This week...news, movies, music and more.

New Releases:

8/24 Music
JP, Chrissie & The Fairground Boys - Fidelity!;  Ra Ra Riot - Orchard; Dead Confederate - Sugar; Mogwai - Special Moves; Apocalyptica - 7th Symphony;  Ronnie Earl & The Broadcasters - Spread The Love; Sword - Warp Riders;  Red Horse - Red Horse; Little Big Town - Reason Why; Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin - Je T'aime...Moi Non; Usher - Versus; Fantasia - Back To Me;  Margaret Cho - Cho Independent; Blind Guardian - At The Edge Of Time; Eels - Tomorrow Morning; Linkin Park - Catalyst (Limited Edition); Devil Wears Prada - Zombie EP; Never Shout Never - Harmony; Bad City - Welcome To The Wasteland; Antony & The Johnsons - Thank Your Love; Randy Rogers Band - Burning The Day; Lang Lang - Lang Lang Live In Vienna; John Scofield - 54

8/24 Movies
Withnail & I (Blu-Ray); Time Bandits (Blu-Ray); Survival Of The Dead; 5 A Day; NCIS: Season 7; Patty Duke Show: Season 3; Pixies - Acoustic & Electric (Blu-Ray); Electric Light Orchestra - Live: The Early Years (DVD); Gossip Girl: Season 3; City Island;



In theaters now:

The Expendables - A family reunion of action stars, heavy on the fighting, explosions and one-liners. Here's what the critics have said:

"It makes good on the old-school action it promises, but given all the talent on display, The Expendables should hit harder." - Rotten Tomatoes

"If ever there was a movie that was all about the action scenes, ‘The Expendables’ is it." - Screen Rant

Vampires Suck - Yet another spoof in the same vein as "Scary Movie", "Date Movie", and "Epic Movie". This one however takes a stab at Hollywood's (and the public's) recent obsession with movies about vampires but specifically targets the Twilight trilogy.
And the verdict from reeladvice.net:
Why you should watch it:
- if spoof movies are your thing as it brings nothing new to the old ways of the genre
Why you shouldn't watch it:
- if spoof movies aren't your thing as it brings nothing new to the old ways of the genre


New in the theaters this Friday:

Avatar: Special Edition: Not to be confused with the "director's cut" version of the movie that will be released sometime in the future on DVD, this version of the original movie that made BILLIONS in its first go-round includes an additional 8 minutes of new footage.

"I'm trying to use the technology to keep people interested and enthused about the 'Avatar' universe, because it's going to be a long time before we get another 'Avatar' movie done," the filmmaker said in a recent interview.


And apparently there are plans for at least two sequels and a book.
Click on the link to se the "new" trailer: http://www.movieweb.com/news/NE3O9gdvVyhr67

 The Last Exorcism: the latest horror/terror flic about demonic possession shot in a  faux documentary style that takes place in the south. Lots of chills, bible-thumping, and supernatural...stuff.

And the review from twitchfilm.net - "The scare sequences are well executed and very effective, the imagery striking home all the more because of the naturalistic manner in which it is shot. But, that said, it is very much a horror picture of the slow burn variety, not the smack-you-in-the-face series of jump scares that the trailers promise."

In the news

FROM National Public Radio: "With Birth Control Pills, New Isn't Always Better"
by Richard Knox

"Be wary of claims that a potent pill will solve all your problems — it's probably not true. "

Bayer HealthCare, the leading maker of birth control pills, is coming out with a brand new pill. Natazia, as it's called, contains a form of estrogen that's never been used in an oral contraceptive.
It also has a novel dosing regimen. Women on Natazia will take four different combinations and doses of hormones or sugar pills each month.

The new launch coincides with growing problems for Bayer's last new contraceptive, Yaz...

To read the rest of the article click on the link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129258505&ps=cprs

OR listen to the podcast: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=129258505&m=129370677

  
9/11 families, others rally in favor of NYC mosque 
If you've been following the controversy that's been building across the country about the Islamic community center and mosque set to be built near Ground Zero, this article brings us up to date with some changes in what has been, til now, been a very contentious issue.

From The Seattle Times: 
'The planned mosque and Islamic center blocks from ground zero got a new boost Wednesday from a coalition of supporters that includes families of Sept. 11 victims.
New York Neighbors for American Values rallied for the first time at a municipal building near ground zero.

"I lost a 23-year-old son, a paramedic who gave his life saving Americans and their values," Talat Hamdani said, and supporting the Islamic center and mosque "has nothing to do with religion. It has to do with standing up for our human rights, including freedom of religion."
Among the nearly 2,800 people killed when the World Trade Center was attacked in 2001 were more than 30 Muslims, she noted.

Opponents of the Islamic center project argue it's insensitive to the families and memories of Sept. 11 victims to build a mosque so close. Supporters cite freedom of religion.'

Read the rest of the article by clicking on the link below:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2012718009_apusnycmosque.html

Can You Taste the Colors?

What if whenever you said the word 'jump' you instantly tasted pumpkin pie? Or you believed all of the letters of the alphabet had designated colors (letter 'A' was aqua-marine, B lime green, C yellow, etc.)? Or whenever you saw the color pink you automatically smelled chlorine? Those experiences can be a reality for the estimated 1 in 23 people in the population have what's called synesthesia.

