send.a.message

As their website says: "It was meant to keep people apart, now it also brings people together."


For a donation of 30 euros, Palestinians in the West Bank spray paint your message on the wall. They will send you 3 digital pictures you can keep forever (long after the wall is gone). The money primarily goes to support local projects and organizations.

The Wall won't fall just because your text is written on it. True.
But your message reminds Palestinians trapped inside the Wall they have not been forgotten. You help to keep hope alive. 'Our' Palestinians want to send you one single, simple message: "we are human beings, just like you, with sense of humour and lust for life." That's why they do this, and enjoy it.

Help stop the war in Iraq... support the troops who have the courage to resist!

January 25-26 U.S.-Canada actions to support war resisters

To my fellow Canadians, do you often feel helpless to do anything about the war in Iraq?

One thing you can do is demonstrate your support for the American troops who refuse to fight in the Iraq war. Help end the war by supporting the growing GI resistance movement today!

• There are events in the U.S. and Canada - January 25 (USA) and Jan 26 (Canada) event locations, times, and contacts.


• Sign the letter "Dear Canada: Let U.S. War Resisters Stay" and encourage others to sign.


• Americans, you can organize a delegation to a Canadian Consulate near you.


• Host an event or house-party in support of war resisters.

Won't Somebody Please Think About the... Toys!?!

Just when you think it can't get weirder.

Right on the heels of the anniversary of Roe v Wade... From Torontoist, this lovely billboard:

Toys without children? Boo-freaking-hoo. What about children without toys, without proper food and care, without loving parents and homes? That's a real tragedy. This abortions-make-toys-cry argument is just a bad joke.

Blogging for Choice: The Jane Collective

I'm too tired to write a proper post (plus there's so much amazing stuff out there already today - a lot of really great stuff), so I'll just give you a video to watch on The Jane Collective, an underground abortion service which operated in Chicago from 1969 to 1973. During a time of dangerous illegal abortions, the women took matters into their own hands, and learned to perform abortions. They saved a lot of lives:

"If you needed an abortion, for whatever reason, you took your life into your own hands – and you were terrified, absolutely terrified," recounts a member of the collective of the late 1960s. "All you knew is that you might die, that this person didn't know what he was doing and you were going to pay hundreds of dollars... to bleed to death in some hotel room."

Heather Booth, then a student at the University of Chicago involved in civil rights and antiwar movements, found herself sought out by a few young women who were pregnant, scared, and desperate. They had somehow heard that Booth knew of a safe abortionist. Soon others began to call, prompting Booth and several other young feminists to found JANE, an anonymous abortion service that provided counseling and acted as the go-between for pregnant women and doctors willing to perform the procedure.

Appalled at the exorbitant procedure fees and upon discovering that their main abortionist wasn't a licensed physician, the women of JANE learned to perform illegal abortions themselves. Eventually, the underground collective performed over 12,000 safe, affordable abortions. Word of the illegal alternative was spread through word-of-mouth, cryptic advertisements, and even by members of Chicago's police, clergy, and medical establishment.

12000 abortions and nobody died.

Currently, the abortion mortality rate for illegal abortions is 100-1000 per 100,000 in developing countries. In the United States, the death rate from legal abortion is 0.6 per 100,000 procedures.

Legal abortion is more likely to be safe.

Safe abortions save lives, something the Jane Collective was well aware of.

For Iraqis, Treatment for Trauma is Luxury

The young woman was walking with her husband along a Baghdad street when she was abducted, held captive and raped repeatedly by five militia men for several days.

"Before, she was very proud of her body but now she is overweight -- she eats to protect herself and not to attract people," says therapist Sana Hamzeh about her 27-year-old Iraqi patient, who recently escaped to Lebanon as a refugee.

"When she first came here she hated her body and was very isolated. She could not touch her husband. She sat rigidly, clenched; she could not relax or talk about her feelings."

Hamzeh works at the recently opened Restart centre in Beirut, a charity funded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) that provides free therapy and psychological therapy rehabilitation for up to 70 mostly Iraqi refugees who are victims of torture. The centre also gathers documentation to help argue their case for asylum.

