergo religious and motivational classes and physical guidance, Razali said. He declined to give further details.
The camp is meant “to guide them back to the right path in life before they reach a point of no return,” Razali told The Associated Press. “Such effeminate behavior is unnatural and will affect their studies and their future.”
It is the first such program in Terengganu, a conservative state. Over the years, Terengganu’s officials have held programs aimed at promoting Muslim morality, such as offering free honeymoons to save the marriages of couples considering divorce.
Razali denied the boys were compelled to attend the camp, saying they were simply “invited” to do so. After it ends, their teachers and parents will monitor and continue advising them.
“It is not an overnight cure,” he said. “We can’t force the boys to change, but we want them to know what their choices are in life. Some effeminate boys end up as a transvestite or a homosexual, but we want to do our best to limit this.”
Pang Khee Teik, the co-founder of a Malaysian sexual rights awareness group, called the camp “outrageous.”
Story continues below
“If we don’t do anything to stop the rot of homophobia … I worry it may get worse,” he said.
Gay Malaysians say they face discrimination from government policies such as a law that makes sodomy punishable by 20 years in prison. The law is seldom and selectively enforced, but some states also impose jail terms for public cross-dressing.
Last year, a young gay Malaysian who posted a Youtube clip defending his sexuality received online death threats. Government authorities accused him of insulting Islam, though no official action was taken.
Malaysia’s most high-profile use of the anti-sodomy law involves opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who is on trial on charges of having sex with a male former aide. Anwar, who is married with six children, insists the charge was fabricated to smear his reputation. The government denies plotting against him.
I am a sucker for heart-rending stories of support, especially when done with such subversive panache!
Q.
Brazil Stadium Turns Pink After “FAGGOT” Chants Shock Community
http://blog.mattalgren.com/2011/04/brazil-stadium-turns-pink-after-faggot-chants-shock-community/
April 14, 2011
Yesterday, American basketball fans couldn’t seem to understand the problem with Kobe Bryant shouting “fucking fag” at a referee. Maybe we should look to a recent situation from professional volleyball in Brazil to see how they handled it.
Volleywood has the the story, in an article published April 7, 2011. (Note: Volleyball is HUGE in Brazil. I’m not sure how it compares to basketball in the US, but it’s got to be similar, if not bigger.)
A few days ago during the Superliga semifinal match between Sada Cruzeiro & Vôlei Futuro, Sada Cruzeiro fans chanted homophobic slurs towards Michael, a middle blocker from Team Vôlei Futuro. The fans kept screaming “Bicha! Bicha! Bicha!” which means “faggot” in English.
We deeply appreciate that these athletes are taking a stand to defend Michael who has confessed that the incident has been very traumatic and has admitted that he fears for the same thing to happen again. Michael shared that he could not believe what was happening and that he tried to pretend he wasn’t hearing any of the chants.
He said that he could’ve fought back by swearing at them after the match, but instead he took the highest route and left the court without saying a word. Inside the locker room, his teammates came up to him to make sure he was okay.
The incident has prompted Michael to admit to the media that he’s gay. “I’m gay. Everyone knows who I am. My team fully respects my sexuality. I have been playing for 10 years and everyone has treated me well and fair. I do not feel the need to let everyone know about my sexuality,” says Michael.
A week has passed after the incident that forced Michael to out himself publicly, and Volleywood reports that the outpouring of support for Michael has been tremendous. The brazenness of the crowd’s bigotry seems to have surprised a lot of people and called them to action.
At the second semi-final match on last Saturday, the team wore pink warmup shirts to show support, and the team’s libero wore a rainbow jersey during the match.
Support from the team
The crowd unfurled a gigantic banner reading Vôlei Futuro Against Prejudice…
Vôlei Futuro Against Prejudice
Then the crowd used thundersticks emblazoned with Michael’s name to turn the stadium pink!
A pink stadium. Wow.
Can you imagine being there for that, feeling that support reverberate through the stadium? I’m in tears just seeing the pictures.
Americans, this is how it’s done. Don’t make excuses for the perpetrator like many are for Kobe Bryant (see comments). Instead, stand against prejudice and homophobia wherever they’re found. That’s how society becomes better for all of us.
Michael during the game
Oh, and Team Vôlei Futuro won in five. BONUS.
Again, major thanks to Volleywood for their coverage of this issue. Click on the article links for much more including youtube video of each complete match. I wish volleyball were bigger here in the States.
(Somebody get on that, okay?)