What is synesthesia you might ask? Good question. We think this definition sums it up pretty well. "Synesthesia is a neurological based phenomenon. It is when the stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who report such experiences are known as synesthetes" (The Health Journals 1).

Synesthetes differ in the associations each has. While some associate colors with various letters of the alphabet or taste something in his or her mouth after hearing a certain word, some synesthetes also see colors when they hear music. Additionally, some say that numbers have genders and personalities. For example, the letter 4 might be a loud and exhuberant female, while the letter 7 is a quiet and reserved male. Interesting, huh?
Synesthesia has been researched since the 1800s. It typically runs in families, and is estimated to affect approximately 4% of the population. Additionally some individuals report synthetic experiences after a seizure or stroke.

The majority of scientists agree that synesthesia is due to "cross-talk" of the brain, or when different parts of the brain interact. Here's an explanation from The Health Journals online:
"...regions involved in naming letters are adjacent to the area involved in color processing; synesthesia may be the result of cross-activation between these two areas. Recent research shows marked differences in the brains of synesthetes and the general population. Synesthetes have higher levels of connectivity between the fusiform gyrus (part of the temporal lobe, the area that controls processing and color information as well as word and number recognition) and the frontal cortex. Scientists hypothesize that this 'cross-wiring' occurs when the nerve wiring that is usually contained within one sensory system crosses into another system."
As children, many synthesthetes find it odd that classmates don't understand when he or she insists perhaps, that the color G is cranberry-red. Such is the case in A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass. It's a fictionous novel, but a pretty accurate and interesting read about a 13-year-old girl's experiences with synesthesia.

Artist Carol Steen described her own personal experiences with synesthesia. As she says, "There have been times when I have had one sensation such as toothache and observed the color of the pain, its taste and smell. All these synaesthetic perceptions are aspects of one overall experience. I perceive them as related in the same way that windows, a door and front steps combine to become the image of a house." She has also said, like many other synesthetes, that her synesthesia has been very beneficial in relation to her art.

After getting acupuncture, Carol described the synaesthetic experiences she had during her session. She later used these experiences as inspiration for the coloring of a new painting. "Lying there, I watched the black background become pierced by a bright red colour that began to form in the middle of the rich velvet blackness. The red began as a small dot of colour and grew quite large rather quickly, chasing much of the blackness away. I saw green shapes appear in the midst of the red color and move around the red and black fields."

There are many other synaesthetic artists like Carol, such as painter David Hockney, writer Vladimir Nabokov and composer Olivier Messiaen.

In addition to artistic benefits, many synesthetes also claim synesthesia benefits their memory; the idea of color, for example gives them an additional way to help remember facts.

Interesting phenomenon, huh? If you're interested to learning more, you can check out our sources below. Also, the book mentioned above, A Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass is a good read.

Sources:

http://www.uksynaesthesia.com/whatis.html

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Synesthesia

http://cytowic.net/Synesthesia/Synesth__Encyclo_/synesth__encyclo_.HTM

http://undacovabear.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/sound-colour-synesthesia/

http://www.thehealthjournals.com/archive.php?id=160

Another good source is the American Synesthesia Association. Their website is: http://www.synesthesia.info/index.html

Unusual News Items: Food for Thought

And now, some random stories from the Teen Link news wire! Remember, these stories are all taken from the internet to get you thinking. The views expressed are not necessarily those of Teen Link or its volunteers!

Tattoo ad on forehead for $10,000

A mother had her forehead tattooed with the web address of a gambling site after auctioning off advertising space on her head to pay for her son's school fees.

Karolyne Smith has to live with a permanent billboard on her forehead after she accepted goldenpalace.com's offer of $10,000 for the 'advertising space'. She needed the money to send her son Brady to a private school.

Karolyne said: ""I really want to do this. To everyone else, it seems like a stupid thing to do. To me, $10,000 is like a million dollars."

"I only live once and I'm doing it for my son. It's a small sacrifice to build a better future for my son."

Karolyne did not take the decision lightly. She discussed it for more than three weeks with her boyfriend Jeremy Williams.

Smith's eBay auction attracted more than 27,000 hits and 1,000 watchers. Bidding reached $999.99 before Goldenpalace.com, an Internet gambling company met Smith's $10,000 asking price. Goldenpalace.com also gave her another $5,000 for her trouble.

Another person, inspired by Karolyne is currently auctioning his forehead as ad space on ebay.

-Bass Van Rilen

Questions: What do you think about this? Do you feel like Smith's decision was justified or too extreme? What if you were in this position, what would you do?

Gay rights groups now focus on 'helping' gay penguins

A zoo in Germany has scrapped its plans to break up homosexual penguin couples after gay rights groups protested against it.

The Bremerhaven Zoo had noticed that three penguin couples turned out to be all male. In an attempt to encourage the penguins to reproduce the zoo had flown in four female penguins.

The plan was too introduce the female birds too the male which would hopefully lead to the endangered species reproducing, but the zoo abandoned its plans after gay rights groups protested against the experiment.

The zoo's director Heike Kueck said: "Everyone can live here as they please."

Kueck said it was never their intention to separate the couples by force and even if it was their intention, it wouldn't be possible to make them be interested in their new female companions.

Gay groups had earlier protested against "the organised and forced harassment through female seductresses" in an open letter to Bremerhaven's Mayor.

-Paul van der Maas

Something to Consider: Is this just a case of anthropomorphism to the extreme? Or is sexuality maybe not as rigid as humans would like to think?