The centre is a brief respite for a few Iraqis fleeing torture, death sentences and the grinding violence of daily life back home. But they arrive in Lebanon only to find themselves dangerously illegal, and subject to discrimination and exploitation. Few can find counselling and support.

X tally Iraq
Originally uploaded by Natasha Mayers

Mohammed, a refugee in his late 20s, is a particularly hard off case. "He came to our centre for psychological treatment but had no money to eat, or a place to sleep -- so how could we deal with his psychological suffering?" asks Jabbour. "We arranged a place to sleep for him on a personal level. Usually UNHCR has other partners who do this."

A patient of Hamzeh's, Mohammed was a former bodyguard for Saddam Hussein and was later imprisoned by the U.S.-led coalition. "He suffered torture, unbelievable torture -- they gouged out one of his eyes, and he can't walk properly," she says. "He is very, very depressed. Every time I see him I don't know if it's the last, because he's suicidal. But he's also religious and feels that suicide will condemn him to hell, so for this reason he stays alive." Hamzeh looks down at the ground. "Every day I think about him." <Article>

More Iraq news from IPS

"Stories are wondrous things. And they are dangerous"

We are the stories we tell ourselves. Or, as Thomas King puts it: "The truth about stories is that that's all we are."

If I grow up being told I am a kind and generous person, always willing to lend a hand to help a fellow human in need, there's a good chance I will take this on as part of my identity, and become a kind and generous person. Certainly it is more likely than if I had been told all my life I am a mean and selfish goodfernuthin'.

If we tell ourselves that what it means to be human is to be a rational self-interested individual, for which the greatest good is to act selfishly in the marketplace of life, well then we should not be surprised if we become greedy self-serving assholes, gleefully counting our giant SUVs and plasma TVs while children die of malnutrition outside our gated communities.

If we tell ourselves a great epic story of the world as a Clash of Civilizations, we should not be surprised that our illustrious leaders invade other countries, you know, defensively, pre-emptively. Because it is our duty to shore up civilization against the invading barbarians who hate us for our... um... freedom to wear a bikini and watch American Idol.

What other stories do we tell ourselves?

Six Degrees Traveler

I love Six Degrees Traveler, the internet radio show available on itunes radio (under "electronic") or on live365. I must say, this week's program is exceptional:

On this week's edition of Six Degrees Traveler, in honor of Martin Luther King's birthday, we spin a set based around gospel, blues and spirituals in both their traditional and hybrid forms. Featured artists include Boozoo Bajou, Euphoria, Japancakes, Nitin Sawhney, Daniel Lanois, Banzai Republic and many others.

Enjoy!

Fun Stuff at Laboratory Andre-Michelle

Too much heaviness. I need some fun. Fortunately the interwebs have no shortage. This is all from Laboratory Andre-Michelle.

Scratching

Scratch a vinyl with actionscript. Unfortunatley you need a fast computer, since I tried to implement a very low latency time.

Chillout Planet Earth - very zen

Need a rest? Watch these cute sound particles, representing notes from different patterns, which are mixed together to keep the suspense. This experiment is completely synthesized running a polyphonic synthesizer, based on this study and a stereo-delay on 16Bit, 22.050Khz.

They are no external sources, just code. The size of the SWF is about 8kb. If your computer is too slow, try the video I’ve uploaded to youtube.

Chill out planet earth!

FL909

FL909 attempts to simulate the original sound of the Roland TR-909. This drumcomputer hits the market 1984 and was a long time the state of art in house and techno productions. Shift-Click the Step-buttons for accent triggers. Shift-Click-Move knobs for smoother resolution. Press Save to store a snapshot of the current settings to a flash cookie. Restore snapshot by pressing Load. Clear to delete all patterns and reset all knobs. Drag and drop a pattern button (invisible) to copy a pattern to a new location.

And here's a 303

Flanger Audio Processor

This is a very simple Stereo Flanger algorithm I developed last night. However it has a nice bright tone color. Keep playing with the parameters. I can listen to it for hours. Move the MIX slider to the left for the original loop sound (dry).

Color Traces - beautiful

Move you mouse to attract the particles. They will leave a color trace on their way. Click to clear the canvas.

Interactive coolness.