pelf-ism is contagious

This post was published @ Domestik Goddess.

A lot of things are being said about China’s recent announcement to ban the manufacture, sale, and use of plastic bags under 0.025 mm thick and prohibits supermarkets and shops nationwide from handing out the sacks for free from June 1st AND apparently, Australia’s government also said recently that it hoped to phase out the use of plastic bags from the nation’s shopping centres by the end of the year.

With all the hoo-haas around the excessive use of plastic bags, it is heartening to learn that there are people who turn these plastic bags into beautiful art pieces!

Virginia Fleck began making artwork when she was a child and she eventually studied at Portland School of Art and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and residencies including a fellowship for a residency and exhibition in Havana, Cuba.

My wall-sized mandalas, created from sections of used plastic shopping bags, analyze the activity of consumerism as a spiritual encounter. This visual experience of repetitive designs, indicative of meditative objects and advertising graphics, stimulates the viewer to yearn for more… Our hunger is insatiable; our fervor can be witnessed… Nirvana / paradise is easily obtained and owned…

- Virginia Fleck

Her work has been exhibited at Art Forum Berlin, Pulse Miami, Pulse New York, and Arte Fiera in Bologna, Italy. And she recently completed The Spin Cycle for Whole Foods World Headquarters and Mandala Constellation for the Dell Children’s Hospital. Her work appears in many prestigious collections including the Marino Golinelli collection in Bologna, Italy. In 2007, she was nominated for the Texas Prize, and won the juror’s award for the 2007 Texas Biennial.

Aren’t they beautiful?

A month ago, I wrote about the Super-Cars Shout Out Competition that a friend of mine, David @ PlanetThoughts, hosts. But unfortunately, after a month, I am still the sole participant of the very exciting competition!

Image credit: Tommy Wong.

Now, let me tell you what it is all about (again). The Super-Cars Shout Out Competition is basically an exercise where a participant places a pre-made flyer onto any of the fuel efficient cars she sees on the road — it could be at the parking area of a shopping mall, or it could be in the neighbourhood, or in the vicinity of a university, etc. Then the participant takes a picture of the car with the flyer, and uploads the picture into PlanetThoughts. The fun thing about this exercise is that you stand a chance to win USD 500 just by participating!

OK, so what’s a fuel efficient car, and which cars aren’t fuel efficient? David already did his homework — he listed 25 cars that officially achieve at least 40 miles per gallon (or 16.74 kilometers per liter) on the highway, and these are the cars that you should look out for — Honda Jazz, Hyundai Getz, Toyota Yaris, Chevrolet Matiz, and even two Malaysian-made cars, Perodua Kelisa and Perodua Kenari!

The objective of this exercise-cum-competition is to tell car owners that they have made a great choice by purchasing a fuel-efficient car I am taking part in this competition, and I always imagine the smile on the car owner’s face when she sees the flyer on her car (check out the very nicely-worded flyers).

At the end of the competition (which ends on June 2nd), a winner will be drawn and this person takes home USD 500! The winner will be selected using a weighted value calculated from the number of valid uploaded car images from each participant, which simply means, the more pictures you upload, the greater is your chance of winning USD 500 But on top of that, David is also giving out USD 50 per month to ONE car owner who contacts him!

One of those situation where everybody wins

If you haven’t heard of this, Jolene and her friends have recently started a blog — Bus Crash No More — to increase and spread the awareness on fatal bus crashes and they are also in the middle of collecting signatures for a petitione which will be forwarded to the Ministry of Transport, Malaysia.

A little bit of background information for the benefit of my foreign blogger friends/readers/visitors:

Two people died and three were seriously injured after the double-decker express bus they were travelling in lost control before crashing into a divider at southbound of Km382 of the North-South Expressway between Slim River and Behrang.

The two dead were identified as Mohd Zailini Mustafa, 23, and Lee Nian Ning, 21. Both are from Sg Nibong and Taman Bukit Gelugor, Penang, respectively.

- Source: The Star, 26 January 2008

And to add salt to injury, this wasn’t the first fatal bus crash in that happened in Malaysia. in fact, in August 2007, the country’s worst bus crash claimed the lives of 22 passengers, out of which 20 died instantly while nine others were seriously injured after the bus they were traveling in crashed into a ditch (Source: The Star, 19 August 2007).

Other past tragedies involving buses were compiled and published in The Star, 14 August 2007:

July 31, 2006

Twelve pilgrims on the way to St Anne’s Feast were killed when a chartered bus crashed at the 160th kilometre of the North-South Expressway near Nibong Tebal. Thirty-five others were injured.

Dec 1, 2003

Fourteen passengers were killed in an early morning collision involving two buses – a school bus which was converted for commercial use and an express bus – at the 63rd kilometre of the Kuala Lipis-Merapoh trunk road. Twenty-three others were injured.

April 21, 2001

Twelve women and a boy were killed when a bus skidded and crashed into a ditch off the Pengkalan Hulu-Baling road near Baling.

Jan 15, 2001

Nine people were killed and five seriously injured when an express bus and a trailer lorry collided head-on at the 24th kilometre of the Sarikei-Sibu road during heavy rain.

Dec 22, 1999

A Mutiara express bus caught fire after plunging into a ravine at Kampung Bayu in Paloh, near Gua Musang killing three passengers and injuring eight.

July 16, 1996

A bus, ferrying a group of factory workers and their families on a holiday excursion, plunged into a 120m-deep ravine near the Genting Highlands Resort, killing 17 of them. Six were children.

- Source: The Star, 14 August 2007

What Jolene and her friends are trying to do is to gather as many signatures as possible after which they will present to the Ministry of Transport so that the necessary actions can be taken. Please CLICK HERE to sign the petition. It takes only a minute.