Community Linkage

Every week there are new press releases, articles, information, and videos popping up concerning Paganism, spirituality, health, or disabilities. Community Linkage is a collection of useful information and sometimes entertainment for you. You can stay informed by adding me to one of your social circles on Google+ or follow me on Twitter.

Health News

The National Benefit Authority in Canada recently reshared an essay link on Twitter concerning body dismorphic disorder and eating disorders. Uncovering the Shame of Eating-Related Disorders These disabilities are often considered hidden since they are related to mental health issues.

I’m familiar with eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, and binge eating. I was a binge eater for most of my life. I wasn’t familiar though with body dismorphic disorders so I looked it up. Apparently it’s a disorder that ranges on a scale of obsessing over a minor flaw to the point it interferes with their life to actually thinking they are monstrously hideous. body dismorphic disorder: recognizing and treating imagined ugliness

Benefits News

“Benefit cheatsBenefit cheats ‘colour attitudes to disabled people'” BBC News

Interestingly this caries over into the 2012 Paralmpics . . .

Sports

Disabled anti-cuts campaigners take the fight to the Paralympic Games

“Activists to protest against sponsorship of the Games by Atos, the private firm that carries out government fitness-for-work tests Disabled campaigners are planning a week of action during the Paralympic Games at the end of August to protest at the way people claiming sickness and disability benefit are treated.”

The opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic games included a tribute to the United Kingdom’s national healthcare. The performance included many children laying in beds that were lit up. Nurses tucked them in and then the story focused on one girl reading under the covers by flashlight. As author J. K. Rowling read about how Neverland island seemed more real and dangerous the few minutes before bed grim goblin looking creatures crept along the set. A Voldermort giant puppet rose up and took the nurses under his control. Just them dozens of Mary Poppin’s style nannies flew in on umbrellas and scared away all of the evil creatures. It was entertaining and has also been viewed as the first time something political has been involved in the Olympics’ ceremony. Though is it political or just part of the greater message of the Olympics that everyone around the world is important? I found it to be part of the greater message and not a stab at America as other media has claimed it to be. My reasoning is because the ceremony included the Chaos signing choir, dancers in wheelchairs, and people of all ethnicities. Though Boyle, the coordinator and director of Trainspotting and Slum Dog Millionaire, put a unique moral spin on this years ceremony.

If you want to see the ceremony you can find it on the web but not much of it is on Youtube. You have to know where to look. Ahem, cough *pirate bay* cough *special links* cough. Though they don’t have Closed Captioning versions unless you can find a simple English subtitles. And all the annoying announcers are cut out.